Lost (51 page)

  He whispered and he answered the unspoken question I was dying to ask as a shiver passed through my whole body.  He answered like he always knew I would wonder and question his love.  He answered like it was important for me to know, and it was.
  “When I was healthy you were everything to me.  And even when I wasn't okay, you were still everything, but it was just so hard,” he continued to whisper with tears in his voice. “I always wanted to be okay with you, and I tried so hard, Sophie...”
  And that was it.  Crossing the room I needed him to see me and know. 
  Moving to the other side of the bed, I was stunned to see him looking like he looked when he was with me.  The nasty beard was shaved off, and he looked clean.  He looked just like the man I loved, but I could see he wasn't really.  There was still a strangeness to his darkened blue eyes, and he looked too pale and too tired to be my old Peter.  Then again, as I looked at him and tried to find all the words I needed to say, I realized he
had
been shot only 2 nights before, so he probably would look different even if the truth wasn't known.
  Seeing a chair a few feet away, I picked it up and moved as close to Peter as I could.  I wanted to touch him and I needed to comfort him, but I didn't know how he would react to touch.
  Moving his eyes to my face, Peter moaned.  As tears slid from his eyes, he seemed to struggle with getting comfortable in his bed, while struggling to still look at my face.
  “You're so beautiful, baby.  You look like an angel sitting there,” and I laughed a sad laugh of knowing as I interrupted him.
  “I was just thinking the same thing about you.  When I walked in the room and saw you lying there in the white sheets, I thought you looked like an angel to me.”
  “I'm sorry for all this.  I tried so hard, Sophie,” he whispered again.
  “I know.  It's okay, Peter.”
  “It's not okay.  I know I hurt you and I'm trying to understand what I did and what happened and Carrie told me a little about what happened at the loft and I'm so sorry.  But now that I'm on the meds I'm a little bit clearer about everything.  I'm still not good with the details when I'm out of it, but I understand a little more now.  It's just so hard,” he choked.
  Reaching for him, I tried to take the hand I saw strapped down against the rail.  I tried to take his hand, but when he inhaled sharply I was afraid, so I stopped my movement as quickly as I reached for him.
  “No!  Please hold my hand.  I didn't think you'd want-”
  “I always want to hold you,” I whispered, silencing us both as he cried harder. “Tell me what's going on.  I know the reason now, but what actually happened to you?” I pleaded.
  “Um... When I'm on the medication I'm pretty lucid for long periods of time. I function pretty well, and I can keep myself together really well, but then I guess I think I'm okay, or all better and I stop taking the medicine and then I turn back to sick so quickly, I don't know it really happens until someone steps in again and forces me back on the meds.  It's a strange back and forth, sick and not sick way I live that gives me a false sense of security until I go off the medication and get
really
sick.  But,” he stopped suddenly.
  Prompting him to continue, I sat closer and brushed a hand across his cheek, as his eyes closed and his body shuddered at the contact between us.
  “I loved you-
love
you so much, and I was doing really well.  I was on the medication almost the whole time, but then I started getting the feeling like I was all better again- better because of you, so I went off it, and that's when I started getting bad again.  Near the end, I was struggling all the time, but hiding it from you because I wanted you to just love me-”
  “I did love you,” I confessed.
  “I know, but you loved the lucid, not sick me, and I was always afraid of being the other me, until I screwed up and stopped the meds making me not me anymore.  But then I get confused and think I can do it on my own, which I can't and I get worse and worse.  The voices get so loud in my head, and I try so hard to block them out with other things, like different herbs and sedatives, and the last time I used you to help them go away.  It was like I could wrap you in my head and say your name over and over again until your name became a chant or something that helped to dull the other voices but then they never really go away and then they get louder and I get so tired, and then I can't really stop the sickness from getting me fully.  Then I'm not me anymore.  And then I'm not me anymore, at all.  It's just like I'm not me anymore,” he said rambling while looking like he was struggling again as the tears began pouring down his temple and across the bridge of his nose with his head tilted toward me.
  Wiping away his tears, I tried to comfort him with a weird soothing, like cooing sound, as my thumbs brushed the tears from his face.
  “You sound so lucid right now,” I whispered in the room as he nodded.
