Grey couldn't believe what the doctor was telling him. Apparently the reason she passed out in pain was most likely psychological meaning that inside her head, she had put herself in her father's living room and she had been beat up to a state of being unconscious.
If that was the case, then she'd be in so much pain because her body would remember every bit of pain she went through and relive it.
"Also, I have to let you understand that she needs help. Have her take some therapy sessions." The advanced medical practitioner was upset, not because of the young lady on the bed in that room but because of the pain she realized that the man was going through.
"But, she is fine. The other doctors said so. Why then does she need therapy? "
"You'd have to talk to her Nicholas to find that out however, her case is the most dangerous."
"Grace, would you explain further or do I have to beg you? All your doing right now is getting me scared. Dangerous how? " Grey was beginning to lose his patience with the doctor.
He wouldn't doubt her expertise but what was he supposed to do? The woman he loved was on the bed in his bedroom sweating profusely and shaking like a maniac and all that the doctor was saying was scaring him out of his wits.
"I'm sorry. I'll just tell it to you as it is. She is going to go crazy in a matter of time if she doesn't get help." Grey had his eyes as wide as saucers, his jaw dropped, but he couldn't get any statement out of his mouth. Seeing that he wasn't going to say anything, the doctor decided to go on.
"She clearly unstable from what happened in her past life and she should definitely have nightmares, horrible day thoughts and even to the extent of suicidal thoughts. The problem is that she is bottling up all her emotions, that's horrible for someone who is unstable mentally. It's only a matter of time before she explodes and in the end, she may either go crazy or kill herself.
You'd never know that she is going through so much and the reason is because she believes that she burdens you so much already, how could she possibly worry you even more with her feelings. When a person is scared, they have to let someone know so that the fear is treated carefully else, the fear eats him slowly like a virus. I know a therapist, she is an expert at her profession and I can get her to help this woman if you want. In my general guess, it won't be up to a year and she'll go crazy. " She pulled out a card from her handbag and gave it to Grey. "This is her card, give her call. I'll call her too, let her know that if you call, she has to take it. If that's all, I'll be going. Don't forget to try and keep her temperature down so that she doesn't have a high fever."
"Thank you Grace. I'm grateful. I'll send your payment directly to your account." Grey turned his back to her as he spoke. He couldn't let her see the tears that were streaming down his eyes. "If I need your help, I'll call you. You may leave."
He heard the door close before he wiped his eyes harshly in an attempt to stop himself from crying any further, he then left his office and went into the bedroom. He had been too scared to have her taken home so he just took her to the office bedroom and called some paramedics who worked in the building. They took care of her until Grace, his most trusted medical practitioner, arrived.
He took off the towel that was already on her forehead and gave it a rinse in the bowl of water beside them. He took the towel and cleaned off the sweat that had formed on her face.
He helped her into a sitting position and unzipped her dress, removing it so that she wouldn't be uncomfortable, before laying her back down. He stared at the scars on her body and felt a lone tear slip from his eyes. He was getting frustrated with himself, he couldn't understand why he was being a crying sissy when he should be strong for her.
"I'm sorry, my love. This is hard for me because I can't imagine what you must be feeling. I don't know what to do anymore, I don't want anything to happen to you but I always seem to say and do the wrong things which always get you so upset and even sick. I'm."
He had thought that she was still sleeping and definitely didn't expect her to speak up.
"I need water, please."
He wasted no time in pouring some water into a glass cup before getting her into a sitting position, using his right hand to support her back and his left to feed her the cup of water. The doctor had given him instructions to keep her hydrated when she awoke.
Keeping the empty cup down, he helped her lay down gently and went back to his kneeling position on the floor beside her.
"What are you doing? Don't just stay there, you have to get some sleep as well. I'm very tired and yet all I've done is sleep and make you worry, I can't imagine how tired you must be."
It was true. Grey was beat and he needed some sleep but Azure was priority compared to sleep. He could sleep later on the couch when she was okay.
"I'm fine, Azure. You go ahead and sleep"
"I can't. You're not on the bed so how can I? I'll only sleep if you're on the bed with me."
