Sometimes the world is all rainbows and sunshine, but when you least expect it, the waves of misery will sweep over you, dragging you into the deepest depths of despair.

This summer was the sunny kind. The red sun sat over the ocean, the white sand on the beach seemed to bathe in the the crimson glow. Meanwhile, far off in the distance, a lone dark cloud would shower the ocean, reflecting the sun into a full rainbow.

It might have been one of the most genuinely beautiful sights I’ve ever seen. Well, almost. I was sitting on that beach with someone even more dazzling. Her head leaned against my shoulder and her half-smile seemed to radiate genuine joy, just like her name suggested. Joy.

“Hey,” I said, grabbing her attention with a smile of my own. I leaned in, pressing my lips against hers. Her soft lips rested on mine for a while, before she turned to the ocean again.

“I love you.” I said.

She gave a nod. “I know. It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

I looked back at the dying sunlight. “Yes. It really is.”

We sat together enjoying the sun until it sunk under the horizon and darkness claimed its place.

“Where do we go now?” Joy asked.

A smile spread on my face. I had already made a reservation at a restaurant. Tonight was going to be the perfect date with my perfect girlfriend.

“We’re heading to the new restaurant.” I said.

“Oh the fancy one? I’d love to go there, that’s amazing! You’re amazing.”

I felt a little poke inside my chest as she said that. A warm fuzzy feeling. Maybe I was a bit amazing. Just a bit.

“Ah, it’s nothing special.” I said.

“Let’s go, I can’t wait!” She said with a big smile on her face. She grabbed my hand and pulled me along.

“Haha, wait up.” I let her pull me along and we raced to the restaurant.

The moment Joy and I entered, a waiter dropped a dirty dish to the floor, shattering it. It took him a split second to peel his eyes from Joy and clean up the dish.

A waitress took our order and showed us to our table and the gazes of people around us would follow our every step. I knew full well why that was. Joy was so pretty, her smile so bright that you couldn’t help but stare. Pride swelled up in my chest. Out of all these people, I was the one to walk beside her. Me.

We sat down and talked for awhile. About shopping trips, about her friends, about that new chick flick.

The food came and she flipped up her phone to take a picture. “Bet they will all be SO jealous.” She winked.

She was right.

They were jealous. All of them.

And I loved it.

That’s how we spent the entire summer. Beaches, fancy food. Shopping, talking and going to the cinema. Life was perfect.

This was the epitome of happiness, pride and love. A so enticing cocktail no person could ever give it up.

But… The dark clouds on the beach grew nearer, without me even realizing it.

Soon the evenings on the beaches became evenings in the city, with a beer or cocktail in hand. Inside activities. Winter had crept up.

On one such day, I had ordered a cocktail. A real manly cocktail, a rusty nail. Joy was next to me, her own cocktail in hand. Sex on the beach. Colourful and cheery, just like her.

“After this, let’s all go swimming.” Joy joked with our circle of friends.

“It’s too cold for that, we will be blue when we get out.” Another of my friends, Sarah, said.

My phone was vibrating in my pocket. “Haha, but blue would suit us,” I said, looking at my phone. “Hold on, I gotta take this.”

I picked up and put the phone to my ear. My mom yelled on the other end, her voice riddled with worry and her words jumbled and incoherent.. “It’s dad-- You-- Hurry to the hospital. We’re at the intensive care unit. Ask the receptionist.”

My manly cocktail fell to the ground and shattered into a thousand pieces. My face felt ice cold and thoughts raced in my head. I looked over at Joy. “It’s my dad. I gotta go.”

I darted to the hospital, through ice cold pouring rain. When I arrived, I was soaked to the skin and out of breath. I kept running after the arrows pointing to the emergency ward inside the hospital. Finally I reached the door, where mom was outside.

“We can’t visit him right now.” She said, pacing back and forth in front of the door.

My gut felt like it was about to implode and my hair stood up all over my body. I had trouble keeping the shock from plastering all over my face.

“Mom what happened?”

She stopped for a moment and stared at me. “He had a kidney stone and a fever. When I got here, a nurse took his blood pressure. When she saw the numbers, she tried another blood pressure meter. It showed the same.” She explained. Her gaze didn’t shift an inch. “The nurse went pale and darted off. A moment later six doctors jabbed him with syringes, trying to keep him alive.”

