Authors: Nicola Haken
I
will
find her.
After shrouding my body in three layers of clothes in preparation for the uncharacteristic heavy snowfall Seattle was apparently expecting tonight, I snatched the keys for the Audi from the ceramic bowl in the hall and headed out again without knowing where to look next. The Audi was now the only car I drove. It was the one Amy drove most often and the smell of her perfume still lingered in the fabric. I closed my eyes and inhaled her scent and it was as if she was sat right next to me.
And then it hit again – the stabbing pain in my heavy heart. It was excruciating.
I drove for a while, completing a full 360 of the city. I drove past Salt House, the little Italian I took her to one Saturday night when neither of us could be assed cooking, the grocery store, the park, the cemetery…
Nothing.
My mom’s words about Amy’s parents echoed unwelcome in my mind. I still didn’t believe she would put herself in such danger, allowing herself to live through that harrowing existence all over again. I couldn’t believe it. I wouldn’t.
Still, I found myself making a U-turn and heading east towards their house. I didn’t want to, but it was like my feet had become independent from my body, pushing harder and faster on the gas despite my brain telling them it was a ridiculous idea. I parked the car inconspicuously at the end of the street between two overgrown thorny bushes. Then I set off on foot.
Christ, it was cold. The frigid air froze my breath into a cloud
in front of me and sporadic flakes of glistening snow started to fall,
melting into nothing as they landed gracefully on the ground. I felt a sharp pang in my chest, like a glass bomb detonating in my heart. What if she was out here somewhere, freezing to death with nowhere to go?
Where are you, beautiful?
I walked down the street and pulled my black hood over my head. An elderly woman crossed the street when she saw me. With my sullen eyes and black hoody she clearly feared for her purse’s life. The snow was picking up its pace, the flakes swelling to twice their size and starting to stick, blanketing the darkening street with a fine layer of shimmering white. I spotted the house - the sight of it sending a chilling shiver down my spine - and perched myself on a small brick wall guarding somebody’s lawn adjacent.
I adjusted my body so I was sitting at an angle. That way I could see the Hope house but anyone inside wouldn’t be able to see me. Then I kicked the dusting of snow off my boots and waited…
I waited for almost an hour. I waited until
I was camouflaged by the thick snow soaking through my clothes and burning my dithering skin
. There was no sign of life – no shadows lurking behind the windows, no lights being flipped on despite the evening darkness setting in. Resigned to failing yet again, I stood up and the snow crunched beneath my feet as I prepared to leave.
Then, I saw her…
“
A
my!” I heard my name reverberating across the street. My already weak heart stopped dead, instantly recognising the velvety voice behind it.
Shit.
I was momentarily paralysed – frozen like the snow.
What do I do?
Did I run? Run in the opposite direction and never look back? Or run into his arms and let his touch make everything okay?
His body slammed into me, sending me skidding into the snow. His strong, protective arms were beneath me before I hit the floor and he pulled me into him so tightly I struggled to breathe. For a minute I didn’t move. I just let him hold me… let him take the pain away. But it couldn’t last. I realised I was only postponing the inevitable and I wriggled free from his embrace.
“You’re freezing,” was all I could think of to say.
“Yeah. Snow does that to you,” he said with a soft laugh and for a brief moment it was like the last two weeks never happened.
“Amy, come with me.
Please
,” Richard begged, picking straight up from where we left off two weeks ago. His voice was hoarse, gruff like he’d been crying for days – just like me.
“I can’t.” The words ripped chunks out of my throat as they fought to stay buried.
“No. No, no, Amy,
please!
I’m begging you. I’ve only just found you!” His grip tightened around me like a boa constrictor, crushing me, refusing to let me go. “Please, Amy. I only want to talk.”
“I can’t!” I repeated, prizing my body free and refusing to allow myself to even consider the idea. He couldn’t see it now but I was doing this for him. I was giving him his life back. A life where he could do whatever made him happy without fear of my reaction. And that’s what it all boiled down to, what
everything
boiled down to – I just wanted Richard to be happy. And as much as it hurt (and holy fuck it hurt) I knew he couldn’t have that with me.
So, I pulled myself into him, twisting his hair between my fingers while I kissed him. I inhaled his soothing tea-tree and Armani cologne scent, tasted his sweet coffee and mints lips one last time… then I jumped to my feet and ran like I’d never ran before.
My feet hammered the ground and I sprinted until my breath ran out, the icy wind stabbing into my cheeks like shards of glass as I raced through it. I didn’t know how far I’d come when I veered into an alley down the side of a seedy strip joint. The night sky was drawing in. The moon was a shimmering orb illuminating the sky as the flakes of snow danced in the breeze. Exhausted and weak, I dropped to the ground, sliding against a tall, reeking dumpster.
I was alone and scared. My wet clothes had fused to my skin and my freezing body was shivering violently in protest. I stole a generous swig of vodka from the bottle I’d had stashed away in my bag, just in case. The neat liquor burned and scratched at my throat but I kept glugging, knowing it would alleviate my fear. I didn’t really know what exactly I was afraid of. Losing Richard? The fact I had another bruised rib with compliments from my father? The fact I had a glass bottle in my hand that would easily smash into a handful of razor-sharp implements?
A different face was imprinted on my eyelids with each blink. My father’s,
Joanna’s,
Richard’s… They all brought pain, unbearable pain that writhed through my entire body, for a whole host of different reasons. I couldn’t stand it. I shook my head but the faces wouldn’t go away. I wanted them to go away. I
needed
them to go away.
I needed it all to go away…
I glugged the vodka eagerly, one gulp after another in quick, reckless succession.
Gradually it slowed everything down, calming me – my blinking, my breathing,
my
thoughts… I kept going until my brain was too fuzzy to think at all. Maybe that’s why my empty bottle was now a carpet of shattered blades, and why my fingers felt compelled to pick one up.
