Please Tell Me

Starsky keeps watch over Hutch’s bedside waiting for him to answer his question.

I think for the past two weeks I’ve been living in a cocoon, barely aware of the outside world. Doing my job on automatic, laughing and smiling in all the appropriate places. Holding my breath waiting for the storm to hit, to clear away the fog and give me back myself.

But I’m not sure who that is anymore. Since that late night two weeks ago when I almost wasn’t good enough to serve and protect, I’ve been on a desperate roller coaster ride, my world turned upside down and constantly spinning.

I can’t seem to get a grip on this and I’ve shut down my ability to feel, hiding from the obvious to avoid the reality.

But it won’t go away. It is fuelled by my deep concern for his well being his need to fight, to not leave me here like this. I need constant contact with him to assure myself he is still here, still breathing, still part of my life.

They tell me everything is fine, that his deep sleep is just one of nature’s healing techniques, but I need more now. I need him to tell me, to look straight into my eyes and tell me.

I’ve done this before. Waited for him. Usually with calm assurance and faith in the doctors, in fate, in us. This time though there is more at stake. My very life is balanced on a wire so high and delicate I dare not move or even breath for fear of falling.

And the fear is so strong it is making me lose faith, making me doubt myself, making me ignore what I can’t afford to lose.

What made this time so different? What made my heart stop and freeze me in my tracks like that? For that single moment in time I was stone. All life drained out of me, all conscious thought was no more. Existence was no more. When I winked back, it was fear that drove me. And an overwhelming need to touch life, to start over, to tell him.

But tell him what? It haunts me this need. This craving that eats at my soul. That keeps me afraid to leave.

I follow where I am led, but not too far. I eat and sleep only because I know he wants me to. Never far though, always in touching distance.

How do I know what he wants, what I want? He won’t wake up and tell me, nobody will tell me!

He would know. He always knows what I need. I’ve never needed to ask, never needed to hear before. Why now? Why do I feel the need to let go and submit when I don’t even know what I’m asking for?

So, here I sit in my cocoon. Shut down. Afraid. Waiting. And so lonely. The ache and need inside constant companions.

Please, Hutch, tell me.

Ever so softly comes an almost unheard answer. Whether actually spoken or only heard in my heart I never questioned.

“It’s you, babe. It’s you and me. Don’t you understand what we are together? We are an essential part of each other. Needing only each other to provide what gives meaning to life. You are my life, my hope, my future, and my heart. I need you. What you need is love, what you feel is love. Give it to me, David, let me love you.”

I accept what I have heard with a childlike wonder at its simplicity and the life returns to me. A renewed passion builds and blows away the old. I raise my head and look into his knowing eyes and give what we both need.

I knew he could tell me.