2022 WATTYS SHORTLISTED || After being forced into a marriage by her devoutly religious parents, Aspen's husband is diagnosed with a life-limiting illness, and she must find her purpose as well as fight feelings for her husband's nurse. || Aspen Wat...
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It takes two hours before Monica finally agrees to leave. The amount of hugs and kisses she's showered him with is countless, and the number of awkward glances that have been passed between Joel and me has also been countless.
When Monica is finally out of the ward, and it's just Joel and me, we stare at each other.
"They told me I was in an induced coma... for two weeks," Joel breaks the silence. His voice is almost strange to me now – gravelly, warm, foreign. His ocean eyes stare right into mine, forcing an awkward moment where I don't know where to look or what to do.
"Yeah, you had a seizure that didn't respond to medication. They called it status epilepticus," I recall. "So, to give your brain a break, they put you in a coma. You had another one the other day, but apparently, they wanted to see how you do now."
I'm aware my words sound cold, but I don't know how else to react. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice Nicholas writing at the nurse's station, Doctor Daniels hovering around at the computer.
"How have you been?" Joel questions.
"Fine. My mum invited herself down for a few days, so she knows," I say and roll my eyes. "Your mum had a few choice words for her."
He chuckles. "I can imagine it now."
I smile. "It was quite the show."
We fall into an awkward silence. If I had a knife, I could cut the tension between us. I'm not sure if it's the last conversation we had or whether he's heard the conversations at his bedside. Either way, a small part of me wonders what to say to him.
How am I meant to act? How am I meant to talk to him? How do I spark the conversation with him that I know we need to have? Do I wait, and get it out of the way? Do I rip the plaster off quickly, or leave it until it'll fall off naturally?
Like the house we've built on that rocky foundation, do I take out the one sturdy brick and let everything tumble around him so it's easier to rebuild, or do I take the bricks out one by one, so it hurts less?
How do you rip the carpet out from someone without causing too much hurt? How do you even know it'll hurt?
"Aspen, we need to talk, don't we?" Joel sighs.
Well, that's not how I planned to start the conversation.
"What?"
"The last thing I remember is telling you I didn't love you... and asking for a divorce," he says.
I look away from him and stare at the machine to his right. I watch the numbers as they flash. I don't know a lot about medicine, but from the way the lines flash and don't beep, I can gather that they look pretty normal. I suppose if they weren't, there would be a swarm of green and blue around him, pushing me away into the white behind the curtain.
