With the best intentions
by
"A double toast! At your brilliant timing, for the second damn time."
The nurse spoke turning his gaze to the parking lot, beyond the window whose bars, swallowed by rust, had lost all their decorative hypocrisy. His cheerful lashing tone clashed with the fixture of his gaze elsewhere.
The lump of words channelled along the patient's Eustachian tubes like a sticky egg liqueur, while the neodymium lamp commented on the phrase with a quick moth’s flicker.
Through the steel bar on the side of the bed, her bleary, half-closed eyes returned to her the image of a lanky shape exiting the bedroom.
She wondered why she had only been noticed now, only now despite the endless carousel of drowsiness in which she had fallen for eons. A never-ending display of Chinese lamps, swarming with the nightmares of a painting by Bosch.
The impetus of thirst coagulated in a guttural moan, insufficient to make the sarcastic human crane turn back towards her.
The sound she emitted reminded her of a documentary with a koala, forced to walk on hot coals during a forest fire. It was something she had seen with Lucian that last night spent together before she left in secret heading to the clinic.
I had to fix it for us, Lucian. For once only, maybe the right one. And instead, look where I fucking got myself.
A sudden laugh tried to make its way. The spasms brought to her mind the horrible awareness of those tubes that, like worms, were violating her body. She had not noticed but two figures were now observing her from the edge of the bed.
"Rise and shine, Ms. White. You had a car accident just a mile away from the clinic. Fortunately, on his way back home after the shift, Valery noticed the wheels of your vehicle in the ditch along the avenue. We had to operate you urgently, a lung had collapsed and we had to contain internal haemorrhage in the abdominal cavity. It was not easy but someone up there decided that your day had not yet arrived. "
As he spoke, the doctor's eyes stared at her in dullness and, at the same time, darting with curiosity.
She would have said that some of her saviour’s facial muscles - not all the necessary ones - were struggling to reproduce a slow smile. The attendant loomed from behind the doctor's silhouette, tilting his head silently to one side.
For God’s sake, tear all this stuff away and just give me a damn glass of water. Then I'll pay you what I owe you and leave.
She would have shouted at them, but the only breath filtering from her broken mouth didn't even sound like a koala moan anymore.
"Yes, I understand the curiosity, Ms. White." The doctor's eyes now reminded her of those of an abyssal fish.
"You have crossed the border and turned to us to participate in the pharmacological trials and, may I add, further to helping medical progress, you have also come because we pay fairly well."
A wet and repeated slap against the floor, in a point her eyes couldn’t reach, seemed to smear those statements along the washed-out walls. Through scarcely oiled winches, the human crane behind the doctor leaned forward in her direction.
"Well, Ms. White, notwithstanding the circumstance, you will be pleased to know that we have decided to still include you in the program. You will earn your fair compensation, after all."
Perhaps because of the narcotics, the doctor's face kept changing as if his features were playing hide and seek in the blind corners of her perception. A sound came from a low point close to the bed, similar to a badly restrained gurgle, while the doctor quietly turned away.
"You will have your money, despite your unfortunate condition or, perhaps, thanks to it," he said in a last laconic murmur.
My countination...
So, it sounds like I voluntarily signed an agreement to become part of a program for medical experiments on people. Maybe I won’t survive it – but, at least, when my dead body would serve science and would be thrown away like an old glove, the funds will go into my bank account.
This is all for you... my Lucian. For us!
Strapped to a hospital bed and capable of only experiencing pain, I closed my eyes and ran away the memories lanes. I remembered how Lucian saved me when I was drowning in a lake - and I have been indebted to him ever since. We were 19 at the time, spending our vacation in the North of Canada. I knew I couldn't swim well, but I tried to impress him. And… he saved me.
Lucian has always loved me, was my "knight in shining armor." Though I… Somehow, I couldn't love him back... I always treated him like a brother - and he endured it for five long years. I … I knew he was suffering, but I found a strange pleasure in it. He knew about my relationship with Clark and later with Vincent..., but he tolerated them silently and comforted me after every break-up. Clumsy he tried to kiss me, but I didn't let him. I felt good in his presence, but for me, he wasn’t a man, but only a... a defender. For some reason, I was always losing it for bad guys. And now … here comes the payback.
Recently, I was able to fall in love with him... Well, almost. Lucian was working on one business deal but turned out to be a lousy planner and went deeply into debt. The boys from mafia confronted him and demanded him to raise the money in two months. There was no time to waste. He sold his car and everything else that he had... but still couldn't collect the right amount.
That 's when I started falling for him. Not when he was strong and loyal, but when he became a wounded loser. Somehow, I always feel for those people. I can't love "hero." I can only love a "defenseless kitten." Finally, Lucian turned into such a kitten... Maybe because of me?
When I signed the documents - I didn't fully understand what the program was all about. I thought - I would be tested, I will take some experimental drugs. What was the worst thing that could happen? Allergies? Oh, well, I'd lose a few months, I'd be treated, and then Lucian and I would be together again, forever. I texted him and set the sending time for tomorrow... Or was it today? Maybe he's read it by now?
It's a good thing that I decided to spend, at least, one night with him before I left for the clinic. It was beautiful... Why didn't I do this before? We could have spent so much time together...and be happy… Perhaps we would already have children.
While as now, all I have is my ruined body that can't even scream. They test some drugs on me and, as a result, I have nightmares. The pain in the whole body is raising like a wave way beyond my threshold and I heard one of the doctors mutter: "She won't survive... We’d have to increase the payout amount."
But when I die, Lucian can take the money from our account and solve his problems! And I... I 'll come back to him one day - if one to believe in rebirth over and over again. I really want to believe it, because life and love can't end like this - in a hospital bed, surrounded by tubes, under the influence of all these drugs from hell. Life and love always win. We have to win...
Lucian sat on a bench in the park and slowly smoked a cigarette after a cigarette. That's what sometimes happens in life. When there was nothing to hope for - someone he perceived as "silly little girl" helped him.
How many times has he has been angry at her infantile selfishness ... How often he punched the wall after another conversation with her? How often he tried to forget this silly little brat, but I couldn't help himself. And now - the moment all his friends turned away from him- she saved him.
The problems were solved; he could start a new life, go to another city. Only without her. Having smoked the last cigarette and raised his eyes to the sky, Lucian whispered:
"Thank you, my angel... My Claire.”
