End of Eternity 3 (3 page)

Nodding, I look around sadly. This whole
room is like stepping back in time to visit my husband as a child.
There is a bookcase that is only half-filled with books, for the
rest of it contains trophies. There are medals hanging from the
wall, for both sports and academics. It’s really quite
heartbreaking to think of how wonderful Grayson could have been. He
could have been great. He could have been happy. He would have been
an amazing father.

“You should get some sleep, dear,” says
Grayson’s mother softly. “Please let me know if you need anything.
The bathroom is right down the hall.”

“Thank you,” I tell her as I move toward the
bed. She exits the room and gently closes the door.

Placing my purse down on the small bedside
table, I pull the covers of the bed back and crawl underneath them.
I really am exhausted. Reaching to the side, I switch off the lamp
to plunge the room into darkness. Letting my head fall back onto
the pillow, a little gasp escapes my throat.

Apparently, Grayson liked to create his best
artwork with glow-in-the-dark chalk. Every inch of the walls is
covered in pale phosphorescent drawings of his dead girlfriend. But
the worst of it is on the ceiling. I don’t know how he was even
able to reach that high—perhaps he was tall enough, or maybe he
stood on a chair—but the entire ceiling is covered in repetitious
writings of her name.

Penned in multiple sizes and every kind of
font imaginable, the word Helen is repeated over and over and over
again. Sometimes the word is written backwards, or upside down. My
eyes scan the glowing letters as chills run down my spine.

Helen. helen. Helen. neleH. HELEN. helen.
neleh.

The words blend together in a chaotic
jumble, sometimes overlapping and crisscrossing. It is always
written with such a passionate scrawl that it is evident to see
that Grayson’s state of mind was not calm or accepting. This tragic
event completely unhinged him. It looks like he was never willing
to let go.

I can see why my husband developed such an
unhealthy obsession with my sister. Loss can do funny things to a
person, as I am quickly learning. When he discovered that my
sister’s name was also Helen, some desperate part of his brain must
have wanted to believe that his first girlfriend was still alive.
After she was taken from him in such an atrocious way, he must have
wanted to do anything possible to preserve her image in his mind. I
don’t think he really meant to hurt anyone, but he was very
disconnected from reality.

Thinking about this whole situation hurts my
chest. I can picture Grayson lying here every night, staring up at
her name on the ceiling and remembering what he’d lost. How many
thousands of tears did he shed on this very pillow? Imagining my
husband as a teenage boy going through such pain causes my own
grief to deepen.

My hand shakes as I reach to the side to
turn the lamp back on, and all the words and images immediately
disappear. I take a deep breath, and try to wipe the horrifying
sight from my mind. It is as if all of Grayson’s heartache was
immortalized on these walls. I could feel the overpowering sadness
and misery of the young boy in every stroke of every letter he
wrote.

And strangely enough, I also feel closer to
him. It’s both comforting and saddening to know that my husband
once went through the same thing I am going through right now. He
lost his lover and his child nearly simultaneously, just as I have.
And he took it just as poorly as I am, if not worse. Far worse.

Will I ever get over this?

From the looks of things, Grayson never
really got over Helen’s death. It seems like he went through his
life searching for her. Searching for someone similar to her. The
images on the wall do slightly resemble my sister, so I can see why
he became fixated on her. I can see how his mind could have played
tricks on him, especially combined with the side effects of his
drug use. I can see how he could have gone slightly insane when
presented with a living woman who reminded him of so much of the
dead woman he loved, and the trauma he suffered all those years
ago.

I forgive you, Grayson,
I tell him
inwardly.
I’m so sorry for all that you suffered and I want you
to know that I forgive you. I wish you could have told me. I wish
you could have shared all of this with me. It was a part of you,
and I would have loved you once I understood what you’ve been
through and where you actually came from. I don’t know why you felt
the need to lie to me. I didn’t care about whether you had any
money at all—I only wanted you.

I have been tossing and turning in this bed
for hours. I wish that I had gone to stay at a hotel instead of at
Grayson’s mother’s house; it is suffocating to be here. I simply
can’t understand how she has no desire to seek justice for her son.
That poor, sweet old woman simply let all these bad things happen
to her family without ever standing up for herself. I can’t do the
same. I can’t be like her, and simply let my life get destroyed by
Brad’s cruelty.

I need to make a stand. Somehow.

Tossing and turning in bed, I find myself
plagued with ugly thoughts. They permeate my mind and infect my
whole body. I feel a strange kind of electricity flowing through
me, and I know that I’ve changed. Something has changed. My phone
is lying beside me, because I was considering calling my father or
Owen. However, as much as I need to talk to someone who cares about
me, I know that they would not be supportive of my current
vendetta. I feel like I am in this alone.

What can I do? What can I actually do?

If I called the cops, they might think I was
crazy. I doubt that they can actually find any proof that Brad
drugged me to induce my early labor; I never even suspected it was
possible before hearing Helen’s story. I don’t know how exactly he
did it, but I do remember him giving me a cup of tea a few hours
before I started bleeding. I was already having a difficult
pregnancy before he intervened, and that might seem like reason
enough for me to lose my baby—I suppose I was an easy target.

Of course, it’s been way too long since Brad
drugged Grayson and his first girlfriend. All of that is ancient
history, and all the evidence has been destroyed. I know that the
authorities won’t be able to do anything with my accusations.

This is completely in my hands.

