Changing Faces

“Where am I?” Kim queries in the moments after waking to find herself in a room with a single small window, which two thirds of are covered by a grey vertical blind. The walls around her are bland and cream, as is the ceiling she which makes up the majority of her view. She doesn’t feel capable of making any movements yet. Kim knows that isn’t normal in the slightest. It raises questions. However, the one question she has that she wants, no needs, answered is: where is she?

“You’re in the hospital.” A familiar voice offers seconds before the voices owner, Amber, suddenly appears in her line of sight.

“Amber?” Kim is confused as to why the green haired woman is here. Unless she’s at home, which Kim knows for a fact isn’t the case. Am I at Amber’s home? Is the next thought that enters her head.

“You fainted, passed out. I don’t really know what to call it. They wouldn’t tell me or the others anything cause none of us are family.” Amber explains with her mascara still smudged. She does however have the fresh addition of bags under her tired looking eyes.

“How long…” Is all Kim manages to say before she feels the dryness in her mouth and loses the ability to get her words out. In that moment her eyes begin to dart about worryingly.

“Two days. Do you need a drink?” Amber answers and then offers kindly. Her guess is that the blondes’ mouth is dry. She knows hers would be in the same situation.

Kim nods a number of times in response and then waits until a tall glass of water appears. In it is a straw. Kim doesn’t understand why, but until she’s quenched her thirst know she will be unable to ask further questions. That is why she quickly wraps her lips around the straw and then greedily sucks. The sudden taste of the cool water is delightful and why she gulps down five mouthfuls prior to releasing her lock on the thin tube.

“Thank you.” Kim blurts between breathes, while Amber disposes of the glass somewhere out of Kim’s line of sight. The green haired woman smiles in the seconds before she returns her attention to the blonde lying on the hospital bed.

“Where is…everyone?” Kim manages before long and between laboured breathes. She knows it isn’t normal to be struggling as much as she is with breathing but until a doctor appears no answers will be forthcoming it seems.

Kim understands why no one has told Amber and the others the reason for keeping Kim is in here, yet it wouldn’t kill them to have told her friends something surely? What, Kim hasn’t a clue, but something. A small morsel of details that might have helped to assuage the collective fears they have likely been suffering through for the last two days of waiting for her to awaken. Unless there isn’t something like that they can give. Kim quickly concludes, with that thought, not to further wander down that path for fear of where it might take her, possibly pointlessly. After all, there may be nothing to worry about. And yet, surely the only reason she was brought into hospital is because something was determined to be worthy of such a precaution. Plus she’s been out for two days. People who faint aren’t usually out for anywhere near that long.

“Ashe and Fran are grabbing some clothes, while Harold and Ben get some food. I volunteered to stay behind. I feel responsible.” Amber admits meekly.

“Why? You didn’t do this.”

“Didn’t I? We don’t know. I might have. My presence might have been the spark.”Amber looks and sounds deeply concerned that she might have played a part in Kim ending up in hospital. In some ways it makes Kim want to smile. Not because she is happy that the green haired woman is down but because of how far things have come between the two women in such a short, especially for Kim, time since they first met. It’s amazing to Kim to think how what started as an impending confrontation has turned into…this. Kim doesn’t know what this is precisely, but it seems like the start of a friendship. And to think they might never have met, other than perhaps through Fran, if not for… Kim can’t finish her thought. She doesn’t know who. She can see his face but cannot recall his name. She should be able to and she knows that, so the fact that she cannot unnerves her.

“Are you OK?” Amber asks before long and as a result of having seen the sudden uneasy look that has just now appeared on the blonde woman’s face.

“Y-Yeah. Sorry. I…It doesn’t matter.” Kim remarks while forcing a warm smile across her soft features. She hopes it’ll be enough to quash the now worried expression on Amber’s face.

“I’m going to get a doctor. You need answers.” Amber announces following a brief silence and as she begins to pull away.

“No. Please don’t. I don’t want to be left alone at the moment.” Kim’s voice is desperate, panicked and breaks several times as she speaks.

Amber says nothing in reply, though the expression on her face suggests that Kim’s plea sounds even more terrified than even Kim thought she sounded in her own ears. Nevertheless, Amber puts her hands over Kim’s left, which the blonde realises now, are down at her sides. Until this moment she hadn’t considered her body and where her limbs were located, but with her attention having been drawn to them she can’t get away from it and so lifts her head to find, nothing. Everything is as it should be. For a reason she cannot give as to why she all of a sudden she felt something was wrong the realisation that nothing is, physically, eases her panic, slightly.

