Always

I smile and laugh as I feel lips press against mine. Warmth envelops me and fills me inside, surrounding my heart as if someone is holding my fragile heart in their hands. I think I’m dreaming because I know that nothing can feel so right and so perfect when I’m awake.
         “Morning,” I whisper, shifting in the bed, my smile unable to fade.
         I return the kiss and press myself against a face that I know so well. I run my hands under her shirt and caress her skin. The whole time my eyes are closed. I never want to leave. I never want to stop.
         She laughs and tells me that she loves me as she nibbles on my earlobe. As I’m about to open my mouth and return the love that she gives me, the ring of the phone breaks our moment and my eyelids sling open. As she reaches over my chest to pick the receiver up, my hand reaches out for her hand and I pull her on top of me for a small embrace. My smile widens and I wrap my arms tighter around her waist as if pleading for her to ignore everything around us and just spend our day together in each other’s arms.
         She tells me that she can’t and kisses me gently on the cheek before pulling away and answering the phone.
         “Hello?” she answers; her melodic voice is as sweet and irresistible as a siren’s song. I don’t hear the conversation but she suddenly sits up on the corner of the bed, her legs hanging off the edge. I sit up on my knees and my hands uncontrollably slip underneath her shirt again. I lightly stroke her body while planting soft kisses on her neck.
         She smiles, but she lightly pushes me away. For a moment I let my disappointment show. Seeing this, her hand covers the phone and pulls me in for a kiss. “I really have to take this call, hon,” she says, going back to her phone call. I nod and lie down on my side with my hand supporting my head. I stare at her back and I’m wondering how I ever got through life without her to wake up next to. My eyes close and I recall the evening we spent together last night. I try to remember every time our lips met, every time our skin touched and the feeling that she gives me every time she looks into my eyes.
         The receiver clicks down and my eyes open. I ask her if anything’s wrong.
         “It’s nothing. Just some things at work.” She stares into my eyes and holds my hand. “I have to get dressed.” She kisses me on the nose, then on my cheek. “See you tonight?”

         I watch her get dressed and before she walks out of the apartment, I give her a soft kiss goodbye. And as I’m about to whisper how much I love her into her ear, she turns and walks out the door.
         I shake off the feeling that something is wrong, and keep my mind on the dinner that I have planned for her tonight. A simple candlelit dinner on the roof, us in each other’s arms as I read to her poems that I’ve written for her with nothing but the moonlight and stars as the witnesses to my declaration of my love for her. I replay in my head how perfect the evening is going to be.
***
         I stop at a traffic light and look to the side where in the shop window I see a clerk cleaning a recently emptied part of the display. My hand moves down to my jeans pocket and I feel the tight outline of a rectangular box, making sure that it’s secure. I rev the engine of my motorcycle, excited from imagining the look on her face when everything falls into place for tonight. I keep thinking to myself that tonight is going to be perfect.
The green light reflects off the visor in my helmet and before I can make it across the intersection, something from the corner of my eye catches my attention. I turn my head and my heart skips a beat. Everything then plays as if time is slowing as I watch a car speed toward me.
***
         My breathing is heavy. I try to move my body but I can’t. My head turns to the side and I smile, hoping to feel lips brush against mine. But no, I’m not home. I’m not in the heaven I wake up to everyday. My eyes slowly open. I’m in the dark and I don’t know where I am. I’m lost, cold, and empty.
         I call out her name.
         But no one answers.
         I call out louder and louder, hoping for an answer.
         I’m in a pain that I’ve never felt before.
         I try to move my legs, trying to sit up. I can’t.
         The lights turn on, and I feel like I’m about to have a migraine. Someone walks into the room, asking me questions that I don’t care enough about to answer. I say nothing but the repeating question of where she is. 
         “Listen to me, you’re in a hospital. Do you remember what your name is? Do you know how you got here?” The voice repeats the questions as if in a loop. I don’t answer because I only care about having her in my arms. Knowing where she is. Knowing that I haven’t died and gone to hell, leaving her. 
