The Counting-Downers

by A. J. Compton

  “Always.” He wraps his arms around me and rests his chin on my head. It’s a position I’ve held with Tristan many times before, which makes me remember why we’re here. But Blaise’s towering height and bulging muscles make me safe in a situation that has me unsettled. He’s my protector by default, but I love him all the same. More than that, I need him.

  I’m used to being unflappable. Putting everything in its proper context, seeing the bigger picture, never worrying about things I can’t control. But right now, no bigger picture exists. I can’t see outside of myself, or outside of this sterile waiting room into the wide world beyond the windows. I can’t try to work out how this happening to Tristan and me could be part of some predestined plan which benefits humanity.

  It’s easy to believe that everything happens for a reason. Until the thing that happens isn’t good. And it happens to you. Until it’s you that develops cancer, or your parents who die, or your house that burns down. All of a sudden, Fate and Karma don’t seem so attractive.

  Who wants to hear they’re disposable to the world at large, no matter how true it may be? You may be everything to your small world of family and friends, but you’re just a drop in the ocean to everyone else who’ll soon forget about you, if they ever knew of you at all.

  No terminal patient wants to hear that their death is ‘part of a plan’ they won’t live to see carried out. None of us want to be a footnote in the story of the world. We want a sentence, a paragraph, a chapter. We want to be the main protagonists, not extras hidden away at the back of the set, never seen, heard, or remembered.

  And although that’s the reality for most people, probably myself and Tristan included, I just can’t face it right now. In my mind at the moment, my world at home and the world at large are one and the same.

  As far as I’m concerned, everyone outside the blinding white walls of this hospital is anxious as they wait on pins and needles for news of Tristan’s condition. Everyone is scared; everyone is grieving in anticipation. I can’t deal with the prospect that, for billions of people bar the six in this room, life is carrying on as usual, as if the course of mine isn’t hanging in the precarious balance.

  I look up to see I’m sitting in Blaise’s lap. I’m not sure how I made it here, but I’m grateful. I have neither the will nor the energy to support myself right now, even in something as simple as sitting up or standing alone.

  My eyes wander around the room at the reddened and hollow eyes of my friends and family. Maia and Erin sit opposite me on the other side of the room, holding hands for support and giving me sad smiles. I don’t know if it’s the smiles or the sadness that I can’t bear. My mom sits two chairs down on my other side. She dropped Oscar off to stay with a friend and came straight to the hospital as soon as she heard about the accident. She’s been right by my side for the past two days. Jacob has been in and out while he dog-sits Leo.

  I think about my life before these amazing people entered it, and how it could have been just my mom and me in this waiting room if I hadn’t met them. It’s almost enough to make me a firm believer in Fate again, but not quite.

  “He’ll be okay, Til. He has around twenty-four years left, right? It’s highly unlikely he’s going to spend all that time in a coma. You should take some comfort from that.” I hear his words, but I listen to the tremor in his voice, which tells me he’s not as confident as he’s pretending to be.

  Still, there is that. The only other thing I’m taking comfort from right now aside from the safety of Blaise’s arms. When you know when someone will die, you also know when they won’t. As Blaise said, with just over twenty-four years left on his clock, the odds are in Tristan’s favor for him to awaken from the coma.

  Doctors and emergency services won’t bother ‘wasting’ their time and resources on anyone with minutes or hours left. When someone phones the emergency services, the first thing they ask after receiving details of the accident and location is, ‘Do they have enough time left?’ This allows the person calling to give a yes or no answer and avoid revealing the specific amount of time in front of the injured party.

  I guess it makes sense not to try resuscitating someone with two minutes left to live, or prioritizing treatment for the person with ten years rather than ten days, but that doesn’t help the family’s anguish to know all efforts have not been made. Even though your rational mind knows there’s no point and a time extension won’t be granted by whoever set the limit in the first place, you still want them to try. It still bothers me that no one called an ambulance while my dad was having a heart attack; they only did so after so they could remove the body. These cursed clocks above our heads make for an efficient but impersonal healthcare system.

  In Tristan’s case, we can be almost sure he’ll wake up at some point, but it might be weeks or months, and my biggest worry is the state he’ll be in once he does. That’s something the countdown clock doesn’t tell us. What if he doesn’t remember me? Or us? What if he doesn’t know he’s my forever?

  I have visions of him mistaking me for a nurse, or having to explain to him that all his family has died because he doesn’t remember. And what would I tell him about us? Where would I start? How would I explain the magic that exists when we’re together? It’s tough to put an emotion into words, to describe a connection your eyes can’t see but your soul feels. Would he understand if I told him his arms were my home and I’d be happy to drown to death in his eyes? Words have never failed me as much as they have in the past two days.

  All of a sudden, the door to the waiting room opens and a harried doctor strides in. He looks to be in his thirties, with the faint lines around his eyes and mouth betraying the pressures of his job even as he struggles for a calm and professional demeanor.

  “Matilda Evans?”

  “That’s me.” My hand shakes as Blaise helps me to my feet.

  “I’m Doctor Rodriguez,” he says, holding out his right hand for me to shake. If he feels my hand trembling, he doesn’t acknowledge it. “As Tristan’s next of kin, I’m just giving you an update on his current status.”

