Rose petals

Chapter 9

The hospital was one of Everly's favourite places to be. I remember making fun of her for loving a place where there were multiple deaths every single day. It's also one of the reasons why I didn't like her choice of becoming a surgeon. I knew she would never be able to handle losing a life.

She reminded me that even though multiple people die every single day, even more people survive and are brought into the world. Maybe it's the dark side of me that never thought about that, but it genuinely make me rethink many things in my life.

I learnt to look at things from a positive perspective and not always the worst. It was the one things she taught me and that have stuck with me ever since.

Walking down the very same hallway Ben and I have been only twice before, we stopped right at the end in front of the white door. There wasn't a single sound coming from any of the other rooms and it lead me to believe that they were either empty or people were sleeping. They were eerily quiet.

"Dr Carter, I didn't expect to see you today." One of the doctors said as he walked out of a room with a file in his hands.

"How is she?" Ben asked as the doctor placed the file on the desk before searching for another. Opening it up, he flipped through the pages before turning to face us.

"She's a lot better today, you might be able to get a few words out of her." He said sadly as he nodded and slowly pushed open the door.

Walking in, we let the door close behind us before looking around the room to see the frail woman huddled in the far corner. She was quietly mumbling something to herself while rocking back and forth. She looked unrecognisable in comparison to the last time I saw her.

"Mom." Ben gulped as he clenched his fists by his side. He hates calling her that, absolutely despises it with every cell in his body but we have no other choice. We quickly learned after the second visit that she responds so much more when he calls her that. That she feels happier and that's what we need right now. We need her to be happy to get our answers.

"Ben, my boy." She whispered with a small as she held her arms out to him.

Walking closer to her, we sat on her bed and watched her smile at us.

"How are you feeling?" I asked as she turned to face me, her smile slowly fading.

"I'm sorry, Mason." She sobbed as she wrapped her arms around her legs and buried her head between her knees. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry." She repeated over and over again as she rocked back and forth.

"It's okay, Annabelle. We forgive you." I said as she stopped sobbing and froze in place.

I'm not quite sure what we forgive her for, but there's something that's been eating at her brain for the longest time. More specifically, right after Everly Rose had died. We're sure there's some sort of link but the problem is that we have no clue what it is.

The other two times we visited, she mumbled the same words over and over again, 'it's my fault I'm sorry'. We knew from then there was something more to it. She wasn't just a lady that lost her marbles from sitting in a jail cell for so many years, but there was a lot more than what we knew.

"You do?" She sniffled as I nodded with a small smile.

She reminds me of a little child in an old woman's body. Her hair is completely grey and her skin is wrinkled and pale. She's lost a significant amount of weight over the last four years that she could probably get blown away by the August wind.

"I would've stopped him if I could, you know that don't you? I didn't mean to separate them but he made me. And he's going to kill me if he finds out. He tried twice and now he'll try again and again and again till he does." She said panicked as she shot up from the floor and darted to the door. That's the most she's spoken.