“Listentome,you’reinahospital.Doyourememberwhatyournameis?Doyouknowhowyougothere?Listentome,you’reinahospital.Doyourememberwhatyournameis?Doyouknowhowyougothere?Listentome,you’reinahospital.Doyourememberwhatyournameis?Doyouknowhowyougothere?”
         I beg the voice to stop because the only voice I want to her is hers. And not hearing her pains me. It kills me. 
***
         It’s morning. I’m lying on my back, staring at the ceiling, counting the tiles. I never get past counting five of them. My mind never stops trying to remember her face.
The same nurse from the night before walks into the room. She greets me with a warm smile as she brings me my breakfast. She asks me how I’m doing, but I pretend not to hear her. Everything from the night before keeps replaying in my head.
Paralyzed from the waist down…
In a coma for two years…
Car accident…
May never walk again…
“Are you alright?” the nurse asks.
I feign a smile and say that I’m fine. I ask if anyone has ever visited me. The nurse looks away from me and shakes her head. I can tell by the look on her face that she wants to ask who it is that I’m waiting for, and without having to be prompted to. I tell her that I’m waiting for my love.
***
         For weeks, I told myself that she was probably away on business so she never had the chance to visit me. And that the nurse knew nothing.
         At night, I’d try to drag myself out of my bed. I’d try to stand on my feet and never give up no matter how many times I fall. No matter how much it hurt, all I could focus on was trying to walk again. They had to strap me to my bed, but I always found my way out. Physical therapy won’t help me, walking is impossible, they tell me. But I know they’re wrong. Doctors could never understand the things beyond what their books tell them. That they’re not always right. That sometimes the things that they think are possible aren’t restricted to what their minds tell them. There are times when the heart can do what we think is impossible. It can do what the mind can never do: it can feel and it can love.
I became obsessed with walking again because going back to see her in the state that I’m in won’t be the same. I want to show her that my love for her is still strong after these two years. I want to appear to her as someone strong, not vulnerable, not weak, not someone chained to a chair for the rest of their life. I plan out carefully how I want to see her. How I want to surprise her and have her back in my arms again.
The day when I began to regain feeling in my thighs was the day that I knew that my love for her can never be extinguished so easily by science. Or by doubt. Nothing stopped me. And eventually, I regained my ability to walk.
The day I’m about to leave the hospital, the nurse handed me a long rectangular box. I opened it and smiled. I said thank you and she wished me good luck as she handed me a piece of paper. She whispered in my ear that she too believes in love. That one day she hopes she will one day feel the love that I feel. She told me that it was people like me that give hope to the world. People like me that don’t let arbitrary things rule our lives. She told me that we’re the only people that live.
***
I stare at the piece of paper in my hand. I check the address to make sure that it’s right before taking a step forward. Taking a deep breath in, I slowly arrive in her yard. Her garden is beautiful and smells of all things that are sweet in this world—just like her.
         I stop. I look down at the cane that I hold in my hand and don’t want her to see me depending on such a thing. I throw it away and slowly limp toward her door. I want to surprise her. I want her to see that nothing but her is all I need to lean on. That her love and her presence is all I need to stand. All I need to live.
         I’m but a few metres from her door. I stare at myself through her the window of her car, and I make sure that I look my best.
         I see the door open and there she is, wearing a wide smile on her face. My eyes examine her from head to toe and just the sight of her almost makes me want to break down into tears. The smell of her hair, the taste of her skin and kiss, the way her body moves, everything that I imprinted in my mind about her rushes back. As I’m about to call out her name my heart drops.
         An arm pulls her back into the house and she presses her lips against someone that isn’t me. My mouth opens—I feel as though I want to cry out to her, but I can’t breathe.
