Alive…

He had walked these corridors a million times but ever since he got back to work after the accident it felt different. Possibly because he had been gone for so many months that felt like years. He was glad to be back but the past weeks had been exhausting because he had to get caught up to everything that had happened during his absence. The progress the team had made, there were some new faces while familiar ones were gone. It had taken him a while to get used to it, to get a certain routine back.
He turned a corner and ran into Glenn.
“Hey. Guess what.”, Glenn said and walked with him.
“I don’t know, did you see Elvis?”, Jonathan had no idea where Glenn was going with this.
“Not today but it’s cheesecake day in the cafeteria.”
“Oh, that’s great we need to get some for lunch.”, Jonathan say gleefully.
“You mean after lunch.”
“No, I mean for lunch. It’s cheesecake, Glenn.” He gave Glenn a very serious look.
“Right. Oh by the way, happy birthday, I almost forgot.”
Glenn gave Jonathan a friendly pat on the back.
“Happy what now?”
“Birthday. Today is the 13th. Dude, did you forget your own birthday again?”
Jonathan checked his phone for the date. Glenn was right on both counts. It was his birthday and he forgot which happened to him on a regular basis. He smiled to himself.
“Well, I guess I did. Anyway, thank you.” he said and laughed.
“Do you and Jennifer have any plans for today?”, Glenn asked.
“Maybe she has planned something, I don’t know. We’ll see.”
“This is your first birthday since you’re out of the hospital, I hope something special is waiting for you, my friend.”
“Huh. Yeah, that’s right. I didn’t realize…. You know, I’m happy to be able to celebrate another birthday.”

When Jonathan left work later that afternoon he was hit by the ice cold February air. The parking lot was pretty dark apart from some street lights and he walked to his car as fast as he could to get out of the freezing cold. He couldn’t wait to get home to his wife.
He turned on the heat and was about to start the car when he hesitated.
Something had been on his mind all day since Glenn had mentioned it but he couldn’t tell exactly why it had hit him so hard. He was right, it was his first birthday after he got out of the hospital after the accident.
He didn’t remember his last birthday but Jennifer told him about it.
It must have been so hard for her, he thought. She said she was always by his side, every day he was in that induced coma fighting for his life. She didn’t know whether he would survive his birthday back then but she never gave up hope. Just thinking about this was painful for him. She was so worried but Jonathan never wanted anyone to worry about him, never wanted anyone to suffer just because of him. He knew it wasn’t his fault but…it had still happened.
He pictured her crying at the hospital bed. No, she didn’t deserve all the pain she went through.
He tried to force himself to stop thinking about that but it was too late he was already overwhelmed by the emotions. Tears came to his eyes and he just sat there for several minutes, his mind racing with thoughts.
Then his phone buzzed.
Jonathan took a deep breath and reached for his left pocket to take it out.
It was a text message from Jennifer.

You should come home before your brother eats all the birthday cake 🙂

This made him smile, he loved her so much, more than words could ever say.
He decided that was really time to go home, plus there was the prospect of cake. Cake was never wrong.
And if Thomas touched his birthday cake he would disown him…