Today they are going to burn Chloe.
Her body's been dead since Friday, though her brain's been dead since Wednesday. So I guess she has been dead since Wednesday.
This all started on Wednesday evening, when I'd gotten out of EMT class early and my plans with Logan fell through. I went home to wait for Greg to call. My phone rang, it was Chloe's number. She'd been calling me a lot the past few days. When I picked up, it was someone else's voice. Brooke's. I was confused as to why Brooke would have Chloe's number but didn't have time to find out because Brooke immediately asked for Chloe's medical history. I inquired why and it was explained that Chloe had had a seizure. "She doesn't have epilepsy," I said, "but she does coke and has been using dope on and off recently." This information was relayed to a cop and some EMS people.
I quickly drove over to Chloe's house, wondering why my pager hadn't gone off, seeing as she is in my EMS squad district. When I got to Chloe's she wasn't there. As it turned out, Chloe, Brooke, Tom, and some other people were at a diner in Freehold. I woke up Chloe's mother, who called back the police. We went to CentraState Hospital.
At the hospital, we learned that after the seizure, Chloe's heart had stopped along with her breathing. It took a while to make her heart work again. After an hour of CPR, two intubations, countless IVs, multiple respirators, electric shocks, CAT scans, X-rays, and every other medical technique under the sun had been tried on Chloe, we learned the next day that she'd suffered irreparable brain damage. They could keep her alive on a respirator for a little while, but weren't expecting her to live very long. Her mother had the doctors remove the tube on Friday night. She died shortly afterwards.
Since I met Chloe nine years ago at the bus stop for summer camp shortly after her eye surgery, I've known her to be a beautiful, passionate girl. She loved writing. I wonder who it will be who finds all of her journals full of half-finished stories. I wonder what will happen to the countless trophies she won at the speech competitions. She was such a beautiful speaker, giving so much life to those words in her binders. I wonder why all of this happened to Chloe.
I'd seen her a few days before this and we'd spoken about our plans for the future and she was so excited about transferring to Columbia College. She was going to major in her passion, writing. When she was 14 or so, she bought a book of baby names for ideas for her characters. We'd sit on her bed and giggle at some of the sillier ones, like Shadrash and Dingbang, wondering if anyone actually named their children things like that. I have so many memories of Chloe, so many little things remind me of this wonderful girl who died for no obvious reason. Her mother told the newpaper that it was asthma, but most of us suspect that after years of using coke it just killed her heart. When I last saw her she'd told me that she was going to stop for good soon, because she wanted to get her life in order and eventually start a family.
Chloe had so many dreams, and so many goals, and was so passionate about life and friends and writing and just everything she did. I will miss her so much.
Today they are going to burn Chloe and then there will be no more stories to read.