The rush of movement in the room had calmed down considerably and the nurses and doctor seemed less agitated. “Is she going to be okay?” I opened my eyes and looked at her again.
“We’ve got it under control sir. There’s no reason for her not to make a full recovery.” I let my body collapse back into the chair at the doctor’s words and released the tension I hadn’t been aware of holding all this time.
Everything about the last few hours hit me at once. Now that she was relatively safe and being looked after, now that her life was no longer in danger, I let my mind run free. It was finally okay to turn my attention to other things.
A million thoughts ran through my head one after the other but I couldn’t make heads or tails of any of them. I realized real quick that it was almost impossible to think straight so I gave up even trying.
There was one recurring theme though, in all those fleeting thoughts. How could this be happening? How can it be real? Not even in my wildest imaginings could I have thought up something like this. This was some Saturday night special shit.
I’d prayed so hard; prayed, begged and pleaded in the beginning to no avail. I would’ve given anything to get her back, would’ve sold everything I own. Done anything in my power to get her back.
There wasn’t anything I hadn’t tried in my quest to find her and bring her home. Who knew it would turn out like this? That she’d simply just walk back into my life on her own like she’d only just left to go to the store or some shit. Two fucking years.
Of course it had been my fervent wish from the start, that she’d walk through the door one day. But as a realist I hadn’t held out much hope of it really happening.
I always thought I’d have to find her for us to be together again. That it would take a stroke of immense good luck for me to see her across a crowded room some day.
Though I never stopped dreaming of her return, never stopped yearning to see her face, hold her in my arms once more, I never expected this. It had too much of a fairytale bent to it. And my life after she left had been anything but.
The day she disappeared will always be the absolute fucking worst day of my life. I went into a deep black hole that it had taken me almost two damn years to crawl out of and I still wasn’t all the way out, until now.
I hadn’t turned to alcohol or drugs. Nothing to numb my senses. Somehow I wanted to remain aware of everything that was happening. It was kind of my way of punishing myself for letting that shit happen to her.
Though I didn’t turn to any of the usual bullshit to get through the day, I’d stopped being the man I used to be. There was no laughter, no warmth and no light left in my days.
It’s like the sun had gone behind a storm cloud and stayed there. Things that used to matter seemed pointless and without merit and I quite simply no longer gave a fuck about a damn thing.
It was hard to care about mundane bullshit when I was lost in a fog of torment each day from the time I opened my eyes in the morning, until I fell into bed again at night.
When I wasn’t looking for her, using all the resources at my fingertips, I was hiring people to do it for me. I ate breathed and slept thoughts of her. And at the end of the day, when I returned alone to our empty home, my lonely bed, the worrying started; that was the worst.
The not knowing where she was or what had happened to her or was happening while she was out there somewhere drove me nuts. It ate me up inside to the point I lost so much weight people were beginning to think I was dying.
And I almost did. I never knew until then what pining after someone really meant. It was literally life being sucked out of you minute by minute for want of someone. And the only thing that could save you is having that one person back again.
I wouldn’t wish that shit on my worse enemy, and never want to feel anything like it again. I looked in the face of madness during those first dark days and even now don’t know how I pulled back.
I got out of bed in the mornings and went through my days by rote because I had to. I needed to survive, to be here when she came back. That’s what I kept telling myself and what kept me putting one foot in front of the other.