Chapter 138: Changes

Alicia's Point of View

After Zak and I had finished eating breakfast, Zak called the Nevada SPCA to enquire about us coming in to volunteer. Since Zak had history of working with them before, we were welcome to come down at any time, and they said they can always use the help.

Zak offered to clean up the dishes from breakfast, so I went upstairs to grab my shower and then get ready to go out.

Once I was in the shower and had the water running at a comfortable temperature, I stood under the water and closed my eyes, sighing in contentment for the first time in a long time. I had been anxious the last few days about today being the anniversary of my car accident, but was pleasantly surprised that so far, I was feeling better than I had in a long time.

As I began to shampoo my hair, I began reflecting on the past year, and all the new changes that had come into my life.

Obviously, it had all started with the car accident. I ended up being in a coma for a little over six months. When I woke up, I could remember everything up until the moment I had left our lockdown with the police officer to go back to the hotel. The drive, and the accident itself, were all a blur.

The doctor who had been looking after me, Dr. Hamza, had come into my room and examined me, and he seemed surprised that I had no lasting brain damage. He took me to run some tests, which all eventually came back with good results, and then he had sat down with me and explained everything that had happened.

The thought that the doctor had to open up a part of my skull freaked me out – and quite frankly, still freaks me out if I think about it too much – despite having heard of the procedure before. Because of the surgery, I now had a fairly large, sideways "U" shaped scar on the left side of my head, just above my ear. Thankfully, for my own sake, my thick and long hair covered most of it, depending on how it was styled. I wasn't all that bothered by it now that it was healed up.

However, it was very hard for the first few weeks of recovery, seeing the large scar on my partially shaven head, on top of my self confidence issues. I was terribly worried my hair wouldn't come back, and my scar would be visible all the time. Thankfully, it had grown back without issue. Currently, my hair is a bit shorter than it had been before the accident. It is now around the middle of my back, as opposed to waist length, but I'm just thankful it had come back.

Zak was - as he always is - patient and wonderful during that time, telling me almost daily that it would heal and my hair would grow back. He also told me daily I was beautiful, and that he loved me.

Oh…

I smiled as the memory of saying "I love you" to each other for the first flooded my mind.

Once Dr. Hamza had examined me, talked with me, and we had gotten the test results back, he left me alone to rest, but Zak was allowed to sit with me. Zak had come in the room, sat down in a chair beside the bed, and took my hand. I remember holding his hand tightly, and we smiled at each other as I told him Dr. Hamza was pretty sure I would make a full recovery. Zak had stood up and leaned down and kissed me gently, and then pulled back enough to look me in the eyes…

I looked up into Zak's eyes as he looked down into mine, and I could tell he had something he wanted to tell me.

"Ali…this isn't exactly the setting I wanted when this moment happened, but when I came so close to losing you…I realized that the time and place didn't matter," Zak started, gently squeezing my hand, and then looked down at our hands nervously.

"Zak…" I said softly, encouraging him to tell me by squeezing his hand back. I had a feeling of what he was about to say, but I was on medication and didn't want to assume the wrong thing.

Zak looked back up at me and took a bit of a deep breath.

"I understand if you can't say it back, and there's no expectations of anything, I just need you to know…" Zak said, licking his lips nervously. "I love you, Ali," Zak said softly.

I had no feelings of doubt, no second thoughts, or any hesitation on how I felt about him.

"I love you too, Zak," I said softly, my eyes watering up with happy tears, and squeezed his hand.

A look of relief and joy came over Zak's face, and I saw his eyes watering a bit too.

"Really…?" He asked. "You're not just-" he started, but I cut him off.

"No pressure, not just saying it so it's less awkward, and even though I'm on medication," I started, and Zak chuckled quietly, which caused me to smile. "I love you, I have for a while…" I replied softly.

Zak smiled brightly.

"I have too," Zak replied, before he leaned down and kissed me gently again.

Even though we had finally said those three magical words to each other, we unfortunately hadn't been able to celebrate our first anniversary of becoming a couple in October – or our first Christmas together - because I still had a lot going on in terms of recovery.

The first few months of recovery had started in the hospital, but continued once I was released as well. I had attend physical therapy to regain all the strength and muscle tone I had lost due to laying motionless in a bed for six months. I also had a few movement issues I had to work on – mainly walking. I also had to see a psychiatrist in order to talk about any mental and emotional trauma after everything that had happened.

While a lot of that recovery was very difficult, probably one of – if not the worst – times of my life. One thing did change though.

I started to see Emily a lot more often, but she never said anything more to me than "find out the truth" – even if I questioned her about what she was talking about.

When I told Zak about it in the hospital, he was stunned. He couldn't figure out why there was this sudden change. He asked me if I remembered anything from my time in the coma. I honestly couldn't remember a thing. For me, it was just like I had been in the car with the police officer, and then suddenly waking up in the hospital.

If I had had some sort of "out of body" experience, or had tried to contact Zak from "the other side", I had no memory of it.

