Choices

The blood was everywhere. I watched it drip down my leg and swirl into the drain. I stared, mesmerized, at what was once my favorite color. Closing my eyes, I felt the water beat down on my body, softly misting my face. I hated that. But right now I felt nothing. Right now I was sitting naked, emotionless, in her house.

And even diluted the blood was still a deep red.

It wasn’t an accident either. I’d imagined this day, shaking with anger, dreading but still knowing it was coming, for years. My vision narrowed, but I could nearly feel my pupils dilating. It was hard to focus on anything because the dull beating in my chest quickly grew, filling my ears like water in your lungs. Burning. If anyone so much as looked at me the wrong way, I could rip their hearts out and never think twice about it. It was hunger. And it wasn’t until this moment that I realized you couldn’t hate someone you don’t love.

That wasn’t entirely true though. I didn’t always know it would come to this. Some days it was good. Some days we would lay with my head against her breast, fingers tracing little nothings on each other’s arms, and it was good.

*

“Would you stop me if I kissed you?” she asked feigning apathy.

I shrugged, but I always wished she would. And she always did, too, a bittersweet caress. Up until the last time. Even then I knew she would have, but she didn’t ask and I didn’t care. She kissed me hard, our teeth clashing, like it was the first time she ever did and the last time she ever would.

“I love you Cecilia,” she said, looking into my eyes. I could never hold that piercing blue stare.

“Promise?” I whispered, my eyes focused intently on her necklace.

“I promise so much my pinkies hurt.”

I smiled, finally, and kissed her back. I could never resist for long.

*

I opened my eyes to violating light, pressing my brain deeper into migraine. I reluctantly stood up, wishing the rest of the blood would go away, anything to keep from having to wash away the last of her myself. But spells like this only work in fantasy and fairytales. There wasn’t much left—in the bathroom at least.

“Dammit, Faryn,” I sighed and finally opened the door, leaving the water running to drown the silence and maybe the rest of my fear.

Fear.

She always did say I will show you fear in a handful of dust, and here she is still proving herself right, as she always did. I looked around her room. Everything was just as it should be…except the bed. Their bed. Our bed. My moment of rage had passed, and for someone who was just drenched in her, I was starting to feel a little dizzy looking at it. I think I’d rather go back to the nothing. Her bed was made, complete with her set of blue sequined decorative pillows I always made fun of her for.

“This is the level of extra I aspire to be,” I said, laughing, the first day she brought me home. She rolled her eyes. Smiled.

But now it was all stained red. And I stood there staring, but not really seeing, knowing that it wasn’t an accident, and she wasn’t coming back.

Is it sick that a part of me wanted to crawl into that bed and wrap her around me? To take in the faint cherry blossom scent impressed into the Egyptian cotton? I guess this whole situation was just that: sick. So I lifted one leg and then another and fell onto the mattress. I allowed the salt water to mix with the gore, but only briefly. What I wouldn’t allow was my imagination to wander. I couldn’t stop shivering, teeth chattering uncontrollably. The tears stopped and my mind went blank. I stared at the glittered popcorn ceiling, focusing on the uneven breathing. Deep was never my style, but I hadn’t ever wanted to disappear into the abyss more than right now. I knew what I had to do.

I dragged my heavy head up, every muscle aching. Can you hear your bones creaking? They were so loud. My feet met the plush carpet, and I stripped the bed. There wasn’t anything on the bare mattress, but I decided I’d get rid of that too. The odor of death was ever-present.

I was struggling and still alone. Had anyone heard? Was anyone on their way? There wasn’t another house for miles, but you never know. I dragged the bedding outside piece by piece. The mattress met the stairs and slid easily, but navigating it around corners caused my arms to ache even more, and my fingernails were ripping as I pulled it aggressively across the floor.

Twice I thought I saw movement in my peripheral, shadows stirring as I rounded each turn. Twice I felt the beads thicken and drip down my forehead. I could barely breathe, but I was intent on getting rid of any trace that this had happened.

I had to use my whole body to push the bedding through the rough, brown grass. Leaning my left shoulder into the edge, my nose meeting the soft surface. Metallic. I inhaled and it gave me a rush like never before. I hated that I wanted more, and I couldn’t stop. Inhale. Exhale. Repeat. Finally I let it plummet to the earth with a soft thud. The trees surrounded me on all sides, enough so that in the unlikely event a car did pass, no one would see the light I was about to create. Piling the bloodied sheets and pillows messily on top, I doused it all with gasoline. Her favorite smell. I grew dizzy and began hyperventilating loudly. Hearing a snap from behind I whipped around, bringing a trail of gas with me. My heart stopped.