My throat clenched up and my voice tore up as I spoke. “And now?”

“They stabilized him just enough to transfer him here. That’s all I know.”

That moment the door opened. A doctor in all white with a white lab coat on top gestured at the hand sanitizer dispenser next to the entrance. “Please use that and come this way.”

The smell of pure alcohol from the hand sanitizer is a smell I would come to associate with the intensive care unit for the rest of my life.

A row of six beds with a myriad of technical equipment and screens were lined up, several of these stations had curtains pulled all the way around them.

In one of these beds, my dad laid. His gaze fixed to the screen, where green and yellow numbers jumped up and down. He took rapid and deep breaths, stabilizing one of the numbers.

“He’s been fighting like this for a while.” The doctor explained. “He’s keeping the oxygen in his blood high enough, but he can’t keep it up. We have to put him in an artificial coma and give him a respiratory support.”

“Will he make it?” Mom asked.

“It’s…” The doctor looked over at the bed my dad was in. “Hard to say. We have to operate now, you should go press his hand before you go.”

My mom wrapped her hand around his, gazing deep into his eyes. “Honey, you’ll be okay. Be strong.”

“I love you.” My dad said back, between his frantic breathing.

For awhile, they simply stood there, staring. As if they communicated without saying a word. Mom let go of his hand.

When I held his hand, he didn’t even have the strength to grasp it back. He was fighting, but he seemed so weak. My dad, who had always been strong for me. “I love you.” I said.

“I love you, too.” he answered.

My hand slipped off his, and the doctor sent us out to the waiting room.

On the way out, I saw the emergency shifts of the nurses. Each patient was assigned a single nurse, save for two patients, who each had two. Danny and Echo.

“We will update you as soon as we can.” The doctor said as he left us in the easy chairs in the waiting room.

But the atmosphere was anything but easy. My mom had cupped both her hands around her mouth, grasping herself tight, and her eyes darted from side to side. I could feel her suppressed emotions weave into the very air I breathed. I would have spoken, said something to ease her lone suffering, but I had no words for her.

I had my own worries. Sitting outside and waiting is agonizing. The sheer magnitude of the powerlessness I felt made me question my basic beliefs. I grasped onto anything I could. Everything was out of my hands, so I held onto any measure of control I had. So I prayed. I prayed to a god I did not believe in.

What if there was a god? That tiny off chance, there was a god who listened. Could I face not having prayed? No. I folded my hands and prayed. This was all I could do, so I did.

I prayed, my hands grasping each other tighter and tighter until the door to the waiting room sprung open. It was the doctor in his white lab coat. His face was dark.

The sheer terror in this one moment was enough that my hands shook, and my eyes were wide with horror and anticipation. My mind raced. He couldn’t possibly be...

“He’s in an artificial coma, the oxygen levels have stabilized. For now. We’re going to have to scan him the moment his condition is stable enough.”

“Will he make it?” My mom asked.

The doctors face grew darker still. “I hope so.”

Those words sent chills down my spine and the hair on my arms stood up. It was like a bucket of icy water had been thrown in my face.

I hadn’t realized that I had already been here for a good part of the night. When we were allowed in again, he looked like he was sleeping, but the monitor showed his pulse. It was low, too low. And everytime it dipped below a certain point, an alarm would go off and a nurse would rush over. Each time was a small heart attack. What if this was the last dip?

Everything that happened this night blurred together. Small dips in his blood pressure. Holding his hand. Staring. Hoping. Both soul crushing and entirely uneventful at the same time.

The hospital had a sort of hotel department, often used after a birth, where patients or relatives could stay. We checked in in each our room.

I sat on the bed and pulled out my phone. Six text messages.

Joy had written to me. “What was that about?” “Where are you?” “Please answer me.”

I took a deep breath and typed up a short message filling her in.

Moments later, a text arrived. “Okay. Hope he gets well soon.”

I turned off the screen on the phone.

In a room where darkness was my only companion, I sat all alone.

For a while, I let myself soak in the darkness and emptiness of the room. A hollow pit opened up in my stomach and my mind raced to find an explanation, or anything I could do to help.

The phone lit up like a beacon, hollering and vibrating as a text message arrived, snapping me right out of it.

It was from Sarah. “Is everything alright?”

I texted back, a similar response to the one I had written to Joy and a second later my phone rang.

“That’s terrible!” Sarah gasped into the phone. “Have you spoken with Joy?”

