Hours

Gabriel was in the kitchen, deep shadows under his green eyes.
He smiled when he saw me, “I’ve been waiting for you,” He pulled me in and hugged me tight. I laughed.
“I can’t breathe,”
He kissed the top of my head and held me at the waist.
“You look like shit, Gabe,”
“I’m hurt,” he frowned.
“How are you feeling?”
“I’m not sure. There’s nothing left to throw up,” He grinned.
“You look awful,” I traced the dark circles under his eyes. “We should go to the hospital tonight. You’ve been sick, for like a week, Gabe,”
“I guess it couldn’t hurt, right?”
“Not at all,” I smiled. I was glad he wasn’t stubborn, like me. I just wanted to get him better. I hated seeing him so sick, and plus, being stuck inside all day isn’t very exciting, even if I am with Gabriel.

He took a shower, and put on some clothes before we left. I drove, and I started to wonder if he even needed a doctor. He looked tired, but not so sick anymore. He hummed to some Michael Buble song on the stereo until we got to the Hospital.

Because his cancer came back, they put him in a bed automatically, as a precaution. I sat next to him.

“What are you smiling at?” He asked as he toyed with the IV on this hand.
“This is kind of funny. Roles reversed. I feel like Prince Charming,”
“Ah, yes. That’s me, valiant Prince Charming. Funny, I don’t feel like a princess right now,”
“Oh, you’re not supposed to. You’re Nikki, the damsel in distress,”
Gabe thought for a moment, “Well, this is significantly less cool,”

I patted his cheek and we both laughed. It was silly. We’re both so weird. The doctor came in shortly after.

He was holding one of those stupid metal clipboards with a bumper sticker on back that said DOCTORS SAVE LIVES. NURSES SAVE DOCTORS.
“Good Evening, Mr. Masters,” He smiled that fake car salesman smile. “How are we feeling?”
“Good, good,” Gabriel replied politely. He hated doctors just as much as I did….
The doctor flipped the pages on the board. “Do you mind if I speak with you privately?”
Gabriel looked to me, then back at the doctor like he was crazy. “Uh, yeah. I guess,”

I rolled my eyes. Doctors are stupid. I kissed Gabe on the cheek and led myself out of the room. The doctor closed the door behind me. Rude.

I strolled over to the nurse’s station and leaned on the counter. “Hi, Ruthie!” Ruthie was my favorite. She always puts French braids in my hair.

She looked at me kind of funny, and paused before she said, “Hey, sugar. How you doin’?”
“Good, good,” I smiled. “Gabe’s here,”

She only nodded and patted my hand. I felt my stomach sink. What was she doing? I awkwardly said goodbye, and made my way over to the vending machines. I laughed as I put my dollar in, because it was the same machine where Gabriel and I had first met. Thankfully, a water bottle popped out instead of sprite this time. I wandered around the floor for awhile, saying hi to the people I knew, and making polite conversation. I returned to Gabriel’s room almost an hour later, feeling a little guilty I let the time slip away.

The doctor was gone and the door was hanging open. I stepped inside. I was about to say something, but the look on Gabriel’s face made the sound catch in my throat. His eyes were rimmed red, and his eyebrows knit together in a look of worry.

“What?” I asked kneeling next to him. Gabriel only grabbed my hand, leaned his head back, closed his eyes and chuckled. Tears came out of his eyes as he laughed. I sat on the bed.

“What’s going on?” I whispered, wiping away his tears. He just shook his head, held my face in his hands and kissed me. “Gabriel?” I asked, scared, when he pulled away.

I left him there on the bed, and ran into the hallway. The doctor was standing next to the medicine cart, writing something down.

“What just happened?” I demanded, looking him square in the eye.

The doctor hesitated, looked over to Ruthie, and then back at me. “Gabriel has an infection running through his body. Because it’s been through his system for at least a week, it begins to steamroll. There’s nothing we can do to stop it. We’ve given him medication for the pain,”

Wait, what was he saying? He didn’t mean…. He couldn’t mean… But Gabriel looked perfectly fine. A little pale, maybe, a little tired, but not…what was going on? No. No. My brain couldn’t even process what he had just said, but I found myself asking, “How long?”

“Five, maybe six hours with medication. It’s amazing he got here when he did. We’re trying to make him as comfortable as possible…”

If he was going to say more, I wouldn’t have known because I ran back to Gabriel, the tears already pouring out of my eyes. I laid on the bed right next to him and wrapped my arms around him. He held me back. We sat there and we cried. That’s a lie, I cried. I sobbed into his chest until he finally pulled away.

