WHO: Jenny & Dahlia. WHAT: Jenny tries to get firm with Dahlia, small fight ensues. WHERE: Rhode Island. Dahlia's hospital room. WHEN: Autumn of 2010. Set approximately seven months after Dahlia's accident, three weeks after she wakes up from the following coma. WARNINGS: Language, feels, nothing much else.
“Dahlia, your physical therapy session is in half an hour.” Man, Dahlia hated this nurse. She had no real reason to, of course, but that didn’t change the fact that she did. It wasn’t Georgia’s fault that Dahlia couldn’t stand her. She was a hardworking woman with a kind voice and gentle hands, and yet she had somehow incurred Dahlia’s wrath early on. Perhaps it was the way she spoke to her, as if she was some kind of child that needed her hand held. Dahlia wasn’t a fucking child, and she didn’t need some old woman treating her as such. So, rather than answer, she rolled over onto her side and remained quiet.
“Honey, your--”
“I’m not going!” Dahlia interrupted, voice sharp and dark and full of misplaced venom. Three weeks ago, she woke up from a six month-long coma only to be told that she would more than likely never see again. Less than one percent - that was the chance that she would gain even a fraction of her sight back. It was safe to say that the last three weeks had been hell for Dahlia (and everyone unfortunate enough to spend any amount of time with her). She was fucking tired. Between the physical therapy and the classes they had her enrolled in that would teach her how to live without her sight, it felt as though she never got the chance to just be still.
And when she did, Dahlia almost hated that even more. It was impossible to make her happy and even less possible to keep her that way. Some days were a little bit better than others, but today was not one of those days.
“Now, Dahlia, you know that these sessions are important.” She rolled her eyes, resigned to just lay there and stew in her bitterness, but then Georgia grabbed her arm. It was a gentle touch, probably meant to comfort her, but it was the last thing she wanted. Dahlia didn’t need this woman’s sympathy pats, and she certainly didn’t want them. “Don’t fucking touch me!” she cried, yanking her arm away and, in the process, sent the other crashing into the nearby table. Food and water went careening to the floor, and if Dahlia cared that she made a mess that someone else would have to pick up, she didn’t show it.
“Get out! Get out!”
---
Jenny was tired. She was tired physically, of course, but it went a lot deeper than that. She was emotionally tired, pushed to her brink, but she really had no choice but to hang on. Whether she liked it or not, it fell on her to be the strong one now. For now and forever, maybe. It would have been bad enough to have her best friend in a terrible accident, a car crash so twisted that she still couldn’t look at the pictures because her brain would just remind her Dahlia was in there, and it was an image she didn’t want her brain to even touch.
Having an awful thing like that happen to her best friend was one thing, but when it was her best friend and girlfriend, when it was the woman that was everything to her, the woman that her son sometimes looked to as much as mother as he did to her.. her son, who now kept asking questions that she didn’t entirely know how to answer yet, questions that made her snap at him and then burst into tears for doing it, clutching him against her chest in their kitchen. He was only nine, after all, and sometimes she wondered if he even gripped the gravity of their situation now. Jenny was definitely tired.
She was adaptable, though, it had always been one of Jenny’s strong points. She was clever. She prided herself on it, and she wanted to believe that she was clever enough to fix things, that she could make life okay again, for all three of them. Her happy, healthy little family unit had been shattered, but they would rebuild, she would rebuild, she would be strong. But some days were easier than others. She’d never given up on Dahlia for a minute, even when the doctors had said that she wouldn’t wake up.
For the first month of the coma, she hadn’t gone to work. Chase hadn’t gone to school for the first week, but eventually she had started taking him back, trying to restore normalcy as much as she could for him. She would drop him off in the morning, and go to the hospital, a paperback book in her purse, and she would sit beside the bed. Sometimes she would read aloud to Dahlia, sometimes she would read to herself, depending on her mood. She’d stay all day, until she had to pick Chase up, returning home to try once more to force as much normality and routine on him as she could. Cooking dinners and reading to him before bed and acting like there wasn’t a giant lacking all around them, an emptiness without Dahlia’s presence, that only seemed to drain her more and more as time went on.