  “I know and that's the problem.  I
am
lucid right now and I will be as long as I stay medicated, but I never stay medicated, so I get sick again.”
  “But what if I force you to take the medication every day?” I suddenly thought out loud.
  “It doesn't work that way.  I take it for a while until I feel totally rational again and then I stop it so-”
  “But what if I force you to take it every day?”
  “I always find a way to trick people into thinking I'm taking it,” he shook his head in disgust.
  “But if I made you do it in front of me?  Maybe you wouldn't try to trick me?” I begged holding my breath.
  “I trick Kara and she's been dealing with me for 9 years like-”
  “But I'm not Kara.  I'm special to you.  I could make you take the meds because you love me and then you would stay lucid and-”
  “Sophie, there is nothing I want more in my life.  I want to live with you and love you forever, but it doesn't work.  I always-”
  Interrupting again, I just couldn't contain my desperation. “But you're not in love with Kara.  She's your sister but you
love
me.  You adore me.  You would want to be healthy with me-”
  “I
did
want to be healthy with you and I tried so hard, but look at us.  David told me I fought police and was shot and you could've been too if they hadn't known my history.  They knew what they were going to deal with, they knew David and Carrie and they couldn't stop me even though they knew what they were doing.  They never would’ve shot me, and there were other officers coming for me, but I went for the gun and wrestled to get it and I was shot in the leg because that was all he could do.  Officer Tesone has even been in to see me and apologized for shooting me. 
He
apologized to me, even though I think everyone else knows there was no telling what I would've done to him if I had gotten his gun in my hands when I was like that.”
  “You wouldn't have hurt him,” I exhaled.
  “I
would
have, Sophie.  I was paranoid and delusional and I thought someone was going to hurt you, so I would have stopped anyone who got in my way while I thought I was protecting you,” he said almost angrily, until I understood what he was saying.
  “So you're dangerous?”
  “When I'm not on the medication, yeah.  I'm too strong and it's hard to handle me but I don't mean-”
  “To do it.  I know you don't, Peter.”
  “I live in a halfway house where they monitor everything I do.  That's where the herb garden and greenhouse is.  I used to live in Carrie's loft but I fucked up and got really bad and they had to move me into a halfway house for my own protection and even for theirs.  I even lived with Kara for a few years, but when she had babies it wasn't really safe for me to be around all the time, which I understood logically because I was on the meds.  But it still hurt to know Kara needed me to leave for the safety of her family.  Then I went off the medication again and I was so sad thinking my family didn't want me I actually broke into her house while they were sleeping and I took my nephew outside to the backyard just to hold him because I loved him,” he suddenly choked. 

  Crying again, Peter turned his eyes from my face and moved like he was trying to wipe his own face, but his restrained hands prevented it.  Frustrated, he growled but with an audible sadness, not an anger I could see.
  “What happened?” I whispered.
  “Nothing, thank god.  Kara was able to talk me into giving her back Bradley and I cried in her backyard until an ambulance took me away to the hospital again.  But that's what it's always like for me,” he moaned. “I think I'm okay until I'm not okay and then I don't know I'm not okay until I'm medicated and temporarily fixed.  And that's what happened with you,” he smiled back at me sadly.
  “What do you mean?”
  “You made me so happy,” he continued as I choked on the sob in my chest. “And then I felt happy, which made me think I was happy and all better, and then I went off the meds and I didn't realize I wasn't better anymore.”
  “But I didn't see it,” I said shaking my head. 
  “Because I hid it.”
  “Okay, but you'd think I'd notice the man I slept with and spent every evening with acting sick,” I said gently.  I didn't want to say fucked up, or psycho, or anything else that would hurt him, but I just couldn't wrap my head around how I wouldn't know he was mentally unstable.
  “Um, you became the thing of my obsession.  It's like, when you were at work I was fucked up, but I waited and then when we were together, I was better because you were with me.  But then when you were sleeping or something I'd get paranoid and panicky at night, so I'd go to the living room to fight it, and then I'd get a handle on it and go back to you in bed.  So I freaked out if we weren't together, but I was better when we were.  That's why you didn't see it.  But Carrie and Kara knew.”
