Gwen-Chapter One

I am tired of thinking of the past. I grab my backpack slinging it over one shoulder and make my way out of the house. This wouldn’t be the first time I ran away. My parents understood I always came back after the seventh time. This started right after the accident. The accident. God I just had to get my mind off of it. All I thought about, it’s what kept me awake at night and asleep during the day. I weighed in at 74 pounds my last visit to the doctor, but I’ve probably lost 5 pounds since then, give or take a few. The accident happened in May around two years ago. But I don’t want to think about it right now. It’s all my therapist makes me think about it. Dr. Browning. That’s the name on the little plaque that sits on her desk. “Just call me Dr. B. Or Sherrill if you prefer.” She said the first time I went to her. I dig through my pockets. Twenty dollars ought to be enough for one night on the streets. It’s always just one night. Except for the first time. The first time I stayed out for a week with almost 50 bucks and two changes of clothes.

“I guess I do it to run away from myself,” I told Amy. Amy is my friend, but my parents never let her stay over.

“She lives on the street. What makes you think she wants to stay in a house?” My parents had said for an excuse when I asked if she could possibly crash at our place for a couple of days.

I turn onto the familiar street, the sign has been vandalized so much that you can’t read it anymore but I know what it said when it was visible. “Adam’s street.” I say with a deep breath. I walk to where his house used to be. Where his house still is sort of. His parents never had the guts to sell it. They just wanted to move closer to the hospital that saved his life. He is still alive. Well kind of, if you call a coma alive. It kills me to visit him so I rarely do. They say the days I go are his good days. He’s improving, or so I’ve heard. I wrench open the door to the shed, “Our little place.” As he used to call it. On the walls hung posters of all the bands we had seen together. I grab the notebook. “If you ever want to know what I have planned for the two of us, just look in here.” He told me once with a smile. I turn to the page that I have memorized; all I want is to see his handwriting.
May 3rd,
I’m taking her (yes you Gwen!) to New York. I can’t believe you’ve never been to the city. I love you anyways, no matter how important to me it is! I arranged it with my dad, he’s letting my use his car. The Mercedes. You love that car. So I convinced him to let us use it.
I love you forever and always,
Alexander Sterling III (the love of your life)

I smile. I always smile when I read this page along with all the other ones. I take a seat in “his chair”, my chair was always his lap, and cry myself to sleep.

I awake several hours later in a daze. I pull out my cell phone and call his Mom’s cell.

“Hello?” came her voice; dry from nights of crying herself to sleep.

“Mindy? It’s Gwen.” I say wiping the sweat off my hand.

“Oh! Gwen!” she said surprised and a slight bit of joy was hinted in her voice.

“Do you think I could come by and…umm,” I don’t know why this is so hard to say. It just was, “and check up on Alexander?” No one ever called him Alex. It was. It is always Alexander.

“Of course!” I can tell she was smiling over the phone, “you don’t have to call me and ask.” I wonder if she means this, or only likes that it’s me that’s helping him improve for some reason. I hang up the phone without a goodbye.

I head to the very back of the shed and pull his bike off of the wall. I never rode it, I tried to once but I fell off and got Alexander really worried. I never tried again. But this time I needed to, the hospital was two miles away. And half of that distance was an overpass. I am not going to walk that far. It surprises me how much I’ve grown in two years. I hadn’t really noticed, but now riding his bike was easy. It takes me thirty minutes but I finally got to the hospital.

“Oh dear, we thought you’d never make it!” Mindy says pulling me into a warm embrace.

“It was quite a journey.” I mutter, doing my best to wipe off the grass stains on my favorite jeans.

“How’s he doing?” I ask, my throat cracking.

“Much better.” Mindy says offering me a small smile, “he has a lot more brain activity than a week ago.” Her smile gets bigger, “They think he’s going to pull through, even after two years he may pull through.”

I smile too and head down the hall I had traveled down many times before and enter his room. “So I hear you’re going to pull through.” I say to Alexander who looks like a baby soft asleep. “Do I detect a smile?” I continue throwing my backpack onto the chair. I notice for the first time that he was breathing without a tube. It is a good sign. I curl up next to him, “sorry it’s been so long since I last came.” I say wrapping my arms around him, kissing him on the cheek. I can just tell that he knows I am here. I watch the monitors a bit. There are less of them than there where when I was here last time. He looks more peaceful than I remember, last time I was here it seemed as if every breath could be his last. I wonder if me being gone had helped him over time. But they said the days I came were his good days. “I can’t wait for you to get better.” I whisper, holding myself closer to him