Death Promise

Beep… beep… beep. That familiar rhythmic beat fills my head. The expected white glow of the hospital room stings my eyes. The copper scent of blood fills the air. My boyfriend sits beside me, his face warped by distress. So much like my dream. But something was wrong. Something was different from this dream than all the others I’d had. The scene was the same, but the pain was different. It wasn’t imaginary, it was excruciating.
“This isn’t a dream?” I ask.
“No, it’s not.” His voice is like honey, sweet and soft. I look at him, confused. This wasn’t the man I loved. Dan’s voice was deeper, rougher.
“Who are you?”
“You don’t remember?”
“I thought I did… but you’re not the man I thought you were.”
He chuckled lightly. “You confused me for my brother, didn’t you Kelcie?” He raised one eyebrow mockingly. “I thought you knew me better than that.”
Brother? Dan? Dan didn’t have a brother, and he certainly didn’t have an identical twin.
“Nurse! I need some help in here! Nurse!” I twist around in the stiff bed, scooting as far away from this mad man as I can.
“No one can hear you, Kelcie. No one except me.”
“NURSE!”
“You’re in a coma right now,” he placed his hand gently on mine. “No living person can hear your cries.”
“What?”
“Do you remember what happened a year ago to this day?”
A year ago? Well, that was when I started having the dreams.
“You were in this very hospital. Both of us were.”
“What are you talking about?”
“We were driving down highway 42. It was late. We had been celebrating Jetta’s 21st birthday…”

“Happy Birthday to you!”
The chorus ended in a rupture of cheers. Jetta sucked in a deep breath and blew out all twenty-one candles without pause. Applause rose throughout the bar.
“Thanks everyone! This has been the best party a girl could ask for. The next rounds on me!”
I weaved through the guests to where Jetta stood handing out beer.
“Happy Birthday, Jetta!”
“Oh thanks you guys!” Her arms fell around me in a tight hug. “Here, have a couple of drinks,” and she handed over two glasses filled to the brim.
The night grew late, but the alcohol kept flowing. The music coming from the ancient jukebox could barely be heard over the chatter of friends and the crash of billiards. Eventually the crowd dwindled down to only the hard core.
“Chug chug chug chug!”
Jetta downed a glass of beer. Within seconds a young man with dark brown hair placed his empty cup down hard on the table next to hers. Six tall glasses stood empty. The bar tender filled two more and set them down in front of the competitors. Jetta looked at the fresh drink before her, her face growing pale-green. Her brown eyes grew big as the young man lifted his own glass to his lips and pushed the drink down his throat. He set the glass down, looked at the remaining drink, reached across the table with a glint in his blue eyes, and chugged the final beer. Cheering and backslapping drowned out the sound of Jetta puking in the corner. I went to her, laughing, to hold her hair out of her face.
“You did really well. I only got down two drinks my first time.” I laughed as another round of sickly smelling puke spewed from Jetta. “And it only gets better tomorrow!”
Jetta pushed me away. Giggling, I went to get my purse.
“Good-bye, Jetta! And happy birthday!”
Jetta took a moment to look up from trashcan she had been hovering over.
“Thanks, Kelcie. You two be caref…” Another round of intense vomiting cut her farewells short.
I stumbled dizzily out the door into the cool night air. I climbed into a black Sudan parked next to the door. I feel the car start to life and smell the exhaust. Soft jazz starts to play as the car rolls backwards. I don’t see much besides the darkness, but I hear the car accelerate and know I’m on the highway. Something warm touches my face. Then, bright lights shine out of the darkness. There’s no sound of a scream, no sound of squealing tires. Just metal crushing metal.

“You were the man I hit?”
“No. I was the man who was driving you home.”
“What? No! No, I was alone…”
“Do you remember turning on the car?”
“I remember hearing it start!”
“But do you remember turning the key in the ignition?”
No, I didn’t remember starting the car. I didn’t remember backing it out of the parking lot or pulling onto the highway.
“I was wasted! I couldn’t possibly remember everything!”
“I didn’t expect you to. You took a serious blow to the head. You were in a coma for five months.”
“Oh, how convenient. A coma.”
He wasn’t paying attention to my criticism. He was too busy digging around in his pocket. When he found what he had been looking for, a soft smile crossed his face. He held up a tiny, circular object.
“I was going to propose to you when you woke up.”
The tiny diamond sent rainbows across the white of my bed. I was awe-struck. Without thinking, I stretched out my left hand towards the beautiful ring. The mystery man took my hand gently and slipped the cool golden band into its proper place. It fit perfectly. As the ring weighed down on my finger, memories came flooding back.

