A/N: WHOAAA I'm up at the top! Pleasedon'tkillmeIloveyou. <3

Chapter 22

The evening passed quickly. My mother enjoyed the presence of Ted, and he seemed to get along well with her. "He's just like your grandpa," she whispered to me. I chuckled a bit, glad that Ted reminded her of her own father, even if I had no memories of the man. It was endearing, to say the least, that I might think of Ted as even more akin to my own grandfather.

We said our goodbyes at the door, and I waved my mother down the driveway. For a moment, I entertained the thought of asking AJ to drive her home. But then I brushed the thought away, knowing she had made the walk from my house to hers successfully before. So, I watched her walk away and then closed the door behind me.

Moments later, we heard it. Ted, AJ, and I, all cleaning up the living room, heard the sound of screeching tires, the honk of a car horn, a scream. Worried glances were exchanged, and in an instant AJ and I were at the door. We heard Ted on the phone with the police, reporting a car wreck.

AJ and I stepped out on to the front steps to see a woman, cradling a baby with one arm, hair matted with blood, crying on the ground at the front of her car. At a second glance, we saw that she was looking at a body sprawled on the pavement. We ran over to help, and I felt the breath tearing out of me when I saw the face of the person lying unconscious on the pavement.

It was my mother.

AJ's eyes grew wide and he quickly wrapped his arms around me, shielding me from the sight. I began sobbing into his chest, mumbling incoherently. But I knew what I was trying to say.

"I can't lose her... I can't... She's all I have left..."

The woman who had been in the car was apologizing profusely to us through her sobs. Her husband had been driving. He was no longer breathing.

The sound of sirens soared through the air, and soon the road was barricaded by fire trucks, policemen, and ambulances. The woman climbed into one ambulance alongside her husband's corpse, screaming at him to wake up. The baby shrieked louder than the sirens.

I felt myself being pulled along by AJ, helped into his car, buckled in as fast as he could manage. We followed the ambulance that had my mother in it, straight to the hospital. She was rushed from the vehicle into an emergency room as soon as we got there, and AJ and I were blocked from entering. He walked me slowly over to a waiting area, where hard plastic chairs sat to accompany us through the night.

I do not remember falling asleep, but I woke up the next morning, eyes crusted with dried tears. My back was stiff from the hard plastic waiting room seats, and AJ grunted beside me, moving stiffly out of his seat.

"Good morning, Kev," he sighed.

"Heard anything from the doctors yet?” I asked, stretching out my arms.

“Nothing so far.”

I felt tears sting my eyes, but I did my best to hold them back. “Do you think she’ll be okay?” I asked, my voice hitching.

“I think that these doctors will do everything they can to make her okay,” AJ nodded, wrapping an arm around me. I rested my head on his shoulder, a tear escaping.

“They better make her okay,” I whispered.

After what felt like hours, a doctor came out of the emergency room, clipboard in hand, asking for the guardians of my mother. AJ waved him over, and he sighed as he approached us.

“Are you her guardians?” He asked dully.

“I’m her son,” I immediately informed him.

“Very good.” He peered down at his clipboard, marked a few boxes in red pen, and cleared his throat. “Well,” he said.

“”…Well?” I urged him to continue.

“It appears that your… mother… was walking across the street without looking for a designated crosswalk. It is only obvious that she was then hit head-on by a car.” He paused, squinting once more at his paper.

“Is she alive?” I asked bluntly, mentally willing him to simply get to the point.

“The man driving the car was crushed when it flipped over, but his wife and child in the passenger seat survived with minor injuries,” continued the doctor, completely ignoring me. In a spurt of anger, I grabbed the color of the doctor’s starch white lab coat, pulling his face to mine.

“Tell me, right this very minute, where my mother is!” I cried.

“Well, you see, that is the difficult part,” the man said, extracting himself from my grasp.

“And how could it possibly be difficult?” AJ asked scathingly.

“You see, she is here, in this hospital. But she can’t go home.” The doctor brushed off his jacket. “When she hit the pavement, she entered a comatose state, and therefore must remain at the hospital until she wakes.”

