Opposites Collide

Wentworth’s POV.


Come to me in my dreams, and then

By day I shall be well again.

For so the night will more than pay

The hopeless longing of the day.


Come, as thou cam'st a thousand times,

A messenger from radiant climes,

And smile on thy new world, and be

As kind to others as to me.


Or, as thou never cam'st in sooth,

Come now, and let me dream it truth,

And part my hair, and kiss my brow,

And say, My love why sufferest thou?


Come to me in my dreams, and then

By day I shall be well again.

For so the night will more than pay

The hopeless longing of the day.


‘I don’t know if you’re familiar with it, but you should be. I found a poetry book in your bedroom yesterday and I sat and read them while the doctor was checking you over, and the one I just read you sort of reminds of where we are now. But whenever I wake from a dream about you, I know that the dream is perhaps the closest I get you, when I sleep that is. I just wish I could wake up and find you’d done the same’ I tell AJ after reading her the poem ‘Longing’ by Matthew Arnold. And longing is what I feel, I long for her just to come back to me, to see her eyes open and to hear her voice. I miss her so much. I’ve been here for three days continuously now, and I just refuse to leave her unless it’s to duck out to shower and change (which the kind hospital staff allow me to do here) and then I’m back by her side. The only reason I left yesterday was to go and collect Jack and of course, that book too.

‘And I found this one too, kinda sums up how I feel about what’s happening right now too’ I say before I begin to read to her once more.

Beautiful dreamer, wake unto me,

Starlight and dewdrops are waiting for thee;

Sounds of the rude world heard in the day,

Lull'd by the moonlight have all pass'd away.


Beautiful dreamer, queen of my song,

List while I woo thee with soft melody;

Gone are the cares of life's busy throng.


Beautiful dreamer, awake unto me.

Beautiful dreamer, awake unto me.


Beautiful dreamer, out on the sea,

Mermaids are chaunting the wild lorelie;

Over the streamlet vapors are borne,

Waiting to fade at the bright coming morn.


Beautiful dreamer, beam on my heart,

E'en as the morn on the streamlet and sea;

Then will all clouds of sorrow depart,

Beautiful dreamer, awake unto me.


Closing the book there on the Stephen Foster poem I sigh and look up at her, eyes closed, face looking so beautiful and so much clearer since she began to be able to breathe unassisted and the mask came off. And it’s then that I know, just know I really will wait forever for her to wake up again. I still can’t even begin to emotionally deal with the possibility of that never happening, because it can’t. She can’t leave me like this, she just can’t. After what happened with Tamara all I want for her now is.....................anything but this. I just have to keep hoping she hears me and knows how much I need her to open her eyes again, and that’s the last thing on my mind before my own close and I fall into sleep, where I see her in dream form...........

Alex’ POV.

‘Honestly sis, do you think she’ll ever wake up? Or do you guys all know something the baby here doesn’t and y’all just not telling me?’ Jack asks me as we sit on the edge of mom’s pool, hanging our feet into the warm water. Even though I told Went I’d be back at the hospital at 7.30am, aka in five hour’s time, I can’t sleep. And neither can Jack, but he’s a night creature anyway; lord knows how he gets by on three hours sleep a night with such a high octane lifestyle even if he is only seventeen.

‘Jack, no one’s keeping you in the dark about anything, that’s absurd. You know as much as anyone else, and as for her waking up well your guess is as good as anyone else’s too. But personally, all I can do is hope she will. Right now I think I’ve clouded my thinking about it all by reading other people’s experiences with loved ones in comas. I keep reading about people who’ve lay there for like, twenty years, and I just can’t bear for that to happen to her, for her to lose her youth and her best years like that. For her not to be a mom and get married and stuff like that, because I think that’s where it’ll head with her and Went’ I reply, lighting a cigarette and watching him scowl a little at me in a disapproving manner. Typical Mr Straightedge Jack, but I admire him for it.

‘And if she doesn’t wake up for years, do you think he’ll stick around?’ he then asks me, gently splashing the water with his foot towards a bird that’s come to rest on moms inflatable pool chair, and smiling when it begins to wash. It’s weird to see a bird out and about so late at night; he must be attracted to the hundreds of lights lighting up the trees around the pool. Either that or the bright lights drove him out of his nest.

‘Yeah I do, but I know AJ wouldn’t want him to. She’d want him to go out there and have the things I just mentioned, she wouldn’t want him to miss out on that if she couldn’t give them to him. But no, I really don’t think he’s a fair-weather boyfriend’ I tell him, watching him nod as he fans my cigarette smoke out of his breathing space.