Eeee! Monumental moment guys! This is my very first chapter as an adult, in some of my first hours of being 18!

Anyway, it's also the very last Lewis point-of-view chapter for the first Far From Perfection. Don't worry, he'll be back for the sequel. Maybe...

My next month or two is going to be enjoyably hectic with parties, holidays, planing for both, but fortunately the next chapter is ready and waiting to go up. So, what's say you get this to 460 reviews (my goal is 500 for FFP 1!) and I'll take the time out to update. Deal?

Enjoy xo

Chapter 30 – Look Into My Eyes

Lewis's POV

Rehab.

I am not a drug or alcohol addict. I am not a 75-year-old geriatric who's pulled his hip out. Again.

Being affiliated with the word 'rehabilitation' felt so, absolutely wrong. I had done nothing to deserve it. In my mind, I knew how to walk, I knew how to talk, I knew how to live my day-to-day life exactly the way I had before the day that I woke up being unable to do any of that.

The way I was being treated felt so wrong. The way people have been tiptoeing around me and speaking as though I am not in the room just because I am unable to talk back is a bitter pill to swallow, but it has been Cleo who is breaking my heart.

I know that she knows how I feel.

I know that she thinks it is just as wrong as I felt it is. It is all in her little exasperated sighs, her half-smiles of attempted encouragement, the way she hesitates to say the tough words…

The little sighs that she tried to conceal were her reaction to news that my doctor would deliver encouragingly about my progress and recovery, but the little sound of exasperation that followed her smile at each piece of news has been her subconscious way of reminding me that I shouldn't have to be making all these small achievements that I had already reached many, many years ago. Her half-smiles are her effort to be positive, encouraging me to do things that we both know I could already do and just as with the sighs, I shouldn't have been needing to reach these small achievements. The way she hesitates to say the words is the denial; that saying what I was achieving is saying outright what she is trying to avoid and what her little mannerisms were saying.

All of this has been killing me lately, and I couldn't do anything about it. I couldn't speak my mind, I couldn't say how wrong it felt and that in my mind I didn't need the rehab, the therapy; in my mind I am recovered. I always have been. The worst part is that I couldn't even comfort Cleo; I still haven't been able to apologize and make up for our fight the day before the Guillain-Barre had reared its ugly head. It was a fight that she had probably long forgotten, but is always in the back of my mind.

Now, I have learnt the reasoning behind the saying of not letting the sun go down with fights unresolved; a mistake I would never make again.

Later that day my doctor came to my room to inform Cleo that apparently the virus is wearing off and my muscles are returning to normal. Normal. If everything were normal the doctor would be talking to me, the patient instead of my wife with a complete ignorance to the fact that I am in the bed beside her chair. If my muscles are normal and the virus is releasing it's tight hold on my body, why am I still unable to move anything other than my head?

I am so frustrated of being stuck within my own mind and that is only adding fuel to the fire that is beginning to burn within me, after hearing every word that I have tried to speak come out with a completely different translation and as every move I have tried to make never surface physically beyond my mind.

It is all getting lost in translation, but I have no idea how it was ever going be translated ever again. If it is ever going to be translated again…

The doctor began performing mobility test. I am quite used to them by now, but what I am familiar of I wasn't too sure of. Being told to close my eyes as I felt nothing while the doctor or nurse prodded or poked different parts of my body? Being told to try and move my muscles as nothing proceeded to happen? There isn't much other than routine talking to become familiar with.

It is simply my routine loss of dignity, where the doctors or nurses would prove that I can do less and less.

From my bedside, Cleo softly uttered the half-hearted words of encouragement as she looked on intently, as if hoping to witness the sudden miracle that we both wanted. A miracle where at her command, my body would suddenly make the movements needed and I would jump off the bed into her arms; being completely cured and recovered, restored to normal as if there had been no condition in the first place.

There just are no words to describe how deflating it is with every little moment of lost my dignity from every movement that gets lost in translation, never surfacing physically as my mind tries to submit the force to my muscles to make the moves I knew how to make.

"Can you wiggle your toes?" is one of the questions that the doctor asked, frequently, offering the question with an exceptional poker face.

I responded to the action, I did. In my mind, I made the effort and movements, but no physical actions imitated my mental effort to do so. Once again.

The emotionless doctor nodded, as if approving of my lack of mobility, my failure to do anything and proceeded to assumedly write my lack of progress on her patient record board. "Alright, what about your hands? Can you move your fingers for me?"

With my hand that is already outstretched, I attempted to make the movement of a clenched fist to reflect my growing internal frustrations, even anger, as the sort of action that a person like Zane would use to knock someone out in his interpretation of dealing with his temper.

I wasn't expecting anything from my body that had been failing me more often that not of recent times, but when Cleo let out an ear-piercing squeal, I knew that something was either very, very wrong or very, very right.

"He moved! You moved your finger Lewis!" Cleo's excitement is plastered all over her excited face while the doctor barely flinched from the sudden chaos, wearing the far more realistic expression and level headed reaction that I similarly reflected internally.

It just isn't supposed to be like this. Yes, it is an improvement, but really, I should be normal. It isn't fair, it isn't right and there isn't anything I can do about it.

The physical downsides of the disease have been draining to deal with, along with the prospect of having to learn how to walk and learn the physical involvement of living my day to day life all over again. All of that is enough. More than enough...

