His Paper Heart ✓

•41 Extended|Never Say Die

As long as I hold on to hope.

Never say die, they say.

Doctors are very good at hiding their emotions from their patients. Even when things are thrown to hell they still smile and assure you that everything will be fine. They will do everything in their power to save you. Like their life depends on it. Today, it is just my life. The impact of my limb, unresponsive body is synced with the wails of my mother.

The nurses are trying to get her out of the room but my mother is quite stubborn. It will take nothing short of hurricane to get her out of the room. The doctors know that yet they still try. Her roaring screams are a distraction for them and for me. At least that's what the doctors think but that's not true. Her voice reminds me every second that I need to be here. She needs me here.

When I was six, she would always tell me that there's no sound better, no feeling greater than a mother's voice.

Now her voice is so distant, it almost feels unreal. It feels like a sad memory, nostalgic even.

Suddenly the noise is gone. My mom isn't crying, the doctors aren't yelling. Everything is still for a moment. I see them moving but so incredibly slow, it makes me worry.

I don't know what the doctors are doing. I know it's supposed to help but everything else is extremely painful. Breathing in the synthetic air from the oxygen mask is painful. Living is painful and for a brief moment, it would be a dream to just slip into nothingness. Desperate to find any flicker of life left in me, one doctor shines his bright flashlight in my eye and he's met by a cold silence. The light is bright but not bright enough to make me blink or flinch. It is all too painful but I can't scream or cry.

I can't call out to my mother even though I desperately want to.

Gray hovers over my vision, tears streaming down his face as he picks my lifeless upper body up from the bed and hugs me tightly. I can't look in the corners of the room, my eyes won't move, neither will my body. The only person in the line of my vision is my twin sister. A nurse is holding her back but she's fighting him, her face reddened, tears all over her face.

Gray is still holding me up. Usually when he hugs me, I can feel the warmth of his body against mine. Today, I feel nothing. Just his cold tears dripping on my shoulder.

Am I dead?

Genuinely from the depths of my soul, I am confused.

I must have laid on the classroom floor for an hour or maybe just thirty seconds, I don't know.

There were footsteps, I heard footsteps when I was lying on the cold floor. Then everything happened too fast. The ambulance, my family, the defibrillator and now, the tears. One thing that will make me rest easy is they found my phone in my pocket. They took it out immediately we got to the hospital. That makes me happy. Gray hugging me makes me happy but I can't move hands to hug him back.

Memories are imprecise. They're vague and deceitful. Whatever I'm thinking now could be real or just a figment of my imagination. I want it to be over. I want the pain to end.

Am I dead?

They still won't let Diana come in. Though there's such grief and pain and fear on her face, the nurses are holding her back and won't let her come to me. That breaks my heart. Now there's a doctor trying to rip Gray and I apart. The doctor wants him to just let go but I know Gray. He will never let go of me.

I hope he holds on.

I hope Diana gets to me in time.

A little too long and it will be late.

I'm confused. I'm happy. I'm sad. I'm agitated.

Am I dead?

I want to wake up. I want to run to my sister and tell her I'm fine. Gray never cries. I want him to stop crying. It's making me nervous. Now I'm nervous. The thing about these feelings is that, once you start feeling a new one, the old one never leaves. It's stuck with you. Feeling too much hurts.

Am I dead?

The doctor succeeds in tearing Gray and I apart and I fall back on my bed. Now there's no pain. All the feelings are gone. There's nothing. I'm nothing.

Gray presses his lips on mine and it feels like nothing.

That shouldn't be how our kisses feel like.

The doctor brushes his hands on my face and closes my eyes. Now my vision is gone.

Everything is gone.

God please.

"I love you so much," I hear Gray, so distant, so faint but I hear him cry. I can't move, nor see, nor feel but I heard him. Then again, memories are vague.

If only grandpa could see me now. His only cosmic child. He'd say, "Genevieve, you belong in the stars."

This is chapter 41 Extended. That's why it's so short. Chapter 42 will be updated soon.