Tough Love (Completed)

Chapter - 19 (The End)

Beth

"Oh my God, you look so beautiful. You are making me cry", Mom says as I stand in front of a mirror in my wedding dress. Never in my wildest dream, did I ever think that my mother would say I looked beautiful, nevertheless on my wedding day. I remember watching the movie Monster-in-law and thinking, that my mother would do the exact same thing, wear a white dress to my wedding. But, looking at her going gaga over me emphasizes my recent realization that life is fickle and unpredictable.

Sitting in the darkness after I was kidnapped, I could do nothing but think. I knew if Dean didn't decipher my message, Sherley's goons will kill me. I would be gone before the many fantasies that Dean impregnated in my mind could come true. I would never know what it feels like to be married or to carry a child or watch them grow. In that darkness, I wished I had come back from London sooner.

I don't really know what happened that day after I was bound to a chair in a dark room. I was asleep one minute and in the next, the loud noise awoke me. Before I could adjust to the blinding lights, I felt a sharp pain worse than when I was tasered on my left shoulder. Then excruciating pain spread throughout my body before darkness took over me again. After that, I felt like I was floating in cold water a rounded by muffled noises. Slowly the sounds got louder and clearer. It was Dean begging me to stay awake and not to leave him. He was crying and his voice filled in anguish made me want to comfort him but I couldn't move a finger. So hold on to his voice to guide me out of the darkness.

Next time I woke up, I was in a hospital bed with Dean holding my hand and asleep from exhaustion. I tried to move my other hand and a bolt of pain hit me. I groaned in pain which altered Dean and he jumped to his feet. Tears fell freely from his eyes seeing me awake. He couldn't control himself and he was a bundle of nerves cupping my face, holding my hands and kissing my lips and doing them again like he couldn't fix on what to do.

Soon Doctor was called in to check on me and he said that I was lucky since the bullet missed my heart by 6 inches. But it nicked an artery causing a heavy loss of blood. But thanks to the quick work of the standby EMT who put enough pressure on the wound and brought me in before I had a stroke due to the loss of blood to the brain. I was immediately sent for surgery to suture the ruptured blood vessel.

I loved to say that once the artery was operated my life was saved and the rest was history. But the road to reach here was not easy. Traumatic events like these scars so many than just the victim. The victims family and friends who have to watch someone they love to suffer, the offender's family who have to suffer the humiliation caused by the action of their loved ones, the law enforcement officers who have the liability to protect, the emergency unit who have the burden to react fast so provide the right first-aid and the doctors who have the accountability to save the life are all the victims of the traumatic incident. Sherley's selfish action changed over lives forever.

While I woke up in cold sweats remembering the darkness and pain, Dean had nightmares of me dying in his arms. We had to go through therapy for weeks to overcome the anxiety caused by the events of the day.

Then there was Dean's guilt which made him have second thoughts about our wedding. He blamed himself for Sherley's action which drove me crazy because she is a 30-year-old woman who knew what she was doing. It made no sense to me that he felt if he had not dated her years ago, any of this wouldn't have happened. There was no way he could have known that years later Sherley would come up with such a sinister plan. And it took me a while to get it through his thick head that we have wasted enough time staying apart and its high time we ignore the past mistakes and start building a new life for ourselves.

My greatest fear after Sherley's arrest was Ziya's reaction. I was worried she will hate me and see me as someone who put her mom behind the bars. But I am forever obligated to Mr and Mrs Smith who explained to the 5-year old how her mother's action had put me in the hospital and how inflicting pain on someone is a bad job that will lead to stronger punishments.