CHAPTER 39
*PRESENT*
“Rest”
Maya
I woke up feeling like someone had run me over. My body was burning, and I didn’t feel like I could move from my place.
The only advantage was that the bed smelled like my husband.
I breathed deep.
My husband was nowhere to be found. I wanted to rise from the bed and look for him, but my body wasn’t cooperating. Someone opened the door, and I heard footsteps that I knew were my husband’s.
I exhaled.
Then, I felt him kneel beside me on the side of the bed, touching my forehead with his colder hands. It felt divine.
“You’re awake,”
he said with emotion, still worried. “I’m going to check your temperature.”
Flashbacks of Aaron checking if I had a fever and then cursing under his breath came back to me.
“I’m fine,”
I lied. He lasered me with his eyes.
“Don’t you dare try.”
I heard the worry in his voice and looked at him. “The doctor is on her way. Should have been here by now,”
he said, looking at his watch. I had given him that watch.
I fell asleep soon after and woke up when a woman in her fifties looked at me and made me answer some questions. Then, I heard her talk with Aaron. I needed to take some medicine and to rest for a few days.
Aaron seemed relieved after hearing the doctor.
My husband took care of me, and my days were spent sleeping, eating, and hugging my husband.
After the third day, I remembered that I hadn’t called my office to let them know that I was sick.
“Aaron, I need my phone. Do you know where it is?”
“I will search for it. Why do you need it?”
“I forgot to call my office.”
A little smile came to his lips.
“And you were saying you weren’t sick? You remembered just now about work.”
“I’m not joking. They’ve probably fired me by now.”
“If you weren’t that good, maybe. Luckily for you, you’re their best lawyer, and your husband called them to let them know, adding to the message the note from the doctor.”
“Thank you.”
“Nothing to thank me for. Now, go back to sleep.”
“What about your work?”
“I let them know I was taking care of my wife.”
“If you need to go to the office…”
“You will let me get more than a few feet away from you?”
“I was going to say that I would accompany you.”
He laughed, balming my soul.
“You’re not leaving this house and aren’t allowed to think about work until you’re recovered.”
“Only if it’s the same for you. You can’t leave without me.”
“Deal. You think that’s a punishment, but that sounds very good.”
“It does,”
I said, looking at my husband.
He got closer and got into bed, caressing my cheek.
“You scared me, my love.”
“I know, I’m sorry.”
“I know you are. I need to take care of you for you, and for me. I still have the scar on my body.”
He had big, dark circles under his eyes.
“When was the last time you slept?”
“Here and there.”
“Aaron! You need to rest. I promise not to wake you up.”
“I prefer if you rest.”
“We both can rest.”
“I prefer to make sure that you don’t have nightmares.”
“I—You’re the best.”
He rolled his eyes at me.
“I have been having those nightmares since the day I went running after my parents’ accident. I had a nightmare, and I woke up feeling like I couldn’t breathe.”
He looked at me seriously. “I know I shouldn’t have gone running when it was so dark and I was alone and vulnerable, but I felt like it would consume me. I don’t know how to explain it. I have had nightmares before, but this one seemed so real. And lucky me, I have had the same nightmare over and over again since then. There are a few nights where the nightmare’s different a little bit, but the result is the same. Normally, I would wake up and watch you sleep like a creep and it would get better, but when I didn’t see you and it was after our fight, I just—I imagined the worst.”
He caressed my hair and gave me a peck on the lips.
“I’m sorry, baby. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want you to know. There’s not much you can do to help with the truth.”
“What truth?”
“That my nightmare could happen. That my fear would come true, sooner or later.”
“Maya, it’s true that one day I’m going to be gone, but—”
“Stop!”
I said angrily. “Stop, please,”
I replied again, but with a softer voice.
“You have PTSD from your childhood and your parents’ accident.”
“I don’t.”
His eyebrows rose. “I mean,”
I paused, thinking, trying to gather my thoughts. “It’s devouring me, the certainty that one day you will not be on this earth. I don’t not want to ever see your smile again or hear your voice. I don’t want to live in a world where your kindness doesn’t exist, where I can’t see how your eyes shine. I don’t want to live in a world where I stop making new memories with you.”
Aaron gulped and looked at me with such intensity that I knew that he was understanding how helpless I felt, how much I wanted to fight against human beings’ reality.
His hands touched mine, and then he brought me to him, his arms surrounding me while my tears kept falling. He felt the anguish. He hugged me and let me quietly sob against his chest.