Remember to Forget, Revised and Expanded (20 page)
After a blur of chaos, a doctor comes out. Delia's parents, my mum, and I all stand
up expectantly.
“I'm sorry,” he starts off.
I feel my stomach drop.
“Delia's head injury was more severe than we thought. She suffered major swelling,
which can happen a few hours after an accident.”
“Is she okay?” I whisper, even though I know the answer.
The doctor shakes his head. “I'm sorry. We tried. But she didn't make it.”
Delia's parents hug each other, and both of them are crying. I run out of the waiting
room in the direction of the exit. Again.
“Levi!” my mum calls.
“She's not dead. She's not dead.” I repeat, over and over.
My mum grabs my wrist, causing me to stop walking. I whip around to face her, tears
staining my cheeks.
“She's NOT dead!” I yell. I pull away from my mum's grasp. I'm breathing quickly,
and my chest feels tight. I feel like I'm going to pass out.
“Levi, you heard the doctor. I'm sorry.”
There it is again.
I shake my head over and over. My mum pulls me closer to her, and I can't stop crying.
“Do you want to see her?” my mum asks.
“Not unless she's alive,” I say, a little more harshly than I should.
My mum tries to comfort me, but it's not working.
“She's dead. It's because of me. She was texting me,” I choke out.
“It's not because of you, don't think that.”
“But it is!”
“It'll be okay.”
“How can you say that?!” I yell, pulling away from my mum.
She doesn't respond.
“The text was sent to me. I am the reason she looked away from the road,” I whisper.
“It could've happened to anyone.”
I turn around and keep walking toward the exit. It could've happened to anyone.
It happened to us.
“I never told her I loved her,” I choke out. “And now I'll never get the chance.”
A
fter much contemplating, I decide to go to Levi's to talk about everything that's
happened over the past few days. The project, what Aiden told me, and basically everything
else.
Whatever we even are, whether it's friends or just neighbors, I can't keep wondering
anymore. I hate all the confusion involved with Levi. Whenever I think I have a piece
of him figured out, it seems to be the complete opposite.
I hesitantly knock on his front door, and his dad answers.
“Hey!” he says cheerily, letting me inside.
“Is Levi here?”
“Yeah, in his room.”
I walk slowly to Levi's room. I'm not sure what I'm going to say, or what it will
even be about. I'm regretting coming here in the first place.
His door is slightly open, and as I'm about to knock, I hear someone talking.
“Hi, Levi, it's me.”
It's a girl's voice. I stand outside the door, not wanting to interrupt the conversation.
It sounds like a phone call, but through the crack from his open door, I can see
Levi holding his phone in front of him. Maybe he's video chatting someone. He's sitting
on the floor, leaning against the wall with his legs pulled close to his chest.
“I was on my way to your house, but I got in a little accident. I'm okay, though,”
the girl continues.
Who was coming over?
The sound is muffled, then I hear, “I, um, I just really wanted to talk to you and
Iâ”
The girl stops talking, and I see Levi toss his phone onto the carpet. He puts his
head in his hands, and I think I hear him crying.
That's when I realize who was talking. It wasn't a phone call, but a voice mail.
I think it's Delia.
I debate turning around and giving Levi some time alone, but he stands up and sees
me in the hallway. He quickly wipes his eyes and slowly opens his bedroom door.
“Hi,” I say quietly.
He nods slightly.
“I can go. I'm sorry, it probably isn't a good time right now, I justâ” I stammer.
He grabs my wrist and pulls me into his room, shutting the door. He sits down on
the floor and taps the spot beside him, gesturing for me to sit there, so I do.
He twiddles his thumbs, and he won't look me in the eyes, like always.
“Was that from Delia?” I ask after a long silence.
He slowly nods his head.
“Have you listened to it before?”
He shakes his head no, which I expected.
“I can leave if you want to listen to it.”
He shakes his head and reaches over to grab his phone. He puts it in my hands and
points to the play button.
“You want me to play it? Are you sure? Don't you want to be alone?”
It seems unlike Levi to want me here when something like this is happening. Whenever
Delia is brought up, he shuts down. I thought he'd be doing that right now too.
He keeps pointing to the play button, so I finally press it. It starts all over again.
“Hi, Levi, it's me.” I really feel like I shouldn't be here now. Levi winces at the
sound of her voice. Now that I can hear the recording more clearly, I notice it sounds
like she is having trouble speaking and trying not to cry.
“I was on my way to your house, but I got in a little accident. I'm okay, though.
I don't really remember getting into itâI just remember driving to your house, but
not how I crashed. I, um, I just really wanted to talk to you, and I'm about to go
into surgery. I wasn't supposed to call you, but a nice nurse is letting me.” She
tries to laugh, but it's quiet and sounds nervous. She talks slowly and gets her
words mixed up sometimes. Some of the things she says are pronounced wrong. It's
evident that she's suffering from the accident. “I wanted to get some things off
my chest, in case it's a long time before we talk again. I am in a lot of pain and
I heard the doctor say that I'm in rough shape. My head is hurting right now, but
I'll try to get my thoughts out. I was coming to your house to say I'm sorry. These
two weeks have been the worst two weeks. I miss talking to you and laughing at your
stupid jokes.” She laughs again. She coughs a little this time. This is almost too
much for me to hear, I don't know how Levi is listening to this without breaking
down. I didn't know Delia personally, and I'm getting upset over this.
There are long pauses between her sentences, and I can hear her continuously take
deep breaths. “I made a huge mistake. I should have never broken up with you.” There's
muffled talking in the background; I assume it's doctors. I start to notice the
faint beeping of machines. “The doctors are coming right now. I'll see you later.