When the emotional tolls are added to the burden it all becomes too much. While she was excited at this moment, seeing Cleo struggle to support me, knowing all she wants is to be able to talk to me, to discuss how we are going to tackle this and work out a plan to overcome this without doctor's directions and intervening have made it even harder. I am so proud of how emotionally strong and composed she has been since I have woken up, but it pained me to imagine how she would have struggled with the trauma of me waking up that first day, when I had been unable to do anything but pleadingly look at her.

Above all, I have been carrying the guilt and additional pain of knowing it is all my fault. I am the cause of all of this turmoil and heartache. Of course I had no choice or option in the matter and I personally done nothing to specifically trigger this, but it all sprouted from me. Without me, she would not be going through this.

The frustration in my mind with all of my thoughts and actions being lost in translation has acted as the ignition of lighting the fire to my anger that has been beginning to burn and light a blaze. It is infuriating being unable to execute an action that I could envision and feel as though I was performing it perfectly within my mind. The added emotional difficulty of my wife being forced to see me this way fueled the upset in the little moments of being plainly obvious that she is unable to hide her expressions and reactions enough for me to not be able to read and notice. These were all the contributing factors that resulted in me feeling the darkest that I have ever been able to remember experiencing before in my life.

The dark path has been set with the little light in my life being nowhere near enough to provide the illumination and glow of hope that I so desperately needed.

The dark is daunting, but intoxicating. It absorbed the hope until the gloomy thoughts of lightless hopes took me to a place that I felt as though I am helplessly sinking down to. It was a figurative place, that with my condition, is the furthest place of hope and a place in my mind that if not controlled soon, is going to require really hard work in the need to flee from it.

Later that day, Cleo was still in my room late into the afternoon and early evening while it neared dinner time. She sat slouched in her chair, holding the remote for the television in my room as we both watched the small digital screen from where it hung down from the roof in my room.

Recently, Cleo has developed a means for her to be able to partially understand my wishes. Knowing that my eyes have been unaffected by my Guillain-Barré, she suggested that when given questions, if I agree to the question that is being posed, I should blink quickly a few times, while in contrast if I didn't approve or want to go along with a question then I could clamp my eyes shut for a few seconds to signal a decline.

Using this code, Cleo had channel-surfed through the free-to-air television channels, passing Big Brother where a blonde and brunette girl were in a heated cat-fight argument, which did not catch my fancy at all, as I indicated to Cleo. Neighbours is another option for what was airing currently and I quickly signalled with a tight eye-shut that I really did not want to watch the soap-opera which I knew far more about than what I had ever wanted to, given that Kim insisted upon watching it week-nightly while Cleo and I have been living with her family. Finally we came to the Channel 7 news reports and Today Tonight.

"Lewis? Did you want to watch this?"

Only after Cleo asked me the question did I realize that I had failed responded with my eyes, which I proceeded to do, blinking a few times to stay on the channel that had caught my attention.

It was going over the news headlines, some of the happenings –good and bad- which had been taking place throughout the nation, all of which I had mostly been oblivious due to being cooped up in hospital. The place isn't exactly buzzing with current news.

The news highlights flashed passed with only a very brief summary recapping bushfires, typhoons, accidents, global events and crimes until Today Tonight followed it, introducing the story that had captured my attention even more than any of the news pieces had.

The story being presented and introduced is apparently that of a medical phenomenon. A young girl in her early teenage years, a girl with her whole life ahead of her had been diagnosed with a fatal and terminal medical condition that I had never heard of before, just as I had never even known that Guillain Barré had existed before awaking from my coma to discover I had in fact been diagnosed with the rare syndrome.

As I focused intently on the program and on the multiple interviews and narration that informed viewers of the girl's background, her condition and her miracle comeback I quickly realized that it is intended to be a heart-warming story of encouragement and feel-good positivity. It is the sort of thing that Cleo loved to watch or listen to. However, as I concentrated on the story and the interviews with the girl in particular as opposed to doctors or her family, it was almost as though as I could feel her words hitting a sensitive nerve within me.

Earlier today I could recognize that my mood had been sinking deeper and deeper into a depression that is uncommon for me, but it was something that had been on a slow development since I had woken up in hospital.

Although it is going to be a life changing and difficult experience, I have hope. I have every hope in the world to make a full and almost complete recovery to the Lewis that I was at least a month earlier, while there on my screen is a girl who had been told her short life would be coming to an un-comprehendible, and short, end. Yet, she had managed to be the positive, supportive one as her family struggled with the shocking diagnosis that initially did not give her the same hope and second chance that I have.

Fortunately enough for her, her life was incredibly safeguarded somehow, by some amazing chance or miracle. But she didn't know that. All she knew was that her life wasn't going to be what you are raised from childhood to expect to experience.

Then, here I am, pathetically depressed and letting my wife who I should be supporting carry me and my burdens while I still have every hope, with the sufficient hard work being put in.

Those five minutes, that young girl and her miracle are all of the motivation I needed as an attitude changer and eye opener to be able to mentally prepare myself for the physical recovery and ordeal that lay ahead...

I had SO much trouble with this chapter (it was originally under 2,000 words), so sorry if it is repetitive but do you have any idea how hard it is to write a chapter with absolutely NO dialogue! I'm cursing myself for giving Lewis GBS now haha. There's a reason that this is the last Lewis chapter!

Would love to know your thoughts on whether I managed to pull off a speechless chapter or not though, along with absolutely anything else even vaguely related to Lewis, Clewis, the chapter or FFP!

Next chapter: Bella persists with trying to get her life back into order, dealing with reestablishing her comfort zone since leaving Daniel. Meanwhile, she confides in Will about a secret she has kept hidden since that night.