When I woke up, I felt good, but this feeling lasted only for a moment. It took a few seconds to remember that I had no reason to welcome the new day. To open your eyes was a great effort, my eyelids seemed to weigh a "ton" each. A large sack of sand on each side of my face. Sure, I had been crying so much! Great, I thought, I must look really great for my last day on Earth! After, I censored myself for such a silly concern. I was hungry and thirsty and my head was strangely empty, as if recently it had been "inhabited" by any thought. Slowly, it was filling up again.
- Doc, I think she is awake, but she can't open her eyes - spoke a familiar voice that came into me and filled my emptiness.
Kyle, I remembered.
- Calm down, it takes a while for her to return completely to consciousness. In addition, she is very weak.
I really was weak. I opened my eyes slowly to see Kyle's face and he was almost bent over the gurney. I smiled at him and he smiled back, but his smile was sad. It was not for that smile that I was going to give up my life on earth. His eyes were red, with huge dark circles around his face, which was pale and glum.
I tried to touch him, but my arm refused to move. I'm sure any extra effort that I did now would be later paid with sore muscles, but at that moment, my body was too weak to even feel hurt.
- Are you okay? - Kyle asked.
I tried to answer, but as I opened my mouth, it seemed that the desert had been all there. All that came out was a dry cough.
- Calm down, easy there - said Doc - Kyle, help her sit. The cough will stop faster. Trudy, bring her some water.
Kyle put his arm around my body and pulled me up. It was not easy, but it really made the coughing stop for a few seconds. Time enough for a woman to give me a little water. When my throat calmed down with sips, I took the whole bottle and I immediately felt better.
- What is happening? - I asked.
Doc and the woman looked at each other and then at Kyle, as if telling him that he should be the one to explain.
- When you slept in my arms that day - he said - I asked Doc to give you you something to keep you asleep. You were so upset, in so much pain, I could not bear to see you awake again. Then he gave you something so you wouldn't wake up.
I didn't know how to feel about that. I felt betrayed. I felt sad, because he didn't want to see and have to deal with me, even though I was doing a great sacrifice for him. But I also felt a bit relieved and grateful that he tried to save me from further suffering. Ah, the confuse human sensations!
- But why didn't you do what you had to do? I gave my permission, but I'd hoped not to have to talk about it again.
- You don't understand, Sunny. We failed. Jodi didn't wake up.
Kyle's face was shrouded in sadness. "Mourning" was the word that came to mind.
- Too many days have passed. We couldn't wait any longer. We would lose the body if Kyle hadn't asked to bring you back - Doc explained to me.
-Oh! - I said, not knowing for sure if that meant I was understanding, if it meant I was surprised or simply suffering.
The pain in his eyes was so intense that suffocated me, I could barely handle my own. Then, without thinking about what I was doing, simply because I didn't have the courage to say anything else, I muttered:
- I'll keep trying. I'll keep looking for her and trying to hear her voice inside of me.
Kyle smiled and patted my face with the hand that wasn't holding me. A glimmer of hope was kindled in his eyes, distant as headlights at night seen from miles away.
- I'm hungry - I said, because it was true and because I could not bear the light of that distant hope.
The woman with the braided hair hastened to bring me a plate of food that must have been waiting for me. It was a soup whose smell flooded my senses with pleasure.
Kyle, who still held me, said:
- Let me help her, Trudy. Can you sit alone?
- I think so.
He pulled his arm supporting my back, but as he stepped away from me, he made a sudden movement that made him staggered back a bit. Doc helped him stead, but said:
- Nope, Kyle. You haven't slept for many hours and you need some rest. Moreover, as soon Sunny feels better, Trudy will take her to walk a little bit and clean up in the bathing room. She needs to move her muscles a bit. You can go - he insisted when Kyle didn't move - She will be fine and will need you to be strong to help her.
- Alright then. You'll be fine, Sunny - Kyle said with a kiss on my forehead. I smiled at him, believing for the first time.
Before leaving, Kyle ruffled his brother's hair. Ian, whose presence I noticed for the first time since I'd woken up, was sitting silently in a corner. He looked up to his older brother, but didn't smile. Neither did Kyle. At that time they were also brothers in pain.
I felt immensely grateful for the soup Trudy fed me with. It gently warmed and filled my queasy stomach. Meanwhile, I looked at Ian again. He was watching us with empty eyes, which seemed to be somewhere else. His body, leaning against the wall while he sat on one of the cots, seemed alert, though his expression was absent. In his arms rested a criotanque, red light indicating it was occupied.
- Wanda? – I guessed.
- Yes - Trudy said, with a sad voice - Sometimes he stays here with her. When he needs to sleep, eat or do anything else, he takes her along. But most of the time he stays here. He says he's doing company to Kyle, but I think there are times when it is too difficult for him to be alone.
- Is Melanie okay?
- More than okay. She, Jared and Jamie went out to look for a new body for Wanda. Ian stayed here to take care of her.
- It's beautiful - I said - The way he watches over her.
- You know - Trudy said giving me a wink - Kyle did the same thing for you. Even while he was trying to wake Jodi, you have never left his arms.
I felt my heart being flooded with happiness and hope as imagined such thing. I smiled so much that my face hurt. Soon, however, I remembered Kyle's face. That emotion unknown to me, but whose name I knew: mourning. I stopped smiling.
- It must be hard for him - I said - to lose Jodi like this.
- Kyle is ...
Trudy hesitated, looking for the right word:
- Broken - she added - It will take a while for him to recover, become whole again, but he manages. I think he'll get better much faster if he can have a friend to help him overcome this difficult time.
Trudy smiled at me and I smiled back, accomplices. I had a new friend now. Wanda would be fine and we would be friends too. And here I was with Kyle.
Compared to everything I knew I was going lose the last time I closed my eyes, I think I could get along with these new perspectives.
