Page 30

Story: The Day Love Died

Celeste’s heart was breaking with remorse. If her son had made a mistake, she did everything she could to make matters worse. Kellen’s doubts had started the destruction, and she had added even more poison to it. Celeste maintained her hand on Kellen’s shoulder, but he didn’t move. Her heart grieved when she saw her son like that, and it cried in regret for not trusting the girl she had previously thought of as a daughter. What type of mom was she? Where was she when her kid really needed her? She had to leave that innocent person behind because she was too obstinate to see.
“Kellen…”
Kellen blinked once, and a few tears fell from his eyes. He didn’t try to brush them away. He gently pushed Celeste’s hand away from his shoulder while keeping his hand on hers. He didn’t glance up at his mother since he thought he didn’t deserve any love or comfort. He should have been roasted in the fire he made himself since he was a monster.
It was another hour. And then, all of a sudden, Doctor Robert was coming out.
Ryan stood up straight and hurried up to him. “Doctor?”
Kellen jerked out of his daze and got up right away when he saw that the doctor had come out. He was pushed by Ryan, who seemed quite angry about it, and stood in front of the doctor. “Doctor, how’s Lena? Please tell me she’s okay,” Kellen said in a voice full of fear.
Ryan had also stepped up to stand next to Kellen, waiting with bated breath.
“Why aren’t you saying anything?” Kellen said, his voice shaking with terror as the doctor kept quiet as if he were looking for the right words. “L… Lena’s okay, right?” he mumbled. He was too nervous to ask about Lena since he was afraid of hearing anything that would end everything.
What if he never saw Lena again? What if he never got to hear her speak? What if…  No! He didn’t want to worry about the “what ifs” anymore.
Ryan turned his face away in disgust. It was disgusting to see Lena’s so-called criminal husband behave like he cared about her. But things were quite bad, and Ryan held back his need to punch out this difficult man. But then he saw Lola, who was gazing at both Ryan and Kellen in complete perplexity, even though she seemed like she was worried about everything. Someone still didn’t know.
“It’s been a very important surgery,” Doctor Robert said, frowning. “We took out as much of the cancerous tissue as we could, but at some point, we couldn’t go any further because normal brain tissue was getting in the way. And… we lost her pulse for almost a minute, but thankfully, we were able to bring her back to life.”
As the doctor told Kellen more and more, his face turned pale, and every cell in his body went numb.
The doctor said after a short pause, “The next seven hours will be very important for her. If she doesn’t wake up by then—” His lips became a straight, grim line. “Then I’m sorry to say that she might never wake up again. She’ll go into a coma.”
Don’t wake up again…
Go into a coma…
Kellen lost it when the words sank into his head. He became angry and walked forward. “How dare you say that? You were supposed to fix her!” His eyes were red, and it seemed like he had fully lost his mind by now. The sound of Celeste and Lola crying next to him only made the hell-fire storm in his imagination worse.
The doctor only raised an eyebrow and stayed quiet. It was clear that he had seen family lose it when they heard bad news before.
But Ryan was a different story. It was no longer feasible for him to keep putting up with this annoying condition. He pushed Kellen away from the doctor and lifted his hand to hit him hard in the face. But at the last minute, he pulled back. He looked at Kellen’s face for a long time and noticed that his eyes were full of shame, regret, agony, and dread. The man seemed like he wouldn’t be able to stand up straight for long. Ryan grunted and put a hand in his hair.
What could be worse than this?
Kellen leaned back against the wall behind him and put his hands over his face. He seemed like he was trying to hide from his own gaze. Yes, that was a childish thing to do, but he didn’t know what else to do.
******
Kellen looked out the glass window in the waiting room before the ICU. Celeste had departed and will be back in a few hours. Her trembling goodbye words were not heard.
Ryan had walked off a while ago, complaining about the cafeteria’s direction. It was easy to surmise why he was upset. The hospital had given them files to fill out, and Kellen had signed all of them when they came with Lena. He had even put his name as the husband on the consent papers for the procedure. Kellen might now be a permanent scarecrow in front of the ICU window, and it would be very hard to get rid of him. The nurse had thankfully told everyone they couldn’t go inside Lena’s room; otherwise, some individuals would have had a lot of violent outbursts.
Lola gasped and then snarled, “You’re the mother-f*****g husband?!” when she finally understood. And then she said that Kellen had to go, and the protest became futile when the police got involved. It seems that the authorities didn’t want to hear about the history but simply the signals in the forms.
After that, Lola marched out with her phone stuck to her ear. Kellen thought that Damien was being told about how things were becoming worse.
Kellen let out a sigh. He was glad he could stay here, near to Lena, while he waited for her to wake up. He didn’t know what he would have done otherwise. He knew he didn’t belong here, but he had forced that humiliated part of himself to keep silent. He couldn’t go anywhere till Lena woke up. If it meant he had to put up with insults from some devoted friends and be told every other minute how unimportant he was on this planet, then so be it. Anyway, everything of that was true.
“I know,” he mumbled, looking up at the dark sky. He prayed that morning would burst through the darkness soon and bring back his light. “I know I shouldn’t be standing in front of you and asking questions. But I have to ask you questions.” Kellen wondered if he was becoming crazy for having a discussion like this. But at that moment, he would have rather gone crazy than see Lena slide away in front of him. “Is it my fault? I’m the monster here. Then why are you punishing her? To this extent?”
He quickly glanced across at Lena, who was sleeping soundly on the white sheets with her head wrapped in white bandages and an oxygen mask over her face. She looked very weak! It broke my heart to see her hooked up to so many pieces of equipment that showed she was alive but also showed how much she wanted to die.
Kellen used the sleeves of his shirt to wipe the tears from his cheeks.
No. In fact, he was the one who was punished here. God was really punishing him by trying to take Lena away in a way that he would never be able to get to her again.
“Please don’t do this. Don’t take her,” he said in a voice that was much lower than a whisper. “Please, I’m begging you. Anything but this!”