Winter's Kiss (Summer Rain #2)

XXIX ~ Flowers

{Just A Boy ~ Angus and Julia Stone}

...I bit my tongue in the ark of conversation, I don't know why, I met you once, and I'd fallen for your notions, I don't know why...

----

AVA

     The hospital room was a dim, lifeless grey, with the winter sky offering nothing to brighten it. I could do nothing but trace the lines of the ceiling tiles with my eyes, still sore and weary, a spineless flailing mess of a person. But I was me. At least, I was pretty sure I still was. 

     It had been a few days, how many I hadn't counted, since I had opened my eyes to the sight of him. His curly hair and pleading eyes, searching mine for words that I couldn't remember how to say. I knew his name, but the word wouldn't pass my lips. I knew his soul, but from where I couldn't say. His hand holding mine in the early morning quiet, and the angry voices disturbing me from the emptiness of another place, not here, not anywhere, into the hospital room, were so vivid, that for a fleeting moment I felt alive again, in bright and shining colour. I was vaulted into the beeping of the machines, and the ache of my body by the touch of our skin against one another. He left a sting against my hand that would not fade, no matter what I did, an icy cold touch like frostbite. And I whispered his name in my mind, clinging to it, hoping the rest would come.

   Elliot. 

And just as swiftly as I remembered, it was gone. 

"Tell me again," I urged. 

Elliot, he said, but somehow his heart was breaking. His eyes wished I was the one to breathe the sweet song of his name. Sure enough, I knew it to be true. 

That word.

 It felt familiar in my mouth and yet cloudy in my mind. I had said it before. A hundred times or more. Maybe. Somewhere. It was like a light turning on inside a forgotten room. If it was a forgotten room, then that name was a key. If that key opened the door, then there would be others to open. 

     Time, I was told, was how I was going to heal. 

-----

28th November

     "I spoke to the Doc today," Bodhi beamed, sitting on the edge of my hospital bed. "She seems happy with how you're improving."

     He told me this every day, and I would nod and listen, aware that there was more to life than what lay beyond the four walls of my room. Still, even if I did smile, I would feel my energy fade a little. I was fatigued almost constantly, sleeping more than I have ever before, and wishing I felt like myself again. So much was different now. There were aches where once there were none. There were scars where once was unblemished skin. There were gaps where there should have been memories. 

     "It's to be expected", the Doctors had nodded at me, "that short-term amnesia is my brain's way of coping, but that my memory could slowly return." 

Could was the striking knife I latched onto, clinging to its fear and impermanence. There was an emptiness where an assured promise should be. 

Could. 

It seemed like I was the only one who heard it.