LEE
Dr. Sim Do won, he is the one who came up when I had whisked through her belongings to find her medical files. Anything that I could get my hands on as the medics from the center had asked for. Buried beneath her piling books and editorial documents I had managed to pull out a thick binder etched with the logo of her family's medical facility.
And also a bag packed with cans of pills and pain shots.
The feathery feel of her fainting into my arms still remained fresh, the choking dread when I saw the blood by her chin and neck had only increased until I saw the lack of surprise or wonder in Shin's eyes. They were sad and tired. And I hated it.
I hated the fucking idea that folders into me.
Has this happened before?
Is this something that was also hid from me?
What was even happening?
That was when my gut kicks in, deranged and crazed I had carried her, sensing the rising temperature in her skin as my friends erupted in action to get my destination straight. I drove the car while Elzina sat by the passenger seat doing her best with the anatomical knowledge she pursues to stop Shin from bleeding out.
A look through the rear, I saw the plight and worry in her eyes. The pale stack of napkins she had used to press on, all drenched.
The silent glances that Alex kept nurturing from the side while ordering up a team of qualifiedly ranked doctors to join in were the only reason I was able to keep up with driving. My heart lurched for reassurance, for Elzina to whip up her intellect and tell me that it was nothing but some dehydrated imbalance.
But the bottle of pills and the package of test reports from recent dates lying by the conference table as the two doctors trade what it reads with a stoic silence has me in an iron hold. Shin was stable, the bleeding had stopped. She was rushed into intensive care as soon as we arrived. They wouldn't tell us what's wrong because they couldn't till they ran tests on her. Elzina and Alex never left my side, though Alex kept coercing Elzina to get some rest- all she did was use her membership card and used the nearest guest room to get the blood from her top.
It was Elzina's birthday. Shin and I were to be at a party- with how gorgeous she looked tonight with her bold eyes glowing and actions charring through me- we were supposed to ditch the gala and spent the night in each other's arms. We should have talked each other out of the pain and hurt we were diligently putting through. Not- not this.
This night was not this.
"We have to contact Dr. Sim Do won, the neurologist from south Korea who apparently had been looking after Ms Shin Young's case. We are preparing for the video meet and we need someone who is-
I hadn't even listened to the end of the nurse's reasoning, I was on my feet and to the conference room. A woman with sunset red hair and a tall man with a sharp nose and wise eyes stared up at me when I had entered.
"I am Shaun Lee, I am her husband. How is she?"
I don't have time to read their badges or memorize the name to see who in the world is tending to her. All I want to know was that she was fine. As fine as everyone is in this room. But they smile politely at me as they asked me to take a seat.
I sit with my gaze still questioning them,
"We would like to know for how long have you been accompanying and following up with Ms shin Young with her medical â
"I haven't"
Their lips clip as I swallow the bitter truth in and puzzle them in a sentence.
"I am not aware of what happened today. I don't even know if this had happened before"
But what I starvingly wish to know now is that whatever it is- it is okay.
The doctors were quick to mask their opinions of me. But I wasn't backing off- I had been a terrible man to her. But hasn't she been the same? Hiding it all from me? Before they could swap out a new query a young-looking male who I presume was his assisting intern declared that Dr. Sim Do-won was live from Korea.
The blue screen on right to us lights up and neutralizes with a man in his wrinkled white coat and disheveled hair. His rimless glasses peaks halfway through his pocket. It was bright on the other side- early in the morning. But his eyes were sharp and too familiar for me to brush off.
He was the man I saw shin with, the one she denied to know initially till I had confronted her morbidly. She had called him her friend.
For a second our eyes meet- a flash of recognition passes through him. But he recovers quickly only to blurt out-
"How is Shin?" then he waves it off and dives into the heart of it. Nothing that I seem to understand at first- But soon I do. Bit by bit, Pieces by pieces. Scraping as they discuss the internal trauma that had resulted in what she has been suffering throughout the year.
A year.
I almost laugh at the immense physical anguish I felt at that. They spoke of surgery- and the success rate, and it's when I burst out.
"What do you mean by success rate?"
I didn't realize how hard I had been clutching onto the armrest of the chair till the doctor's voice resonates through the screen- I only wanted to burn my finger through its leather.
"As difficult, it is to state, we can't keep you in the dark Mr. Lee. We have to be prepared for the worse. Even if we succeed to stop the internal bleeding- the rate of shin falling into a stage of coma is-
I don't think I heard him after that.
I didn't want to hear him after the nonsense he was spewing. So when the Doctors left me so I could make my decision up I stared at the man on screen, I watched his professional demeanor slip off as he rubbed his eyes, a flush of fatigue seem to fall on him as he spoke-
"I didn't want to meet the man shin spoke so much about in such circumstances. But I can't help but see why she said she can't have found a better person even if she used her whole life. She would laugh later making jokes about how short her life could be if everything goes wrong" he chuckled with a sigh, "I hated how she had such a dark sense of humor" his smile was grim as I finally saw it for the first time. She wasn't lying. He was her friend.
"I can't let anything happen to her"
"She won't like that false hope. I also disliked how much of a realist she was"
"And I don't care what she thinks"
His smile in amusement.
"She also was right about your stubbornness"
It soared my anger as my teeth grind in a clinch.
"If so, can I expect to ask a stranger the reason why a girl who claimed to love me would hide this from me?"
His answer caught me off guard.
"No one she loves knows. Not even her parents" he exhales with might, as if telling me that was a relief to him. I think I had stopped breathing. "It was her choice to keep it a secret. She didn't want her last healthy days to be monitored by her loved ones with pity. She wanted to live and be loved for who she really is. Its what her wishes were all about"
He pauses and adds, the room seems to trap me inside as I seem to be trapped within my own body. To many layers to feel the light on me. I wanted to throw the monitor away, Watch it shatter into a useless entity. Wanted the person gone from my view who seem to have made amends with something that shouldn't even be real.
Last healthy days?
What does the fuck even mean?
"I am glad she had someone to share her wishes with"
Of course, he knows of them. He probably knows more of how she felt about me than me myself. When she wakes up I have to see to it that it won't be this way in the future.
In the future where everything is perfect.
But I had one last question that I have been burning my throat. If not now- I would never be able to face it. Despite how desperate I was for this to be a nightmare, I know I have to know how this began.
"You said Shin sustained the internal trauma when she was young. Do you know how?" the sentence ends with a whisper as I saw his shoulder square with hateful malice. It was the first minute I had seen him lose the purposeful coolness in his mannerism.
"She got It from her kidnapper when she was abducted at eleven of age"
It finished there. Our conversation. I couldn't move from my spot, I couldn't feel the realness of the situation I was in. After the day I came to know of her abduction- I hadn't been able to eat, sleep or think. Estranging myself away from her.
How naive I was to think that freeing her from me would solve all our problems when every element of us seem to bind us with a past where none of us could have helped each other.
Every inch of me screamed at me to react with the blinding agony they were hoping I feel. I was alone, I was alone here with the fear of losing her. A fear that was paralyzing me like nothing that ever had.
I inhale a mouthful of air at first, then soon my racing heart joins in. My hand tears against my hair as my elbow rests by the desk. My lips quiver as the tears gather by my vision. A scream leaves me, soon morphing into a desperate sob.
I don't stay still. My body shakes with each breath. I can hear the door being opened and someone rushing to me.
I don't understand why.
Alex embraces me into him.
I don't know why.
The cries don't stop.
I don't feel the pain.
Not when the grief was so intense that It kept drowning the reasons I was breaking down for.
So...umm..
...
I mean. ð¥º