“Would you like me to adjust the bed?” Amber queries having caught Kim’s attempts to manoeuvre herself.

“No. I just…” Kim begins but never finishes as the door to her room opens to allow a doctor to whisk through announcing, “Miss Kelter I see you’re awake. That’s very good. And how are you feeling?”

“I don’t know, but I think I’d feel better if I knew why I am here. Are you willing to tell me now I’m awake, or…” Kim replies honestly prior to trailing off as she looks at this middle aged man with a growing belly, thinning brown hair and darker brown eyes.

The doctor, who has not issued his name, pauses, clearly so that he can consider her words. Sadly, in Kim’s mind, he is taking too long. Though, it is Amber who speaks next and asks, “Should I step outside?” The green haired woman gets the feeling she should but that this doctor is attempting to be polite and not say as much.

“Yes, that would be the best…” The doctor agrees as he pulls a pair of glasses from his top pocket and then begins to clean them with a cloth that he has just pulled from somewhere Kim cannot see as she interjects.

“No. I want Amber here. I’m the patient, so it’s my decision.” Kim is forceful with her words. She feels she needs to be. Though, at the same time she knows her forcefulness is out of character for her. Perhaps it’s because I’m scared, she tells herself. But that doesn’t quite seem right to her for reasons she cannot give.

“If that is what you wish, Miss Kelter.” The doctor replies without missing a beat.

“It is.” Kim states flatly.

“As you wish, but I have to admit what I have to tell you is not good news, I’m afraid.” The doctor’s expression has turned sombre, yet Kim still feels impatient and wishes that he would just hurry up, dispose of the clearly practised attempts to soften whatever blow he has to deliver and tell her the meat of the content, the point.

“I’m not quite sure how to say this but…Miss Kelter you have a neurological condition. A degenerative one, I’m sorry to say. And to make matter worse it’s an incurable one.”

Even with the news delivered Kim can’t say that she feels any different for knowing it. So she waits, as though she is still waiting for the punch line of a joke that is long overdue its conclusion even though it’s already been given. It’s a strange feeling that she cannot properly explain. Except for how it makes her feel that is. Truth be told, she feels nothing. She should, and she knows that, but she doesn’t. There is nothing, no feeling in relation to what she’s been told. It’s why she continues to lay there, in bed, blinking slowly at the doctor. He might think she doesn’t understand or has yet to accept it but for her that isn’t it, or at least she doesn’t think that’s it. She understands that she’s dying, but for whatever reason it doesn’t terrify her like she expected it would, if someone had asked her before how she’d feel if she were told she was dying. That, in her mind, reinforces that something is very wrong with her.

Amber, meanwhile, is open mouthed. Shock is etched into her face while tears are welling up in her eyes. Kim can see them, barely. Whether the shock is in part guilt, though it shouldn’t be, Kim cannot say. Only Amber would be able to answer that particular question. Kim hopes the woman doesn’t feel guilty. It is plain, to her at least, that this news has nothing to do with Amber having appeared that night, the last for Kim but actually several ago in reality.

“How long?” Are the next words out of Kim’s mouth. The question lacks content and detail. But such things are not needed to be honest. After all, it’s is pretty obvious what her question relates to. It relates to the only thing that it could, why she is here, and in light of the news not long since delivered to her.

“Weeks, maybe, but the probability leans more towards days.” The doctor looks apologetic, as though he should have been able to do more than he has done. Kim cannot say as to whether his feelings are justified or not. She isn’t a medical person. Only peers would be able to judge this man on such matters. Her gut feeling is that he has done what he could, which is to say he could do nothing other than to have had the tests done to get the answer and then issue the results to the patient, as he has done. Some might feel anger toward the doctor for that, as if he should have moved heaven and earth to save her, but Kim doesn’t. She simply lies there in bed blinking slowly as Ben, Fran, Ashe and Harold appear in the doorway some time later. Instantly, the quartet read the emotions present in the room and as a result bow their heads keeping silent. None of them know what to say, so say nothing because they fear that any words out of their mouth may well be the wrong thing.

“Is there anything else doctor?” Kim hears herself say but doesn’t feel a conscious connection between her and the words that have slipped from her mouth.

“No, there isn’t Miss Kelter and I’m sorry, truly.” With those words delivered. An again rehearsed sounding condolence, by her judgement, the doctor withdraws with a lowered head and a shuffled walk.

