Everything is hazy when Melissa opens her eyes, and even then the room is way too bright. Sunlight filters in through a window that isn't covered and Melissa blinks. She can see particles of dust floating in the air, or maybe it's the spots in front of her eyes, she isn't sure. Looking and trying to figure it out is painful, so she closes her eyes again.
Thinks maybe she could fall asleep except she hears movement on the other side of the room, and the mattress dips when someone sits down next to her. A hand goes to her forehead, feeling for a temperature, pushing her hair back. Maybe both. Melissa can tell it's her mom by the perfect manicure and soft skin.
"Honey, honey?"
It's a struggle to open her eyes again but Melissa does it. Her mother sounds so strange. Out of control and desperate which is not like her at all. But she's smiling when Melissa is able to focus on her face.
"Oh, honey."
That's three "honey's" in ten seconds. Melissa wants to close her eyes again but she doesn't. She thinks they'll eventually fall shut, but whatever.
"How are you feeling?"
Melissa swallows. Dry throat, sluggish reflexes, eyes that just won't stay open. It hurts, all of it. Especially knowing what she's done. She's sorta fuzzy on everything around her, but she remembers the Seconals and Valium really well. She knows she's lost the baby. She doesn't even have to ask and doesn't plan to. She tries to tell herself that was the whole point; everything's fixed now. Back to normal. Except she knows that it's not.
"Where's Darry?"
He's really what's on her mind. She's scared; terrified of what he must think. Her mother's expression is unreadable. She sits back a little. "He's out there." Her thumb hooks back over her shoulder, but she doesn't seem all that thrilled to be telling Melissa that he's in the vicinity."How are you feeling?" she asks again. "Should I get the doctor?"
Without waiting for an answer, her mother is on her feet. "I'll get the doctor."Melissa doesn't want the doctor. She wants Darry. She puts her hand on the flat expanse of her belly and thinks, If I could reverse time and put the baby back, would I? She doesn't know the answer. Maybe she'll wish things are different when she sees Darry. Maybe he hates her. She sort of knows he does, just like she knows the baby is gone. It's not intuition so much as common sense. Melissa's always had a lot of that, despite her current situation.
It's grim-faced salt-and-pepper haired Dr. Hamilton. Melissa is not glad to see him. He doesn't smile warmly or anything when he walks in. He pulls her chart off the end of the bed and flicks through it. Melissa would say he's disinterested, but that's not it exactly. His eyes graze over her thoughtfully and he lowers the chart.
"You gave us quite a scare," he says.
Melissa thinks, "Us?" She doubts he was scared at all. She doesn't say anything, and even though it hurts she turns her eyes to the bright sun streaming through the window. It's better than looking at the doctor.
"You'll have to remain here for a few days for observation. It's standard procedure in barbiturate overdoses. Particularly those inflicted on purpose."
The judgement in his voice is unmistakable. Melissa hates him so much she can't see straight. He'll probably give her mother a whole bunch more pamphlets from the teen health series with titles like, "Teenage Suicide: How to recognize the warning signs." She hopes if he does, her mother tells him where he can shove those pamphlets.
He talks for a while more and Melissa doesn't really listen. She hears the words "blood pressure" and "heart rate" and "comatose" and figures it all doesn't really matter now. She hears him say, "The baby couldn't survive that," and she tunes him out completely.
It's merciful when she finally falls into a deep sleep.
Darry has never felt so betrayed in his life. Not even when he found out Mark Stevens, a guy he's known since Kindergarten, was seeing the girl he was dating at the time. He'd pounded Mark Stevens into the ground of course, but even then he hadn't felt better. Now there's no one to pound into the ground and Darry isn't sure he's ever going to feel better again.
It's nearing twenty-four hours since he found out the baby -- his baby -- was dead and he still feels empty. Hollow. For a while, Darry refused to believe Melissa did this on purpose. For a while he dared anyone to say she overdosed on purpose in hopes of killing the baby. Killling herself. Both. It was sometime in the middle of the night -- Darry doesn't know when because all the hours blend together -- that grief shifted to anger and he knew Melissa's intention all along.
He tells himself that if she'd done this two days ago, without having come to his house and sleeping in his arms until five-thirty in the morning, he'd be less hurt. But that's not true; not exactly. He'd be less surprised, but not less hurt. Not less betrayed. Melissa killed something that was rightfully his as much as it was hers and that put an ache in Darry's heart he was sure wasn't going to go away anytime soon.
He sits in the relative safety of the waiting room because he isn't sure he trusts himself to go into her room. Right now, he has the power. She can't exactly get up and walk out to him, so he's going to wait until he's good and ready to go see her. He isn't ready yet, and isn't quite sure he ever will be. People are coming and going. Melissa's friends, Darry's friends; everyone is walking in and out of the hospital, visiting and comforting and basically not knowing what else to do. Darry just sits in his chair, watching nothing.
The woman with the kids has long since gone. She left around eight or nine o'clock the night before. People have occupied those chairs since, and the clean up crew came in around midnight and vacuumed up all of the cracker crumbs and wiped up the juice spills and erased any traces that kids were ever there.
Just like Melissa did with his baby, Darry thinks bitterly.
Melissa's mom hasn't really spoken to him except to announce to everyone hanging around whether Melissa is awake or asleep when she exits her daughter's room. That doesn't really count, Darry thinks, since she's talking to anyone willing to listen. Darry honestly doesn't care anymore whether Melissa's mom ever talks to him again.
He knows he can't be with her now. He wonders if he's just sitting around putting off the inevitable break up. But he knows he'll never see Melissa the same way anymore. He knows that even if he tries to be understanding, he'll never quite understand.
He'll never forgive her. Not really.
