Chapter Text
Christine stood in the restaurant across the street from the hospital with the bright midday sun at her back. She did not remember it being that bright, not even in the middle of the day at high noon, either; the sight of the bright light made her shield her eyes even while inside of there. It was so strange to think about, and more so when she fetched herself and John a pair of Reuben sandwiches straight off the slicer accompanied with curly fries.
When she doubled back out of there with their food, the sun seemed to pound down upon the crown of her head as if during a heat wave.
“Jesus, what the hell,” she muttered, and yet she persisted with her walk back to the hospital and John’s room. When she came back to his room, the nurse had helped him into an upright position. He leaned back against the pillow with his hands idly down by his sides. When the nurse left the room, Christine sat down and rested the bag of food on the table right next to him. John turned his head and showed her a little smile, accentuated by the patch stretched across his eye and the side of his head.
She unwrapped her sandwich and within seconds, she was met with that peppery aroma of the pastrami and the tanginess of the sauerkraut on top. John smiled when she remembered the corned beef in lieu of the pastrami for him.
They both ate their sandwiches in silence, silence save for the machines which surrounded his head and shoulders. He managed to eat everything which she had served him, including the fries.
“Delicious,” he told her with a clearing of his throat. “Did you get anything to drink?”
She shook her head as she popped a couple more fries into her mouth. “I figured that we have water here, and you know that place, too—they charge extra for drinks.”
“Oh, yeah, that’s right,” he said with a nod. He turned his attention to the little bedside table again, at which he sighed through his nose.
“Did you want something to drink?” she asked him in a soft voice.
“Root beer,” he told her, and she chuckled at that.
“Just like old times…” She popped more fries into her mouth, and then she leaned forward in her seat. “I think I saw a vending machine right down the hall from here.” She stood up and walked on back out of the room in search of that one machine down the corridor which had drinks only: it was right down by the corner of the hallway, just before the waiting room and radiology. The machine had run out of root beer, much to her chagrin, even when she got herself some water; she hoped that he would like a little bit of plain cola instead. Two bottles in hand, and she doubled back to his room again.
“They were plum out of root beer,” she told him as she handed him the bottle, to which he sighed through his nose and showed her the crestfallen look upon his face.
“Everything okay?” she asked him, and he kept his hand on the base of the bottle as he set it down on the table nestled between them.
“I don’t know,” John confessed with a shake of his head.
“Don’t know what?”
“I don’t know if I can do this,” he explained.
“What do you mean?”
“Look at me. I’m a broken man.” He closed his eyes and bowed his head; she could only see it on one eye, but one eye was enough for her. Christine rested a hand on his shoulder to comfort him.
“No, you’re not,” she assured him, and he held one hand to his face. His bottom lip trembled with tears.
“I am,” he insisted with a break in his voice. “I am! I’m a broken, pathetic man.” She leaned in closer to him as if she was about to kiss him, but she could never kiss her childhood best friend, and especially not when he was in so much agony from the surgery and the treatment, and especially not when he still had his girlfriend back home as well.
John buried his face in his hands.
“John… Johnny… don’t do this to me,” Christine begged to him, and she put her arms around him. His body shuddered and shook with emotion, and she could hear it from behind his hands. She brought her fingers up into the roots of his hair at the back of his head. He had a bit of scar tissue on the back of his head, which told her that they had cut in deep on his head.
He rubbed his good eye with one hand, and he looked on at her with a solemn look on his face.
“Your scars… they’re going to tell a story,” she promised him. “They tell a story as we speak right now.”
He turned his head in the other direction so she could only see his good eye and the side of his ear and his face.
“Here. Let’s start formulating something for ourselves, for your life after illness.” Christine froze in her tracks as her mind went completely blank for a moment. John never turned back into her direction, which bought her a few seconds.
“Do you know when you’re getting out?”
“I don’t,” he replied with a shake of his head and a sniffle. She had never seen him like this before, and thus, she reached over to touch his hand.
“Well… when you do get out of here, I’ll figure something out for us,” she gingerly promised him. “Okay?”
John closed his eyes and bowed his head once again. A stray tear ran down from his good eye, but the grimace on his face told her that he couldn’t fully cry, not when he had that gauze over his left eye to keep the wound intact whilst healing. She moved in closer to him once again, that time with one hand on his shoulder opposite from her.
“Tina… forever my best friend,” he pleaded in a near whisper. Christine leaned back away from him, but she kept her hands on him just so he could feel her some more.
“I’ll take you home and take care of you forever if I have to,” she promised him. “We’ll go out west and start a new life together. You and me. Best friends forever.”
“Barring I don’t fall apart first,” he said in a low voice.
“You won’t,” she promised him with a stroke of his forearm. “You won’t, you won’t, you won’t. I won’t let it happen to you.”
The nurse strode in right then with a paper cup filled with pills and a clip to check his blood sugar, and Christine let go of him.
“I’m just comforting him,” she explained with a shrug, and she scooted the chair away from the side of the bed to give her room.
“Aw, that’s so sweet,” the nurse remarked, and she looked up at the monitor showing off his blood pressure, pulse, and brain waves. She gaped at the sight before her.
“I just ate,” he told her. “A big Reuben sandwich with curly fries.”
“I was gonna say, why is your blood pressure so high?” She handed him his pills, and disheartened, John took them in one fell swoop. Christine offered him a drink of water to wash it down; he silently thanked her and took a big swig from the bottle. The nurse then held onto his right hand and she held the clip up to his index finger for a blood sample. Christine winced at the sight of the penetration, and more so when she held a cotton ball to his finger for a second before she applied disinfectant and a bandage to it.
Within time, the nurse left the room, and the two of them were once again alone in the room together.
Christine switched on the tv on the other side of the room for them: there wasn’t much on except for daytime talk shows and some cheaply made movies, but it was either that or sit and do nothing all the while.
She stayed with him all the way until dinner time, at which visiting hours were nearly over. She sighed through her nose and hoisted her purse over her shoulder.
“I’ll be back tomorrow,” she gently promised him. “If you’re feeling okay at all, we could go walking out in the courtyard. Would you like that?”
“Of course,” he replied, and she stooped down to hold him one last time. “Get some fresh air. Get me off my broken ass…” His voice trailed off as she held him close once more.
“You are literally the only thing keeping me from killing myself,” he confessed right into her ear in a near whisper. Stunned, Christine held back and gazed into his good eye and wounded look on his face.
“Yeah, why is it… that of all of our friends—including your own girlfriend—I was the only one who came to see you?” she asked him.
“I wish I knew,” he confessed with a shake of his head. “I really, really wish I knew.”
She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “I’ll bring flowers, too,” she added. “Flowers and… I’ll try and find you a root beer in the meantime, too.”
John cracked her a smile, the first smile she had seen from him all day.
“I gotta have something in this life,” he said in a soft voice.
“You have more than just something,” she assured him with a gentle pat on the back of his hand. She stood upright and strode on over to the doorway of the room, right as the setting sun cast some golden light on the glass windows which surrounded him and that wing of the hospital, an amber kaleidoscope to give the two of them something of a light in an otherwise long day.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she promised him, and he leaned back against the pillows right as the evening news came on. The last thing Christine heard before leaving the room was that the sun lit up the sky, more so than normal, and no one knew why.