“Taylor, you know I can’t force
you to talk, but I think it would be beneficial if you said something,” Dr.
Kennedy sighed as he slouched back in his chair.
“I really don’t feel like
talking…I don’t have anything to say.”
“You know that isn’t true.”
“Yes it is,” Taylor barked,
jumping out of the chair and storming over to the window, “I’m just tired and
depressed; I am at a low point and there isn’t anything more I can say about
that! All you need to know is that I’m
taking my medication, I’m eating, and I’m not hurting myself; I am not relapsing,
so I don’t need to go back…I just need to be left alone.”
“I know that you aren’t having a
relapse, in fact it’s quite the opposite; you have been diligently working to
keep yourself from being hospitalized,” Dr. Kennedy said, joining Taylor at the
window, “But you aren’t yourself. You are
obviously hurting a great deal and you aren’t do anything to help yourself.”
“So what are you saying? You think I should just cut myself and get
it over with?” Taylor spat.
“Don’t get defensive with me
Taylor; you know that I don’t think you should do that. You also know that you can feel without
hurting yourself, even if that has seemed like an easy alternative lately. You have to talk about this; you have to
deal with it.”
“I don’t know how…”
“Than let me help you.”
Taylor turned to face the doctor
with tears in his eyes, “It has been so hard, I don’t know what I am doing
anymore.”
“I know; this is a tragic upset to
your world. It is not easy to know that
someone you love is dying and there isn’t anything you can do to stop it; that
you have no choice other than to say goodbye.”
“It feels like a bad dream,”
Taylor said with a heavy tear in his voice, “I just keep thinking that when I
wake up it is all going to be over, but it isn’t. I want so much to be strong for Lee, and for myself, but I don’t
know if that is possible.”
“Surprisingly, being strong
doesn’t require as much as you think…People have this idea that having strength
means you have to be indestructible, and it doesn’t. A person who is truly strong will cry and allow themselves to
grieve, but will not ignore life when it beckons them, and I know you are
capable of that kind of strength Taylor.”
“It’s difficult to feel that way…”
“I know,” Dr. Kennedy said
quietly, “But believe me, you will find your strength when you need it most;
you’ll never even imagine that you had it in you, but yet you’ll feel
ridiculous for ever doubting it.”
* * *
Pulling into the parking lot of
the hospital that temporarily housed Lee, Taylor repeated Dr. Kennedy’s words
over in his head like a mantra. He
could be strong. He could be
brave. He was invincible as long as
there was breath in his body. Taylor
wanted so much to believe that all this was true, that crushed somewhere
between his heart and his pancreas there was a superhero. Taylor Hanson was merely his Peter Parker; a
clever façade that hid his unimaginable strength from a world that didn’t
always need it. It may have sounded
ridiculous, but Taylor hoped it was true.
He needed to believe that there was an inhuman amount of strength
somewhere is his soul that was just waiting for a chance to reveal itself.
After Taylor had scrawled his name
in the familiar visitors book he headed for the elevator; he did not notice the
strange look the nurse gave him as he walked away. It didn’t even register in his mind. The memory would come back to him days later in therapy and
Taylor would realize he had almost seen it coming as he approached the tenth
floor, but he wouldn’t allow himself to believe what he never wanted to
understand. The door to Lee’s room was
shut; unusual. No one said anything as
Taylor twisted the cold silver knob and entered the room which was dark both
because on an absence of light, but even more intense was the darkness caused
by the room’s lack of spirit.
Taylor did not need to walk over
to the bed to see that it was empty, but his legs commanded him to take those
ominous steps. The bed had been
stripped and remade. Hospital corners
cold and unforgiving boasted the absence of a patient. Everything was new and without any soul. The room was dead.
Taylor caught the word ‘dead’ in
his mind and the first tears fell from his eyes. Irrational excuses began to race through his brain. Lee was better. Lee was back at the clinic.
Lee was out getting a test. Lee
had been moved to another room. Lee was
not dead. Lee could not be dead. AIDS was lingering. AIDS didn’t take you so quickly, no matter
how little medication you were taking.
AIDS wouldn’t claim her so easily; she was a fighter. Taylor struggled with every thought trying
to make it reasonable, but the surface of his cerebral cortex became coated
with Teflon and nothing would stick.
Alone in that room, in the
plainest of all expressions, Taylor began to sob and shake. He could not stand; he could not breathe; he
could not believe what was happening.
What was happening? Where
was Lee? Why had no one warned
him what he would face in this room?
Taylor could find no answers.
Taylor could find nothing, not even the strength to leave the room. He sank to his knees and intertwined his
fingers like a lost soul turning to the Heavens for an answer, but no words
would leave his lips and no sound would be heard, but the unbearably loud ring
of silence crashing in his ear drums like the first absence of sound after a
concert.
The door creaked and a small, pale
man crept into the room. Perhaps if the
silence had been softer Taylor would have taken note of him; instead he did not
sense the man until he felt a heavy hand rest against his shoulder. Like an epileptic lapsing into seizure
Taylor jerked up from the floor.
