Testing Limits - a Reece Bibby Fanfic

Chapter 33

As I sat here waiting It feels like hours are passed. How long has it been since I was shuffled out of Liam's room? I look toward the clock and half an hour has passed. My thoughts take a turn for the worst. If he was okay, wouldn't they let me see him again. What if he's dying? I take a deep breath in, trying to comfort myself with happy thoughts. These happy thoughts are not enough. I am spiralling into a pit of despair, where worst case scenarios cloud my thoughts.

The walls of the little white room felt like they were closing in around me, I felt like I could breathe. I just wanted to scream but no noise would leave me mouth. My room was packed, everybody was here, even a worried looking Finn, but I have never felt so alone. I needed my best friend, I couldn't lose my best friend... not again. He was my glue holding me together, without him I would surely fall to pieces. He could read my mind, whether a simple hand squeeze whenever I needed it, his ability to make me smile or his contagious laughter or the way he held me as I cried, he was always there for me. Even on the coach, he protected me and now he needed help, he needed protecting and I can't do anything.

I just sit and stare at a splotch on the wall, and let my mind wander and began to think about when we met. We were forced together by my parents and his grandma. We were almost as damaged as each other, a match made in heaven. They thought if we had friends we would pull each other out our dark places. You see Liam lost his family around the same time as I lost Sophie. He watched both his parents and baby sister die after a fatal head on collision with a truck. His baby sister Freya died in his arms. He was twelve years old. We were both hurting and understood each other pain. I soon learned that he believed with every fibre of his body that the car crash was his fault, even to this day he won't talk about it. He learned that I didn't want to talk about Sophie either, so we let it be and slowly but surely we began to pull each other out of depression and our friendship bloomed.

If I lost him, who would be there to pull me from that dark place again? I can't think about it. I won't because it's not going to happen. He is going to be fine. In a few hours he will be sitting in bed laughing and joking, back to being himself. He is going to be okay. He has to be.

One hour.

Two hours.

Three hours.

The hours were passing and still no news. Sure a nurse came in and told us now and again that they were trying their hardest with a smile plastered on her face but as the hours passed her face began to falter showing how little how there really was.

Four hours and twenty seven minutes since Liam went into surgery and everybody is asleep. Its just me. I can't sleep. Thoughts of the worst have consumed me. Any hope I had left was being stomped on by my dismal thoughts. The light streaming in from the hallway illuminated the room in a white hue. The boys who were scattered around the room looked calm and peaceful in sleep, like their dreams protected them from all that surrounded them.

The halls of the hospital were eerily quiet when a man in scrubs entered the room. He took off his scrub cap and stood at the end of my bed. I just shook my head, I didn't need to hear it, his eyes spoke volumes. "I am Dr Wood, I am the neurosurgeon and I was operating on your friend Liam. I am very sorry to tell you that you friend had a massive bleed on the brain. We did everything we could but the damage was already done, he's on life support but there's no brain activity. I am very sorry but your friend he's gone."

He continued to talk but I could only see his lips moving, none of what he said registerd with me. I knew it had been coming since the man but when he said those words, it hit me like a truck. A coldness shot through me, all the way to my bones. The realisation I would never see his smile or hear his laugh. It was all too much. I heard a voice off in the distance scream. Someone was screaming NO. NO. NO

And I knew it was my voice.

Jake sat and he held me. He sat with his arms around me till I felt his warmth gradually melt away the ice of my own. We sat for a long time, not talking, just holding each other. It wasn't until the sun of a new day began to stream in through the window was I able to croak a small. "I want to see him one last time."

His eyes were closed and if it weren't for the tube jutting out from from his mouth it woukd have looked like he was sleeping peacfully. He looked like at anymoment he was going to wake up and scream got ya and then laugh uncontrolably. Oh god, I'm never going to hear his laugh again. I run my hand across his cheek. This wasn't him. This was just a vessel, an empty shell that was once my best friend and now it was time to say goodbye.

I look over to the nurse and ask, "Whats going to happen now?" My voice coarse and dry,

"Well honey, this machine here," she points to one of the many. "We turn this off. His breathing will get harder and harder untill he just stops and without oxygen his heart beat will get weaker and weaker. Then this machine will start to beep but we will turn it off. And then his heart will stop." She takes a breath and then continues. "You can have as long as you need to say goodbye, we won't rush you."

I nod and pull my wheelchair closer too his bed, I grab his hand and I hold it. I want nothing more than for him to sqeeze my hand back. But he doesn't. He's gone.

The hours creep by as I wait for his Grandma to come. I was going to have to tell her, I was going to have to tell the last of her family is gone.

It was seven o'clock in the morning when his Grandma shuffled in the room. I turned to her, her eyes look tired and her slivery hair frizzy and messy. She look tired and her eyes looked like they had been crying. I went to to tell her but I choked on my words. The dam broke and tears where streaming down my face. His grandma ran over and cradled me in her arms. She placed a kiss on my forehead.

"I know, I know." Her soft voice whispered in my ear.

"I couldn't do anything, I couldn't save him." This was it. He was gone. What was I meant to do?