Last Breath

• Finn Harding, Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2013

The chair I’m sitting on is smooth, cold and metal. It has also been my bed for the last three weeks. I can’t bear to leave Lana alone, especially because I’m the reason she’s here. Her long blonde hair is askew and lying stuck to her face from sweat. I lean forward and peel it from her damp face and as I look at her eyes, resting gently, closed as if she was in a light sleep I know that I may possibly never see her calm blue eyes staring back at mine with the love I most definitely feel towards her, ever again.
~
The night is somewhat blurred in my mind. A party, with alcohol, and I, being the only legal driver of the bunch, drove everyone home. Everyone was now home, Lana and I were alone. The next part is crystal clear in my memory. The radio was playing softly in the background, ‘Soundgarden’ I recall, although the adrenalin pumping through my body smothered it. We were driving down a street in the west side of town when abruptly I felt a jarring sensation coursing through my spine, losing control as the car hit an old gum tree. Luckily I had a seatbelt on but unbeknownst to me, Lana didn’t. Her body flew forward and fractured the windscreen’s glass. That is why she is in intensive care. I’m not.
~
Her face is paling again and her breaths becoming few and far between. I know that this might be the end of one grounded angel’s life and it is my entire fault. She is freezing; I pull up the scarce hospital blanket over her petite body. I can’t resist sliding my also shivering body next to hers. Through the covers I can feel her heart beating and every small breath she takes.
I can feel the unforgiving force of gravity dragging me off the side of Lana’s hospital bed. I won’t let her go, so I gradually wrap my arms around her and pull her small body closer to mine. The doctors said that I shouldn’t touch her but I don’t care. She might never wake up again and I’m not going to spend possibly my last moments with her at home or in the cool metal chair next to her bed, surrounded by beeping hospital equipment.
Suddenly, her breath slows, her eyelids flutter open. I look into the lifeless blue eyes staring back at mine and feel her last breath leave her body.
~
The funeral was last week; I sat there motionless and expressionless, the exact description needed for my body in a few moments. I started cutting the day after she passed away, and I’ll be stopping today. The chair I’m standing on somewhat resembles the hospital chair, how ironic. The rope’s fibres irritate my neck, but one step can end that. I kick the chair away and suddenly everything goes black. At least now I can join Lana, my perfect angel, in Heaven.