Free ROAR by Kallypso Masters

quiet restaurant in Aurora that wouldn’t kick us out if we lingered a while. Why not make it eleven-thirty and call it lunch?”
    “Sounds good.” It truly did. He hadn’t enjoyed a conversation this much in a long time. Listening to someone so full of hope and ideals pursuing her passion made him realize that the world had only stopped spinning for him. Everyone else continued to move forward with their lives.
    As it should be.
    Not that it would be possible for him at this point. He’d chosen his path and had no intention of changing anything.

Chapter Three
    K ristoffer entered the darkened room. The scent of flowers assailed his senses. Tori. She loved stargazer lilies, so he made sure fresh ones were kept in her room at all times.
    “How’s my sweetheart doing tonight?”
    While facing in his direction, the woman who lay curled up on the bed bore little resemblance to his wife. She didn’t smile or acknowledge his presence.
    No surprise .
    Her arm spasmed. Back when he was more optimistic, he might have interpreted that jerk of her arm as a wave.
    Dream on.
    Involuntary movement, the doctors told him over and over before it finally sank in after a couple of years. Despite a stream of experts in the first year she was hospitalized and intensive brain scans over the next three, no evidence had been found that she was aware of him or anything around her.
    She’d been brought back to life four times in the first two hours after the accident. At the time, he’d wanted paramedics and emergency department staff to do everything possible to keep her alive. In retrospect, he wished she’d died instantly. Her brain damage due to the head trauma and lack of oxygen had been massive and irreparable. Tori had always been such a fighter, but even she couldn’t overcome those odds.
    As he did every evening after work, he prepared to spend the next couple of hours talking with her as if she understood him. As if she knew he existed. As if she still loved him.
    Even if she received nothing out of these visits, he needed to keep coming every single day. He’d never stop loving and protecting her as best he could. The horror stories he’d read when trying to find a place for her still burned his gut. Stories about how some unscrupulous staff members took advantage of patients like Tori who were unaware of their surroundings.
    Good care for persistent vegetative state patients didn’t come cheaply; he’d never have been able to afford a place like this on a financial adviser’s salary. When she’d first been released to a long-term-care facility, he’d found one he could afford, but fear of abuse convinced him he needed to devote himself to her every waking minute. To that end, he’d shut off every other part of his life, including work, and stayed by her side almost day and night—six months in the hospital and the next year and a half at the first nursing home.
    He’d changed more diapers than most parents did with their newborns. Flushed and replaced the feeding tube to her stomach. Put her through his own intense physical therapy regimen in an attempt to delay the inevitable atrophy of muscle and organ tissue.
    Those first two years, his entire focus had been on her daily needs, because he’d promised to protect and provide for her on the day they married. But his determination to live up to his vows came at a hefty price to his sanity.
    Kristoffer hadn’t seen that he had a problem dealing with everything until he woke up one morning at his new condo crying and unable to get out of bed to go see her. The feelings of hopelessness and helplessness overwhelmed him. When Gunnar called to check on him three days later, he begged him to take away the pain. His cousin had him in the office of a psychiatrist the next day.
    “You need to let others manage her daily needs now, Kris,” Gunnar had advised him. “You won’t do her any good if you have to be confined in a padded room somewhere.”
    Kristoffer had no