In Time

Epilogue

"Marissa, c'mon darling, you have to eat something," the nurse coaxed, pushing a tray of bland food onto the hospital table.

The lady jolted up from the hospital bed, hurling a pillow towards the unsuspecting nurse. With a swift stroke, she swept the entirety of the contents of the tray onto the hospital floor.

"GET OUT! ALL OF YOU! I DON'T WANT TO SEE ANYONE!" she howled, proceeding to hurl fruits from her bedside basket at the hospital staff.

She saw the nurses whispering softly to one another, looks of furrowed eyebrows evident on their faces. None of them dared to speak after her outburst, they were probably too worried about angering her further.

As soon as she heard the ward door close, Marissa's aggressive façade was tore off immediately. She slumped backwards onto the headrest of the hospital bed, allowing her anger to turn to sadness, permitting herself to cry. Besides, there wouldn't be anyone here to witness her tear-stained face. She had already scared all of them away. Her family. Her friends. And now the nurses.

There was a gentle knock on the door and a middle-aged man clad in green scrubs entered her ward. Marissa hurried to clean off her tears, to remove any evidence that she had been crying but it was too late. Her puffy eyes probably gave her away.

"Get out. I don't wish to see anyone," she spat, reddening at the thought that he saw her crying.

"Hello Marissa, I'm Dr Xavier Tan. I'm here to help you," he gave her a smile, completely oblivious to her previous statement.

"You can't help me. N-No one can help me!" she tried to keep her voice from breaking. "My life is r-ruined! Please! I j-just want to be alone!"

How dare he! He wasn't the one in the accident. He wasn't the one who just lost his foot. He wasn't the one who had his life changed forever. Of course it was easy for him to act all nice and caring to his patients.

She heard his footsteps nearing towards her. "Marissa, trust me. I can help you. I've been there, really, I understand," he spoke slowly and calmly.

What could she do to stop him from bothering her? Frustrated, she lifted the pillow off of her face, turning her head quickly towards the man with her eyes closed. She wouldn't be able to take it if she caught a glimpse of the empty void under the blanket where her right foot should have been. It would have been too painful to bear.

Then she saw it. The man had the left pant sleeve of his scrubs rolled up all the way to his thigh, and in place of where his left calf should have been was a long metal rod. Yes, a metal rod, it certainly didn't look like flesh. The black prosthetic cover that he had around his thigh area was beautifully decorated. Cats were perched on a tree branch, staring into what seemed like the black night sky.

For the first time since her accident, she felt a genuine smile forming on her face. "I would never have g-guessed that you were a c-cat person," she managed out between chokes.

He chuckled. "Yes, this cover means a lot to me. Sounds weird, but I actually found this design at my prothetist's office many years back. I took an instant liking to it and asked for it to be printed for me but the funny thing was that I never found out who was the artist who did the drawing. It's a bit of a mystery."

"I'm s-sorry I s-shouted at you. I t-thought that you were another one of them..." Marissa drifted off, not knowing what else to say.

"It's alright, I understand. It's perfectly normal to feel sad, to let yourself cry. But I just want you to know that your life is never over. You are still alive. As soon as you are willing to pick yourself up, everyone, including me, will be here to help you out."

She smiled. She wasn't alone in this. There was someone out there just like her, someone who understood, someone who was able to live a normal life. "Thank you so much doctor."

He stood up to leave. "Don't mention it. Alright, I'll see you around soon. Just ask any of the nurses for me if you want to have a talk. And you don't have to call me doctor, you can just call me X."

---

"Marissa! Is that you? Oh my God, thank you so much for coming! I really appreciate it so much!" her best friend enveloped her in a bear hug.

"Anything for you my friend, I'll gladly walk on fire to attend your exhibition," she joked.

"Hey, speaking of which, you've been recovering really well! Sorry I'd been really busy the past few months, I feel like I haven't really been there for you when you needed me," her friend admitted guiltily.

They hooked their arms, just like in middle school and toured the exhibition hall.

"Don't worry about me, I'm a tough cookie, nothing will break me," Marissa laughed. "Though I've really got my prosthetist to thank. Without him, I'm not sure if I'll be walking right now."

"Wow, he does seem to be a cool dude. So have you taken a liking to him? Is he attached? What do you think about walking the rest of life's journey with him?" her friend teased.

Marissa felt heat rushing to her face. "Stop it! You are the one in need of a matchmaking session..."

Then she saw it.

One of her best friend's painting on the exhibition wall. It was a black background with white outlines. There were six cats perched on a tree branch, staring at what seemed to be a crescent moon in the night sky. The white outlines were made of many small intricate patterns that came together to form the bigger picture.

Something clicked in her brain. 

"Y-you d-drew that?"

Her friend nodded. "Yep! Are you too blown away by it? I can make a special reservation for you if you want to auction for it..."

"Diana, you have to meet X."

-THE END-

A/N: I actually wrote this chapter with the idea of 'six degrees of separation' in mind (the idea that all living things and everything else in the world are six or fewer steps away from each other so that a chain of "a friend of a friend" statements can be made to connect any two people in a maximum of six steps). I was introduced to this idea in a rather useless statistics module in University ._. but it's pretty interesting to think about I guess! 

And in this case, Xavier and Diana are down to their last degree of separation :)