Paper Thin

“Don’t worry, Emma,” I whispered. “I’ll help you scrape the gunk off before it turns brown and nasty.” I held my breath, waiting for some sort of an answer from her. A laugh. A giggle. A huff of sarcasm.

Emma didn’t respond. Disappointment crashed through me. My feet continued forward in their slow pace. I couldn’t speed them up. I wasn’t even sure what was propelling me toward her when all I could feel was the fear holding me back.

Once I reached her, I swallowed hard as I stretched out to touch her. My fingers curled inward before they reached her though, and my nails dug into my palm.

If I touched her, this all became real. Too real.

I blinked, unsure if I was ready for reality to crash into me again. This felt surreal, like a dream. An extended version of my nightmare from last night. I held my breath, listening for the breathing they claimed she was doing on her own, but not hearing anything. Why did they have a tube in her throat if she could breathe on her own? Was it a precaution? Was my sister’s life really that unstable? Wild thoughts buzzed through me.

I focused on the chorus of machines as they beeped out a slow tune, hoping to find some comfort in the noise, because it meant she was okay. My eyes shifted to them. Regardless of what I felt due to the sight of her, these machines told me Emma was alive.

She was strong. She would make it through this, and I would help her.

Holding on to those thoughts, I inched closer to her. Reaching out, I finally managed to touch her arm. I moved my fingertips against the few inches of her skin not covered in tape from the IV. It was warm, not cold like I had expected.

“Hey. It’s me.” My words were low and stiff. I couldn’t help but feel that if I talked to her, she would hear me and wake up on her own. “You’ve got this, Em. Don’t let go.”

I repeated the words inside my head like a mantra, staring at her, waiting, wishing, and hoping for some sign she was listening. I pushed with my mind, suddenly having become a firm believer in the whole mind over matter bit. Nothing changed though. The machines continued in their slow song of life, and my sister remained a sleeping beauty.

My chin dipped to my chest. A shuddering breath pushed its way past my lips, and I closed my eyes, giving up after only a few minutes. Still rubbing my fingers against her smooth skin, I waited. For her to wake. For them to wake her. For someone to step inside the room, and tell me my time was up. For something, anything, that might end this never-ending moment breaking me into pieces. The longer I stood there, the more pain I felt. It radiated off my sister, and buried inside my chest, circling my heart and tormenting me. Seconds turned into minutes. No one bothered me. No one came in to check her vitals. Nothing changed, except me. I felt myself become fragile, brittle, and utterly broken as I stared at her.

After what felt like hours later, the door to Emma’s room opened, allowing noise from in the hall to seep in. Irritation burned through me. My sister deserved quiet. She didn’t need the outside noise distracting her from what she was trying to do, from how she was making her way back to me. I shifted to see who had entered the room, ready to shoot daggers at them with my eyes for interrupting, until I realized it was Dawson.

The sight of him muted my irritation. His eyes were wide with the same fear I had felt clogging my system when I saw her for the first time. He was taking in the machines, the bruises, and the swelling. His hatred for all that had happened to my beautiful sister crossed his face. He understood this pain, my pain. How horrifying it was to see her lying in the bed within your reach, but unable to be fixed. He knew what it was like to look at her, and think about how she resembled a stranger. She was unrecognizable from the bandages, bruising, and swelling of her face.

“I don’t want to interrupt,” he whispered as though he didn’t want to wake her.

“You’re not.” My voice was as low as his, because I felt the same. Even though I knew we wouldn’t cause her to wake from her slumber, I still whispered. It seemed disrespectful to talk in a normal voice around her.

“Okay.” He closed the door behind him. His unease radiated from him. I understood it, but hated how much it intensified my own. I needed to be strong, but couldn’t be if I was suffocated by someone else’s worry for Emma as well as my own.

“I think I’m going to get a coffee. Want one?” I patted Emma’s arm, and moved to let Dawson have access to her bedside.

A breath escaped his lips, and I knew it was from him taking in the full view of her. I lifted my gaze to look at him, really look at him. He was chewing along the side of his bottom lip, something I had always known him to do whenever he was nervous or scared. I used to think it was the cutest thing, but now there was nothing cute about it. It was heartbreaking.

“She looks like she’s in so much pain.” His words rolled through the air in the room, slamming into me. “Oh my God.” He doubled over. I knew it was from the pain of seeing her this way, because I’d felt it too. I still did. Tears slipped from my eyes, because I knew exactly what he was feeling.

“I know.” My words were simple. My voice constricted. I couldn’t offer him much more than that. I would break in half if I did.

“They told me she wouldn’t feel anything while she was still under.” He pulled in a shaky breath, gathering himself. “How could they know for sure? It looks like it hurts her to breathe.”

“If you look beyond everything and search her face, she looks peaceful. You can’t feel pain if you’re peaceful.” I couldn’t look at her and see this again for myself, because looking at her would mean I would have to see past everything else first, and I wasn’t sure I could do that again. Not twice in one day. Instead, I continued to stare at him.

His gaze drift over her face, searching for what I had been talking about. When he found it, a little of the craze melted from his eyes, and his features seemed to soften. “You’re right.”

A moment of silence passed through the room. It wasn’t heavy, but instead held a calming quality.

“Coffee?” I needed to give him time alone with her. I needed to catch my breath again.

“Sure.” He never looked away from my sister. His stare was so intense, so set on her, it was as though he were trying to rouse her from this with his mind, to heal her with his thoughts. Maybe, between the both of us, we could. “Thanks.”

I slipped out of the room as quietly as I could. After I closed the door behind me, I leaned against it for support and shut my eyes. I had survived seeing Emma for the first time. The worst was over now. Right?

I SPENT FOUR DAYS at the hospital, waiting for the doctors to tell me they were waking Emma. Four days of misery. Four days of worry. Four days of hope building, and growing because of the positive words Dawson kept feeding me in conjunction with the doctors. Even though I knew Dawson said them more for himself than me, and the doctors said them because it was their job, they still helped ease my worry.

Some.

The day my sister was brought out of her coma was almost as scary as the moment I found out she had been in an accident. No one knew if there was brain damage. No one knew how she would handle the news of what happened. Again, all we could do was wait. People are right when they say the waiting is the hardest part.

I had been gripping one hand, while Dawson gripped her other when her eyes fluttered open. Confusion swirled in her hazel eyes. I knew she didn’t understand what was going on, but at the same time she did. I imagined her mind being complete chaos as she co