"Oh Paul... why did you have to take that road?" Susan sobbed at the hospital bedside of her boyfriend. "You shouldn't have been out in that rainstorm! It's all my fault..." Tears started to run down her cheeks, soaking into the bedspread as she laid her head on his chest. She listened to his heart beat in time with the monitor behind the bed, the whoosh and wheeze of the respirator.
"If I hadn't asked you to come over that night, you wouldn't have been there when that semi skidded...." She watched the steady drip of the IV from the bag into the line. "I _had_ to ask you to come to my place. I should have come over to your's... it should have been me!"
The muffled brush of shoes on tiled floor crept in under the closed door. "I know that your folks want me to leave. They think it's not good for me to be here... constantly at your side. My folks said the same thing when I called them yesterday. Did you see your brothers try to drag me off? Don't they know my place is here with you?"
Incomplete silence met her question. The monitors and machines continued their job. Susan splayed her hand over Paul's heart, trying to ignore the feel of the coverlet under her palm, the slight ridges showing where the heart monitor was attached layers below. She reached her senses to feel the thump and beat of the heart that mattered the most to her in the whole world.
"They don't understand. I couldn't leave you if they hurt me, drugged me, took me somewhere else. I would find a way to come back to you. We are connected. By the soul... by chains stronger than iron. You get hurt, I bleed. You smile in happiness and I want to sing. You have my trust, my love, my heart, my soul. Without you, I have nothing, not even life."
Wondering if such a depressing topic as death might be the wrong thing to talk about, Susan gave a weak little laugh in an effort to change the conversation. "I had a dream while I sitting here. I just kept calling your name and telling you I loved you and, finally, you opened your eyes and smiled at me. You whispered my name..." She gazed toward the wall, seeing only the lovely images of her dream.
"It seemed so real that when it was over, I thought for a moment that your eyes were open." Susan's face fell. "But it was just an illusion." Her grip tightened as she closed her eyes and burrowed her head into his chest, threatening to dislodge various medical instruments.
"I want so much for you to get better, Paul. It's so horrible being out here without you! I never wanted to be alone like this again... that time we broke up for awhile, I felt so alone and forgotten that I thought I would die! Don't leave me, Paul..." Her tears started again.
"If you die, I'll die too!" she cried out, echoing back to her from the empty corners of the room. "I don't care about the rest of the world! They got along fine without me before I was born, they can do just as well without me again. To live without you would be torture.... Death can't have you! I won't let Death take you!" Sobs racked her body, shaking the plastic green chair she was sitting in next to the bedside.
"You are mine, Paul. You are _mine_. Anyone who wants to take you, be it human or not, is going to have to go through me first..."
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