Finding Forgiveness

The Doctor had prescribed me some sleeping pills but I wasn’t allowed to take them until my strength had improved. So I just lay there until my dreadful thoughts became dreadful nightmares.

I was running through the jungle, the branches and vines slashing my skin, making me bleed all over my body. My hands and clothes were red with it but I just kept looking back. There was nobody there. Nobody behind me, nobody in sight, nobody to be heard. But still, I ran on, fighting through the dense jungle until I reached a clearing.

The sky was blue and the warm sun seemed to soothe me. For a brief moment, everything seemed okay. So I lay down and let myself breathe as I watched the fluffy clouds pass over.

But then a black shadow leapt out of the trees. It bounded up to me and I tried to scramble away but it was too late. It had me and-

“Ella,” I heard Leo’s voice say. “Ella, wake up.”

I opened my eyes and sat sharp upright.

“Are you okay?” he asked. “Your heart rate went crazy for a second.”

His eyes were wide and concerned. I swallowed and nodded.

“I was having a nightmare. They’re relentless, Leo. Every time I try to sleep.”

He brought me into a hug, “It won’t be like this forever. Remember that. What seems relentless won’t be.”

I clutched his shirt in my fingers and nodded again.

The next day, Leo left for an hour or two to do the school run and see our kids and when he returned he had an armful of paint cans.

“What colour would you like the walls of this fine chamber, my lady?” he asked with a wide smile. “I’ve got forest green, fuschia, orchid purple or ocean blue.”

“They all sound equally pretentious so may I take all four, my Lord?” I asked.

“Whatever you wish, you shall have,” he replied with a low bow.

For the entire morning, Leo stood painting all four walls and the ceiling of the hospital room. There were spots, zigzags, flowers, swirls and stripes. I smiled in delight at his artistry and also at the amount of paint in his hair and on his face.

“Do you like it?” he asked, stepping back to look at his work.

“I love it,” I replied. “And anybody who uses this room after me will have no choice but to love it too.”

At that point, a doctor walked in.

“Oh wow,” she said, immediately pausing as the colour met her eyes. “It’s so… bright.”

She then looked to Leo and then to the paintbrush in his hand.

“I had no idea you were so artistic Alpha,” she added.

He rolled his eyes.

“I have many hidden talents,” he replied.

“Well you ought to open a window,” she said, sternly, “You don’t want your Luna suffocating from paint fumes.”

She was an older woman and she seemed to be scolding him. That, along with Leo’s quickness to obey, made me laugh.

“You’re chipper this morning, Luna,” she said turning to me. “Do you mind if I check your vitals?”

I shook my head.

She took my heart rate, blood pressure, lung capacity and temperature but scribbling something down on her clipboard. I noticed Leo peering over to see what she’d written.

“You’re still weak and need to stay in that bed,” she said. “But there’s more colour in your cheeks and life in your eyes. You’ll be better before you know it.”

“And the sleeping pills?” Leo asked. “When can she have them?”

“Not yet,” she said. “A few more days perhaps. But for now, she can have these.”

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a bottle full of pills which she handed to Leo.

“One in the morning, one at night,” she said. “They’ll keep your mind off it whilst your awake at least but you might not feel quite yourself. It’s your choice to use them or not, Luna.”

Leo nodded and she left.

“What are they?” I asked.

“Benzodiazepines,” he replied reading the bottle. “Reduce feelings of severe distress by inducing emotional numbness. Then there’s a long list of side effects…”

I shook my head.

“No, I didn’t get you to paint the walls so bright and loud just to numb myself with some pills. I need to feel in order to heal,” I replied. “It’ll be painful but I’ll get through.”

I then nodded confidentally and wiped away an escaping tear instantly.

Leo nodded, “I’ll leave them here in case you change your mind and it gets to much,” he said putting them on the shelf. “But I think you’ve made the right choice.”

I nodded, staring at the wall. The bottle was in the corner of my eye. Just a few of them and I could escape Andrea just for a few hours.

“Ella?” Leo asked.

I looked up to him and forced a smile, “Yes, I think so too. But shouldn’t you be going?” I asked looking at the clock on the wall. “School ends in an hour and sometimes Silas’s class gets let out early and Francesca and Marie like to wave to you as you wait so if you’re not there, they won’t-”

“Okay, okay,” he said. “I’m going.”

I smiled and after kissing me on the head he left leaving me alone in the room with nothing but multicoloured walls, some beeping machines and a bottle of pills on the shelf.

The pills were those capsule ones with the two different colours. They were in an orange-tinted plastic jar and the lid was white with a child lock. The warning label read ‘highly addictive during prolonged use’ explaining why the jar could contain no more than about 20 pills. But I was more concerned about my desperation to get Andrea and everything related to him out of my head.

Leo had put them on the highest shelf. I’d have to climb to reach them and right now, I could hardly even stand. So all I did was stare at them for over half an hour. The silence in the room was excruciating. My ears rang with the voices of Andrea and Luciano and Alessio and Julia and Chico and so many more and with every blink, I saw his face. Sometimes he was grinning or laughing sometimes he was glaring and growling.? Whatever it was, it made my heart wretch and my fear spike.

I couldn’t take it anymore.

I stood up, my head spun and my legs buckled but I was already half a metre closer to the pills.

Before I could reach for them, I felt myself fall and land straight back onto the bed as I let out a frustrated sob. I couldn’t carry my own weight and it was so infuriating. After crawling back under the covers, I let myself cry until I had to tears left at which point I just lay silently.

Another half an hour later, my vacant staring was interrupted.

The door opened, a man marched in, slammed the door behind him and closed the blinds to the window looking out into the hallway.

“I’m not supposed to be here,” he said. “I climbed up a tree, along a ledge and through a window to get in and I can’t stay long but I just had to see you.”

Luca.Content from NôvelDr(a)ma.Org.