A whole week has passed now and Mrs Zikora’s condition wasn’t getting any better, which only made both I and Frederick somber. I don’t know why I felt this way, she wasn’t even my own mother but I knew that the sadness I felt was bonafide.
The past week I made it my top priority to always be there for Frederick. I even began to skip sses on my own free will just to keep Frederickpany in the hospital. For the first time in my life, my sole attention wasn’t on anything school rted, but on someone I earnestly cared about. And I have to say, it was quite refreshing.
A hand full of people have visited also, my parents being one of them visited once, and in that one particr time they brought bouquet of flowers with them…. shocker, who knew they could think about something other than themselves. But they didn’t stay that long as Mrs Zikora was sound asleep by that time. Which i was highly thankful for.
Frederick has been trying to be his normal self, well almost normal self. Although he cracks jokes like he usually does and teases me to annoyance, I could still see glimpse of pain in his eyes. But i knew i couldn’tpletely erase them all.
Frederick’s friends also visited after school, which reminded me that they also knew about Frederick’s mother’s condition. They really tried their hardest to cheer their friend up. They also brought tonnes and I mean ‘tonnes’ of get well gifts for Mrs Zikora, which in turn made Frederick’s mom quite happy. The gifts practically filled one end of the room. Luckily the room was thoroughlyrge.
Presently I and Mrs Zikora were all alone in the hospital room, Frederick and the others went to the canteen to eat. Well more like Favour and Tobi forced Frederick to go to the canteen with them. Honestly, I was the one that begged them to force him to go and eat. The boy hasn’t been eating well for the past days now. It was highly unhealthy.
I know it is hypocritical of me to say so, cause frankly speaking it was ironic of me to force a person to eat, and say it’s unhealthy. I was the master in that after all.
I didn’t go with them as I had already eaten. And also I reallycked sleep these days. The nightmares just won’t stop, and it was gotten pretty worse these days. So I stayed behind to rest a little. It was a miracle how i hid it for this long from Frederick, because that boy always seems to notice even the littlest things.
“Honey are you okay?” I heard Mrs Zikora’s voice call out, making me to immediately open my eyes.
When my eyes finally amodated to the light I saw Frederick’s mom staring at me with a look of concern. The irony right? She was the patient and she was asking if I was okay.
“Yeah I’m fine ma” I lied right through my teeth.
She frowned at me “I have eyes Amanda, I can perfectly see with them and I can undoubtedly see that you’re not alright. You might have fooled my son but not me” “Now tell me what’s wrong” She acted like she were my mother and I don’t know if she knew it or not. But i loved it either ways.
I sighed. You know, there is a popr saying that ‘a problem is best solved when shared’, but I disagree with that. I believe that it’s better to say ‘A problem is best solved when shared with the ‘right’ person’ and it seems like she was the right person at the moment.
Making up my mind finally I told her “Nightmares, I have been having nightmares” I waited patiently for what she would say next. This almost felt like my past sessions with my therapist. I was getting nervous.
“What are the nightmares about?” She softly asked while adjusting herself in a sitting position on the bed.This text is property of N?/velD/rama.Org.
“That’s the thing, i don’t know exactly” i truthfully told her. The dreams always seemed like they came in clips, one part wille then immediately another scene enters, that’s why i just couldn’t say for sure what the dream was about. But the one thing i was perfectly sure of is that i wasn’t alone in the dream.
“Hmm” She said thoughtfully. “Do you at least remember a single thing from the dream?” I did actually. But the weird thing was that for some reason i felt that the nightmares i have been having since i could remember was not merely a dream.
“A bridge” I said “I remember a bridge” a slight look of recognition passed through her eyes, but was gone almost immediately, making me doubt if i actually did see it in the first instance.
“Do you remember anything else apart from the bridge?” She further asked. This time she seemed skeptical.
I nodded my head before whispering softly, the remembrance of that dream making me shiver slightly “Yes I do” After an intermission I continued “I remember jumping off the bridge”.
“Oh i see” She then said, a distant look zing her eyes. “Well, I guess it’s time to tell you then”.
