Just Ruby

Finding out that my best friend was in a coma, and that she was hooked up to a life support machine isn't the easiest thing to talk about. But I've been told that writing it out may help. So here I go.

We had one of those rare friendships that feel as if you're both made up of a single soul. The kind of friendship where mere eye contact could tell a novel. Where just being yourself had never been easier or more comfortable. Friendship that gives you hope that magic exists, because how could this be anything but? We were practically a package deal; Ruby and Lucy. Ruby and Lucy, that's what we were. And I didn't know how to be just Ruby.

The local library used to be my place of escape; where I could experience the wonder of literature and reading and all things right with the world. Now it's just the platform of my worst memories. Lost in my own bubble, I was jerked back into focus when The Wombats started blasting out from my phone. As my mum broke the news, I suddenly felt the chilled wind running his cruel fingers down my spine, freezing my body over inch by inch. I remember I dropped the phone. I wasn't sure at the time because I couldn't think, I couldn't think, I couldn't think. It was as if the only thing tethering me to this world had just been cut.
I shattered the stillness of the library with my strangled screech.

My mother was panicking on the other end of the line. I could hear her voice calling my name through my mobile, which lay half-broken on the floor. Somehow I found the strength to pick it up, and clutching it in a death grip, my eyes fell onto the charm that hung from the top. Cringing inwardly, I drew my eyes away because it reminded me of her. Her.
My mum expected tears, I know she did, so she was surprised when she picked me up and saw me stood waiting blankly. But the face I wore masked a wreck; my heart pounded furiously against my chest and I could have sworn the world broke into a thousand pieces, but it was still there.

After seventy four minutes of silence, the air dripping with tension, the hospital finally rolled up in front of the car. The earth kept spinning and the clocks kept ticking, but as I scrambled to find her room, time couldn't have moved slower. It crawled, unmerciful, and it laughed in my face.
After my first visit, the whole hour of time used for visiting patients, Lucy's aunt and uncle pulled me aside. Being Lucy's legal guardians since her parents died in a car crash seven years ago, they were her only family. To cut a long story full of incoherent cry-talking on my behalf short; they wanted me to have control over her life support. My head was a whirlwind of different emotions and it wouldn't stop. I was a dartboard, being constantly fired at with more than I could cope. I needed time.

Over the next month and a half, things got worse. I was surrounded with people telling me they understood, but how could they when their best friend was stood there next to them as they said it? Sometimes the people you're with aren't the people you want them to be. Trying to carry on with my normal schedule with this gaping hole eating away at me, was one of those times.

"I'm so sorry Ruby"
"Ruby, it's going to be okay"
"We all miss her Ruby"
The sympathetic voices of all those around me did nothing to soothe the wild fire ablaze in my mind that stopped me from focusing on anything other than her.

And now, as I stare down at her lying on this too-clean white bed in this too-clean white hospital, I'm more than anything frustrated. Frustrated at the world for handing me this situation; for dishing me up this disastrous meal with a knife and fork and saying "Here you go." Frustrated at time for not being enough, and frustrated at Lucy for not coming back to me. Because I guess even though I'm not strong enough to be just Ruby, she has the strength to be just Lucy.
Or maybe she's telling me that she knows I can do it. Lucy always knew me better than anyone, and she's telling me to stand on my feet and live my life. I can practically hear her whisper tickling my ear; "Be strong, Rubs. I'll meet you there when you're old and wrinkly."

And suddenly, I know what to do.