She wasn’t entirely used to doing things on her own anymore. It felt like Dahlia had always been there.
For a long time, there was no change. Everyday seemed the same, a waiting game. Eventually, she had to go back to work. She still came every day, sat in the same chair, sometimes she would read, or just hold the brunette’s hand, watch television, anything to pass the time. Sometimes she would bring Chase, but it seemed to make him uncomfortable, looking at her like that, and his questions always caught her off-guard, surprised her with their mixture of maturity one minute and childlike innocence the next. She brought him whenever he asked, but she hadn’t forced it on him. She had babysitters for a reason.
When Dahlia finally woke up, Jenny would have liked to say that it was the happiest day of her life, but it had also been one of the worst. It had been hard, seeing the realization on the other woman’s face, seeing her not seeing anything, her beautiful face falling, her beautiful eyes left sightless. Groping for her. She’d held the brunette, or tried, but it hadn’t made anything better. She had practically willed her to wake up, but she couldn’t fix this.
She’d stopped going to work again, she’d been with her every day since she had woke up, as much as she could. She had started bringing Chase back more, at first, but she had stopped again. Dahlia’s outbursts frightened him, she could see it on his face, even if he wouldn’t admit it to her. He was trying to be grown up, to be the man of the house, like they had always teased him about. He was trying to be strong, but Jenny knew her son.
Three weeks in, and so far it hadn’t gotten any easier, and Jenny was more tired than she had ever been. She had actually been in the process of apologizing to another nurse, named Karen, that Dahlia had been particularly nasty to the morning before, when she heard the ruckus down the hall in Dahlia’s room. The nurses always politely explained that Dahlia was far from the worst patient they had ever seen, and that they could handle her, no matter how stubborn she decided to be. Today was no different. Still, Jenny always felt the need to apologize anyway. She understood both sides, why her girlfriend was lashing out and acting the way she was, but she also understood the nurses and their position as well. They were only trying to do their job.
Jenny felt awful about the way things had been going for them, and she wanted to believe that if Dahlia were acting like herself.. well, she wouldn’t be acting the way she was at all.
She excused herself from Karen at the nurses station and made her way hurried down the hall, preparing herself for what she would see going on around the corner, and she put on her best stern face, even though Dahlia couldn’t see it anymore. Old habits died hard. The sternness carried to her tone anyway. “What the hell is going on in here?” she asked loudly, looking around to see the food and drink smashing to the floor, her own voice rising over Dahlia’s as she shrieked at the nurse to get out. She recognized Georgia, whom she had always favored herself. They occasionally smoked cigarettes together, a college stress relieving habit that Jenny had picked up again during the coma. She hadn’t told Dahlia yet, although she was sure the brunette could smell it on her. She always could before.
Jen gave the nurse an apologetic look, stepping further into the room and taking the knob of the door in her hand. “I’ll clean this up, Georgia, don’t worry about it. Can we have a minute?” Once the nurse had left them, Jenny was quick to shut the door, a heavy sigh leaving her despite herself as she stared at the mess on the floor, and the sullen looking girlfriend laying in her hospital bed. She bit her bottom lip, hard, swallowing back tears and just sighing again instead. “I see you’re in a great mood..”
She tried to keep the sarcasm out of her tone, but it was hard. Rolling up her sleeves, the blonde bent to the floor and began cleaning up.
---
“And you know what helps a shitty mood? Sarcasm. No, really, it makes me feel so much better.” If Jenny wanted to be sarcastic, then Dahlia would beat her at her own game. The brunette could be a real stone-cold bitch when she wanted to be, a trait that she was sure Jenny picked up on by now. She didn’t mean to take her issues out on her girlfriend, but the old saying was true, no matter how cliche.
You always hurt the one you love.
