Chapter 15: Maverick

“What’s going on?” I ask Logan, seeing him walking towards me, only to keep his mouth quiet and lightly shoulder me in my right with his. Clearly something was bothering him, yet I couldn’t figure out why. “Find Carter,” he tells me after stopping himself at the entrance, only to leave the glass doors behind me. When entering the front entrance of the glass doors, there are rows of wheelchairs that are found on the left side, only to lead to another set of glass doors behind them. After that set of doors are open, there is a set of blue seated chairs of a waiting room in front of me that are found on my right. Behind the chairs is the front desk where patients and families can check in. On my left, there is a hallway that leads to patient rooms down the hall. Walking down the hall, there is a small set of chairs that are found outside a patient room. However, walking towards the separate waiting room, I noticed Carter sitting on the side that faces the patient room, holding his hands as tears were slowly falling down his pale face from his dark brown eyes - seeming as if they just weren’t ending. 

“Carter? I mean - Mr. Dawson?” I ask him, correcting myself when I notice him silently crying. “What’s going on?” I asked him after getting the courage to find the words that I wanted to get out, but they seemed like they didn’t because the pit in my stomach was taking over. “Genny’s in there,” Carter tells me with his voice breaking and light pink lips trembling as he pointed to the patient room that he seemed to be staring at, but couldn’t seem to face. Wait, what? “Guinevere?” I ask him, reminding myself that Guinevere did want me to call her Genny, but I could never bring myself to say that. The name didn’t seem to fit her except for her actual name, which is Guinevere Lewis. “Have you been in?” I asked him as I slowly walked towards the glass door, only to see her sleeping in the room. “No I haven’t. But apparently Logan said that I should wait until you’ve gone in,” Carter tells me. However, I couldn’t see myself going in there. I refused to believe that Guinevere was in the hospital. I used to refuse to believe lots of things when it came to Guinevere - and one of them was her ending up in the hospital for attempting to take her own life. It was one of the main topics that I would never be able to bring myself to admit, nor would I have wanted to no matter how much it would hurt - I didn’t want to see her dead. 

Grabbing onto the door, I silently walked in, only to find her silently moving around. Her right arm was covered in gauze and a large bandage - covering from the inside of the elbow to her wrist, only to see her fingers slowly starting to move.

Guinevere, did I do something?

We may have stopped talking, but it doesn’t mean that I don’t care about her.

We were close in grade 10, I remember her feeling suicidal every once in a while, but when she told me she felt that way, I would give her a reason to not go through with it. I’m not the only one who’s tried to tell her - that I know. However, soon after she told me that she loved me I started to distance myself from her. I was afraid of admitting my feelings towards her - a dumb mistake on my part. Instead, I should’ve told her I felt the same, and the two of us could’ve tried dating. However, I messed up and didn’t admit it - and now she’s here, slowly waking up in a stretcher I never thought I’d see her in, with her right arm covered in gauze and wearing one of those white patient dresses that you thought only people wear in the movies. But I guess it also happens in real life. Her aquamarine hair moves from side to side of the small white pillow from underneath her head as it slowly starts to fall down onto the backside of her pale neck. 

Before she had the aquamarine hair, there were some days where she would be seen as a modern-day Snow White: pale skin with dark brown hair, yet she would still have those red lips that she had now. Guinevere - she didn’t need to change her look, she was already gorgeous from the start. 

Why didn’t I tell her how I felt?

Seeing her hands slowly moving towards the middle of her own chest, I stepped a little closer to her. Walking past the window that was on the left wall, and the heart monitor with the cable in front of my feet, I tried to grasp her right hand, just to feel the light touch of her pale skin against mine one last time. However, soon after I felt that soft touch, her white sparkly fingernails dug straight into my skin, causing me to let out a rather painful, “Owe”. Releasing my hand from hers, I finally look straight at her, finding her eyes wide open and staring straight at me as if I was a weapon that she was trying to get rid of. “Maverick - what the hell?” She had let out rather furiously, piercing her blue ocean eyes against me as if I was the enemy. Her eyes always seemed to be rather inviting when we would talk, but now they weren’t. Instead, they were a doubled-edged sword, hurting both myself and her in the process. “Guinevere, what happened?” I tried to ask her as I reached for her hand, but instead she pulled it right back towards her chest and turned her head away from me, not letting me look into those ocean eyes that I stared at before. Taking a deep, long sigh, I finally realized that now was the perfect time for me to tell her the truth of how I felt back when we had gotten close - because if I don’t I won’t ever get another chance. 

