BENNETT

 

Battling with my own thoughts I’ve been going around trying to figure out what I had done wrong to lose Jenna. One day I run errands like many days, something bad happens, and I lose the one thing that has meant more to me than anything since High school. She’s been my everything this past year and I can’t come to the senses that she would throw it all away without a word. I keep questioning her love for me, but nothing ever showed me she didn’t love me as she said she did. I feel a sense of punishment for something I did, something I’m unsure I did. I want her back. Before that though, I need to figure out how I lost her in the first place.

 

“Hospital,” I tell my buddies at work as I wait for a call to come in to distract my mind.

“That’s all she said?”

“Yeah, I’m not sure what to make of it,” I ponder.

“Maybe go to the hospital and ask them?” John throws in his two cents.

“’Cause that’s not going to make me look crazy? My ex told me to come here for some answers I’m not even sure I’m looking for,” I roll my eyes.

But maybe that’s just it. Maybe I’m supposed to go to the hospital and ask what happened during the robbery. There might be answers I hadn’t even thought of.

The alarm sounds as I’m being reminded I’m at work. Tossing on my gear I jump into the fire truck as we make our way to the incoming emergency. My mind is still reeling wondering how to get my girlfriend back. At this point, I’m willing to do anything. Struggling to concentrate on work I nearly got myself in a whirl of trouble as chief pulls me aside and tore me one. I’m listening to him remind me to focus but my entire mind seems to only focus on Jenna.

“Get your ass in the truck,” Chief demands of me.

And there I sit.

I sit and come up with a billion different reasons why I’m no longer with the love of my life. I’m thinking of a million reasons to win her heart back. Pulling my phone out I text her that I must see her. I’m not sure if she’ll see it, I’m not sure if she’ll respond, but I have to try. I won’t be able to concentrate on anything if I don’t keep trying to get her back.

After my shift I decide to show up at Jenna’s office and notice she’s not anywhere in sight,

“I’d like to see Cassie,” I ask the receptionist at the front desk.

She calls for Cassie and I wait by a window in the hall remembering all the good times I’d shared with Jenna at her office. All the kisses we shared, the ideas of different stories we shared, the good times.

“Hey Bennett,” Cassie greets me and waves me to come into her office.

“What’s going on?” I’m blunt and straight to the point.

“What do you mean?” she seems clueless.

“Jenna is with Noah,” I throw my hands in the air unsure why she’s even with him and no one seems to have the answers, “I’m not even sure why. Everything between us was great, we had no problems, yet suddenly she chooses him, Cassie, tell me you know why.” I pace the space.

“She didn’t give me any details, either,” she sighs.

“I went to see her yesterday,” I finally sit in the chair across from the desk.

“And?” she’s curious.

“And the only thing she gave up, never looking at me, was hospital,” I shrug.

“Hospital?” she seems confused.

“I don’t fucking know. That’s all she said, and I don’t think I was even supposed to hear that.”

“I don’t know what that could mean,” you can see Cassie’s brain moving to figure it out with me.

 

It took Cassie and I only a few minutes before we decided to head down to the hospital and ask any and all questions to receive the answer we’re hoping to find. The nurses look at us as if we’re crazy as we’re being passed down from one nurse to the next and we continue to ask the same questions over and over again until finally someone digs out my file and notices one minor detail putting a little more sense to it all. No name was written but the doctor performing the surgery had mentioned that a close friend was the one to save my life. The only one close to me is Jenna and she wasn’t anywhere near a hospital bed besides the one’s she was standing next to.

 

“You don’t think it was Noah?” I’m stunned at Cassie’s words.

“Noah?”

“Yeah, you don’t think he could’ve pressured Jenna into dumping you to be with him in return for a kidney?” It would make sense what she’s saying but it’s too obvious.

“No,” I shake my head, “she despised Noah, I don’t think she would do that.”

“Exactly, she would do it for you no matter how much she hates him. She still put you first,” Cassie’s words hit me hard.

“I don’t know if she would do something like that. To give up our relationship for,” she interrupts me.

“For love for you. So, you can live. She did it for you,” Cassie’s pretty sure she’s right.

 

Leaving the hospital with Cassie I’m a quiet passenger staring out of the car window wondering if any of this theory rings true. Possibilities stir my mind.

I love her.

I love her until my last breath and I would’ve died for her, but for her to give us up so I wouldn’t have to die takes on a new meaning for love. She loves me just as much in return. She’s willing to give up everything for us. That’s true love - to sacrifice your happiness for someone else.

This is the time I decide to fight for her. To win her heart back completely, to make him suffer for making her choose life or death.