When I Wake Up (7 page)

“Of course I will go, Roy. I am also in need of vacation.”
I replied.

We arranged the trip for June. It was not summer in Brazil, but for those who were accustomed to the climate, the winter of Brazil was always very light. We would spend a month in a historic town, on the coast of Bahia.

I sent all my passport details to him so he could buy the tickets. It looked like a fairy tale. In a month I would be embarking to Brazil with Roy. I would have a month to enjoy him.

This time I was determined not to let my insecurity dominate me. I would drown out my jealousy, hide my fears and not let any of my ghosts disturb me. Roy was not a fiction. He was real. The reality existed and I was part of it. June in Brazil was part of an upcoming reality. It was not just a positive thought, or something I had created. No. June in Brazil with Roy was something real.

Although I have dismissed the fear, it managed to get an entry ticket through the window crack of my emotions. You know those beautiful wooden windows, with glasses around and over the top. It looked like the glass of my window was broken, exposing my fragility, proving to me that the wood that covered my frame was not hardwood. The ghosts of Roy's friends awakened inside me, scaring me, telling me that it was all a theater that would soon end.

When I thought of Roy's friends, I thought of the humiliation I had experienced in my adolescence. It reminded me of being excluded from his life and the length of time he had been without talking to me. How it hurt to be in love with someone who not only did not love me, but also ignored me to the point of not talking to me, as if I did not exist. I, on the contrary, always noticed his presence and wanted to draw his attention, but nothing I did worked because he did not notice me. Currently things were different. He noticed me, gave me attention, spoke to me. But it was so hard to get out of me that feeling of rejection acquired in my teens that persisted in continuing to live in me.

And the dream seemed to become reality. Roy decided to come to New York a week before we would embark to Brazil. He would take the opportunity to get to know New York, the city that never sleeps.

I could not believe it when I went to pick him up at the airport. The joy of seeing him was so contagious. I hugged him tightly and did not want to let him go. A few months away from him only served to reaffirm how much I wanted him. For me truly, it all seemed like a dream. Roy was spending a few days with me in New York.

We went to Times Square and I saw in him the happiness that I normally see in the people who contemplate for the first time, the beauty of skyscrapers. The Marriot Marquis restaurant that turned the beauty of the buildings, one seeing themselves on the big screen TV, and that made people feel as if they belonged to that place.

But my emotions did not stop. I simply wanted to be able to stop my thoughts. I wish I could forbid my mind from looking back or projecting the future, but it did not obey me. I didn’t know why, but sad events insisted on returning to my mind and it was like I relived the scenes in a very slow motion, like if I couldn’t lose any details. Details that saddened me, and took my peace away.

As I walked the streets hand in hand with Roy, I imagined the time he did not hold my hand. Not that I had any grudges towards him. That was not it. It was just the pain of that time that had decided to stay inside of me.

The feeling of contempt was not easy to overcome. It traumatized me, haunted me, and ruined my good times. Rather than focusing on the presence of Roy by my side, I was focused on the lack of it during my adolescence.

We were with our bags ready to leave for Brazil. We spent the week shopping, taking advantage of sales and low prices to bring gifts back for friends.

I had already visited Brazil several times, but for Roy it would be the first time and most of all, with me. I was very anxious about that trip. I was happy and worried at the same time. Sometimes, I thought that a month with him was my chance, an opportunity, but sometimes I also thought that this trip to Brazil could simply mark the end of our relationship.

10

We set off for Brazil. Our whole flight went smoothly. Roy saw friends and family he had not seen in a long time. I was at his side the whole time. But the ghosts that were inside me tortured me, every time I met with someone we had met in our past or in our childhood, something bad grew inside me and led me to despair.

Tomorrow we will take a trip to the waterfall. Roy, his friends, and I. We will visit one of the most beautiful waterfalls in the region. I hoped everything went well and I could expel those ghosts who insisted on frightening me inside my own mind.

The pain I was feeling was indescribable. I searched for the right words to describe it, but I could not found them. The pain was such that I felt it emotionally and physically at the same time. And all of my physical hurt, every organ of my body expressed the pain. I felt it in every part of me, even in those in which one cannot feel pain, as in the hair, cartilage and nails. My emotions circulated inside me, wandering in my gut as if they had tortured me physically and psychologically. I doubted that physical torture causes as much pain as I was feeling. It looked like someone was cutting me slowly without giving me a chance of defense. At the same time, it seemed that rats and pigeons, one of my biggest phobias, were placed with me in a dark room, all closed, causing me to scream for help, but it was not heard by anyone.

In fact, I was not alone. I had people around me and their presence resurrected ghosts inside my emotions that had not only decided to torture me, but this time decided to end my life.

I came to think that the only way to solve my pain was to go back there in my past. Roy and I were together, but did not speak of the past. We appeared to be those people who believed that dwelling on the past is to suffer twice. I in reality would not relive it because I was stuck in him. But due to my pain, that day I decided to confront it.

I realized that my problem was not in being with Roy that day, but the fact that I had been rejected by him in my teens. It was as if being with him at that moment would not ease the pain of the past. It was still alive, the wounds opened, and my emotions totally compromised.

Roy and his friends were there by my side. But I was only there physically, because mentally, I was back in my teens. In my imagination, I met with Roy there in my past. He was as handsome as ever and I wanted to confide in him; open up for him, to express how I really felt. We were there in that restaurant with others at the table when I hugged Roy and I started crying and hiccupping. I ran into his arms, hugged him tightly, in a way that he could not let go easily. With my hug alone, one would be able to notice my despair, but it did not stop there. I started crying and hiccupping so strongly that I ended up drawing the attention of the people around me. Those who looked, would find that something serious was happening to me, maybe a tragedy. And it was. My emotions had collided with each other in me and caused an explosion from the inside out. This time I could not contain them within me and I had to externalize them through the crying and the hiccups. Roy was there, static, not knowing what to do and also without appreciating the scene or my emotions.