It was more than bitterness or anger; it was shame. Knowing that Jenny, her beautiful Jenny that she would never fucking see again, had to look at her when she was like this was enough to make Dahlia wish that she could disappear through the hospital bed. The first two weeks had been the worst, since she needed help doing the most basic of tasks, like eating or bathing or wiping her own fucking ass. At least she could do that by herself now. If she had to go one more day having her ass wiped by a hand that wasn’t her own, she would have totally lost it.
Well, more than she already had.
“Did they teach you that in one of your books?” Dahlia sneered, sitting up in the bed. Her eyes were closed; she didn’t like people to look at them, not even Jenny. The doctor told her that they looked the same - the only difference was that they focused differently. By, you know, not focusing at all. Either way, she tried to keep them closed when someone else was in the room. “Chapter 3: How to Make a Blind Girl Feel Better by Being Sarcastic.”
She called to mind a picture of Jenny, with her blonde waves and wide, pretty blue eyes. For now, Dahlia could picture her perfectly, but how long would it be before the details began to blur together? “I’m not really feeling up to company today, babe.” The term of endearment didn’t sound endearing at all; it sounded more like an insult.
---
Dahlia’s words cut Jenny like a knife, but she tried not to show it, even knowing that the brunette couldn’t read her expression anymore anyway. There had been times when Dahlia could look at her and just know things that no one else would pick up on, she could read her better than any open book. But not anymore. Jenny was still getting past that, that she could hide things from her now. She tried not to take too much advantage of it. “No, that’s not in any of my books,” she answered honestly, though she knew the question had been nothing but a dig. She patiently picked up the tray, the majority of the food still on it, other than what had slid onto the tiled floor.
“I didn’t ask you if you were feeling up to company. I’m here,” she went on, just as calm and plain as she had answered the earlier comment, moving carefully around the room, putting the tray aside and getting back down to get what was left on the floor. She made the movements like a robot, really, exhaling heavily through her nose and trying to decide what to even say next.
She had started trying to be firm, at first when Dahlia had told her to go away, she would do it. But although she always felt bad when she had to be mean back, there was only so much she could take. It was hard, but it was harder watching Dahlia just giving up, and acting like a spoiled child who wasn’t getting her way. Things were bad, but she could help fix them, if the brunette would let her try. They’d never ever be perfect again, Dahlia was never going to miraculously get over the loss of her sight and act like it was nothing, but Jenny could do the best that could. She couldn’t stand idly by and let Dahlia give up on herself before she even got a chance to see that things could be okay again.
“Chase wanted to come,” the blonde sighed, once she was done cleaning up the floor. She moved to the sink in the corner, washing her hands, and examining herself closely in the mirror above it. The dark bags under her eyes, her hair pulled back haphazardly in a bun, a quick job on her way out of the door. She tried a smile at herself, but it felt as fake as it was, and she quickly stopped. “I’m glad I didn’t bring him, if this is how we’re going to do this today..”
---
When Jenny said that she was there to stay, Dahlia huffed a great sigh and rubbed at her temples. As if she didn’t already feel helpless, now she couldn’t even decide when she wanted company and when she didn’t. In all fairness, if Jenny listened to Dahlia every time she told her to get out, they wouldn’t spend any time together. It wasn’t Jenny who she was angry at, but she just happened to be the most convenient punching bag.
She listened as Jenny picked up the mess Dahlia made, and she realized, bleakly, that this would be it for the rest of her life. She would make a mess, and someone else would have to pick it up because she couldn’t see to do it herself. Dahlia frowned at the thought and shifted uncomfortably in the bed. Technically, she could get up and walk whenever she wanted to now, but the nurses wanted to be present when she did. Not only were her legs not totally reliable, but she was newly blind and extra clumsy.
”Chase wanted to come.”
Before she could school her features, they contorted into a wince of brief pain. She hadn’t seen Chase in a few days. The last time he came, Dahlia had one of her meltdowns, which had probably scared him off. She didn’t blame him. “Maybe if you would have let him come, this wouldn’t be an issue.” They both knew that was a lie. Chase’s presence had a calming effect on Dahlia, sure, but so did Jenny and she still lashed out at her.
