Connected

Chapter 10: Healing

"If I believe my days to have been assigned to me,

By a Being whose goodness is described as love,

Then wouldn't it be just for me to hope?

For my struggles have been considered and understood,

And they aren't without purpose."

A warm soft flow slowly glided over her cheeks that when Leah heard the sound of his voice beckoning her, she gasped for air. Her face contorted reflecting the troubled waters of our soul.

For the third consecutive time Jacob had said, "Leah." This time adding, "Don't be afraid. You can open your eyes now," he encouraged.

Leah was hearing Jacob and she had been trying to pry her eyes open but discovered her eyelids hard to lift, like they had grown a thousand pounds heavier than their normal weight.

"Jacob?" She croaked when she finally managed a small slit opening in her eyes.

A breath of relief. "I'm here," Jacob quickly affirmed.

Dissatisfied by her insufficient sight, Leah once more tried to rally her vision by forcefully closing and reopening her eyes when they surprisingly opened wide without any restraint that the immediate onslaught of bright light upon her iris made her give a sharp cry and close her eyes.

Undeterred, she carefully readjusted her eyes once more wanting to survey the area she was in when her heart issued a loud thump because she realized all she was seeing was blurred.

Have I-have I gone blind? She nervously thought to herself as her hands began feeling her surrounding when she brushed upon a sturdy, well-known hand. Jacob's hand. Snatching it up she pressed her palm into his and felt his familiar warmth, rousing her drowsing blood.

Strenuously she searched for his face she had grown accustomed to over the night when little by little she started making out a dim figure of him stooped over her. His figure blocking most of the electric light from directly landing on her face.

As she began to see him more clearly, a calm assurance which she could only experience when she was with him entered her. Knowing that she'd be alright, she gave his hand a tight squeeze and let go.

Then her shoulders started trembling and she was suddenly in tears. For without precaution her mind had started recapturing her memory of jumping and falling then writhing in pain atop the hood of a car. It's playing so torturously in her brain, intensely battering her conscience giving her soul unrest.

"Jacob, I-I tried to kill myself. How-how could I?" She said her face screwed in regret. "It's-it's despicable."

Leah was now cognizant of the fact that she had done a dreadful thing to herself. Her mind recalling the truth so clearly, in complete detail making her see how she chose to cover herself with the shroud of hopelessness when she could have chosen to reach back to the help being offered to her.

She kept thinking that no one could understand her when in fact she was the one who isolated herself from everyone else. Leah doesn't want to admit it, but she simply took pride in her resentment of life. She considered it too sacred to surrender. It's what fueled her to go on and to break free from it is simply terrifying because she felt she would be left empty and lifeless without it.

"Shhh," Jacob calmed her straightening the lines that had formed on her forehead. "You're alive that's what matters."

"Yes, but for how long!" Leah exclaimed swamped with tears. "I can't even trust myself anymore."