To Become

A week passing by, Ryan was starting to get very anxious for Kylie to come out of the coma. He began pacing the halls of the hospital at odd hours, locking himself up in his room at the house barely saying words to anyone or just driving for hours on the outskirts of town. It was once again his evening with Kylie and once again, he was pacing the halls.

“You look like hell,” Dr. Houle told him as they passed each other.

The two of them stopped walking and Ryan sighed. “Yeah, I know. I haven’t been getting much sleep. I think I may be sick because this isn’t normal.”

Dr. Houle smiled at him. “Caring is normal. Besides, today is a lucky day. Something good may happen.”

“What do you mean?”

“In China, the number eight is a good omen. Today is the eighth day of the eighth month of the eighth year. It also happens to be the start of the Summer Olympics.”

“I don’t care about the Olympics. Is she doing better at all? Have you seen any signs saying that she’s going to wake up soon?” Ryan said growing impatient.

“Calm down. I actually have good news that I was on my way to tell you.”

“What is it?”

Dr. Houle began to walk down the hall toward Kylie’s room, Ryan followed. “She’s in an extremely light comatose state right now. She could come out of it at anytime. In fact, at the state she’s in, many don’t even consider them to be in a coma.”

“I’m glad.”

Ryan sat down in the chair next to the bed as Dr. Houle turned to leave. “You should talk to her. She can hear you.” After saying this, he left.

Rolling his eyes, he relaxed back in the chair and gazed over at the young girl. “You’ve also been in the coma for eight full days.” He stared at her for a little while longer before standing and lying down in the bed next to her and wrapping his arms around her small body, pulling her into him. His eyes closed, and he drifted to sleep.

Greg sat at the desk in his office recording down numbers dealing with his girls when he heard a knock at the door. “Yeah, come in.” The door opened slowly and a small head of red was seen. “What is it Sara? Come here.” He held his arm out to her and she went to him. “What’s wrong?”

“They’re always saying mean things about Kylie!” Sara told him. “Can’t you make them stop?”

“Who says them?”

“You know, Megan, Mallory and Haley, but mainly Megan.”

“They’re just jealous.”

“It’s impossible for Megan to be jealous. To her, she’s the best thing here, and she’s so pretty! Her hair is perfect, not all red and curly like mine,” she said pulling at one of her long tight curls. “Her hair is silky black and perfectly straight, and the ends curl right at her chin! Her eyes though…” Sara shivered, “are like demon eyes! She’s probably a dark angel.”

“Is that what Kylie said?”

She nodded. “But think about it! Megan is tall and slim with legs I would love to have instead of my huge fat ones.”

“Your legs aren’t fat.” Greg laughed. “You look fine. I personally think you’re just as gorgeous as Megan if not more.”

“You’re lying. But I just hate it when Megan runs everything in our faces. It’s like we’re back at school or something. Popular crowd and the freaks, and I happen to be a freak. A brown eyed, red headed freak.”

Greg lifted Sara up and placed her on his lap. “It was almost two years ago, I think, when we picked Megan up. She had just turned sixteen. Brad and I were out that night in Minneapolis, and after seeing some old friends, we parted ways. We were walking to the car when he saw her sitting alongside a building shivering. He walked up to her and asked if she needed a ride. She said that she didn’t have anywhere to go, so Brad offered to take her with us.”

Interrupting Sara blurted out, “But that’s stupid to trust a stranger, especially a man like Brad.”

“What would you do if you had no place to go home to because your parents kicked you out after they found out you had just had an abortion, and your boyfriend wanted nothing to do with you anymore because of the pregnancy in the first place? It was the middle of winter and Brad offered her a roof, food, a bed… It’s the struggle to survive.”

“I guess, but just because that happened to her doesn’t give her a right to be mean to us. She’s not any better than us. We’re the same, right?”

“She was the first one that Brad took care of. They’re very close which you can tell since Megan is always after his attention.”

“She flirts with him all the time and basically begs for it. Besides, it’s not like Kylie’s trying to steal Brad away from her.”

Greg shook his head. “I didn’t say she was, but Megan is most likely feeling very protective of what she considers hers. Many of the men that come through here have been rather taken with Kylie since she got here. Megan doesn’t want to lose Brad to her as well.”

“That will never happen.”

“You women are territorial.”

Giggling, Sara hopped off of Greg’s lap and turned to look at him. His cell phone rang. “Is it Ryan?”

Greg held a finger out to her as he answered it.

A piercing scream was heard down the whole hall of the hospital as two bright blue eyes opened up and stared into two darker ones. “Help! Get away from me! Please let me go! Help!” Tears streamed down her face as the other eventually overcame the sudden outburst and placed a hand firmly over the crying lips.

“It’s me Kyles. It’s Ryan,” he said clearly enough to try to get her attention to calm down. It was then the thrashing started. The whole bed began shaking as the tiny body started pushing at the one leaning over her. “Kylie, stop it!”

