Embraced In The Hands of Woe

I'll lift you and you lift me, and we'll both ascend together

John Greenleaf Whittier

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"'m going to take you to see a doctor, Diana. Your ghostly pale" He said once Diana came to. She had fainted while helping her husband cook dinner, and she was lucky he was there to catch her before she married the hard cold floor. She could not risk a concussion on her already full plate.

Her brain took quite a while to fathom what her husband had said to her and once it registered in her mind she quickly stammered an answer, "No-no need for that I already went and he said it was merely just stress" She lies through her teeth. She felt the guilt creeping up on her like a monster in the dead of night.

"Diana, darling why haven't you told me about this?" He gave her an upset look, his brows furrowed and his eyes became big with concern and that only knitted her stomach further with guilt and regret. But, this is how she wished it to be. She did not want to pull him into her black void. Because she thought that maybe once she's gone he can start a new life with that beautiful brunette who he chose over her. If she had told him then his face would be stuck in that godawful expression till she died and she wanted anything but that for him. She wanted him to live without the guilt of knowing what he had done to her.

She lost the color from her face again, ashen as nausea crawled in on her stomach with a painful throb. It was as if her heart had suddenly stopped beating and all the blood had run down into her feet, pulling her down. She swayed as if on a moving boat for just a moment before Johnathan caught her and lowered her to the ground.

Her eyes glazed over with unshed tears and they only increased once he hugged her in his embrace. Her skin crawled and her insides coiled. She could almost feel her on him, smell her on him. He did not smell like home, not anymore. All she wanted was to cry on his shoulder, his arms around her. But she pulled away from him like he bore the plague. With a whispered goodnight she strode with a lag in her step, away to bed for a sleepless night.

He stared at her retreating thin figure with concern. He prepared a plate of food for her and begged her to eat it and for his sake, she took a bite then two then three knowing well she will only throw it up in the middle of the night because that was how her stomach functioned, it expelled every bite of food that she dared eat.

That night before Diana fell into sleep, she felt Johnathan come to bed next to her. He draped his arm around her waist and pulled her closer to his chest, "Darling, are you asleep" he had whispered through the darkness. The sound of his voice jolted another fresh set of tears from her ducts. It was a good thing it was dark or else he had seen. She turned to face him and held onto his shirt in her small fist.

"No, Johnathan" She whispered back. Pretend. Her head said. She pulled herself closer to him, his warmth radiating off onto her cold flesh. She listened to the soft beat of his heart, steady and in sync. She unfisted her hand and placed her palm on where his heart lay. The sound of his breathing almost luring her to sleep.

"Can we talk?" He whispered close to her ear as he stroked back her hair. He usually took comfort in her being near yet now, all he could feel was concern and fear? He had not known why. All he knew that something was odd, something was amiss.

"What about?" She gazed up at him even though the darkness in the room shielded their eyes from meeting. She felt his cool breath fanning her face.

His warm callused hand held her damp cheek, "Your health, Diana I'm not blind. I'm worried about you" He sounded on the verge of bursting into fits of anger, however not directed at her.

She was not sure why he was ireful, her sickness wasn't her fault, it just happened. It was her fate and she accepted it long ago.

"There's nothing wrong, John. I'm well. I can climb a tree if you want proof"

He let out a deep stressful sigh and pulled her even closer to his chest. He let it go, he gave up too easily because he somewhat believed her. She never lied to him. Yet the nagging voice in the center of his mind would not let it rest.

With one violent contraction the congealed contents in her stomach emerged like a waterfall in the dim light of the bathroom, nothing digested since the evening before, chunks of partially digested chicken and blood floated in the porcelain toilet. Diana wiped at her mouth with the back of her pale hand. The pungent stench invaded her nostrils and she heaved further, spitting blood. She rested her back on the cold wall, her throat gurgled as she struggled to breathe. Her body was shaking, sweat and tears cascading down her flushed cheeks.

She tried to stand but every time she did her knees buckled as If the ground was dough. So she gave up and sat back down on the cold tiled floor. It was at moments like these that she wished she'd listened to the doctor, that maybe the treatments he would've given her would've lessened the ceaseless pain that ate at her bones and stomach.