Part Ten

Ian was eighteen when he stopped seeing the numbers.

He wasn't sure how it happened, but the morning he woke up at the hospital, he could no longer see them. He knew because when he accidentally locked eyes with one of the nurses, and there were no numbers hovering over her head. Even the doctor who came to see him and explained that he suffered from a concussion didn't have numbers, too. Ian kept glancing over the man's head as he explained his condition, waiting for it to appear. But it never came, even after the doctor told him that he should be okay and ready to be discharged after they run a couple more tests.

But more importantly, when Olivia came into the room with teary eyes and a runny nose, he couldn't see her numbers either. And Ian eyes glazed with tears the moment he felt her in his arms—real, alive, and well.

"You're okay." He gasped out, not quite believing that she was here when the last time he had seen her, the number one was hovering over her head, indicating her near death.

"You idiot…why do you keep saying that? You're the one in a hospital bed!" Olivia half scolded which Ian laughed at, considering she was sobbing too.

"You're okay." He said again as he kissed the side of her head tenderly and Olivia hugged him tighter.

"I wouldn't be if it weren't for you." She said as she let go and looked him in the eyes. Ian cupped her cheek, running his thumb across the soft skin and felt a peace he had never felt before in his entire existence. "You saved me Ian. You saved me."

Ian gave her a soft smile in reply and leaned it to give her a kiss; one which Olivia gladly reciprocated.

~~~

Ian was close to nineteen when he started to live.

The numbers never came back to haunt him again and although its sudden disappearance was as mysterious as how he had started seeing them in the first place, Ian took it as a blessing and was glad to have been freed from it.

Now, he spends his new life under the sun without having to hide… without having to fear looking at other people and feeling burdened by those numbers. Olivia played a huge role in turning his life around, for it was love that made him choose. It was love that made him realize he could choose his own fate—even save someone from their fate.

But what of Olivia’s dreams? Where did it come from? Ian’s ability to see the numbers… How did it happen?

The answer is: I don’t know. I only write what I see and what I’ve heard.

There is a lesson to this story: we were born into this world the way we are but the way we live, the people we meet, the chances we encounter changes and shapes us into the persons we are today.

We cannot simply walk through life aimlessly, letting the wind take us where it blows. You hold the sails to your own ship, choose where you want to go.

But remember: life will always have its drawbacks and it will throw you off course every now and then. And sometimes, you’re going to have to fall.

Ian was thirty-eight when the biggest drawback manifested in his life. He saved Olivia from her fate but… Who saved them?