Chapter 11: Living Nightmare
The ambulance stopped. They pulled out the stretcher and then wheeled us through A and E (The British ER). I still held Phineas tightly. He was becoming colder and colder. He was dying. White wall after white wall passed. They wheeled us into the room and then took him gently out of my arms. I was placed in a chair while they quickly began to treat him. Hoping, praying. Everything began to get blurry and slowed down. I guess I fainted.
I woke up in a gray hospital room. I looked around. No sign of Phineas. I walked out into the hallway. There were 2 doctors walking by... wheeling the stretcher we had come here on. There was Phineas. No IV tube. I was about to cheer when the doctors covered him up. Like they do when someone dies. I had killed Phineas Flynn. They attributed Phineas' death to suicide.
Twenty Years Later
It has now been twenty years since the "death" of Isabella Garcia-Shapiro. That's right. I faked my own death. I have lived in this town since then. Every July, I get insomnia for about a month. I work at the same Subway I ate at that fateful night. I never have had a boyfriend. I have never been able to buy the materials to make a time machine, to say goodbye one last time to Phineas. Nor can iI afford the tickets to and from danville to get to the one in the museum.
I have to live with the reminder that I had killed Phineas.
Recently, I saw Phineas in a dream. He appeared in his 10-year-old form. With him stood a 10-year old version of myself. We were holding hands on the cruise ship he built. Then he began to fade away. I woke up in a cold sweat. He was gone and there was nothing I could do about it.