H E A T H

I was getting a bit sick of finding the people that I love, unconscious on the floor. After what happened with Leonie, I figured that I'd be granted a break from pacing hospital corridors while I waited for news. I for sure thought that I wouldn't have to endure that panic again. Well, at least not so soon.

She'd been getting worse. Her condition had plummeted in the last few weeks. But this was Sarah. And she always pulled through. Part of me still hoped that she would. But at the same time, I couldn't deny that something felt different. Something felt wrong.

Alex sat on the floor with his head in his hands. Staff rushed from left to right, their shoes squelching on the floor. Their murmurs regarding other patients. Other problems. It was easy to forget that this wasn't the center of the universe right now. Sarah wasn't the center. The entire world was moving around us and only we were standing still.

Mom appeared around the corner. Her frantic stare scanned over the faces in the corridor until she saw me and her entire body trembled with fear as she outstretched her arms. "Heath?" Her voice shook. "Do you know what's going on? What's happening?"

I pulled her into an embrace. "I don't know yet mom."

"I knew I shouldn't have gone to work tonight. I knew it. She seemed off but she promised me that she felt alright."

I held her a bit tighter. She sounded so wound up and anxious. She shook. It was important that I kept it together for her sake. So no matter how terrified I was, I refused to show it. Because this was the role that I had taken when Sarah was first diagnosed and I wasn't going to abandon it now. "There was nothing more you could have done mom. Alex and I were both with her. It just happened. No warning. Nothing. Don't blame yourself."

"Jazz, Heath." We looked at Alex who then gestured to the room where Sarah was. Doctor Karen was backing out, closing the door behind her and I could see from the look on her face as she turned to us, that it wasn't good.

The three of us approached Karen and while I felt the weight of the world threatening to crush me, I also felt as if I couldn't feel the ground beneath me. My entire body was numb with paralyzing tension. Karen slipped her hands into her white coat pocket and mom began to crumble before she'd even said a word. She knew the face of a doctor who had bad news all too well.

"How about we go and chat in the lounge where it's more private?" Karen suggested but mom shook her head, her fingers clasped and wound tight while I held her up right. "It's happening," Karen said, accepting that mom couldn't or wouldn't move. "She's got a few hours at best. I'm so sorry. I'd suggest making calls to any family that you'd want here and then make the most of what time she has awake. She's deteriorating rather fast."

If I hadn't been holding on to mom, she would have fallen to the floor. She wracked with violent sobs and beside me, Alex was hiding his face, his shoulders shook. My teeth and jaw hurt from being clenched so tight. My nose stung. My throat hurt. But I held it back and turned mom to face me.

"We need to go in there and be strong for her."

Alex began to walk further down the corridor, wiping at his eyes. "I have a phone call to make. I'll be back in a minute."

I knew who he was calling, so I nodded and gave him what best I could of a smile.

"I can't, Heath," mom sobbed, her face drenched with tears. She didn't even look like mom. I barely recognized her. "I can't. It's too soon. I can't do this. She's my baby. I can't."

"Mom," I said, firm because right now, that was what she needed. "Sarah is on her last-- she's on her last hours," I felt as if I'd been punched in the chest when I said that. I cleared my throat. "We're going in there and not leaving her side because we will never get this time back and if you don't go in there, you will regret it."

Her eyes squeezed shut, sending a fresh fall of tears down her cheek. She nodded and let me lead her towards the room. It was warm inside. The lighting was low, so as not to be too harsh and the sound of monitors beeping to a beating heart were piercing. I was relieved to hear it. It was assurance. But it also meant that we were here. In this place. And then I saw Sarah and I saw that sweet, scared little girl who mom brought home from the hospital when she was two.

A girl who was scared for about three seconds until she saw my collection of Lego and demanded that we play with it together. Just as she had back then, she hid her fear when she saw mom and I standing at the foot of the bed. She smiled. Her pale, chapped lips curled upwards and her gaunt, hollow cheeks lifted. Mom clutched the bed rails as she moved up to the head of the bed and held Sarah's hand.

Mom looked at Sarah for a fleeting moment and then she sniffed, picked up her med chart and started scanning it over. "Are you in pain? What have they administered? How ab--"

"Mom," Sarah croaked. "I just need you to be my mom for a few hours. Please?"

Mom bit her lip as her chin quivered and she slipped the chart back into its slot on the wall. Sarah told her to lie down beside her in that fragile voice that I had never heard before. She didn't sound like her. The usual tone in which she used to boss us around or crack jokes, was gone. The strength was gone. I clutched the foot of the bed and lowered my head as a tear rolled down my cheek.

When Sarah received her diagnosis, I'd felt helpless. When she'd sat through hours of chemo, I'd felt helpless. When she'd lost her hair, friends, nights to pain and all hope, I'd felt helpless. But none of that could compare to how helpless I felt knowing that within a few hours, I wouldn't have a little sister. I wouldn't have a best friend. I was humming with the need to do something, anything to stop the wheels turning and save her life. But there was nothing I could do and it was breaking me.

"Heath."

I looked up to the quiet rasp and saw Sarah watching me through half closed lids. Mom was curled up beside her, drenching Sarah's gown with tears. I walked around to the other side of the bed and saw Sarah's fingers twitching atop the blanket, as if she wanted to lift her hand, but couldn't. So I held her hand and smiled at her.