  “How?  We were never around them.  I just met them the night before our breakup,” I asked confused.
  “Everyone knew, Sophie.  The doctors at the place I live.  My shrink.  My family.  Everyone knew I was starting to get sick again.  They could see it and they know me-”
  “
I
know you.”
  “You do, and you don't.”
  “I know you, Peter.  I know everything I need to know when we're together,” I cried. “And we can fight this.  I'll help you.  I'll make you take your meds, and I'll make you stay healthy with me.  Now that I know what's wrong, I'll read about it and I'll do everything right so you can stay okay,” I pleaded desperately again.  I knew what I was taking on, and I knew what I wanted to do. “You can live with me and I'll take care of you.  I'll keep you healthy, Peter.  I can do it, and I'll be the best person to do it, too, because you love me and I love you and I'll make you better, I promise.  I'll-”
  “I'm going to be in the hospital for months, Sophie.  I might seem okay right now, but that's just the initial push of the Risperdal.  After a few days, when my system becomes used to it again, I need more and I become agitated and then combative and then finally the dose is corrected until I stay somewhat lucid.  But it always changes and I can't control-”
  “I'll control it.  When do you get out of the hospital?”
  “I don't know.  I'll be moved to Mountview when my leg is better, and then it could be months until I'm safe enough and lucid enough to function again at the halfway house,
if
I'm even allowed back.  I don't know what charges they're going to press against me, and I don't know if I'll be in a mandatory hold until I'm charged or convicted.  I don't know how long I'll be away this time.  I was gone for a long time before you found me, and Kara and everyone were looking for me, but I managed to get away until I went to the loft with you.”
  “You can stay with me when you get out and-”
  “Forever?  I can stay with you
forever
, Sophie?” He asked skeptically.
  “Yes...” I said so sure of my answer I smiled for the first time in days.  I smiled because I was starting to feel hope in my heart, and reason in my mind.  Everything was becoming clearer for me.  I knew what I wanted and I knew what I had to do.
  “I can't live without you, Sophie,” Peter said sadly, and I agreed.
  “You don't have to.  I'll take care of you,” I cried leaning my face against his cheek. “I'll take care of you until you're better and then we'll take care of each other again when you're well.  I love you so much, I'll fight for you,” I said sobbing. 

  Absolutely sobbing, I knew another absolute- I was lost without Peter and I wouldn't live without him ever again.
  “I don't know when I'll be free to leave the hospital.  Will you wait for me?  Will you visit me?  I can't stand not seeing you.  I need you with me all the time to make me better, Soph.  I need you with me or I'll die.  I'll stop trying and fighting.  I'll stop everything if I can't be with you,” he pleaded.
  “I'll figure it out and I'll be back.  I'll see you every day until we can be together forever,” I tried to calm and reassure him, because I would.
  Crawling onto the bed over the rails, I rested my smaller body on his stronger one and straddled his hips as I laid chest to chest with Peter to reassure us both.  Snuggling in deep, it didn't matter that his arms were held against the rails, or that he could only nuzzle into my neck.  It didn't matter that he couldn't hold me because I was strong enough to hold him this time.
  “I'm strong enough to hold you up when you need to be held, Peter,” I whispered his words into the beautiful silence around us, as we each wept softly wrapped in our absolute.
  We couldn't live without each other, and I decided for us we never would again.
  A few minutes later the door was opened widely and I was quickly reprimanded for lying on Peter.  All throughout our conversation I knew a head would poke in the door to make sure we were fine, but I ignored it.  Peter and I spoke past the person checking up on us, but that last time, there was no more time.
  I was quickly asked to get off Peter as a doctor and a police officer walked into the room, so I did.  Kissing his lips quickly, I struggled to get back over the bars as my feet hit the ground, but I was okay.
  I had a purpose and a love so deep inside me, I knew what I had to do, and I knew this little separation wouldn't distract me from my purpose.
  Leaning into Peter as his eyes spilled tears once again, I smiled.  Smiling at his beautiful face, I whispered the truth to him.
  “I love you, Peter.  And I'll be back very soon.”
  After I spoke he watched me with understanding, nodded and gave a sad little smile back to me.  And that was the end of our visit