I hover unnoticed as the doctor places his hand on Ms Phillips’ stooped shoulder and suggests she talk to her daughter. He assures her the girl lying motionless on the narrow hospital bed can hear every word she says. She nods and he glances at his watch, already making his way to the door.
Ms Phillips holds her daughter’s limp hand carefully so not to dislodge the tubes trailing from the pale skin. Sitting alone by the bed, the awkward brown chair squeaks when she adjusts her position. Sometimes she talks about the weather, or the broken coffee machine in the hallway. Other times she just begs.
“Please wake up. Can you hear me, Lucy? If you wake, I promise we’ll do something special for your seventeenth birthday. I know it’s still a couple of months away, but we’ll invite all your friends and have a cake. Squeeze my hand if you’re there.” The girl’s hand doesn’t move. Her mother weeps and crumbles another damp tissue in her fist, before returning to absently scrunching the clean white sheets in her free hand.
She rarely leaves the sterile hospital. She should be out working. There are bills to be paid. The landlord will only be understanding for so long. I want to remind her she has other responsibilities, but I’m distracted by Will calling my name.
I cannot loiter in this curtained space either. I don’t belong here. I’ve never really belonged anywhere, but Will needs me and the beeping machines in this room are irritating. I leave her alone with her inconsolable grief.
A shudder racks my body as I drift back into the room. Cheap cologne overpowers the disinfectant odour, tickling my nose and making me want to sneeze. Frank is in the room alone. His face wrinkles into a sneer at the still girl, an expression he reserves for when no one watches. My stomach clenches. I want to leave, but my limbs won’t move.
Frank places his hand on the machine by the bed as if the action can stop the beeping. The display continues to reflect the slow pulsing of the girl’s heartbeat. I’m torn between screaming to get another adult in here and staying quiet so he doesn’t sense me in the room. I stay silent.
I am invisible.
I’m not actually invisible, but I may as well be. People look past me like they do the homeless man in his grubby clothes resting in a closed shop doorway. If they don’t make eye contact, he doesn’t exist. This is me; if I don’t move or make a sound, I don’t exist.
Last time Frank was in the room, he suggested if there is no change in condition over the next few days, perhaps the life support should be switched off. This only made Ms Phillips cling to his Ralph Lauren shirt and sob.
“How did this happen?” she asked. Frank didn’t know, not the whole story anyway.
I am the only one who does.
Now, alone in the room, he leans over the bed and whispers in the ear of the lifeless girl.
“Your mother doesn’t love you. No one wants you.” As he leans away, he traces his finger slowly across her cheek. Nausea rises inside me as I choke back a scream. I recoil from the scene and am out of the room faster than I can blink.
Jennypha and Tayla visit later that week. The girls hesitate in the doorway until Tayla’s mum nudges them forward. Ms Phillips pushes dishevelled strands of hair from her face and frowns at the girls from school.
“Come to finish the job?” she asks in a broken voice.
“It was an accident.” Mrs McKenzie places a protective arm around Jennypha’s shoulders and gives her a reassuring squeeze.
Jennypha bites her lower lip and torments a hair tie between her fingers. Tayla loiters in the background as she has always done, twirling a lock of her auburn hair.
“How dare you think you can come in here like you care about my daughter? You think Jennypha can get away with this because her father is a lawyer?”
“The girls have come to apologise for their part in this. I never said…”
“Shush!” A nurse arrives to see what the commotion is about. Negative emotions aren’t allowed in the room. Ms Phillips storms out in tears. She is always crying these days. I don’t cry. I have no tears left.
The girls shuffle forward and Jennypha rakes her thick, wavy hair into a harsh ponytail. The scent of boronias waft through the room from the bunch of flowers Tayla holds. There’s a house in my street with boronias.
“Do you have a vase?” Mrs McKenzie asks the nurse. The woman hurries off to find something suitable. When she returns, she places the bunch gently in a lonely vase of water by the bed.
“Don’t they smell nice,” she says.
“They’re Lucy’s favourite,” Tayla states.
The nurse leaves and Mrs McKenzie follows tactfully, leaving the girls alone in the room. Jennypha stands by the bed and recites her apology. By the end of the speech she has tears rolling down her cheeks. Tayla reaches out to hold her best friend’s hand.
They never considered the possibility of events turning out this way. Every taunt, every shove, every exclusion; Jennypha may be charged with manslaughter if the machine is turned off.
I want to tell Jennypha it’s too late to apologise, but I cannot speak. I never could tell her what I really thought; she’d never listen even if I did. I wish someone had stood up for the girl in the hospital bed when she couldn’t find her voice. I wish I’d had the strength to do it myself.
The other two girls in their group don’t show their faces at the hospital. They hide away pretending Jennypha was the only one involved. I used to hate them, but now I am just empty. Hate requires emotions I no longer possess.
A counsellor mentions organ donation. There must be plenty of needy people out there who would benefit if this one girl dies. It would be nice to know they were being put to better use, that this life hadn’t been a complete waste.
Here is my secret. What happened was not completely Jennypha’s fault; my own actions were partly to blame. Unlike Jennypha, I had been considering where events were leading for some time.
Don’t get me wrong, Jennypha is responsible. I wanted her and her friends to pay for their continued abuse. I did this to stop the endless emotional pain. It was meant to be final, not this half way place.
Will calls me again, reminding me I have a task to do. My being here is not important. The girl in the coma slipped away from life months ago. All I care about is my friend, Will. I need to protect him in a way no one has ever been able to do for me.
I’ve never met Will in my real life. He lives in my dreams. When I was young, I was sure he was real, but life has beaten that belief out of me. He’s probably only a figment of my imagination, someone I conjured to give my life meaning.
He feels real to me though. Every moment I’ve lived with him feels more genuine than my actual life. Perhaps if someone like that existed in my reality, if they had just reached out to me, I wouldn’t be stuck in this hospital.
I am Lucy.
My body lies in a coma on the hospital bed being watched over by Mum. My mind has left the room and I’m in Will’s world one final time. Sometimes I’m called back into the hospital room, although I don’t know why. It’s never happened before, but then this is the first time I’ve ever tried to kill myself.
Occasionally I wonder what would happen, if I wake.