LAYLA! & THE UNTOLD STORIES OF LOVE

𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄 𝐍𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑 𝐀𝐒𝐊𝐒 - chapter fourty four

Feb 22, 1994

"How is he?"

"He looks good, Jimmy. The swelling is down a lot and his temperature is almost normal. It looks like he's out of the woods."

"Thank you Alexia," he sighs deeply.

I smile and turn back to James to continue my examination. His eyelids flutter briefly before opening..."Mummy, where's my mummy."

"I'm here James, mummy will be right back," he says moving to the other side of the bed.

"Daddy where's mummy," he cries.

"She'll be right back sweetheart, she didn't know you'd wake up and she went to have a shower. She'll be here soon."

Patient's waking up after a traumatic brain injury usually have no memory of what happened to them and are in a state of shock to find themselves in a hospital. For a young child that is especially true. I can see Jimmy is trying to hold back tears as he runs his hand across James forehead trying to soothe him.

"James you're awake," his mother exclaims rushing to his side.

"I'll come back later," I say nodding to Jimmy.

"Thank you Alexia....thank you for helping him," she says wiping her tears away.

********

"You should go home and get some sleep," he says rubbing my shoulders as I stare at the computer screen.

"I will later."

"I can never thank you enough Alexia."

Standing up, I do what I've wanted to do so badly, give him a long, deep hug. "I just did what I'm trained for," I say running my hand through his hair.

"And you're the best at it. I should get back to James," he says suddenly, "I checked his mum into a hotel nearby so she can get some proper rest and I don't want him to wake up to an empty room."

"I'll be by to check on him before I leave."

As he reaches the door he turns back to me, "I love you."

"I know. I love you too."

I spend the rest of the afternoon working in the lab then check in on my last remaining patient, other than James, in order to sign his release papers. Before leaving for the night I stop by James' room. Standing outside his door I can see he's sleeping and on the bed next to him is his mother asleep in Jimmy's arms. I quickly back out so that he doesn't see me and walk away with my heart racing.

********

Driving to Tower House as the late winter sun sets, a dull headache accompanies me. Thankfully Julia's still there when I get home. I don't want to be alone right now. Isn't that strange? The loner doesn't want to be alone.

"Alexia! It's wonderful news about James. Thank goodness he's going to be okay. And thanks to you," she says cheerfully as I walk in the door.

"Well James' had a lot to do with it too. He's a little fighter," I say trying to hold back my emotions. The events of the last 30 hours flood my mind and I can't stop myself from crying. Julia wraps me in her arms to comfort me but I feel embarrassed at my display and quickly try to pull myself together.

"I'm so sorry. I guess this has affected me more than I thought."

"Ah love, it's okay, no need for apologies," she says looking at me with concern. She hesitates for a moment then continues, "It's not just James, is it?"

I hadn't allowed myself to think about it and I felt guilty just having these feelings of unease but I couldn't deny them. "I don't have any right to feel this but, doubt has come into my mind since I found out...," I say letting the words hang in the air.

"Found out that she was ill?"

"Yes. I didn't know if you knew."

"Jimmy told me today at the hospital."

"Everything that's happened, just...I don't know. Like I said it's completely selfish of me to feel these things especially at this time."

"We can't help how we feel, Alexia."

She makes us some tea and we sit at the table talking for a long time. I appreciate her greatly because she doesn't offer trite advice but she does offer some of the sage kind. We don't know the future, any of us, but we should open our hearts to love no matter how it turns out in the end she tells me. Sometime though I wonder about feelings. Are they worth it?

"Oh that's Eric, he's come to pick me up," she says hearing a car pull into the garage. "Are you okay, love?"

"I'm much better now," I smile, "Goodnight Julia and thank you," I say closing the door behind her.

Now alone, I wander through the rooms of this miniature castle. In the dining room I find the remains of my gardenia bouquet littered on the table. A few of the petals are still, strangely, dewy fresh so I pick them up and continue my journey. In the library I haphazardly pull books from the shelf, flip threw a few pages and put them back until I come across The Book of Pleasure by Austin Osman Spare. Turning it's pages I find the passage that had grabbed me so completely a few weeks ago (or was it a lifetime).

"Passions may be controlled but we best love by non-will as inclination dictates: so accept love wherever you may find it. It is difficult to recognize because it never asks."

I read until after midnight, hoping that Jimmy will come home but eventually give up and go upstairs to my bedroom. I'm very tired but anxious about sleeping alone. I wonder if I'll fall back into my old ways and the flashbacks will return. I'm very frightened of this actually. Have I conquered them for real or do I need him in order to sleep peacefully.

Succumbing to my exhaustion I pull the duvet back and hesitantly get into bed. Grabbing a pillow and laying on it like it was his chest, I feel myself drifting off with each tick of the clock on the nightstand. After some time I wake briefly and think I see a figure sitting at the end of the bed.

"Jimmy? Is that you," I ask before sleep overcomes me again.

********

Before sunrise I wake again, happy to have slept through the night more or less. Jimmy's not here so I must have been dreaming when I thought I saw him last night. I take the back stairs down to the kitchen but stop on the landing when I hear his voice.

"I don't know what I'm going to do, Robert. I've met my soulmate...but maybe at the wrong time."