Christmas in the City II

by Samantha Chase

  “I’m okay,” I repeat, hoping my words find their way inside her mind and don’t fall on deaf ears. “I’m okay, Lace.”

  I’m not okay.

  And that’s because she isn’t okay.

  I survived the wreck, but it was Lacey who was a victim of the crash.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  BLACKIE

  I’m losing her.

  Each day is a little worse than the one before as she falls deeper into the darkness that inebriates her. Each day she goes through the motions, pretends she’s livin’ but no one can call this livin’. The light has been turned off on my girl and everything I try to do to help her doesn’t work.

  The first few weeks after the accident I didn’t leave her side, an attempt to prove to her I was fine and not going anywhere. I thought locking us in a bubble, closing us off from the rest of the world—I thought it would reaffirm all the things she knows in her heart, all the things her mind is trying to tarnish.

  I go through the routine, make sure she takes her medicine in the morning, force her to eat and then I give her a bath. I tuck her into bed, wrap my arms around her and tell her how she’s going to make the most beautiful bride. She falls asleep in my arms and that’s how we spend most of the day. I wake her up and carry her downstairs and again, I force her to eat something. She takes a few bites and leaves me at the table to go back to bed.

  Last night I thought the spell had finally been broken when she ate most of what was on her plate. Instead of retreating to our bedroom, she helped me do the dishes and followed me into the living room where I put on our song and danced with her. Usually, spinning her around in my arms as we dance to “Leather and Lace” soothes her, and she slowly comes back to life. I pulled back and for a split second I saw my girl, saw her light and felt her come alive in my arms.

  She might not have been a hundred percent, but she was on the mend.

  She’d get better.

  I know she would.

  I needed her to get better because seeing her like this, being this helpless, it was fucking wrecking me. I needed her light, craved it more than any illegal substance I’ve been addicted to but without it, without Lacey I’m nothing. I’m a man who wants to hit the bottle, a man who wants to rip a line of coke and forget that he’s useless to the woman who needs him.

  I can’t help her when I’m straight but I sure as shit won’t be any use to her high either. Knowing that, believing it with my whole heart, is the only reason I left her alone and dragged my ass to a meeting. Talking about it didn’t cure me, it never does but for an hour I was amongst my peers and not seeking out drug dealers to supply me.

  I stopped off at Dunkin Donuts, picked her up an iced coffee because it didn’t make a difference if it was a hundred degrees or ten, Lacey lived on iced coffee. There was a man selling Christmas trees in the parking lot and it dawned on me that with everything going on we didn’t even have a tree. I picked the tallest and fattest tree off the lot and tied it to the top of Lacey’s car and hurried home.

  It was the perfect surprise and another way to get her to smile.

  Girl, I need your smile.

  I pull the car into the driveway and leave the coffees in the car, anxious to see her reaction when she sees the tree. Even if she doesn’t get excited over Christmas, maybe it’ll be a reminder that we’re getting married in a few days and that’ll be enough to bring her back to me.

  Kicking the door open, I lug the tree over the threshold and call out for her.

  “Lace!”

  Silence.

  “Girl, come here, I’ve got something to show you,” I say as I prop the tree against the wall and close the door. Turning around, my eyes dart around the first floor and don’t find her.

  “Lacey?”

  A sick sense of déjà vu washes over me, filling my gut with dread as I step further into the house and stare up at the stairs.

  No.

  I shake my head, drop my keys onto the floor and jet for the stairs, climbing them two at a time until I reach the landing.

  “Lacey,” I shriek, reaching the closed bathroom door.

  Don’t let it be like last time.

  Don’t let me be too late.

  I can’t lose her like I lost Christine.

  “Lacey, open the damn door!” I frantically shout before busting it open with my shoulder. My eyes instantly shoot towards the bathtub and I breathe a sigh of relief when I find it empty and Lacey nowhere near it… there isn’t water overflowing the walls of the porcelain tub and she ain’t lying face down dead.

  I turn around and spot her hunched over the toilet dry heaving. I hadn’t even heard her, too engrossed in my memories and fear of them becoming my reality yet again to notice. I drop to my knees behind her and pull her hair back.

  “What happened?” I question as her body convulses, and she vomits angrily. I rub her back and bite back the question on my tongue. I don’t want to think that she’s taken something. I need to separate my past from my present and remind myself that Lacey isn’t Christine. This isn’t about drugs and it’s not an attempt to end her life.

  But I can’t be sure.

  Has it gotten so bad inside her head that she doesn’t want to live anymore?

  Exhausted, with nothing left inside her to purge she leans against me and sobs.

  “You’re okay, girl. I’m here, it’s all good,” I murmur against her hair as I hold her.

  “I don’t know what happened,” she says through her tears, turning in my arms to face me. “Blackie,” she whispers as she stares into my eyes, searching for something, what I don’t know.

  “Right here,” I whisper huskily, reaching out to cup her face in the palms of my hand.

  “I’m so tired,” she confesses, clutching my shirt in her hand as she leans her head against my chest.

