Page 103 of Fallen Stars

“How do you feel?”

I’m asked this no less than a hundred times a day.

“What can I get you?”

On the hour from sunrise to sunset, my mom or one of the house staff chime in with this one.

“Do you need more time with Dr. Hampton?”

This question annoys me the most.

When I got off the boat at the Stone Bay marina, my parents whisked me to the hospital. Within minutes, doctors and nursescrowded around and bombarded me with questions, tubes, and needles. After months of solitary confinement in the dark, limited food and drink, and frequent abuse, I went from skittish to manic in seconds.

Thrashing and screaming, it took several hospital staff members to hold me still and eventually restrain me to the bed. As the last leather strap was secured around my ankle, my mind flashed back to the filthy room I spent the past two months in. I saw the metal cuffs around my wrists and shackles around my ankles. The eyebolt on the floor. I felt every ounce of freedom I’d gained since Oliver opened the door and found me slip away.

Within an hour of my arrival at Stone Bay Memorial, Dr. Gina Hampton entered my room. Speaking in soft tones, she asked my parents to leave the room so she could talk with me in private.

My parents didn’t like that.

I wasn’t eager to be alone with a stranger so soon, but I also didn’t want my parents in the room while the doctor asked me intrusive questions about my abduction.

Every day since my return, I take a seat across from Dr. Hampton, cut myself open verbally, and release some of the demons that haunt me when I close my eyes. For an hour each day, sometimes more than once a day, I relive the darkest moments of my life. Then I do mental exercises to help me move past the terrors I experienced in that grimy, claustrophobic cell. I share how relieved I am to be home but also how frustrated I am with the extreme level of attention.

My parents’ incessant invasion of my space makes my heartbeat erratic and my breaths come in short, quick sips. It makes my hands shake and my vision blur. It makes me restless. Fidgety. Angry.

Their endless inquisition and attendance have become a new prison.

For the first time in my life, my parents are attentive without an agenda that benefits them. They tiptoe around me and choose their words wisely. They dote on me in ways I’ve only seen Oliver’s parents treat him.

From grade school to my early teens, I wanted a fragment of this adoration from my parents but never got it.

Now that I’m the center of everything they think, do, or say, I wish they’d just leave me alone.

Not to worry. Their constant affection and consideration won’t last.

Soon enough, my relationship with my parents—which I’ve discussed with Dr. Hampton as my memories have returned—will go back to what it was before. Broken. Distant. Meaningless.

The only relationship I worry over and care about is the one I have with Oliver.

Two weeks have passed since I took Oliver’s hand and followed him out of hell. Our exchange was so generic and too short. But if I focus hard enough, I still feel his thumb softly stroking my knuckles. I still feel his warmth and the magnetism that has always existed between us.

That small touch has comforted me often since my return. When the darkness creeps in, I close my eyes and imagine Oliver and his hand holding mine.

But I haven’t felt him since that day two weeks ago. Haven’t heard the gentle rasp of his voice. Haven’t stared into his mesmerizing basil-green eyes and forgotten about the world.

A life without Oliver is less than. Inadequate. Insufficient.

I am a fragment of who I should be without him at my side.

The day before yesterday, a new, relentless pain flared to life. Beneath my sternum, something snaked around my heart and squeezed until I couldn’t breathe. It stole my thoughts and invaded my soul.

When I mentioned it to Dr. Hampton, she said when we release trauma, we make ourselves vulnerable. We revive parts of our life from before and bring it near the forefront. Former emotions surface and blend with the present.

“Life before your trauma will return. It may come in slow drips or a flash flood. The experience is different for everyone. Don’t fight what you feel, Levi. Embrace it. Breathe through it. Believe that your version of normal will return with time and patience. Though you won’t be the same Levi, you will heal. You will have future happiness.”

A fool, I am not.

The next several years will be daunting. Harrowing. The biggest challenge I will ever face.

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