Unfair

"Don't cry."

The softness of her voice and the violence of the fit of coughing that followed so closely after her words just made me want to cry even more. She was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen, and the sight of her just lying there in the hospital bed was more than I could stand. What made it even worse was that I was the one who had killed her.

I hadn't even been legally drunk, but it was enough, and combined with the ice, it meant for disaster. I had barely even realized what was happening until it was too late. I walked away with a few bruises and she didn't walk away at all. The doctors hadn't even been sure if she would wake up from her coma, and while her parents were getting ready to fly back from half way around the world to be with her, I was all she had.

Her name is Anna. I had never met her before that terrible night when I ruined her life and future, but I knew from the first moment they let peek in through her window that I loved her. This wasn't just a love of guilt or confusion or drunkenness. I was quite sober by this point and the police had questioned me thoroughly enough to establish there was no fault as far as the law was concerned. Somehow, I saw this girl, and I knew that we could be something great together, if only I hadn't killed her.

She woke up before her parents arrived, a miracle the doctors said, but the beauty of that moment was not savored for long. They waited until mom and dad were there to give the devastating news: Anna was going to die. It would be a slow death and not too painful as far as such deaths go, but it was inevitable. There was too much internal damage, and nothing anyone could do to fix it.

I knew Anna's parents hated me, but for some reason, they still let me spend time with her. I apologized so many times I ran out of ways to say I was sorry, but Anna never blamed me. She just said, "I forgive you" and that was all. She even was willing to talk to me, which made my heart beat even faster and my own pain even greater. Perhaps what I had felt at first was just a passion, but as we talked long into the night, I discovered this girl was perfect.

I asked her at first what I could do, if there was anyone else she needed to contact or any last things she needed to take care of. No, there was no one who had not already been told, and the only task she needed to complete was the writing of her will. I could barely stand it when she said that, but she was the strong one, the one that told me not to be afraid. "I've led a good life," she said, even though she was only 23. "But I never really knew what I wanted to do with it anyway."

She was a music major. She had a beautiful singing voice, I was told, well, before I took that from her. And she could play the violin as well, or at least, used to play. She was never good enough to make a living on it, though, she confided. "Might end up being all for the best," she mused, and I begged her not to say that.

What made her say she led a good life was really all the volunteer work she had done. When her parents angrily told me about it all, it almost made me think that she couldn't die after all, for she must be an angel. I couldn't understand how fate could be so cruel to take such a wonderful person like this out of the world, but then I realized it wasn't fate who had done it, but me. I had made life unfair.

The days passed. Friends of Anna's came to visit her, to say goodbye, or to linger on until the end. A group of children she had led in a choir came, tears filling their eyes. She didn't tell them not to cry, she let them, but assured them she would be going to a better place. Yet, through all those who came and went or didn't went, I was there. Not often in the room. It was strange to most everyone that Anna would let me in there at all, but I stayed at the hospital. I used up all my vacation at work and a little extra besides. I had to be there. I had killed this girl, this girl I had now fallen in love with, and I had to be there until the end.

The coughing finally stopped and I saw there were tears in Anna's eyes instead of in my own. "I know I try to be brave," she said almost in a whisper. "But I'm scared, too. Deep down, I know it will be okay, I know I don't have to be afraid, but not so deep down, I'm terrified."

She reached her hand out and I took it, and then I blurted the most ridiculous and inappropriate thing I had ever said. "Marry me."

There was silence and then, "Andrew, I'll be gone in a few days. I can never give you anything."

I nodded. I knew that. I wasn't after anything. I wouldn't even get her beautiful violin or anything else she had owned. That would be too cruel and that was not what I was after. I loved this girl, and years from now, when the world was still mourning her passing, I wanted to be able to say that I had been married to her, if only for a day.

"I don't care," was all I said. "I love you, and it kills me that I did this to you."

She only smiled and squeezed my hand with a strength I could not have imagined she could possess. "I love you, too," she whispered. "No one else could ever understand it, but I do. And yes, even if it is the very last thing I do, I will marry you."

When we called the preacher, he thought he was coming to bring comfort, and was shocked and confused when informed we wanted him to bring us joy in Anna's final days, or perhaps even hours.

Her parents didn't want this to happen, I knew, but they could not argue. They wanted to do everything Anna wanted, no matter how crazy or foolish it might seem. Her true friends were much the same.

And so we were married. There was no great ceremony, no grand dinner or dancing or other wedding night festivities. There was just the paster, her parents, a few friends, Anna, and, inexplicably, me, right there in the middle of it all. I fed her jell-o in lieu of cake and even that she could barely manage. She couldn't really sign the marriage certificate either, but it was good enough for me, and the feeble kiss she was able to give me was the most wonderful touch I had ever felt.

I did stay with her all that night, until she fell asleep, and I was so weary myself, I could hardly keep my eyes open. I drifted off with my hand still touching hers.

When I woke up the next morning, I knew something was wrong. Anna wasn't dead, not yet, but she wasn't moving either. I had barely noticed this when a doctor and three nurses came rushing into the room. "What's going on?" I needed to know.

"You have to leave," one of the nurses said.

"But, that's my wife," I countered without even thinking about it.

Another of the nurses sneered. "We know all about that," she jeered.

It hurt more than any pain I had felt so far, and I realized that they didn't realize why I had done this. I wanted to explain, but I couldn't not to them, not...

"She's slipped into a coma again," the doctor told me in a much gentler voice than his assistants. "Please, you have to go. And tell her parents what's happening."

What's happening. I didn't even know what was happening. I loved this girl, but I had found her too late, I had found her after I had already killed her.

I told her parents who immediately turned away from me in anger and tears. And so the hours passed and I waited alone. And waited and waited and waited.

It was nearly midnight before I finally saw the doctor again coming too slowly towards the waiting room. Anna's parents jumped up and rushed at him and I stepped forward as well. The doctor looked like he was about to explode in tears and he looked at her parents and just said, "She's better."

Her mother started bawling while her husband soothed her. Seeing that they thought he was using a euphemism, the doctor quickly smiled and reached out to them, "No, no," he insisted. "She's alive and she's better. I don't know how it's possible, but she's healing, or at least enough that we can fix the rest. She's not going to die."

He turned and looked directly at me and gave me a look of triumph I had never seen on a doctor's face before. "Your wife is going to live."

My wife is going to live.

My wife... My wife... oh my...