  “Okay, girl,” I say, stroking her back as I tilt my head back and stare up at the ceiling, so I can pray to a God I have no business praying to and beg him to make this right for her. For a while longer we sit on the floor wrapped up in each other’s arms until I slowly lift her onto her feet. She pushes me away when I try to brush her teeth and does it herself then throws cold water on her face several times.

  After she’s clean and has changed into pajamas, I help her into bed and stay with her until she falls asleep. I lay there beside her, staring at her, battling my conscience until I decide I need help. This isn’t like the other times, a dance won’t fix her, my love ain’t fixing her… I can’t fix her.

  Not this time.

  I slip out of bed and pull my phone from my pocket. Without hesitation, I dial Jack’s phone number. I wanted to be the one to help her, let my pride stand in the way of what was best for Lacey—put my own needs before hers but seeing her on the floor like that was a wakeup call. I pushed Jack aside but maybe he’s the one who can make this right. He’s lived Lacey’s nightmare, survived it even, who better than him to help her.

  “Yeah,” he answers.

  “Lacey needs you,” I reply hoarsely, disconnecting the call before he can reply. I close my eyes and lean against the back of the couch as so many fucking emotions course through me. I close my fist around my phone and chuck it violently across the room. Next to go flying across the room was everything on top of the coffee table and then I flipped that fucking thing too. I swiped my hand across the mantle and sent the picture frames of smiling faces crashing to the floor.

  The smiles in those frames were gone.

  We were so close, girl.

  So fucking close.

  LACEY

  The days following Blackie’s accident are all a blur and the days’ prior, the days when I felt genuine happiness, well, they seem like a lifetime ago. I remember hearing Reina tell me that Blackie was in an accident and I remember seeing him once we arrived at the hospital. I even remember feeling a sense of relief when I first saw him but for the life of me I can’t recall the exact moment when my mi
nd failed me. All I know is that I keep thinking I’m dreaming and even though I see him, feel him and hear him—it’s hard for me to believe he’s real when all my mind is telling me is that I’m living a nightmare.

  Blackie and I like to think we’re writing our story, we like to think that we’ve been given a second chance and all the pages are blank. It’s up to us to fill them however we like but ask any story teller and they’ll tell you there is a thin line between fiction and nonfiction. It’s hard to fill the pages and not have one bleed into another. Just like it’s hard for me to decipher which is the fictional story my mind is writing and the truth of our story.

  Last night I felt like myself. I sat down, ate dinner and enjoyed my time with my fiancé. I wasn’t sitting across from him pretending like I was present when I was a million miles away waiting for him to disappear. For one night we weren’t a doomed couple battling our lethal temptations, for one night we were simply Dominic and Lacey—a happy couple about to be married.

  Finally, able to see things clearly, I noticed the stress I was putting on Blackie and I glimpsed the self-destructing version of the man I love. It’s been a long time since I saw Blackie come unraveled but last night I saw the struggle in his eyes, the push and pull of the devil inside him. I resolved that I’d wake up and turn things around, I’d push through, fit my mask to my face and be the woman he needed.

  I’d be myself.

  And mostly I woke up feeling good, ready to tackle Blackie’s demons just as he’s been tackling mine. I’d be the support he needed and together we’d weather the storm because that’s who we are. Life isn’t always kind to us but we push through and move forward, we hang on to the beautiful future we know we can have and we work for it.

  I knew he needed to get to a meeting, that, he was long overdue and being cooped up in the house with me wasn’t helping keep his demons at bay. I even convinced him I was fine and that he should go. I told him to bring me back a coffee because I can’t remember the last time I had one and the Keurig wasn’t going to cut it. There was doubt in his eyes, hesitation in his step but in the end he walked out the door.

  He’d be back.

  He always comes back.

  He made me a promise, and he lives to keep it.

  My maker was gone.

  That bitch was silent.

  I was a modern day sleeping beauty—awake from a long slumber and ready to live my happily ever after. This was my fairy tale and nothing was going to take it away from me, sure as hell, not my mind.

  In an attempt to get myself back on track the first thing I did when Blackie left the house was look at the calendar and see how many days were left until Christmas—big mistake. I didn’t realize how long I had been suffering, how days had turned to weeks and now there was so much to do before the wedding. Not to mention I hadn’t purchased a single Christmas gift.

  I was about to pull out my laptop and put my credit card to good use when I felt lightheaded. I hurried to the bathroom, making it just in time before I vomited uncontrollably for what seemed like forever. I didn’t hear Blackie’s desperate voice, never even knew he was in the room until he was holding my hair back.

  Exhausted, confused and discouraged I pushed him away and demanded I take care of myself, that, I brush my own goddamn teeth. I don’t understand what happened, one minute I was fine and the next I felt like I was dying. I was back in bed but it was different, it wasn’t depression pulling me under.

  When I woke I expected to find Blackie next to me but was surprised to see my stepmother sitting at the foot of my bed.

  “Reina?”

  Her eyes dart to mine and she forces a smile.

  “Hey, love,” she whispers as I sit up and wipe the sleep from my eyes.

  “What’re you doing here?” I ask. “Where’s Blackie?”