She fell silent momentarily as she thought of Chase. The last she talked to him, he had a science fair project coming up that he was excited about. Like his mother, he was incredibly intelligent. “How did his project go?” she asked, voice little more than a murmur.
---
“Yes, I’m sure he would have loved to see you throw your food on the floor like a child,” Jenny answered curtly, before she could stop herself. She bit her lip, hard. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.” But she did, because it was exactly like Dahlia was acting like. Still, she wasn’t there to start a fight. She grabbed her purse from where she had set it down, and moved over to the chair beside Dahlia’s bed, sitting down in it and folding her legs. It was a little larger, nicer, than the other visitor chairs in the room. The nurses have moved it in there for her before Dahlia had even woken up, after watching her fall asleep hunched over in the uncomfortable plastic ones, one too many times.
She was quick to change the subject, watching Dahlia curled up in the bed, frowning a little. “Good, he got second place,” the blonde answered, her frown fading just a little as she spoke of her son, their son for all intents and purposes, whether Dahlia had any blood relation to him or not. She’d known him since he was born, and nine years was a long time when it was his whole life. It was a long time together, period, too long for Jenny to give up on the other woman so easily.
“Do you remember that project I did in eleventh grade, where I made my own pH paper? We did that together, I did most of the work, of course.. but then he did his own testing on some soil and water and stuff. His teacher really liked it,” she smiled fondly. “He says the other kid cheated, that’s the only reason he didn’t get first place. Your mother thinks so, too.”
---
Dahlia didn’t say anything in response to Jenny’s apology. If anyone needed to apologize, it was the brunette, but she wasn’t going to fucking say anything. Everyone expected her to be the same happy, bubbly person that she’d been before the accident, but they didn’t understand. No one understood. She had a life before all of this, a really good life, and now all she had was this. This, whatever the fuck it was.
It was darkness and nothing else.
She took a deep breath in an attempt to calm herself down. Jenny didn’t deserve to be treated like shit all because her girlfriend was having a bad day. It just wasn’t fair. The drunk driver didn’t get so much as a scratch on him while Dahlia spent six months in a fucking coma. She hadn’t done anything wrong, and yet she was the one that paid the price. It was like some big cosmic joke or something.
“Sounds like mom,” she said, at least sounding a little less angry than she had a few moments ago. Now she just sounded miserable. Miserably tired, maybe. “I bet the other kid really did cheat. Chase always gets first place.” She sighed and folded her arms across her chest, settling deeper against the fort of pillows at her back. Man, what she would’ve done for a magazine to read or a movie to watch. Listening to a movie wasn’t the same as watching it, and she still didn’t know braille enough to read much of anything.
---
Despite her frustration, Jenny couldn’t help but laugh a little. Short, almost bitter, shaking her head. It was no wonder where Chase got the mentality. “Maybe he did,” she agreed, “But I told him that losing is supposed to being about.. you know, being gracious. You can’t always be in first place. Sometimes being second is okay, too.” That was quite rich coming from Jenny, who was no better than accepting second place than Dahlia, simply in academics rather than beauty. It really was no surprise that a child raised by them would want to be number one.
Still, Jenny tried to teach him as much humility as possible. Much in the same way that she made him eat healthy, feeding him vegetables and whole-wheat breads that she wouldn’t touch herself with a ten foot pole. It was about making sure that your children had a better life than you, by at least fifty percent. That was always her goal. “Silver isn’t bad. He got a trophy and everything.. I thought that was cute. I always got certificates. He liked the trophy.”
It was easy to talk about Chase, it calmed some of the situation between them for a few minutes, but it didn’t really solve the core problem. It was a lot like a temporary bandaid. She knew that she might as well cut to the other chase, since she predicted a fight. “You have to get up for therapy in a few minutes, you know that don’t you? You’re bigger than me, but I can still wrestle you up, if that’s what it’s going to take. Your legs aren’t broken.”
No sense in beating around the bush.
---
Dahlia didn’t know much of anything about losing graciously. To be quite frank, she just didn’t lose, and if she did? Well, she’d make up some ridiculous reason to make herself feel better, like the time she was sure that the girl who beat her out for the supreme title had sucked at least three of the judges’ dicks. As far as she was concerned, it actually happened. How else could Dahlia have lost to someone like her?