I was able to breathe a sigh of relief. She was alive. Alive! In a coma, yes, but alive was so much more than dead. Alive was breathing, alive was here, alive was with me. “Can we see her?” I asked quickly.

“Only family may visit after hours, but during visiting hours, the both of you can go see her,” he shrugged.

“Room number?”

“221.”

Before the man was done speaking, I had dashed to the stairs. AJ followed in quick pursuit. We reached her room in record speed, and I was halted at the sight of my mother, unconscious, surrounded by beeping machines that monitored her heart rate, gave her medicine, helped her breathe.

“Kev…” AJ said, placing a warm hand on my shoulder. I ignored him, my eyes glued to the one spot that did not look like my mother. Plastered across her face, stretching from her left temple to the tip of her chin, was one thick, white piece of gauze, edged with blood.

“Mom,” I breathed, taking a step towards her. Part of me could not believe it was her, and yet the other part of me wanted to run over to her, grab her by the shoulders, and shake her until she woke, demanding that she not ever try to leave me again. Instead, I simply stepped over, pulled up a chair, and entwined our fingers. It seemed like a more appropriate course of action.

“Mrs. Woo,” AJ said, looking directly at my mother’s closed eyes, “I’m very glad that you are okay.” He pursed his lips, nodded curtly, and stepped out of the room. “I’m going to walk around a bit,” he told me.

As soon as he was gone, I was unsure. There was nobody there to guide me anymore. It was simply I and my mother, and what on earth can one possibly say to an unconscious person?

“I know you miss him,” I whispered, the words slipping from my lips. “I don’t know how you couldn’t.” I paused, searching for the right thing to say. “You know, I don’t remember him very much. I just remember you being sad that he is gone.” I laughed bitterly at those oh so familiar memories. “Do you know why I am sad whenever you mention him? I’m sad because I don’t want to see you cry again. Because I want you to be happy.” A stray tear slid down my cheek. “Be happy, okay? Can you do that? Stop torturing yourself and be happy for me. I don’t want you to forget him. I just want you to be able to smile at the fact that he was alive instead of cry over the fact that he died.” I sniffled a little bit and wiped my nose on my sleeve. AJ stepped back into the room, soda in hand.

“I found a machine and figured I’d get you one,” he shrugged, holding a cola in my direction. I noticed how he was discreetly refraining from looking at me, allowing me time to compose myself without feeling the need to explain. I took the drink and smiled secretly to myself, feeling privileged to have such a wonderful boyfriend.

We sat there for ages, until the same doctor from before stepped in, a nearly identical clipboard in hand. “I apologize, sir,” he said, looking directly at AJ, “but visiting hours are over, and as you are not family, I am going to have to ask you to leave.” AJ sighed, nodded at the man, and turned to me.

“Need me to drive you home, or are you staying here?”

“I think I’ll stay the night,” I said, clutching tightly to my mother’s hand. AJ nodded again, kissed me on the forehead, and headed toward the door.

“Call me if you need anything,” he told me. He paused at the door. “Kevin…”

“Hmm?” I had become distracted by the state of my mother’s fingernails.

“Make sure you get some rest, okay?”

“I will,” I managed to smile.

“Promise?”

“Promise.”


A/N: A-am I allowed to be alive? Can I maybe... y'know... live? Thanks. WHEW! xD For a minute there I thoughT WAAIT NO PUT THE KNIFE DOWN NOW okay thank you! Well, the most I can say is... At least I didn't kill her?... No? ... Well then... BE PREPAAAAAAARED (yes our teeth and ambitions are bared) BE PREPAAAAAAAAAAARED (uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh). Sorry I'm listening to Disney songs... and at lAST I SEEEEEEE THE LIIIIIIIIGHT and it's lIKE A FOOOOOG HAS LIFTEEEED. LALALALALA. <3 Sorry. I'm sleepy. Maybe there'll be another chapter. I dunno. November is almost over. URGH. #MENTALBREAKDOWN. Let me know how you liked (or hated...) it? ^_^