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She didn’t want to be here.
She hated hospitals.
She always knew one of them would end up here. She just didn’t think it would be tonight.
All she had wanted to do was thank Delphine, to show Delphine that she and her sisters understood and appreciated all that the doctor had done for them.
That was all Cosima could think about as she sat impatiently in the cramped room. That, and how hot the fresh blood had been as it oozed through her fingers.
The waiting room of the Intensive Care Unit was suffocating. Its stale air reeked of disinfectant. Over in the corner, a TV played a continuous loop of local news stories so that if you didn’t want to focus on the tragedy in your own life, you could focus all your attention on the tragedy in someone else’s. There wasn’t a single comforting detail to the place.
She picked at the dried blood caked on her fingers.
Just two hours earlier, Cosima had been celebrating her sister’s School Board victory and stuffing her face with Babka cake.
This was not the plan for tonight.
Cosima had envisioned a night full of apologies and lingering kisses. She even made sure to wear matching lingerie, just in the off chance she left the party with Delphine. She knew how easily the two fell into bed together, so she wanted to be prepared…Just in case.
After all, they did leave the party at the same time.
…just not together.
As soon as Delphine’s car pulled away from the curb out front of Bubbles, Cosima felt a piece of her go with the blonde. For too long she had ignored that nagging in the back of her mind, telling her that something was wrong. She wasn’t going to turn a blind eye tonight.
It was with this in mind that Cosima decided to follow her ex. It was obvious from Delphine’s first few turns that the blonde was going to DYAD. While driving a steady distance behind the doctor’s car, Cosima wondered when Delphine had become a workaholic. When they had been together, Delphine had loved to lounge in bed with her in the mornings and go out on the town every weekend. She never would’ve been at DYAD past 6.
Then again, she had been Delphine’s work then.
Perhaps Delphine hadn’t really changed in the past few months.
Her work had.
The garage at DYA was eerily quiet that night. Granted, it was a Sunday evening, but Cosima had never seen the place so empty.
It didn’t take long for Cosima to spot the blonde’s limp form sprawled out on the garage floor. Delphine lay motionless, her eyes slowly blinking back the tears. Gaping at the blonde, Cosima was reminded of the deer her uncle shot on their camping trip back in sixth grade.
How strange it seemed to her now to liken the resilient woman to such a frail creature.
She remembered flashes from that point on. The feeling of Delphine’s weak pulse throbbing through the bullet wound. The way her blonde hair still managed to fall angelically across the floor. The screaming sirens echoing in the parking lot. The way Delphine moaned with each bump the ambulance had hit on the road. The slow but steady beeps from the heart monitor.
All of it seemed like a dream, like perhaps she was just a critic reviewing a particular tragic film.
Now she was stuck in an over-sterilized, bleach white dungeon. A year-old magazine on the table in front of her, contained scandalous details about teen moms and overdone housewives. None of this would have been able to hold Cosima’s attention on any normal Sunday.
Distracting herself seemed pointless. Instead, she just stared lifelessly ahead at the poster describing the proper way to cover one’s mouth when coughing or sneezing.
Every time the door to the waiting room opened, Cosima’s head whipped over towards it. She just wanted to hear the nurse call Delphine’s name so she could be out of this limbo.
With each new patient called, Cosima sunk further and further into her seat.
She had no idea how much time had passed since she first arrived.
She didn’t want to be here.
She had seen the light fading from Delphine’s eyes in that ambulance, had felt the grip on her hand become limper.
She knew what the doctor’s would say.
She wasn’t a masochist. She didn’t need to watch it happen.
After all, open caskets didn’t really bring closure.
At 2 am, Sarah found her way to the hospital. She came bearing a thermos of tea and some biscuits courtesy of Mrs. S. The Brit collapsed into the chair beside Cosima.
“Have they let you see her yet?” Sarah whispered.
Cosima didn’t respond. She wasn’t sure if she had any voice left to respond with.
“Cos?”
The dreadlocked woman looked over at her sister. She knew she must look awful, simply from the worry etched into Sarah’s face.
“I don’t want to see her,” she replied.
“Cos, come on,” Sarah coaxed.
“W-we already have more bad memories together th-than good,” Cosima whispered, her bottom lip trembling. “I really don’t want to upset that balance even more.”
