hang
by jess ryan
chapter 7

  Two hours later she sat by herself on a hard plastic chair in one of the many brightly-lit corridors of the hospital.  These halls were full of people she knew, who she saw everyday, and who all wore the same expressions of devastated disbelief at the news that their friends and family had died.  Jess couldn’t cry, couldn’t force a single tear to her eye to mourn her little step-sister’s death or to worry about her friends.  She was exhausted, wanting to sleep but knowing her dreams would be haunted with visions of the covered stretchers, and one name kept crossing her mind; Rob.
  “Jess.”
  Jess looked up to see Alana hovering over her.  “Hey.”
  “How you holding up?”  Alana sat down in the seat next to her.
  “Okay.  How ‘bout you?”
  “The same.”  Alana looked at the floor for a moment and took a deep breath, then looked back up at Jess.  When she did, she had a tear in her eye.
  “What?” Jess asked suspiciously, not sure she wanted to hear the answer.
  “Catherine…” Alana managed to choke out.  “She…she suffered a brain hemorrhage when she was knocked out, and put on a Life Support System, but…”  She trailed off, and Jess already knew what she was going to say.  “They had to turn it off.  She’s…she’s dead…”
  Jess stared at her for a full minute, her breath catching in her throat.  Alana broke into anguished sobs and Jess got to her feet.  She could no longer stand just sitting there, waiting for something to happen, she had to DO something.
  “Jess…” Alana said between sobs, looking pleadingly up at her.  “Jess…”
  But Jess just murmured an excuse and began to walk.  She didn’t know where she was headed, but she knew she had to get out of there.  She was suffocating and choking to death on the putrid, tragedy filled air that occupied the hospital halls.
  Rounding a corner, she spied a familiar figure hunched in a seat, surrounded by distinguished older people who were comforting and holding her.  Josie Green.
  She’d found Josh’s body on the floor of her bedroom, with his brains blown all across her pillows, someone had told her, and under normal circumstances Jess would have felt sorry for her.  But now, as she gazed at the pathetic, spoiled little brat, Jess had never felt angrier.  Josie looked up and caught her eye for just a second, shame brimming over her features.  Jess stared back coldly, until one of the adults noticed and blocked her from Josie’s view.  Jess moved on, letting her anger simmer and boil.  Soon she was running through the halls, not for any particular reason, just to get OUT.  This place was stifling and cold at the same time, and she thought that if she was here for much longer she would snap and go crazy and start destroying things.  She finally burst through the front doors and into the cool night air, but she kept running anyway.  She kept running until she was in the middle of the luscious green lawn, where she stopped to catch her breath and realised there were tears on her cheeks.  Sensing someone behind her she turned to find Rob watching her from the shadows of a park bench a few meters away.  He held her gaze without saying anything, and soon she felt her lower lip begin to quiver involuntarily.  Rob stood slowly, wordlessly, and walked towards her.  She didn’t move, didn’t speak, until he was close enough to touch and she whispered, “Fuck them all.”  Then she collapsed to her knees and he held her as she cried again, this time not for a petty broken heart but for the deaths of her dear friend Josh and sweet little sister Grace and Catherine, beautiful Catherine, her best friend in the whole world.  She sat in his arms until way after the sun came up, sometimes crying, sometimes just breathing, always knowing that Rob would be here for her when the others weren’t.  No one disturbed the couple on the grass, no one interrupted and asked if Jess was okay to be questioned now, and they sat like that until they both fell into a restless sleep filled with dreams of their lost loved ones and, most of all, each other.
 

The End.