Chapter Ninety Six

Chapter Ninety Six
Eros
A week later 
The soft hum of the morning breeze rustled the sheer curtains of the west wing’s private suite. Light poured gently through the tall windows, casting a golden glow over the bed where Athena lay—still, serene, and untouched by the world for eight long years.

I had designed this room for her. Not a sterile hospital corner, but a sun-drenched haven. A place that felt alive, even when she didn’t. The pale lavender walls, the fresh lilies I made sure were rotated every week, the scent of vanilla on her pillows—all of it was for her. 

All of it whispered, you are still loved. Even if she couldn’t hear it.

Even if she never did again.

Today, like every morning, I sat beside her. A book in one hand, the other resting lightly on the blanket near hers. I wasn’t reading, though. I hadn’t for weeks. Months, maybe. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d turned a page. 

My eyes were fixed on her—on the way a wisp of hair curled near her cheek, the subtle rise and fall of her chest.

Still breathing. Still fighting.

And then—I saw it.

A flicker.

The faintest flutter beneath her eyelids.

I blinked. Did I imagine that?

Her fingers twitched.

I froze.

“Athena?”

My voice cracked before I could steady it.

Nothing.

Come on… please… not now. Don’t vanish on me.

But then... her lashes trembled again, and this time her lips parted slightly—dry, barely moving, but moving nonetheless.

Her breath hitched. A soft, hoarse sound escaped her throat.

My heart stuttered. Oh my God... oh my God.

And her eyes... slowly, painfully, opened.

Clouded. Confused. Straining against the light.

“Athena!” My voice broke, louder now, laced with disbelief. The book slipped from my lap and hit the floor. I leaned closer, chest tightening like a vise. “Can you hear me? It's me. Eros. You’re home... you’re safe.”

Her gaze fluttered, unfocused. She blinked hard, as if trying to piece together the fragments of a dream. Her mouth opened again, struggling. No words came—just a broken whisper of breath.

Tears welled in my eyes before I could stop them. I reached for the nurse call button, but my hand faltered—because she was looking at me.

Really looking.

"Athena," I whispered again, brushing her hair back with trembling fingers. Please, please still know me. "You came back to me..."

One tear rolled down her cheek.

And it undid me completely.

I pressed my forehead against her hand—so frail in my own—and wept. Not the composed grief I had learned to perfect these past eight years. Not the silent mourning that came in cruel, patient waves after she was transferred to Villa Isadora.

This was different.

This was raw. Shaking. Hope so bright and blinding it hurt to feel it.

A sob tore its way through me as I kissed the back of her hand. “I waited. Every day, I waited. Don’t you ever do that to me again, Madrigal.”

She blinked once. Slow. Heavy.

And then—just barely—her lips formed a word.

“…Eros…”

My name.

From her lips.

I fell apart.
\~~~~~
The very first signs that someone up there had heard my prayers came when the endotracheal tube was removed—it meant she could breathe on her own. Then came the doctor’s report: the swelling in her brain had gone down. 

It had actually subsided just days after the accident, but barely an hour later, she suffered a heart attack. I’d feared that was the end.

But she pulled through—though she remained in a coma.

The endotracheal tube was finally removed two years ago, on the twins’ sixth birthday. I still remember the doctor’s cautious words. He told me that while she was breathing independently, it didn’t necessarily mean she would wake up. Even so, I held on to hope.

And she didn’t disappoint me.

Athena had woken up, but she hadn’t truly returned. Not yet.

I kept telling myself not to expect too much too soon, but it was hard—nearly impossible—not to hope. Not to want everything all at once the moment I saw her eyes open again. 

I’d taken her to the hospital for an MRI scan, and her doctor had been pleasantly surprised by what he saw: he’d feared the trauma from the accident would leave her with severe brain damage, but that wasn’t the case.

She was absolutely fine.

And that? That was a miracle.

I almost didn’t believe it myself.

