Chapter 7 – Whispers of a Long Goodbye by the Lyndsay Diaries
Looking down from up here.
It looks like a thousand of the blackest graves.
I haven't ever been so overcome with tears.
That I collapsed to my knees outside your room.
Your hospital room.
And the flashbacks of what I remember play over and over.
Like a never ending horror.
A flash and I see you laying in the snow.
And I still don't even know who I am.
I can't seem to gain control of my own mind.
Someone else has taken over and I can't seem to come to my senses.
What happened back there?
What happened back there
that had us staring into the eyes of death?
This is all a black hole in my mind.
And all I know is that I keep thinking about it.
And I keep on crying, I just keep on crying.
What happened back there?
that had us staring into the eyes of death?
Remember all those games in kindergarten.
Please don't forget all those memories that we've shared.
And Casey please don't leave me here all by myself.
What happened back there?
What happened back there
that had us staring into the eyes of death.
The eyes of death
"Does this sound like it's in tune to you?" Eric asked, playing a few chords on his acoustic guitar. The sounds floated through the near empty club, echoing off rafters and vacant seats.
"Check the C string, it sounds a little flat." Tori answered, sorting through the sheet music.
"Has anyone seen ticket sales?" Julia cried excitedly, running down the aisles. "We're sold out tonight! Just think of all of those people!"
"And now I can pay the rent!" Eric joked. Tori grinned a little as the other's cheered. D.C.'s local Metro Café, was a popular place, where people came more for the music than the beer. Just the fact that their little band managed to land a gig there, surprised Tori; the money was a pleasant side effect, but mostly a non-issue; private piano lessons covered all of her expenses.
Meeting up with three others band members was near the pinnacle of Tori's young life. This band, these musicians, was unlike any she had met before; they were unafraid of music, unafraid of experimentation and unafraid of failure. Driven only by passion, and an inherent need to create, these three quickly became Tori's mentors and guides not only for performing music, but for performing in life as well. They promised her that they had ways to quell her emptiness; she was frightened but not unwilling.
"After the show, celebration back at Eric's house!" Jon announced mischievous mirth in his eyes.
"You have a house in D.C.?" Tori asked; the three had come down to visit Tori last weekend; trying to find a locale gig was Julia's spontaneity at work.
"No, his parent's own a house in D.C." Jon answered.
"I didn't know you were from around here."
"I'm not; I'm from Maine. This house is dad's work house."
"He works for the government?"
"Senator"
"Who's bringing the booze?" Julia interjected, bored of the conversation already; Tori missed the answer as her cell phone began to vibrate in her pocket. She pulled it out as she ran down the stage steps to find a quite place while the rest planned how to transport their vices to Eric's house.
"Hey, what's up?" Tori answered, seeing Zoey's number on her I.D.
"What are you doing tomorrow night?"
"Nothing, I imagine."
"Well, my father's going to be speaking at the Newseum, in Rosslyn and he's managed to get me to go, but I need you there since you're the only one who will understand the embarrassment when he talks about me and the camera goes on me and I turn beet red." She took a breath, "Besides, I feel like since you've come home for the summer, we haven't spent that much time together."
It was true, because Zoey had found Charlie and let go of Tori just a little and Tori felt it like she had been thrown across the room.
"Of course I'll go; I wouldn't miss the President embarrassing you again for anything in the world."
Gunshots, screams, shattered glass…visions blackened and hearts beating…or not beating. Tori couldn't feel anything in Rossyln; behind a black limo, being shoved down by someone, Gina, a secret service agent, a ghost? Second, minutes, hours, days later and the guns stopped, the sounds they manifested replaced by sirens, helicopters and cries of agony and fright.
Words spewed out of her mouth, though no one was around to hear.
"Where's dad? Where's the President? Where's Sam?" Words that were silenced by several people (known or unknown?) asking her if she was alright. She couldn't answer, tears streaming like blood from a gunshot wound…where's dad?
C.J. found her, trembling and confused, nothing but questions coming into her mind.
"Are you ok?"
"Are you?" C.J.'s slow nodding suddenly comforted her.
"I hit my head; someone pulled me to the ground."
"Are you guys alright?" Sam's voice had a strong undertone of fear; almost undetectable as everyone's voice had that same sound. The question went unanswered; through the chaos, the people, the noise, the panic Toby's voice rose above everything:
"I need a doctor!"
The night was lit now only be red and blue flashing lights, and Tori felt everything disappear, the ground, the air, the noise, the touch of Sam's hands…everything but the sight of her father, collapsing to the concert, blood pooling around him. Her heart froze stiff (was she still alive?) and she understood nothing by death and love, tragedy and miracle in those moments.
"Dad!" Her voice echoed around her; she was hearing this from somewhere else, "Daddy!" Numbness was shattered by the feeling of a familiar warm embrace. She buried her head in someone's shoulder (Granddad?) and felt sensations of agony wash over the cold, unfeeling sickness. A protective, violent kiss on the side of her head, (but he's dead…); she was startled when Sam's voice resounded in her ear,
"It's going to be okay." Cold tears dripped down her neck; was she still crying? (Physics deemed it impossible that those were her tears.) Would she ever stop crying? The tears chilled her as she was shoved into the back of an ambulance, her father strapped to a stretcher; eyes clouded and unfocused, hands cold. Sam's arms found their way around her, pulling her close to him, as if the shooter could still find his way into their comfort, shot down everyone in the back of the ambulance, kill and destroy everything tragedy had left in tacked.
Tori couldn't talk, she just watched her father, life overcoming him, death overcoming him; he saw this once too and she was born out of that. What would be born out of this night? This hour in which paramedics rattled off numbers that sounded like nothing more than sounds and fluctuations in her head? Was Zoey going to be right this time (was Zoey alive?), tragedy and miracle canceling each other out, not allowing either to conquer the prize, but each taking home something as proof of their battle? Or would one produce a victor, to alone celebrate in the spoils of war?
