It was such a cliché, all of it.

The day Lily died heavy black rain clouds sauntered into the sky and you could literally see the heavens opening up and releasing anguish and pain in the form of large, heavy raindrops. It rained so hard that the weathermen were baffled, having predicted on the early morning news that it would be ‘partly cloudy, but a clear day with a high of 70 degrees’; mid-morning it thundered and by mid-afternoon, lightning was flying through the sky, cloud to cloud for a solid hour. When the clock struck five o’clock, the lightning became more violent, striking the ground and shaking everything within a hundred-mile radius.

It was like the day the earth stood still…only the opposite. The earth continued, just like nothing had happened. People went to work, drove home in the torrential down pour, dodged the lightning, hid under trees until they were told by a motorist that being under a tree was not the place to be when lightning was concerned. They gawked at the vibrant violet sky, which looked so beautiful and so terrifying all at once. Mostly, though, they went on with their lives, not knowing that two people's existance had just been shaken; those two people's lives would never be the same again.

Elijah sat in his car; his head against the window as the rain beat down…a relentless pitter-patter. His left hand rested on his knee until he began tapping his fingers to the beat of the rain. A cigarette was held in his right hand, burning between his pointer and middle finger. When lightning struck, his car shook, but he didn’t move…didn’t stop his rhythmic beat. He was picturesque melancholy.

He took a hit from his cigarette, a deep drag; he inhaled with all his might and then blew the smoke out, causing a cloud to form around his head. Her words floated back into his mind.

“Don’t cry for me, Elijah,” she had said, letting her hand slip to the bed. It reminded him of the song, and he hummed a few bars in his head: “don’t cry for me, Argentina.”

He hated Evita.

Emma didn't know that one thing could alter her universe so violently. Well, actually, she did know; it had happened before, after all...but I guess she didn't know it could happen again to someone she loved; to another person she didn't want to lose. Emma Burns had seen death, more than once, and she wasn't very keen on seeing it anymore.

Mental hospitals keep drugs under lock and key so that the patients can't have easy access. That's fine and dandy, but what happens when one of the patients steals the key needed in order to gain access to the thing they are being kept from so exceedingly?

Hell breaks lose, that's what happens.

Rita Carlson was the new night nurse, or rather she was a night nurse-in-training: it was her first night on the job. Forty-something years old, graying hair whipped back into a tight bun at the base of her neck, long, red manicured fake fingernails, a little overweight, tight smile, smug eyes with crows nests in the corners, laugh lines around full, pink lips. Rita clipped her keys to the right hand pocket of her button-up white polo shirt and began her rounds, clip-board in hand.

Mr. Wally Beaver…fast asleep, vital signs good; she gave him a check mark and continued on. Rita Carlson came to room 220 and peered inside: it was vacant; she’d never known and would never know Lily Wood. On the nurses’ notes bit of the clip-board it said that a new patient would be moving into room 220 the following day: three days after Lily Wood departed.

Traditionally, the night nurse checked on the huge, vast cabinet of pills first to make sure it was securely locked and that no pills were unaccounted for; Rita Carlson did not know the traditions. So, when Rita reached Emma’s room, she had no idea that there would be bottles upon bottles of empty prescriptions, Tylenols and Advils thrown haphazardly around the small room. Little white pills scattered across a mattress, caplets colored half green and half blue lie in an odd formation on the floor as if someone had placed them there deliberately. Rita’s brown eyes darted around the room and they would have lingered on the formation had the air in the room not seemed so…filled with death.

A small gasp escaped when she saw the young woman on the bed, passed out. It was a coincidence that Rita’s first night be the night when Emma Burns stole all the medications in the cabinet…or was it?

Rita ran into the room to check vital signs, but really she needn’t have. There, in plain sight, was a suicide note amongst the multi-colored empty bottles. The one thing Rita didn’t notice that she SHOULD have was the fact that Emma still had color in her cheeks and her chest was rising and falling very slowly; a small miracle was taking place right under their noses. Had they bothered to see it was another story all together.

A suicide note addressed to: “To Whom It May Concern” lay on the desk strategically placed next to a sealed envelope that said “Elijah” on the front in a loopy, cursive scrawl. Rita Carlson saw neither.

*

Elijah sat casually in his plush leather chair sucking on a cigarette like some suck on an oxygen mask. His fingers were trembling slightly, but not because of a nicotine overdose; he knew something was wrong, he just didn’t know what it was yet. Luckily for his lungs (he was already on his sixth cigarette in the span of an hour--something very unusual for him) the phone rang and he didn’t have to wait any longer to find out the begrudging news.