Running into a boy with the bluest eyes I’d ever seen. Watching him scramble to pick up the books I’d dropped. Walking down the hall together. Walking down the hall holding hands. Meeting his family. Meeting his twin. Dancing at prom. Dancing in an empty apartment. Kissing.
Singing Happy Birthday to our best friend. The drinking contest. Driving down a dark, empty road. Smiles on our faces. His warm hand on my cheek. Then headlights, coming straight at us. A crash. Darkness.

I gasp for breath as the memories came flooding back. My eyes left the beautiful ring and focused on Aaron. My Aaron. The man I had loved. The man I still loved.
“Do you remember?”
“Oh, Aaron!” I threw my arms around him, sobbing. How could I have forgotten such an important person in my life? How could I have forgotten all the wonderful memories we shared? How could I have forgotten such a horrible night? “How did I forget so much?”
Aaron’s voice grew grave as he stroked my hair. “You had severe brain damage. Machines were the only things keeping you alive. The doctors didn’t think you’d wake up.”
Didn’t think I would wake up? How could that be? I was here now, wasn’t I? Alive and well.
“I never left your bedside, Kelcie. I didn’t want to believe what the doctors had said. I didn’t believe what they had said until…” he struggled to find the right words. “I heard you speak, Kelcie, but I didn’t see you lips move. At first I thought I was hearing stuff, but you kept talking. You told me about heaven and about seeing your mom again. You said that you were so happy. But you knew how much pain we were in, trying to decide if we would keep you alive on the machines or let you go. And so you told me… you said to let you go, that you wouldn’t want to live like this anyway.”
I pushed him back and stared in disbelief. My mother had died from cancer when I was seven. I had loved her so much the loss was unbearable for me, but I couldn’t imagine asking my boyfriend to kill me just to be with her.
“I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I couldn’t do what you were asking me to do. But you made me promise not to take this happiness from you. You made me promise to let you go, and I’m a man of my word. But your father decided to keep you alive, even after my arguments. I couldn’t blame him, but I had made a promise to you. All I wanted was for you to be happy.”
And there was the reason why I had loved Aaron so much; he only cared about my happiness. He would do anything for me.
“I went into your room after the decision was made, walked to your side, and took your hand. I told you I loved you one last time,” his voice cracked just the slightest bit, “and reached for your life support. It was the hardest thing I almost did.”
“Almost?”
“Dan walked in then and caught me. You know, he always had a thing for you, too. He wasn’t going to let me kill you.” Aaron’s eyes grew sad as he finished the rest of the story. “We fought. I pushed Dan and he pushed me… you know how much stronger he is than me… well, I fell.” Aaron took a deep breath. “The impact smashed my head in. I was dead seconds after I hit the ground. He didn’t mean for me to fall, he was only protecting you. He had no way of knowing…”
I lost my breath. A single tear trickled down Aaron’s face, but he quickly wiped it away.
“I love you, Kelcie, and I want to keep my promise,” He must have seen the fear in my eyes because he quickly added, “but I also want to make you happy. If you tell me to, I’ll leave now and never bother you again. But I thought you deserved to know the truth that everyone has been hiding from you.” He fell silent, waiting for an answer.
“I-I don’t know. I can’t even figure out how all of this is happening.”
“It was hard for me to understand too. Thousands of angry questions raced through my head… none of that ‘life flashing before your eyes’ junk. Would Dan sit by your bedside every day, wasting away his life like I had? Would your dad ever let you be free? Would we be separated forever now, you stuck in a half-life and me completely dead?” Aaron's voice grew louder with each new accusation. His eyes hardened into cold stones, his hands balled into tight fists. But as he continued to stare into my own concerned eyes, some of the tension faded away. His voice grew soft again. “I was surprised with the last question to pop into my head. Why had you put me in such a horrible position with such an awful decision to make? I didn’t want to take your life away. I wanted to wait forever by your side, until the day we could finally be together.”
The tears now came to quickly for Aaron to wipe them away. My own eyes blurred with the beginning tears.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
“No, don’t be.” He took my hands again in his. “When the life finally left my body, I had my answers. Dan would always take extra care of you, because he would always feel extra guilt for my death. Your father would never let you go; no father ever truly does. And we would be together again.” He smiled and looked down at our interlaced fingers. “And I discovered why you so much wanted me to let you go.”