"Who's going to win?" Tori muttered voice hardly coherent from anguish and terror.
"What?" Toby asked, their voices the only ones not fluctuating with numbers.
"Don' talk." Sam whispered, her head falling on to his shoulder, shirt stained with her tears, his tears. Memories of the next few minutes were lost in a hospital entrance where pounding feet, blinding white lights, doctors and nurses blurred her vision of her father…friends all asking her if she was alright.
"No," she finally answered, and then felt her legs release from under the weight of her sobs.
The private waiting room was void of anything but tension and anguish. Daughters found each other, culminated their pain and years of friendship into a long hug. Each muttering how it would be alright when both knew that it would not; how could it? The President was shot, Josh was near death and both daughters were left without fathers in a world where they had so little left to give.
"It's not fair." Tori said, fresh tears running down her face to meet Zoey's hand.
"I know."
Hours, minutes, seconds…lost in the sterile hospital, lost in Tori's staring eyes, lost in her mind, numb from crying. Physical ache, emotional need multiplied, dissipated, expanded. Waiting became like the white walls. Nothing was said as they watched the TV, blue light flickering against the sterility, hoping the TV would provide some kind of meaning, some kind of closure. It provided nothing but information and sorrow.
Mrs. Bartlet walked by the distorted window; Zoey gripped Tori's hand, as she felt something that could only be described as anguish rise to her heart and wrap it in an iron clamp.
When Mrs. Bartlet said, "The President is going to be fine." A layer of torment was removed, warming and comforting Tori. She tried to hold on to that feeling as the First Lady went on to explain the seriousness of Josh's condition. But no matter how she tried to repeat "The President is fine." The words 'critical' 'blood loss' 'serious' invaded that initial warm, removing anything but those words from her mind.
She couldn't feel anything, not even Zoey's hand anymore. She heard Mrs. Bartlet talking to her; the words were incoherent to her, but they sounded warm and gentle. They sounded like hope, and that was the only thing that Tori had at the moment.
"What if he never knows…" Tori said, voice flat lined and gushing emotions, "I haven't told him that I loved him since I came home. What if he doesn't know?"
"He knows, honey, don't you worry about that." Mrs. Bartlet said, the maternal comfort foreign to Tori.
"I've never gotten to tell him everything I wanted to…"
"Well, maybe you should go tell him now."
Standing outside Josh's surgery room, watching him, unconscious, heart open, unknown men working inside of him, Tori held her hand to her mouth, afraid if she breathed something might go wrong, if she took another step closer to him her tragedy and his tragedy would collide and multiply, killing him and leaving her deserted once again.
Slowly, Tori touched the glass that separated him from her, and just let all of the words that got lost between yesterday and today, all of the words that she didn't think were important to say, all of the words she thought were implied flowed from her heart into that partition, praying that her love could heal the gunshot wound, replace the blood and fill his collapsed lung with air.
She entered the private waiting room again, drained. The numbness was replaced with exhaustion; the agony with morose and Tori fell into a chair, feeling like a shell empty of its pearl. She sat between Sam and C.J., who both gave her a weak smile.
Donna came in a little later and Tori didn't know what time it was; Donna's voice was shaking so bad she was afraid it would fall out of her body.
"I had a hard time getting in; I had to find an agent who knew me and…" Donna's soft eyes fell on Tori; the sight of her pale face, white lips and dull eyes and Donna's hidden horror was realized. "Tori…where's your father? Where's Josh?" Panic flooded the shaking voice as Donna muttered disbelief as Toby calmly explained the situation. She collapsed into the chair behind Tori's; silence speaking all of the words of shock and despair. C.J. rubbed her shoulder, as a doctor told them it was best if they went home or back to work; there was nothing more here.
Tori turned around, and threw her arms around Donna, who began to quietly, and delicately cry. In that moment, the air of the waiting room softened, it was touched by the embrace, touched by any movement; and Tori felt tragedy slowly back away; afraid of the love and afraid of the beauty.
"I think it's best if Tori went home for a while, to rest a little. This has been a very hard night on her." Mrs. Bartlet whispered to Sam, as she had pulled him aside about half and hour later.
"I can take her home; it's not a problem." He answered, watching Tori now sitting next to Donna, both staring at the dismal few hours with nothing but a prayer to keep them going. Mrs. Bartlet nodded, and knelt down next to Tori.
"Honey, Sam's going to take you home for just a little bit, I know you probably want to stay here but…"
"No, I have to stay here." The thought of leaving her father tinted her voice with panic. "There's nothing for me at home."
"There's nothing you can do by staying here. Josh wouldn't want you stuck here, you know he wouldn't." Sam countered.
"I'm all that he has, right now. If I leave, then there's nothing here for him." Tears invaded her voice, giving it determination and renewed sorrow.
"I'm here for him." Tori turned to Donna and knew this was the way it was suppose to be. Without further argument, she got up and followed Sam out of the waiting room. Josh was letting go of her tonight; he wasn't even conscious and he managed to release a small part of her. Now she was just dangling on by a thread; holding on to the hope that tragedy would open up a new path for her and that some of the people she had loved in her life would be able to follow her.
Nothing was said in the taxi ride home. Sam didn't even try to reach out and touch Tori; he knew that he had already crossed the line tonight and hated the thought that he might have to excuse his actions by blaming sorrow instead of embracing the honesty. When the taxi stopped in front of her apartment, Sam just said,
"Call me if you need anything, ok?"
Tori nodded, and silently got out of the taxi and entered her house, closing the door to the night and the gunshots and the pain of the hospital.