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Lena grumbled in satisfaction since she was sitting in a more comfortable posture. Her back felt better. “I know, but I wouldn’t change it for anything. The world needs more crazy people like her.”
Ryan didn’t say anything. He proceeded to give her the tablet the nurse had told him to give her half an hour before lunch. Lena saw Ryan moving his feet as she took it down with a drink of water. He seemed a bit tired. “You want to say something to me.”
He groaned in defeat and said, “No.”  “Yes.”
Lena turned her head to the side and waited. Whatever it was, she could tell it was bad.
“Earlier, you and Kellen…” He stopped for a second, seeming displeased, and Lena froze. “He said he was sorry and all that. Are you going to forgive him, Lena? After everything he did?”
Lena spoke out after a lengthy pause.
“Ryan, first tell me if you can forgive me for what I did.”
“What will I forgive you for?” Ryan’s forehead crinkled in a grimace of complete uncertainty.
“Because I don’t trust you,” she said with a sigh. “I went to yours that night after,” she said, stopping for a moment since she didn’t want to talk about the terrible thing that happened again.
Ryan nodded, and his scowl went away, but a shadow of melancholy swiftly took its place. “I know. I saw the pictures.”
“I heard you talk on the phone. I heard half of what you said, and I thought the worst,” she said, her voice breaking for a second. “I heard about the gift you sent and how excited you were that Kellen would get jealous. I thought you were the one who stabbed me in the back. Even though we have been friends for a long time, I believe you sent those photos. And I left! Can you forgive me for that?”
Ryan was shocked. He recovered his voice, what felt like hours later, although it was only a few minutes. “It’s not the same, Lena,” he murmured quietly, glancing down at his hands.
“Isn’t it?” Lena questioned in the same way.
They both looked out the window that was open across the room. For a long time, they didn’t say anything.
Ryan finally said, “Well, I guess I’m a hypocrite, Lena.” He thought for a moment before speaking again. “Selene made a forest fire through Kellen, and I could be a source of fuel for it. It’s a global truth that Kellen was possessive and insecure about you, even though he always acted confident. I’m ashamed and guilty that I used to enjoy seeing him burn with jealousy when he saw me with you. Sometimes, I did it on purpose. I was so used to getting a good laugh when he acted like a madman and took you away from me. It was funny until it wasn’t anymore…”
Lena sat still.
After that, Ryan didn’t say anything for a long time. At one time, the stillness was too much for him, and he said her name. “Lena…”
“All of us are imperfect freaks, aren’t we?” She kept her eyes on the window, but her thoughts were elsewhere.
Ryan agreed, “We are.”
“And when we break things, they can be fixed, but they’ll never be the same again,” Lena added with a smile as she turned to Ryan again.
It was one of those times when invisible spirits cried “Amen” from all around.
Ryan used to be Lena’s best buddy. But when tragedy struck like a ninja, the bond fell apart, and the gap increased. Ryan came back, and their relationship grew anew, yet the past was still there. Ryan had to share the location he thought was only for him…  with Lola and Damien.
She had always loved Kellen, but so much had happened by this point that even forgiving him would never make things the same again.
The pace has been broken a long time ago.
It was time for the new, too.
******
When Kellen walked back out of the room, it felt like death would have been better than this. He left, just like Lena desired, and didn’t stop until he got to the small botanical garden on the side of the floor. He sat down on the seat next to a long line of Laelia orchids and put his head in his quivering hands. Kellen was completely unaware of the beauty and scent around him, unlike a few pregnant ladies and an old man in a wheelchair who was paralyzed.
His palms were damp on his cheek. He understood that they had gathered his tears.
His breath caught as he thought back to what had just happened. He couldn’t help but think about how Lena would have felt when he pushed her face away from her begging eyes that night.
If possible, his remorse simply grew, and he was afraid that this pain would never end. Because if it didn’t, it was extremely likely that one day, all he would have left in his life would be this pain. He was afraid. He felt afraid, like a youngster who had lost their way. The thought that no one may locate him made it even worse. He had lost his world and had nowhere else to go.
As the minutes went by, he slowly became aware of what was going on around him.
A couple that was expecting was talking quietly to their child on the opposite side of the orchids. This was the most peaceful vista there was.
Kellen could sense the excitement, happiness, and love in their voices. He felt like he had lost everything, and it was like another horrible nail in his heart.
There was a flash of lightning in the sky, and then there was a loud boom of thunder.
Kellen heard the man on the other side of the orchids laugh and remark, “That’s Velden. You never know when the cloud will take the sky.”
The woman’s voice laughed, too. “Come on, let’s go inside before our little one kicks me in the face because she’s scared of thunder.”
“Like mother, like daughter.”
The pair who couldn’t be seen departed, and the woman was out of breath. Then the rain started. Others, too, fled in a rush. Some, though, kept close to the double doors under the shed.
Only Kellen stayed where he was, looking up at the icy drops of heaven. He let the rain fall along with his agony.
Lola laughed behind Lena for the fourth time as she pushed the wheelchair down the hall. Lena rolled her eyes or tried really hard to do it.
“Pushing this damned thing makes me feel like I’m at the store. But there’s a person inside the cart,” Lola said.
Ryan and Damien had gone home, so it was Lola’s time to take care of Lena. And she was turning out to be a really eager babysitter. With Lena’s life danger out of the way, Lola was able to focus on all the fun things at the hospital.
Finding Dana at the hospital wasn’t hard. The nurse at the counter helped with it. Lena toyed with the petals of the baby pink flowers on her lap as Lola recounted how the nurse told her to push the wheelchair into Dana’s room. The sky blue thin ribbons that held the cluster of flowers together looked great with the pink. “This color looks good on you, Lola. Did you get these from the flower shop across the street?”
“Yes, that’s the shop. They have an amazing selection of flowers, you know,” Lola said with a smile. “And their business is doing well; the line of customers was THIS long. It was a smart move to open the shop right next to a hospital. It was a sure thing that it would be a success. Damien picked out the color, ribbons, and roses, or I was very interested in buying the Dracula Simia Orchids.”
“Dracula ah—Orchids?”
“Yeah, damn, it looked like the faces of Count Dracula were pasted on each one of them! That’s interesting. I almost bought them.”
Lena was glad that Damien stopped it from happening. Dracula—whatever Orchids didn’t seem like the right flowers to give to a four- or five-year-old with cancer.
When they got to Dana’s room, Lena didn’t see what she thought she would see.
Dana’s weak body was lying on the hospital bed. Her face appeared dried out, and her eyes were buried deep into what seemed like enormous pain. She looked sickly pale, but as she glanced up at Lena, her eyes lit up like nothing was wrong. Her energy was as bright as a new day. “It’s you!” Dana tried to scream, but all that came out was a shaky voice. “They took your hail too.”
Lena grinned. “Yes, I guess they did.” Her head was still bandaged, but it was clear that there was nothing but pierced skin behind it.
There was a teddy bear on one side of the bed, and on the other side, a couple who seemed worried sat on a chair and a stool. It wasn’t hard to figure out that they were Dana’s parents. It took Dana a good several minutes to introduce them to Lena. She even pointed to the bump on the sofa that was covered by a thin blanket. “That’s my brother, Lanky—”
“It’s Tony,” Dana’s dad said, gazing at Lena and then beaming down at his daughter.
“Yes, that too,” Dana said, brushing off the correction like it didn’t matter. “Miss Lena, he’s magical. The doctor said that Lanky has magic stuff inside the long bone in his back, and some of it he’s going to give me so that my illness goes away. Do you like those flowers? I love pink!”