A warm glow washed over my soul. Every painful thought and emotion faded away in the dying darkness. A beautiful world grew in front of my eyes. Heaven. So much like Earth, but so different. The grass was greener, the sky bluer. A warm breeze blew through the tall trees. A perfect place. How could anyone fear death if they knew they came to a place this spectacular.
“Kelcie?”
I turned around slowly at the voice I never expected to hear again.
“Mom!” My heart leapt as she embraced me. “I’ve missed you so much.”
“And I’ve missed you, sweetie!” She kissed my forehead. “Walk with me honey. We have so much catching up to do!”
We walked, and as we did, the landscape changed. The leaves morphed into reds and golds before my eyes, and fell by the thousands, as though winter were only days away. As the trees became bare, they shrank away from one another, opening up to a huge field. The dirt ground beneath my feet suddenly had the soft touch of freshly grown grass. Finally, the last of the leaves had fallen, and there we stood, on the edge of an old farm. I turned around to look back at the forest, but it was gone, faded into the magical land of Heaven.
“That was amazing.”
“It was, wasn’t it? But, I think you’ll enjoy this even more.”
My mother stuck her thumb and middle finger in her mouth and gave a loud whistle. There was a bark off in the distance, and my mother turned at smiled. I followed her gaze and saw a tiny black spec way off on the horizon. The spec was slowly getting bigger, so the object must have been moving closer, but it was so far away, I was sure it wouldn’t reach us for hours.
Within minutes, however, I could make out the form of the creature completely. A medium black dog with long, glossy hair was racing towards us, it’s mouth hanging open.
“Shadow!”
She leapt onto me, knocking me over, and licked my face. I stroked her soft fur and tried to get up, but she held me down. My mother sat down next to us, laughing. She pulled Shadow away from me enough so that I could sit up and grasp Shadow in a bear hug. It’d been six years since I last held my dog.
“Shadow and I live here, on a little farm, just like we always dreamed of,” my mother said after a short while. “Sometimes your grandparents will come from the beach and eat supper here. Other times, complete strangers will stop by and we have a great evening sitting and chatting. But I’ve been lonely without you and your father. How’s he doing?”
I told her Dad was doing fine. We talked for hours about the rest of the family still alive on Earth. I told her of the important things that had happened since she had left. Graduation, college, and, of course, meeting Aaron.
“We’re you being safe?”
“Mom!”
“Well, I’m just concerned about your well being! I don’t want you having a baby with someone you’re not going to spend forever with.”
“We both agreed that we wouldn’t have sex until we were married. And I think he’s going to propose to me soon. I saw him digging in my jewelry box the other day, looking for my class ring. I’m guessing he needed an example for the size.” I pause for a moment, thinking. “I wonder how he’s doing.”
“Well, honey, you can always check up on him. Here, just lay back. No Shadow, get off of her.” Shadow scooted away. “Take a deep breath, and close your eyes. Clear your mind of everything other than Aaron.”
I did as I was told, and slowly a hospital scene unfolded in front of my eyes. I smiled when I first saw Aaron, but then I saw the sorrow in his eyes. He looked as if he hadn’t slept in weeks, and his clothes were wrinkled and stained. His left arm was wrapped in bandages, and his face was covered with scratches. He was just sitting there, holding my body’s hand, tears streaming down his face.
“He looks miserable,” I whispered.
I felt my mothers hand on my mine, and the hospital scene faded a bit. Not enough to hide the pain of Aarons face, though.
“They always do when something tragic has happened. They don’t understand that we’re not in pain where we are now, that we’re happy.”
I hear beeping and notice the various machines around my bed. I recognize one that’s monitoring my heart beat.
“I-I think I’m still alive.”
“What?”
“There’s machines all around me, and one is showing that I have a heart beat.”
My mother’s hand was gone, and I heard her lay down next to me, taking in a deep breath.
“You are alive… somewhat. The machines are keeping you alive. It looks like you’re in a coma.”
“So, I’m not dead?”
“Not completely. Your body is severely damaged, so your soul must have assumed that there was no point in staying. But the doctors have kept your body alive, so you could go back.”
