I winced and shut my eyes as soon as I opened them because my eyes were assaulted by the bright lights. It felt like I was being stabbed with a ray of light and it made my eyes hurt. I heard someone moving around and soon the room was a little bit dark.
“You can open your eyes now” I heard Atticus speak and my eyes flew open. I looked around the unfamiliar room and saw the windows had been shut.
The walls of the room were beige but it looked too bright at the moment because my eyes were still trying to adjust. I just needed the large monitor beefing so carelessly beside me to know I was in a hospital room.
The room was incredibly spacious and could probably fit about four to five more patients.
The rug on the floor was almost the same colour as the walls but a few shades lighter and it looked so soft like those types that swallowed your feet and I wiggled my feet in anticipation.
There was a small shelf beside the bed that was currently housing a vase of white lilies and the gesture I knew was from my husband made me smile and I was feeling a lot better all of a sudden.
Not far from the bed was a large couch but no one was sitting on it. I frowned at the lack of people in the room because I knew that a total of five persons brought me to the hospital but I could only find Danielle standing by the window and Atticus who was sitting on a chair beside my bed and was watching me closely.
I tried to sit up so Atticus stood up as well and helped me sit up. He placed more pillows behind me for support and gave me a lingering kiss on my forehead before sitting down again, this time, he took my hands in his and held on tightly.
“Hey, you scared me there for a minute,” he whispered softly. He lifted my hands in his and placed soft kisses on them “How are you feeling, better?” he asked finally looking at me.
“Yeah. I don’t even know why I suddenly felt sick. It wasn’t that serious when I woke up this morning so I thought all I needed was some aspirin and I would be fine but I forgot to take them” I lifted my other hand that he was not holding to run them through his hair when I realized I had drip in them.
I raised them in question “Why do I have these in? I don’t think I needed them” I asked and waved my hands as I waited for him to answer my question.
“You are not a doctor baby so just leave it in and try to get some more rest” Atticus chided but I only frowned in defiance but made no move to get rid of the needle.
“Where are the others, Dani? Did they leave already?” She opened her mouth to answer but I lifted my hand to stop her when I realized I hadn't asked an important question “Wait…how long was I out for?” I asked turning to my husband for an answer.
“Just about an hour, it wasn’t for long” he sounded upset but I wasn’t going to ask why he was upset. He had been ignoring me and only decided to come and ask me what was wrong because I had fallen a little ill.
“Hmmm..then where did the rest go?” I directed the question to Danielle who shuffled anxiously on her feet because she could sense the microaggression I was throwing towards Atticus.
“I asked them to let you rest and they would see you when you get home. I’ll go and inform the doctor that you are awake” She was out of the door before I could get another word out of my mouth.
Instead of talking to him like I really wanted to, I laid back down on the bed and turned to face the other side so my back was to him. I thought I would feel better this way but I only felt worse.
The room was quiet and thick with mild tension but I refused to break the silence no matter how strong the probe to say something was. I began counting from one to a hundred so that I wouldn’t be forced to talk to him.
He cleared his throat and I paused at sixteen waiting to hear what he had to say. I promise I would blow the roof off if he even tried to make me feel guilty about anything. I was in my rebellious era.
“Did I do something wrong? I feel like you are angry with me when it should be the other way around” He spoke calmly like someone who was walking on a bed of roses with merciless thorns, as though I was a wounded animal.
“I don’t know, do I have anything to be angry with you for?” I replied without turning to look at him.
“No, I don’t think I think anything that should warrant this passive aggression I am getting from you but at the same time, I may have made you angry without knowing hence the question”
“Well, you didn’t” I huffed out. I felt his hands on my shoulders and allowed him to turn me so I was facing him. When I turned fully, there was a pout on my face and he had a little smile on his face.
“Hey, baby. Tell me how you feel” He used his fingers to brush the offending stray hair on my face away and because I was a sucker for these kinds of small actions, I slowly lost the pout on my face.
“Better. I still think it was a waste of time bringing me here. It was just a little headache that threw me off balance. They were being too dramatic” I rolled my eyes as I remembered the chaotic scene that took place at Sandy’s apartment.
“It wasn’t a waste of time. You should never take chances when it comes to your health, okay? You have to promise me”
“I promise. Shouldn’t the doctor be here now? Danielle has been gone for some time now?”
“Maybe she got distracted along the way”
“Hmmmmm”
“I’m sorry," he said out of the blue and I snapped my eyes to meet him. He looked like a lost puppy and it made me feel bad.
“What?” I asked as if I didn’t know why he was apologizing.
“I shouldn’t have ignored you when you tried to apologize so many times this past week but you have to know that what you said hurt me incredibly and it made me feel less. I agree and accept that I hurt you at the beginning of our relationship and trust me when I say I regret it deeply” He folded his hands in his lap and sat up making him feel so far away even though he was sitting beside me.
“I know you were not in the right frame of mind but it still hurts that you had to bring that up and not only that, you said all these things are happening because you married me which means you regret our marriage. If you had said this before we patched things up, I wouldn’t have been so shaken up but you said all these things when I thought things were good between us so how did you expect me to just say it’s fine and move on? If you were the one, would you have been able to let go so easily?”
This man before me was my anchor and he had been wholly supportive since we patched things up and yet I hurt him so much. I didn’t realize how much the words I had uttered had hurt him until now. I suspected he was angry but not to this extent and it made me reprimand myself for not thinking about it from his perspective.
I couldn’t even bring myself to be mad at him because I knew if it was me, it would have probably been a worse reaction so all I could do was drop my eyes to the floor in shame but he was also too good to make me feel bad. His hand caught my jaw and made me look at him in the eyes and the love I saw made me tear up.
“I didn’t say all that to make you feel terrible, I just wanted you to see things from my point of view so you could understand what I was feeling. I wanted you to see that I wasn’t angry with you because I love you too much to stay mad at you but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t affected by your words. It’s like getting cut by a knife, you get mad at yourself and the knife but later forget about it but that doesn’t mean, you won’t feel any more pain from the cut” He explained and I just kept on nodding my head along to everything he was saying.
“I’m sorry. I know I hurt you but I couldn’t bear it that you were angry with me and that’s why I kept pestering you to always forgive me. I am really sorry babe, I would never hurt you like that again at least not intentionally” I sat up this time and threw my legs down so they were touching the floor before he could stop me.
I got up and straddled his thighs on the chair and his hands wound around my waist to support me. I gathered his face in my arms and leaned down to give him a kiss that showed how sorry and remorseful I felt and he responded willingly.
The kiss communicated everything we felt including the things we thought we would be unable to say with just words. We poured our hearts and emotion into that one kiss and at the same time our bodies were accepting that everything was going to be put in the past and that all was forgiven.