I'm Still Here (Je Suis Là) Read Free

a hand to my head and try to pat it down, but it doesn’t work. Anyway, what’s the point? I’ve got no one to impress.
    A light tapping sound turns my attention toward the window. Damn. It’s raining. I don’t want to go back outside now to freeze and get soaked while I wait for my mother and my cousin. I look around. This room is nice and warm. The person is still asleep and, judging by the perfectly arranged furniture, it doesn’t look as though she has many visitors.
    I consider the situation for a moment. If she wakes up, I can always just tell her I came in by accident—she doesn’t have to know that I decided to stay anyway. And if anyone comes to visit her, I can say I’m an old friend and then quickly make myself scarce. Better find out what her name is first though.
    The clipboard at the foot of the bed says: “Elsa Bilier, 29 , head injury, severe trauma to the wrists and right knee. Multiple contusions, partially healed right fibula fracture…” The list continues until it reaches the most awful word of all.
    â€œComa.”
    So there’s no danger of her waking up, in fact. I put the clipboard down and take a look at this woman. Twenty-nine years old. With all the tubes and wires coming out of her in every direction, she could be a forty- or fifty-year-old, trapped in the middle of a spider’s web. But on closer inspection, she does look twenty-nine. A pretty face, fine features, blonde hair, a few freckles here and there, a beauty spot by her right ear. She could be asleep; it’s really only the thinness of her arms over the sheets and her hollow cheeks that give her away.
    I look at the clipboard again and my breath catches.
    Date of accident: 10 July.
    She’s been like this for nearly five months. I should put the clipboard back, but my curiosity gets the better of me.
    Cause of accident: glacial mountaineering accident
    It takes all sorts. I’ve never understood why anyone would go and risk life and limb out on a glacier, those freezing places full of hidden holes and weak spots where you might be about to die every time you take a step forward. I bet she’s sorry now. Well, in a manner of speaking. I don’t suppose she actually has any idea what’s happened to her. That’s how a coma works, isn’t it? You go somewhere else and nobody knows how to bring you back.
    Suddenly I have a terrible urge to swap her with my brother. Stuck in there all alone. She hasn’t hurt anyone, at least I doubt it. Whereas my brother drank too much, got behind the wheel, and killed two fourteen-year-old girls. He’s the one who should still be in a coma. Not her. I look at the clipboard one last time before putting it back.
    Elsa. Twenty-nine. Date of birth: 27 November.
    Wait, it’s her birthday today.
    I don’t know why I do it, but I take the pencil tied to the clipboard and rub out the “ 29 .” It makes a dirty smear but who cares.
    â€œYou’re thirty today, gorgeous,” I murmur as I write in the new number, before putting the clipboard back.
    I look at her again. Something about her is making me uncomfortable and, after a moment, I know what it is. Being linked up to all these machines demeans her somehow. If I disconnected it all she’d look almost like a jasmine flower, with the smell to match. To disconnect or not to disconnect, that is the question. I’ve never thought about it before. But right now I would love to remove all her tubes just to make her look normal.
    â€œLook how pretty you are—you deserve a birthday kiss.”
    My words surprise me, but I’ve already started moving aside the tubes that block the way to her cheek. Up close, the smell of jasmine is very distinct. I put my lips on her warm cheek and it gives me something like an electric shock.
    It’s been a year since I last gave someone a kiss, except for greeting work colleagues or friends, but that