All This Time(58)

Instagram. I need to try Instagram.

I look around at the sprawling trees and shrubbery and gardens taking up the entire center of the hospital grounds. There are brightly colored flowers everywhere, framing the small plants and wrapping around the roots of the trees.

I freeze when my eyes land on a patch of pink Stargazers, identical to those sprouting around Laura’s grave. The warm breeze brings with it the sweet smell of the honeysuckle growing around the oak tree, and my stomach twists as Dr. Ronson’s face pops into my head.

The wheelchair slows as we near a huge fountain at the center. I reach out to lightly touch the stone, little sprays of mist floating toward me from the frothing water.

A blossom falls slowly into my lap, and I pick it up, staring at it. When I look up, I see cherry trees lining the path, blowing softly in the wind. For a moment I remember the identical soft pink petals blowing around Marley, her eyes fixed on mine that day at the park.

I’d do anything to get back to that moment. A moment that everyone and everything is trying to get me to question.

I crush the blossom in my fist; then my head falls into my hands, a single flower somehow bringing with it a tiny wave of doubt. And that scares the shit out of me.

“What is it?” my mom asks.

“Do you think it’s true?” I ask, throwing it onto the ground. “Do you think Marley is really gone?”

My mom stops pushing the wheelchair and kneels in front of me, her face serious. Just like it is every time I’ve brought up Marley. “She’s not gone, honey. She was never here.”

She’s so sure about it. So matter-of-fact.

I stare back at her. I need to make her understand.

“What if you woke up tomorrow and I was gone and everyone told you I never even existed?” I ask quietly. “Would you stop loving me, Mom?”

I see her falter, her hand finding the armrest of my wheelchair, just the thought of it overwhelming her. Tears fill her eyes, and her fingers grab ahold of my arm and squeeze, almost like she’s checking I’m really here.

“I can’t either,” I whisper.



* * *




When my mom leaves later that afternoon, I grab my iPad from my bedside table, but I somehow can’t bring myself to scroll through Instagram, the images of all the different Marleys. I know in my gut that she doesn’t have one. I mean, she refused to write on the computer, opting to handwrite in a notebook instead. There’s no way she has an Instagram.

So what am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to find her?

“Can I come in?”

I look up to see Kimberly standing in the doorway, her arm sling-free, a small blue brace wrapped around her wrist. Her blue eyes lock into mine. The fire is gone, replaced with some sense of understanding. She’s looking at me like she’s reading me better than I can.

“Sam told me,” she says. “About your other life.”

Your other life. The words cut me like daggers. I try to contain it, to keep my shit together. But the tears come spilling out, no matter how hard I fight them.

She hurries over, wrapping her arms around me. “It’s okay,” she says, holding me while I sob. “It’s gonna be okay.”

She doesn’t force me to talk. She just sits with me, quietly letting me calm down enough to fall asleep. I find relief only in the darkness behind my eyelids. For a glimmering moment, nothing hurts. Nothing is upside down. Nothing is.

When I wake up a few hours later, I feel a warm body next to me.

I know it’s Kim. But I squeeze my eyes shut and pretend it’s Marley.

“I know you’re awake,” Kim says, poking me in the side, her finger landing right on a protruding rib, a side effect of my liquid coma diet.

I sigh. “That’s what they keep telling me.”

There’s a knock on the door, and we quickly turn our heads to find Sam’s big frame filling the doorway.

“Hey,” she says, not moving her arms from around me, and somehow I feel guilty. But unfortunately, a hospital bed is only so big, and if I move, I’ll topple off onto the tile floor.

“Right,” Sam says, looking between the two of us and clearing his throat. “Okay. Good. I’m gonna…”

His voice trails off and he turns on his heel, heading back down the hallway. We watch him go, his footsteps fading into the distance.

I think of the tulips.

“What’s up with him?” she asks, confused.

“You… should go after him,” I say, studying her face.

She looks over at me. “Why?”

“I think you know why.” So much has felt off since I woke up, but this part of the dream world and the real world feels the same.

I push myself up, running a hand over my face, the dynamic between the three of us feeling clearer since I woke up from whatever world I was in, since I spent an entire year forced to grapple with a life without her. And I don’t want to lose her again. Not like that. But I also can’t hold her back.

Not anymore.

If Sam is her Marley, he’s real and he’s here. He understands her when she’s angry and sad. He’s the person she can be completely herself with.

“Do you think people should settle?” I ask her. “Even if it’s not what they want?”

She lets out a long sigh and throws her legs over the bed, standing up to pace the room. I watch as she pulls her hair into a messy bun, ready to resume our fight. “I never said I was settling. I’m sorry about the night of the accident—”