I thought of getting the knife that was within my reach and cutting my wrists, but that would not help, as this would lead me to death, but would not solve the standoff of my unrequited love for Roy. So instead of cutting myself, I decided to open my heart, through my mouth and weave words to Roy that expressed my feelings about him. To continue to live, I needed to get back there in time and conceivably solve this inner conflict and declare myself to Roy, explaining exactly how I felt about him. I began by telling him:

“Roy, I love you so much. I'm crazy for you. I cannot stand your contempt and I need your attention. I need some time off from your scorn, so I can calm down. You have no idea how much I love you. Only my words would not be able to express what I feel for you, as this inexplicable feeling takes over my whole being and that makes me the vulnerable and insecure person that I am. Can you understand my love for you? You cannot, Roy. You know when you love a person so much that you would give your life for them? That is me… I would give my life for you. I would donate, if need be, all my organs, just to know that you would live, even if it meant that I had to die and you would end up with someone else, or even if I knew that you would not do the same for me. What hurts the most is knowing that you do not notice my feelings for you, and do not care for them and treat them with such contempt, as if my love for you harms you.”

I did not realize that in my imagination, for the first time, Roy corresponded to my hug and was also looking at me, and in his eyes I noticed something I had never seen before. It was not love, but compassion. And what I needed at that time was not that he loved me, but that he understood me. No, Roy had not lived up to my love, but deep down, he had not been as indifferent as he had always proven. But still, I wanted to die. After all, now I have to live with the idea of having humiliated myself before Roy, having returned to the past, stripped myself of my pride and declared myself to him.

I had not even realized that we had already reached the waterfall. We were all in bathing suits. I never swam well, but Roy was a skilled swimmer and I was not worried. It was so beautiful to observe that waterfall, the water descending as if it was in a hurry. I looked down and it was like there were several floors. If anyone fell there, it would be fatal, especially due to the fact that the water came down in such a hurry and there were several stones on the floor below the waterfall. That's why I decided to stay next to Roy. By his side I felt safe. Unlike I felt in my teens. It was so strange to see someone who had neglected me so much to be there by my side. I could not resist. I went back into the past and wondered what Roy friends would think if they saw us together, as we were now. Of course, they were seeing us now, but I wanted to know the reaction that they had when they were teenagers. And again, I imagined myself there in my teens with Roy, declaring myself, humiliating myself and him looking at me, despite not being indifferent to my feelings, what he felt for me was not love, but yes, pity. Pity for the one who loved him and that he had decided not only to not correspond to this love, but also to humiliate me.

All these memories and imaginations ended up stealing my joy, and making me sad. All I wanted was to enjoy the moment, but my mind would not stop and so I tried to ease my pain, I went back to where I was declaring myself to him and I wanted to get the knife and cut my wrists. I pictured myself cutting them and I was able to project Roy's despair to see me there in front of him, and for a love or perhaps an obsession, trying to take my own life, just to get his attention. I imagined his reaction and I still had not decided if in my imagination, if he would try to stop me from taking my life or not, but while I was lost in these thoughts, I heard screams. Everyone, like in a choir chanted:
Nooooooooooooo!!!!!!!
I did not even realize what was happening, but I had time to observe with my own eyes that Roy had also jumped trying to save me.

Without realizing, I got lost in my imagination. I was so focused on building a fictional sad moment that I forgot that I was in a waterfall and ended up falling. And by the looks of all, I realized that they thought I had tried to commit suicide. But there, in what could be the end of my life, today I was sure that my Roy, the real Roy and not the fictitious, would also risk his life for me. In those last seconds of what would be the rest of my life, for the fall was only a fraction of a second, I had the conviction that in Roy's eyes, I did not go unnoticed as I felt I always had before. And he was there in front of all of his friends, proving to me that I was important to him.

I was falling along with the flow and had no desire to fight for life. I was getting close to the water, I was sure it must be deep and I knew I could not swim. I could also fall on the rocks below, but none of that mattered, because for me, more important than survival, was to make sure that Roy really had feelings for me. I did not think of anything else. I closed my eyes, certain that they never again would open, and I was dying happy. I fell into the water. I did not hit rocks. I just sank. I could not breathe, and I was swallowing a lot of water and drowning was not an easy thing to go through. I felt something pulling me up and I definitely thought I had died, and in that moment, the last words I heard and the voice was unmistakably the voice of Roy:

“God, please bring her back and I will never leave her again. Sophia, come back to me, Sophia.”

Was I dying or was I already dead? But the last words I heard were words that expressed love and desperation, spoken by the love of my life. For a moment, I did not hear anything and thought that life had left me.

Roy put me down on a rock and began trying to revive me. He performed mouth to mouth on me. He also performed chest compressions. I coughed a little. I spitted some water out, but I remained motionless. I just heard everything in a confusing way, but I could not give any sign or make a move to express that I was still alive.

Suddenly I heard people asking:

“Will she survive?”

I heard the sound of sirens, many sirens and I could hear several unknown people asking what had happened. Amid all this, I heard a cry, I could not see but in my heart I knew that Roy was crying.

I heard the sound of an ambulance and police arriving and asking people to make room. I heard the sound of something being taken out of the ambulance and opening up. The noise would be the stretcher. They put me on top of it carefully, and put me in the ambulance.

I heard the relief team saying:
“She swallowed a lot of water. I don’t think she will survive. She is in bad shape, but we will try.”

Roy rode with me in the ambulance. He held my hand and kept asking God to bring me back. There, almost totally unconscious, I realized something that I had not noticed before: Roy trusted God.