The pure serenity on his face confused me. “Why are you so calm? Aren’t you angry? Aren’t you scared?”
He shook his head and a tear fell out of his eye when he blinked.
“Why?” I demanded. “Why not?”
“That’s not the last thing I want to feel,” He said simply.

Why was this happening? I needed someone to slap me. I was hyperventilating, sobbing uncontrollably. It wasn’t right. Five hours? Is that what the doctor said? All I had was five hours left with the boy I loved? He sat right before me—so very much alive—breathing in nice even breaths like the ticking of a clock.

I didn’t have time to cry. I couldn’t I couldn’t.

I angrily wiped the last of my tears away. Gabriel pressed his forehead to mine. He held my face in his hands. “Love is watching someone die,” he whispered.

“It wasn’t supposed to happen this way,” I whispered back. How many times had I tried to prepare myself for this moment? I’ve lied awake countless nights playing the scenario over and over again in my head; what I would do, what I would say to Gabriel, only it didn’t matter now. Because I’d always assumed I would be the one in the hospital bed. That was supposed to be me.

Why wasn’t it? How come it wasn’t me? My heart was beating one thousand times a second almost screaming at God, ‘I’m right here! You have the wrong person!’ but he couldn’t hear. So I sat there, watching the man I loved --the one who saved my life more than once-- die.

He called his mom. A very brief, and to the point conversation from what I heard, but I wasn’t really listening. My heart was beating too hard. I held onto Gabriel like he was all I had left. And he was.

I lay next to him; he put one arm around my waist, and held my hand with the other. “I want you to listen to me,” He stared me straight in the eye. The tears still fell from my eyes, from my heart, but they were silent, useless things. “You have made me the happiest I have ever been in my entire life and I am blessed that I’ve had you for so long. I love you, Nikki. You never forget that, you understand?”

Why was he saying these things? Reassuring me? But he was the one dying, he was the one. It was him. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t process.

So I only nodded.

“You’re going to feel sad, but you have to promise me you won’t feel this way forever. Promise me you’ll do everything you can to be happy. You deserve nothing less. Promise?” He was talking to me in slow, deliberate statements, as if that would make his words mean more; as if he couldn’t rest until I he knew I understood. How could I possibly matter to him still, even at a time like this?

I nodded again.

“Tell me. You have to tell me,” He said desperately.

“Yes, I promise,” my voice cracked through a whisper. “I’ll do anything you want me to do. Tell me what to do,”

He could have told me to jump off a bridge at that moment, and I would have. I was his, totally and completely. I would do anything for him.

“Stay with me. There’s no one in the world I’d rather be with right now than you. I love you so much,” he said again, and kissed the top of my head.

“Tell me more,” I whispered, too afraid if my voice was any louder, I’d want to scream.

“Don’t go to my funeral. We’ve been to enough, and that’s not how I want you to remember me. Remember me for today,” He brushed my cheek with the back of his hand. He thought a moment, and then laughed to himself, “That’s a lie, remember me how I was Wednesday, my hair looked good,” He smiled wide, and I couldn’t help, but smile in response.

How could he do it? Talk about his own funeral so calmly? He was one hundred percent serene and blissful. I didn’t want to ruin his mood. I didn’t want to ruin the next four hours.

“Tell me what else to do,” I whispered and traced the lines on his hand. Truth is, I didn’t want him to stop talking. I wanted him to go on forever and ever. I just wanted to hear his voice—his words—and everything he had to say.

He thought for a moment before he spoke again. “Write to me when you’re lonely, I’ll read everything. Tell me everything, like you do now. Put me in your stories, in your books. I know you’re going to finish it,” he smiled. “Listen to our songs and smile. Sing to me. It’ll be okay. It’s always okay,”

He always said that. “It’ll be okay. It’s always okay,” And it’s something I’ve always taken comfort in. Not for the words themselves, but for the person they were coming from.

So many things I wanted to tell him, to let him know, to ask him, but in that instant my heart filled my entire body, and I couldn’t think straight. You think you’d know exactly what you’d want to say to the love of your life if you knew he had only hours to live. You think. But the room fills with so much love and frustration and pain it’s hard to breathe. There was a huge lump in my throat and my stomach tied into a thousand little knots. I had to tell him what I could. Something perfect. I wish I had one sentence that summed up some sense of how I feel about him, how he’s made me feel, but the rhetoric slipped from my fingertips. I spewed out words regardless, because there was nothing else I could possibly do.