Still, I knew better than to mistake a medical report for reality. Her eyes now stayed open for longer periods, and she could track movement. That was a blessing. 

But her body—atrophied, delicate—obeyed only in pieces. A blink. A breath. A whisper. Each motion, each sound—it took everything in her.

Her speech was limited to single words or half-sentences, each one a mountain she had to climb. And yet, she kept climbing. Watching her fight to form even the simplest expression gutted me. 

I’d always known her to be sharp, quick-witted, effortlessly eloquent. Now, silence wrapped itself around her like a second skin.

Her physical therapist came every morning, pushing her gently, encouraging her. Her nurses—gentle, consistent—rotated in shifts. They sometimes called her Miss Sanderson, not knowing that long ago she had abandoned that name in her heart.

And I knew she had. I saw it in the way her face used to harden when someone said it, like it didn’t belong to her anymore.

I corrected them most times. I couldn’t bear to hear it. That name belonged to a life that had used her. Erased her. Repackaged her pain as perfection.

But I never called her that.

To me, she was still Athena.

She would always be Athena. Always Athena. The woman I loved. The woman I waited for.

In the early hours, when the world was quiet, I sat beside her. Those hours belonged to us. I read her poetry—Yeats, Neruda, Plath—hoping my voice stirred something familiar in her soul. 

I told her about the seasons she missed, how spring had come and gone almost nine times now. How the world had changed, even if this room hadn’t.

I never spoke of the war in my heart. The ache of having her there—but not really there. The gnawing fear that maybe this was all I’d get. A heartbeat. A glance. A ghost of who she once was. 

Because how could I? How could I say out loud that her being alive yet unreachable was both a blessing and a slow kind of torture?

Then came that morning.

The one that broke something in me.

She tried to say a full sentence. I saw the determination on her face. The desperation to say it clearly.

"I… don’t… know… where—" Her voice cracked. Her face twisted, and she turned away. Her fragile body trembled with frustration, and God—it killed me to watch it.

I stood without thinking, fists clenched at my sides. Not at her. Never at her. Damn it. Why does recovery have to be so cruel? Why does her strength have to be tested again and again?

Then I sat again. For her. For me. For us. My voice was steady, but only just.

“You don’t have to rush,” I told her gently, brushing her hand with my thumb. “Your mind’s been asleep for years, Athena. It’s okay if it takes time to find the pieces.”

She looked at me then, brow furrowed. Like she was trying to see through the fog. Her lips parted.

“I was… in the dark,” she whispered slowly. “Cold. And… alone.”

Her words pierced through me like a knife. So she remembers… maybe not everything—but she remembers the feeling of being gone. God, what must that have been like?

My chest tightened, I felt it crack open in places I didn’t even know still ached. The breath caught in my throat.

“I know,” I managed. I swallowed hard. “But you’re not alone now.”

You’re home.

You’re mine again.

The kids knew she was awake, and they were excited to meet her. They asked a thousand questions—When can we see her? What does she look like now? Does she remember us? But I told them to wait. I needed her to rest first. I needed her to be ready before I introduced our chaotic little world to her fragile one.

They wouldn’t be able to keep still. They’d talk over one another and pull at her arms and climb into the bed and ask a hundred questions a minute. She needed peace before she could have all that joy.
Though, she hadn’t asked about them yet.

That worried me more than I let on.

I didn’t even know if she remembered anything. But since the doctor hadn’t said anything about memory loss, I kept my fingers crossed that she was only getting her bearings together. 

One thing at a time, I reminded myself. She had to rebuild her voice before she could name the parts of her soul that had been scattered.

After all, the poor woman had been asleep for almost a decade.

This November would make it nine years.

Nine years without her laughter.

Nine years without hearing her say my name—until recently.

Nine years of waiting. Of mourning and hoping. Of building a life that always felt half-finished without her in it. But now… maybe, just maybe, the rest of that life was beginning again.

And that meant I could wait a little longer.