Chapter 10

Freddy's POV

The Richmond Local Hospital was more the size of a New York hospital. Sick people everywhere you looked as well as doctors and nurses. Rose was in her own little room on a respirator with a nurse looking over her.

A heavyset nurse with dark hair approached us. "Rose is going to be okay, but you should put her on an inhaler for now on."

"Yes ma'am" Nancy said sounding a little nervous.

"So I take it you and this uh…handsome gentleman are the parents of…"

Nancy started to blush. I decided to cover for her. "We're not the parents," I said. "We're her cousins. We just want to make sure Rose is okay."

Nancy nodded. She knocked on she glass window and smiled. "How's it going, cousin?"

Rose looked at Nancy and smiled but when she looked up at me she had the look of "fuck you" written all over her face. I sighed and looked down. I couldn't help thinking that this was somewhat my fault.

"What's wrong?" Nancy asked. "And don't try to lie your way out of it either."

I looked over at Nancy. "I just can't help but think that this is my fault," I said.

Nancy sighed in both irritation and sorrow. "Please don't blame yourself, Freddy," she begged. "It's enough having to deal with Takeo. I don't want you to keep blaming yourself on top of it. Besides, I don't see where this is any of your fault at all."

"Don't you see it?" I asked. "If I had decided to ignore that kid, we wouldn't be going on a cross country road trip to kill some ghostly mad man and the kids would be just fine."

"If you decided to ignore that kid he and his little girlfriend would be on their own right now. I think you did the right thing by trying to kill that kid. I know that sounds wrong, but you did."

I kept pacing the floor but thought about what she said. "Maybe you're right," I said. "But if it's not my fault then who's fault is it?"

Nancy was silent for a while but she soon said, "I think most of the blame goes to Lisa for starting all of this shit in the first place." She started to pause. "But I think some of the blame also goes to me."

I stared at Nancy. "No…no you can't blame one bit of this on yourself either, you had nothing to do with Takeo's resurrection."

"If I hadn't brought Toshio and Rose into the dream world, Takeo would've never found them. If I hadn't let Amaya posses Rose she wouldn't be in that hospital room."

I sighed. "Please…please don't blame any of this on yourself. You're a good person."

Nancy looked up at me. "That's the nicest thing you've ever said to me." She smiled at me and I smiled back. I soon took one of her hands and held it in both of mine.

Nancy looked up at me with a questioning look on her face. "Are you trying to hit on me?"

I quickly let go of her hand. "Uh…no I'm not."

Nancy only smiled slightly at me. "Well I'm gonna find Kayako and then we can go." Nancy ran into the waiting area where Kayako was.

I wasn't alone for very long. Toshio was standing behind me with a grin on his face. "So you do love her," he teased.

I decided to just give up. "Fine. I love Nancy! Are you happy now Toshio?"

He continued to grin at me. "Yes I am."

I rolled my eyes at him. "Year, kid keep bragging. But if you say anything about it to her I'll kill you."

"Whoa, don't be so pissed about it. We all need a little love, we all need to forgive and forget." Toshio paused for a moment. "Except my mom and I never forgave our father for doing what he did, and we've never forgotten that tragic day."
"Yeah, yeah," I said. "You never forgive, you never forget, and you never get laid. I get it."

Toshio got as eye level to me as much as he could and screamed, "At least I have a girlfriend! You don't even have the fucking guts to tell Nancy how you really feel! Now that's pretty damn weak as far as I'm concerned."

"Yeah," I said. "And your girlfriend's in that hospital room in front of you. At least the person I love is healthy and doesn't have a disease that can kill her before her time!"

"Will you two stop arguing please?" Rose screamed from her room. "God, I'm in a hospital room with a barrier of Plexiglas and I can still hear you two fighting on about who loves who!"

"Okay," Toshio said putting his hand on the Plexiglas.

"And you," Rose said looking at me. "You need to admit to Nancy how you really feel sometime, because I don't think she's gonna say a damn thing anytime soon."

I thought about what Rose had said for a moment. I soon realized she was right. Nancy was always a stubborn young woman. I was sure that if she kept this same attitude she wouldn't be the first to say anything. She might not have loved at all. But I decided admitting my feelings to her was worth a shot.

"Okay," I said to Rose. "I'll tell her how I feel."