second installment of untitled

A Story by Daisy Savage

second installment of my last post - there is more to come still, I just wondered what you guys thought of where I was going!:)

“Oh, God. Oh, God. How do I tell my mum? How do I tell her mum? Oh, God.”

“What’s that, dear?”

I watched as he looked up. A short, plump nurse was peering at him, her silvery grey perm cut close to her face. Her blue uniform was pulled tight around her, emphasising the curves that years of cuddles and home-baking with her grandchildren had caused.

“You were mumbling, dear. Speak up,” she smiled, busying herself with the trolley she was pushing.

I bet he didn’t realise he’d said anything aloud, I thought. The rims of his eyes burned red from within his drawn, white face, his long eyelashes catching tears that glistened in the harsh light of the corridor.
“Now, now, pet. What on earth is the matter?” she bent towards him, concern misting her soft features.

“Nothing,” he replied gruffly, though I could hear the wobble in his voice.

“That girl in there is yours, isn’t she?” she asked gently, nodding towards the door beside him.

He shut his eyes, leaning his head against the wall. She placed her small hand on his and my heart broke as I watched him fight to stop his shoulders from shaking with sobs. She sat beside him on the hard plastic hospital chair for a long time, until he had no energy left to cry. Slowly, single tears found their way down his cheeks and fell to his shirt. The agonising scenes of the evening left me numb and I realised that I too was crying. I felt Toby take my hand in his, and I cried harder, unable to peel my gaze away from my mourning boyfriend. His eyes were red raw, his nose pink and shiny. His skin was ashen with sorrow and his face looked thinner, almost skeletal.

“How long has it been?” I whispered to Toby, my voice catching in my throat.

“A few hours,” he murmured back, watching me as I watched Alex. We were stood a few metres away, and had watched him for the last half an hour or so. All he had done in this time was alternate between staring at his fingers and cry silently, and it was breaking my heart. He looked broken. It felt as though someone was ripping my stomach out, I wanted to rush out to him and hold him, to tell him everything was alright. The unbearable hollowness that left my insides cold made me choke on the sobs that I was trying not to control.

A loud clatter and raised voices broke this sombre spell, and I dropped Toby’s hand quicker than if it was alight. The nurse and Alex whipped round to see my parents burst through the heavy doors at the end of the corridor at the same time as I heard them: “Martin, don’t give me that, I just want to see if she’s alright!” my mother was yelping, teetering towards the door of my room with an anxious frown. Behind her my father was crying, visibly wincing against the haranguing my mother was flinging at him. This didn’t surprise me; I’d always been much closer to Dad than I had to my mother. She didn’t see Alex sat by the door until he stood in front of her.

“Mrs Green, I am so sorry...” he tailed off as she brushed past him into the room, leaving him dazed in the doorway.

“Don’t worry about her,” my dad smiled sadly, shaking his head.

“Mr Green, I am so sorry,” Alex repeated in a whisper, his eyes filling with tears again.

“It’s not your fault,” Dad sighed, grasping Alex in a quick hug before following my mother into the hospital room.

Alex dropped back onto the chair, fresh tears falling from his eyes in a flurry. The nurse hurried back to her trolley and handed him a tissue before she bustled through the doors behind my parents. I turned to Toby.

“What’s happening? Why can’t I speak to them? And who even are you?” The questions tumbled from my mouth before I could stop them, and he looked at me, eyes wide in startled confusion.

“Come with me,” he said, gesturing towards the doors leading out of the corridor.

I cast a glance at Alex again, who was resting his head against the pale green wall, eyes closed. I didn’t want to leave him.

“We can’t talk here,” Toby urged me again, and, reluctantly, I followed him out of the hospital.

We sat on a high red-brick wall in the staff car park, legs dangling below us. By this time I had stopped crying, and instead was staring numbly ahead of me. I fixed my eyes on the battered dark green Peugeot in front of us, trying to forget what was happening. Toby’s intake of breath brought reality crashing down around me.

“It’s not quite the end for you yet,” he said, as if it was the simplest thing in the world.

“What do you mean? I’m dead, aren’t I? I can’t talk to anyone; I can’t talk to my family. It’s over for me,” I whispered, fresh tears hurrying down my face.

“Well... Yes, you are dead, and no, you can’t talk to them. But it’s not over just yet.”

“What do you mean?!” I demanded, angrily scrubbing at my nose with my sleeve.

“You were taken before your time, and you can’t move on until you’re ready to.”

I turned to look at him, incredulous.

“I’ve just died.”

“Exactly, you’re not ready!” he exclaimed, exasperated.

Internally, I fumed. Not only had my life just been taken from me, and I had just witnessed the people I love the most sob over me in a hospital corridor �" my mother excluded, though we’d never been close �" but I was still being told what to do. By a boy who had been dead for.... Wait.

“So what are you doing here?” I asked curiously, forgetting my irritation for the moment.

“Same as you,” he sighed.

“You’re dead too?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“Hit by a tram. 1886. Killed instantly. Like you,” he answered softly, his pale blue eyes meeting mine.

“Like me,” I repeated, suddenly seeing the similarities between us. We were both about the same age, both killed by public transport, both hurting. A wave of empathy surged between us, and I smiled.

“How come you haven’t moved on?” I frowned, confused.

“Same as you,” he smiled, almost proud.

“You’ve been dead for over a hundred years! How can you not have moved on?” I laughed, my earlier anger dissipating into the night around us.

“Well... I like watching the world,” he admitted. “It’s changed a lot, you know. And I like watching the new-comers,” he added, grinning at me again.

“So how do I move on? If I want to, I mean,” I added hurriedly, my eyes pricking at the thought of Alex and my father looking at my bruised body.

“You’ll know when you’re ready.”