He left you, I try to remind myself. He left you crying. He never cared about you …
But his parents aren’t here anymore, he has no one left in this town but me, and despite myself I can’t help feeling a little bit curious. I want to know what it is he wants. There is no way that him showing up here tonight is a coincidence.
As I hear the sirens in the distance, I already know that I am going back to the hospital with Ted. If for nothing else, to check on him and find out how he’s doing and why he’s here. Maybe it isn’t the smartest move, but I don’t have a choice.
Chapter 4 – Ted
Everything hurts. Literally every part of my body aches. The last thing I remember is the attack at the apartment where they shot Stix… and his brain matter was all over the wall. Everything else is a blur. Did my uncle send someone to finish me off after finding his son the way he did? Why can’t I move or open my eyes right now? Was I shot too? I can hear the faint beeping of a machine, and I think it smells like bleach. Where am I? If this is death, it’s a lot more painful than I thought it would be. I always thought that it would be quick and then you would “see the light” or whatever. This is not that. Wait a minute, I think I can……Oh, shit that light is bright.
Oh wow, was that? I would know her anywhere. Blonde, sweetheart face, bright blue eyes, beautiful, always caring for others. Chloe Smith. My childhood best friend, the woman I thought I loved enough to think about marriage at such a young age. I mean, she’s a bit older than I remember. If this is a hallucination, I would think that she would still be the same age as when I saw her last. If I am losing my shit here, she looks great, and I guess my dreams are even lucid enough for her to look so real.
I want to reach out and touch her, but even in my hallucination she seems out of reach. I guess that’s because even my subconscious knows that I fucked up when it comes to her. I could have had her in my life forever, and I wrecked it. She wanted me, she loved me, she was brave enough to tell me that she loved me, and I still ran off. It doesn’t matter what I thought at the time, I ran off and left her and I wasn’t brave like her, and I didn’t even come back for her.
I wish that I had though. I would give anything to turn back time so that I could have spent a life with her.
I close my eyes again and drift off into a dream world where I told Stix where to stick it and I ran back to Chloe. I imagine picking her up in my arms and kissing her. Holding her and promising to be the man that she deserves. I see us talking about our future. Of course, we go to the same college, or at least ones near one another so that we can stay close. We become that couple everyone else is jealous of and wants to be.
But we don’t care about the hash tag couple goals or whatever. We’re in it for us.
Then, in my mind, college comes to an end, and we get a house together. We get jobs, she starts to work in something caring for people because she always wanted to make the world a better place, and I get myself a business degree and work somewhere crunching numbers or selling or something. I don’t know what I would be good at really, I never got the chance to find out, but I imagine that I could have earned a legit living. The sky could have been the limit, especially with Chloe next to me.
After a bit, I propose, and we plan a wedding, we have children running around our feet and we grow old together. It’s enough love to last an eternity which means we never fought, and we truly live happily ever after.
All of a sudden, my dream starts to slip, I feel like I am falling, and I jolt, pain ricocheting through my entire body. Fuck, that hurts. I’m starting to hear that beeping again. And that smell…..
“Ted, is that you? Are you awake?” It sounds like Chloe. This time she sounds much more real. It’s enough to force my eyes open. “Ted?”
“Ch… Chloe?” I might be groggy but it’s definitely her. Which means I must be still dreaming? I mean, I haven’t seen her since I ran away, so this can’t be real… either that or I’m dead.