A nurse ran in the room hearing the scream and administered into the IV a drug to help settle Kylie down. The drug took effect almost immediately as Ryan felt Kylie’s muscles began to relax and her breathing slow. “I’ll call and let Dr. Houle know that she’s woken. He’ll need to have some tests run again,” the nurse told Ryan. He pulled out the chart on the wall across from the bed and jotted a few lines before leaving the room.

Ryan kept his eyes on Kylie the whole time as he removed his hand and smoothed back her hair. When she spoke, her voice cracked between words. “Where am I?”

“You’re in the hospital again. How are you feeling?” Ryan asked.

“Why am I in the hospital and again?”

That was when he began to think back on what Dr. Houle had told him an outcome of the lack of oxygen to the brain could be. He sighed. “Kylienna, do you know who I am?”

She nodded and then started crying again as she turned away from him. “Please let me go home…”

“What’s the last thing you remember?”

Curling into a small ball, she shook her head furiously. “Go away…”

“What is the last date you remember?”

“March sixth.”

There was a question there, and Ryan picked up on it. “That was five months and two days ago. Today is August eighth.”

Kylie sat up quickly and inhaled deeply, her eyes widening. “What? How can it be August already? What happened to me? What did you do?”

“What did I do? You should be asking yourself that question, but thanks to your own little act, you wouldn’t be able to answer! You don’t even know what you did!” Ryan turned his back to her, and leaned against the side of the bed.

“Why are you yelling at me,” she whimpered to him.

“Forget it. I’m just glad you’re awake.”

“Why can’t I remember?”

“It’s called amnesia,” he said as he turned back toward her. “Your brain was deprived of oxygen for too long.” Quietly he added, “You hung yourself.”

Kylie shifted in the bed and put her legs behind her. She was cold and was starting to shiver, so Ryan grabbed the blanket he had been using and wrapped it around her. She had a fearful look in her eyes as she stared down at the floor. “The last I remember is you…,” she paused for a moment and looked up at him before continuing, “is you raping me. Did I dream that, or did you really do it?”

“It wasn’t a dream.”

This time she didn’t cry, but her feelings were confusing her. It was as if her mind was trying to tell her that it was okay to be this close to a man who had kidnapped and raped you and probably did many other things that weren’t exactly spelled out for her at the time. “Have I been asleep since then?”

Ryan shook his head. “No. I told you, you hung yourself.”

“Why would I do that? I don’t understand. That makes no sense. Why would I want to kill myself?”

“You said it was because you couldn’t handle it anymore. You’re lucky. You had succeeded, but your heart just started back up.”

Suddenly, Kylie’s eyes showed that she was remembering something, but in a dreamlike state as if she wasn’t in the room at all. It was if she was asleep again. “There was a voice, a girl’s. She pulled me back. She was crying. I didn’t want her to cry.” She broke out of the short trance, her eyes blinking, coming back into focus. “Who’s Sara?”


Greg shut his cell and turned to Sara. “Kylienna’s awake.”

Sara’s face brightened as a huge smile spread out. “Is she coming back now?”

“Not yet. She just came out of a coma, Sara. Dr. Houle will want to run more tests I’m sure.”

“Then, can you maybe, take me to see her? Just call Ryan back and ask! Please!”

“You need to stay here,” Greg told her pulling the girl into a hug. “It’s for your own good. Trust me.”

Confused, Sara pulled back away from him. “For my own good? What do you mean?”

“To her, you don’t exist yet.”

A few minutes after, Sara left Greg’s office and went back to the cell that she shared with Kylie. She lay down on her cot and closed her eyes before looking over at Kylie’s side of the cell. Her cot had been put back against the wall, but the sheets were taken from the bed and all that was left was a thin, white pillow. ‘It will be as if we never existed in the first place.’

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A/N:
So this chapter was supposed to actually be posted on 08/08/08, but I'm a day late since I watched the opening ceremonies of the Olympics and was major tired when it was over. And now a shout out to my favorite men's tennis player...Happy 27th Birthday Roger Federer!" He got to carry the Swiss flag into the stadium and he said that his birthday wish was that he didn't stumble when he walked in. Good news, his wish came true. He didn't stumble. He walked in with his wonderful smile.

The best part about the ceremony was of the little Chinese boy who was walking with China's flag carrier. He was 9 years old and standing next to a man who was 7'6. What had happened is that he was a survivor of the earthquake that happened in May. 20 out of his 30 classmates were killed, but he was able to free himself and also save 2 other classmates of his. When he was asked why he did it, he said that it was because it was his responsiblity because he was the hall monitor. I seriously almost cried. I mean, a 9 year old! Now that's amazing.

A Lost Life is on hold at the moment since I'm having major writer's block on it. I know what I want, but I just need to figure out how to lead up to it. It's either that or cut it as an actual prologue for To Become. Like, the first part of a book saying March 2008 and then when that part was over, the beginning page of the second part would be three and a half months later or June 2008. shrugs I don't know. We'll see.