MAD LOVE

Chapter 35

Alana

I heard that beep again. A painfully familiar sound. Hospital? Again?

I wanted to touch my stomach and get a grip on my feelings, but I could do nothing, and I felt nothing... Absolutely nothing...

How did I get here? I don't remember anything...

I heard voices, but very faintly.

Mommy? Mommy, why are you crying? I'm fine, look! Dad! Calm her down, can't she see? Wait... Why can't I even move a finger, as if my body has atrophied? What's happening?

"Doctor, how long will she be in a coma?" My mother's crying broke my heart.

Coma? That's impossible...

Footage of recent events flashed through my memory: lies, tears, the road, a deafening horn, the squeal of tires, the impact...

Oh my God...

"Right now, it's best to remain calm," said a calm male voice, apparently a doctor. "She can hear you perfectly, and now she needs to hear something completely different. You'll have to be supportive, because she hasn't yet to learn she's lost the baby."

What?

Once blooming inside, the acacia shed its beautiful robe, leaving only its huge, long thorns tearing my soul from the inside, cascading into an endless stream of sadness...

No... No! No! No! My baby! Oh, my God, no! Please give it back to me! I want my baby back! Don't take it away from me, please!

My heart bled, and guilt ate away at me from the inside... If I hadn't gotten out of the taxi, if I had returned home, my child would still be alive... Why could nobody see how much I was hurting? No one heard my screams, and nobody noticed how bad I feel!

I wanted to be a mother so much... I had come to terms with my new status and began to smile more often... I was hoping and waiting for the day...

I loved it with all my heart...

My uncontrollable despair made me want to howl, scream until my vocal cords tore apart, until I went deaf, blind, and disappeared, so I would not live in this horror anymore.

Who would answer my questions? Where was the justice? Why did life treat me so cruelly? What did I sin to experience such unbearable mental pain each day?

I had lost everything: my honor, dignity, friends, a loved one... A child... I had only my parents left, but they would not always be around. This was a terrible reality. Could it be just a wild nightmare from my fevered imagination? Mom and Dad, I'm sorry, but I want to die...

"Alana? Doctor, what is happening? Is she coming to her senses?" Mom asked hopefully.

"Darling," Dad replied, resting his hand lightly on her shoulder. "She hears everything. Those are tears of loss..."

"Don't cry, my daughter..." That was the last thing I heard before I plunged into darkness again.

***

A sharp jolt, as if all the air had been knocked out of me. I saw everything, but somehow not like in real life. The colors became much brighter, and it was like I was on the other side of the screen, a bystander without the right to vote.

It was like the astral. I heard a bit about it from my father's patients at the hospital, but I always thought it was a hoax, not real. I would never have thought I would be able to personally enter it.

My ward was bright and clean. There were a lot of flowers. So cute. When I saw myself from the side, and I could not look away for a long time, studying my appearance: my skin was dead pale, my blond hair scattered on the pillow, my face calm, and I was connected to the ventilator. It seemed like I was just peacefully asleep, otherwise...

There was someone sitting next to me, but at first, I could not see the man. Changing my perspective, I realized it was Mike... He sat on a chair next to the hospital bed with his eyes closed and, taking my hand, whispering something. In this dimension, I did not even need to strain my hearing. Every syllable was crystal clear.

"Come back to me, dear... Please, I miss you so much... Everything is a lie, every word. There's no bet – there never was. I love you. Please... Please... Please don't leave."

Mike... My love... I'm so sorry...

When I was next to him, I raised my hand and touched his cheek. The touch was ghostly, but he seemed to feel something, abruptly raising his head in my direction.

"Alana," he breathed softly, almost inaudibly.

Suddenly, I was pulled into another space. A bright room with white furniture. Soft sofas, a coffee table, something like a locker and a vending machine with snacks and drinks. A waiting room at the hospital. I often met my father in a room like this after one of his shifts.

Looking at the faces of the people gathered here, I recognized absolutely everyone. Mom dozed on Dad's shoulder while he gently hugged her; Amanda paced around the room, restless with her worries; Jessica nervously fidgeted with a handkerchief in her hand, occasionally dabbing her tears with it; and Alex obediently sat next to her, holding her by her free palm, whispering some soothing words.

They're all here... They had always been there for me, for no reason... How wrong I was...

The shift happened again. This time, I found myself in a dark room with only a dim lamp burning above my head. It was hard to call it a room; it was more like a small two-by-two space. There was only a bed and a toilet with a sink. It felt like a solitary cell for pacifying violent prisoners.

On the bed, where there was nothing but a mattress and a pillow, a guy was lying with his eyes closed. He seemed to be asleep, but he wasn't... He tensed slightly, as if he felt someone was approaching.

"Hi, honey. You're here..." Mark opened his eyes and looked in the direction from where I was watching him. "I've been waiting for you; I want to confess something to you."

He assumed a sitting position and continued.

"I have to make it clear that Mike really loves you... He almost killed me, as attested by the bullet hole in the couch, just an inch from where my face was. Amanda is also good. She summoned all the power of the judiciary and put me behind bars."

Mark got out of bed and sat down on the floor exactly in the middle of the room, opposite where I was.

"I wanted so much to be happy with you, but I ended up ruining everything. I broke your heart into such small pieces, I could never put back together again. I'm selfish, Alana, and I don't even regret my actions. It was the only way we could be together. The only way I could love you, touch you, caress your body and lips. It was the only way to unite us," he said it with emphasis and through his teeth, swallowing back the tears.

Wood got up from the floor, seemed to look at me, and unbuttoned his overalls, completely stripping down to his underwear. A sad smile played on his lips, and his eyes radiated nothing but a solid emptiness.

"We lost a child... And I'm losing you... You've already spent more than a month in a coma. The doctors say there's no chance, and you won't wake up. However, there's always a 'but', remember?"

Mark walked over to the bed and climbed on it. Lifting the sleeves of his prison overalls up to the ventilation grate, he tied them together in a tight knot.

"We'll be together, but not here, not in this world. I'll find our child, and we'll meet you there and finally become a family."

He wrapped one leg of the jumpsuit around his neck.

"I love you, Alana Moore. I've always loved and will always love you, even in death. I'm sorry..." Pushing at the bed with his feet, Mark slid down the wall.

At 11:59 p.m. on the last day of winter, Mark Wood's heart stopped.

At 00:00 on the first day of spring, I opened my eyes.

This nightmare was over...