Sarah gripped her sister’s shaking hand. “I know seeing her like that… I know it’s going to hurt. But do you know how many things she has done for you over these past few months even though it probably killed her?”
Cosima couldn’t respond. She just sat shivering in the stiff chair, still fixated on the dried blood.
“Do you love her?”
Cosima’s eyes squeezed shut. She saw quick glimpses of Delphine laughing while rolling around in the grass, felt the blonde’s arms wound tightly around her torso as they watched old reruns, tasted Delphine’s peppermint chapstick as their lips collided.
A sob ripped through Cosima’s throat, “How can you even ask that?!”
The Brit pulled Cosima close to her chest, attempting to bring some sort of comfort to the distraught woman. “Do you really want her to wake up, even for a moment and not see you there? To be scared before she dies?”
She ran her nails up and down the dreadlocked woman’s back. “It’s gonna hurt, but if you love her like you say you do, you’ll be there. You can’t just love her during the good times.”
Cosima saw the quiver in the blonde’s lip every time she had ordered Delphine to leave, tasted the salty tears while the two kissed on what they thought would be Cosima’s death bed, felt the hollowness in her chest from when Delphine fist looked at her with such pure indifference.
Sarah was right. Even then, Cosima had loved her.
The two waited in silence until a robust nurse entered the waiting room. For the first time all night, Cosima did not look up when the woman walked in. She no longer wanted to be associated with the other anxious people in the room, all waiting with bated breath.
“Delphine Cormier?” the nurse croaked.
Cosima’s shoulders fell. This was it. This was what she had been dreading all night.
The Brit nudged her sister’s side. “That’s your cue, Cos.”
Cosima hesitantly rose from her chair. She reached out and squeezed Sarah’s hand once more.
“Thanks for waiting with me,” the young scientist mumbled.
“We all have our roles to play in this family. Allison’s cooking some damn casserole for you back home. Helena’s off trying to hunt down whoever did this to her,” Sarah shrugged. “I pulled the short straw and had to make sure you didn’t do something stupid.”
Cosima gave the faintest hint of a smile.
“You need me to come?” Sarah questioned.
With a quick shake of her head, Cosima left her sister’s side and tentatively walked up to the nurse.
Upon entering Delphine’s room, Cosima was blinded by the morning sun streaming in through the window. She hated that the sun was out. The sun implied picnics in the park, and strolls along the beach, not trips to the hospital, or gunshot wounds.
Perhaps if it had been cloudy out, Cosima would’ve been able to pretend that Delphine’s pale complexion was just from a lack of light.
For all intents and purposes, Delphine looked the same. Her eyebrows were still perfectly arched, her nails still freshly manicured. The body laying before her still resembled the woman she had spent countless evenings tangled up with. Despite the similarities, there was something so alien about the blonde.
Staring at her lover’s stiff form, Cosima was reminded that it wasn’t the Delphine’s impeccable beauty that made her so mesmerizing to watch. After all, without any emotions painted on, she simply looked like a blank canvas.
This time, being near Delphine brought none of the usual comfort Cosima had grown so accustomed to.
With a shaky breath, she interlaced her fingers with the blonde’s.
“I don’t know what to say,” Cosima muttered, her voice barely a whisper.
She slowly ran her thumb along the vein that protruded from the back of Delphine’s hand.
“I, uh-” her voice caught in her throat, a sob shook her body. “I love you.”
Delphine’s face remained stoic.
“So so much… but if you need to go-” her tears had begun to form damp circles on the hospital blanket draped across Delphine’s torso.
“If you need to… it’s okay.”
Cosima pushed back the few strands of blonde hair that had fallen around Delphine’s face. “I’ll be okay...somehow.”
She ran her thumb along the jagged scar across Delphine’s wrist, smoothed out the stray hairs in her eyebrow, kissed the freckle beneath her lip. She didn’t want to forget a single detail.
She couldn’t help but think about everything she would lose after leaving the room.
Then again, she supposed she had already lost them.
As she watched Delphine’s chest slowly rise and fall, Cosima was fixated on what Sarah said.
She didn’t want to be here, but she loved Delphine.
Love is watching someone die.