Still nothing.

I turned back and took a box from my sweatshirt pocket. I slid it open and swiped the first across the coarse surface but watched it tumble from my shaking fingertips, vanishing into the night. I struck the next, and this time brought the glowing light inches from my face. Only when it began to burn my fingertips did I let go.

I threw the match and collapsed.

Sobbing, I screamed until my throat was raw. In this moment, a risk I was willing to take. I ripped up handfuls of grass and threw them into the growing fire. The rage was back. This time directed at myself and not her. I watched the last bodily evidence of her existence burn, and tears silently continued to escape, as I remained on the ground unable to take my eyes off. Hours passed yet I was glued to the grass, stuck witnessing my fear becoming little more than a handful of dust. I could have sworn I felt fingertips running up and down my spine, but I didn’t dare turn around and I didn’t dare take my eyes from the blaze. Unfocused eyes fixed on the flames, I thought I saw dancing images of us, and my mind was once again out of my control.

*

“I don’t want to talk,” she said quietly. Lying in her arms was the most complete I’ve ever felt.

“You don’t want to?”

“No.”

“That’s okay.”

“No you’re not understanding me,” she said leaning up on her side, head resting on her hand, “I don’t want to talk,” she repeated. There was a glimmer in her eye that I didn’t yet recognize, but would come to realize later what she wanted every time it appeared. “I want to kiss you. A lot. I’ve been waiting a while for this, Cecilia. I think I deserve it,” she revealed in a sultry sigh. She smirked. I exhaled, nervous, but let our lips meet.

I would never again be as whole as I was in this moment.

*

It wasn’t until the first screams of birds that I was snapped out of my trance. The mattress was still slowly burning, but turned mostly to ash by now. I struggled to stand, my ass numb and legs shaking from sitting too long. I grabbed the hose, sluggishly dragged it back to my mess and started to drown the last of the flames, watching it erupt in smoke and bubble down to nothing. Gray soot turned to black in a matter of seconds. It was finally over. I breathed a sigh of relief.

But she was still gone.

I walked back into her house, the emptiness made incredibly more eerie by the small gleam of a blue-gray dawn. The paranoia was setting in. I could feel her all around me.

“I’m sorry, Faryn,” I muttered to no one. Those small threads of regret were weaving their way into my mind. Most of all, I regretted letting the rage get this far. But I cut the ties and pushed them aside.

Looking around her empty kitchen, I don’t know what I expected to see. My scanning eyes stopped suddenly on the shelf next to her fridge, and I laughed in disbelief. I glided over to get a closer look, but sure enough there were two frames: Faryn and me in one, and Faryn and her in the other.

*

“What the fuck do you mean you want to date other people,” I sputtered late one night. We weren’t lying in bed.

“Please don’t be angry, Cecelia,” she begged pitifully, “I just…I don’t want to wait anymore. I guess I want someone to know that they want me.” This time it was her who wouldn’t meet my gaze. She was crying softly, but right now I didn’t care.

“She’s not good for you,” I snarled.

“You don’t get to decide that.”

*

The shattered glass broke my imagination this time. I hadn’t realized I was crying again until the fragile frame met the wall. My trembling hand reached up to wipe the drips from my nose. I lost control again, wanting to destroy everything in sight. Anything that could remind me of her. I forced every remaining object off the shelf and onto the floor, tore the pictures from the fridge, threw her figurines I had always hated until everything was in irreparable shreds. I picked up the cross she had placed in the middle of her dining room table.

“How could you!” I shouted to a God I no longer believed in.

I let the crucifix drop to the floor, cracking the tile.

Gulping down breath, and choking on the mucus running down the back of my throat, I attempted to regain my composure. There was still one thing left to do. I stumbled through the disaster towards the phone. I shook my head and smiled sadly. Faryn was the only person I knew that still had a landline. I dialed the number nervously, and it only rang twice.

“Faryn?! What the hell. Why haven’t you been answering any of my calls? Are you okay?”

I shuddered as the shrill shrieking reminded me of everything that started this migraine.

“Kendall, it’s me.” My voice was quivering.

“Cecilia…is Faryn okay?”

Visions of the blade finding her skin, shakily but purposefully, flashed through my mind. They weren’t memories, but it was just as vivid.

But I didn’t even have to tell her the truth. She was already crying.

“She’s gone, Kendall. She actually did it this time.” I broke.

I dropped the receiver. I was positive I had seen a shadow this time. I would recognize that shape anywhere.

“I love you, too, Faryn,” I whispered, knowing.

Promise, Ce?

It wasn’t aloud, but wasn’t exactly my imagination either.

“I promise so much my pinkies hurt.”

September 2017