T R U M A N

I wasn't wearing a watch, and my phone was shoved somewhere between the couch cushions, but the look on the nurse's face was enough to tell me that visiting hours were over soon. Sometimes I thought about hiding under the bed and staying the night with Katie. Maybe the nurse's wouldn't check there.

My fingers froze on the shirt's last button. Spending the night? At the hospital? I couldn't remember the last time I was able to spend more than ten minutes with my sister without crying. Just the sight of her laying there was enough to tug my heart up, through my mouth, then throw it on the floor.

I think the guilt was starting to fade. Or maybe my heart was starting to mend.

I finished the buttons and spun around to face Katie, stretching my arms out.

"What about this one?" I asked.

She didn't have to answer. I already knew she'd say red dress-shirts were strictly for old men. The kind that lurk in bars with the top button undone. The kind Eden would tell me about.

"You're right," I said, unbuttoning the shirt and throwing it onto the couch. I grabbed the pink one, put both my arms through the sleeves, then sighed and took it off. I could not pull off pink.

"What about the one I wore to prom?" I asked.

"You didn't go to prom," is what Katie would have said if it wasn't for . . . everything.

Instead of laughing with my sister, I took off the shirt, put on my hoodie, and collapsed onto the couch.

"I like the white one."

I nearly fell onto the floor, thinking it was Katie's voice. But it was only her nurse, Celia, standing in the doorway. She was smiling in her blue scrubs.

"Katie used to say white shirts were boring," I said.

Celia walked to her bedside. Reading over the chart, she said, "Sure, or they can be classic. What's the occasion?"

"My girlfriend invited me to her friend's wedding."

I think that was the first time I ever smiled in this building.

"Then you should find out what colour she's wearing," Celia said, "and match your tie to her outfit." She placed the chart back down, winked, and walked to the door. "Ten minutes, hun. Then you have to go."

When the door shut, I called Eden. She answered on the second ring.

"Hey," she said, breathless.

I stretched back on the couch. "What are you doing?"

"Santana bought all new furniture, we just finished bringing it upstairs. What are you doing?"

"I'm here with Katie. We're talking about how weird it is that my ex-girlfriend and current- girlfriend are roomies."

"Oh yeah." I could hear her smiling. This room witnessed two smiles today. "What does she have to say about it?"

"Katie greatly disapproves."

"Tell Katie to pay for seventy-percent of my rent and I'll kick Santana out." Someone yelled, Eden swore, a door slammed, and I heard her bed creak as she lay down. "How is she?" Eden whispered.

"Same as always." I eyed the tubes, the heart monitor with a steady red line and my sister, laying in bed, looking like that princess she was obsessed with as a kid. "Hey, what colour are you wearing to the wedding?"

"I thought I promised you devil red," she said while yawning.

"You did, and we both know how important promises are to you."

"Very funny."

"But you did break your last one, so. . . I need some guarantee you won't break this one too," I said, ignoring the nurse now glaring at me. I still had, like, five minutes. "Eden?"

"Too soon."

I chuckled, shoving the dress shirts in my backpack in a way that guaranteed they'd be covered with wrinkles.

"Can I come over?" I asked. "I'll make it up to you."

She wouldn't let me though. At least not in the way I had in mind. Eden had spent the entire weekend at my house, just the two of us, and insisted on sleeping on the couch. Then pretended to be surprised when I forced her to take my bed instead. What'd I get out of it? A bad back and an even worse case of blue—

"Are you using me as an excuse to see Santana?" She was laughing so loud I had to hold the phone out in front of my face until she calmed down.

"Can you come over instead?" I was halfway out the door, and the nurse finally stopped glaring. I waved to Katie and made my way down the hall, pressing the phone closer to my ear.

"I have class tomorrow at eight," Eden said, "and then work all night. Rain check?"

My heart wasn't racing when I stepped into the elevator like it used to. I wasn't worried about what would happen to Katie when I was gone. Or if I'd return tomorrow to find her condition had worsened. I wasn't crying. My hands didn't shake.

I listened to Eden's voice as the doors closed, then watched the numbers flash until it reached the main floor.

Well, that's not entirely true.

My heart was racing. For a different reason now.

________

I got back to my apartment to find my parents standing in the hall. They were talking, with their faces nearly touching. I could tell they were angry. Dad's arms were crossed too tightly, and Mom never went anywhere without a smile.

They turned towards me at the same time, and both of their faces lit up. It reminded me of the summer Katie's hamster died. They looked at her the same way before breaking the news.

"What are you two doing here?" I asked, reaching into my pocket for the keys and wondering when the last time I vacuumed was. Or washed the dishes. Even opened a damn window.

Mom laughed too loud. Dad slapped my shoulder, then said, "We don't need an excuse to come visit."

