I'm Finally Wanted

Chapter 25

Let me tell you, the rehab for a spinal cord injury is crap. You'd never be able to guess how hard it is to learn to walk again, it's weird.

Tyler, my therapist husband, is now in therapy himself. I am too, and so is Christian. You would never be able to believe how much guilt that little 8yr. old boy had bottled up inside his tiny little mind.

River and Wyatt seem to be very attached to me, not that it's bad in any way. If anything it makes my heart hurt. I've hear River tell me he was scared he'd loose his mom, and he still has that fear. Same with Wyatt.

And I missed Keely's first words. Which was quite a monumental moment because she was 3yrs. old when she first started talking. And now she's talking in almost full sentences.

Tyler and I are in the process of adopting. It's been 6 months since we lost our baby, 4 months since I've been out of my coma. Tyler and I have this hole in our hearts from that loss, and by adopting another kid it will in no means replace our baby. But Tyler promised me I'd be there for all 5 of our kids weddings, and we're one kid short.

Tyler and I are going to be telling the kids they'll be getting another sibling soon, we're just waiting for some papers to be signed and sent back to us, because right now it could fall through, and we don't want the kids upset about that.

...

"Oh Raerae, you're no fun! Come on! Fight me back! You can't just die like this!!" Steve yells at me, getting mad I'm not fighting him back. But I'm not getting enough oxygen. I'm literally going to die right now. This is it. Is this what dying feels like? It's a lot worse than I thought it would be. My head feels like it's going to explode.

Instead of going to the little light in the sky, I feel a stabbing pain in my thigh. I look down, and see Steve has stabbed a knife into my thigh. It hurts, really really bad, but I will not give Steve the satisfaction of knowing he's hurt me badly.

Steve grabs my hair, and lifts my whole body off the ground by only my hair. "Ok, guess that didn't hurt because you're paralyzed. Let's try your back, I'm sure you'll feel that."

Steve throws me down, right onto my stomach. I want to scream out for him to stop, that could've been a fatal blow to my baby. Steve isn't only killing me, but he'll be killing my baby too.

Steve rips my shirt off, and laughs when he sees my scars on my back.

"Looks like someone had fun with you Rae. Inbreed. How funny. Let's see, what should I add? Oh I know!" Steve starts carving something onto my back, and flashes of my "mom" and "dad" abusing me flash through my mind.

"There... Thief, Mistake, and Imbecile."

Steve turns me around, and takes his dagger. He goes to plunge it right into my stomach. I cannot let him kill my child. I don't roll away quick enough, the dagger has sunk into my stomach. My baby....

"Raven! Raven wake up love."

My eyes shoot open, and my hand goes to my stomach. I lost the baby. I- I let them die.

Tyler grabs my chin and forces me to look at him. "Hey, it was just a bad dream. Ok? It's ok." He whispers.

I shake my head. "I... I didn't move Tyler! I let him kill our baby!" I cry.

"No, you didn't love. You moved. Steve got your arm, remember. Not our baby. You didn't let him kill our baby, you fought so hard to protect the baby." Tyler says brushing a stray piece of my hair out of my face and behind my ear.

"But- but it felt so real." I whisper.

Tyler pulls me into his chest, and just holds me. "I know Rae. I have nightmares too, not the same as yours, but I know how real they feel. You know how I'm like after a nightmare. It wasn't real love. Just a bad dream."

"Yeah... just a bad dream."

Tyler runs his fingers through my hair, as his other hand rubs my back. We stay like that for several minutes. Until I've calmed down. But that doesn't mean I'll be going to sleep again tonight. I can't risk another nightmare.

"Ok, let's go paint together my love." Tyler says knowing I'd go paint as soon as he's back to sleep. Tyler usually will come down and sit with me while I paint, when he wakes up and realizes I'm not sleeping next to him. But sometimes he'll come and paint with me. And I do the same with him. We both have gotten into art therapy.

Actually, all of our kids have, it's a good healthy way to express our emotions and a good way to just calm down. Everyone loves it, and we all understand sometimes we just need to go paint when we're upset instead of starting arguments.

"K. Come on baby cakes."

Tyler and I go down to the art room in our house. Oh, another thing I missed. Moving yet again. Except this time my parents payed for it. Despite Tyler not wanting to except it. They knew we wouldn't want to go back to our old house, and they knew that I wouldn't want to live with them, because not only was it too far from Tyler's work, but also because that's where Steve got me. So they bought us a house close to Tyler's work, and they also moved themselves and now we're neighbors. I love it. Having a good relationship with my parents is something I've missed most of my lie. But now that I have it, I cannot let it go. I need them. I need my parents. Which is something I never thought I'd ever say.

I've missed quite a lot in the 10 months of being in the hospital. Basically six months of being in a coma. Three months of observation, plus my back surgery somewhere in that time. Then a month of in hospital rehab and psychical therapy, learning to walk again. And then I could go home. But I have to go for monthly checkups at our local hospital to make sure everything's fine. Fun times.

Oh, and let's not mention the once weekly therapy sessions. And then taking Chris to his therapy sessions every other week. And sometimes going to therapy with Tyler. It's funny, I have the same therapist as I did years ago when I first got therapy. So much has changed since then. Us Shorts really love our therapy and good mental health.

*****
Ok, so a time skip. I was just ready to move on from all that drama with Stevey boy.

Love you tic tacs😘