Blood seeped through the jagged tears in my black pants, marbling the snow, tainting it. I didn’t bother to roll up my pant legs, that would require a thought process and thinking was something I was either incapable of, or not allowing myself to do right now. I sliced and shredded heedlessly, ripping straight through the black cotton and rending gaping wounds into my flesh with not a hint of the meticulousness I would normally use. There was no savouring the moment. No relief.
My right hand became independent from my body, clutching the red-stained glass and rapidly carving the flesh of my thigh in all different directions until it unknowingly started its relentless assault on my left forearm, ripping out all the hurt and hatred. I couldn’t feel it. I couldn’t feel anything. The glacial snow had numbed my skin and the vodka had numbed my thoughts and my nerves. In fact, I don’t think I’d ever felt so calm, so sated,
so
peaceful…
My eyes grew heavy, my limbs weak. I didn’t feel my arm drop but I heard a playful, melodic clink as the shard of glass fell onto the
others which
were nestled in the red snow. Darkness invaded my vision but I couldn’t feel whether my eyes were closed. I couldn’t feel anything. I couldn’t see anything. I couldn’t hear anything. I was falling into the most welcoming, heavenly sleep…
“Amy! Amy!” said a celestial, velvety voice as it danced into my ears. “Oh, dear god, beautiful, what have you done?” The sound was magnificent. I tried to reach out for it but my body wasn’t working.
Is this heaven?
I decided it must be as the divine voice continued.
“Jesus Christ, Amy!” Confusion swamped my foggy mind. Why was the voice so deluged with panic? Was I not supposed to be here? Was I supposed to be…
in hell?
I thought I felt myself being pulled and dragged until I was lying on the icy ground. I thought I felt my arms and legs being bound and prodded. I thought I felt warm, ragged breaths sweep over my face. But I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t sure I even had a body anymore.
The heavenly voice changed from distraught and anxious to calm and authoritative in an instant, as if a switch had been flipped. I didn’t hear what it was saying and soon it started to fade altogether, until it was nothing but an incoherent echo in the distance. I was falling again, my mind succumbing to the darkness.
I was going to hell…
**********
My eyes flickered as I tried to wake up, refusing to open the whole way. Eventually I managed to push through it, summoning enough energy into my heavy eyelids to prize them apart. My pupils were met by a bright, blinding light but I fought against the urge to close them again, forcing them to adjust.
For a brief moment, gazing into the stream of yellow light, I wondered if I was in heaven. But then I looked down and realised I was in hospital. My arms and legs were cloaked in blood stained bandages, tubes were springing from the backs of my hands and a metal incarcerating rail surrounded the edges of my bed.
Then my heart skipped a beat, or several. A body was slouched over the edge of my bed. He was dressed in a white long sleeved sweater that looked like it hadn’t been washed in days. The guardrails were digging into his armpits, and his head – adorned with the most striking shade of auburn/copper hair – was slumped onto the mattress just inches away from my hand.
Richard…
My fingers itched to touch him and - perhaps foolishly - I let them. His head bolted upright, exposing a set of unusually dull green
eyes which
were red and swollen around the edges.
“She’s awake! Charlie, get in here, she’s awake!” he yelled while slamming his fist repeatedly into a round, red button on the wall by my bed.
Almost immediately a tall dark-haired man - late forties by the look of him - dressed in a crisp blue shirt, black pants and white overcoat came charging into the room.
“Amy can you hear me?” Richard pressed in a fluster, positioning his face so our noses were almost touching. I nodded, trying to speak but all that escaped was a croak.
The tall doctor (Charlie, I assumed) was by my side in seconds, fiddling with the wires protruding from my hands.
“Can I-can I-” I tried to ask for some water but the words were lodged in my throat which was as coarse and dry as sandpaper. “Water,” I mouthed.
Richard shot to the foot of the bed so fast it was like he possessed supernatural powers. Then he poured some water into a paper cup from the transparent plastic jug and turned back to me – his return much slower as he steadied the cup in his hand. He put one hand behind my head, supporting it as I leaned my mouth towards the
cup which
he was tipping tentatively towards it. The water was cold and refreshing. It served its purpose, hydrating me, lubricating my arid mouth and extricating the
words which
were stuck in my throat.
“What happened to me?” I asked, dazed and confused. Richard dropped his distraught face, refusing eye contact with me like he didn’t want to have to tell me.
“You got drunk…” He paused, sucking in a deep breath as he prepared himself. “And then you did…
this
to yourself,” he said solemnly, cracks invading his velvety voice. He gestured his hand towards the
blood stained
bandages and then brought it over his face, hiding the pain he was in. “Right after you ran away from me.”
My brow furrowed as I delved into my memories. And then it slammed into my brain like a bullet. I remembered. I remembered the love I felt for him, the safety of his arms, the guilt, the fear,
the
vodka… I remembered
everything
, and I wished with all my heart that I didn’t.
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled, shame rendering me unable to look at him. As usual he was having none of that though, and he tipped my chin with his finger then angled his face just inches from mine.
“Not as sorry as me,” he said, closing his swollen eyes as if he was trying to blink away all the hurt he was feeling. “Baby, please stay with me.
Please
,” he begged. His voice broke on the last word and a rogue tear laced with pure suffering escaped from the corner of his red-rimmed eye.
“Richard, can I talk to you outside for a moment?” the tall doctor interrupted. I’d completely forgotten he was here.
“Richard, I-” He silenced me with a trembling finger over my lips as if he was too afraid to hear what I had to say.
“I won’t be long.” He squeezed the sorrow from his eyes again and left with the tall doctor – to talk about me, I suspected.