“No, silver’s not bad. He just deserved gold, is all.” Maybe Dahlia was a little bit biased, but she really did think that Chase was the best kid to ever grace the face of the planet. He was smart and sweet, and he hardly ever talked back. He did his chores without complaint, and he adored his mother. What more could someone ask for when raising their children? “Tell him that I said I’m proud of him, mkay?”
And then Jenny had to bring up the therapy session, and Dahlia knew that this was going to be a long visit. “I’m not going,” she said plainly with a nonchalant shrug of slender shoulders. “I don’t feel like going today. I’ll go tomorrow. I don’t feel good.” She didn’t appreciate being told what to do or when to do it when she was a grown fucking woman. “I’ll just have the nurses tell the therapist that I’m not going to be able to make it. It’s not like they’re waiting for me with bated breath or anything.”
That being said, Dahlia laid back down and made a show of getting comfortable as if to make a point. She really didn’t plan on going to her physical therapy appointment.
---
Jenny had expected the resistance, braced herself for it, but yet it immediately tried her patience. She could understand Dahlia’s position, or she wanted to think that she could. Why the brunette was being so difficult and so goddamn hateful. She wasn’t in a good situation, Jenny got that. But she wasn’t making it any easier on herself by being difficult. Jenny didn’t like to speak to Dahlia like a child, she knew that it got under her girlfriend’s skin, but she wasn’t above doing it.
“You’re going. The sooner you go, the sooner it’s over with. The more you go, the sooner it’s over with. You’re smart as a whip, I went to school with you, remember? You’ll catch on fast. You always do,” she informed her, as the brunette got herself comfortable. Jenny uncrossed her legs, then crossed them the other way. She knew, maybe, her words were a little boastful. Relearning how to basically live her life was going to be a lot more challenging than any high school classes that they had taken together. But she did believe that Dahlia had it in her to tackle it.
“Nothing is going to just.. fall into your lap. If you don’t want to turn into an invalid, you’re going about it in a very backwards way,” the blonde warned her, after a moment of consideration on the subject. “You should be taking advantage of what this hospital has to offer you, I can’t-- I can’t teach you all of this. I’m learning, too, you know.”
From the nurses partially, but from her stupid books too, as Dahlia liked to point them out. There wasn’t exactly a tonne of literature on dealing with a newly blinded spouse, but she had found some points of research, something to go off of. Once Dahlia woke up, Jenny read up in blindness for days straight, just like she had read up on comas for days on end six months before. Learning was one of the few things in her life, she now realized, that she actually had any control over. She could learn, better herself, in any subject. She was trying.
“I’ll go with you, if you want,” she offered, bracing herself for the backlash of her words, sure that it wouldn’t do much to sate the other girl’s mood. Her presence could only do so much lately.
---
“I’m not a fucking child!” she practically screeched, unable to fucking take it anymore. Earlier that same day, her parents had been in the room and, when she didn’t want to eat, her mother had all but tried to force it on her. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the nurse that came after gave her a lecture about the importance of staying positive and wearing her happy face as if she was some sort of kid in a daycare. If Dahlia didn’t want to eat, she wasn’t going to eat. If she didn’t want to smile, she wasn’t going to smile, and if she didn’t want to go to physical therapy, she wasn’t fucking going to physical therapy. Just seven months ago, people didn’t try to tell her what to do, when to eat, and how to act, so why couldn’t people just back the fuck off? Jenny included.
Dahlia adored Jenny; she loved her with all of her heart and then some, but the last thing she needed was another mother to try and force things on her that she didn’t want.
“I just wanted to rest, Jenny! That’s all! I wanted to sit in my bed and rest, because I’m fucking tired. I’m exhausted all the time, and I can’t handle everyone treating me like I’m some infant that can’t do shit for itself.” In all fairness, Dahlia couldn’t do much by herself. She couldn’t even go to the bathroom without a nurse being in the room to make sure she didn’t trip or stumble onto the hard hospital tile.