“What…who…Why are you here?”
Taylor croaked, desperately trying to make his tongue form the proper words.
“I’m Jeffery Klein, I was one of
Lee’s doctors. I didn’t mean to startle
you, but…I know how close you two were.”
All Taylor could hear in his head
was the soft voice of the doctor, already referring to Lee in the past
tense. It was heartbreaking to think
how easily she could be here and gone so quickly, as if she never really
existed.
“What happened to her? I thought it was…I thought there would be
more time.”
The doctor puckered his lips as if
the thought, like a lemon, were too sour for his liking; “Taylor, Lee was an
extremely sick girl, more than anyone could ever have known. Even without the virus looming over her
she…her situation didn’t look promising; she always knew that and the thought
tired her, and I guess she just couldn’t take living that way anymore.”
Taylor’s eyes, red and glossed
over with the dew of fresh tears, illustrated his stunned tone of voice; “She
killed herself…?”
Dr. Klein nodded his head
slightly; “She stopped taking her painkillers last week, but she started hiding
the pills, and she took them all last night.”
Taylor gave no response, but his
silent sobs started anew. Why hadn’t
she told him how she felt? He could
have helped her; he would have done anything…
The doctor’s small, but commanding
voice interrupted Taylor’s thoughts; “Son, why don’t you go home and get some
rest?”
Taylor mustered up the strength to
nod his head, and fled the room as fast as he could suddenly feeling he could
not stand another moment in the shadow of this misery.
* * *
Dawn was surprised when she heard
Taylor’s voice on the phone; she hadn’t even recognized it. He was hoarse and his voice was thick with
tears he was trying with all his might to contain. All he had said was he was at the hospital and needed her to
drive him and his car home, because he didn’t think he could do it himself. Of course she told him she would be right
there, and she didn’t ask what was wrong; she had a horrible feeling that she
already knew what was wrong.
After hunting down a cab Dawn had
to comb the parking lot on foot searching for Taylor. Her walk became a jog and broke into a sprint as she became more
and more frantic to find Taylor; she did not think it wise to leave a soul so
distressed alone for too long. She had
just thought to call him on his cell phone when she spied a lanky blonde
sitting hunched over on the hood of a snow-white car.
He must have sensed her presence
because as she started down the row of parked cars Taylor looked up and ran to
her, throwing his arms around her, holding her so tightly that she wondered if
he was scared to let go.
As he pulled away Dawn could see
the sorrow written on every part of his face; “Dawn,” he whispered, his voice
so slight she could barely hear it, “She killed herself.”
Dawn found tears forming in her
eyes for a girl she did not know outside of Taylor’s words; “My God, Tay, I’m
so sorry.”
“I didn’t think she’d do it…I
never thought…”
“I know sweetie, I know; you would
have stopped her if you could.”
“I wish she would have said
something, anything, to let me know what kind of nightmare was suffocating her,
but she never said a word. She never,
ever said a word through all of this all she ever did was listen to me…I should
have been there for her.”
“Taylor,” Dawn said, softly
squeezing his hand, “You were there for her as much as anyone could have been;
she told you that herself. She deserved
a happy ending, but life…you know better than anyone that people don’t always
get what they deserve. She had so many
problems baby, and she knew they weren’t ever going to go away, and she did the
only thing she could…”
“I just wished I could make it all
better…It’s so stupid, but I just kept hoping that everyone was wrong; that she
wasn’t going to get sick; that she wasn’t going to lose her mind; that she was
going to leave that hospital someday and life that they took away from her.”
“I don’t think that’s stupid at
all; I think that is beautiful.”
Taylor’s sadness began to mix with
a dark anger that he had not felt in sometime; “No, stupid wasn’t wanting that,
but actually believing that it could happen; believing in anything…”
Dawn did not like this turn of
events, and every moment felt like a new and more horrifying experience;
“Taylor, do not fall apart here,” she commanded, grabbing him by the shoulders,
“You can not go to pieces, not now. Lee
wanted more than anything to see you whole, and to start beating the crap out
of yourself now isn’t what she would have wanted. I love you, and I don’t care if you cry and grieve and mourn, I
will be here for you and let you do whatever you need to do with me right by
your side, but you can’t breakdown; it isn’t the right thing to do, not for
Lee, and not for yourself.”
Taylor began to hear Dr. Kennedy’s
thoughts on strength echo in his ears as Dawn’s voice became quiet. She was right; they were both right. This was not the time to lay down and die,
but to feel the joy and the pain, and the love and the heartache that it was to
be alive; to live because he was alive, and if nothing else, Lee had taught him
how tragically that could change. For
the first time in what seemed an eternity Taylor felt his tears stop, and his
lips found the strength to smile sadly, to mouth ‘thank you’, and to express
his unyielding gratitude to Dawn, to Lee, and to life with a soft kiss.