Sleeping through the Beauty Read Free Page A

on only the negative aspects of my life. I never saw the possibilities until I met you.
    “Did you know your mother lent me all of your journals? I don’t think she knew just how much of your personal life you had entered in them. But every word in them indicates that you’ve always known your place in the universe, and what you were capable of doing to make it a better place. I’m ashamed to say that all I ever saw is what had been stolen from me. I never thought I owed the world anything. I have been so blind. Now here I am and I see what you saw all along and there you are sleeping and missing the life you envisioned. It breaks my heart to know you are missing this beauty. I don’t think you want that, so stop sleeping your life away.
    “Please wake up, Rose. I want that for you more than I have ever wanted anything in my entire life. Even with me knowing the moment you do, you’re not going to remember my words to you. I’m also aware that you’re never going to feel for me what I feel for you, but that’s okay because it will be enough to have you whole again, to see you smile and just to hear your voice. It will it all have been enough.
    “I will hold this time in this room with you close to my heart forever and remember your sighs. I will hold all of this close to my heart. Even though you might not remember my words to you, I’ll remember that for a short time I had to you all to myself. You are destined for more than this bed and this room. You are destined to live your life to its fullest and for me that will be enough, so wake up, my beautiful Rose. Please wake, my love.”
    When Phillip finally turned to face Rose, the moment he did, he could feel the change in the room before he saw it and even when he did, he had to walk over to the bed to make certain he was really seeing what he thought he saw. He knelt by the side of the bed. “You have beautiful eyes.”
    He threw his head back and laughed. He then ran out of the room to get a nurse.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

To find your true love is better than any dream.
    “Why are you here again? You don’t have to do this, you know.”
    Phillip caught Rose around the waist before she crumpled to the floor. It was bittersweet being so near, but at the same time so far away. He gathered her into his arms and then sat her in the nearest chair. He knelt to be near, but managed to keep the concern out of his voice. “You don’t have do this either, but here you are overdoing it again so you’ll be able to be your sister’s bridesmaid next week.”
    He touched her cheek, but refrained from caressing her hair, even though he longed to run his fingers through it ever since walking into the room. He wanted more than anything to take a strand of it between two fingers and to caress it as he had done without her permission in the nursing home. He missed those daily visits. The hardest part of it all was she did not know who he was, or the part he had played in her life over the last few months. He had tried to stay away at first, but since he was still overseeing her foundation, he had found one excuse after the other to be with her to talk business.
    He hadn’t forgotten the pact with himself to be content with her being out of the coma, so he tried to bury the pain of having her only seeing him as someone who was nothing more than a soon-to-be brother-in-law. She wasn’t indifferent to him, but he wasn’t anything other than a complete stranger to her. Even though he had watched every home movie and had read her deepest thoughts from the pages of her personal journals, she knew nothing about him and seemed content to keep it that way.
    To regain control over his emotions, Phillip stood and put some distance between the two of them.
    With a stubborn set to her jaw, Rose pushed out of the chair. “I have to do this for Donna. All we ever talked about growing up was about how we were going to be in each other’s weddings. Donna and I chose the colors for