I had also started having a recurring nightmare.

The nightmare always started right in the middle of some sort of chaos. I was a kid in my childhood home, running down the hall, a girl screaming. Then I'd suddenly be opening my eyes in the dream, finding myself on the kitchen floor, with a throbbing pain in the back of my head. Finally, I'd suddenly find myself outside, sobbing, as police lights flashed around me.

I almost always woke up from the dream either screaming or crying, drenched in sweat.

As the months passed, I became frustrated at not being able to figure out what Emily meant, and the nightmare occurred more frequently – at times happening every night. I started to suffer from depression again, and my anxiety increased. Zak began to worry about my depression when it became quite bad, so he had reached out to all his contacts, and had managed to find me a psychiatrist who – even though trained in science like all psychiatrists – believed in the paranormal. Her name is Chloe Clyburn, and she's been a wonderful addition to my recovery. We had been working from the start on finding a medication regiment that helped with my anxiety and depression, and I think it was finally starting to work. I still have sessions with her once every two weeks, and not only do I talk to her about Emily and the nightmare, I talked about my social anxiety and confidence issues, something I should of dealt with long ago.

Outside of dealing with six months of recovery, and struggling with the anxiety and depression, I had mainly stayed at home. Today was the first day I had felt like myself since before the accident.

There were some other life changing things that have gone on over the past year too.

In regards to "Ghost Adventures", since we had filmed the last episode of the season just before my accident, the show was fine until the end of last year. Then the time came where decisions needed to be made because I had still been in the coma at the time. Zak, the guys, and most of the fanbase had gotten used to me being a part of the show. The idea of starting a new season without me didn't sit right with Zak and the guys, but the network had been putting pressure on them to find a solution.

Thankfully, Zak's wonderfully creative mind found one. He came up with the idea for a new series: "Ghost Adventures: Aftershocks".

The show would take place on a small sound stage, with Aaron filming, and Billy and Jay still doing audio. For each new episode, Zak would sit down with past guests, family members, or even current employees of locations the crew had investigated in the past. The purpose of the interviews would be to find out what had gone on at locations after the investigation, and if any paranormal activity was still going on. In some cases, even new footage of paranormal activity the guys had missed the first time around would be aired and discussed.

The network loved the idea, and the guys had started filming episodes in March of this year. It worked well for everyone, since the guys had plenty of popular episodes to revisit that were way before I joined the crew. They filmed locally, so Zak was mostly fine with working while I was still in the coma.

The first episode aired in April, and after a total of seven episodes, wrapped up in September. The show was a hit with the fans, and so a second season was most likely going to happen. Whether or not I would be involved was up in the air right now, as there were more important things to focus on: whether I'd be able to handle filming "Ghost Adventures" again. Physically I was more than fine to film, it was my emotional and mental state that Zak and I were concerned about.

When I was still in the coma, Zak had sold his "bachelor pad", and had purchased and moved into a new house. It was beautiful, decorated in a modern and more adult style. It had a pool; a half size, outdoor basketball court; and a movie theatre room, amongst many other beautiful features.

(Link on my profile for Twitter and Instagram picture)

When it came time for me to be released from the hospital, I found out Aaron and Cheryl had been talking for a while about moving in together at his place. They assured me that if I wasn't ready to be on my own, they would hold off moving in together. While I was pretty much self reliant, I still needed some help with some things at that point. I had suggested I could temporarily have a nurse come in to help me, but Zak was still concerned about me living on my own, so he had offered for me to move in with him, even if it was only on a temporary basis.

At first I was stunned - and part of me felt like it was too soon - but he said the house had some guest rooms, and I could make one completely my own. He said we could label it strictly as "roommates" verses "girlfriend/boyfriend", and once I was further along in my recovery, if I felt uncomfortable in anyway, he'd help me move out without argument from him.

I had thought about it, and figured that we spent most of our time together anyway, so why not just move in together? So, Zak and I have been living together for a little over six months – basically since I had been released from the hospital. However, I did take him up on the offer of turning a guest room on the second level into my room, mainly because I was concerned of getting into arguments about our sexual tension if we shared a bed every night. Zak assured me that wouldn't happen, but he was understanding and respectful of my decision to have my own room. There were some nights though, if I was having a rough time in any way, I'd sleep with him in his room.

In regards to our one year anniversary, we had decided we would wait until I was feeling better and then plan something. It would be more than just a celebration for our first anniversary as a couple, but it would be a celebration of my recovery as well.

Maybe we can celebrate that soon… I thought, as I finished my shower and stepped out onto the bath mat, and began drying myself off.

Once I was dry, I wrapped the towel around myself, and plugged in my hair dryer to dry my hair. As I dried my hair, I reflected back on the past year, and couldn't believe I was now in a serious relationship, we were living together, and things were finally beginning to look up.

Hopefully things will keep going up from here… I thought, as I blow dried my hair.