Chapter Twenty-ThreeKami
Waiting…
I was no good at it. I didn’t have the fortitude. If you’d asked me before, I’d have said I was patient. I was a calm person who was mentally prepared to make it through any storm, but this goddamned waiting was killing me.
Thiago wouldn’t wake up.
The doctors insisted that the operations had been a success and they could see signs of brain activity, but for some reason, he just wouldn’t wake up.
They finally let me see him—his mother wanted me to. I sat there in silence, observing him. A white bandage was wrapped around his head. He was breathing on his own, but he was very still. Very peaceful. He looked like he was sleeping.
His mother kept saying he’d wake up soon, she was sure of it, and I believed her. No other possibility fit into my thoughts. I couldn’t bear to think otherwise, I couldn’t imagine it.
Thiagowouldwake up.
And yet the days turned into weeks.
Life went on, and I had to make important decisions. A big one was where I would go to school.
Carsville High reopened its doors, but not many of us wanted to revisit those halls; most people didn’t even want to walk past the building. Lots of students requested to be transferred to other schools in the surrounding counties. But I outright refused to go at all.
Over Christmas dinner, my father insisted: “Kamila, you have to finish high school.”
He had decided to come back to Carsville, at least for a while, to be close to us. And strangely, my mother seemed happy about it. She’d experienced a catharsis of sorts after what had happened, and that changed things for all of us, Dad included. All those hours of not knowing whether we were dead or alive had caused her to rethink many things, and one of them was the way she lived her life.
It seemed like, as a family, we’d found a way to come closer after the tragedy, but quickly my parents seemed to unite against me, and they wanted to decide my future for me and tell me what was right or wrong. I wasn’t going to allow that: If I’d learned anything from what had happened, it was that life is a gift, and it can vanish in the blink of an eye. It’s far too fragile to spend it worrying about other people’s ideals.
“I’ll finish school, Dad,” I said calmly. “But I’ll do it my way.”
“Saint Michael’s is the best school in the state, and they’ve offered free scholarships to the survivors. We won’t even need to pay for it.”
That was another thing: Everyone was showering the survivors with gifts and charity. Famous people had come to visit, colleges were offering scholarships—it was as if none of them realized that the one thing we wanted was to wake up from this nightmare.
“Forget it,” I said stubbornly.
My father smacked the table so hard that Mom, Cameron, and I jumped.
“You will! You’ll finish school and you’ll go to college! Those murderers may have ruined this town, but I’m not letting them ruin your future, too!”
But my lifewasruined. I felt soulless, only capable of going through the motions: eating, sleeping, doing a little exercise, and not much else.
I didn’t want to go to the psychologist.
I didn’t want to go to work.
I didn’t want to do anything except visit Thiago in the hospital.
That was my life.
Visiting him and keeping him company.
I didn’t even talk to him. I’d just sit in a chair and stare.
Day after day, that was all I did, and that was all I wanted to do until he opened his eyes.
“Taylor’s going to be studying at home starting in January,” my mother said. “Ms. Di Bianco told me. The district has set up a program. You can follow your own schedule, and that will allow you to graduate on time…”
That was another thing.