  I’m his next of kin? I’m stunned. I tune out the doctor, too busy wondering when he did that. Perhaps when he had his appendix taken out a few months ago. Even though we both talk about it, Tristan is much better than I am at preparing for the worst. I’m sure he already has a will and all of his affairs in order. This situation reminds me that I should do the same. Twenty-three is not too young to have a will. From the moment you reach legal adulthood, you’re never too young. Still, being listed as his next of kin is a painful reminder that Tristan has no family left. I’m his family. So are the other people in this room, even though he may not think of them as such.

  I tune back in to the doctor just in time to hear his last few sentences.

  “…so with that in mind, the next twenty-four hours are crucial. His brain activity looks good and the swelling is decreasing, so we have hope. Of course, head injuries are notoriously unpredictable so I can’t say for sure, or what condition he’ll be in when he wakes, but all things considered, he should wake up soon. We just need to sort out a few things after his scan, but I’ll come back in a few hours to let you know when you can see him. He will only be allowed one visitor at a time for the foreseeable future. Even unconscious, we don’t want to overwhelm him.”

  “I understand. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. He’s a fighter. I get the impression he has no plans to leave this world without you. He’s holding on, if for no other reason than to see you again.”

  My chest caves with the impact of his words as he turns and leaves. Somehow, I know they’re true. Wherever Tristan is, locked in the deepest, darkest corner of his unconscious mind, I just know he’s fighting to come back to me. Because if the situation was reversed, I’d be doing the same. Only this time, he’s the one fighting while I have no fight left in me and no tears left to cry. I’m all out.

  A FEW HOURS later, Doctor Rodriguez leads me into Trista
n’s hospital room. I inhale at the sight of my everything reduced to almost nothing, as he lies pale and still in the too-small bed. My horrified eyes make their way around his body, taking in his broken leg, which is elevated in a cast, and his face, which is barely distinguishable behind the bruising.

  I look around to gauge the doctor’s reaction on whether this is normal, to find him gone. I’m left alone with Tristan, although technically he’s not present, so I’m by myself. All of a sudden, I’m reluctant to go any further. My feet are heavy, resisting my movements as I try to shuffle forward to his bedside. It’s almost as if it will become real if I touch him. And none of this seems real to me right now.

  In the blink of the same eyes that saw him go from happiness to lifeless, I’m beside him. My free arm hovers over his. This is Tristan, I chant to remind myself, trying to overcome my sudden hesitation. He needs you. I force my hand down and gasp when our skin and souls reconnect.

  And even though I thought I’d expended every ounce of water in my body, fresh tears spring to the surface. I crumple. I just…crumple.

  I collapse sobbing onto Tristan’s chest, which is moving with the help of a ventilator. Sensing his pain, although I know he can’t feel it, makes me cry harder. That’s the thing with people like me, ‘sensitive souls’ as my dad would say. I’m a feeler. I feel everything deep within my core. Even when I don’t want to. I don’t know where my emotions stop and my empathy begins. I feel from the tips of my toes to the follicles of my head. I feel with every fiber, every molecule, every tissue, marrow, muscle, and bone in my body. I feel.

  And right now, I feel more than my battered body can handle. All of the excess emotion floods out of my reddened green eyes and into the thin material of Tristan’s hospital gown.

  But that’s the thing about feelings. They can’t be contained. Like caged birds, they plot their bid for freedom, knowing they need to escape one way or the other. The longer you keep them captive, the more volatile their exit.

  My tears fall like debris after an emotional explosion. After an indeterminate amount of time, they settle until all that remains are the aftershocks, which manifest themselves in the shaking of my body as I hiccup without noise or tears, struggling to fight my way through the mountain of pain. I’m not better, but I am calmer.

  Taking in an unconscious Tristan, my breathing continues to slow as a gradual sense of peace settles over me. My dramatics are over. He’s as grounding a force comatose as he is when awake. That sums us up. Tristan is content to let me fly and feel, but I only do so safe in the knowledge that he’ll bring me back down when it’s time.

  It’s time.

  “Hey, Goldilocks.” I greet my unconscious boyfriend. “You’ve looked better, but you’re still beautiful to me. You know when you’re the most beautiful though? When your eyes are open, and you look at me as if I’m the only thing left in the world. Like everything else has faded away until all you see is me. You see me. Remember when you told me that? Well, I need you to open your eyes so you can keep seeing me. Because nobody sees me like you do, and without you, I’ll be invisible. I exist because you see me.

  “Before, I was just a free spirit drifting through life, but you made me real. You’re my center, my ground, my anchor. And without you I’ll either sink or float away, I’m not sure which yet.

  “So you need to come back to me. Because we have a lot of living to do. Remember? I told you I hoped I was able to spend my last ten minutes on earth with you, and you said that ‘even if we only have ten minutes left, a whole lot of living can be done in that time.’ We have so much life left to live together.

