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The Story of Colin Hart
by Ditey[ * ]
When Andy was a child, he used to love reading books of fables. Always fascinated by what was right and what was wrong. Things such as 'an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind', and 'enemies promises were meant to be broken'.
Now he found himself to be living in the punchline of a moral, one named, 'The Story of Colin Hart'.
Once upon a time, in a small, quaint town in which almost everyone knew one another, there lived the epitome of America. He possessed a normal life, went to a regular school, with regular friends and had a beautiful girlfriend that loved him more than anything. He had a less-than-perfect GPA, but he was still loved wherever he went, with a three-point shot to envy and a best friend to die for. His future was perfect. Perfectly normal.
The Epitome of America was involved in a car accident that rendered him comatose.
And suddenly, things in his simple town were no longer as simple. The poster boy of all Everwood stood for had fallen off his pedestal, whether or not to return was undecided, and he left too many broken hearts with not enough hope to mend.
So that's why Andy was here, in a hospital room late into the night, a place he had so often spent his hours.
And it was this story that reiterated in his mind that caused Andy to have these thoughts.
Performing surgery was natural to him. That much was not difficult. He was so positive he could do this without any complications, that in New York, it would have been a no-brainer. There was just something different now.
Maybe because he knew what was riding on the operation. It was no longer a patient number, a three o'clock appointment. The person lying in front of him was a son, a brother, a boyfriend, hope for an entire community.
And Dr. Brown held his fate with a twitch of a scalpel.
He remembered how the other doctors back in New York used to envy him, and talk behind his back when they thought he wasn't looking. Or maybe they knew he was. About the Great Dr. Brown. Operating like he was born to do so.
Being able to perform surgery almost subconsciously brought its own curses. The time most spent concentrating and painstakingly manuevering through flesh was replaced in Andy's mind by thoughts. Disturbing, morbid, cynical thoughts.
Imagination running its own course, he saw himself after the operation, head down and defeated. He heard himself breaking the news, his voice cracking like the lives of all those that he once touched.
Images of distraught faces, tear stained porcelian cheeks, red eyes and unsettled minds. How they would hate him. Or how they would pretend to understand, but contradict in the thoughts clouding the back of their mind. And the redness. Blood rushing from a vein, destroying hope for the operation and killing Colin.
Worse.
Machines hooked up to an arm, stacatto beeping signaling life, or so it seemed. Nurses huddled over the body, attending like he was not a teenager but an infant. Cue cards, crutches, casts and alphabet blocks.
A still body in the hospital bed.
Andy held the boy's life with a twitch of a scalpel. Slicing smooth and friction-less.
Until red started to pour.
And Andy decided he was living his nightmare. Crimson stained cotton balls and beeping machines running through his mind as he lived it. So much blood it seemed his hands would never be rid of it.
Until he put away his instruments silently, and bowed his head, defeated. He felt like hiding in the room forever, avoiding the group outside demanding an answer he didn't want to give. But glancing back at the still body in front of him, he knew he could not spend another moment in the room of murder. The murder of dreams and futures.
His steps seemed too loud along the silent hallway, all too ominous as he reached the waiting room that had reduced to a hush.
Amy, sweet girl, stopped laughing at a joke Ephram had presumably made and turned in her chair, biting her lip anxiously. Ephram's 'smile' drooped to his usual sullen look, his eyes narrowed in anticipation.
Andy knew how much this meant to Ephram as well. Either way. If Colin was alive, he would lose Amy once again. It would be back the way it was, Colin would get away with everything, resume ruling over County High. And if he died...he probably didn't want to think about it, and who could blame him, because Andy didn't either.
Mr. Hart got to his feet, his stern pretense finally broken, and his heart full of hope and optimistc dreams. Dreams that would never become reality, thought Andy. Mrs. Hart shut her magazine nervously and began to wring her hands. Her shoulders raised in fear, she looked at Andy intensely, conveying her natural maternal love and defense for her son the only way she could. She pleaded with her eyes, a glance that broke Andy.
"Well, doctor?" said Mr. Hart. Amy stood up as well, smoothed off her pants subconsciously while trying not to think what if the next two words were, 'I'm sorry'.
Andy could already feel himself lose his voice, caught somewhere between what he needed to say and what he wanted to say.
"Colin's...not dead," he pronounced. He could feel the silent sighs of relief and relaxed shoulders. Slowing heart rates, thoughts of answered prayers. And it pained him to say the next four words that would undoubtedly kill off everything.
"But, Colin's not alive."
He allowed a moment to let the statements sink in, and he could sense its reaction when it did. Blurred eyes and trembling lips. Hope shattered like a pane of glass hit against the bricks of reality. Tension broke and the gash was never to be replaced. It was gaping, empty and incomplete. And Andy thought of reviewing medical implication which always worked on others, a quick hit and run, but he didn't have the heart, for it had a gash as well.
The silence was defeaning, the only sounds seemed to be the air conditioning and the other hospital workers shuffling around the area. Not aware of the activities that could destroy a town so much.
And Andy weakened when he saw Amy bury her tear-stained face in Ephram's shoulder, and see his son's face full of genuine melancholy, not just a guise. Andy tried to choke out an 'I'm sorry', but the Harts silenced him with supposed understanding, as they continued to sink into the chair while they bent over, crying.
In his distraught flush of emotion, Andy looked down at his hands unbelievingly, still seeing the red staining his skin. He studied them, as if they contained within the answer to the new question. Not whether the boy would live or die, but whether he should remain in the state in between. Looking up at the overwhelmed faces in front of them, he knew it was an answer he couldn't give. The ending to his fable.
It wasn't life, it wasn't death...it was the story of Colin Hart.[ * ]
A/N: Please review! Thanks.
(c) everfic. cue edna's voice: i don't own squat, private.
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