Grey was conflicted by two emotions. The first was joy, seeing that she still had no problem being close to him. He wouldn't be able to bear it if she wanted nothing to do with him anymore. The second emotion was fear, he was scared that indeed, Azure had a problem and she'd never let him on it. He wanted to know what was wrong and he could only hope that she would tell him.
He went over to the bed and laid at the far end of the bed, giving her some space. She whined at the large space between them and moved closer to him until her body was pressed against his. "Tomorrow, we'll talk. For now, we sleep." those were her parting words before she went to dreamland once again and sooner than later, Grey joined her.
***
Grey could feel her gaze on him before he opened his eyes.
"You're awake? That's weird." Grey started as he opened his eyes, coming face to face with Azure as she stared on, not blinking.
"Grey...."
"Let's take a shower, eat breakfast, then we can talk." Grey was dreading the talk where he'd have to tell her she needed to see a therapist and he was willing to hold it off for some minutes.
"Okay Grey. I'm starving anyways."
"Your friend Stella came to see you. She brought your shoes, said she found them just around" Grey didn't know how to start a conversation right now. He had eaten slower than he usually would and had requested she took her time as well so she didn't get an indigestion but Azure knew better. She knew he was trying to hold off the conversation but what she couldn't understand was why.
"I have to say thanks to her, those shoes were expensive." she tried playing along.
"Listen Azure... "
"What has got you so scared Grey? You're obviously tip toeing around me and I don't like it." Now, she was in for it. His diversions were making her uneasy.
"I'm sorry, if I'm making you uncomfortable."
"It's fine. I'm fine, I don't want you acting this way because I fainted yesterday."
"That wasn't just fainting Azure, you had a panic attack. You ran a fever after that and you were in so much pain you went unconscious."
"And I'm sorry for getting you so worried and frightened, it wasn't my intention. I don't know what happened to me, but it won't happen again. I simply never thought you were capable of being so brutal and that's why it was a shock to me. You hit that man until he passed out, all I could think about was what you'd do to me if I got you that pissed....."
"I've never hit a woman Azure. I'll never touch you in that way, I promise."
"I know that you'd never hurt me Grey, which is why I'm a bit confused but... "
"But it doesn't change anything, you passed out Azure and that's normal for every victim of abuse but what isn't normal is being in so much pain to the extent where you'd have developed a fever. You know that something is wrong but you're ignoring it because you don't want it to be true."
"Well what are you expecting me to do? You don't understand that I don't know if I'm crazy or not. One minute I'm so happy and the next I find myself hold a blade to my wrist or a pair of scissors to my neck or even a large dosage of my med pills in my hands. How do you come to accept that there is a possibility that you might be crazy Grey because I don't want to be crazy. I can't be—You're all I have right now, you're all that's keeping me together Grey. "
She didn't stop the tears streaming down her face. For the first time she wanted to get it all out, all out. She was tired of being alone inside her own mind, made her feel like a psychotic patient.
"You can talk to me Azure. I'm not a stranger, I'm not going to leave you for any reason, I don't care if you're crazy or not. I just really want you to talk to me. It's the only way I can help you, please. "
"I don't usually want to kill myself, just occasionally. If I'm going to be honest, the truth is that whenever you're not around me, all I can think about it ridding the world of a nonrecyclable waste like me. I don't like to bother or worry you and it's all I've been doing to you Grey. When I sleep, you're beside me and there is some sort of skin contact and that's why I don't have those daunting nightmares or at least, not as strong as before.
What I'm saying is that the moment you're out of sight, I want to die. That's why I needed someone to talk to me at work and I needed to keep myself busy by cleaning. Because I was afraid that I was indeed going mad.
When I saw you with that man, I have no idea why I started feeling like I lost you and the fact that I did meant that I was back to square one. With an abusive company, only this time it wasn't my father, it was you Grey and I couldn't handle it. I tried to fight the thoughts creeping into my mind, telling me that my hope was gone, that you were gone but, I lost because I'm just damned too weak. I only passed out from the exhaustion of fighting with myself. Do you think I'm crazy, Grey?"
