Dragging the chair closer to me, she takes a seat, resting her hand on top of mine. “You scared us, you know,” her voice softens. “Charlie, I know you don’t want to hear this, but you have a baby to take care of. It’s not just about you now.”
Staring at the ceiling, my heart is hollow. There’s a truth to Nikki’s words, but speaking them and being in this situation, are two different things. Although I can trust her with my hopes and fears, the cold, harsh reality is that I don’t trust myself right now. Desperate to be alone, I nod my head softly before turning to face her. “I know,” I murmur. “I just need rest.”
Nikki stands then leans forward to kiss me on my forehead. “We’re your family, Charlie. Always here for you, no matter what.” Promising to be back later tonight, she leaves the room, and I welcome the isolation.
Many thoughts climb into my head, all vying for top place. The more they circulate, the more my emotions tangle themselves in an intricate web. Various forms of pain, humiliation, and remorse threaten to drive my mind into a dark place of no return. Taking deep breaths, I force myself to be rational, counting my lucky stars I’m still breathing, but in the end, darkness perseveres.
Exhausted, I close my eyes willing all the noise to stop.
Inside a restless sleep, other sounds filter around me. The hospital ward is busy, the voices carrying up and down the corridor, the faint sound of the radio in the nurses’ station playing. I focus on the sound—I know what it is, and I close my eyes trying my hardest not to focus on the lyrics of this one particular song. I want to scream at them to turn it off. I don’t want any reminders that he exists, no sad love song to reiterate how pathetic my life has become.
Silence—all I need is complete and utter silence.
I repeatedly press on the red button, begging them to turn it off. After my outburst, the nurses give me a mild sedative to help me relax. It isn’t long before I fall asleep, my body and mind finally resting.
Sometime during the night, I feel him. His warmth washes over me. I have to be dreaming. His fingers entwine with mine, that jolt of electricity awakening me, but I remain still, closing my eyes.
He speaks like the voice of an angel, but I’m not prepared for what he says. I am not prepared for him to know about this baby. And as I attempt to lay perfectly still, I begin the internal battle of what to do, what to say. I can’t do this again. Nothing has changed. It’s the same cycle of emotions consuming me and chaining me down.
There’s no strength or will left in me, no fight. I’m defeated, beaten down, a shadow of my former self.
This journey is no longer one I want to take.
I love him more than I even love myself.
But I need to protect him, even if it means he will never know how much I truly love him, and how I’m willing to sacrifice everything so he doesn’t experience the greatest loss possible to mankind. And the only way to protect him will be to destroy him at the same time.
He deserves better than me.
If I hurt him, then he’ll never return.
Hurt him, Charlie.
Hurt him so bad that he’ll no longer love you.
Hurt him so he will no longer come after you.
Hurt him so bad that he will wish you don’t exist.
The voice inside is telling me what I need to do.
“I didn’t tell you, Lex, because… because it’s not yours.” As the words leave my mouth, I bite my lip until it bleeds to stop myself from screaming his name, to stop myself from reaching out and begging him to hold me and make all this pain go away.
But it’s the loss of his touch, the footsteps that disappear into the night that forces me to realize what I’ve just done.
Once again, I’m all alone.
The tears roll down my face, and it’s déjà-fucking-vu again, lying in a cold hospital bed for the second time in my life, crying out for someone to save me.
LEX
I drop her hand.
With my head bowed, the words she whispers shatter every part of my existence. Is this another chapter in the nightmare replaying in my head? No, this is real, and I’m fucking living it.
Barely able to stand, I walk out of the room with no sense of direction. I don’t know where I’m going. I have no idea how to get out of this hospital, how to get out of this nightmare, and how to pretend she never existed.
I have nothing.