“Guinevere?” I ask in a rather calm voice, hoping that the look on her face that she darted away from me turned back. “It’s Genny,” she tells me in a low mutter as she stares down at her fiddling thumbs. “Genny, I’m sorry,” I finally got out after lowering my head to face my hands that were trying desperately to reach for hers - I was now sitting on the stretcher on her right side. I never felt like I would call her by the name of Genny, but it caught her attention. She looked back at me and started to form a small smile - the corner of her lips were starting to crinkle up, meaning that she either wanted to smile or she tried to force it to happen when she clearly didn’t want to. “Maverick?” I hear her say in a gentler tone of voice. “Yes?” I ask, reaching my left hand towards her right, hoping that I would be able to hold hers in mine as I tried to stare at those blue ocean eyes of hers. “Please leave,” she states, taking her hands out of mine and placing them underneath the warm blanket that was covering her. “I don’t understand-” I started. “Please leave,” she had cut me off rather rudely. 

Guinevere, if there’s something going on, tell me what it is so I can fix it. I still love you, I always have. All I did was not realize the truth of my own feelings back then. “Guinevere, please,” I tried pleading, hearing my own voice slowly starting to break as I tried to reach for her hands again. “Stop!” She yells out with a trembling voice as I tried to reach, but she refused to let me. Backing away and standing up from the stretcher, her lips were starting to tremble in fear - the same way she did from when Anthony had hit her and I ran after her, 8 months ago in early February. Clearly I needed to let her be, but I didn’t want to let go.

No one should let go.

Letting go is the equivalent of suicide - in some cases.

Guinevere, please don’t let go.

I know she had let go before, and I didn’t like watching her go through it. I remember wanting to help her, but she was refusing help from me. Two years ago, I found her in the playground at our school, staring at the forest of trees behind the school. She was wearing a white knitted sweater that she knitted the summer before, had jeans that shaped her butt quite well, and had her short brown hair dyed aquamarine so I could barely recognize her. “Guinevere?” I still remember asking her, stuttering at first, not wanting to believe that Guinevere changed into a completely different person. “Maverick?” I still remember her asking me, turning around to reveal her crossed arms, deep blue eye contacts, and red lips that I knew Anthony would’ve kissed from earlier that day in the library. It was the end of the day and I was heading home, yet I decided to take the scenic route and walk through the 5 inch snow that was collecting on the ground from underneath my grey leather snow boots. “Guinevere - is everything alright?” I still remember asking her, watching those eyes of hers turn into a tsunami storm - the last eyes you want to be on the receiving end of. “No. Maverick - do you want to know what’s going on?” I remember her fighting back at me. I had seen her two months prior when I gave her the roses, heading towards Erica’s place wearing that dark blue dress that made her look absolutely stunning. 

“Cause what happened is that you distanced yourself from me when I told you how I felt. You made a fucking promise to me! And now you’re breaking it? What the hell is wrong with you?” I still remember her yelling at me, making her words peirce me, and she was rather successful at it. Not saying anything towards this new Guinevere that I didn’t know, I silently walked away, only to watch her run off and head home, where she would probably destroy the roses that I gave her, reminding me of Christmas time a few months prior when I did run after her. But I didn’t know this Guinevere. She was completely new to me. 

“Maverick, you need to leave,” Guinevere tells me, reminding me that she is now in the hospital and slowly dying. I may not have liked the new Guinevere that she became, but she clearly needed help, and wasn’t letting me get near to help, even if she wanted it. “Is there anything I can do?” I finally asked her, hearing my own voice starting to shake because of the tears slowly dripping down my face. However, instead of answering, she just looked away from me, leaving me no choice but to leave the room. Once I closed the door behind me, Carter was standing up, silently waiting for his turn to see Guinevere. But if she didn’t want to see me, I doubt she’d let him in. 

But with Carter, there are some things that I don’t understand. She acts differently around him. “Well, can I go in?” Carter asks as he starts pacing back and forth, showing his nervousness by fixing his red and black plaid shirt at the top - unbuttoning and buttoning up the top button. “I don’t know how well she’ll take it with you being here,” I try to tell him in a calm voice. However, he had placed his right hand against the glass door as if he was pinning me against it and demanded in my face, “Let me see her”. Past those tears of his were his dark brown eyes that were flooding with a never-ending waterfall that was slowly erupting inside of him. His lips were trembling, and the tears kept falling. However, he seemed like he reached a boiling point - his knees were shaking to the point that he fell forward and grabbed onto his wet face with his hands. He seemed to be taking this quite hard - a lot harder than Levi and Charlotte and Daniel would be. Was something going on between Guinevere and Carter? Even if there was, it would be wrong. However, since we were in grade 12 earlier in the year, we already graduated. Levi would still be upgrading, but Anthony, Logan, Lydia, and Rachel would be in University. Clyde would be in grade 11. I believe Guinevere was planning on taking a gap year. So technically, if there was something going on between Guinevere and Carter, there wouldn’t be anything wrong with it. But why does it sound wrong? 