She was trying. Why couldn’t anyone see that? They were so quick to assume that she was giving up because she didn’t want to go to therapy or because she didn’t feel like eating, but they had no way of knowing the strength it took just to wake up in the morning - to wake up and know that everything about her old life was gone. Some days (most days), she almost wished that the drunk driver would have hit her a little bit harder. “I’m just tired.”
---
When Dahlia shrieked at her in protest, Jenny scarcely flinched, fully expecting to receive the brunette’s wrath for her earlier words. She sat her purse down on the floor, not even bothering to take her book out, predicting that this argument would take a while. Maybe most, if not all, of her visiting time. It wasn’t going to be one of the slow, quiet days where she would get out without ending up upset. She hadn’t had one of those days in almost three weeks now, in fact. Since Dahlia had woke up, it was struggle after struggle. At least when she’d been unconscious, the only challenge was waiting for her to wake up.
“You think I’m not tired, Dahlia? Do you really think you’re the only one?” Granted, Dahlia was the focus. She’d been Jenny’s only focus since she opened her eyes. But she certainly wasn’t the only one who was tired. Just having to amp herself up, to prepare herself mentally for the fights and the arguing, was tiring. “Do you think I.. want to come here and treat you like this? Do you give me any choice?”
Jenny’s voice cracked a little, and she was quick to clear her throat, lifting a hand and pressing the back of it against her lips. She inhaled deeply, before going on. “Baby, I know you’re tired, I just.. do you know what I see what I look at you?” She waited barely a beat, not daring to give Dahlia a chance to cut in with any a snide sarcastic comment of her own, “I look at you and I just.. I see the girl that kissed me to prove she was some kind of lothario, and ended up making me fall in love with her instead. The girl that I know, that I love. I know you’re in there, I just don’t know why you insist on.. fighting me, on keeping me out.”
She wished quickly that she hadn’t said anything at all, pressing her hand harder against her lips, closing her own eyes to fight back the tears that were threatening to spill over. Her breathing was slow, shaky. “If you’re tired, that’s fine.. whatever. You’re right, you’re an adult. I can’t make you do anything.”
---
“I know I’m not the only one, Jenny,” she spat angrily, and there was a surprising amount of anger in a set of eyes that couldn’t see a single thing. “And I know you don’t want us to fight. I’m not stupid. Losing my vision didn’t take my intelligence, too.” Dahlia huffed and pressed her fingers to her temples in a fruitless attempt to ward off the incoming headache. She got migraines now, definitely more frequently than she did before the accident, and the doctors all told her that there was a chance they would fade away. Then again, there was a chance she would have them for the rest of her life, too.
And then she heard Jenny’s voice crack. As if that wasn’t bad enough, she had to go and make her feel guilty. I am such an asshole, Dahlia thought to herself, unseeing gaze dropping somewhere to her lap. Some days, it was hard to remember that she wasn’t the only one affected by the accident, because she was the only one that suffered the physical scars. But there were other scars, scars that ran just as deep and hurt just as badly, and Jenny (and her family, too) was simply mottled with those.
Dahlia wasn’t exactly helping the situation, either.
Don’t cry, don’t cry. She blinked back the familiar sting of unshed tears and took a steadying breath. “I don’t mean to push you away,” Dahlia said simply, apologetically. “I really, really don’t. I just get … I just tired. And I don’t mean the normal kind, either. I mean the kind of tired that makes me wonder if it’s worth even waking up in the mornings.” She fell silent for a long time, long enough where the silence had a chance to become more like a burial pall, before she finally spoke up again.
“I didn’t do anything wrong, you know?” The only mistake Dahlia had made was getting behind the wheel of her car, but how was she to know that she’d be hit head-on by a drunk driver? Now she’d never drive again. There were a lot of things she’d never do again. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”
---
Jenny folded her hands into her lap, listening closely to Dahlia, and fighting back her own tears at the brunette’s words. Dahlia, her gorgeous vibrant Dahlia who had previously lived for attention and excitement, who’d had a perfect life, now wondering if waking up was even worth her time. It broke her heart. But if she started crying, she knew that she wouldn’t be able to stop herself, it was a pattern in the last few months. Jenny had always been emotional, moved to tears over the silliest things at times, and the emotional stress of the last few months had not been good to her in that regard.
