The 18th Floor

Chapter Thirty Six

Somehow, we've both made it over to the sofa, close to each other, and when his tears quieten, I begin.

"I don't remember anything from the day except the car flipping over in the air and then I heard a crack. I woke up two months later."

He doesn't say anything, but I know he's listening as I lay on his lap.

"Nobody was in the room. I was hooked up to several machines and there was this pounding in my head. I tried to scream, say something, but I was intubated. They didn't know if I would wake up. I had fractured my ribs and broke my arm and foot, with deep cuts and bruises that had left a scar by the time I was awake. I don't remember anything other than pain in those first days. Nurses and doctors rushing in, but the look on my dad's face is one I don't forget. The look of a man who thought he lost his only daughter, but then the look that came after I heard the news was the look of a grieving man. He knew what it would mean to me. He knew before me of course, the outcome, but to watch me hear it broke him. I know it did, he doesn't talk about it but it did."

He's stroking my hair, as I let my tears fall.

"I was never outgoing and I didn't have the best school experience. My mum was absent and despite his best efforts, sometimes dad wasn't enough. I had just started uni, something fresh. And then my whole life flipped upside down. I don't recall much after waking up, so depressed and wallowed in my own grief, I wouldn't move. I wouldn't leave the hospital bed and when I got discharged, I wouldn't leave the bed in my own house. I was 18 when I crashed, barely started life. I don't even remember my 19th birthday. Dad said he had brought me a cake, a card and some flowers, but I don't remember any of it. Dad was so worried they re-admitted me to the psych ward. They gave me pills and all the pain went. So, I kept taking them, and taking more and more and more. Until one day it caught up on me. I went into cardiac arrest. My dad had to nearly watch me die again."

"Cyrene...", he whispers.

"When I woke up, dad was angry. He had been patient with me throughout everything, but he snapped that night. He called me selfish, that I only cared about myself, never thought about him, how he had been talking to me for the past year and I hadn't said a word. I was slowly killing myself, but it was also killing dad. And I didn't realise it till that moment that I had shut everyone else out my head, but I had also shut myself out. All I could think about was ending it, that's what all the voices told me and that it was all my fault. We spent that night crying together, and I finally accepted the help. It wasn't easy, but I had to start somewhere."

"If anyone is undeserving Lucien, it's me. I tried to throw away my life, for years on end. There are still some days that I can't accept what happened, or more so, can't accept what I have potentially missed out on. But I can't think like that. If I carried on like that, I wouldn't be here right now. Everyone has their scars and factures Lucien, mine are more obvious than others, but it doesn't mean yours are any less important."

He kisses my tears away, like the day he carried me out of a burning building, and then our lips meet again. Hot and salty and full of sorrow for what has been and what could have been.

"I wouldn't change you for the world Cyrene", he whispers into my hair. "If I could take away your pain, I would, but I would never change you."

I ask the question I've been too afraid to ask.

"Wheelchair and all?", I sob out.

He cups my face with the most serious stricken expression I've ever seen from him.

"Never, and I mean never, think less of yourself because of that chair Cyrene. You are more than that. Yes, it is a part of you but it is not all of you Cyrene. You are so much more. You have the ability to light a room, you capture everyone's attention from just one look, you're captivating and consuming. Hell, even when I'm with you can't get enough of you, and when I'm not with you? Every second feels far too long. You don't understand how special you are. So, never, ever, ask me that question again Cyrene, do you understand?"

I nod, out of breath at his admission that my heart is unable to deal with right now.

"All of it Cyrene. I want all of it. You consume my every thought. I can't breathe if you're not around me Cyrene. Do you understand? It pains me to think of you, the thought of your absence is enough to send a man mad. And I'm already mad Cyrene, I don't think any man can be sane in your presence."

I've run out of words and breath at this mans admission.

"Wheelchair and scars and tears and all, Cyrene. I want you."

"Scars and all Lucien."

We talk a lot more. Writing our hearts out on our sleeves. No judgement, no verdict. Just a space where two wounded souls are trying come back together again piece by piece.

We share our struggles about mental health and the voices that tell us were better off gone, how when all hope is lost, it can be found in the strangest of places. About the smallest of triggers that have set us off and how the smallest of triggers have stopped us from doing the unimaginable.

"I like you, Cyrene", he says after everything.

"I like you too, Lucien", I say back and he kisses my forehead.

I feel like we have nothing more to say and have exhausted all emotion from our bodies.

We sit there in silence, him on the sofa, my head on his lap, his hands playing with my hair and mine in his free hand. Our heart beats fall into the same rhythm and I can't help but feel a bond weave between our souls in that moment.