Reality of Darkness

Chapter 7

I remove his hand and run a finger down his nose as he continues on, "It was becoming a real issue with sleep and when hay fever season come around, I may as well have been Voldemort because that nose shut off. Nasal strips didn't work and the doctor could only recommend surgery. But-."

"You were afraid to go under."

"Exactly. But it needed to be done, so one day, I went in booked and paid for it straight away, so that I couldn't back out of it. The day of the surgery, I was bad, my anxiety was through the roof, I couldn't think of anything but some man being in control of my life. My mom took me to the hospital, hell she sat there for all the pre-assessment and waited until I was out of surgery. The pain was unreal, but I couldn't and wouldn't take those meds. They were too strong, so I suffered. Everything hurt... You always hear those freak stories of people waking up on the table, dying on the table and doctors leaving something in you."

I frown.

"I'm sorry, I'm not trying to put you off. I'm just trying to explain." He says.

"I know."

"So with all that previous anxiety and experience. I come to you... El." He brings my fingers to his lips and kisses each tip.

"What about me?"

"I can't lose you. Four days. They felt like a lifetime. I regretted it as soon as I left, but my fear of you leaving was the driving force. I left the house because whilst you were here, the cameras would be on, I would know that you were in the house pottering about. It sounds controlling now, I know."

"It sounds like you care, greatly." I tell him.

"I could keep an eye on you, know that you were safe even if I wasn't here.. although you needed space from me, from my yelling, from my own anxiety driving me to react so badly. I never stopped and considered that this may be your best option. I only focused on the fact that I could lose you, and that was wrong of me."

Whilst he talks, I begin washing him, letting my hands work across his skin and massage the muscles under his skin. Because whilst I fussed, he talked and that was paramount between us right now.

"I put my own feelings before your own, I turned the whole incident about you not telling me, when it should have been about your surgery, your options, your potential future with it. Babe, I will be there, always and I promise I will try to keep my anxiety in check, but the thought of losing you, entirely? Makes me want to set the world on fire and burn it all."

I look at him as he says the last line, knowing it was similar to what he used to it say to me.

"I've been to hell and back, I've been to heaven too, but settling here, with you is the only place I want to be. Storms roll in, but you silence them away with a touch, so quick that I often ask myself if you are human."

"Part sloth as of late." I joke.

He smiles "But you understand what I am saying, don't you?"

"Yes."

"That the idea of losing you entirely, to a world that I am trying to desperately to seek answers too, will put me in the ground too."

I hug his head into my chest, vowing "I'm not going anywhere without you.. If I can find an alternative solution, I won't have surgery."

"But if it's the best option, then you have to do it.. No matter what." He says against me.

Even if I didn't want it done myself?

"I didn't tell you about it, because I'm still so unsure on whether that is my final final option." I tell him. "I pray every single night that someone, somewhere, will have a breakthrough and I will be able to go onto something else. It was never my intention to keep it from you. I just wanted to be sure, before I put us both under pressure. Maybe it would have saved us from a whole lot of misery if I was just open and honest as soon as I was told about it. But the shock and realisation of my worse fear, well now one of my worst fears, was a lot closer than I thought."