If she let the dam go, there would be no stopping it.
“Of course you didn’t do anything wrong, baby,” the blonde answered automatically, looking up at Dahlia in the bed, her brow creasing with concern and her lips turning to a deep frown. “You didn’t do anything, and it’s not fair, and I.. wish I could make everything better, but I can’t.” That hurt, after everything that Dahlia had ever done for her. Taking her under her wing all those years ago, being her very best friend, her confidante, her lover. When the driver of the other car had been put before the judge, Jenny had been there. Her sister had needed to drag her out into the courthouse hall and calm her down after the catastrophic meltdown that she’d had over the sentencing, which hadn’t been nearly harsh enough, after what he had done to their family.
Putting him in jail for life wouldn’t have fixed anything, but it would have made Jenny feel a little better. Having him get, what she considered, a slap on the wrist was almost like a slap in the face. She wasn’t entirely sure she wouldn’t have strangled him with her bare hands, if she had gotten close enough to him. Her sister had made her leave the courthouse before that.
There had rarely been anything that Jenny and Dahlia wouldn’t do for each other, and the feeling of being powerless help her girlfriend, to do what Dahlia needed, was killing her. They’d never faced a problem so serious before. Life had always just been.. good. Now, she realized, maybe too good. “You didn’t do anything wrong,” she repeated again, unable to keep her voice from cracking again as well, standing up from the chair beside Dahlia’s bed and stepping closer to the mattress. She was barely resisting the urge to climb into the bed with her, reaching out and taking the brunette’s hand instead. Entwining their fingers, squeezing them.
“I love you, we’re.. going to make it through this, okay? I know everyone keeps telling you that, and that you’re going to be okay, and to fucking.. smile, but I’m serious. You don’t have to smile, if you don’t want to, and you don’t always have to be.. happy and act like things aren’t fucked up. But we’re going to be okay. I’m going to make sure we’re okay, I’ll do anything I have to do, don’t you get that?” Jenny exhaled shakily, a tear slipping down her cheek although she tried hard to keep it out of her tone. Her tangent, after all, was about being the strong one.
“It’s not fair, none of it is fair, but we can’t change that now.. but I chose you and I’m standing by you, so you can’t make me go away. Just so we’re clear.”
---
There were no words to explain how good it felt to have someone, especially someone she loved as much as she loved Jenny, to tell her that she didn’t have to be happy. She didn’t have to smile, if she didn’t want to, and she didn’t have to pretend that everything was okay, because it wasn’t. Nothing was okay, but maybe that didn’t mean it wouldn’t be, eventually. Jenny hadn’t left her, she still had her parents, and she still had Chase. How easy it was to forget about those things, things she loved dearly, when she was caught in a vicious cycle of pity and anger.
“I don’t want you to go away. Not ever.” There might have been days as of late where Dahlia didn’t feel like company, even Jenny’s, but she never wanted Jenny to really leave. Anyone else might have abandoned ship when they heard that their significant other might not ever wake up from their coma, and even more people would run away with their tail tucked between their legs at the thought of having to take care of a spouse who had suddenly lost their eyesight. Permanently.
But not Jenny. Jenny was brave and committed, even when Dahlia had yet to give her a reason to be. “I’ll go to therapy today,” she murmured, her own form of an apology. Apologizing was never really one of Dahlia’s strong suits, but she had other ways to show that she was sorry. “And I … I’ll be better. I will. I can’t promise that I’ll be rainbows and butterflies all the time, but I’ll make a conscious effort to not be such a bitch, alright?” Had she been able to see, she would’ve been looking at Jenny with the kind of puppy eyes that only Dahlia could do. Instead, she simply stared ahead, her eyes trained at the end of the bed without seeing it.