sage | karl jacobs

1

In any universe, I'm sure Karl and I still would've ended up together, but only in ours was it an accident. Nobody knew what we did, or what we were. Honestly, I don't even know. He was the eye of the storm, the calm of it. My garden of Eden. I wanted to remember him, forever. Did I? No. Nothing could've ever made me ready for him to come and go, except I don't know when he came or when he went, if he ever did at all.

He was my everything. My full moon. The rarest of occurrences, neither of us ever knew what we were supposed to be.  Meeting at our lowest, he was everything I could've ever wanted. His beautiful eyes, making me more lost than I ever had been, at first look. From the first day I had ever met Karl Jacobs, I knew I loved him.

***

Sudden beeps and bright lights cause me to wake up. My eyes scan the room, barely able to see, everything's blurry. A person in a lab coat stands in the corner, scratching notes onto a clipboard. I sit up, body aching in a more intense pain than I had ever felt in my life. I force my body up to seated, staring at the person in the corner. They had long brown hair that was tied back into a sleek ponytail, and they looked very stiff. "Hello?" I comment towards them, yet it came out more like a question. 

They jumped at the sound, turning to face me. They had on a thick mask, and I don't know why. I can tell they smiled through the mask, and then they ran out of the room. A few minutes pass, and they ran back in with multiple doctors that looked the same age, and an older one. The eldest pushed through the other people, coming up to me. "Hello, I'm Dr. Matthews." He turns to the side, pulling on some latex gloves.

"I know this must be very confusing," he starts, a shake in his voice. "You got in a car accident about 8 months ago. You hit your head pretty hard in the impact. It was a very severe crash. The other person in your car died, as did the people who hit you. We brought you in, and you were barely alive. We rushed you into surgery and have been in a coma since then. It's very good you woke up. I know this must be confusing and overwhelming, but I need you to stay calm and awake so I can check up on you and for other doctors to ask you questions." 

I nod at the man, who then starts checking my IV's, which I didn't even know I had in. I also looked down to see a mask on my face, which was very confusing to me. "Brown," the man said, and the young woman from earlier stepped forward. She raises her eyebrows, flipping pages on the clipboard. 

"Hi! I'm Dr. Khelani Brown. I'm going to ask you some questions, ok?" I nod at her, and I can see her excitement through the thick mask that covered her face. "What's your name?" she asked. My mind comes to a stop, suddenly confused. My mind seems to wander across ever memory I have, yet all are too vague for me to find my name. "Do you remember it?" I want to remember it. I really do. When I look back at the woman ahead of me, her eyes sadden slightly. That makes something click in my brain, and the words fall out of my mouth. "Sage." I say, lips barely removing themselves from each other.

The woman laughs, and the familiar eye-smile comes back. "Last name?" "Miller." I don't know where these words are coming from, or if they are even true. "Do you know your middle name?" I nod at her, but I actually don't. Yet again, words leave my mouth. "Allison," I say. "Good! That's what I have on the paperwork, anyway." I want to ask a million questions, yet I don't know where to start. I guess I'll start with the masks. 

"Why is everybody wearing a mask?" The girl seems to have a confused look on her face, yet I'm not sure. The eldest doctor, Dr. Matthews, turns around to face me. "Like I said, Sage, this is going to be very confusing. You were in a coma for 8 months. There is a virus going around, pretty similar to a common cold, but more severe. It's called COVID-19. We wear the masks to stop the spread. So far, it has killed over a million people. Masks became mandatory about a month ago."

He continues to talk for a while about what's going on in the world, while checking my vitals and making sure everything's alright. He made me take a few scans, and everything was clear. My memory became less and less foggy, but everything recent was still gone. 

I was able to walk the second day. And shower, use the bathroom, and eat. By the fifth day, they had let me go, and my mom had to pick me up. "Sage, when I got that call. The call where they told me my babies had gotten in a car accident, and one of them died, I almost died. I had never cried nor had been that scared a day in my life." "Babies?" I question. She shoots me a look, the one that asks if I was serious. "Violet, Sage. Violet. Violet Olivia Miller, your little sister." My mouth opens slightly, so I could notice it but not acknowledge. 

"You were having a really bad week; never heard you cry so much. You even came home. I didn't ask why, because when V tried, she told me it just made you cry. So, on the day before your 21st birthday, she asked you to get ice cream with her. She wanted to go to that place by the beach, the one around an hour away. You took her. Apparently, a car came out of nowhere, hitting the front right of your car. From what I was told that day, the car hit so hard, and at the perfect angle, that it instantly killed Violet. You were the only one who survived that crash."

Some tears well in my eyes as my mom pulls into the driveway of my house. "I called Karl, telling him since apparently, he wasn't your emergency contact. I remember sitting there, listening to that poor boy cry extremely hard. When I went to visit you after about a week, he was asleep on the couch, tears staining his cheeks. He was there every day I came, until he wasn't anymore. You should probably call him." 

"Karl?" I whisper. I don't think my mom heard me. Instead, she kissed me goodbye and opened my garage for me. I waved her off, opening the door. The house was clean. I'm sure she cleaned it. It was a familiar path, yet it was different this time. Memories of everything that had happened to me flooded my brain. My eyes scan the living room, and my eyes catch on a ring on the counter.

His hands shook a little when he pulled out the box, emerald, green. He opened it, revealing a beautiful green half heart ring. I looked to his hands, seeing he had the other half on his ring finger. "I love you, Sage. More than words could ever describe. One day, I'm going to marry you, I promise. But that'll be in a few years. I can't wait for the day you walk down that aisle, the day you become Sage Allison Jacobs. I can't wait to spend the rest of my life with you. This is my promise. I promise I'll take care of you forever. I wish I was proposing right now, but we're 19. I'll do it when we're 22 or 23."

I took the ring out of the box, placing it on my ring finger, kissing the boy on his lips. "I love you too, baby. I promise I will also take care of you until the day I die. I promise. I love you forever, Karl Jacobs."

Karl.