Five Down, Ten More to Go

People tend to trust their most treasured things in the hands of others, even when they know it has no hope. Especially things like the lives of the people you would give your own life for. Yet here I sat, the cold air laying stale and heavy around me, like a blanket that's been dragged in the mud and is still sopping wet. I pulled my own cotton blanket tighter to my chin and leaned against the peeling paint on the wall. The sound of the coffee machine hummed on and off, keeping it at the lukewarm temperature that reminded you exactly where you were and why.

I'd kept my eyes locked on the TV, the news babbling about the latest scandal and whatnot, not allowing myself to search the room. Eventually, I did, not being able to take the boring drone of the TV any longer. I found only distress in the tissues strewn across the floor and pain, pure pain, hidden in the small sniffles that made you wish you could run out into the frost and scream into the world why. Why me, why them, why anybody? None of these people deserved it, nor the people in the rooms down the hall.

A doctor poked her head out of one of the rooms and motioned to the lady sitting next to me. Her hands shaking, she cupped her coffee close to her chest and stood. Her eyes grew larger with fear, staring down the doctor and daring her to spit out whatever she needed to say in front of everyone. The doctor opened her mouth to speak, her eyes falling to the floor, and then all of us understood. We'd already seen it dozens of times as we sat there, waiting for our own. The woman's whole body began to vibrate with fear, her lips a mess with snot and tears as she tried to speak and protest against the inevitable.

A man stood from across the room, his own shirt a bloody mess. He must have been carrying somebody, or at least helping. I grew sick with the thought, flashes of panic, and smells of burned flesh filling up my mind. He rushed to the woman's side and cradled her in his arms, and even not knowing her at all, and she fell into him. These sorts of experiences bring you together, force you to know each other, and love each other because who is going to do it for you when it's all done? Who is going to take up all the space that you've lost? Two strangers held each other brought together by the sorrow and tragedy of tonight. I willed myself to stand and join them, for we had all been there and we all understood this feeling. The receptionist waddled to her, taking my place, now barking orders at the doctor that I didn't understand. I remained seated, now huddled further into my cocoon of a blanket.

A heavy and loud silence fell over the waiting room once more, all of us waiting for someone to say something. We all felt it as we had the last time and the time before; that crawling feeling that told us in a moment we were going to be the surely kind lady now shaking with sobs. Four down now, eleven of them to go. We watched as the receptionist started to feel it too, the back of her wrinkly hand pressing into her mouth.

In her eyes, I saw Kayla's. I saw the fiery resistance and compassion I loved so much about her. I remembered the first time I had seen them, the twinkle in them finding me from the crowd of a blazing concert that was filled with booze and people who wanted nothing but the heat of each other. I had smiled into those eyes, and they had smiled back, the edges of her lips twitching like she was about to call out to me before she had been yanked away by her friends. I had thought about her the rest of the night, the loud music that normally excited me now only reminding me of the way I had known that I was meant to stare into those eyes and make the arms of that girl my home.

The next day I had met her at a coffee shop. Totally coincidental, but I remember standing and staring at her until she noticed. I'd seen the confusion and fear before she recognized me, and then she had waved me over to her table, her mocha with extra chocolate clasped tightly in her hands like it always would be. That was how one accidental date had turned into ten, and then twenty, and then endless nights filled with pizza and her poetry and re-runs of Doctor Who. The engagement had happened on our two year anniversary inside the treehouse we had built together, and the wedding was supposed to happen on the third.

Supposed to.

I rubbed the tears away from my eyes and tried to focus on the present and get my head out of what could have been versus what was. The crying woman was taken away into one of the rooms shortly after to say her goodbyes. The man dumped her coffee in the trash and then sat back down, slumped further into his chair than he had been before. I clenched the armrests in my hands until my knuckles turned white, and turned my attention back to the TV.

It was on the news now. A tall reporter with bouncy black hair and a winning smile that could capture anyone's attention grinned into the camera, police lights flashing behind her. People were still there, at the scene. The receptionist rotated her chair to watch it and turned on the volume, everyone in the waiting room straining their attention to watch. Of course, it was that second when the reporter decided to list all of the injured and dead, yet none of us who were the companions who would suffer harder and longer were acknowledged.

Yet there were still more dying, even as she said they had made it out alive she didn't say that some of them were lying in the hospital morgue. Some of them were heaving their last breaths and we couldn't see them.

"Rick," I turned to see the same female doctor as before, only now she stood in the middle of the room staring me down. Her voice was small, it hurt her almost as much as me to hear my name. As if I had done something wrong. "Rick, she wants to see you."

I threw my blanket off my lap, knocking over my drink and spilling it all over the doctor's shoes. I shoved past her, racing toward the end of the hall where I threw open the last door and stumbled inside, my breath still held in anticipation.

She was already gone. The long beep that screamed just so was now spiraling down the hall so that everyone could hear. There was blood in the sheets that I could still see, staining from where both her legs had been, both blown off in the bomb. That stupid fucking bomb. I heard an ear-piercing scream, only later realizing that it, in fact, was mine. I tried to shove my way to her, convince them that she was alive, but they had already placed a sheet over her head which was still drenched in sweat and blood and wheeled her out of the room. A couple nurses and doctors stayed behind, gripping onto my arms and spitting excuses at me when all I wanted was for it to be silent.

My hands, still grasping for hers to hold, found nothing. My arms found empty air where usually they would have found her, pulling me to her chest. My lips were cold and blank, three words I would never use again to describe her settling in the back of my throat and the vows I was ready to promise stirring up a storm as they ricocheted through my head.

I was escorted back into the waiting room where I was to collect her things and mine. I avoided the eyes of the others, not wanting the obvious to show. Some things are better to assume than to know. My hands were still trembling, and I shoved the hospital door open and left. Silence filled my world as snowflakes danced down from the sky. I wanted to scream again, but I didn't. The second I screamed everything would come rushing out, and I wasn't ready to find that now I had no one to hold me the way she did.

I climbed in my car and drove home. The next day was filled with pain, as was the next week and month after that. It's been a year without her. Sometimes I wonder who made it out, who got to go home? Who does somebody not have to miss? Who, in that waiting room that became faces in a blurry painting, gets to sit by the person they waited for and tell them I Love You? Why was the one who survived instead of her?