The Returned

But nothing was the same and I knew it never would be again. Even my favorite foods had lost their flavor. Things that once brought joy no longer resonated. I found no pleasure in anything anymore and by the end of that first year had all but hidden myself away from the world.

Then mom had gotten after me with lecture after lecture about how unfair it was to her as a mother to watch her oldest son giving up on life right before her eyes.

The funny thing was, I didn’t even see her or what had been happening to her while she worried about me. I couldn’t see anyone but my missing wife. Whose face was stamped on my memory and refused to leave.

But as time went by and I started to learn how to move through the pain, I finally started to see the people around me again and realized that they had been suffering right along with me all that time.

When I realized that I was breaking her heart, dragging her down with me, I decided to make an effort if only for her. She’d never left my side after all, in those two years.

And as hard as it was for me to do, I pulled myself together, at least outwardly anyway. I knew I was dead inside but I could at least put on a brave front for mom, make an effort to rejoin the living if it would keep her from worrying.

I’d even convinced myself there after a while that I was coming back to myself. That I’d finally accepted the fact that she wasn’t coming back. That for whatever reason, fate had given me that one year of bliss and then snatched it away never to return it again.

So I’d tried throwing myself back into the game of life. If only half of me was there, it was still better than none. I started eating again, even went out and about once or twice with my brother. But nothing felt the way it used to without her by my side.

I realize now that I’d only been fooling myself. Thinking I could go on with my life, put her and what we had behind me. I’d even told myself a time or two that I needed to let her go, put her out of my mind.

I even went through a phase where I turned all my anger on her. I blamed her for leaving me, told myself I was done, that I won’t spend another second yearning for her. I needed to tell myself that shit to get on with my life.

But all it took was seeing her precious face again, holding her in my arms and I knew it was all a crock. I was never going to get over her. How can a man live without his heart?

I looked at her now, not wanting to take my gaze off of her, eating her up with my eyes as they continued to work on her less frantically now. For the first time in a long-long time, I felt alive.

I rested my head back against the chair and let my mind wander as I listened to the machine they had her hooked up to. Safe, she was safe. Safe and alive and whole. My beautiful girl!

I went back to the beginning in my mind. Back to when my life had changed and my world was turned upside down the first time.

From the first second I laid eyes on her I knew. I can still recall that feeling of intense joy and wonder. Still remember the jolt to my system the first time I saw her smile.

I had no idea until that moment that that love at first sight shit was real. I’d always thought of it as just some fairytale women dreamt up as an excuse for instant lust.

But as I stood at the entrance to the restaurant that day, watching her as she walked by, I felt the shiver run down my spine just before my heart started beating me to death.

As a guy who had been in and out of relationships since my early teens I can honestly say that I had never experienced what I felt that day and somehow knew that I never will again with anyone else.

It was like being hit in the solar plexus with a two- ton brick. My heart had literally skipped a beat in the most clichéd way and my dick responded to her like he knew her. I didn’t even know her name.

My eyes followed her across the room as she made her way to a table. And when the men sitting there smiled at her I bared my teeth and took a step forward before checking my move just in time to keep from making a complete ass of myself.