Don't Leave Me

         A tall man swiftly jumps out of the cab as an old woman rushes in, practically pushing him into the snow that covered the ground.
         "Jesus," he mutters before flipping up his collar and walking inside the white hospital still littered with Christmas lights.
         After signing in at the front desk, the man trudges down the hall towards the last door to the right. Opening it and clicking on the light that the attendances never bother with, the man illuminates the figure lying still on the pristine white sheets of the bed. He walks over and stares at the figure's face, tears starting to fill his eyes and cloud his vision.
         'Oh Marcie,' He thinks taking in her sickly pale skin, grossly thin body, and the slight movement as one of the many machines around her forces air in and out of her lungs.
         "Sorry I haven't been able to visit love, work and the family have been keeping me busy," the man explains with a slight smile and goes on to tell about the events of the past weeks.
         He is in the middle of a work story when there's a knock on the door. It opens to reveal a man in a suit wearing a grave expression.
         "Stephen, it's time," the man says with no emotion.
         Stephen nods and turns his gaze back to Marcie, pushing hair away from her face and lovingly stroking her paper white cheek. Bending down, he lightly kisses her closed eyelids and squeezes his eyes shut as he remembers the emerald-eyed girl with curly dark brown hair who snorted when she laughed, who loved kids but could now never have any of her own, and who was a closet addict to boy bands but would regrettably change the station when one came one. The girl who could always brighten Stephen's day with a simple smile and that stole his heart with a kind gesture. The same girl that now lays here with needles awkwardly jutting from her skin and a tube jammed down her throat.
         Stephen lets out a shaky breath as the door opens and the man in the suit strides in, with a handful of nurses following him. Lifting his head, he keeps his eyes glued to the slight rise and fall of her chest as the needles and tubes are jerked out of Marcie's body without care. He flinched as the incessant beeps of one of the machines grew louder and more urgent, mimicking Marcie's racing heart.
         "I'm so sorry," Stephen whispers as the machine let out a loud single beep that echoed throughout the room until a nurse unplugged it.
         As the wall clock strikes twelve, a loud roar erupts from outside the window and the tears in Stephen's eyes finally fall, hitting Marcie's cheeks to make it seem like she too is crying.
         "Happy New Year," Stephen mutters as the nurses and the man in the suit leave, turning off the lights as they go.