So I guess I'm updating this real fast. I mean, usually it takes me a whole month, just to sit down and edit something. I don't know why, I just hate editing, I guess.
Anyway, I really wanted to get this up before the piano recital. (Which is today, along with my ballet solo-thing.) Get it out of my system, so I could start working on Rough Draft again. Though I think I might rewrite some parts in chapter one. It just bugs me, I don't know why.
Chapter eleven: In the End.
It was over, I soon realized, a lot faster than it had begun.
You know that feeling you get, before you're about to take a test you haven't studied for? When you're about to run the mile in P.E.—this was a weekly thing back in Brooklyn—or when you've got an upcoming audition for the school play?
Yeah. That feeling. The one that comes gurgling up, rising from inside of you, almost like acid as it clenches your heart, making you squirm.
That feeling. The one that keeps you up at three 0' clock in the morning, fumbling nervously over your Trigonometry notes as you read, for the fortieth time, the outline of the text.
The one that doesn't go away, not until it's over, not until you've completely destroyed what was left of your G.P.A., the dread and foreboding of it creeping closer and closer, every single day.
That feeling. The one we all hate.
I was trying to stay asleep when I heard Jesse materialize. I don't know how it was that I could sense this—Mediators couldn't trace auras, as Paul had already explained—but I kept quiet, shutting my eyes, so he wouldn't know I was awake. I couldn't look at him. Not like this. The awkwardness of it all was just too much to swallow down.
Instead I lay flat on my back, my fingers clenching into the cotton bed sheets as I tried to control my breathing. And I waited.
But he was still there. I couldn't hear him. I could sense him.
When he didn't dematerialize-and it was well around twenty minutes or so, already-I snuck a peek. He wore a very solemn expression, lips tight and firm as he placed a piece of paper and some wild flowers on top of the giant card. As usual, I couldn't read his expression. Still, it was hard not to smile.
Jesse got me flowers.
I lay there, grinning like an idiot in the dark as I peered up at his ghostly form. Beautiful, perfect...iridescent. Just the curvature of his face, the gentle outline of his forearms, sent shivers down my spine. It was as I was admiring those forearms as I saw him come towards me. I quickly shut my eyes.
As far as anyone was concerned, I was just sleeping. No one had seen me. No one had to know. If I tried, I believed, resolutely to put him out of my mind, I was sure—positive, even—that I could get over Jesse.
At least, until I felt him kiss my cheek. I nearly bolted off the bed from that. My heartbeat-which a couple seconds ago-had been smooth and calm was now speeding up, until I could hear it, thundering against my chest, making it somewhat difficult to breathe.
There was something in that kiss, albeit the side of my face, that had never been there before.
I think I sort of understood what that was, as I felt him breathe to me, just a few simple words. "I love you too, querida." And that was all. I was a goner.
People, I knew, said this everyday. Someone out there, at that very moment was saying it to his or her special someone, most likely in a foreign country somewhere. Those three simple words—I doubt that everyone said querida at the end of their sentences—were given to us at birth. Either by the first time we heard out parents utter it to each other, or the first time a grandparent murmured them to you.
My mother had told me she loved me before. She said it to me; she said it to my dad. She said it to Andy on the day of their wedding ceremony.
So why was it, that this time, these few seconds felt more sacred to me, than any other? All of a sudden I was filled with an immense gratitude, towards God-though, I'm not religious-and mankind, for bringing this sort of moment upon me. For letting me experience one of the happiest-I'm sure of it-moments of my life.
There was no way, I decided, that I could let him go now. Not after this.
It was just-God, the way he said it! As if it were a spell, easily broken. As if those words were meant for me, and me alone... not for his mother, his father, his sisters, or Maria de Silva, but me. As if he had been waiting, all this time.
And I sort of had the same feeling, just as I felt his bring a kiss to my lips. Soft, gentle, but enough to send me swooning.
Only... it didn't make sense. I mean, I had imagined this moment, played it, over and over in my head, in my dreams, but that wasn't how it was supposed to happen, how it was supposed to be.
We were either on Big Sur, after an incredibly steamy make-up session, or up on the roof, just lying there, gazing up at the stars, a warm blanket beneath us, Jesse's hand in mine.
Not like this, not while I was lying on a hospital bed, in the middle of the night. And certainly, not while he thought I was asleep.
I opened my eyes. He saw me. I'm sure. "Jesse," I said, "what the hell are you doing?"
I knew, of course, moments later, that I should have left well enough alone. From the looks of it, Jesse had just experienced a mild heart attack. His eyes were like practically falling out of his sockets as he stared down at me, a total look of disbelief upon his face. It was the funniest thing to watch. But obviously he didn't think so, because as I started laughing, he turned beet red, and started to dematerialize.
Still chuckling, I reached out...and caught his sleeve. I've been getting real good at that lately.
He blushed furiously, and said, "Susannah! Ha-hah. Ho-how long …were you… awake?"
I smiled, coyly. "Long enough." I murmured. Jesse looked like he wanted to die. Too late for that.
"So…" I said, and this time I was completely serious, because I needed to know, once and for all, what he felt about me. It was yes or no. There was no in between. If Jesse couldn't say it to my face, then he couldn't truly love me.
" 'You love me too?' "
He turned even redder than before. "Err…I…I. what I meant was… I…uh…I—" he started, but then, as if thinking better of it, he promptly disappeared.