"We just went for dinner down the street," Mom added, walking in first and turning on the lights. "And you disappeared for a week, Truman. You know we worry when you leave."

"Right." I grabbed three water bottles from the fridge and joined them on the couch. There was that look again, the bad news lingering behind too wide smiles. "Will you just tell me what's going on?"

"What do you mean?" they said at the same time. Then my mom drank half her bottle.

I turned to my dad. He'd be straight with me. "Is it Katie? I was just with her. She's fine."

"It's not that," he said. His hair was grey now, but it still fell over his forehead like mine.

"I'm starving!" My mom stood up and ran into the kitchen.

"Mom—Dad, what's going on?"

He was about to answer when Mom came back. "Everything is either stale or needs to have boiling water added to it. Truman, where's your real food?"

"Don't know, Mom. Did you check the real fridge?"

"Can we all sit down?" Dad said. Mom looked like she had aged backwards, turning into a little child as she crawled onto the couch and wrapped herself in his arms.

They were staring at me, the same way they had that night when I walked into the hospital, Eden in tow. I remember my mom couldn't speak. She wasn't crying either. She just stood there, frozen, staring at something no one else could see. My dad was the one to grab my shoulders, whisper the details of Katie's condition and lead me into the waiting room.

This felt like that.

My heart was racing. I think the heat turned on because I was sweating and tugging at the collar of my shirt. My fingers couldn't stop shaking, and maybe it was all the cigarettes I'd been smoking, but I couldn't remember how to breathe.

"We were talking to Katie's doctors," Dad began.

I stopped listening some time after that. Mom's crying came easily. It was her smile that was forced. I wondered why she thought she had to pretend this was a good thing. We all knew it wasn't. My dad was saying words like "quality of life" and "Katie wouldn't want this" and I thought it was ridiculous. The only person who knew what Katie wanted was laying in a hospital bed right now, unable to speak.

I reached into my pockets and fumbled around for the cigarette pack. It was empty. I vaguely remembered Eden flushing them down the toilet the other day. I laughed. I thought it was cute. It made my heart beat quicker to know she cared about me. Now I just wanted to smoke, to breathe in anything because there was no air in this fucking room.

I never really thought about how long Katie would be in a coma for. I always just assumed she'd wake up one day and I'd drive her home. She'd see her new bedroom furniture and smile, probably call me lame and tease me for missing her. I'd deny it, then eventually tell her that I did. There was never a point I imagined her not waking up, or any type of future my sister wasn't apart of.

If it wasn't for the permanent oxygen tube allowing her to breathe, she'd look like that princess she loved, like she was merely asleep. But she flew through the windshield when the car hit her, and her brain wasn't the only part of her that was damaged. She couldn't breathe on her own.

Maybe that was why I started smoking, to destroy my lungs like the accident destroyed hers. It seemed so stupid now, to take for granted breathing when there was people who couldn't. People like Katie. Still, my fingers itched for a cigarette.

"Truman?" It was my mom's voice this time. Gentle, like the way she'd call my name in the middle of the night when I was little, peeking her head through the doorway to check if I was asleep.

"Yeah."

"What are you thinking?"

"I don't know," I said.

"It's almost been six months." Dad this time. He was crying. Or maybe I was crying. "You know she wouldn't want this," he whispered.

The worst part was he was right. Katie never took naps. She only slept five hours a night. She didn't like to be asleep. "I don't want to spend my life with my eyes closed" was her motto. Instead she'd run down the stairs too quickly; she'd skip down the driveway and come back an hour later with blue freezes; she'd sleep in the backyard under the stars because it seemed more adventurous than wasting the night in a bed.

Dad was right. Katie wouldn't want to spend years in a hospital bed, holding on because we wanted her to.

"We don't need to decide tonight," Mom said, "but it's something we should think about."

"Okay."

The conversation was over.

I waited for my parents to leave. After they were gone, I didn't move. I pretended my body was lead and sat in that same spot until the sun rose. I imagined what that'd feel like for years, not being able to move. I realized it sucked. Then I realized that would be Katie's life, forever.

She wouldn't want that.

No one would.

Was it selfish to keep her alive? To visit her in a hospital room for the next decade because none of us had the strength to say goodbye?

My parents wanted to take her off life support, but I don't think they realized Katie wasn't the only one on it. I was too. Pulling the plug would kill the both of us.

I finally found a new pack of cigarettes, shoved underneath the couch. I smoked the entire thing in an hour. It was a new record. At this rate, my lungs will deteriorate just as quickly as Katie's did.

___________________

please tap the star and vote!

hi. lot's to talk about! what do you think they'll decide? what would eden want? share with me your thoughts on these 2 chapters!!