AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
I focus on that and the sting of pain instead of the ominous feeling lurking in the space surrounding us.
“W-where are we going?” I hate the stammer in my voice, but I can’t help it.
Something’s wrong, and I just want to run and hide in a closet.
Maybe sleep there for a while and never come out.
“It’s Kingsley. He had an accident and it’s critical.”
My world tilts off its axis and splinters into bloody pieces.
4
Nathaniel
Acoma.
The doctor is telling us that Kingsley is in a vegetative state. He’s saying things about swelling in the brain due to the impact and that he might wake up in the next few days, weeks, or never.
This hotshot surgeon spent hours working on my friend with his people, and yet he still couldn’t bring him back.
He was in the operating room for hours, just to tell us that King might or might not wake up. I don’t miss the fake sympathy or his attempts not to give hope.
But even if I grab and shake him, then punch him in the face, it won’t bring King back, and it sure as fuck won’t serve any purpose. Except for maybe getting rid of some of my pent-up frustration.
Gwyneth listens to the doctor’s words with her lips slightly parted. They’re lifeless and pale, like the rest of her face. She clinks the nails of her thumbs and forefingers together in a frantic, almost manic type of way. It’s a nervous habit she’s had since she was a kid—since she learned the truth about her mother.
She flinches slightly with each of the doctor’s explanations, and I can see the exact moment hope starts dimming from her colorful eyes.
Because she has a tell.
Whenever she’s sad or under the weather, the blue-gray will dim out the green, nearly eating it out like a storm would swallow a bright sky. And just like that, the signs of rain condense in the form of moisture in her reddening lids.
She doesn’t cry, though.
No clue if it’s due to Kingsley’s upbringing or the missing piece she’s been searching for since she learned about her mother, but Gwyneth doesn’t cry in public.
At least, not since she was a pre-teen.
She just keeps jamming her nails against each other, irritating the cut on her forefinger over and over again.
Clink. Clink. Clink.
And with each clink, she’s burying something inside. A needle, a knife, or something sharper and way deadlier. She’s swallowing the poison while being well aware of its lethality.
Due to my line of work, I’ve seen countless people’s reactions to grief. Some have mental breakdowns, others express it in any physical form possible, whether it’s screaming, crying, hitting, or sometimes, straight out murder.
The emotion is so strong that reactions differ from one human to another. But the ones who suffer from it the most are those who pretend everything is fine. Those who stand tall and treat the occurrence like any ordinary day.
Unless they’re psychopaths or have lost their sense of empathy, that’s not normal. Gwyneth sure as hell doesn’t have any antisocial tendencies, so she’s digging her own grave with those bloodied nails right now.
As soon as the doctor finishes his dialogue, he says we can see Kingsley, but only through a window since he’s still in the ICU.