Highly confused i questioned “Tell me what?”.
With a mncholic smile on her face she responded “About the first time we met Amanda”.
Third person’s POV:
(FLASHBACK)
The atmosphere was densely tensed. Amanda stared at Frederick’s mother, the confusion on her face was as clear as a crystal . Vanya Zikora sighed out loud. Was she doing the right thing by telling her? she thought. But s she knew that Amanda deserved to know. They were her memories after all, just that they were only lost.
“What do you mean by ‘About the first time we met’?” Amanda finally asked. Because if she remembers urately, the first time she met Mrs Zikora was in the hospital, so what was she talking about?
“Exactly what i said my dear. Although, it won’t be very urate if i used the word ‘Tell’, instead i would say ‘Remind’ you about our first encounter” The more she spoke the more Amanda’s head began to hurt. Abi is she still dreaming ni? she thought.
“Remind me?” Amanda once again spoke.
“Yes” Vanya smiled though it was a sad one.
“I believe it was two solid years ago” With a far away look in her eyes she continued. Amanda listened intensively without making a single noise, her curiosity won over everything else.
‘Two years ago’
The city of New York was its usually booming self. The poption of cars were as high as ever, The moon illuminating into the night, the street lights brighter than ever. Although in the midst of all this, a young AfAmandan girl looking no younger than 14 stood all alone on the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge. A hospital clothe was on her body, you could also see ces were blood had stained the hospital gown. It was almostical how nobody has noticed such a fragile looking creature.
Young Amanda was standing near the edge of the bridge, dried up tears still lining her pure innocent face. She stretched out her head looking down to see a huge mass of water underneath. In her mind she has already decided; Today was the day she would end her life. She didn’t see any need to live anymore, Life was undoubtedly meaningless to her at this point.
After little contemtion she then began to climb the edge of the bridge, which was painful to do given the cuts she had on her hands, but at the end she was still sessful.
At this point a normal person would have at least hesitated, even if it was a little. Because just so you know, suicide wasn’t a measly walk in the park, it wasn’t as easy as people portrayed it to be. In spite of what people thought, it took guts torge extends. Though it was still an act that a simpleton would do.
A quick remembrance of why she was doing this again crossed Amanda’s mind, making a lone tear to betray her and slip out. Next she removed both her legs from the edge, but the strangest of things urred, instead of her to be falling forward into therge abundance of water, she was falling backwards to the concrete floor.
“Phew, just in time. I thought I wasn’t going to catch you for a second there” She heard a male voice say from beside her. Apparently, someone had stopped her from going through with her, I would say rather foolish n.
Surprised she squeaked “Unhand me, right this instance” She struggled a little before the boy released her.
“Jeez, i was expecting a thank you but that will do fine too” The young boy said. The sarcasm in his voice showed that he was highly unhappy, and the eye roll was just an added bonus.
Amanda stared at the boy in disbelieve “Why on earth would i thank you? Nawa o, did i say i needed saving?”
“You might not have asked for my help, but I being a reasonable human being decided to save your foolish self from whatever you were about to foolishly do!” The more he spoke, the higher his octave went. Frederick looked at Amanda, she was unearthly beautiful no doubt, but didn’t she know that life was precious?
Amanda was beyond inmed, Who did he think he wasing out of thin air and insulting her.
“Yo-u y-ou” she stammered a little before properly speaking “You infuriating nipoop” She could have done a lot better she herself knew that too.
A smallugh escaped the boys lips. “For your mind now you know big words, p for yourself na” when he said this, his slight ent from minutes ago immediately changed. Amanda was a little surprised by this. I mean from all the millions of individuals in New York city, what were the odds that she’d encounter someone from her own country.
But after recalling his response her shock instantly turned to anger. She thought to herself, how could a person be soo annoying. She was a rather quite and collected person, and for a person to drive her to the brim of annoyance and anger, was outrightly admirable.
“Frederick Andrew Zikora, I didn’t raise you to talk like that to people, much less strangers” a very displeased voice called out, making Amanda to realize that there was also a woman standing looking at the both of them. It appears that it was the young boys mother.
