The Last Smile

TW: Death

“Wait, please don’t leave me,” I said, with a desperate tone that surprised me myself, and then she turned to me, her eyes glistening with tears that had formed in the hospital bed.

She smiled. One last time.

Time stopped after that, and I’ve always assumed that it was because of heartbreak, a topic I am too familiar with. She just smiled.

She didn’t wave.

She didn’t make this elaborate farewell speech.

She just smiled, which somehow hurt much, much more than any elaborate farewell speech could.

It probably hurt so much because I knew she was going to break up with me the day later. I found out the hard way.

Email Log:

(in reply to Hilton@mail.com)

Friday, October 10th, 12:24 A.M.

jhilton@gmail.com: I’m gonna do it next Wednesday, Mom. I swear I will. I can’t go on like this.

(in reply to jhilton@gmail.com)

Friday, October 10th, 4:38 P.M.

hhilton@gmail.com: Okay. If you’re 100% sure you want to do this, Jane.

(in reply to hhilton@gmail.com)

Saturday, October 11th, 10:56 A.M.

jhilton@gmail.com : I am. 100% sure. We just won’t work out. We can’t work out, Mom. I’m dying, and I can’t bear him to see me like this anymore.

*End of Email Log*

Her mom knew the entire time, and yet when we went over for brunch on Monday, she acted like everything was fine, just dandy thank you very much. Who would’ve guessed that Jane’s own mother knew that my world would crumple and shatter just two days later while serving me biscuits?

I certainly didn’t.

That’s why Jane’s smile at the end of the day, nearing death, shook me. Broke me even. Actually, yes, it broke me.

I remember the first time Jane was healthy enough to kiss me. It was a gloomy Tuesday morning, and I was doing the usual, getting the stale hospital coffee, pacing around in Jane’s room before eventually sitting down and holding her good hand, whispering the same mantras I said in my own head.

“It’s going to be okay, Jane,”

“We’ll get through this together, one step at a time,”

“You’re going to make it.” No if’s, and’s, or but’s. Just that- you’re going to make it. And I really, truly thought she was.

Anyway, it was a Tuesday morning. It had been a good day, and Jane was feeling good, even cracking jokes with the nursing staff. She saw me walk in, and even as she saw my sad, hollow eyes, hers lit up. She sat up, ignoring the pain I knew she was experiencing in her back. “Rhino, hon, c’mere!” She said, and a weight was lifted off my shoulders. She was in enough health to call me by the oh-so annoying nickname she had for me.

My real name was Ryan.

I sat down in the chair close to her bed, the one that had become my temporary living spot. She looked at me, with a sweet, soft look in her eyes. She took my hand, which was unusual, since I was usually the one taking hers. The moment her lips touched mine, which was brief, I felt a spark of life. She could still love me. Even in those dark times.

That was last Tuesday.

Today is Tuesday. The doctors swore that she had at least eight months, if not a whole life, left to live.

Nobody suspected just a week.

That was my last kiss. And, God, probably the last one I’ll ever have. I don’t trust anybody else’s lips to touch mine like Jane’s did.

I should’ve mentioned, that on that Monday brunch, that brunch was in the hospital room, since Jane was too sick to even get out of bed into a wheelchair. She even winced when the plastic fork from Walmart was placed into her mouth, a little tube helping her eat. It didn’t really matter what she could eat, because it wasn’t like she could keep any of that food down, no matter how much she tried.

Me and her mom, we kinda knew what was coming. I’d been going to therapy since Jane’s diagnosis, which was about two months ago. Not that it prevented her from dying.

Her mom left around one in the morning that day, packing up the containers that she had brought, after profusely kissing Jane on the head, and whispering some prayer in Spanish in her ears.

She slipped in and out of consciousness that night, the heartbeat monitor beeped slowly but steadily. I woke up from a doze with doctors and nurses frantically moving around the room, oblivious to the sleeping person in the room. Immediately, I realized what was going down.

I woke up, and saw Jane’s eyes, fluttering, as if she was fighting to keep her eyes open. “Wait, please don’t leave me,” I said, my voice on the verge of failing. A single tear rolled down Jane’s cheek, and she smiled. The last smile, it seemed.

Jane's body lay motionless, the monitor just humming now. Not beeping at all. A nurse tried to pry me from the chair, she said I at least had to take a shower.

I refused.

Jane's mom visited once, just to get funeral stuff ready. She was wearing all black, yet Jane always said to wear anything but black at her funeral. Jane's mom, Marjorie, was a traditional woman though. Jane never liked that.

Texting Log Between Ryan and Jane

July 2nd, 11:23 P.M.

Ryan: Jane, do you have a final diagnosis?

July 2nd, 11:56 P.M.

Jane: Yeah. I'll tell you later.

July 3rd, 12:01 A.M.

Ryan: Okay. Love you.

July 3rd, 12:32 A.M.

Jane: Love you too.

*End of Texting Log*

July third, at around eleven A.M., was the worst moment of my life.

Now, today has replaced that moment. Now it is Tuesday, October fourteenth, at around three P.M. They swore she would live longer.

They swore.

And now here I am, looming over Jane's figure in a ratty old t-shirt with some rock band on it, and my work jeans and shoes.

There wasn't a familiar rise and fall to her chest, and the heart monitor was now being unplugged by a nurse. She was the same one who had urged me to take a shower, but I didn't leave Jane's side. Eventually, the smell of Jane and me combined was too much for my nostrils, so I left the hospital, and the annoying nurse.

I stayed in bed for three days straight, and didn't get out until my landlord said rent was due in two days. I didn't care about rent anymore.

The day of the funeral, I forced myself to wear my nicest suit, but with an electric green tie. Jane always loved that tie, even if I had gotten it in college by a frat group dare. I showed up fifteen minutes early, and only Jane's mom and sister were there. Her sister flew in from Chicago, and greeted me with a sad smile and a big hug. I nearly fell apart when June, Jane's sister, smiled. It looked just like the smile Jane had given me that moment in the hospital room.

That last smile, the one I thought I'd see for so much longer, had ripped me apart, piece by piece.

And now here I stood, looming over Jane's body. Her mouth was plastered in a thin line, almost resembling the smile she gave me. I sat down in a chair that slightly resembled the hospital chair- same brand, I think- and took Jane's cold hand.

June and Marjorie looked at me in two very different ways. June's expression was sad, her eyes hollow, but Marjorie's was a sort of cold, like it was weird to touch your dead girlfriend's hand. Maybe it was, but I didn't care anymore.

Two Months Later

It's rather funny, in a wicked way. How one last smile, the last smile Jane would ever make, was a goofy, lighthearted smile.

It's like, oh yeah, I'm about to die, so let's make Ryan laugh.

At least the last thing she ever did was smile.