Broken Together

Epilogue 2

"Juliette" Ellie knocks on my door one morning "I'm making coffee, do you want some?"

Today has been particularly hard, it's the day I've been dreading. I haven't got out of bed at all.

"Juliette?" she opens the door slightly and peers in "oh Jules"

She comes over and wraps her arms around me "it's going to be okay"

"How Ellie?" I let the tears fall "I've been so hopeful but what if he never wakes up"

"He will, he loves you and he wants to come back for you" she tries to comfort me

"Did you know today is the day that he's been gone as long as I knew him?" I say and she stills

"I'm sorry" she says after a moment and I hug her tighter "what can I do?"

"Can you drop Bella off? I'm going to see him before I go into the office" I ask and she nods

"Yeah I'm leaving for school soon so I'll drop her on the way" she smiles "I'll get you a cup to go, it's going to be a hard day but you can get through it"

"I know. Thanks Ell" I smile and get ready.

Ellie is almost ready to graduate, she's worked so hard despite everything for the last few years so she's ready to graduate early.

"Love you Jules"

"Love you Ellie" I call after her as she leaves

-----------------------------------------------------

I pretend to not notice that Ellie always asks if Austin was there with me or not. There's two visiting sessions, one in the morning one in the afternoon, sometimes Austin comes with me in the morning sometimes he wants to be alone. I don't want to know what she does with that information but I trust her. She's still with Mark anyway so I'll let her do her thing. He's been over a couple times, it's strange because I really think he likes her but she just seems so much more reserved around him.

I smile at the same usual nurse and sit next to Parker.

"Hey Park" I sigh "here again"

"I've counted every day you've been under, and today marks the day it's been the same amount of time since I saw you in the school parking lot" I laugh as tears spring to my eyes "I wish I'd know how you felt, how you'd felt like that for so long. We could've had so much more time"

"Jeg elsker deg" I say softly
I love you

"Parker please" I cry "stop being a stubborn bastard, you've made your point now please come back"

"That was shit" he grumbles

"Yeah well I haven't exactly had a talkative teacher" I scoff, it's not unusual for me to imagine him replying.

"It's more like jeg elsker deg" he groans opening his eyes, wow my imagination is vivid.

"Fucking hell it's bright"

"Park" I say my heart hammering "this really isn't funny"

"Yeah I know it's not, I'm fucking thirsty" he coughs. I stand up immediately rushing over to his side and pouring water. He gulps it down and I feel faint.

"Holy shit" I cry my body shaking "please say you're real"

"I'm real bebei" he chuckles looking around "what happened?"

"Oh Parker" I sob cupping his face "holy shit you're awake. I need to get the doctor"

"Juliette wait please. I'm trying not to freak out here" he says and I look at him, he's real, he's awake.