Rain Again (Completed)

Chapter 22

The paramedics had to literally wrestle a hysteric Alex off of Kate's limp body. And a cursing Ellie had then thrown a glass of water at his face to have him back to his senses. It was a good thing that Ellie had yet to know what Alex's real connection was to Kate - or Kate's past. Otherwise, it would have probably been acid instead of water in that glass. 

It was like a blurry nightmare after that as he arrived at the hospital following the ambulance in his car. Seeing him literally shaking, Ellie vigilantly offered to drive, of course--which he wordlessly accepted. 

He watched as they whisked Kate away, strapped in a gurney, an oxygen mask covering half her face. Her hair was matted, skin paled except the most parts of her body which had blood drying on them. 

Red spots stung the back of his eyes at the sight.

As nurses fussed over Kate in the emergency, a certain doctor appeared at a maddening speed, and Ellie immediately began talking frantically to him. 

Alex was like a ghost in the background--filling the forms, watching the blue curtains being dragged closed around Kate's bed, listening as the doctor talked. 

"We need to perform a CT and MRI scan to see the status of the tumor in her brain. It seems like the cancerous cells have expedited way faster than we'd thought."

"Wh... what will happen now?" Ellie's voice was panicked.

"We can only say anything for sure after studying the scan results," the doctor replied hurriedly. "The Chemotherapy has been a failure. It seems like we've gone past the stage to decrease the tumor initially with the Chemo drugs. Perhaps, surgery straightaway is the only way now, but that is only if the CT and MRI scan reports confirm that the procedure will not endanger any critical part of her brain because it can then mean a coma, paralysis... or even instant death in that case."

Tumor in her brain. Cancerous cells.  Chemotherapy. Surgery. Death.

It felt like the earth had ceased spinning. Virulent words were just left behind, hanging midair in the absence of gravity, and they spiraled around Alex endlessly. They made sense, but at the same, they did not.

No. It couldn't be. He certainly had misheard! But even an attempt to pathetic denial fell weak. 

All this time, when he had been busy hating her and making her life miserable with his arrogance and pitiful self, she had been suffering through bloody cancer.  

The nurse had to literally snatch the form off of Alex's grip as he froze at the counter just across where Kate was inside the curtains, hidden from him.

His fists clenched at his sides in a self-directed rage and the unfairness of this whole damned situation. 

It should have been him, not her. 

He should have been the one suffering from cancer, not her--never her. He was the sinner here, not Kate. But it was her bleeding on that bed behind the curtains--barely breathing, barely hanging by a feeble thread that connected her to life. 

Alex doubled over, feeling sick, his stomach squeezing, nose exhaling puffs of heated breaths. 

Stumbling over to the washroom, he emptied all the contents of his stomach. Tears dripped down his nose as he kept retching, not just due to the physical affliction but the soul's as well.