3. Apart
Eric's heart was racing out of control, realizing that he had almost lost his friend's, as well as his own life. Still in a panicking state, he dragged Jack further away from the railroad track in short jerks, while the train was still passing through. Once he felt they were completely safe, he just couldn't collect the strength to sit up, and collapsed on top of his friend.
Eric knew he had to try to calm down. He felt like he was going to have a heart-attack any minute. He started to count the beats per minute, but lost track of the number because his heart hammered too fast. He gave up, and his mind went blank. He just lay there. Feeling the rain falling down on him.
After the never-ending train had passed, the adrenaline in his body had also slowly disappeared. All there was left, was his numb body. And Jack's.
"Jack?" he whispered, almost impossible to hear.
This must sound like some corny scene from 'Titanic', Eric sneered to himself. And that made him? Rose Dewitt Bukater? Unwillingly, he chuckled over the absurdity of his thoughts, and the whole situation.
"What's there to laugh about?" Jack suddenly murmured from beneath him. Eric moved himself just enough to look him in the eyes. They were surprisingly clear and caught Eric in a deep stare, which made him very aware of his body still resting on top of Jack's.
"Thank you," was all he could manage to whisper, eyes still fixed into Jack's gaze. "Thank you… for not giving up on-"
All of a sudden, Jack raised his head from the floor and kissed Eric on his lips. Their lips never stopped touching, as they locked themselves in a deeper, more passionate kiss. Jack's hand grabbed the back of Eric's neck and pulled him in even deeper. It was a hard and desperate kiss, born out of fear and relief at the same time, out of need for love and forgiveness. It was a bittersweet sensation, and they lost themselves in it completely.
After what seemed like an eternity, Jack slowly pulled back from their kiss. Eyes still closed, he lay his head down on the wet concrete and breathed in small white clouds of freezing air. It had stopped raining. Neither one of them said a word.
With the passion and heat of the moment vanishing into the night, Eric suddenly realized how cold it was, and that Jack's body wasn't giving of any warmth at all. Besides that, he could feel it shivering underneath him. Eric got up worried, and saw how Jack instinctively curled himself into a small human ball, shaking heavier and heavier. He hunkered down beside him and called his name. He didn't respond. Eric could vaguely see in the dim light of the station that Jack's face had turned ash gray.
No. Not again. Not after he brought him back…
The image of Jack lying there like that, paralyzed Eric. He was going to die like this. His thoughts panicked, and all sorts of irrelevant information was going through his head. He didn't know what to do, where to go. He desperately looked from Jack to the station, and back. There was nobody to help them.
Then he noticed a phone booth at the end of the platform. Doubt overtook him – should he leave Jack alone and try to call for help, or should he try to keep him warm and wait for someone to pass by? He realized the latter wasn't a very realistic option at this time of the night, but the thought of leaving Jack like this, dying from the cold while he wasn't there, frightened him. But in the end, his mind won from his heart.
He kissed Jack on his forehead and gently squeezed his hand. "Jack, hang in there buddy. I'm not letting you die now, okay? You hear me?" he whispered with a hoarse voice. Then, he got up and ran across the station to the phone booth.
The door was stuck because of the cold. Eric let out a cry of frustration and had to kick the booth three times before it finally opened. His hands were shaking uncontrollably, as he tried to dial the emergency number. It took him four shots before his fingers eventually dialed '9-1-1', as he anxiously looked aside over and over again to see if Jack was still lying on the concrete - although he knew he couldn't even move if he wanted to.
A calm woman's voice answered at the other side of the line, but Eric didn't even hear what she was saying. All he could manage to say was 'Railroad Station, Weststreet. It's so cold… My friend is dying. An ambulance. Help, please help…" He dropped the phone after that, and ran back to Jack, still curled up on the floor. He wasn't even shaking anymore.
Tears were streaming down Eric's face as he sat down beside him, and carefully pulled Jack up into something that looked like an upright position. He made sure only his friend's legs were touching the icy concrete, as he shifted the rest of the weight of Jack's stiff body onto his own and wrapped his arms around him, in an attempt to keep him warm. He started rocking both their bodies and pressed himself even closer to Jack's. It felt like holding an ice-sculpture. Jack only breathed in very small clouds now, barely visible in the clear, dark air.
They sat there for probably ten minutes, before an ambulance arrived. Things suddenly happened very fast and all at the same time. Two men carefully, but firmly, lifted Jack's body from Eric's arms, lay him onto a stretcher, packed him in foolscap and blankets and loaded him into the ambulance. In the meantime, another person, a woman, softly but persistently pulled a numb Eric onto his own feet and wrapped him in blankets as well. She sat him down next to her inside the ambulance, talking to him constantly, but Eric heard nothing but a continuous buzz in his ear while he never let his eyes of Jack.
He occasionally caught some words like 'shock', 'hypothermic', 'critical' and 'probably suicide', but it were just separate words without meaning to him. He couldn't make sense of what the men were saying to each other - the words just didn't form coherent sentences in his thoughts. He noticed that the doctors were asking him questions by the tone of their voice, but he couldn't figure out what they meant. The world was starting to blur all into one big confusing whirl.
And all the way from the station down to the hospital, the same song repeated over and over again in his head. After a while, he realized it was the last song the station radio had been playing before the ambulance people had taken them away. He had never heard it before, but he could remember every single word as if the lyrics were somehow engraved in his mind.
In my hands
A legacy of memories
I can hear you say my name
I can almost see your smile
Feel the warmth of your embrace
But there is nothing but silence now
Around the one I loved
Is this our farewell?
Sweet darling, you worry too much, my child
See the sadness in your eyes
You are not alone in life
Although you might think that you are
Never thought
This day would come so soon
We had no time to say goodbye
How can the world just carry on?
I feel so lost when you are not by my side
But there's nothing but silence now
Around the one I loved
Is this our farewell?
So sorry your world is
tumbling down
I will watch you through these nights
Rest your head and go to sleep
Because my child, this is not our farewell
This is not our farewell