Page 10 of Prelude to Madness

But it was too fucking late now. The truth was, he was an addict, always would be, even though he’d been clean for years. The thought he’d caused the accident gnawed at me.

Work had kept me from him, leaving him alone to his own mind, and that was never a good place for him to be. The constant pressure he put on himself to do well, to be the best. I was the only one who could ground him. He’d said I was his rock. His voice of reason.

He was staying clean for me. Except he hadn’t.

The accident hadn’t been his fault, thank god. Ironically, a drunk driver had jumped the lights and crashed into him, totalling the car. The driver’s side had taken the brunt of it, which brought us to the here and now.

The doctors had no idea what to say. Other than scrapes and bruises and a couple of broken bones, there was no obvious cause for his coma. Three weeks on and he still hadn’t woken up.

“Dex, please. Go home, even if it’s only for an hour or two to freshen up.”

Reluctantly, I stood, glancing once again at the face of my husband locked up in his own mind. A place he hated to be.

His eyes flickered again, a grimace crossing his face. What the hell was going on inside his head?

I sighed and took the offered handkerchief from my mum, wiping my face and nose.

“You’ll call me the minute anything happens,” I said.

“I will, I promise.” I could tell from the look on her face she knew there’d be no change, that when I returned, he’d be in the exact same state as he was now.

I headed for the door but took one last look. Would he ever wake?

I trudged wearily down the deserted corridor. It was late, a handful of nurses on duty. From what I’d seen, only two other patients occupied rooms on this floor. A woman who had tried to take her own life, and the driver of the vehicle that had brought my husband here.

For many hours, I’d stood at his door, silently cursing the bastard for being so fucking inconsiderate. I was quietly pleased no one had come to visit, not in the three weeks he’d been here. He didn’t deserve it for what he’d done. I’d heard the nurses talking to him, just random shit, but he lay there, unmoving.

His chest was bare, and I’d been tempted to view the tattoos covering his body. I’d seen a wolf and a thorny vine full of roses. A couple of the nurses had talked about a creepy skull on his thigh with spiders and a snake.

He was attractive in his own way but couldn’t hold a candle to Rick, although it wasn’t his looks that had drawn me. It’d been his smile, the casual way he’d played the piano, how he’d flirted with me and no one else.

That had been eight years ago, and we’d rarely been apart since then. We’d married three years later and had just celebrated our fifth anniversary. I couldn’t lose him. Not now.

Over the past three weeks, I’d pleaded with him to come back to me, hoping even though he was in a coma, he’d hear me.

“Looking at him won’t wake him up, you know.” I turned to a nurse who had cared for them both. “Not sure he ever will.”

“He ruined both lives then, didn’t he?” I didn’t hide the bitterness I felt towards him. He’d taken my husband from me. He didn’t deserve my pity.

She rubbed my arm. “I know, Dex, but you have to have hope Rick will wake up. He has more chance than he does.” She gestured to the man in the bed. “He has no one. We don’t even have a name.”

He could die today for all I cared. I wasn’t normally so cruel, but the damage he’d caused had made me bitter. I could never, ever forgive him.

“Then he’ll rot in hell, nameless. I’m sorry, but I can’t feel anything but hate towards him right now.”

“I understand, but at some point, you’ll have to let go of your anger, else it’ll fester inside you. You need to remember the good times with Rick, make sure he gets better and take care of him.”

“If he ever comes out of it.” I should go before I said something I’d regret. “I need to go home. I told Mum I’d only be gone a couple of hours. I’ve wasted enough time looking at this sorry piece of shit.”

“Don’t lose yourself to grief and hate, Dex. I’ve seen it happen too many times. You’re a good man.”

She walked back to her station, and I carried on out of the hospital and back to our apartment. I let myself in and stood in the kitchen.

The moment I heard about the accident, I’d rushed out of the apartment and had hardly been back since. The place was a fucking mess, with unwashed plates and cups littering each surface. I needed to tidy up, take my mind off my comatose husband.

I took off my jacket and got to work. I refilled the dishwasher and turned it on, then cleaned and bleached every surface I could reach.

I moved to the lounge and picked up Rick’s clothes from the sofa. For some reason, he would throw his clothes there every time he came home. I lost count of the times I’d told him the sofa was not a wardrobe. He had a perfectly good closet in our bedroom.