They seem to care about each other a lot. I can’t remember if she ever told anyone about getting close with him, but I know I definitely would’ve heard something if they did. Word gets around fast at St. Christina’s - so I’m glad that Anthony didn’t say anything about Carter “allegedly” raping Guinevere, because that would’ve ruined his reputation. In fact, I still remember one day 3 months ago, back in June, soon before graduation. It was the second week of June, and I was at Dickinson’s coffeehouse with a nose in a book, Open Secrets by Alice Munro, and had a chocolate caramel smoothie in hand. I was sitting in the back corner where people can’t exactly be spotted, but I could see people entering in front of me passing the wall of coat hooks. It was soon after I had reached the part of the book where the main character had gone missing, that I heard the front door open. I lifted my head from the book, only to see Guinevere and Carter enter in with laughter at what must have been an inside joke. This was the first time I had seen her laugh in a long time, because she still had short aquamarine hair. 

When they were at the counter, Carter kept his right hand on Guinevere’s lower back of a white blouse as he paid for drinks for the two of them with the other. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but when the two of them left, he had wrapped his left arm around her as she lightly pressed her head into his blue shirt of a chest. Something was going on between the two of them - I could feel it. If something is going on between the two of them, Erica has every right to know. I know that sounds wrong, but it’s the only choice. After the two of them had left, Logan walked up to me, as he has a part-time job at Dickinson’s coffeehouse. “Want your coffee topped off?” He asked me, standing at the table. “No. Thank you though,” I told him, even though I had just finished my coffee and wanted a little more. However, I kept looking back at the door that Guinevere and Carter left out of. “Do you know what’s going on with them?” I had asked him, referring to Guinevere and Carter, as he was the person who prepared their drinks. One part of me wanted to know if there was something going on between the two of them. Logan had grabbed the nearest chair, and sat down, facing me. “I wouldn’t worry about it. It might not be what you think it is. They could just be friends” Logan had told me - but it just made me confused. “Logan?” Eliana had let out from the counter. “I know. It’s just that I can’t seem to shake the feeling that something is going on,” I told him, thinking about Guinevere, Carter, and the fact that I actually thought something was going on between the two of them. “Look, I had a feeling that I couldn’t shake and I turned out to be wrong,” Logan tells me, referring to when he went after Grace. “No kidding - you took it out on Grace!” I had let out slightly raised to him that day. Somehow he was able to piss me off. “Logan?” Eliana had asked him again from behind the counter. “The boss is calling me,” Logan told me, almost standing up. However, I reached over to him and pulled him back down to his chair. “Logan, please. Should I say something to Anthony?” I asked him. I don’t know why, but I felt the need to report that I saw Guinevere with Carter to Anthony, even though they weren’t together. “No. Plus it’s best to leave it alone. Remember when we found him after they broke up?” Logan asked me, reminding me of the mess of the day of the break-up. “Yeah. That was a mess,” I eventually told him. It really was a mess. 

“Are you going to sit on the job for the rest of the day? If so, you might as well just leave,” Eliana had told Logan in a rather agitated tone, walking over to him. “I’ll be right there,” Logan told her before she headed back to the counter and Logan stood up. “Logan, what if this feeling is correct?” I asked him. “Remember what happened with Anthony? Just because we have a gut feeling doesn’t mean we’re right about everything.”

Sadly, I never figured out what went down between the two of them. I kept on telling myself that they were just close friends and that nothing could happen between the two of them - but my gut kept on telling me that something was happening between the two of them that I just didn’t want to know. But Carter was still married - it’s not like Erica and Carter were going through a rough patch and he was leaning on Guinevere for help, unless that's what they were doing. But I’ll never find out what happened that day between the two of them. 

“Well - can I go in?” Carter asks me, reminding me that he was on the ground in front of me with his face covered by his hands. I had no choice but to let him see her. If anyone can make her laugh, it’s him.  “Yeah you can”, I tell Carter before seeing him stand up from the ground and dry his tears with the edge of his left sleeve. 

What’s going on between Guinevere and Carter is between the two of them, and I need to leave it alone. It’s not my business, no matter how much I may want to get involved in it. However, if things escalate, Erica will find out the truth eventually, whether Carter likes it or not. And when that happens, I don’t want to think about what Erica would do to Guinevere, nor would I want to see that. Erica has been known for having a temper. 

Before I leave, I see Carter stepping towards the door, probably taking a long deep sigh before entering in and maybe breaking down when he sees Guinevere in the stretcher. As long as she’s alive, he can keep her going. If anyone can keep her here it’s him.