Chances
Looking back, she almost wished she could pinpoint it.
When she’d fallen in love.
If anything, she’d never even noticed until her teen years.
But as all things come to an end, the disaster struck only a few days later.
He can still remember meeting her for the first time outside that classroom.
Though they were only children at the time (still are), but I think a part of him loved her then.
She had his favourite smile.
He realized he only smiled like that when he smiled back at her.
She got the call at 7:00. It was from his sister.
‘He was in an accident. They took him to the hospital, they told me to call you’
She’d left in a rush, nevermind she was clad in pajamas.
‘I’m on my way there’
He never believed in Meant To Be.
He believed in Chances.
The hope that things would work out, and if they didn’t, that you would fight for it yourself.
You would have to.
Otherwise you would have lost before you’d even begun.
She quickly parked, running into the hospital, taking the steps two at a time as she climbed them to the waiting room.
His family was sitting there.
His mother had puffy eyes.
His father watched the hallways distantly.
His sister looked broken.
They were still waiting when the first star appeared that night.
He can’t remember when he fell in love.
Maybe it had happened years before he’d realized.
Maybe it had come out of the blue and hit him - oh the irony.
He can only remember how suddenly,
it was different.
A drunk driver.
That’s what they’d been told.
She sat anxiously, gnawing on her thumbnail, until his mother stood from beside her.
The doctor was approaching them from down the hall.
He looked sorrowful.
‘Are you the family?’
Once realizing he loved her, he began to wonder.
Would it have been better to have never known her the way he did?
To spare himself the preconceived discretion to what he would have done differently?
If anything could have been done differently.
Or if his Chances would have won out.
He came to the conclusion a short while later.
How could you love someone you never knew?
She was the first to see him, with the bandages around his head and the tube protruding from his chest. Another tube was tucked into his nose and connected to a hanging oxygen concentrator. He smiled lazily when he saw her. She couldn’t help but cry.
His mother and sister followed her quickly, stroking his hair and kissing his head.
The fluctuation of the monitor was slower than average.
She found herself counting between the beats.
Who knew five seconds would last so long.
He saw her first when she came through the door.
Everything passed through him then.
Every late night.
Every exchange.
Every text.
Every touch.
Every dream.
Every hope.
And every Chance.
There was no Chance of anything now.
She left the room after the doctor spoke about why the surgery had failed.
He would die.
He was dying.
And it could take hours.
Minutes.
Seconds.
He just wanted to see her.
Tell her everything.
She just wanted to be with him.
Spare their Chances of forever.
He watched her finally come back in after his family had left to retrieve dinner from the cafeteria, though it was midnight.
Her hair was messy.
She was in her pajamas.
Her face red and puffy.
And he thought she’d never looked more beautiful.
She was hesitant.
Then he smiled, and she broke.
Every early morning.
Every glance.
Every call.
Every shame.
Every wake.
Every Chance.
He was dying.
His heart was failing, he knew that.
He would die, and there wouldn’t be any piece of him left.
But there would always be enough of him for her.
She didn’t sleep. Everyone else had.
But not her.
She watched him. That’s all.
Just waiting.
It’s all anyone could do.
He had been counting on the next time they would be alone.
It came the next morning. His family had gone home supposedly.
They were calling everyone.
Composing themselves.
He didn’t blame them.
People often look for compensation in places it isn’t there.
She was watching him.
Just like he was watching her.
‘I’m scared I’ll forget you’ She said
‘especially since you’ll never come back’
He was scared too.
He knew there was no Chance. Not this time.
He’d prayed for the first time. Hoping it would just maybe give him a miracle.
But he’d already said before; He never believed in Meant To Be.
She couldn’t cry.
Perhaps she had no tears left.
But she held his hand, and sat beside him, even though her throat burned with dry sobs.
It would be soon. They all could tell.
Finally, she whimpered.
‘I’m not ready to say goodbye’
His free hand had come to cup her face.
‘You never will be’
He passed within that hour.
He still hoped though, that even when he knew everything was fading, that maybe, just maybe, he’d have one more Chance.
But somehow, in his pea-sized teenage brain, he knew it was okay.
She would take the Chance for him.
She regretted it the most.
That she’d never said I love you
But somehow, in her crazy little teenage brain, she knew it was okay.
She counted on the Chance they both already knew.