Free When I Wake Up by Ana Paula Macedo

because for me, more important than survival, was to make sure that Roy really had feelings for me. I did not think of anything else. I closed my eyes, certain that they never again would open, and I was dying happy. I fell into the water. I did not hit rocks. I just sank. I could not breathe, and I was swallowing a lot of water and drowning was not an easy thing to go through. I felt something pulling me up and I definitely thought I had died, and in that moment, the last words I heard and the voice was unmistakably the voice of Roy:
    “God, please bring her back and I will never leave her again. Sophia, come back to me, Sophia.”
    Was I dying or was I already dead? But the last words I heard were words that expressed love and desperation, spoken by the love of my life. For a moment, I did not hear anything and thought that life had left me.
    Roy put me down on a rock and began trying to revive me. He performed mouth to mouth on me. He also performed chest compressions. I coughed a little. I spitted some water out, but I remained motionless. I just heard everything in a confusing way, but I could not give any sign or make a move to express that I was still alive.
    Suddenly I heard people asking:
    “Will she survive?”
    I heard the sound of sirens, many sirens and I could hear several unknown people asking what had happened. Amid all this, I heard a cry, I could not see but in my heart I knew that Roy was crying.
    I heard the sound of an ambulance and police arriving and asking people to make room. I heard the sound of something being taken out of the ambulance and opening up. The noise would be the stretcher. They put me on top of it carefully, and put me in the ambulance.
    I heard the relief team saying: “She swallowed a lot of water. I don’t think she will survive. She is in bad shape, but we will try.”
    Roy rode with me in the ambulance. He held my hand and kept asking God to bring me back. There, almost totally unconscious, I realized something that I had not noticed before: Roy trusted God.
    The ambulance was going very fast. The sirens would not stop. It seemed to be agitated. I knew my situation was delicate. We arrived at the hospital very quickly. Paramedics lowered me down from the ambulance and rolled me into the emergency room. Just by looking at me, the doctor on call sent me right to the ICU.
    “It looks like a lot of water entered her lungs.” I heard the doctor talking. Upon arriving at the ICU, quickly, doctors reached an agreement that in order to save my life, they should put me in an induced coma due to the amount of water I had swallowed, the chances of survival were slim and probably, if I survived, I would suffer permanent brain damage.

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    Everyone thought that I was unconscious. I was observing everything that was happening to me. I knew when they put all those tubes in me and what bothered me more in that room was the beep, beep, beep; the noise which the devices that kept me alive were making. Something was factual; for the first time in my life I was breathing from the support of devices and machines.
    For me it was very strange. I heard people who were in the ICU say that I was unconscious.
    “No. She is in a coma, but she can hear you.” replied Luiza, a friendly nurse who was part of the team.
    “Will she survive?” Mara asked, a negative nurse, who unfortunately was also part of the team that was looking after me.
    “Of course, I already told you.” Luiza said, looking in my direction.
    I was with my eyes closed, breathing through devices. My whole body motionless, but I could not only hear, but also see everything that was going on in that hospital room. The strangest thing was that in addition to seeing all those who were there, I could also clearly see myself in that bed, with all those tubes and the respirator placed on me. I was apparently lifeless, but I could see everything in a way that had never happened to me before. It seemed like I was in the air, as if next to