She brings her hands to squeeze the pew she sits on, hunching her shoulders and dropping her head.
After half an hour of sitting in the cold, metallic waiting room she'd started to fidget. Her teeth had met her fingernails viciously and her knee bounced up and down. She rustled through a magazine full of pearly whites and tanned skin without registering any of it.
After forty-five minutes, she'd started glancing at the steel doors that Cosima had disappeared through so often that her neck had started to hurt. She kneaded her neck with clammy fingers and jagged fingernails.
After an hour, she started pacing, heeled boots clacking repetitively on the hospital tiles. She'd even progressed to laps around the waiting room that had earned some stares from behind newspapers and phone screens.
At the hour and a half mark, she'd become so restless she had to get out of there. She floundered a bit, scrambling to think of a place to go. Eventually she'd decided to just get out into the street, cleanse her lungs of the stale hospital air that had become suffocating.
With her number scrawled on a crumpled receipt and pressed into some nurses hand, Bette? Beth? she'd walked the sidewalk until her hands had stopped shaking. She hadn't even given the nurse Cosima's name, just instructions to call if something happened on the floor. Her eyes stayed trained on the ground, counting every crack she passed over. She walked in whatever which way her feet took her, turning left and right and crossing the black-and-white stripes of crosswalks. Dark boots had blurred against the dirty grey ground and her breath had quickened as she'd walked faster and faster.
The numbers had muddled somewhere past one hundred cracks before she'd knocked into a stranger, eyes tearing from the ground wide with shock. An apology was caught in her throat as her mouth gaped open. He waved her off with a scoff and continued on his busy way. She held her forehead and looked around as she realized she didn't know where she was at all. Steel and glass buildings loomed high in the distance, smaller homes and complexes lining the street she had somehow gotten to.
Her eyes had fallen on an old, stone church. Vines of ivy crept up the sides, their tendrils snaking up towards the cross adorning the peak.
So now she sits with white knuckles and a tight gut in an unnamed church.
Delphine pulls her phone from her coat pocket and presses the button, seeing if she's missed a text or call in the five minutes since she last checked. The screen mocks her with a blank inbox.
I'm being ridiculous, she huffs as she crams her phone back into her pocket and clutches the pew in front of her.
Delphine isn't religious, her scientific brain had never fully accepted the idea, but her family used to attend church when she was younger, back in France. They had gone to pray for her ailing grandmother, their own well being and for health and comfort. Maybe her eight-year-old-brain had led her here on those memories of hope in a faceless deity.
She inhales through her nose and fills her lungs with the smell of old wood, candle smoke and dust. She runs her fingers over the sagging wooden seat and traces the bumps and ridges that age and wandering touches, misplaced books and ornate handbags has afforded it.
Her fingertips graze over eight identical marks that lay smoother than the rest of the hairline scrapes. She places a single finger in each groove, filling them to cradle her fingerprints. Her palms are flat against the back of the pew in front of her and her fingers are spread, curled slightly over the top.
Delphine's lips part as she inhales when she realizes what she's done: she's filled the grooves of another's pleading fingers. The hollows that once bore the tight vice of desperation are now occupied by Delphine and her worry.
Delphine's face contorts and she fights a stray hitch that threatens to climb up her throat. The candle flames that adorn the altar blur into a thousand pale spheres that hang just out of reach. The weight of her actions befall her.
Here she sits, grieving and worrying over the possibility of losing the woman she loves more than anything, feeling utterly overwhelmed but entirely alone, when others had done the exact same thing in this very seat. They might have worried about their child or their home, their money or their own health, but the eight smooth grooves that lay beneath her skin proves that she is not alone.
She lightly traces the grooves with her trembling finger. Her actions feel intrusive, borderline offensive. She sniffles and gathers herself.
Delphine rises and makes her way to the front of the church. Her legs wobble slightly and she wipes away tears with the heels of her palms. The heels of her boots are muted against the carpet of the center aisle, worn by countless wedding parties and pleading souls.
Those are the only reason to go to a church, right? Delphine muses silently, running her fingertips over the cooled wax rivulets on the altar.
You go to be wed, start a new life together, two now united as one. Everyone smiles, your previously bare finger boasts a golden commitment and white bouquet is thrown to those hoping to follow in your footsteps. Pride fills the room and cameras shutters click click click at every detail. The walk, the ring, the kiss, the flowers. A happy occasion where the only mascara that runs is due to an overflow of joy.
Or,
You go to plead. You get on your knees and clasp your shaking hands together so tight that your knuckles stretch your skin white. You close your tear-sore eyes and hope that your silent screams will be louder than everyone else's and that someone, somewhere has the power to put a stop to your ache. Convincing, begging, citing why you should be chosen. Proving your loyalty and everlasting fealty in the hopes that finally, finally you are deserving of salvation. No film is developed, no congratulations from loved ones. A wary look from the corner of a dry eye and a sympathetic nod is all you receive.
Delphine sinks to her knees on the padded stool that rests in front of the thousands of candles. She joins her hands and rests her forehead on her thumb knuckles, closing her eyes. She prays that the surgeon's hands are steady and Cosima's lungs behave. She prays that Cosima will feel little pain in addition to her already amassed agony. She prays that her hair will grow thick once again and her skin will return to its beautiful tan, unblemished by blackberry-and-red-wine-stain bruises. She prays that soon she will be able to hold Cosima in her arms and sleep without fear of setting her nerves on fire. She prays for Cosima.
