Deeper Healing

02| Are You Really Okay?

Nikolai Coleman

I exhaled a slow controlled breath and attempted to loosen my body movements as I paced back and forth by the window, my weary eyes moving with the alertness that comes from heavy stress and uncertainty.

I could feel the fear in my chest waiting to take over. It sat there like an angry fiery ball, propelling me towards a frenzy of anxiety that I didn't need at this moment.

My palms were oddly sweating profusely and the wrong kind of butterflies swirled at the pit of my stomach.

I nearly got someone killed.

The thought alone made me swallow hard. It didn't matter who was in the wrong. Heck, I didn't even clearly remember how the accident had occurred because it all happened so fast. What mattered at this moment was that I had escaped almost unscathed, but she hadn't. She was hurt.

Her life wasn't in any danger and she had just suffered minor injuries according to the doctor in charge of her at the nearest hospital I could get to, but she hadn't shown any sign of life since the accident occurred six hours ago and that was messing up with my head.

If I had slammed onto the brakes a millisecond later then we'd be having a different and much more terrifying conversation right now. She could have died on the spot.

Despite the unexpected rain that had started pouring minutes after the horrific accident pelting heavily on the roofs of the small hospital and thunder roaring after terrifying flashes of lightning, I felt like I could hear my heart beat wildly in my chest.

I loosened my necktie and unbuttoned two top buttons from my black shirt for better breathing because I felt suffocated. This was the first time I had been in such a situation ever since I started driving and I just had to be all alone, miles away from home, caught up in terrible a thunderstorm.

Pacing about in the hallway wasn't helping me in any way, but it rather fuelled my anxiety so I ended up deciding on getting into the room. I softly twisted the door knob and gently pushed the door open before stepping in and closing the door behind me.

I strode to the bedside and slouched into a cushioned chair, sighing softly as I sat back with my shoulders sagged. My eyes shifted to the woman who had my stress levels piqued at this particular moment.

She lay on the hospital bed, her lustrous fiery red hair pooled on the pillow. She was still in the same position the nurses had left her and hadn't moved a muscle. I had never seen anyone look so peaceful and appealing in their sleep before.

She appeared young and youthful, probably around my age. I didn't even know her name or where she was from as there was no form of identification on her and no effective means of finding out due to the weather. Her family was probably worried sick, unaware of the situation she was in.

In just a few more hours, it would be morning. Hopefully, the weather would have cleared and I would be able to track down her family if she wasn't awake by then. That was one of the advantages of being rich, famous and powerful.

My heartbeat seemed to slow down as I assessed her face and absorbed her features. I had always been a man who appreciated beauty in whatever form it came and she was no exception.

Looking at her up close gave me a warm sense of admiration. I had met dozens of beautiful women in my life, but she was different. She was beautiful in an uncommonly sensational way.

Surely, I had never met her before. Her face wasn't one I'd forget, it wasn't one to easily fade from a person's mind. But then again, her eyes were closed, robbing me of a complete view of what she looked like.