Tonight and the Rest of My Life

J. E. Miller

2005

Part IV

“I feel so light. This is all I want to feel tonight. I feel so light…tonight and the rest of my life.”

The lights in the hospital shone down harshly in each corridor. It was a busy night in the Emergency Room and extra doctors and nurses had been called in to handle all the trauma…all the bloody, messy, doped up trauma.

They hadn’t seen this much injury—physical and emotional—in decades.

Room One found a teenage girl with deep, crimson scars on her wrists. She’d lost so much blood, the doctor thought for sure he was going to lose her…but thanks to the help of an emergency blood donor – the girl’s brother – she was able to replace some of those beautiful cells. Passed out, her hair scattered across the pillow, she slept, exhaling softly while her parents sat in stiff chairs, wondering numbly what they’d done wrong.

But they hadn’t done anything wrong.

They were wonderful parents. They simply had failed to see all the signs that their daughter wasn’t satisfied with her life. She put on an amazing act. The girl’s brother stood against the wall, watching as each breath left her lips, thanking God for that moment when he’d found her. He’d been terrified beyond belief, but she wasn’t gone…

And she wouldn’t be.

Treatment options were in discussion and the second the girl woke up, she’d be faced with a few choices.

Her life was worth living…

Simply because she still had hope and love.

Room Two had held an older woman who was conscious with some burning. She’d been smoking a cigarette and fallen asleep, but she was fine overall. The doctor had called her daughter, but she hadn’t shown up.

But that didn’t surprise the woman.

Her daughter was and always had been, just a stupid goddamn slut.

She had lied years ago claiming the mayor’s son had raped her…always wanting and begging for attention.

So her mother did what she did best.

She quit caring for her child and thought only of herself.

Dismissed three hours after her arrival, she passed the third room and saw a familiar face…

But continued walking, deciding not to give said child the satisfaction of her support.

Room Three contained a car accident victim. Her blood alcohol level had been triple the legal dose and nearly fatal. The driver of the semi truck was okay, but the girl was suffering a few fractured discs in her spine. The man who had saved her that very night stood in the lobby talking to an officer, waiting to find out if she was going to be charged, ready to help her get a good defense lawyer and some serious help.

She was a girl in trouble and he knew that. He’d tried to help her earlier that night, but she’d dismissed him and climbed from his car, thinking he just wanted to use her.

It had been luck that he’d been called to work that night upon her accident…and that night and been able to save her life.

Upon the end of his talk with law enforcement, he went to her room where he found her just beginning to stir from a dozing stupor. He reached for her hand and running a strong finger across her palm told her why he was there.

He didn’t want to use her.

He just wanted to help her start over.

And he would.

In Room Four, the night had come full circle. A young police officer by the name of Jimmy McGuire had come across the body of an eighteen year old girl passed out behind a diner. Needles sat next to her side, along with a wrinkled letter to her parents.

While he waited for the doctors to do anything they could to save the young girl’s life, he sat in the lobby and read the letter, shocked at what his eyes read and upset that his predictions about her hobbies had been true. Crushed that he hadn’t been able to help her, he sat in the hard blue chair for what seemed like days until a doctor finally emerged and called for him. Standing and swallowing a lump in his throat, he approached the doctor, pocketed the letter, and waited to see how long it would be before the girl.

He needed to help point her in the right direction.

From day one she’d drawn him, from her shy smile, to the sad look in her eyes. He’d been aching to ask her out for months, but he knew the skinny girl wouldn’t have said yes. He could see the demons in her eyes, see her pain for what it was exactly.

Sighing deeply, he asked the doctor how long it would be until he could see her.

The doctor said he could see her at that very instant…but he had more news first.

The shy young girl who’d written her parents a letter telling them that she wasn’t sorry for fucking up their lives…

That beautiful free spirit he’d met one day on his coffee break…

She’d died minutes after arriving at the hospital.

They just couldn’t save her from herself.

And at that moment, because he hadn’t saved her, he didn’t feel very proud of himself at all.