Memories of what occurred before the attack come back to me. All of them revolved around one fact: Kat said she loved me and I couldn’t say it back. At the time, I felt love wasn’t enough to hold our relationship together. I didn't want to mislead her, and my hesitancy was all that was needed to provoke a trigger happy gunman.
He had broken into the classroom where Kat was teaching and I was her student, resulting in my being shot. At least I got to escape my broken heart by being in a coma. Kat had to endure the heartache I previously caused coupled with worry over my health situation.
I grimaced as I reached for my phone again, the pain in my chest and abdomen still apparent. My finger was poised over the dial button on her contact page, still I hesitated. I kept considering reasons not to call. I was likely to stumble over my words and say the wrong thing. She might misinterpret my request for something bigger than it was… a sign of a relationship or where we stood. It was a lofty enough request that probably merited a phone call, but I couldn’t bring myself to have that conversation. I changed my mind about calling and instead opened the text app and began to type. It was safer. It would give each of us time to consider our answers.
It will only be two weeks, I explained. I hit send and then decided to send one more text:
Doctors’ idea… not mine.
Maybe I sounded like an ass, but at least she would know what to expect. Then, I thought I sounded like too much of an ass, even for me, and sent one more text: I’ll understand if you don’t want to. I’m sorry, Kat. About everything.
Within a moment came her response.
Of course I’ll help you.
Chapter Two
— Kat on her memories of Cole
Experiences are fleeting. Sometimes, we have no way of knowing if one experience is the first of many or if it will never occur again. It’s probably a fair assessment that climbing Mount Kilimanjaro is an experience of a lifetime that will be a one-time deal. But common occurrences like eating scrambled eggs on the weekends, taking a run and feeling the adrenaline of your heart beating… those are the things we tend to take for granted, never realizing that there will be a last time. This is especially true with matters of the heart.
The last embrace, last touch, even the last kiss — those are last times that we don’t recognize until they are in the past, when it’s nearly always too late to reclaim them. If you’ve ever experienced a “last time,” it gives new meaning to “living in the moment” when we try to commit experiences to memory in an attempt to never let them fade.
After Cole and I broke up, I went to the men’s cologne department at Macy’s, found his cologne and sprayed it on one of those pieces of white card stock. The sales associate handed me the bowl of coffee beans, suggesting I clear my sense of smell to let me experience another scent without bias. That was the last thing I wanted.
The smell of him, something I thought I could never forget, was already leaving my memory, long ago washed from my sheets. I placed that white stick under my nose and inhaled deeply, wanting so desperately to commit it to memory.
I thought it would feel good to come home and spend the night at my own house after so many weeks of sleeping on chairs, but the silence was overwhelming. I had grown used to the noises of the hospital with the nurses coming and going in the middle of the night. It’s funny how adaptable I had become. Most of us hate change, but if forced into a new situation, one either adapts or perishes. It’s the law of survival. Survival… how I begged for Cole’s survival.
I left my job at the community college immediately after the incident. Memories of the shooting didn’t sit well with me, and I also wanted to be by Cole’s bedside. There was nothing to do, but hope and pray. I couldn’t focus on the television or even read. There were no English lessons to prepare and I wrote for the blog that I freelanced for only monthly now. The last year changed my circumstances at the blog. A monthly column was enough to maintain the audience I had cultivated. With my new found popularity came an increase in pay — an actual salary. I saved enough to help my son, Jack, with school expenses, but he covered most of it himself. The rest I put away. And now, I’d rather tap into that savings so that I could be by Cole’s side.
As Cole has no family, there haven’t been regular visitors. Once in awhile, one of his teammates would stop in, but eventually they returned to their lives. For me, I felt like I didn’t have a life without him.
So with nobody to talk to and nothing to do, I learned to pray. At first I felt like a hypocrite for even talking to God. After all, I never reached out during good times. Why should I receive help during the bad? But I prayed nonetheless. I got more comfortable with the silence and my thoughts. Eventually, I prayed out loud and hoped that my voice would be heard. I prayed that if He just let Cole live, I promised to be satisfied. I wanted nothing, but his life. And, at the time, I believe that I meant it.
But that vow is becoming diluted as I admit that I never stopped loving him. Simply holding onto memories of our past wasn’t enough for me. Maybe I’m stronger than I think. I never imagined that I would choose to leave his bedside once he pulled through the accident, the surgery, his recovery. But here I am, aimlessly walking throughout my house and trying to stay busy. I didn’t need to do anything in the hospital. It was understandable that I just existed. In time, I learned all of the nurses’ names, and they knew mine.
I pick up a dust rag and spray a bit of almond scented wood polisher that smells comforting and not at all like a cleaning product. I just need to do something useful. So, I clean. I certainly don’t want to cook for one. My appetite diminished with the constant worry, not to mention hospitals aren’t known to offer Michelin rated cuisine, although Westwood Hospital did have a pretty decent New England style clam chowder. Probably from a can or one of those mass market food suppliers, but with their sour dough bread bowl, it became a decent meal. The cafeteria staff came to know me as well. One of my new companions was a kindly, elderly man who told me he had worked in the cafeteria for twenty years. He had taken to sneaking into the back kitchen to retrieve me a bread loaf warm from the oven. I relegated myself so fully to the hospital life that I had inadvertently cut myself off from everything else.
Now, I miss the exchanges I had with the staff as they had become my family of sorts. Jack had visited the most regularly, but even he didn’t understand why I was spending countless days and hours by Cole’s bedside, and I couldn’t tell him. Eventually, he stopped visiting and asked me to do the same, but I couldn’t… wouldn’t.
I promised myself that I would call Jack soon, meaning within the hour, but for now I just wanted some time to process that I wouldn’t see Cole every day. I prayed for this day the entire time he was in the hospital, but I never gave any thought to the fact that when it arrived, he would be out of my life once again. I couldn’t be more relieved and thankful that he pulled through, but oddly I now dealt with feelings of loss again.
I guess it’s only natural that in the midst of chaos and danger, I would proclaim my love again. And then, he admitted the same. Although his declaration of love came after being shot, after he had previously left our relationship behind because it “would be too difficult for us.” There were a few truths I had to come to terms with. The obvious: I never stopped loving him. The subtle: He never stopped loving me. The reality: Our age difference, and thus, our circumstances hadn’t changed.