The Man I Call Strong

Chapter 23: Painful Bliss

My body and mind are in darkness but I hear voices from outside my dormant shell. "I don't care that she lied to me, Lia... It's just... Why didn't she trust me? I thought... I thought she'd trust me enough to..." I hear him sigh.

"Ian, when someone's been hurt as much as Aurora has, they feel responsible. They feel as if they've done something wrong. That they're not good enough, and sometimes that thought process stops them from reaching out, it blocks their sensible thinking process."

I want to jump up from the bed and hold Sebastian and show him how much I love him. But all I can do is sit in my painful bliss and listen to Lia and Sebastian talking. "What if she doesn't wake up, Lia? I don't know what I'd do. I really love her."

"I know, Ian. I know."

Then sleep takes over again and I'm alone in a dark void.

I wake a while later and, again, I hear Sebastian's voice. "You need to eat something, Ian. You'll starve, then you won't have the strength to stay with Aurora over night. I even payed the nurse a pretty penny to let you stay with her over night." Selena's reasoning seemed to get Sebastian's attention as I hear him eating from what sounds like a paper take-out bag. "Thank you, Selena."

I hear a door open and then close. Then I feel a soft, warm hand wrap around my own hand. "Aurora," I hear his soft whispering voice, as if he didn't want to disturb me. "...please wake up. I need to see your eyes. I need to hear your voice. I need you. Please wake up."

Sebastian! Hold me! Kiss me! Stay with me! Help me! I want to wake up. I really do. But my body won't have it. It's bruises and cuts are far to painful to wake up. "I won't leave you, Aurora. Not once. Not until you wake up. I promise." I feel his lips kiss my hands and my heart goes into a flutter. I beautiful delicious flutter.

I must have shifted in my sleep by the way Sebastian continued on. "At least you can move. Two weeks ago, you wouldn't even shift." Two weeks? I've been here two weeks? He's been here two weeks? My mind is overtaken by the new news and I'm dragged under again.

I hear silence as I wake up. I actually open my eyes and look around. I see Sebastian sitting on a chair besides me. The door to the white, sterile room is right in front of me. There's curtains on either side of me as if covering smaller areas that flank my sleeping area.

I let out a soft moan as I try to shift into a better position, but the pain starts to arise in my body the more I try. I hear rustling and I spin my head around. "Aurora?" I hear Sebastian mutter as his eyes flutter open. "Aurora..." I look up at him as he jumps from his seat and eyes closer to me. He holds my hand in his own. And I suddenly realize how cold he is.

"You're-- ugh-- freezing." I lean my head to one side in exhaustion. "I'll be fine, don't worry. You just go to sleep." I groan as Sebastian strokes my forehead softy. And I slowly drift off to sleep.

I feel someone kiss my jaw, earning them a moan from me. "I love you, Aurora." I know the voice too well.

"I love you too, Sebastian." I lift my hands and do something I've been dying to do since I saw him with his back turned towards me at my interview. I run them through his hand and a push my body closer to him.

I feel his hands grab my hips and pull me even closer to his warm embrace. I feather a kiss on his jaw as he rains multiple kisses on my lips and my cheeks and jaw. I moan softly, reveling in the love and admiration I've lacked most of my life.

Then I wake up again.

I look around, Sebastian is sitting in the same chair again, his index finger glides across his lower lip as the other fingers grasp his chin, propping up his head against the chair he's sitting in. I love it when he does that. It makes me want to pull him into a kiss.

"Sebastian..." I reach out a hand and wait for him to take hold of it. "I'm here." I smile softly and put my free hand against his cheek. "I-I... I love you." I stutter out. He sighs and hangs his head loosely downward. "Aurora... I-I need time to think for a few days." I frown and feel tears leak out of my eyes.

"You're leaving?"

Sebastian sighs. "Only for a little while." My lip quivers violently. "O-o-okay." I say shakily. "Aurora. I want you to know... I was very hurt that you didn't trust me enough to... to tell me. And, I was thinking as I sat here with you; maybe this lack of trust you have is... A sign...That we-that I..." He sighs and looks down at my hand in his.

I know what he's going to say. I don't need him to finish his sentence. "Okay. Go, I'll be fine. You keep thinking." I sigh and take my hand out of his hand and turn my head away from him. Tears fill my eyes and I can't stop the tears that tickled skin as they fall back into my hair and past my ears.

He's leaving, just like my mom did. 'We just can't seem to keep the things we love, can we?'

I sob softly and I hear a door open and then close I spin around and see the room empty. "Don't leave." I sob out, tears raining down my cheeks. "P-p-please."

I fall back to sleep again and this time, blue eyes haunt my heart. They appear so innocent and sweet, then they begin to dissipate into mist. I wake up sobbing and crying. "It's alright, sweetheart. I'm just checking your vitals to see if you've improved any." I stay still and silent until the woman has left, then, on impulse, I get up and start to pull the I.V in my arm out, not caring if my whole body is exploding in pain.

I see a robe sitting on a chair beside me. I take it and wrap myself in it. Gingerly, I open the door to my room and peak around the corner. No one seems to be watching especially hard, so I walk out into the cold hallway and start to follow the signs until I'm at the front entrance. I hide behind a person walking out and finally feel the air against my skin as I walk out of the revolving doors.

I sigh in relief as I look around and see no one in sight. So I start to walk away from the hospital, in nothing but my robe and paper-like gown. Suddenly reality starts to crush me as I think more and more.

My father's probably in jail for child abuse and harassment, my mother's dead, my sisters are missing and have been for years, and the one man that I could lean on has left me. I'm all by myself in this world now. I'm cold, broken, and alone.

No one loves me.

'Why?'

I stumble to the one place that's never failed me. My home.

* * *

I stand in front of the dirty, broken down apartment house that has never left me. I sob as I climb the stairs to the old room that is still as vacant as the day Mr. Strong picked me up from the tormented past I'd lived in. But now he's gone, and I'm left to nothing.

"Aurora?" I hear a voice from the doorway as I look around the old empty room. I turn around and look to the small figure in the doorway. "Aurora LaRue?" Her voice is soft and quiet, like mine. When I look into her eyes, I gasp. Those green eyes. "Mama?" I sob. "No." Her voice has cracked and her green eyes are staring to tear.

"It's me, Rora." I gasp and stand frozen in the stop.

"Coral."