“I heard a gurgling, an almost feral breath leave your lungs and you started coughing, you opened your eyes, you lookedright at me. They started working on you again before they tookyou out on a gurney, and I fucking panicked. I forced my way into the ambulance and wouldn’t let them touch me even though my face was gushing. I just wanted them to fix you. I begged them to fix you.”
Lucky sighs and buries his face in my stomach again. “I didn’t leave your hospital room for three weeks. Justine told me I needed to go home, I needed to heal and give myself some sort of break, but I wouldn’t leave. We argued for days but I finally agreed to go after making her promise to call me the second you woke up. Before I finally left, I walked over to your broken body lying there, wondering where your perfect soul was hiding while I smoothed your hair back out of your face, kissed your forehead and said?—”
“Si tu ne reviens pas, je te suivrai de l'autre côté et je te ramènerai. Je t’aime, my coeur.” The words I thought I’d dreamt come rolling off my tongue as easily as taking my next breath.If you don’t come back to me, I will follow you to the other side and bring you back myself. I love you, my heart.
I always thought it was a dream, that hearing Lucky say those beautiful words, words I’d waited ten years to hear, was nothing more than a hallucination.
Judging by the way his entire body tenses in my lap, Lucky obviously didn’t think I really heard those words either, that my coma kept him safe from me knowing how he felt. And despite my racing heart, I keep stroking his hair until I feel him relax because that’s the last thing anyone needs to worry about right now.
“Well, I think you may have answered one of life’s greatest mysteries; peoplecanhear you when they’re in a coma.” He laughs a little, and I smile.
I say nothing, though, just relish in this moment as I try to process everything he told me.
It’s strange to hear his side of things.
I’ve heard what happened from Justine, heard it from cops and medical professionals, but hearing it come from Lucky, the only other person who experienced it the way I did, is a whole new perspective for me.
After what seems like forever, Lucky nuzzles my stomach with his nose. “I know the possibility of someone else finding my mutilated mug attractive again is way outside the realm. I’ve come to grips with the life I’ve been leading, I’m even happy with it for the most part.” He yawns and chuckles into my shirt. “But I’m glad I was able to tell you how I feel whether I thought you could hear me or not. I have no regrets, no expectations. I’m just glad to have you back.”
My heart skips a beat at his use of present tense.
Lucky didn’t say that heusedto love me, he said it’s how hefeels.
Lucky loves me.
Not that I didn’t know he has love for me, he’s been my best friend, one of my closest allies for at least a decade, but he’s never once told me he loves me like that. Not in the way he said it back then, or how he said it just now. Lucky loves me the way I love him, the way I’ve always loved him.
Hitting me like a ton of bricks, I finally realize that it felt like my soul had been missing the past three years because it was. I shut it out when I shut them out.
As if the words were a key, another memory from long ago is unlocked and bleeds through the darkest places of my mind, one from that night that wasn’t strong enough to hang onto.
I remember why I thought it was Lucky coming into the dressing room that night.
He had wanted to talk to me, just me, and I was going to take a leap of faith and use the opportunity to tell him how I felt. I didn’t know what he wanted to talk about but I had a hell of a lotto say to him, and I was going to take my chance before the after-party.
Because I fell in love with Lucky the first time I met him.
I sit in bed, still stroking Lucky’s hair while he sleeps, my memories and his confession flooding me with feelings that I buried for years right along with the rest of me.
The idea of love is a wonderful thing.
Being with this man in a completely different way, finally able to give my whole self to him in the way I’ve always wanted. To be with him, to be in love with him makes me happier than I’ve been in such a long time, and it’s almost as if I can feel my heart relax. Like the tomb I’ve kept it locked away in is finally opening up, and the possibilities of using it the way I was intended become limitless.
But then that little voice inside my head, the one that’s been ruling my entire existence for the last three years, yeah, that bastard starts talking.
How could Lucky, how couldanyonestill want me?
I’m broken, an empty shell of who I used to be.
My body has been tainted; it’s been ruined in ways that go beyond surface-deep. The physical scars are clear, and they’re horrible, but they aren’t the only ones I bear. The scars no one can see run much deeper, and they hurt far worse.
There are parts of my body that will probably never work how they’re supposed to again, things I’ll probably never be able to do, and definitely things I should be watching more closely because of all the physical damage that was done.
Who would want to put up with all that shit?
If the physical isn’t bad enough, there’s all the stuff floating around in my head, too.
I’ve all but forgotten how to take care of myself, and I haven’t put any importance on it since that horrible fucking night.
