Jack Dalay

10 March 2012

What We Die For

Part 3: Death

Beep. Beep. Beep.

I reached out for my alarm clock, but the beeping wasn't my alarm clock. It was never my alarm clock. I slowly opened my eyes. I wasn't in my bed, but a hospital bed. The beeping was from a heart sensor next to me. My eyes suddenly filled with tiredness as I closed them again.

They told me I was legally dead for two minutes. That's all it was. I lost a lot of blood, so an emergency blood transfer had to be done. My injuries weren't all that bad aside from the blood loss.

What I thought was a dream in what seemed to be many years ago, wasn't a dream. The ball was a curve ball, and made direct contact with my face. At first, I thought it was from Brendan's pitch, but none of my family had ever heard of Brendan, or Christine, or even Rose. They had met her countless times, and I was entirely confused at first. But there was a mirror in the hospital room. I saw myself. All of the stitches were the last thing I saw. I was a middle schooler again. Or rather I never stopped being a middle schooler.

I had dreamt 20 years of my life in just 2 minutes. And now that I'm awake, everything I worked so hard to get done, suddenly was lost.

I am now in high school once again. Fifteen years old, and about to turn sixteen. In a normal love story, I would have hit a homerun off of Brendan, and me and Rose would have got married and lived our lives together. But those aren't true love stories. True love involves more pain and sorrow than it does happiness sometimes, and very rarely has a fairy tale ending. That is just how love is. But, you can't focus on the sad. You just have to remember the happiness you shared, because above all that is what matters.

I don't think I'll ever forget Rose. Even though it is likely she doesn't or never did exist. Every night when I go to sleep, I visit her in my dreams. You would think I would be imagining what our life would be like if we did get married, but I don't think I've imagined that once. Every night I dream of us having our morning walks on that hill. When things get quiet, she hums that tune from when I first met her. My dreams never go past the hill. I never dream about our school life, or times playing baseball with the neighborhood kids. Just the hill. That long, sloping path we took every day back in middle school.

I carry Rose with me, everywhere I go. The scar I have from the accident is proof of that. The time we spent together felt like heaven. It felt like it might have been the thing Rose was always staring at, and I think I can finally see it, too. Maybe that was because it was heaven. I was dead during the time I visited her after all. And maybe that means that one day, whether it be the distant future, or very soon, I will see her again.

Today, I am visiting New York City with my family, and Rose is with me. She isn't but she is. My sister asks me to carry her backpack, and I do, but I refuse to wear it on my back. My family walks down the streets, looking for a good place to eat. There is a girl walking along the opposite side of us with her family, and as our paths cross I hear her humming. I freeze in my tracks. "It's the same song.." I mumbled. My family looked at me weird. Before they said anything, I dropped my sister's bag and turned around. I just stared at the girl. I smiled, and turned back around, and picked up my sister's bag.

"What was that about?" they asked.

"Oh nothing. I just thought that girl looked familiar, that is all."