Which, right then, was just about okay. I was willing to wait, I decided, until he came around. Which he would, most indefinitely, tonight had been full proof of that.
Only, I didn't know what he was planning, knew no reasons why.
My mind was still filled with those three little words. He had said that he loved me. And he meant it.
Right?
42-
(Jeremy)
Okay. So I made a deal with Paul. Nothing big, okay? It was completely within the immoral boundaries of the law. And it still obeyed at least three commandments.
I just couldn't help it. I mean, I wanted Suze. And I was willing to do anything to get her. And if that meant hanging out with a dumb jock like Slater, that was fine with me.
As long as he stuck to the plan.
42-
(Suze)
"Okay… is that the last of your stuff?" My mother was holding what looked an entire camping set for a family of four. Actually, it was just bags of the several gifts I received when I was in the coma. Yep, like I said, several.
I looked around. The hospital room looked empty now that all my stuff was gone. The room was painted taupe, with a window seat very similar to mine, looking out on a view of the bay, not unlike the one in my bedroom. Right then the shutters were wide open-further proof that someone had not deigned us with a visit last night-the gentle mist from the bay carried into the room by the afternoon breeze.
I shivered. Something felt so cold.
CeeCee had been over to visit, quite a lot that week, asking all sorts of questions about the interior design of this particular room. Did I remember the part in Ocean's Eleven, when they asked why hallways were always painted taupe? When I had simply shrugged, bewildered by theabruptness of her cheerful behavior, she had gone to explain to me, very patiently-now you know she wasn't acting like herself-that Brad Pitt had said taupe was very soothing.
Huh, I told her. They were not wrong.
But, whatever the color of the wall, my stay at the Carmel Hospital had not been too pleasant. Frankly, it was quite dull. I got a lot of visitors, most of the Junior class stopped by to you know, express their heartfelt get-wells and blah blah blah…. Adam had stopped by everyday, but most of the time it resulted in my falling asleep as he and Cee made out.
And Paul and Jeremy came too, which wasn't all that great. They had, in the time of my absence, become extremely chummy with each other. Jer, anxious to follow up on Paul's haughty arrogance, had actually tried-shocking, I know-to grab my ass!
And since I was in I was in no state of health to beat either one of them up, I could only slap his hand, and scream for my mother, who was very disgruntled-I did this way too often-to get them out.
But that wasn't why my stay wasn't very accommodating. It was because of Jesse. (Of course.) He hadn't shown up since the night when I first woke up, and I was more than slightly peeved at him for disappearing on me. Somewhere in the back of my head, I was beginning to doubt those words uttered so late that night. Maybe I wasn't the right girl for him... or maybe he wasn't the right guy for me.
But I tried not to think about something like that. There was a reason for his standoffishness, and it wasn't that he didn't love me. I mean, he wouldn't have said it, otherwise.
Instead, I tried to think of it as a little game we played. The constant on-offness, I mean. As if this was justJesse's way of surprising me, when he was ready, finally, to admit his true feelings for me.
And I waited patiently, ready to fake it, to pretend to be surprised in the end.
The thing was, I didn't know how close we were to it.
"Yeah, Mom, I think that's it," I said with a sigh. I had thrown away basically all the flowers Paul and Jeremy sent me, much to my mother's chagrin. She had been so impressed, so pleased, that her little girl had so many admirers. I bet she wanted me at that beach all over again. Just to get a few more boxes of See's peanut brittle.
All that I kept were Jesse's wildflowers, though they had pretty much rotted after the first few days, attracting all kinds of bugs. My mother, disgusted by their irresistibility to all wildlife—and the fact that they had not cost at least five ninety-nine, had thrown them away. Along with—though she was a bit hesitant about those—Adam's roses, which had already started to wilt. Still, there were plenty of chocolate boxes to be eaten, and tons of teddy bears to take home. CeeCee's, of course, was the biggest.
"Suze, what about that one?" she pointed to a tiny envelope that had fallen on the floor near the bed in which I had been occupied for a week. Three, actually, if you count the coma.
"Oh, oops." I bent down to pick it up, feeling a slight pull of my spine.
It was addressed to me; 'Susannah.' The writing was fancy, very old calligraphy, the curves of each letter slanted perfectly, written with the utmost of care. Someone had taken a lot of time to write this letter.
Perhaps for more reasons than one.
Realization came flooding over me, like a sudden shower amidst a warm, summer's day.
And there you had it. Game over.
Free cookie to all who review me. To receive your cookie, call Ching-ching at 2346 20th Ave. If she doesn't answer, feel free to take an ax and chop down the front door.
No, don't worry. She prefers it that way.
(Totally kidding. That is NOT Ching's address. Don't go chopping anyone's doors down. I am not willing to get sued. I am willing, however, to accept your bountiful supply of reviews. Ciao amici, sta sera.)
P.S. So I've written two versions of the last chapter already, but I'm not sure what to post (well, actually I am) so I'd like to ask you, in a little survey.
Which do you prefer; the happy chapter where everything is wonderful, and theres a cheesy, totally messed up ending, or the sad chapter, where everyone cries, and you wonder about the injustice of it all-BUT there is a better ending later on, and there is a sequel?
Which will it be, happy or sad with sequel?
I'll leave you guys to think.