         I collapse onto the ground. My hands clench into a fist as I grasp a handful of grass underneath me. My chest begins to feel tight and I clench it to ease the pain that I being to feel. But I shake off the pain because I’ve waited so long to just see her. I bring my knee forth and plant my foot on the ground, letting it support me as I try to stand again.
         My heart feels as though it’s been pulled out, torn to pieces and placed back within me to keep me alive in this tortured state. The pain that I feel in my chest is just as great as if she were to ever tell me that she doesn’t love me. But I don’t let that occupy my mind. I hold back the tears I want to release. And even though I feel as though the love I have for her isn’t returned, I know that I can’t stop loving her. I try not to think about it, but my mind won’t let the question go. I keep asking myself if during these two years, she just stopped loving me.
         She’s walking down the sidewalk, still wearing that smile that I love so much. I try to follow her but her pacing is too fast. I begin to lose my breath. My legs start to burn with pain. I don’t care. All I want is for her to see me. All I want to know is if she still loves me. It acts as my drive, it keeps me going.
         I follow her until she reaches the beach. She takes her sandals off and lets her toes run through the cool grains of sand. The evening breeze lightly plays with her hair and her shirt, as if teasing me. She never looks back. She never notices that I’m here. I can tell that she’s listening to the ocean’s waves as the moonlight acts as her sun and life.
         I call out her name softly.
         She stops walking. Pauses for a moment before turning to face me. I can tell that she recognizes my voice. Her eyes widen and it’s almost as if she never thought she’d see me again.
         I smile and greet her with the rose in my hand.
         Her mouth is agape. She’s speechless so I break the silence by teasing her with saying that I’ve missed her.
         She doesn’t say anything. And as I move closer to embrace her, she backs away, looking to the sky as she holds herself.
         “Don’t…”
         I ask her what’s wrong even though I know what’s bothering her.
         She takes a moment to gather her thoughts. My head tilts slightly to the side as I imagine all the thoughts and questions and things she wants to say to me rushes through her head.
         We stand in silence for an immeasurable time. She doesn’t know where to begin. And even though I dreamed of this moment for weeks, I don’t know what to say either. I always thought that when I see her face for the first time, the one thing that I’d do first is either tell her that I love her or kiss her. But seeing her kiss someone other than me burned my heart and I don’t feel so sure about what I should do anymore.
         When she gathers what she wants to say, she looks into my eyes, just like she always did. And I felt the warmth and love from her that I always felt. She opens her mouth and whispers that she’s sorry.
         Again, I try to play the fool. I want to hear everything coming from her mouth because anything that doesn’t come from her, I won’t believe. I refuse to believe. I pray and hope that what I saw earlier was just my imagination, just a nightmare and a dirty trick that my eyes played on me.
         We stand in silence once again.
         Her eyes shut for a moment, and I try with every last bit of strength that I have to keep back from trying to get closer to her, to hold her, to just pick up where our lives left off. But I know things aren’t as easy for her as they are for me. To her, there’s nothing to pick up because she had to endure through two years without me.
         I bite down on my lip to keep myself from just grabbing her and kissing her.
         She sighs and tells me what happened on the day of the accident. Her having to come home to an empty apartment, having to hear about what happened to me, crying at nights, not sleeping or eating.
         “I’m sorry,” I whisper.
         “There’s nothing to say sorry for…You’re…” Her voice drifts off.
         I ask her to go on.
         It takes her a moment to gather her thoughts again. “…if anything, you’re the only one that deserves to hear that I’m sorry. When I saw you in the hospital…” She chokes back a sob. “Oh God…” She turns away from me and her back is facing me. The memory of running my hands underneath her shirt to stroke her back flashed in my mind and intensified the clutched feeling in my chest.
“Tell me, did you ever stop loving me?”
She whips around to face me with watery eyes.
“Don’t you dare say that! Don’t you dare! I’ve always loved you! Always!” Tears are running down her face. “Oh God…” She hits me on the chest. She pushes me away. “I visited you everyday for a year!”
