“I wanna go home, Alice,” I whispered when I was able to get my composure back a little bit. “But I won’t go unless you go with me.” It was the last thing she’d said to me years upon years ago, when I’d still been in a coma from my cancer. I’d heard her, and while I knew it was different for everybody, I guess I was hoping that meant she’d hear me.
I didn’t have any delusions about our future. Sure, the removal of the blood clot probably meant that recovery would be a bit easier for her, but I knew she wouldn’t be the same. That much was obvious, and while I had no qualms whatsoever about caring for her, I knew she was going to hate it. That would make it all the harder, but it never even entered my mind that it might be easier to just let her go. At first I’d been preparing myself for it, but now, after all the hopeful things the doctors had told me and the response I’d been able to get from Al herself, it was the furthest thing from my mind.

“Fight this for me, baby,” I begged, sitting there in that sterile little white room, alone with her in the cold. She was wrapped in blankets and I knew she wasn’t feeling any discomfort, but I still felt bad and went back into my room to bring her another blanket. I tucked it in under the mattress and held her after I’d spread it over her, remembering the hundreds of times I’d done the very same thing after I’d come home late from some meeting or other and found her passed out on the couch, her laptop open on the coffee table. I had a habit of carrying her into bed and undressing her, wrapping her up in the covers afterward and holding her until I fell asleep too. She was never silent then like she was now, though. She’d always be murmuring something, although I rarely understood it. They were just tiny incoherent noises of contentment, but I missed them like crazy at the moment.

“I love you, Al,” I whispered into her ear, willing myself not to cry. I slowly separated from her and looked at my watch…a little past nine. I’d been in here with her for over two hours, and I felt like I’d accomplished absolutely nothing. For as much as I’d managed to sleep the night before, I found myself feeling incredibly exhausted again. Which made sense considering I’d been bawling like a baby in spurts for two hours now. “I’m gonna go to sleep, sweetie,” I told her as I stood up. “I wish it could be in here with you,” I continued, and I really did. The way she smelled had always lulled me to sleep, and the way she had mini conversations with herself through the night had always struck me as adorable.