One-Hundred Days

“He’s coming home!” They all look at me with sad eyes as I smile next to the window. I keep the feeling of doubt to myself, locked inside the back of my mind. The idea of you coming home keeps me awake, the idea of seeing you sitting in front of me rather than lying in a hospital bed keeps this car going.

I keep my eyes open through downtown headlights that try to sing me to sleep; they’re monotony and silence singing lullabies, the same ones you used to sing to me when my nightmares kept me awake. I wish for nightmares now to keep my eyes open, and for my insomnia to come back with a vengeance, but the thought of you puts me in calm waters. The thought of you lets my mind rest and my heart slow, only to speed back up again when I think of you being so close to me with nothing holding itself up between us.
I keep my eyes open thinking of yours, the ones that could pull anyone from the things that scared them and back into the world. There’s a saying that when someone’s good at something, no one else can do it for them, and your eyes are your gift. You need someone yourself to pull you back into the world, into my arms. You need someone to do what you do so well, so that I can have you back outside of those hospital walls.

Your eyes told me things in the hospital. I watched your eyes as you smiled and said you were fine, and I watched as they said the complete opposite of every word. Your eyes told me to get help, because you didn’t know how long you were going to last. They said to leave you alone, because you were scared I’d see you break. They said all of the things I had nightmares about, lying alone in a bed meant for two. I closed my eyes into your chest so that I could believe your words, so that your eyes would disappear.

I keep the nightmares inside my head as I drive; to keep my eyes open longer than they can manage. I keep your eyes inside my mind, the things they said that you didn’t want me to know, to keep the lights from lulling me to sleep. I watch the others sleeping through the reflections in the windows and think about their doubt when I said you were coming home. I know what that doubt meant, that you may be coming home, but you may not be there completely. I may still miss you even with you sitting right next to me.

Inside the hospital, you forgot my name. Your eyes recognized me but your mind was blank. You forgot all of us, and I wanted nothing more than to stay with you and help you remember. But I had to leave; I had to leave to live the dream you had to leave behind after the accident. I had to leave because a dream can never be cancelled.

I hope you remember me, that they reconstructed your memory as I was away, that the ones who were left behind sitting beside you helped you remember all of the things that had slipped from your mind so suddenly. I hope you remember me as the sun shows itself over the horizon and I see the sign that says fifty more miles until our hometown.

I walk inside after everyone else. They are all already crowded around you where you sit on the couch, with your hands folded inside your lap and a smile. It lights up the entire room, no matter how slight. I walk over and set down my bags. You look up at me with that smile still on your face.

I walk over to you and take your hand in mine. I wait for your eyes to meet mine and knock me off my feet. I wait to see what I’ve been longing for the past five months.

I say your name and you look up to me with empty eyes.
Your eyes are empty of me and everyone around you; the eyes I’ve been longing to see and hoping they remember me are empty.
They have wiped away your memory and your spirit, and they started with your eyes.