“No.” I said.

“But she knows?”

“Yes.”

A moment of silence occured. I’d like to imagine she was thinking of what to say, because what do you say to somebody who is in a situation like mine?

“I hope he gets better.” She said.

“Me too.”

“Can you tell me what happened?” She asked.

“He’s in a coma and--”

“No-no. From the beginning. After you left.” She said.

I told the story, of how I had run to the hospital. My mom outside, and the doctor telling us about the coma.

And I broke down.

I started sobbing in the phone. I told her how weak my dad had looked, and how I bitterly hoped that he would recover. She didn’t offer advice or wish me well. She just accepted it. Told me she understood how hard it was.

After this conversation, I felt a little bit better. A bit stronger, like I could face tomorrow after all. As if he might yet make it.

The next couple of days blurred together. Just like the first evening, nothing of note happened, yet it felt like any moment death could come for him.

Death was no stranger to the intensive care unit, I would come to realize.

When the curtains were closed and the family was standing around someone, their family would disappear from the waiting room. Their names removed from the shift-table.

The first two I saw vanish were Danny and Echo. Every time a name had two nurses, the person would vanish the day after.

I considered it a sign of good fortune that my dad only had one nurse. Until the third day.

The nurses explained his heart was running a marathon, it had been fed up on a stress hormone called noradrenaline for days. They had to scan him now, even if that was risky.

The scan revealed his body was filled with pockets of pus and bacteria. They had to put drains into these spots to physically remove the gunk.

That day, dad was assigned two nurses.

When I saw that, my heart raced for the first time in days. A mixture of stress, frustration and panic rose from deep within me. My prayers had not been heard. I felt like I had to do something right away before it was too late, but I couldn’t think of a single thing I could do.

Once more sitting in the darkness of my room, I pulled up my phone. My finger hovered over a name. Joy.

I couldn’t press the call button.

I wouldn’t know what to say. She didn’t like this sort of thing anyway.

With a sigh of surrender, I pressed the back key and a name sprung in my eyes. Sarah.

For a moment, I tried to convince myself I shouldn’t call her. She wouldn’t like that either, she would be bothered.

But I knew I was wrong.

So, I called her and I poured my heart out to her. I told her of how I felt, how scared I was. I told her about the two nurses and what it meant. I told her how I couldn’t call Joy. I told her everything.

And she accepted it, only asking a few clarifying questions.

The following days, my dad continued to have two nurses. I would call Sarah every single day, sometimes talking for an hour. Meanwhile, I only sent Joy a single text. A status update.

As suddenly as my dad had gotten there, he was out of the intensive care unit. His arms were so weak he couldn’t lift the blanket of the hospital bed and his legs couldn’t support his now small body. But it didn’t matter. He was alive.

The day came where I left the hospital’s hotel. It was a sunny day, in the middle of winter, but some ominous clouds lurked in the distance. First stop, Joy’s place. Or, it would have been, had Sarah’s place not been on the way there.

I knocked on her door and she opened.

I flashed her a smile. “Hey. I’m headed for Joy’s place, but I just wanted to thank you.”

Sarah flashed me a half-smile. “Anytime. How’s your dad?”

“He’s in rehabilitation. They say he will be fine though.”

She let out a sigh of relief and flashed me a half-smile. “Glad to hear it.”

“You know, Sarah, I--”

“You should go to Joy. She probably missed you.”

“Right,” I said with a nod. “See you later.”

I left with Sarah still standing in the door.

A while later I arrived at Joy’s place.

Somehow things didn’t seem the same between us as they had that evening at sunset. An unsaid distance had grown between us.

This trend would continue for the next couple of days, until she addressed the elephant in the room.

Mid sentence, I was cut off. “And my dad was--”

“Is that all you ever talk about?” She asked. “You’ve changed. You’re not as fun anymore.” For a moment her voice lingered. I knew what she would say next, yet I couldn’t bear to think about it. I wished bitterly the moment would never arrive, yet it did.

Her voice echoed into my very soul. “I think we should break up.”

Chills ran down my spine, and my stomach sunk. My joy had been extinguished in that one instant. Tears pressed themselves forward, only held back by the sheer shock.

“W-what? Joy. We can...” I said, not knowing how to go on.

“I’m sorry.” Joy opened the door out. “You should leave.”