His mother comes up from behind and sticks a Pepsi and a package of peanut butter crackers in his hands. Darry takes them, but he makes no move to open either one of them. He remembers when he was in his room, finishing up his history homework, thinking about how hungry he was. It seems like days ago, even weeks, instead of just the day before. Everything has slowed down since he arrived at the hospital. Hospitals do that. They mess with the passage of time, Darry's sure of it.
"Any plans to go in and see her tonight?"
His mother's voice is soft, unobtrusive, but still Darry braces. He looks down at the peanut butter crackers. They're the kind you get out of vending machines, bright orange crackers that are almost fluorescent with a thin, tasteless smear of peanut butter inside. Darry puts the package down on the chair next to him and twists the top of the Pepsi. The bottlecap joins the crackers, and his mother waits patiently.
"I don't know," is his answer.
His mother's hand goes to his shoulder. Or maybe it was always there and Darry didn't feel it. He's not sure.
"You need to come home and get some sleep tonight."
Darry knows that no matter how non-confrontational his mother sounds, she is not making a request, she is giving an order. He hasn't been home nor has he slept since arriving at the hospital. The heaviness in his eyes tells him that if he would just close them, he'd sleep. But Darry doesn't want to. He doesn't want to sleep, he wants his baby back.
Maybe he wasn't all that thrilled about the baby, and maybe he was giving up a lot to make sure the baby was taken care of, but he was going to do it. He was focused on this new future now; one that didn't involve football and A&M, and honestly, though it wasn't his first choice, he'd convinced himself it'd be okay. He really did love Melissa. Really.
Now he just aches. He aches all over and he doesn't want the baby, no matter how ill-timed, to be gone.
He tries to think about A&M and tries to be happy that he can go after all. He tries to think about college, and how badly he'd wanted to get out of Tulsa and now he can. He tries to remind himself everything that had been taken away is now back, full stop. He knows it all. He realizes it, it has sunk in. And yet.
Darry'd take the baby back in a heartbeat. He doesn't know why, but he knows it's the truth as much as he knows the sun will rise and set again tomorrow.
"Darry."
His mother is rubbing his back now. Darry hands the nearly-full Pepsi bottle to his mom and stands up.
"I'm gonna go talk to her, and then I'm gonna come home. Will you wait for me?"
His mother half-smiles. She looks partly relieved, partly scared. That's how Darry feels too. She says, "Sure, sweetie," and settles back with the Pepsi in hand.
Darry meets Melissa's mother at the door to her room. She looks reluctant to let him by, but Darry just says, "I won't be long," and she moves aside. As he passes by, she puts her hand on his arm, like she's about to say something, but her mouth just opens and closes like a fish on dry land and she doesn't speak. Darry walks by and closes the door behind him.
There is an IV dripping into one arm, and the other is crossed over her stomach. Darry stands in silence for a minute, looking at his girlfriend. He feels a surge of protectiveness as she sleeps, head turned slightly to the side, a strand of her brown hair brushing across one cheek. Darry remembers when they first met, how he'd barely even registered her presence until she laughed. It's not that she isn't pretty, but she's the kind of pretty that becomes more evident when she talks. Laughs. Smiles. She's beautiful in animation, and everything about her intrigued him once they had their first conversation.
Melissa is the last person Darry would ever consider a quitter. Sure, she doesn't fall into things with the same fervor as he does, but not many people do. Still, Melissa is strong...or at least he'd thought she was. Still, maybe it's his anger, Darry doesn't know, but he feels like she quit this time. She just gave up without asking for help and he's real heated about it. She should have called him, should have told him. He thinks about their conversation the night before she'd taken all those pills. Hadn't they ended on a good note? Hadn't he said to her, "We'll have each other, and that's something," and she'd said, "That's everything." Those words had rung in his ears as he fell asleep that morning. Those words sounded like the truth. Was she lying to him?
Her head turns fractionally and she blinks her eyes open. She's struggling to focus on him, Darry can tell, and he says, "Hey, it's me."
She smiles a little, but it fades when he can't smile back. He isn't sure what she expects from him, but smiling isn't what she's gonna get. Forgiveness either, Darry thinks. Seeing her, his emotions are going all haywire. She looks so small and scared in the bed, and he wants to just protect her, but even the thought of touching her brings back what she did. What she took from him. Darry feels his jaw clench involuntarily. He isn't sure what he's going to say.
She speaks first. "Darry, I'm so sorry."
I'm sorry doesn't make it better, everyone knows this. There is a loud buzzing between his ears, like an air-raid siren or something. It's giving him a headache; making him want to run for cover.
"That's not going to make it better, Mel," he says. "It's not going to change what you did."
She frowns, bites her lip and he thinks she's about to cry. Part of him cares, and part of him doesn't.
"You don't understand, Darry. You don't understand what I was going through!"
Darry feels his fists clenching at his sides. A million thoughts run through his head at once, the anger drowning out the noise of the buzzing headache. How dare she say he doesn't understand? How dare she imply that the pain, fear, and uncertainty was hers alone? Hadn't he promised to be there? Hadn't he told her he'd make everything okay? He was devastated about losing his future, and not once did he ever think about cutting and running. Not once did he ever consider taking the easy way out. Leaving her. Killing their baby.
He wants to rage. Hit things, break things, bring the fuzz running. But he just doesn't have any energy. He's tired. Defeated. Melissa has won, and Darry's down for the count.
Darry bites down on his lip hard enough to taste blood. He unclenches his fists slowly, counting backwards in his head. Five, four, three, two, one. He does it again, until he feels like he can move without collapsing. Taking a deep breath, he looks straight at Melissa, really seeing her for what he knows is probably the last time.
"Goodbye, Melissa," he says, and when he walks out of the room, he doesn't look back. Not once.
TBC...
Thanks for the reviews, guys! There's just the epilogue left! I'll try to get it posted quickly.