I hope this is a promise I can keep, Levi. I'm not gonna say good-bye, because I
don't want to.” Her voice cracks. “I'm scared, Levi.” She coughs. “If I don't make
it, I want to tell you I love you, Levi. All I want is for you to be happy. I hated
seeing you so sad these past few
weeksâit broke my heart. You should know that I
was just as sad. If anything happens, please do that for me. Do what makes you happy.
Don't be sad. I'll see you soon. Bye. I love you.”
The voice mail ends, and I don't say anything. I look over at Levi to see how he
handled it. He's staring straight ahead like a frozen statue. Tears are streaming
down his cheeks. I reach over and put my hand on top of his in an attempt to comfort
him. He looks over at me slowly, and his bottom lip is quivering.
He slowly shakes his head, still crying, and looks down at my hand on top of his.
He puts his other hand on top of mine and brings it onto his lap. After a moment,
he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a wrinkled piece of paper. He gently tucks
it into the palm of my hand, then closes my fingers around it.
I open it up, and it's the picture Lucy drew of Levi. I wonder how long it's been
in his pocket.
He flips the paper around, and on the back side, Lucy had written “Happy Prince Levi.”
She drew smiley faces, hearts, and flowers all around it. We both just look at it
for a few minutes.
“We all want you to be happy,” I tell him.
He bites his bottom lip, and it looks like he's on the verge of a whole new set of
tears. He picks his phone up off the ground and types for what feels like forever.
I've never seen him type so much. Whatever he has to say must be important. When
he's done, he passes the phone over to me.
I read everything he wrote. He explained what really happened to Delia, and it looks
like he didn't leave out any details. I start crying halfway through. I didn't realize
this much had happened. He had told me she died instantly, but that's clearly not
the case. Instead, it is the saddest thing, and not what I had expected at all.
He also wrote what he had gone through after the accident. He didn't immediately
stop talking. It happened after the funeral. At first, it was just because he didn't
want to talk to anyone. But then, after a few days, he didn't want to talk to people
ever again. He felt
guilty, and in a way he was punishing himself. He wrote, “Delia
died because she was texting me. If Delia didn't get to talk, I didn't want to either.”
So he hasn't.
He went to multiple therapists; he had a new one every few weeks. Nothing helped.
He was forced to go to group teen therapy sessions, which he hated, because he didn't
talk, obviously. He had nothing to say, so it didn't help much. After three months,
he was sent to a facility in Sydney that was guaranteed to help him. All it did was
make him feel more different and alone. After almost a month there, he went back
home. Nothing changed. He progressively got worse.
That's why they sent him here. It's apparently his last chance to improve. Doctors
said there's nothing else they can do for him. Levi has to make his own choices for
himself in order to get better. They wanted to separate Levi from everything that
was making him upset and anxious. Moving here with his dad was one of his best options.
I didn't know Levi had gone through this much in such a short amount of time. His
whole world just stopped. He lost someone who was clearly very important to him,
and he's now living on the total opposite side of the world.
He's had to adjust to so many new things. I can't imagine what it's like for him.
As I take everything in, I'm shocked Levi's told me so much about what's happened
to him. I guess at some point, everyone has to let out their emotions. They can't
hold them in forever.
When I'm done reading, Levi lets out a shaky sigh. He wipes the tears from his cheeks,
and he also wipes off mine. I laugh lightly, reaching up to dry my cheeks too.
“Look at us, we're both crying,” I tell him. “We need to do something that makes
us happy now.”
He points to me.
I tilt my head to the side and look at him, puzzled.
He points to me again then to himself. He gives me a silly grin through his tears
and points to his smile.
I make him happy.
I
didn't expect Delia's message to be like that. I especially hadn't expected her
to say she loves me. I never got to say it back, and I never thought I'd hear her
say the words.
The message made me feel somewhat better, and somewhat worse. There were positive
parts and negative parts. Overall, though, I feel very sad. Although, it's kind of
like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. For months, I've been dreading listening
to that message, but I finally did it. I heard her voice again for the first time
in months. Even though it didn't sound like the normal, happy Delia, it was still
her. She said all that. In her last few hours, she wanted to talk to me. That means
a lot. This whole time I had been thinking she might still hate me, but now I'm reassured
that she really did love me like I loved, and still love, her.
After Delia died, I spent weeks in my room, barely ever getting out of bed. I physically
couldn't bring myself to do anything. Getting out of bed became a struggle every
day; it was like my body hurt to drag itself up. All day, my thoughts would be totally
consumed by Delia. It came to the point where I wanted to stop myself from having
any thoughts at all, which is practically impossible, because even when you're trying
not to think, you're still thinking. I just needed everything to be quiet. I didn't
want to speak, I didn't want to think, I didn't want to do anything. It was a vicious
cycle
of my mind attacking me and ruining me, followed by my mum trying to solve
things.
I remember each day that followed Delia's death. Three days after she died, they
held her funeral. I went with my mum and Caleb. I thought I would be able to not
cry too much, but I was very wrong.
We sat in the front row of the church, which was possibly one of the biggest mistakes
I made that day. The whole time, all I could look at was her casket and think that
she was there, but she wasn't really
there.
I would never get to see her eyes again
or hear her laugh or hold her small hand in mine. I cried the whole timel; I couldn't
even focus on anything else. People kept coming over to me to ask if I was okay,
and I would nod and tell them I was fine through all my tears. That was probably
the worst day of my entire life because that was the day she truly left. That was
the last day I would ever see her.
After the funeral, she was buried at the cemetery. I stayed in the car because I
couldn't bear the thought of having to stand by her grave. I watched from afar, holding
on to a white daisy because daisies were her favorite. With all my nerves and sadness,
I ended up unintentionally plucking off all the petals. I waited until everyone left
before I got out of the car. I got a new daisy and placed it on top of her casket.
I didn't say good-bye; I told her I loved her.