My head hurts, and my breasts hurt. My
stomach hurts, and my whole body feels weak. Grayson’s mother
offered me a meal, but I was unable to eat. How could I eat after
learning this kind of information?

I just don’t know what to do. I don’t know
where to begin.

A small sound alerts me to a text message. I
turn to the side to grab my phone, hoping that it isn’t Brad. I
wouldn’t know what to say to him. A rush of relief fills my chest
when I see that it is Owen. He sent a message asking how I am.

I nearly want to cry from happiness. I need
to hear his voice so much right now.

Instead of responding via text, I call him.
I lie back down on the pillow and shut my eyes tightly, waiting for
him to answer. I am surprised that it takes so many rings,
considering that he just texted me.

“Hey, Carm!” he finally says into the phone.
“Sorry for taking so long; I was fighting with Caroline and I had
to excuse myself. Is everything okay?”

“No,” I tell him softly. “Owen... I just
learned something horrible.”

“What is it? Dammit, I knew I should have
gone with you to Detroit! Are you okay?”

“Yes, but... it’s about Brad,” I whisper.
“Grayson’s mother said—she said that...”

“Yes?”

“Brad might be responsible for me losing my
baby. In fact, I’m almost certain that he is. He’s done this
before, with Grayson’s first girlfriend. Except she ended up dying
in childbirth. Her name was Helen.”

“Shit,” Owen curses quietly. There is a long
pause as he processes this. “Shit. That makes so much sense. That’s
why he went nuts over your sister?”

“Yeah. It would appear so.”

“Okay,” Owen says quietly. “So what do we
do? I told you that guy was bad news! Are you safe there? Should we
call the police?”

“I don’t think that’s going to work,” I tell
him as I lift a hand to rub my forehead. “I don’t know, Owen. I
need to make a plan. I need to find a way to deal with this
myself.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, Carmelita. Slow down.
What are we talking about here?”

“I want to do to him exactly what he did to
me. I want to take everything away from him. Can you get me access
to drugs, Owen? For starters, I want to make sure that he is
totally impotent and never able to have children. Chemical
castration, is that what it’s called? Heck, I want to make sure
he’s not even able to get it up.”

“Carmen, are you out of your mind? I can’t
get those drugs for you. That’s dangerous. You shouldn’t even be
thinking about this stuff, much less talking about it! This isn’t
you.”

“You don’t know me,” I tell him, shutting my
eyes tightly to repress my emotions. “We barely just met! How do
you know what I’m capable of?”

“I know you better than you think,
Carmelita. Sometimes you don’t need to know a person for years and
years to see what’s inside of them. And I know that you’re not
thinking straight right now. You’ve been through a lot these past
few days, and you need to rest and recuperate. It’s enough to drive
anyone loony!”

“Owen,” I tell him in a tortured voice. “I
can’t sleep. I can’t eat. I don’t have any energy. My breasts are
killing me and I need to use the pump-thing you got me, but I don’t
even have the energy to do that. I’m useless. Thinking about
hurting Brad is the only thing that makes me want to keep going.
What do I have, other than that? Other than the idea of
retribution.”

“What do you mean? You have tons of reasons
to keep going. Wait—what do you even mean by ‘keep going’? Carmen,
what are you saying?”

“Maybe I’m better off dead,” I tell him
softly, as tears slip out of my eyes. “Almost everyone I love is
dead. My mother, Grayson, my daughter. Maybe I should join them.
Maybe my dad and sister would be better off without me.”

“I wouldn’t be,” Owen tells me firmly. “I
need you to keep being your alive and pretty self, for as long as
you can. Listen to me, Carmen. Things seem bad right now—no, things
are really damn shitty right now—but they
will
get better. I
promise you that. Just hold on, and they will get better.”

“I don’t think so,” I tell him with a
tearful smile. “I’m fairly certain that the best days of my life
are long gone.”

“Well, I’ll just have to prove you wrong
then, won’t I?” Owen asks with determination.

“You can’t,” I tell him quietly. “You have
your own life, and your own problems. I really appreciate that
you’ve been here for me these past few days, but don’t make this
into any more than it is. You barely know me, Owen. I’m not your
priority. We’re not even really friends.”

“It looks like I’ll have to prove you wrong
about that too,” Owen says angrily. “Close your eyes, Carmen. Get
some sleep. I promise you that things will be better in the
morning.”

The line goes dead.

I immediately feel regret for making Owen
upset with me. He’s been nothing but nice and supportive through
everything, and I shouldn’t be taking out my issues on him. I just
don’t know what to do. I feel so lost and alone. Reaching to the
side, I switch off the lamp and plunge the room into darkness. The
sinister drawings and letters immediately return to view, and now
that they’ve had some time to soak up the light, they are more
vivid than before.

“Grayson,” I whisper into the dark. “I miss
you. Do you want me to come and join you, wherever you are? Do you
miss me too?”

There is no response. As I stare at the
eerie lettering on the ceiling, it occurs to me that my husband
might actually be happy. Maybe he has been reunited with his first
love, and his first unborn child. Maybe even if I died to join him,
he would no longer have any room in his heart for me.

Grayson has Helen, and Owen has Caroline. My
sister has Liam, and my dad has his work.

No one really has any room in their hearts,
or in their lives, for me.

All I have is Brad.

I wonder if I can make him love me.

I wonder if I can make him love me, and then
rip his heart out.

I wonder if I can crush him completely, the
way he has crushed me. I don’t care if it destroys me. I will
gladly ruin my whole life as long as I can take him down with me. I
have nothing left to lose.