Forbidden Love

The Meeting

His fingers are skeletal as if they're nothing more than skin stretched over knobby bones. They move carefully over my palm, cradling my hand as if it could break at any moment.

His hands are cold. Freezing. Biting into my skin everywhere that they touch.

His thumb traces patterns on the back of my hand, slowly, circling around and around and around.

I force my eyes away from the hypnotizing movement of his fingers. Instead, I focus on the beeping of the monitors surrounding me. The various tubes, chords, and wires attached to me. Catheter lines in my arms and chest.

The second I see all the machines I start to panic.

Why am I in a hospital? How long have I been here? Where is my family?

I realize, after a few moments, I don't know who it is that's holding my hand. My hand trembles, ever so slightly, and his fingers tighten around mine. I freeze, waiting for a beat before slowly rotating my head.

I see him. He's sitting beside me, curled up in a chair. His eyes are closed, head tipped back, mouth open. He's awake, fingers still drawing patterns on my skin, but he's resting.

I don't recognize him, necessarily, but there's something familiar about the shape of his face. And besides, I'm too dizzy to really be sure about anything. For all I know, he could be my brother.

I open my mouth to greet him, words prepared to tumble from my lips when his eyes open.

Blue.

Blue

Blu

Bl

B

Suddenly I'm screaming and the wind is loud, piercing, drowning out my cry and it's so cold. So cold. I'm leaning against the wind and my eyes are watering. I'm crying. My mouth is dry and my cheeks are wet and the sky is grey and the wind won't stop blowing and no one can hear me and I can't breathe and I can't see and I can hear nothing but the howling of the wind all around me.

A sharp intake of breath.

Recognition.

Surprise.

"Catalina."

Silence.

Confusion.

"Catalina?"

Fear.

Panic.

"Doctor? Can we get a doctor in here?"

Waves of memory crash along the shores of my brain and I'm drowning in the water. The ocean of remembrance swallowing me whole. They come fast, the waves; battering me with every clear instance of my past. My lungs ache with lack of oxygen and I grow dizzy, weak, faint.

Blackness.

Nothing but the beep, beep, beep of my pulse on the machine. The click, click, click of heels against the tile floor. The fading sound of voices approaching.

Eventually, those noises disappear too. And then, well, then I'm truly left with nothing.

The dull throbbing of a headache plagues my thoughts. A drumbeat against my temples, the crown of my head, my third eye. My entire brain pulsing with discomfort. I wince a few times, at the particularly brutal punches that the migraine throws at me. Georgia notices and puts an arm over my shoulder, allowing me to relax into the comfort of her embrace.