  “He’s downstairs with your father and Danny,” she says, reaching over to the nightstand and handing me a glass of water. “How are you feeling?”

  It was just a simple question—one I’ve heard a thousand times but those four words open the flood gates and I start to cry before I can formulate a response.

  Reina rushes to my side and wraps her arms around me.

  “It’s okay,” she soothes.

  “If I had a dollar for every time someone’s said that to me,” I mutter as I felt another wave of nausea threaten to take me down.

  “Lacey, you’re about as white as a sheet,” she observes.

  I don’t have time to respond as I throw the sheets off my legs and run to the bathroom. Reina takes Blackie’s place, holding back my hair and drapes a damp towel around my neck.

  After the nausea subsides I lean against the wall and stare up at my stepmother.

  “He called you didn’t he?” I question as I pat the towel over my face.

  “He called your dad,” she says thoughtfully as she cocks her head to the side and stares at me. “He said you’re making yourself physically sick,” she tips her chin towards the toilet bowl.

  “I’ve been having a bad couple of weeks,” I admit then shake my head as I lay a hand over my uneasy stomach. “I was feeling fine, Reina. Last night I started to feel like myself… I wasn’t depressed, I wasn’t fighting to find my reality and then this happened,” I blow out a breath and toss the towel across the room. “I think I’m sick and not just sick in the head.”

  “You’ve been really tired?”

  “All I’ve done is sleep,” I respond.

  “Lacey, when was your last period?”

  “My last…,” my voice fades as my eyes widen at her. She holds up a hand as if to say stop but crouches down next to me on the floor.

  “It’s a possibility isn’t it? It would explain a lot too. You’ve been taking your medicine regularly Lace, and even when it sometimes doesn’t work it’s nothing like this. You’re never physically sick… so again, when was your last period?”

  It took me a moment to digest what she was insinuating before I actually tried to calculate when I had my last period.

  Opening my mouth, I turn to Reina but the words never come.

  “Why don’t we make an appointment with the doctor?”

  I nod my head but don’t utter a word as a million emotions run through me. I allow myself to think of what it’d be like to have a baby, to share that amazing gift with Blackie. God, I want to see him be a dad. I want to be the one who makes him one.

  I want that so bad.

  But am I stable enough to be a mother?

  Are we?

  CHAPTER SIX

  LACEY

  Clutching a bouquet of roses, mixed with holly and fresh pine I trek through snow and climb the steep hill. It’s been a long time since I’ve paid my respects to Christine Petra and to be honest I feared coming here today because I wasn’t certain I’d remember where her headstone laid but I spot it as soon as my boots touch the top of the hill. It’s the only stone without wilted flowers in front of it. It’s the only place of rest shoveled clear, allowing the world to see Christine’s name and remind us all that she was a part of it.

  I’d still know I found the right headstone even if her name was obscured by the snow like all the rest surrounding hers—because of the beautiful fresh flowers that sat in front of the scripture that read “Beloved Wife.”

  He was here.

  Blackie never missed a week, always bringing Christine a fresh bouquet of flowers, never giving the groundskeeper a chance to shame her grave by keeping dead flowers in front of her stone. Well, that’s not entirely true. The only time Blackie missed his visits with his first love was when he was in a coma for weeks on end. Those were the weeks I came in his place and brought the woman I envied fresh flowers. It was those visits where I poured my heart out to her grave and prayed for her spirit to trust me with the man we both loved.

  I like to think she heard me.

  I like to think she’s happy that Blackie turned his life around and kept turnin
g the pages of his story instead of shutting the book and marking it as a DNF.

  I like to think she’s giving us her blessing and tomorrow when I marry Blackie I don’t want her to think I’m taking her place.

  I’ll never take her place in Blackie’s life.

  And that’s okay.

  Because she has his past and I have his future.

  Together we’ll love him and together we’ll make sure he doesn’t succumb to his demons. For when I am weak and my mind is reigning over my conscience and I am not fit to be the woman he fights his lethal temptations with, she’ll step in—she’ll guide him, keep him on the straight and narrow and remind him of all the things I can’t. She’ll force him to fight and when the storm clears, I’ll step up again. I’ll take the reins and secure our future.

  God willing.

  I’ve been struggling and while everyone around me thinks it’s the stress of our wedding, only I know the truth. Well, me and Reina.

  “Hi Christine,” I say, falling to my knees in front of her stone. I hold the bouquet, not sure where to place it, not wanting to move Blackie’s flowers he brought her.

  “I’m sorry I haven’t visited,” I begin, wondering if the roles were reversed if I’d want her visiting me. I believe in my heart I would. I believe if something should ever happen to me I’d want Blackie to find love. I’d want him to keep smiling and if someone else did that for him, then I think I’d respect her. I’d be grateful for her. Maybe I’d even love her in my own way.

  “I mainly stay away because I don’t want to intrude on your time with Blackie. I know he visits… I know he brings you flowers—it’s your thing, the one thing you still have together, and I’d never take that away from either of you. The promise he’s made you is just as important as the promise he’s made me, the promise to always come back to me.”

  I smile faintly as I stare at her name and remember the beautiful woman I met only a handful of times.