It was Dr. Johansen who was elected to contact him.

“Mr. Wood,” her cheery voice sounded coarse and forced down the other end of the phone line.

“Dr. Johansen?” Elijah’s voice was squeakier than usual, “What’s wrong? What’s happened to Emma?”

“Are you sitting down, Elijah?”

Elijah sank into his chair once more, feeling the softness of the fabric mold to his body. After a split second he replied, “Yes.”

“Emma is in the intensive care unit of the hospital…”

“Why?” He demanded forcefully, cutting her off mid-sentence. His hands trembled more as he fumbled for another cigarette and found that his packet was empty. He cursed in his head and made a quick mental note to go to the store for more.

His cigarette problems ceased, however, when he heard the doctor‘s quite voice continue, “I’m sorry to have to tell you this so soon after your sister’s passing. I know you’re having a hard time as it is----”

“Spit it out, Dr. Johansen. Please.”

“Emma tried to commit suicide last night, Elijah. We don’t know if she’s going to succeed or not. But…the doctors think that she will.”

“Oh, God,” he muttered, his eyes smarting from a sudden wetness tugging at the corners. “Why did she--?”

“We don’t know for sure. She left a--” the doctor gulped on the next word, “--note but it didn’t explain anything. There’s sealed envelope here for you. In my office. I don’t want to ask you to come down here and get it, but---”

“I’ll be there in five minutes.” He slammed the phone down, grabbed a jacket and raced from the house looking like a fretful mother who had just learned her youngest son had just fallen out of a tree. In all his haste, he forgot to lock the door which prompted his across the hall neighbor (and friend) to peek into the hall, creep across and lock it for him. Mrs. Grane tutted the whole time, praying that the ‘poor child’ would be alright.

Elijah pulled into the familiar parking lot four minutes later; he had run three red lights and gotten two lucky green ones, not to mention he had sped the entire way. However, Elijah had managed to avoid all officers of the law.

He rushed through the entrance way, muttering a hello to the receptionist (who tried to stop him from passing, but was unsuccessful) and before he knew it, his tired feet had gotten him to the double doorway that blocked the intensive care unit or ICU.

Dr. Johansen must have been waiting for him, because a second after he arrived, she was at his side holding up the envelope with shaking hands and looking at him with kind eyes. Elijah was so distraught that he didn’t know what to do first: hit the wall, stomp his feet, cry uncontrollably, curse God, pray or just sit quietly and wait. As it happened, he opted for all of the above…in that particular order.

A wall of trauma pressed in on him from all angles, making him feel nauseated and dizzy; the sweat glistened on his forehead and moistened his underarms making his shirt sticky and itchy when he moved. Elijah felt like he had been placed inside a box made entirely of terror; he was the jack-in-the-box and the patients were the winder, turning around and around until he popped up…or lost his cool completely.

Dr. Johansen had been silent up until now even when Elijah’s foul mouth got the better of him and he slang many obscenities at the wall he’d just dented with an angry, sneaker clad foot. She cleared her throat to make her presence known and he looked up bewildered from the envelope in his clammy hands, which he’d been staring at for the past half hour. “I know this is hard, Elijah, but---”

“It’s not hard,” he retorted quietly, his voice full of malice, “It’s the fucking most grueling thing in my entire fucking life. And I’ve been through a lot of shit, Doc…so that’s really saying something.” He shook his head, his blue eyes livid with rage.

The doctor‘s voice was stern, “You need to channel your anger before you kill someone.”

Elijah laughed out loud at that one, and had he lost all common sense, he would have lit a cigarette for emphasis; he remembered, though, that he was all out.

“I’m not joking, Elijah. You are a very angry young man at the moment, and---”

“Just shut the fuck up, alright? You don’t KNOW what I’m going through. I’ve just lost my sister and now I’ve lost my----” his voice trailed off as he sought for a word. Companion? Friend? Sister’s friend? Girlfriend? Lover? No, none of those fit just right; none of those worked.

“What is she to you, Elijah?” The doctor asked gently, her voice calm and rational.

“I…I don’t know,” he replied, completely in shock at this revelation. What was Emma Burns to him, anyway? What was HE to HER? He looked down at the envelope in his hands and tore it open with one swift motion. He hoped he’d find his answer in this letter.

Elijah unfolded the slightly wrinkled letter and poured over what he considered to be beautiful penmanship.

Elijah looked up from the note with teary eyes; he didn’t know what to do and he most certainly didn’t know how he felt about all of this. His feelings towards Emma were undecided, but he knew one thing.

He didn’t want to lose her.