A New Beginning

Chapter 11

Shiloh -

Sitting here for the past hour in front of Orion has left me in complete shock. Dr. Yuri showed concerns about leaving me alone with him but eventually he relented realizing my determination to not leave his side anytime soon. I have not touched him.  He looks so frail and so unlike himself.  I'm terrified that I will do more damage as I try to reconcile the image of the broken man in front of me with the one I have had of the man all of my life.

My beautiful and  broken man is barely hanging on by a thread. I am so frightful of what could happen if I lost him.  I have no idea how he will come back from this.  I find that for now, just watching over him is enough for me but I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. I'm waiting for the epic meltdown I know is brewing within me.

I'm not sure how to proceed so here I sit, vigilant over my soul mate. For now, it's enough to have him within my sights. For now, it's enough that he's still alive. For now, I've put aside the emotional mess that my life has been over the past month and just sit and patiently wait.

Each day this has become my ritual. It is what has kept me sane throughout his recovery.  For the past three months I have watched the bruises fade in an array of different shades and his cuts and gashes heal. During this time, his broken bones have just about mended.  So now we wait for my sleeping beauty to wake up.

The care that the staff of this unit provides for him is excellent and their bedside manner and treatment of me provides a safe environment as well. My Gran comes and goes once he was taken off the ventilator but with all of this, I still have not laid a single finger on him.  I'm just so scared I will make him worse somehow.

The worst of the injuries was the damage he sustained to his head and although he has been kept bald in order to continually monitor his brain activity, once his hair grows back, it should cover about eighty percent of the ghastly scar he will carry there for the rest of his life.

He is still in a catatonic state which compels me to just talk absolute nonsense to him. There is no real clue what he will be like if he ever does come into consciousness. I don't understand why I'm so afraid to touch him but I am. So I sit, attentive until he decides when he's ready to join us.

Our friends have come and gone not knowing how to cope with this reality. I continue to sit and wait and wait. There is nothing else I have the will to do.  I just need him to wake up.  I feel partially responsible for his condition even though my Gran tries to convince me again and again that the thought is just preposterous.

I have forgiven him his transgression. I have accepted that he was never perfect and that I put him on a pedestal he should never have been on in the first place . I have looked inside my soul and resigned myself to the knowledge that I can't exist without Orion in my life. I faced the reality that even if this accident had not happened, I would have eventually returned to him. This is why I sit and wait day by day.

These have been the longest three months of my life but I have kept sane by simply following my routine. I wake up; I eat for surely if I don't, Gran will not allow me to see him. From the moment visiting hours begin and until they end, twelve hours later; I am here, with him by his side just waiting for him to come back to me.

Some of the nurses have adopted me since they seem to feel responsible for feeding me during my visits. Somehow, this schedule has stopped me from completely coming undone. In the beginning, I prayed for so many things but now, all I pray for is for him to open his eyes. I need to see those crystal blue eyes of his that from the first moment I looked into, gazed into my very soul.

Being without his touch all this time has had my fingers itching to just graze any patch of his skin so my fingertips can remember what he feels like. I'm sitting by his left side so I could just hold his left hand that was not damaged in the accident.

I guess that deep down I'm afraid. I'm afraid that if I touch him, all the memories of us will come flooding back and finally break through the dam holding my tumultuous emotions at bay. Suddenly I find that I just don't care. I need to touch him like I need air to breathe. I need to be close to him just to remind myself that he is still here with me.

I bring my chair closer and rest my forearm on his bed. I take my fingers and walk them closer to his hand. I stop and take a deep breath. I can do this. I put my hand on top of his and just let it lay there taking in the texture of his skin that I thought I forgot. Touching him feels like a soothing balm to my soul.

I feel calmness surround me and I try to wrap my fingers with his. Then I hear one of the machines start beeping a bit erratically. I look over at the machine but its back to normal. I look back over to Orion and he is still the same. Sleeping beauty!

I continue to hold onto his hand and let the memory of the first time we did this take over me.