The rain poured down by the buckets. The moment I stepped outside the door, I was already soaked from head to toe and the chilly wind sapped all warmth from my body.

Yet I didn’t even feel it. My insides were in turmoil, my world having collapsed in such a short span of time.

I stumbled along the street in a haze, I felt so weak, so tired. So wounded. Somewhere along the road, I dropped to my knees. I didn’t have the strength to stand, so I sat there on the street in the middle of the rain. Wave after wave of thoughts and doubts came onto me. How could I have done better? Was I not good enough? Was I talking about my dad too much? When did things go so wrong?

My tears blended into the rain. My chest spat out air in uncontrollable contractions in miserable sobs.

Out of nowhere, the rain stopped hammering onto me.

“Hey.” Sarah said, holding her black umbrella over my head. “Let’s get you inside.”

She grabbed my hand and helped me up. Her mere presence made me feel like I could get through this. That I could weather it after all.

Not letting go of my hand, while making sure the umbrella was always placed over me, she led me back to her place.

We both entered her home dripping wet. Her entire floor was flooded with rainwater and mud.

“I don’t have a set of clothes in your size.” She yelled from the bathroom.

“But I do have a bathrobe.” She said, holding two towels and a neon pink bathrobe. “Looks a bit silly, but it beats being wet.”

Moments later, I was dry and sat in nothing but a manly neon pink bathrobe in the middle of her kitchen. Sarah sat across from me, she had changed into her pajamas. “It’s a bit like a pajama party, isn’t it?”

Her half smirk vanished from her face. “So, what happened? Is something wrong with your dad again?”

“Joy broke up with me.”

She looked at me in shock. “Is that why you were outside my home?”

“I didn’t know.”

She leaned in a bit closer. “Well, it’s her loss.” She put her hand on my hand from across the table. “I’m here for you. Just let it all out.”

Everything welled up once more. Tears flowed down my cheeks as I told of the good times I had with Joy. The sunset with the rainbow, the bars and restaurant visits. All the fun times.

“It’ll be okay.” She said. “You’ll get through this.”

The wind howled outside and the rain bashed against the window. She got up and stared outside. “I’ll be right back. The neighbours are at yoga, and they’ve left their dog in the rain.”

She went outside, while I stood up and looked out the window, watching her. Once more she came with her black umbrella and she knelt down to the dog and patted it before she headed back with it.

It struck me that this was so like her, it was exactly what she had always been like. Like the moment when she had comforted Joy’s little sister after she fell from the swing, or the time she stood up for Bruno, when they were bullying him in school. She had such a good heart. Her kindness let a little bit of warmth return to my chest that had been missing for a while now.

The door opened, and she came inside with the dog. “Yes who’s a good boy?”

She grabbed a towel and carefully wiped the dog’s fur. “Sorry about that. He’s not going to stay long, they will be back soon. I just couldn’t let him sit in the rain.”

I just sort of stared at her for a while, not knowing what to say.

“Oh um. Want to...” She trailed off. “Well, reading is not exactly a teamsport. Want to watch something?”

“Okay.”

“This one,” she said as the opening credits of a movie rolled. “It’s really sad. Sounds weird, but it really helps.”

It was a movie about a boy with cancer. Yet, I didn’t get to watch much of it.

“How about your dad?” She asked.

“He’s still in the hospital, I--”

“That’s not what I meant.” She said. “How do you feel about him?”

Tears welled forth once again. “He’s so weak. He can’t even stand on his own.”

She put an arm around me. “He will get better. You will be alright. Don’t worry.”

Her warmth and her sweet scent seeped into my body. For the first time in forever, I felt safe and comforted. It did not take long for me to fall asleep.

I woke up the next morning, my legs on the couch and with a blanket over me.

“Good morning.” Sarah said, holding two plates with sizzling eggs and bacon.

“Morning.” I said as I had a plate put into my hands.

“How’re you feeling today?”

“Better.” I said, forking up a mouthful of eggs.

When I looked over at her, her lips seemed so smooth, so warm and soft.

I leaned towards her face.

She looked back at me.

I stopped, a few inches from her face.

“What’s wrong with me?” I asked, pulling my head back a little. “Why am I doing this to you?”

“There’s nothing wrong with you. It’s okay to be sad, it’s okay to be upset.”

She leaned in, her lips approaching mine. “It’s okay to need to be loved.”