"Has anyone ever told you, that you matter?" She whispered this time. I couldn't answer her, so she continued. "You're always so concerned with being what you think we all need, that I think you deny your own needs from time to time. But you shouldn't do that, Heath. Not all the time. Put yourself first once in a while, alright?"

"I don't really know what you mean," I said, attempting to un-clench my jaw so that I didn't sound so tense.

"If you want to move out of home, do it. If you want to travel, marry, have babies with Leonie, do that too. With her permission of course. If you want to tell Damien that he's a piece of shit and you no longer relate to him or want to be his friend, do it. If you want to express that you're in pain, don't hold it back because you think we can't handle seeing you cry," she raised a brow and I could see that my sister was still there, under all of that illness. She was there. "You think that I don't know how you wait until I leave the room to let it out? I do know Heath. And you're entitled to your feelings. So don't you dare think you need to push them down. Just do whatever you feel, Heath. You deserve it."

I wasn't planning on letting her speech win me over. But I didn't have a choice and I broke. Snapped. I felt as if I could barely breathe as I dropped my head into her pillow and cried harder than I'd ever cried before. What the hell was I going to do without her? Without her advice. Because despite the fact that she was sixteen and I was twenty one, her advice had never let me down. I'd come to trust her above most others. She'd never steered me in the wrong direction.

Her squeeze was gentle on my hand but I felt it as she murmured more words to me. "I remember when I was four," she started, smiling when I straightened up and looked down at her through a blur. The door opened and Alex slipped in. But he didn't interrupt. "Before mom adopted me. We were out getting ice cream at Charlie's and as soon as we got outside, I dropped mine on the footpath. Remember?"

I nodded. I didn't remember but what did that matter right now?

"Well, I figured that was it. I'd lost my ice cream. I think I was about to have a classic toddler break down over it but before I could, you handed me your one. And that is the first clear memory I have of being certain that I never wanted to lose you. I mean, as a four year old, ice cream was a major deal. Like life and death deal. And I knew that I'd never trade a brother like that for anything. It was the first time I felt afraid that I wouldn't get to remain with you and mom. And you've been giving me your ice cream ever since, Heath."

Mom started sobbing harder.

"When I get to heaven," she smiled, her gaze glistening. "I'm going to thank God for giving me the greatest family on this earth. Because I know that every minute of it was a gift. And it might have been short, but it was so full and I'd take fourteen perfect years over eighty average ones, any day."

I wrapped my arms around her head, gentle, while I felt myself falling apart. There was so much that I wanted to tell her. So much that I didn't know where to start. "I love you," I cried instead.

The door opened and Karen walked in with a tray of two needles. She had a red gaze and blotched cheeks but as soon as she moved further into the room, she wore a professional and polite expression. "I'm going to administer some pain relief. Sarah, how are you feeling?"

"Like I need some pain relief," she said and my chest tightened at the idea of her hurting.

Karen nodded. "This is going to make you drowsy," she said, which was an understatement. It would put Sarah to sleep so that she could pass without pain. "But it'll help. Is that alright?"

Sarah nodded. She knew the process. This is something that the doctors had discussed with her time and time again. She knew that while she might have a few hours of life left, she'd be asleep for them. Karen fed the pain relief through her IV line and quickly dismissed herself once she was done.

"Alex?" Sarah whispered, eyes closed. Alex quickly moved into the spot beside her head where I'd been. I shifted down a little but kept a hand on the bed.

"I'm here," Alex whispered, kissing her forehead.

"Thank you," Sarah whispered with a drowsy voice. "Thank you for loving me. Thank you for being the perfect husband. A girl could only dream of being so lucky."

Alex squeezed his eyes shut and and inhaled a deep breath. "Of course," he smiled down at her. But her eyes were closed. "I loved being married to you, Sarah. I love you so much."

"I lov-- I love you," her forehead creased and her voice broke as if she was falling asleep. "I love you all."

Three and a half hours we sat in her room. Total silence. Watching her chest rise and fall until her last breath passed and her monitor flat lined. She was gone. My little sister was gone. Mom, who had kept her sobs quiet, broke out into a gut wrenching wail that felt like a punch in the chest. She laid beside Sarah, clutching her hand and I stared at her lifeless body. Hardly able to believe that she'd never open her eyes or smile or talk to me ever again. That was really it.

I wanted to go to mom and comfort her. I wanted to be strong. But the room felt as if it was closing in on me and so I could do nothing but rip the door open, fall out into the corridor and sink to the floor with my hands over my ears. I wasn't sure how long I was crouched there before I felt a pair of arms wrap around my shoulders.

Without looking up, I knew it was Leonie. I could smell her. Feel her soft hair. And for the first time in our relationship, I leaned on her for strength. Because I didn't have it in me. I had nothing to keep me upright apart from her. So I sank into her embrace while she kneeled beside me and knew that this was okay. It was okay to let someone else hold you together once in a while.

"She's gone," I sobbed.

"I know," her voice was soft, she ran her hands through my hair.

She didn't tell me that I'd be okay. She didn't tell me that she was sorry. She didn't say much at all. And that was fine. Because there was nothing that she could say and she knew that. The fact that she was there was more than enough.