Ciana Pandora

FOUR

Kade stayed in the hospital galumphing around from 4pm to 7pm. He stands with anticipation when finally; the lights in the operation room go off and the surgeons begin the come out. He rushes to one of them.

“Tell me it went okay.” He demands.
The nurse removes her nose mask and looks morose. “She lost a lot of blood, sir. We couldn’t save her. I’m sorry.”

He stands back and suddenly looks down and out of physicality. He runs into the operation room and whisks the white sheet off Nadine’s face.

“Nadine! Nadine! Listen to me. This is not the time to play dead.” He says sternly. “You are seventeen fucking years old. You couldn’t wait to grow up. Now you have. So stop this childish game of playing dead.”
There is no reaction from her. She looked pale, but still pretty. She still had the long brunette hair and big eyes that Kade adored. She still had that look on her face which always said; ‘Everything’s okay, jackass’ whenever Kade was worried.

“Nadine, look we are steps away from winning the case. You wanna see Sam rot in prison, right?” Kade grabs her hand and kisses it. “You also wanna get a boyfriend, don’t you?”
She would’ve said; “Boys are pieces of shit.” But now, she is saying nothing. A nurse touches Kade shoulder.

“Nadine, I thought you never liked the stench in hospitals. When did you start enjoying it, huh? The nurses think you are dead. What a great actress you are! You created a big scene. Congrats!”

Something falls from Nadine’s neck. Kade picks it up. It’s a pendant that Kade made for her. It has the inscriptions; KADINE. He gave it to her on her sixteenth birthday to show that he’d always be with her. She had said it was too lame to wearing it everywhere. But she wore it anyway and showed it to everyone saying that Kade sucked at merging names.

“Sir, please. You have to leave now.” The nurse coaxes.

“Nadine, you can’t leave me. This sounds lame, but I love you, Nadine. You can’t do this to me. I hate missing people.” Kade says.

“Sir, please. You have to leave.”

“Can I stay with her for a while?”

“I’m sorry, you can’t. We must take her to the morgue.” The nurse says.
Kade retreats and walks away. He enters his Jeep. He doesn’t pick the call from his neighbor. His car skids off in the rain. Kade punches the steer and yells continuously with agitation as pictures of Nadine flash his memory.

Tears run down his face rapidly and they are both for anger and sorrow. He blames himself for her death. When it seems like he can take it no more, he gets off his car, sits in the rain and throws several beer bottles at his car tire. With every throw, he lets out a scream. He does this for as much as he can. The more he broke glasses, the more the tire deflated, the more it deflated, the more he screamed, and the more he screamed, the more Nadine appeared. This continues till he blacks out completely, falls back-down on the wet road and sees nothing.