Best friends, Forever

“Don’t go!”
“It’s to late, I’m gone.”
“No! We have right now, your still here in front of me.”
“Only physically, this isn’t where my heart is. You know that.”
“I won’t believe it. I can see you, I can hear you.”
“My soul has moved on, I’m not who you remember me as. I’m empty.”
“You’ll always be my Thayne.”
“Go Rebecca. Leave me. I don’t want you to see me like this.”
“I told you I’d stay with you till death!”
“You already have.”

Rebecca ran from the dreary hospital room unable to hold back her tears any longer.  Just as she had promised Thayne that she would stay with him until the very end, he had asked her not to let him see her cry.  She knew he hated seeing her cry; she didn’t want to put him in any more discomfort right now.

“He will live. He has to live. You can save him! You have that technology, that knowledge!  Thousands survive and he is only one. He is strong enough!  I can’t go on without him, therefore his last breath cannot be drawn tonight, unless I am meant to end tonight as well, and I feel fine.  This is not the end. This really is not the end.  This is only a hard part of life, but it is life. Not death.  He will wake tomorrow, he will!”

Stopping to take a breath Rebecca realized she had fallen to her knees and was now proclaiming all of this information to a very startled looking nurse.  She stared down at Rebecca with wide eyes, and as Rebecca looked up at her she saw the surprise melt away as sympathy took its place.  The tears on Rebecca’s face still ran strong, though she didn’t make a sound.
Not knowing what else to do, as apparently neither nurse or Rebecca knew what to say now, Rebecca got up and continued walking down the hall appearing significantly calmer.  As she walked away she heard the nurse approach another medical professional and suggest that Rebecca be kept over night so that her mental stability could be monitored.  Rebecca left the hospital with the thought in mind that she would have to come back for news on how Thayne was in the morning, she couldn’t handle any more thinking tonight, she needed to just cry herself to sleep in a mindless fit of the painful sadness she’d be holding in.

“She’ll be okay. She doesn’t really need me as much as she thinks she does.  She will see that, I know she will.  I can’t control that I’m dying.  I don’t want to leave her alone; half of what is killing me has to be that thought.  Yes she can make new friends, but she doesn’t want to.  Where will I go? What will I do in a new place without Rebecca?  I can’t think of that, it’s to upsetting…  I’ll call her… in the morning.  It’s 11:26 now.  I can make it till a decent hour.  I can’t leave without saying goodbye, I have to tell her I love her.”

Thayne lay in the stiff hospital bed, alone now and in the dark.  He knew Rebecca had cried or was crying for him.  She wouldn’t have left otherwise.  At least not so quickly.  He’d been in the hospital now for 2 months.  The doctors all told him that his immune system was weak and shutting down when he had come into the hospital, that’s why he was feeling ill to begin with.  Now however it seemed much more complex and vital systems in his body were shutting down, without being able to rely on his immune system for protection.  They told him attempts to keep him alive would be futile.  He believed his heart and soul, emotionally, had died when he saw the look in Rebecca’s eyes after he told her that nobody thought he would make it and she realized she was going to loose him sooner then either of them ever thought.  Thayne’s mind wandered back to the memory of a conversation he’d once had with her…

“You know, when everyone else walks out on me, I find that you stay.  You don’t even care that you’re the only one still around.  You stay with me no matter what they say.”  Rebecca had stated.
“You never give me any reason to leave.”  He had assured her.
“Other then you could have friends that are so much cooler then me.”
“I don’t need or want anyone cooler then you, to me you are awesome.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“Could you see yourself leaving me? Ever?”
“No.”

He felt tears poised to enter his eyes, as recalled telling her that he’d never leave her.  It felt like his heart had gone stone cold and heavy.  Why was this happening?  He felt the pain Rebecca had felt as she had run from his room.  He wasn’t likely to see her again.  As any doctors who had seen her run from his room were hoping she was satisfied with what she had last said to and heard from him for they didn’t believe she’d get another chance to say goodbye.  This couldn’t be goodbye.  It just…couldn’t.  Goodbye had always been overtop of the phrase I’ll see you tomorrow.  Goodbye had never before meant forever, it was too unreal.  A jolt of surprise shook Thayne when the phone rang.

“Hello?”
“Thayne?”
“Rebecca?”
“I can’t stand this, is it really goodbye, like a serious goodbye?”
“I don’t know. I wish I knew. I wish I could tell you this was just another night and we could have all day tomorrow to do whatever we wanted to. But I don’t know anymore.”
“Stay strong, Thayne.”
“I’m doing everything I have the power to. I can’t leave you Rebecca.  You’re my best friend. You may as well be my lover, I do love you.”
“I love you to Thayne, I always have, we’ve always loved each other. We just never felt compelled to say it before.”
“I want to be able to say it to your face.”
“Perhaps you will be able to.”
”I wish that could be for sure though. Perhaps is such an unsteady word.”
“I’m never going to forget this, or anything else about us.”
“I couldn’t if I tried to.”
“I can’t do this. I can’t hear you sound so sad, I can’t be this far from you when you’re so unsure about tomorrow.”
“I’m not unsure about tomorrow. I’m afraid there will be no tomorrow for me.”
“There will be a tomorrow for you. I’m going to talk to you tomorrow.”
“I can’t depend…on… tomorrow anymore.”
“I’ll talk to you… tomorrow.”

Thayne never saw the sun rise.

Rebecca watched the sunrise, knowing in her heart that the detached feeling was there because she was alone.  She didn’t need a sympathetic looking nurse to tell her that.

Rebecca held one memory of the 3 weeks she spent grieving after Thayne’s death.  She remembered the part of the funeral where an elderly lady she hadn’t known had come to her and placed a hand on her shoulder to say “There is a land of the living and a land of the dead, and the bridge is love.”
Rebecca had known that this elderly stranger was right when she said that because she was alive, and although Thayne was not, they still loved each other, best friends forever.