  “I hope when you open your eyes that you remember. I need you to remember us, remember me. But even if you don’t, just come back to me so that I can remind you. Because a love like ours is worth fighting for, and more than that, it’s worth living for. In this, and every lifetime to come, I’ll always find you and bring you back to me. You’re not just my lighthouse, showing me the way home, you are my home. And I’m yours. It’s time to come home, Tristan.”

  I continue to ramble, repeating myself until my voice is hoarse and my eyes are heavy. As my breathing calms and evens to match the cadence of the machine, I rest my broken heart over his broken body and fall head first into a fitful, dreamless sleep.

  TRISTAN WOKE UP a few hours ago and so far, everything seems okay. Well, as okay as it can be when you’ve just looked death in the eyes, only to win the staring contest. For now.

  This battle may be over, but the war will never be won by the living. Death always wins in the end. No matter how many times life calls for a rematch.

  He seems a bit disorientated and doesn’t remember crossing the road or being hit, but otherwise he seems to remember everything else. Typical of Tristan, he was more concerned with my pain than his own.

  I thanked deities I don’t even believe in when I woke up with a start to him stroking the backs of his gentle fingers against my cheek. I couldn’t control the elation that lit up my body, even as I try to ignore the lingering traces of fear which still cling to my skin like a rash.

  Now, I’m propped up against his bed as I play with our entwined fingers. They’re pretty much the only part of his body I can touch which won’t cause him to wince in pain.

  “Thank you for saving me,” I tell him, desperate to convey the depth of my gratitude through my tone and my eyes.

  “It’s only fair since you saved me first.” His voice is scratchy with underuse and the tube in his throat they recently removed, but his statement is firm and clear.

  “I love you.”

  “I love you too. More than you can know, or I can express.”

  “Well then that makes two of us.”

  “Kiss me.”

  “Bossy.”

  Still, I bend to comply with his rasping command. His body jolts as it becomes more passionate, causing me to straighten from the awkward position and give him a chastising look.

  “Be careful. You’ve just come back to me. I want you to stick around.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.” I glance up at the numbers counting down above his head. If only that were true. This whole ordeal has left me shaken to my core and I’m still experiencing the after-effects. I rub my free hand down my thigh to hide its shaking.

  “Hey.” His voice is soft in concern. I’m sure his eyebrows are furrowing with worry underneath the bandage around his head. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” I lie, knowing I’m anything but. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m with you,” he says simply. I smile, knowing he’s echoing a previous conversation we had. Beneath the love upon hearing his words, lies relief that he remembers moments like that between us.

  “Baby Bear, did they give you a bag of my stuff?”

  “Yes, why?”

  “Do you know where it is?”

  “Yeah, it’s here.” I push up from the bed and walk over to the chair in the far corner where my things are resting. I lift up my cardigan to retrieve the clear plastic bag with the items the paramedics collected from the scene.

  “Here you go. Not much in there. I took out my stopwatch and the rest was only what was in your pockets.”

  He rummages through the bag, looking for something. His house and car keys jangle as his movements become more and more frantic. He seems almost… agitated. Nervous. The same emotions I feel right now, but for a different reason.

  “What are you looking for?”

  “I… Don’t worry.” He sags back against the bed in relief. “I found it.”

  “Found what?”

  “This.” He pulls out a small black leather box with the name of a famous jeweler written on the front. If I thought my hand was shaking before, that was nothing compared to the tremors running through it now.

  “Tristan…”

  “Matilda, I know this isn’t ideal, and it’s not how I had planned it, but I don’t want to waste another second. This whole ordeal has put things into even shar
per perspective for me like I’m sure it’s done for you.”

  Speechless, all I can do is nod, numb.

  “I had this whole speech prepared for weeks, I know how much words mean to you, but now the moment is here, they don’t seem right. What it comes down to, is the fact that you’re not just The One; you’re everything. I don’t know what I did right to have heaven send me an angel, but I know better than to question it.

  “You may not know it or see it, but you saved me. Then changed me. For the better. I’m not as eloquent as you, so I can’t put into words what I feel whenever I’m around you, but I know that I want to keep feeling it for the rest of my life. You’ve made me love life, and now I want to live it. With you. Forever. Would you do me the absolute honor of—”

  Without thinking, my free hand slams down on the one that was about to open the ring box. His head shoots up as the hopeful smile slides off his face to be replaced with hurt and confusion.

  “…Til?”

  This is as excruciating as it is unbearable. “I… Tristan… it…”

  “It what?” he demands. His anger is justified. By all means, my acceptance should be a foregone conclusion, but something is holding the excited joy and affirmative answer back. They’re there, but they’re in the background, trapped and begging to be set free.

  “It’s just… a surprise, that’s all. I didn’t see this coming. It seems so sudden. You’ve just had your accident and now you’re proposing.”

  “Baby Bear.” He sighs with what sounds like relief and a bit of frustration. “Nothing is sudden about it. This was always where we were headed. We’re soulmates. We’re of marrying age. We’ve been together for over a year, although I knew I wanted to marry you from day one. Plus we both know how precious time is, so what do we have to lose?”

  Everything, is the answer that rushes into my mind, unbidden, but I know I shouldn’t voice it. So I don’t. But I think it. And feel it.

  “You said it yourself; we’re inevitable, so why rush?”