Delphine is pulled from her thoughts as her pocket vibrates.
Once, then again.
Her heart squeezes in her throat as a chill trickles down her spine. As if remote controlled, Delphine reaches into her pocket and pulls out her phone. Two texts from an unidentified number flash innocently on her home screen.
12:46 : it's beth
12:46 : theres a code blue
Working in hospitals during school offers her knowledge that now blares in her skull. Code blue : patient in need of immediate resuscitation, cardiac or respiratory arrest.
Her retinas burn the messages haphazardly. code blue there's a :46 code blue it's beth a code12:4 bl beth code blue cod its 2:46 : blue code blue it's betcode blue
Delphine does not feel the pain of her wrist jamming as she thrusts the heavy church door open. She does not hear the angry cab driver who slams his brakes and hollers at her for cutting him off, nearly knocking her down. She doesn't feel the burn of cold air in her healthy lungs as she runs at a full sprint. She is oblivious to the looks she receives as she barrels her way down the hospital hallways. She screeches to a halt in a waiting room. Her eyes tear from patron to patron, looking for something, anything. She is the only one panting with wild eyes.
The intercom is still chiming a coded alert, demanding more staff. A mob of scrubs and stethoscopes runs past her, sneakers squeaking against the tile floor. She reaches for them, words falling from her mouth as her eyes dart with panic.
"Excus- excu- please I just want... can you... please hey I need-"
She runs after them in a hurry with her arm outstretched. They hang a left and start running towards the operating rooms. Delphine's throat twitches at the thought of Cosima in one of those rooms.
"Please! Can someone just tell- hey! Excu-"
She's only a few steps from the still-swinging metal doors before she's stopped by a pair of hands on her shoulders. She comes to a halt, path obstructed but mind still reeling.
"Ma'am you can't go in there, that's authorized person-"
"I just need to see if-" Delphine struggles against her captor, twisting her torso and attempting to free herself. The words haven't sunk in, deafened and mottled by the pumping of blood in her ears.
"Ma'am please, you're not authoriz-"
"Please just tell me!"
"Ma'am, I'm going to take you back to the waiting room." Delphine catches the eyes of a few other staff members and a handful of others. She quickly stops struggling as she shrinks with embarrassment.
"No! No, I'm sorry I can... sorry... I can go by myself"
Delphine shuts down as she finishes her sentence. The adrenaline drains from her body as her shoulders sag and legs quake. She allows herself to be led to the appropriate waiting room.
Before the nurse even turns around she is making a beeline for the washroom. Delphine sits on the toilet seat and cradles her forehead with her fingers, elbows weighing painfully on her knees. Her chest is sore from panting and her nose drips freely as she sits mute in the artificial light.
What really happens if I lose her?
For months, Delphine had avoided even thinking about it. Every time she had a fear crawling up her spine she would read more articles and do more research, anything to get her mind off of the thought. She pushed it deep down, refusing to acknowledge it.
But now she'd been pushed into reality with the chime of an emergency code.
Every carefully laid brick and deliberately placed reinforcement had come crumbling down. Padlocks smashed open, chains ripped to pieces. Every defense mechanism that Delphine had created had fallen with one text. She feels a lump catch in her throat and blood thud in her ears.
Will her smell fade? Everything reminds me of her. The artwork on the walls, the incense, the deep reds and the eclectic collection of jewellery. Would I be able to live in our home without her? She who makes it my home, with her love and her hugs and her laughs. Without her it won't be home. Our home will become a mausoleum with me trapped inside, every day a reminder that she no longer exists.
Nobody would ever look at me the same again. Every work party I went to I would get pity. Would I have to tell Scott myself, or would he find out on his own?
I would suffocate in things we never got to do. She never met my parents, I never met hers. The first time I would meet her parents would be at her funeral.
"Hello, I'm Delphine. I loved your daughter so much it hurts, nice to meet you."
She would have loved my brother. We could have gone back to France like we planned and walk the cobblestones hand in hand like in the movies. I would have kissed her at the Eiffel Tower. She would butcher all the French, but I would love her so much anyways. She never took me to San Fran, like she swore she would. I couldn't go without her. I wouldn't know where to go or what to see.
We never got the two-story with the yard in the back. She would've wanted to paint the door red. I would've let her. We could've strung up lights at christmas together.
We could've kissed under the mistletoe and eaten gingerbread and played in the snow. We only got a handful of nights by the fire, why didn't we have more?
She didn't get to finish her PhD. She was so damn close. She always laughed about having a doctorate and dating a doctor. It'll never be 'married to a doctor.'
We never tried that recipe she always wanted to try. What was it? Something about spicy shrimp pasta.
Everything would be different. I would look at every brunette I see and ask "Where are your glasses? Where are the leggings and dreads and hand with a mind of their own? When did you lose your dreads and toothy grin?"
"Why don't your eyes sparkle with glee?"
"Why are you not her?"
We never went to the new aquarium.
We never tried pottery.
I would miss her arms around me.
The bed would be so cold.
I would have to move.
I wish I had proposed all those months ago. I still have the ring. It would have been beautiful. Our bench was the perfect spot. I was just too nervous. Maybe it would've been too soon for her.
It was never too soon for me.
She would've been such a beautiful bride.
Delphine's scream ricochets off the walls.
AN : I'm in Here - Sia