Part 1

Running alone can get boring and monotonous. So, I have started writing stories in my head while I run. I am well aware that this story is probably terrible (and it's not finished), but I am posting it. Because I want to, because I love writing. And for you, Dad. I love you.

“Alli. Oh my gosh. Alli,” he whispered as he swept a lock of her long brown hair away from her deep blue eyes.

The lights in the room were too bright. The figures surrounding her were out of focus, as if they were wrapped in blankets of fog. The noises in the room were hushed and unfamiliar. But she recognized that voice.

“Kyle,” she whispered. Her speech was slow and unsteady.

He continued to run his fingers through her tousled hair. “Say it again,” he pleaded.

“What?”

“My name.”

“Kyle.”

Tears welled up in his soft brown eyes and he bent his head to hide them. “They told me you might not remember,” he said.

How could she forget? Since she met him in the sixth grade, Alli had known she would marry Kyle. “Mrs. Kyle Street,” she had scribbled across her papers as she snuck glances at him across the room in Mrs. Gentry’s Spanish class…and Mrs. Currick’s algebra class…and Mr. Krumpley’s chemistry class. In high school, she had been the only one of her friends to have the same boyfriend for all four years. “Aren’t you sick of him yet?” they would tease. (Six years post-college, she was the only one of them who was not divorced. Ironic.) Her Kyle. This was the Kyle who had been to every formal affair with her since middle school, been a camp counselor with her for three summers, spent many a late night studying with her in the library during college, and loved her with a love she had never known was possible. No, she could not forget him.

Her surroundings still were not making sense, but she knew this was not home. The plain white walls, upright bed, and uninviting smell told her that much. In fact, this place rather resembled a hospital. “Am I in the hospital?” she asked. The voice coming out of her did not sound like her own.

“Yes,” Kyle answered. He was not sure how much to tell her tonight, so he stopped there.

Alli closed her eyes. She was already exhausted from just a few minutes of keeping them open. “Why? What happened?” she probed with her eyes still closed.

“We had an accident. You’re going to be okay, though.”

Alli was too tired to ask anything else. She wasn’t sure she was ready for the whole story anyway. Not yet.

“I just want to sleep,” she told him.

“Okay. I’ll be here when you wake up.”

He had been there. He had been there every night for the past nine months, waiting for her to wake up. Today, she finally had.

Since the night of the accident, Kyle had not touched their bed. It was too sacred. Instead, he had spent every night here, in this impersonal hospital room, holding her hand and talking to her until he fell asleep.

“Alli. I love you,” he told her before she fell asleep.

“To the end,” she finished. This had been the secret line they had shared since high school, a constant affirmation of the way they felt toward each other. For the past nine months, Kyle had spoken these words to the near-lifeless figure in the hospital bed who was his wife. Until tonight, she had not finished the line.

Kyle had never been much of a crier. Playing varsity football had taught him that showing emotions was a sign of weakness. In spite of this knowledge, Kyle had shed many a tear beside this bed since she had been here, not knowing if he would ever see Alli’s beautiful eyes open again. They had been tears of frustration, anger, and heart-wrenching sadness. But tonight, they were tears of hope. She knew him.