“Bro, you’re awake! That’s what I’m talking about.” He starts doing his football touchdown dance, grooving around the room, his arms and legs moving to an imaginary beat.
For a moment I remember him crying, placing those tulips on Kimberly’s grave. It’s such a stark contrast. Besides… he’s not even supposed to be here. He should be at UCLA.
He stops mid-hip-thrust when he sees Dr. Benefield and quickly straightens up, clearing his throat. “Oh, uh… I’ll come back.”
“You stay right here, bro,” she says, standing and looking over at me. “We’ll talk more later. Any symptoms and you have one of the nurses call me, got it? Don’t move.”
When I nod, she heads out, closing the door quietly behind her.
He spins around to look at me, absolutely ecstatic. “Dude, this is so—”
“How long have you been in love with Kim?” I ask abruptly, figuring the only way to get the truth is to shock it out of him. His mouth falls open in surprise, which tells me I was right. I couldn’t have just made it all up. I knew it.
He recovers quickly and gives me a skeptical look, pointing to the IV drip next to me. “What kind of drugs are they giving you?”
I stare at him for a long moment, but he still refuses to fess up.
I let it slide and try to smile, pointing to my forehead. “Coma brain. Sorry.”
His shoulders ease, and he plops down in the chair Dr. Benefield was just sitting in. “Dude, you’ve been out for weeks. Where the hell did that come from?” he asks, eyeing me.
I pause. He’s probably going to think I’m crazy, but… everything is already so crazy, what does it matter? I have to be dreaming anyway. I’ll wake up soon and be back with Marley.
“You told me at football one Saturday. After Kim died,” I say, his eyes widening. “In the accident.” His mouth drops open and he starts to speak, but I keep going. “I woke up, Sam. I woke up an entire year ago in this room, and you were here and you didn’t say anything but you were crying and—”
“That’s insane. Kim’s fine—”
“Just listen,” I say, cutting him off.
Then I take the leap and tell him everything. About Kim being gone. About the months lying around wishing I was gone too. Our fight in the park. The tulips. How we realized what we had to do, who we had to be. What we had to let go of.
Mostly, though, I tell him about the girl at the cemetery in that yellow pullover. The girl who saved me. The girl I fell in love with. I tell him about Marley.
He listens as I finish, his face stunned.
After a long, silent moment, he says, “A hallucination? A dream, maybe?”
I start to argue, but he stops me.
“Nothing you just said really happened,” he says. “You were in a coma. I was here. I saw you, dude, and I promise, you didn’t leave this bed.”
I shake my head, my heart pounding loudly in my chest. He’s wrong. “Still feels real,” I say, thinking of Marley. “She feels real.”
He snorts and pulls his phone out. “Easy way to find out,” he says.
Yes. Of course. I sit up, watching as he opens a browser, typing out the letters in Marley’s name and looking up at me expectantly.
“Marley…”
I freeze. Marley…？ What’s her last name? I know I know it. I rack my brain, trying to remember a moment when she said it.
I can’t, though. I can’t think of one moment. How is that possible?
I swallow, faltering. “I, uh. I don’t know,” I admit quietly.
Sam puts his phone down, raising his eyebrows at me. “You were in love with some chick who has no last name? You didn’t think that was weird?”
“She has a last name,” I clarify, getting pissed off. “I just don’t remember it because it didn’t matter.…”
“The only place that shit doesn’t matter is in dreams, man,” Sam says, sliding his phone back into his pocket. He gives me a serious look. “I’ll tell you what is real. Kimberly is real. Kim is alive. Not this dream girl of yours. Aren’t you happy about that?”
I can still feel how coarse Kim’s headstone was underneath my fingertips, the unending weight of grief, heavy on my arms and legs.
“Of course I’m happy, but—”
“Hey, fam!” a voice says, pulling me back to the present. “This where the party’s at?”
Kimberly’s standing in the doorway, a duffel bag slung over her good arm. Sam stands quickly, the chair screeching against the white tile floor.