“What…? But the nurse—”
“I thought it would be best for you to forget about me. You deserve so much more than me…”
“How can you say such a thing like that? Better or worse, there’s no one else I can love but you. Who cares about who deserves what?” I pause and swallow the tears I’ve been holding back. “And…and I love you. That’s all that should matter.”
“Do you know how much it hurt to see you like that? To know that there’s a chance that you may never wake up? That you may never come back to me?”
         I tell her that I’m here. That I did find my way to come back to her. The whole time, my eyes were focused on the ground, not wanting her to see the tears in my eyes begin to form.
         “Waiting for you was just so painful! For all I knew you may have never woken up again…I just had…I had to move on.”
         I whisper that I love her, not knowing what else to say to ease the pain.
         “Please don’t make this harder than it needs to be. I’m with someone now…and I can’t just leave everything that I have now for you…
I say it quietly, and just loud enough for her to hear.
“I love you…and I just want you to be with me…”
The sound of her sobs almost make me want to just grab her by the arms and pull her closer to my body, as my way of telling her that I’m here for her. But I know I can’t. I know that doing so will do nothing.
I grab my chest, beginning to feel the weight and the pain I feel from choking back tears. But my tears come out anyway. It’s impossible for me to pretend and put up a front for her. I show her how I’m feeling.
“I have to go,” she tells me, wiping away the tears from her eyes. I let her walk past me. My hand unconsciously reaches out for hers and I feel my fingers brush against hers. Even if it were just for a brief moment, touching her hand
I listen to the sound of the waves against the shore. My knees feel weak, but I can’t fall.
***
         Days, weeks, and months passed. Like her, I tried to move on with my life. Tried to find someone else to cherish and love. And although I thought what I felt was love, I was never as happy as I was when I was with her. No one else made me feel as though I never had a care in the world. No one’s face but hers was the last thing I ever thought of before going to bed, and the first thing I saw when I woke up.
         I never moved on.
         I never moved on because she can’t be replaced.
         So one day, I sat down at my desk, took out a piece of paper and began writing. I wrote poems, things on my mind, my feelings, how much I love her, everything that came to mind. I’d seal whatever I had for the day in an envelope and mail it to her. In every one of the letters that I sent her, I always ended it off saying that nothing can stop me from writing her poems, stories and everything that I felt because doing so would be as if I stopped saying that I loved her. The last thing I would write to her is that if she still loves me and wants to be with me, I’ll be waiting for her. Waiting for her at the beach at midnight everyday for an hour. It’s where we first met and where I want for us to spend the rest of our nights together.
***
It’s three in the morning but I don’t care to sleep or go home. It was raining earlier, but that didn’t stop me from being here for longer than I should have. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve gone down to this beach with the rectangular box in my hand, lying down on the sand, imagining that that day would be the day. I’d pretend that she was next to me, and for a moment, I’d be able to fool myself into thinking that she was really there.
I’m sitting in the sand, dreaming of what the stars and moon would say if they could talk. I open the box and stare at the necklace inside as the moonlight illuminates its lustre. I fidget with the pen in my hand while I play with a blank piece of lined paper with my other hand. Words used to come easily to me, but now…Now I feel as though a part of me has died. A part of me has gone away and can never come back until I have her again in my arms. Have her to hold, to kiss, to cherish, to say that I love her.
My head drops and I feel hot tears streaming down my face. I scold myself for letting my emotions take over like this, but I can’t help it. No matter how hard I try to hold it in, how hard I try to clear my mind of everything that’s happened, I can’t. I can’t because I can’t stop loving her. I’ll always love her. No matter what.
I quickly wipe the tears from my face and as I’m about to stand up and leave, I hear a voice whisper my name. I pause and feel as though I’m in a daze, in a dream. And even if it is, I don’t care. A feeling from my stomach rises into my heart and into my throat. I lose control of my body and let my emotions take control as I stand underneath the moonlight with an unfading smile plastered on my face.