Love Heals a Naughty Girl

Chapter Seven

Marissa lay in agony, having been thrown ten feet by the explosion that destroyed her hospital. The Northerners forces overran her compound. With severe abdominal wounds, she would have been raped by the undisciplined young soldiers had it had not been for the same Northern Sudanese officer, whose life she had helped to save. But lucky for her that he was in command when soldiers dug her out of the debris. Recognizing her, he gave orders for his medic to bandage her wounds and evacuate her to his command post.

There he protected her and made sure she got the best care available in the war zone. Because he had to keep her nearby to make sure his superiors would not kill her, it took longer for her to recover from her wounds. It was not enough. Peritonitis set in causing her abdomen to swell.

Marissa learned to pray for the first time in her life. She made no promises to God but asked forgiveness for things she had done wrong and even wrongs she was unaware of. Time after time she almost died, but with time she healed. She never made a show of religion but in a quiet way, learned to meditate on what faith meant and uttered a prayer of thanks.

The officer had too much respect for Marissa to make sexual demands on her. It took almost a year for her to recover from her wounds due to the primitive conditions in the battle areas. She constantly fought malaria. When she was better, she volunteered to tend to her benefactor's wounded soldiers until he could arrange forged identification papers and a fake passport for her.

Then he risked his own life for her. He got a fellow officer to cover for him. He claimed to be in poor health and took sick leave during another offensive against the South just to escort Marissa across Sudan's Northern border into more-friendly Egypt. From there she was able to reach Switzerland and then spent time in the US Army Hospital at Wiesbaden, Germany. There they ran more tests and purged her of lingering intestinal parasites. During her convalescence, they confirmed her identity and provided her a passport. They made arrangements with Johns Hopkins to pay her flight back to the United States.

Marissa then checked in at Johns Hopkins but then went looking for Byron. She wanted to surprise him herself.

Over the past year and a half Marissa was listed as missing and presumed dead following the Northern Forces Offensive in the Southern Sudan. Every time Byron inquired at Johns Hopkins, nobody knew anything.

People who knew Byron at the university could tell the story of her missing or presumed death better than he could. They wondered if he would ever be the same as he had once been.

After a year and a half since Byron had screamed for Marissa through his cell phone, he was walking toward Panera Bread, where they often met. It was out of habit. People well knew what Marissa had been to him. People around him tried to keep his hopes up for a long while but had given up encouraging him. But he always held out hope that she was alive.

One day just like some many hundreds before, Byron was about to enter Panera Bread when he turned his head to one side. He had thought he heard something, someone familiar walking behind him. Marissa stopped. He turned back toward Panera Bread again, and she continued walking behind him. Byron stopped again.

Then Marissa realized that Byron knew her so well that he even remembered how she sounded as she walked. Then as she picked up her familiar pace, there was no mistake. Byron said aloud, "Oh, my God!"

With deliberation, Byron turned around. To Marissa, he looked so elated by what he heard. But he stopped. Byron's body language said something else: what if Marissa were not behind him?

Marissa could not contain herself. She called aloud. "Byron!" He finished turning around. Even with more streaks of gray, he was still an uncommonly handsome man. He just stood with his mouth open. He blinked his eyes and looked again. He held up a limp hand as if to say she could not be real after all.

In a modest blue coat over a matching skirt, Marissa stood smiling. Her once-beautiful, long flowing hair was now shoulder-length with swept-over bangs. Byron was speechless. He tried several times to speak. At length he stopped trying. He held out his arms and moved in her direction.

Marissa was about three years older since she had last seen Byron. But she now stood matured by thirty years. She was accomplished, professional, and more than equal to the man she now faced. The man she loved more than life.

She stood before him, now an extraordinary woman--having survived a grueling wartime ordeal, tireless service under fire at a hospital, severe wounds, captivity, near rape, and peritonitis. The Marissa standing with her arms out toward Byron had been tempered by the worst that life could throw at her, and she had more than prevailed. She had developed that deep faith Byron had spoken of. She understood all too well what he had meant now. Now she was no longer just a young woman with a teen crush on an older guy.

Just as Byron had predicted, Marissa had changed so much. But to her surprise, she now understood this very man, whose faith had awakened within her the possibility to become all that she now is. She at last realized that he had wanted her all along.

Marissa now wanted Byron more than ever.

Whatever she once thought she was, Byron's love had reached down to the real person she was all along. Byron's love had indeed healed Marissa.

He was all hers.

Marissa said nothing more but met him with open arms. They threw their arms around each other, and they must have held their kiss for fifteen minutes.

They drew back as Byron managed to speak through tears. "Oh, Marissa, thank God you're alive! For the last eighteen months I have moved as a dead man with nothing to live for."

They kissed again. At the same time they both said as if on cue, "I love you!" They then held onto each other just to make sure they were both real. Then they shared another long kiss. There were all those lost months to make up for. They had a lot to make up for. All of those years on the chat line when they were once little more than words to each other on a TV screen.

Marissa then held Byron close and whispered into his ear. "Oh, Byron, I love you so much. I was hoping to catch you at Panera Bread."

Marissa then drew back without releasing her hug. "Right now, Byron, I am taking you home to pack your bags. Then we are going to Elkton, where we can be married tonight. No waiting. Johns Hopkins has already contacted your faculty office to say that you will not be back to work until your wife brings you back. They got someone to cover your classes already. I'll catch up on what happened to me on the way to Elkton. We already have a hotel room waiting in romantic Chesapeake City."

Marissa kissed Byron again with extraordinary passion, and then she said, "After we get to the hotel, we're not leaving our room for three days. But the married love we will share will be so sweet, so refreshing that you'll not even want to come up for air the whole time."