Agony

Teeth grinding, inexplicable agony. I tried to hide it. Clamping my eyes shut. Gripping the bed so firmly I was attempting to pull out the stuffing, all in an attempt to hide my pain. I knew I wouldn't ultimately win the fight but the longer I hid it, the less of my pain she saw, the less she suffered. Raw grief I could see in her eyes, every second I couldn't hide my pain. I trembled with the effort, sweating and swearing profusely between gasps of breath. I would not scream. I would not scream. Hide it, contain it, I tell myself. Arhing my back I attempt to box my pain away in some far away, long forgotten recess of my mind and suddenly the pain seems to get better, diminish to an tolerable level. I open my eyes and focus on her, the love of my life, that, in my pain, I am hurting. "Please, please, just leave, I don't want you to see…this."

"I am not leaving!"

"Please, I cant….I cant hide it for very long. I.." my box was breaking, shattering under the weight of my weakness, my inability to fight back for long. Maybe, perhaps, if I am embrace the pain, it will be better…. Maybe if I think I deserve this pain, and perhaps, I do, it will be easier to tolerate. Yes! Yes it is! However, my physical pain, the reason I am trying to pull the couch apart is the same. Maura HAS to leave. She cant see me like this, no one can.

"MAURA! LEAVE! PLEASE! I can't…you can't."

I am barely muffling the moans that want to escape my throat. My hands are cramping with their death grip on the bed. My back is killing me as it attempts to arch the pain out of my body. In fact, my whole being is on fire as my muscles tighten in an attempt to stave off the pain, no in the attempt to hide the pain. The poison was designed for this, to test the body to its limits, to heighten the pain to a point of intolerability but not the intensity of unconsciousness. It was designed to torture and I could barely breathe. Breath had become a conscious action, a questionable conscious action and Maura's presence had to cease.

"Please go. Please." Whimpering I wanted her to leave. There was nothing she could do. This was my fight. Seeing my pathetic attempt at hiding my pain was not only exhausting but still causing her anguish. She needed to go. There was nothing for it.

"Jane, Im not leaving. I know you want to scream. It's… it's ok. Stop hiding. I know you're strong and brave. Let it go. Let it go!"

Music to my ears and that was saying something. My brain, it wasn't functioning. I shouldn't be accepting this! She can't be here! No, I can't scream in front of Maura! She will think me weak, never see me in the same way. No, it is more important that she doesn't see me scream…..

Abruptly, my vision tunneled. Blackness overlayed my perception. YES! Yes, let me black out, please! For the love of God! My body began to tingle, to shake and tremble as goosebumps erupted over the entirety of m legs, arms, torso, and scalp? YES! Wait…what's going on? Wait, no! Suddenly it felt as if the great hulk were pushing me into the couch, attempting to merge my person with the stuffing more personally. I couldn't move, my legs, arms, and head dead weights. Breathing was fine and then the tingling morphed into an intensity previously unfathomable. Knives were penetrating every limb, quadrant, and pore. I couldn't move. I couldn't even toss and turn with the pain. Gasping for air, I began to whimper, tears leaking out of the corner of my eyes at an alarming rate. Every breath hurt, it burned with the attempt of taking in freezing air and the ineffectuality of climbing at high altitude. Breathing wasn't working and Maura began doing it for me. She began mouth to mouth breathing as the doctors prepared to intubate me.

"NO!" I choked out, forcefully pushing the plastic tubing away. I wanted to breathe on my own or not at all. No machine was going to do the work I was supposed to do naturally!

"Jane, stay with me! Don't you DARE LEAVE ME!"

I was daydreaming through the pain and agony. Attempting to force my brain to think of something better, more pleasant as a method of coping. It was working, but it was killing me. I could be happy and day dreaming or living and in the most pain of my entire life. Every breath Maura forced into my burning lungs caused me intolerable pain but her desperation and anguish hurt me even more. I don't want to cause her pain. I can't cause her pain, it's not fair. I have to fight, I have to breathe. Focus, Jane, focus. Fill your lungs with air!

I consciously chose to breathe and it felt good. The pain felt good because I was easing hers. Hope filtered into her eyes, I couldn't take that away, it was my job to make her happy, to keep that hope alive. Every breath hurt more than the last and I pulled and scratched at the couch with each necessary inhalation. But the expression on her face made it worth it. Even if I died in the attempt of continuing mine, the look on her orbital whatevers made it worth it.

I couldn't contain it anymore. I had enough air in my lungs now and the occasional moan began to morph guttural whimpers and soon full-fledged screams. The damn had broken. I failed. My pain was visible and on display for the entire world. Maura was going to see how incredibly weak I was. The agony had one. It was taking over. I was no longer in control and I screamed for all I was worth. For hours I screamed and gasped and cried. It wasn't before long that my voice gave out and I screamed without sound or tears yet my body would not sleep, unconsciousness had abandoned me.

Suddenly I realized I was sitting upright, rested against something that was warm and comfortable. Maura was rubbing my back as I shivered and tortured my lungs with every necessary breath. After countless hours the poison was leaving my body, I was beginning to win. Hope, actual real hope was creeping into my soul. Maybe I was going to make it through. Too pained and exhausted to move I lay against her chest. I was probably crushing her but I couldn't move, muffling my sobs was proving exhausting in and of itself. How long I lay against her shivering and moaning begging for my victory in this internal war I don't know.

Just as I thought the worst was over, ready to declare my victory, and sleep seeming an almost feasible possibility, my stomach felt that it had dropped clear out of my body and was being trampled on the sidewalk by every Bostonian that had ever walked the city streets. I curled into the tightest ball possible flailing my limbs in surprise and pain. Was this motherfucker really having a comeback? One good last go at me?

"Jane! Jane? Can you hear me?"

"Maura…I'm… sick" I managed to get out brokenly.

I launched myself forward and over the edge of the bed as I dry heaved over and over. Soon my efforts produced nothing but bile and spit. I couldn't even keep my eyes open throughout the endeavor. I was done for, gone, I had nothing left, barely the energy to breath. I was losing. But I wasn't going to tell Maura, I would be strong through the end. She needn't know that I was tapped out. My body felt like a pincushion and my organs like molten lava but she was never to know that.

I felt her tears on my neck. They were warm and flowing freely. Her sobs I had caused. Her pain, my fault. I had failed her to my greatest shame. I was supposed to be strong for Maura. I had to try harder! Come on Jane, don't you dare hurt her! You can do this! You can do this! It is my JOB to fight bravely, to fight fiercely! Don't fail now!

Fine. God damnit! Fine.

I drew in yet another ragged breath and prepared for more but nothing happened. The nausea dissipated. The pain ebbed from body and limbs. Shivering and feeling defeated I had somehow won.

Jane, can you hear me?

I couldn't speak, I didn't have the energy. I opened my eyes looked at her face and closed them again in response—I began to cry. I had hurt Maura, she had seen my pain and in it my weakness. She would never look at me the same ever again, I had lost the love of my life.

"Jane, I love you. Do you hear me! I love you! You have not lost me. No matter what you think! You demonstrated bravery beyond what I thought possible. I love you! Do you hear me!"

I was dreaming. Her words were too good to be true. I opened my eyes. I looked. I looked at her face, ashen and pale. Raw grief written explicably in her expression. Yet I saw truth, undying truth and something else… awe. I had won. I had won the greatest gift of all, passionate, blind, love.