“I… could go back?”
“It would be difficult, and you would be in a great deal of pain, but yes, you could go back.”
I didn’t hear any sorrow or resentment in my mother’s voice. She wasn’t upset that I could soon be returning to the world of the living. Maybe it would have been easier for me to make a decision had she been sad at the idea of letting me go. I debated back and forth; leave this wonderful place to be in pain, or go back to be with Aaron. I did love him so. But I also loved my mother and Shadow, and if I stayed here I would get to see my grandparents again too. And eventually, Aaron and I would be back together again.
“Aaron, you can let me go.” He lifted his head. So he could hear me. “Aaron, it’s alright. I’m happy here. You can let me go.”
He looked around, shocked. “What’s going on? If this is someone’s idea of a joke…”
“No it’s me, Aaron! It’s really me. We met our sophomore year when you bumped into me. We were both scrambling to pick up my books when both of our hands landed on Romeo and Juliet. You asked me if I liked Shakespeare, and I told you I loved him. You said he was your favorite poet too, but you were just lying so that I would like you. You confessed that to me on our one year anniversary when you gave me a copy of Shakespeare for Dummies. Our junior year you mooned…”
“Ok! I believe you! Although, I’m not really sure how to believe you. You’re in a coma right now. How are you talking to me?”
“It doesn’t matter. What matters is that you know I’m happy here in Heaven. I’m with my mom and we live on a beautiful farm. You don’t have to worry about me. You can let me go.”
“Let you go? Let you die? But Kelcie! I don’t want to let you go! I want to be with you forever!”
Aaron was sobbing. His hands trembled and his body shook.
“Aaron, we will be together. I’ll wait for you here in Heaven, and when you arrive, we’ll spend all of forever together. But for now, you have to let me go. Promise me, Aaron.”
“I can’t.”
“Please, Aaron. I don’t want to live on machines for the rest of my life.”
“I cant…”
“Please.”
There was a long silence. Aaron got control of his body and slowed the shaking, but he couldn’t stop the tears from streaming down his face.
“I promise… to let you go… if you promise to wait for me.”
“I promise. I love you Aaron.”
“I love you.”
His voice faded away as I opened my eyes to the beautiful farm. I sat up, and found my mother and Shadow watching me. Their eyes showed neither sadness nor joy, but instead, curiosity.
“That boy really cares about you, doesn’t he?” my mother asked.
“Yes, he does.” I looked down at my hands. I wasn’t upset with my decision to stay in Heaven, but something just didn’t feel right inside of me. How could I have asked such a horrible thing of Aaron? I knew he would let me go so I could be happy, but what would it cost him? “He’ll never be truly happy again now.”
“He’ll find brighter days.”
I shook my head. “I shouldn’t have asked so much from him. I shouldn’t make him suffer because of what I want.”
“You know, honey, you don’t have to make him suffer.”
I looked at my mom. The woman who had raised me and loved me unconditionally. She was ready to give me up to make Aaron, a boy she had never known, happy. Could I give up this place to make him happy?
“I think… I want to go back.”

Heaven had been a wonderful place. I wondered how I could have ever left it. Then again, how could I have ever left Aaron?
“Why are you here now, Aaron? Not that I’m not happy to see you, but why would you leave someplace so wonderful as heaven?”
Aaron’s smile shrunk a little. “Well, I had made a promise to someone very important to me, and since I never had the chance to keep my promise, I was considered a soul with unfinished business. It was the one thing that ever made me frown while I was in Heaven. Your mother told me that the only way to be completely at peace was to finish my unfinished business.”
And that’s what brought him back to Earth. To finish what he started. To keep his promise. To kill me. I could tell him no; to go away and let me live my life, but then I’d be sending him back with the heavy weight of an unkept promise. I’d be taking away his happiness, something that he greatly deserved after all the pain I’d put him in before. Something he would have deserved even if he had died an old man in his bed. Anyone who would give up so much just to make the love of their life happy deserved to get all the perks of being in Heaven.
“I want you to keep your promise.”
Aaron smiled and reached for the plug.