She had always told me about her omens. And I have realized I'd never taken her seriously, even at the moment I am being told.
The night before I carried the sleeping beauty to the tower of her dreams, I sensed her fear. Her fear of loosing something so dear to her, I felt it, and I believe I know what she was afraid of loosing. In her dream world, she lived in a frozen time. To us, she was taken away for three years. If waking up meant the apprehension of the loss of your youth, your innocence, the three years of your life, and that unparalleled link with the spirit of your special someone, I would be afraid too. But the both of us decided to pursue the promised place; both of us believed anything is worth the second chance of living.
Like the fairytale, our sleeping beauty was trapped in her dreams no more. Yet the damage was done, like a wound that refused to heal.
She had been living with me since she left the hospital. For months I watched her endure the painful path to recovery, the images of her torture like sessions in the physiotherapy room, her arms and legs feeble and frail, they were sculptured into my mind. By then, it was hard to picture her as the girl that attracted me in middle school, not just because of her grades, but her athletic talent.
Amongst the first things I told her just after her awakening, was that with all our time we have ahead of us, we could start a new beginning. Turns out it was more difficult than I could comprehend. We live in the same room that I had stayed during high school, but it seems we barely see each other during the days that were to follow. While I am finishing my last year in university, she was still finishing high school. The three years were literally stolen from her life. During her coma, her body had stopped growing. She barely fits the looks of a high school student, and her true age does not help either. Before sunrise, I would get up to catch my train, leaving her asleep in her separate bed. By the time I got home, we usually take turns in slumbering off ahead of each other. There are occasions when I can go through a whole day without saying one word to her. In the weekends, she generally leaves for her music activities. It was a heavenly blessing; her talent with her violin was not taken away during her long sleep.
I guess I could never look at her as the same way as I did back then. I could not bring myself to propose to a woman, who resembled a younger sister I never had. I still loved her, but it was not in the way I had in mind. I guess she had looked at me differently as well. In the times we had to engage in a conversation, I sensed her addressing me as figure of respect and admiration, as if we're not even the same age. Her smile, her delicate fingers and her beautifully crafted body, they had fascinated me as much as ever, but no longer welcomed me in my own mind. Over the time during her recovery, I have come to realize I must grow into a new relationship with her. I would become her guardian. I would be her protector.