RESTART

Drained

I can't even cry anymore. I 've used up all of my tears and although I constantly feel the need to have them burning down my cheekbone, not even them can redeem the ache of my shuttered heart. I pick up my suitcase from the conveyor belt, but I cannot handle the weight and I harshly fall on the airport's floor with the heavy object pinning me down, unable to move and free my weak underweight body.

I look up to see a tall dark figure in a suit, lifting the weight off me and offering me a hand. I don't even look at him and I push away the projected hand, rising myself up. I look like a child in front of this man and I take a step back when he says, "You are welcome".

I do no not answer or even blink, as I turn myself around and start walking away from him. "So that's not your suitcase?" I hear him say. I abruptly stop and turn back, feeling my cheeks flushing from embarrassment. I lower my eyes and grab the handle from his hands in a hurried move trying to get as far away from him as possible, feeling humiliated and avoiding eye contact at all cost, which only results to me tripping and hitting the floor once more. An angry short scream escapes my mouth and I quickly try to pick myself up in my own frustration.

"Here... let me give you a hand", he is already lifting me up. It felt as if a child was lifting a doll from the floor, the way his big strong arms effortlessly picked me up.

"I never asked for your help" I managed to say. The shock was obvious in my eyes. I haven't been able to articulate a single word for more than six months. He somehow realised the state I was in and his annoyed look turned to a worried one. "What' s wrong?" he managed to say in a calm voice. There I was standing in the middle of a freaking airport, my legs now glued to the floor and once more words cannot find their way out of my mouth, but this time not resulting from my mutism that was caused by my traumatised soul, but because of me not knowing what to say.

"I... I am sorry" I managed to whisper. I am a little lost and I haven't been using words for so long that I feel like I don't know how to communicate verbally anymore. My eyes are on the floor, looking at the man's black leather shoes, while I exhaustedly try to gather all my strength, to escape to the nearest exit, holding my oversized luggage.

As I wait at the line for a taxi, I see people queuing for what seems to be an hour's waiting. All I can think of, is that I don't have the physical strength to wait there standing for that long. I haven't properly eaten in days thanks to my eating disorder and this isn't helping my body to endure what only seems to me as an impossible task.

I leave the line and try to find myself another way of getting to my destination. I am crossing the road, straggling to drag my luggage along, but the wheel is caught somewhere and I now find myself on top of it, as my strong grip at the handle, pulls me down with it. I hurriedly try to get up and get away from the approaching car, but it stops before I can stop my legs from shaking. The driver's door opens and an elderly man in a suit comes out of the car, rushing near me with a worried look in his eyes.

"Are you ok Miss?" he asks, while pulling me up from the floor. "Oh my...you can barely stand" and he is only stating the obvious. I was indeed feeling weak this past week, but the long flight and all the preparation requirements for my moving here, strained whatever physical strength I had left. I see him rushing back to the car but he returns, before I can drag myself to the pavement.

"Let me help you with this." and as he grabs my luggage from the handle, it opens and the everything I own is exposed all over that damn street.

"Oh my! I am terribly sorry Miss" he says with a guilt in his voice and tries to get my things back in that broken black suitcase, that I, by now, have literally grown to hate.

Looking at all of my belongings scattered in the middle of the road, I allow my desperation to take over and before I can even say another word, everything becomes black.

I wake up laying down in a bed, in what seems to be a hospital room and my head is aching and feels heavy. I look around and I am all alone. Not much later a nurse approaches me with a smile on her face, taking my blood pressure and body temperature, while telling me that I am ok and the doctor should be here soon. I decide to remain laid down, as I honestly don't think I can stand on my feet without falling again. I was so confused and didn't know how or why I got here and then I remember it all. "My things!" I yell out in despair. The nurse is not in the room anymore and I straggle to lift myself up from the bed but only to fall down again on the hard cold floor. "Seriously? Is this some kind of a disease?" I look up and I see the man with the leather shoes from the airport, before I once again lose my senses.

His point of view.

I pick her up and place her back on the bed and I rush out from the room to get the doctor. I am wondering what is wrong with this girl and I am hoping it's not something contagious, because besides holding her so close to my face just seconds ago, I also have her blood dried all over my white shirt and hands, from when I picked her up, after the first time she 'd passed out and hit her head hard on the side of the pavement's edge, back at the airport. I was seating at the back of my car when my driver had hit the brakes quite abruptly, telling me that a girl was laying in the middle of the street and requesting permission to go and help her. When I stepped out of the car to see what was taking him so long, I saw blood running from the back of her head and I immediately recognised her as the woman that was behaving so strangely just moments ago, although I wasn't surprised to see her again on the floor. She looked so pale and was surely needing of medical attention.

As I walk down the long empty corridors, trying to find a doctor, I finally spot a blond woman with a stethoscope in one of the rooms and I ask for her help. After telling her what happened, she excuses herself from the other patient she was examining, now following me in that woman's room.

As the doctor examines her, I am thinking of a way out of this mess, that I unwillingly found myself into. Sure, I couldn't leave her there bleeding, as obviously she was traveling alone, but I cannot be responsible for her no longer.  I am already late for my meeting and especially today was the most important one of all, as my company's group is about to buy my biggest competitive's remains, after we had already won some of his biggest and most profitable accounts.

I don't have the time for any of these and here I am in a hospital room, the only person they thought was responsible for this woman who's name I didn't even know. Who is she and where is she from, why was she so rude back at the airport, when I only tried to help her and most importantly what's wrong with her health? What if she has something contagious and incurable, while I was stupid enough to be exposed to it? I could have asked from my driver to pick her up and carry her here, but no...I had to be the f*****g hero.

I wait for the doctor to finish the examination, before I ask how she is. She explains that she is very weak, she has a mild concussion and her pulse is low but she can't really give me a diagnose yet. Not before she has the blood results and the x-rays in her hands, to see if any thing is broken or if there is an internal bleeding.

"I can't wait that long and I won't. Call me when the results are out" I scream running out of the room.

"Wait!" I hear the doctor calling me in anger. "Where do you think you are going? She can't be left alone." She is now practically yelling at me.

"I understand you do not know my non existing relationship with this woman and you assume that I have something to do with her, but I don't even know her." I yell back. "I was only kind enough to bring her here but I have no responsibility over her and I really have to go. Hell, I don't even know her name".

The doctor's eyes turn towards me and I can see what she is thinking. That I should be at least a little concerned for this woman, when I was the one to bring her in and she obviously didn't have anyone else to help her.

I turn back to see that woman, pale as a sheet, who was light as a feather when I picked her up in my arms, twice already. Laying here all alone in a hospital room, with a cracked head and a concussion and sure I do feel sorry for her, but she isn't my problem. I 've done more than one should and I am running so late, that I practically missed the meeting.

When I reach the parking lot, I remember I told my driver to go get her a new suitcase, to replace the one that was broken.

"f**k!" I shout out angrily as the realisation hits me. "Where are you?" I scream to my driver over the phone. I know it's not his fault he is not here yet, but I can no longer contain the built up anger from what seems to be a disastrous day.

"I am five minutes away sir" he answers calmly. I hang up the phone and I light a cigarette. I try to organise the rest of the day in my head and save all that I can, but I am relieved to see my car taking the turn towards where I stand. I open the door and tell him off the seat. I take the driver's seat and I am thinking how to get to my meeting asap.

"Get her the suitcase and stay with her. Call me when she wakes up and inform me of her status. Oh ... and find your way to my office by noon" I slam the door and hit the gas hard.