Connected

Adam: Live!

Before Leah could fully recover her wits, Adam stepped into the room with an angry red circle around his left eye. Unlike Joyce and Hana, he froze behind the closed door standing still as if impaled on the wooden exterior. His face was pale, and his grey eyes empty as he stared at where her body was lying.

Leah couldn't help herself and she scrutinized Adam's current state. He looked enervated bordering on being lifeless that he  seemed utterly lost. Like he was only going along the current movement of his circumstances. The onslaught of events keeps crushing on him sinking him deeper.

Adam suddenly stirred and he moved. He dragged his feet to where Leah was seating himself in the vacant chair. He hesitated before he took Leah's physical hand into his and gave it a light peck.

"Babe," he greeted with a wan smile raising the back of Leah's palm onto his cheek. The moment their skins touched, he immediately noticed, "Your hands are cold." Lowering them he commented melancholy, "You hate cold hands."

Acting on instinct he grabbed Leah's other hand and clasping them together he wrapped his around them and started blowing air into its small opening. "There, a little better." He beamed when Leah's hands had become warmer.

He then fixed her hands back to its original position and this time he made sure the blankets are covering them. While he did so he said, "You might be wondering why I have a red circle around my left eye well Frank gave me that."

"I don't resent him for it. To be honest, he should have given me more. I deserve to be beaten, hell I should be the one lying on this bed and not you.

But Frank...he stopped. Then he commanded me fiercely, 'Go bring my daughter back!'"

Leah stood up from where she was sitting, her knees wanting to buckle and surrender to the overwhelming weight of longing and regret for the man she first entrusted her heart to.

Seeing Adam alone and unsure of what he is doing reminded her of the old Adam before any of this happened. Making her yearn to once more sit on Adam's lap and bury her face in his all-too-familiar hold. He will then wrap his firm lean arms around her, and he'll start kissing her hair while telling her, "Everything will be alright." Like he used to.

Her thoughts scattered when, "Tell me how am I supposed to make you live?" Adam suddenly burst. His facial expression depicting his obvious ever-increasing desperation to save her.

Adam would do anything just to make Leah live. Frank had given him an impossible task that only God and Leah can do. What can a mere man like him do in this situation? 

He only had the truth, and he is compelled by his conscience to say it. What happened between him and Leah and in their relationship that they hoped would last a lifetime.

Pulling his eyes away from her he stared out of the window in silence. His thoughts lost in its own sea. There were a million things he wanted to say right now but he must only choose the ones most needed in the present. He contemplated in the silence before releasing a weary burdened sigh.

"I am an idiot," Adam acquiescently admitted as he fixed his eyes back on Leah.

"I thought I knew everything there is to know about love. What a big joke I am. I was blind to my idea of it. The truth is you know more than me. You were right to be afraid because who here truly knows how to love?"

Adam said making Leah shiver, her every cell awakening. For she knew that she was about to hear the confession she had long been waiting for from Adam.

Adam's eyes started to get teary. "I wish I could say all the things good lovers would say under these circumstances. But I can't because I can't continue deceiving you. It's unjust. Surely not what you deserve.