At his mother’s words young fifteen years old Frederick attitude turned apologetic. “I’m sorry” he muttered out. From the way he said it, it was rtively obvious that he didn’t want to apologies to Amanda.
“I’m so sorry for my son’s manners my dear. Are you alright” The younger version of Vanya Zikora asked. From what she and her son had seen, Amanda was indeed about to jump off the bridge. She didn’t know if it was fate that brought them to this girl, but she was d they were able to stop her in time.
The kind words of the stranger brought a warm kind of feeling to Amanda’s heart. Her own mother would never speak so calm to her, always cold as ice. Never caring.
Even though she didn’t really know what was going on, she still replied whispering softly “I’m fine”.
Amanda stared at the two people in front of her…’why can’t they just leave already, anything i did with my life was clearly not any of their business. But why do they seem to care?’
Mrs Zikora knew what Amanda said wasn’t the truth in any way. She knew she wasn’t fine. The different sizes of cuts on her hands too was highly questionable, they were just way too much, blood was even still distinctly flowing out. The hospital clothes she was wearing was in fact even contradicting her words the more; she looked like she had just escaped from a ward or something. And lets not forget her tear stained cheeks. If that wasn’t enough of a red g, then she didn’t know what was.
She continued with a shutter “Now ple-ase can you b-oth leave, i have a-a sc-hedule to keep up with” And by schedule, Frederick and his mother knew all too well what she meant. Amanda knew what she said and how she said it sounded rude, she really didn’t mean it to sound that way. But she knew, she knew that this was probably going to be thest chance she’d get. The nurses would surely be looking for her whereabouts by now. Like the saying goes ‘It was now or never’, and Amanda wholeheartedly wanted it to be ‘now’.
Mrs Zikora and her son stared at Amanda like as if she was mad. Well she might have as well been.
Frederick released a low sigh and told her “Remember when i called you foolish?” he took an intermission “I just confirmed it, you are indeed a very foolish girl” Again with the insults? she thought. And see her thinking he was going to say somethingpletely different. He was quite gorgeous alright, but his attitude was honestly outrageous. He knew nothing about her or why she was even doing this in the first ce, yet he judged her. Ridiculous. People will always be the same.
“yo-” He cut her off before she couldplete what she wanted to say.
“You take life as solely nothing. Let me tell you now, there are people who would have wanted to still be on this earth but sadly that wasn’t their fate. And then ‘you’ decide that you don’t want to live anymore. A lot of people would do anything to still have their love ones with them!” Unknowingly to young Frederick, he had gone off track. He didn’t know when thest sentence slipped. Amanda understood that from what he said, he had lost someone dear to him. She instantly felt bad after hearing that.
Mrs Zikora didn’t utter a single word this time as her son spoke. He was finally being open with his feelings, something he hasn’t done since the death of her husband. She just hoped that Frederick could stop the young girl from going through with what she was adamant on doing. Though she also hoped that he would be at least gentle in doing so.
“See ehn, i’m sure you think that taking your own life takes strength?” He continued in a mocking voice “But do you want to know the truth” with a low yet dead serious tone he said “The truth here is that you’re weak and, you are immensely pathetic” His harsh yet truthful word hit a particr ce in Amanda. Tears began to form in her eyes. She knew what he had said was the truth, that was why it affected her soo deeply.
Both Frederick and his mother’s eyes widened to great extent as the next thing they saw was Amanda falling freely to the ground. Frederick just as fast crouched to the ground and ced her in his arms. He did all this on impulse without even realizing it. Scanning her body briefly Vanya and Frederick both noticed the blood still gushing out of her cuts, meaning she probably fainted due to high loss of blood. Mrs Zikora immediately called the paramedics.
At that point Frederick began to regret the way he had spoken to her. And that even though it was the truth, he should have known that the truth always hurts. Nevertheless he also knew that the truth was like a surgery, it hurts but it without a doubt cures.
(END OF FLASHBACK)