"No, you're not crazy and you aren't weak. You pulled through 15 years of extreme abuse and if that isn't being strong then I don't know what is. Broken, yes you are, but not beyond repair. I can't exactly help you Azure, but there are people who actually study in college because they want to help people like you. I can call one of them, she can help you. If you let me, we can sign you up for therapeutic sessions."
Grey would be damned if he said he wasn't proud of her, for all he knew, the fact that she had told him what exactly was wrong was exciting, at least he knew that there was hope that she wasn't bottling up stuff anymore. She was finally letting him in and there wasn't anything he'd like more than that.
"I'm sorry Grey" at this point she was having irregular breaths due to her hard sobs. Grey pulled her into his chest and she cried again, wanting that to be the last time she ever cried in self pity. She wanted to be someone Grey deserved. She wanted to be strong for him as well. "I know that I'm being selfish right now, but I don't care. I love you a lot Grey and if you think that I'll get better if I get through with these sessions, then I'll do it. I'll do it for you Grey, I don't want to lose you. I want to be someone you deserve."
Grey pulled back and looked right into her eyes, using the thumb to clean her eyes. He gave her a genuine smile and held her shoulders in place as he spoke.
"It's okay my love. We are going to be fine. I don't want you to see a therapist because it would make me happy. I want you to see a therapist because it would make you happy if you got better. I love you Azure, and I'm happy you let me in. I'm not going to rush this on you my love, you have time and you can think this through, think of what you really want apart from me. I'll be here with you anyways, my love.
"Oh! Grey, what would I do if you leave me, I really love you and don't want to lose you." she threw herself back in his arms as her tears died down.
Grey let out a sheepish grin before he remembered that there was something else they needed to talk about.
"My love, you did say you wanted to talk to me about something. What is it? "
"We'd have to go home, I need to show it to you. By the way, we should go home, you need to dress up and come back to work. "
"Oh, I don't. I have my clothes in here as well for days like this. You too, I asked Crain to get you some clothes and other stuff you girls use while you were working. Let's get out of these robes, there is work to be done. When we go home, you're going to talk about that."
"Grey, about that therapy thing. What do they really do?"
"Well, what you say, I drop you at my sisters house. Actually, she was kidnapped when she was 17/18, I think. She had to visit a therapist because she became claustrophobic, she couldn't let anyone come close to her and she was having severe anxiety issues and depression. It was quite horrible but right now, she is all bubbly and so much of a people person. She is doing perfectly fine and that's why I was thinking, Who would be best to tell you about therapy sessions if not her. Also, I'm sure you're in need of a girl time."
"Can you take me to her today? I really can't wait to—" she held a pause, trying to figure out which words will suit her best. "—not feel crazy and a menace anymore. "
"Let's get dressed, my princess. You are insane if you think that you are crazy and a menace. But in the end, you are my insane, crazy and thoughtful princessy girlfriend."
"I'm your girlfriend?"
"Of course, what else would you be?"
"It's just, you never mentioned it before. Well, that's good. I was always wondering what I'd say to people if they asked, You know, we aren't just friends and we aren't lovers as well...."
"Lovers? "
"Stella said that they are people who love each other and so sleep with each other and that's just nasty. I mean why would you show love by causing pain it makes no sense to me. "
"Pain? Sex is pleasurable not painful... "He only paused when he realized that the only time she was ever intimate with a man, it caused her a great deal of pain. "Babe, it's only painful when the partner wants it to be. I'm saying that it's not always horrible, it only was because, your father wanted it to be. He wanted you to hate yourself. "
"Later. Let's talk about this kind of thing later. " She turned on her feet and went to the vanity table set up for her and took her hair brush. She was pushing the rising thoughts behind her. Every time she believed that she had no more contempt left in her to throw at her father, she was always proved wrong.
This time, she won. She didn't shed a drop of tear, all she did was enjoy the embrace of her boyfriend who had walked in her direction and pulled her into a large hug.