“Kim, what’s going on?” Ashe asks after a long silence during which no one felt able to speak.

“I’m dying.” Kim confirms flatly and without any ceremony or emotion present.

“What?” Harold and Ben exclaim in tandem, vocalising something that was their worst fear but didn’t truly believe would be the reality of the situation.

“An incurable degenerative neurological disorder; they give me weeks at the most.” Kim is frank with her friends and makes no attempt at sugar coating the news that has been given to her.

“No. That can’t be right. You’re young, healthy, have your whole life ahead of you. This must be a mistake. Maybe you need a second opinion.” Fran blurts hurriedly, her voice quakes as she speaks, yet she refuses to accept the verdict that has been delivered to her friend.

“What’s the point? They’ll say the same.” Kim replies without an ounce of fight or hope for survival.

“Did you know?” Ben queries without proper consideration of what he is asking.

“Shut up!” Ashe demands chastising her husband as she hits him in the arm harder than either of them would have expected.

“I didn’t. But it…makes sense somehow, you know.” Kim admits without really understanding what she means by those words. She would however, have to admit that they somehow feel correct to her, even if she doesn’t understand why she has muttered them or where they have come from.

“No. You don’t mean that. I know you don’t. This isn’t you. You’re in shock. You know it, I know it, we all know it.” Fran retorts in the seconds prior to her crossing the room to Kim’s bed, grabbing the blonde woman’s right hand and then locking eyes with her as she lies in the hospital bed.

“Yes I do Fran. And so do you really. You just don’t want to accept it.” Kim utters in reply with a voice too calm voice for the situation.

“It wouldn’t hurt to try other avenues. There might be someone out there with a revolutionary procedure.” Are the first words, bar the prior exclamation, from Harold who, as usual, is being hopeful.

“That could be expensive.” Ben mutters unhappy at having to admit it but feeling a need too.

“I’ll pay.” Amber announces.

Her outburst is met with shocked looks on the faces of those around her as she wipes some of the tears from her cheeks.

“How? Why? What?” Ashe hears herself mutter confused into the too quiet air that now shattered feels a little less oppressive than it did previously.

“Amber, that’s a very nice offer but…” Kim begins only for Amber to interject and state, “It’s not up for debate Kim. I may not have been the cause of this but that doesn’t change the fact that I want to help you. It’s the right thing to do and I can.”

“What do you mean you can?” Fran questions completely unaware of many things that have happened in Amber’s life since they last were together. She doesn’t have to wait much longer to find however as Amber explains, “I invested money I inherited into stocks and shares. It’s how I met…” Amber clears her throat but doesn’t say her husband’s name. Instead, she moves on and continues her explanation. “And those investments paid, big. In fact they paid very very big. So big in fact I invested more and earned an even greater sum as a result. It’s what I do, kinda, and I’ve been very lucky.”

“How lucky?” Ben asks genuinely curious. His question is met with a dig in his ribs from his wife Ashe. He has to admit it’s a marked improvement from the smack he got across the arm previously.

“About forty three billion lucky give or take a few depending on the day.” Amber admits nervously. She doesn’t like telling people she’s ultra rich. Doing so has a tendency to result in her being treated differently once people know, but what’s happening here isn’t about her it’s about Kim.

The response is what Amber would have expected, agape mouths and wide eyes. It’s the reaction that has always been met with, the few times she’s deigned to admit the existence of her fortune.

“No.” Kim states categorically before adding, “I won’t let you do it. It’s your money. I won’t have you flittering it away on me. Besides, you don’t even know me. Not really.”

“Maybe not, but I want to do it. What is happening to you isn’t fair. You shouldn’t be here. And I don’t need the money. Not that much. It just sits there in accounts gathering interest. And to be honest, I hate it. I’ve always hated it. Cause I never did the investments to accrue that much money. It was supposed to be a little fun. Then it turned into a job. And while I still enjoy the thrill of it I hate the money it brings me. It might even be why…You know.” Amber can’t bring herself to say the words and admit that the money might be why Len married her. He won’t get any of it. She started making it before they met, long before. And to make matters worse, for him, he’s the one who cheated on her. Stupid bastard probably never considered how that might work against him, the green haired woman thinks before banishing thoughts of her soon to be ex-husband out of her head. He isn’t worthy of the space or her time.

“Amber, there’s no reason to believe anything…” Are the words that begin to pass Kim’s lips when Amber cuts in and assures, “…I know, but I want to try. The money can help you. It can’t help me.”