Sometimes, I open my eyes, stare right at the blinding light above my head, and wonder if I’m still alive. I always hope so. If I am to go I don’t want to go unexpectedly and quietly in my sleep- I want to know so he can be there, so I can be in his arms, so I can look up into his eyes and he will be the last thing I comprehend before I die. 

Sometimes I adjust to the light and realise I am still seemingly in a hospital room, the steady drone of machines and a constant beeping surfacing, but sounding as if drowned, underwater. And then I see him- sat beside me, like always- and sometimes, this is not enough to convince me that I am still living. When I am delirious and numb and tired he is my angel, gorgeous, astounding, and I am ready to go with him, but then- I hear my own laboured breathing and a familiar voice and I connect the voice to my angel and suddenly everything is harsh and real and I’m alive and I’m in pain.

But it’s okay, as long as he’s with me. He always has been. He’s been through so much because of me, because of my disease, and he promised when we married that he’d stay with me in sickness and in health and he kept his promise but I’ve made so many and broken them all. I’ll stay sober, I promise. I’ll try, I promise. I haven’t had a drink, I promise. I promise I’m not drunk. I promise I’m not lying. Addiction has made me a liar and either I was a damn good one or Ryan so desperately wanted to believe that I was telling the truth that he didn’t pry any further and took my word for it. And why wouldn’t he? A man should be able to trust that his husband wasn’t continuously and habitually lying to him.

Ryan is sat to my left and he catches the light, illuminated, celestial, and I cannot look at him directly. There are a lot of things I can’t do now, at least without assistance- walk for a long time, sometimes I can’t walk at all, have showers, go anywhere by myself. If it were anyone else looking after me like this- anyone else saw me so vulnerable but fully conscious of my terrifying fragility- I’d have broken down by now. Being helpless is the worst thing about this and he makes it so much easier and I couldn’t love him any more than I do. I have never deserved him and nothing I can do in the remainder of my life will ever make me deserving of him and I consider and accept this as I stare out of the window quietly, too tired to sit up but more or less fully conscious.

What could have been minutes or hours ago, for I have lost track of time completely due to an immobilising fear that I will start counting down the hours and days until I am no longer here, Ryan told me that he wanted to take me somewhere and elaborated no further- at first I thought he meant, like, the hospital visitor’s café, or something, and therefore I was both reluctant (because the food there was depressing) but simultaneously eager (I’d finally get some time in surroundings that weren’t so jarring). Not bothering to ask questions I agreed and he helped me out of my hospital bed because though I am ell enough to walk today I still need assistance just in case. My condition is not exactly stable, and the doctors take great care in telling me this pretty much whenever I’m conscious- and since Ryan never leaves my side, he hears it to and is therefore extra paranoid, holding me like I am glass and I will shatter if he handles me too roughly, which I always try to reassure him that he has never done. Ryan has always been gentle with me when I needed it and he is always in tune with me and knows exactly what I need- and this is why I have faith he is taking me somewhere I will like when, to my surprise, he leads me out of the hospital and into his car.

This short journey takes it almost completely out of me and I am now slumped in the passenger seat, slack but with my jaw tense, eyebrows twitching as if about to raise but then giving up halfway through when I expect Ryan to take the exit towards home but he doesn’t, we carry on. [b]”You missed your exit,”[/b] I murmur, blinking at him and finding it in me to smile, but I’m confused and I feel my blood pressure begin to rise from the disorientation, but as his hand tightens only gently on my knee I exhale, relax, trust him. I always trust him. I let my eyelids droop and for the rest of the journey I lapse in and out of consciousness, and I have no idea where we are going until I feel the car pull to a stop and I open my eyes.

The sea. I smell it before I see it- the first thing I see is the dashboard of Ryan’s car and I ease myself up properly against the seat, turning my head to smile at him as he squeezes my thigh to get my attention. [i]We’re here.[/i] [b]”Where’s here?”[/b] I ask, blinking rapidly- then I glance out of the window and see sand, hear the tides, see them lap against the shore. My breath hitches. I know this place. I feel my throat begin to close from the association. Before I realise Ryan has even gotten out of the car he is opening my car door and I immediately try and do it without any assistance but he evidently has no faith in my independent motor skills (I don’t blame him) and helps me out of the car, his arm- so, so strong, now, or maybe since I’ve lost weight it’s all relative- wrapped around my waist to steady me. I lean against his side and I breathe, trying to time it with the ebb and flow of the tide.

[i]Thought you might like some fresh air.[/i] Damn right I do. I spend 95 percent of my time stuck in that stupid hotel room- 4 percent other parts of the hospital- the remainder of my time I spend supervised just outside, on the grounds but outside of the building just so I can get some fresh air. Except, it’s never fresh, because people smoke outside anyway. Nobody listens to the signs. Out here, though, I look around and we are the only ones at the beach; I recognise it as the one I brought Ryan to for his nineteenth birthday and I automatically go to bury my face into his chest but he holds me at a certain distance, safe and close in his arms but far away enough so he can frame my face with his hands and I meet his eyes, immensely thankful that he would do this for me. Of course he would. [b]”Thank you.”[/b]

[i]Remember my birthday, a few years back?[/i] Immediately, I nod, but I don’t look around and drink it in, I am fixated on my husband and I figure that he could have taken me anywhere and I would still be just as choked-up-emotional. [b]”Yeah,”[/b], I breathe, returning his gorgeous smile with the brightest one I can manage, completely disarmed. Suddenly I am a teenager back on the beach with the love of my life and I am strong and healthy and I have been sober for some time and things are looking up. Then I shiver, despite it not being cold, and suddenly I am again sick and weak and reliant on my lover. Oh well, I tell myself. There’s nobody else I’d rather be reliant on. [b]”I remember, you’d never seen the sea before.”[/b] A fond smile briefly crosses my face. Mourning the loss of being able to stare into his stupefying golden-brown eyes, I bite my dry bottom lip and feel the skin crack but I don’t react, just stare out at sea. [i]I guess I missed it.[/i] 

Nodding slightly, I follow as he leads me across the sand and suddenly I am eighteen again, head over heels, willing to do absolutely anything for him within or without reason. My fingers intertwine with his as tightly as I can. I still barely look at the sea. If my days are numbered I want to fill them with the most beautiful things on the planet but I am yet to think of any more than one.

[b]”I missed it too.”[/b] A pause. [b]”I miss everything.”[/b]