“You fixed me when I thought I was broken. You are the greatest thing that has ever happened to me. I love you so much, and I will never stop loving you,” I squeezed his hand and forced the tears to stay in their ducts. Gabriel kissed me then, long and hard, and I didn’t want to stop, ever. I could have stayed frozen just like that.

I stayed with him; my head resting on his chest, as nurses and doctors came in and out periodically ignoring us, only tampering with the machines for a few seconds. The priest came in and said a prayer, which only made me mad because I was angry with God and I felt like he was mocking us, but Gabriel didn’t seem to mind. We started to talk about happy things, like when we first met, and all the songs we used to sing. Gabriel told me he was going to send me a sign that he was okay. That everything was going to be okay. I told him to make it something big, that would smack me in the face, and he promised.

We whispered. And it wasn’t because we wanted privacy. The soft speech was important, a necessity. It protected the moment, the soft, fragile moment, like silk on glass. I needed the words and the silence; a perfect medium.
Eventually we both sat in the silence, side by side, holding the other’s hand.

Maybe I fell asleep in the peaceful minute, or maybe I lost track of precious time, but the machine next to us beeped furiously and it jerked me upright. Gabriel’s eyes were closed, and the LCD screen flashed red, the lines scribbling furiously. I stood from the bed still holding his hand.

“Gabriel?” I half cried. Was this it? I shook him. “Gabriel? Gabriel, please!” I stood, feeling the sobs already forming. I ran to the hallway.

“Help! Somebody please come help him!” I screamed. The tears were clouding my vision. I ran back to Gabriel, still unmoving on the bed.

The doctor and the two nurses stormed into the room. The doctor ordered one of them to get me out, but I shook her off and stood in the corner. Gabriel lay still, unmoving on the bed as the doctor worked hurriedly above him. The nurses fired up the paddles, and they put them on his chest making his body jump, but that was it; a mechanical movement that didn’t mean anything. I watched the scene before me, an unreal, terrifying experience, like something out of a movie. Only there wasn’t going to be a happy ending.

Still, part of me hoped I was dreaming. It wasn’t really happening. I wasn’t watching Gabriel die. All I had to do was think really hard, and I’d wake up, relieved of this awful nightmare.

They shocked him three more times before the doctor finally said, “Time of death, 4:22am,” There was a heavy silence except for the machine next to Gabriel. It beeped in one strait tone, mocking everyone in the room. The Doctor clicked it off.

It seemed like I only blinked and they left the room empty. Just me and Gabriel. My body was numb. I couldn’t feel my feet as I floated toward him, lifeless on the bed. The tears were gone then, and I felt my face sit idly. I held his hand, still warm, one last time, bent down and kissed his forehead. I kissed his hand too, as if it were really necessary. And I sat there, motionless. Did I just die too?

And for the first time in my life, I prayed.

What are you trying to do, God? What are you proving by taking him? You took light and love and so much strength. You made a mistake, a huge mistake. He never hurt anyone, he saved them. He saved so many people, didn’t you see? Were you not watching? Fix it. Please take it back, fix him. Save him.

I clutched Gabriel’s hand harder, hoping to God he’d squeeze back.

But God wasn’t listening, and the stars fell back in place.

It took every ounce of me to walk out of that room knowing it was the last time I was ever going to see him, to feel him, but I found myself drifting down the hallways, out the door and into my car. All the while my heart cracked a little more, waiting to completely shatter. I felt nothing until I sat in the driver’s seat and looked next to me, realizing I went there with Gabriel, and now I was going home alone. I punched the steering wheel. The tears I held back poured out with ease now.

He was gone. Love. Life. Meaning. Over. I would never see him again. He was dead, Gabriel was dead. I’d never felt so alone in my entire life. Who was going to pick up these broken shards? Who could possibly piece my heart back together?

I don’t even remember the drive home; I just know it was almost light out when I arrived at my house. I went in my room, the tears never stopping, and laid in bed, staring at the blank walls. There was nothing else to do. Sleep seemed like a joke, even though darkness crept over me, my eyes stayed open.

And the darkness is still here. I’ll never forget him, and I never want to. I love him.