Learning to Trust

Chapter 31 - Never Letting Go

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Chapter 31 - Never Letting Go

Tobias

"Can I go in and see her?" I ask, looking away from the glass. They told me that we can see her through the glass, but she can't see us, even if she was looking up. She can't hear us either.

I don't know what's worse... Looking at her through one-way glass like an imprisoned animal, but knowing that she can't see us; or not looking at her through the glass but her being able to see and hear us.

Dr. Scott and Julie exchange glances, both of them clearly unsure of what to do.

I just have to see her... To hold her in my arms and tell her everything is alright.

"He could calm her down a little bit, I'm sure." Julie says turning to Dr. Scott.

"Yeah, but I just don't want her heart rate to spike from either excitement or paranoia of a new person. She seems to be like a whole new person now that she's woken up, and who knows how she'll react to anything. It could be better than before, or it could be ten times worse." Dr. Scott says to Julie. The two talk as if I am not even present in the room at the moment.

I turn towards the glass and look at Tris again. She shifts, and I almost feel her pain sinking through my heart as she winces.

This should've never of happened to her.

She doesn't deserve this.

"We'll let you in to see her. Just, don't make any sudden movements or talk loudly." Dr. Scott begins. "She's has an extremely high, no, dangerously high blood pressure since she's woken up, which is understandable, but we just don't want her blood pressure to go even the slightest bit higher. Our hope is that maybe seeing and hearing a familiar face and voice will help calm her. I think she doesn't really remember being awake before she got here and still thinks she's back in that building for some reason. I've seen it happen in people that have woken up from comas before, so I wouldn't be surprised if that's all that this is. She'll probably regain memory of being brought back here anywhere from the next few hours to the next few weeks, possibly even months."

I nod, nerves jumping around in my stomach.

"The door is right there." I turn to see the silver door to my right. Turning the knob, it creaks slightly as I push open the door as quietly as I can, hoping to not make too much noise.

She hears me, I know it. Her small body tenses as I take my first step into the room. I close the door carefully behind me and take a few steps out of the way from it.

The room is super small, but it still seems like she's miles away from me. There's IV tubes, wires and other electrodes all over the floors, still attached to their computers. She obviously took them off once she woke up, probably from terror of what they were.

She breathes, no, wheezes heavily with each breath she takes. I notice that there's also an oxygen mask on the ground, which then answers my thought of why she wasn't wearing one. She probably refused to wear that too.

I almost don't want to know what he did to her in that place.

What the hell did he do to her to make her act this way now?

How could someone turn someone else this paranoid over the simplest things?

"Tris." I say her name softly.

I can tell she tries not to react or to move in any way, but I do notice her hands grip the black fabric a little tighter.

"Tris." I say her name softly again. "It's alright. You're okay."

I take a few steps closer to the bed where she lies. She wheezes loudly without ever looking in my direction.

It's like she can sense that I moved closer to her.

"It's me, Tobias. I'm not going to hurt you, I promise. Like I said, you're safe here, Tris. You're never going to go back to that place ever again, I promise."

She opens her mouth like she's about to say something, but all that comes from her lips is a loud wheeze. She still never looks in my direction. I move a little bit closer to her and see that her eyes are clenched shut and her hands are shaking a tiny bit.

"Tris. It's okay. You're okay." I barely recognize my voice from how soft my tone is.

They have her leg wrapped up a lot. She's already so scrawny and tiny that a regular sized cast would look huge on her, but the one that is on her is twice as big as an average one.

I assume she is on little to no painkillers at the moment, judging by the absence of IVs on her. The only one there is is the one that goes under her cast on her left leg. It must be going into a vein in her foot.

She's very pale. The last time I saw her awake, she had a little bit of a pink color to her cheeks, but right now, it looks like she has no blood flow in her body.

I take a risky move and walk over toward her face and kneel down to the side of the bed so that if she were to open her eyes, we would be at the same level. Gently, I rub my thumb over her cheek and tuck a blonde hair behind her ear that escaped her messy ponytail that has now grown down her back.

Her eyes open, just a sliver, and her blue-grey eyes shine through at my darker blue orbs. Her eyes themselves are a dark pink, as if she's been crying for days on end. It's probably from her clenching them so tightly.

I rub my thumb over her cheek again and smile slightly. She opens her eyes a sliver wider, and I see even more of her eyes.

She begins to murmur something. Her mouth falls open as she clearly struggles to form words with her mouth. A series of stretched out exhales of concentrated breaths leave her mouth.

I smile a little but more and nod to whatever she is trying to say. "It's me. Don't worry, you're okay. You're safe here. These people are all going to help you and get you better, and I'm never going to leave you like that again, I promise." I feel a tear slip down my cheek as I stroke her face with my thumb again.

She takes one hand from the black fabric and shakily moves it to my shoulder. Then she weakly tries to move me towards her.

She moves her other arms and clings to me, burying her face in my neck, sobbing and wheezing. She holds onto me like if she were to let go, I would be gone forever.

The tears move freely down my face as I gently move my arms around her frail body, wrapping her in an embrace.

The doctors and nurses said she wouldn't live; that she'd never wake up from that coma. They also said the same thing when she first was brought here. That she wasn't going to live through surgery, or survive her first night back home.

I also thought that myself when I carried her from that building. I never thought she would actually survive that long ride back to Chicago in the state that she was in.

But here she is, in my arms.

And I'm never letting her go.
    

  
I'm just going to leave this here....

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