Goddammit.
I was a fucking coward. I was an idiot for thinking that I could be here for her when I was shattering on the inside. But this wasn’t about me. This wasn’t about my pain, my wants, and needs. This was about Sophie.
My beautiful Sophie who was going through literal hell.
I swallowed the rising nausea and clasped my hand around the doorknob and pressed down, pushing the door open.
The beeping sound of the machine monitoring her heart was the first thing I heard as I entered the darkened room. Two lamps stood lit up on each side of the bed, casting a warm, yellow light over her face.
Machines I never saw in my life, stood on the other side of the bed, and the IV drip, already halfway finished, was connected to her right arm.
My eyes glazed over the scary machines, over the white walls and the television showing an unknown movie, and moved to her.
To the sleeping beauty.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, when my mom told me about her condition, my brain pushed these terrifying pictures that she wouldn’t look like my Sophie anymore. I guessed that in order to understand what was going on, our brain pushed us in the direction where we couldn’t see the person anymore, but only the disease eating them alive.
But now, as I stood here next to her bed, my hands shaking with the need to touch her, to see if she was still breathing, she still looked like my girl.
My fragile girl.
Her small frame looked even smaller in the massive bed, covered by a blue blanket all the way to her chest. The ashen color of her skin did nothing to appease the monster inside of me that wanted to save her and keep her far away from everybody else. And those dark circles around her eyes and the tubes connected with oxygen… They sent my anxiety into overdrive. Before I knew what I was doing, I was standing next to her right side, right where her arm was.
Unable to stand anymore, unable to keep the emotions at bay, I dropped down on my knees and took her hand into mine, brushing my thumb over her knuckles.
“I’m so sorry, Soph,” I sobbed. The tears attacked me without a warning. The anguish that ran through me before felt like nothing compared to the sobs shaking my body now. “I’m sorry I didn’t know,” I continued. “I’m sorry I abandoned you when you needed me the most. Words aren’t sufficient to explain what I feel for you, but I just hope you will find it in yourself to forgive me.”
I looked up, craving to see those forest-green eyes open, to have them look at me, but she kept them shut. An angry-looking cut above her left eye stared back at me, and I remembered that she fell during her routine.
“I should’ve been there, Soph.” I glared at the bandage around her head and the dried blood on her hair. This anger, it felt like a living, breathing thing. It was slowly spreading from my chest, through my veins, all the way to my head, but there was no person that I could throw it at.
Nobody was at fault, yet I blamed myself.
I blamed myself for the heartache I caused her. I blamed myself for being a shitty friend. I blamed myself for all those missed opportunities and years we had behind us, where we could’ve been much more than just friends.
If I were a braver man, I would’ve been holding her close to my chest a lot sooner, but I missed it. Now it was obvious to me that her tiredness didn’t come just because of school or her practices.
I googled what glioblastoma was, and I wished I hadn’t—headaches, dizziness, vision problems, and much more. I should’ve asked her, pushed more, but I retreated like the coward I was.
“I need you to open your eyes, Soph,” I whispered, caressing her cheek. I dropped my head down, my forehead touching her arm. “I need you to tell me how you’re feeling. You were always so vocal about the things that bothered you, and I need you to talk to me. Tell me to fuck off if you want to, but just wake up.”
The rational part of my brain knew that she was only sleeping, but the irrational one—the one that feared that every single moment I spent away from her was a moment missed—wanted her to open her eyes. That part of me wanted to hear her voice, to see her smile, to have her yell and laugh at me.
I wanted to lie to myself for a little bit longer so that she didn’t disappear right in front of my eyes.
“Noah?” came from my left, and with superhuman speed, I lifted my head, my eyes colliding with green ones.
“Sophie!” I jumped up while her eyes fluttered open and closed, her body fighting to stay awake. “Hey, hey, don’t move,” I warned when she started lifting her arm that was attached to the IV drip. “You’ll fuck up your IV.”
Confusion swirled in her eyes, as she struggled to keep them open, blinking rapidly. Not even a minute passed before the confusion disappeared, replaced by realization.
Her eyes connected with mine, her lower lip wobbled, and I could see it right there, staring back at me—she didn’t want me to know about this.
“You know?” It was a question, a whisper, really. “God,” she groaned and started pulling herself upward.
“Soph—”
“You weren’t supposed to know,” she cried out, avoiding looking at me. “I didn’t want you to know.” Anguish, anger, pain, they all sliced through me while she struggled to keep upright. “They weren’t supposed to tell you until you went off to college.”
