by Duggan, K A
I may not be experienced but I know what I need, pleasuring myself is all I’ve had, so I lift my fingers and his eyes widen but he doesn’t give up his pace. I snake my hand between my legs, playing with myself as he surges in and out.
“Fuck, Fliss!” he groans
My entire being is electrified. A complete sensory awakening. The heat builds again, my head lolls and my eyes flutter closed.
“Eyes on me, Fliss.”
I snap them open and the sight of the heat radiating from them with an intensity I never thought would be bestowed upon me has me screaming out, clenching my walls around him, squeezing his dick. He lets out a strangled moan, roaring until we’re both spent, coming down from our shared high. He doesn’t move for a while, resting his head against my neck. Spent but satisfied. I try to catch my breath, to make sense of the emotions I’m wading through. When he does move it’s to pull out gently and roll next to me, pulling me against him, my head to his slick chest. His strong arms wrap around me as I run my fingers over his chest.
“You’re something else, Fliss.” He breathes before kissing my head and holding me tight. “Are you okay?”
I nod “Better than okay.” I reply
A surge of happiness runs through me. I never want to let him go.
“Stay with me, Fliss. Promise me.” It’s spoken so tenderly I’m nearly reduced to tears.
I don’t know if he means stay here in his bed with him for the night or stay with him always. Either way, it isn’t something I can vow.
* * *
I stand in his doorway watching him as he sleeps, my heart heavy. Seeing him like this, peaceful, content is heart clenching. Something shifted between us last night. I felt it to my soul. An emotional significance that will never be forgotten. I never should have gone to him but don’t regret it now for a second. Fate compelled me and last night was the perfect way for this to end. Because I always knew it had to.
He might be hurt, upset even but after what we shared disappearing from his life as fast as I entered it is all I can give him to lessen the blow in the long run. My feelings don’t come into the equation. I started this and now I have to end it, regardless of how sick and empty, it makes me feel.
I linger for a moment more before reluctantly walking away. I grab my pre-packed suitcase from my room, take one last look around the place I think of as home and leave as quietly as possible.
Maybe this is how my dream has to end because deception doesn’t deserve a reward.
Felicity
Current mood - Melancholy
Regret level - Infinite
I walk into my house and the familiar silence hits me. I stand in the entryway, the cold, uninviting space laughing at me for even thinking I’d never set foot here again. My little excursion was just a momentary blip. Exhausted after my flight and the many tears I’ve shed, I discard my case, make a beeline for my room, change into a onesie and crawl into bed. Tomorrow is a big day. One I’m wholly unprepared for. The guilt and shame are back, vying to take first place. Life is so unfair. I ugly cry myself to sleep.
Morning comes around too quickly and I find myself at this place once more, walking through the same corridors, receiving the same pitying looks from the nurses, but this time their looks are tinged with judgement, little shakes of their heads, whispering to one another.
And it’s deserved so I keep my head down, avoiding them all instead of lashing out like my tongue itches to.
I reach her room and enter silently, waiting just inside the doorway for a moment to compose myself. I command my feet to walk forward, my steps sluggish and perch myself on the edge of the bed. I can’t bring myself to look at her, so I grasp her hand and hold it in mine. She’s warm, physically.
“Mum. It’s me Felicity.”
She turns and stares through me. No recognition visible at all on her aged features. My parents were in their early fifties when they had me so I’m used to my mum being ‘old’ but looking how she does now is still a shock. In the time I’ve been gone she seems to have doubled in age appearance wise. My heart sinks just as it does every time. Because whenever I come to visit a tiny part of me always believes that this will be the day she knows me. That some small inconsequential part of the jigsaw and muddled memories will allow her to remember me in some small way – even just my name. But what I really hope for is that she’ll remember she’s my mum and I’m her daughter instead of the complete and utter stranger she now knows me to be. Ever since her diagnosis, I’ve thought of her as frozen and I guess she is. When you hear words like dementia and Alzheimers you generally only think about the memory loss but this illness steals so much more than that from you. Thinking, behaviour, attention, concentration, language, and feelings are all affected. It’s like the person you once knew died.
And I left her.
Dealing with our role reversal, watching her decline was too much to bear. So I ran away. I found my escape and the guilt of that decision sits heavily on my chest. I convinced myself it was okay because she wouldn’t notice if I didn’t visit, she wouldn’t miss me as she has no recollection of me. But that doesn’t make it okay. It’s not even close to being acceptable. She would have never deserted me while I was going through an illness this disabling. I wasn’t ready to be a carer, not for the person whose job it is to care for me. But after my escape, I now realise how immature I was, how wrapped up in cotton wool and unprepared for real adulthood. I wasn’t equipped for any of this. I failed her and in a way she failed me.
Our family dynamic has been irreversibly altered and I didn’t know how to sift through the range of feelings it invoked. It started with anger which morphed into denial. Her quick decline was so devastating to watch that eventually, all I felt was sadness, despair, and frustration. And the burning desire to flee. To get as far away as possible. To pretend that this wasn’t happening – not to my mum. Abandoning all that I knew was a childish coping mechanism. And the worst part is, while I was with Ash I enjoyed myself. I laughed and was happy again. I was living instead of being frozen just like her. I didn’t give her a second thought. I abandoned her all so I could concentrate on myself and my needs and wants. This is the first time I’m glad she can’t remember me because she’d be ashamed and heartbroken.
I had no friends, no one I could tell my deepest darkest fears to, no one of any consequence I could lean on or cry to on our lowest days. My mum was my best friend. The only friend I needed and losing her even though she’s still in the flesh was the hardest thing I’ve ever faced alone.
And now I’m mad. At myself. At the world. At the complete unfairness.
She doesn’t have long left and I wasted all the time I could’ve spent with her on Ash. I want nothing more than to crawl onto the bed with her, wrap my arms around her and feel her wrap hers around me. I want to hold her. Inhale her scent and commit it to memory. I want to feel her stroke my hair with the tenderness she always did and reassure me everything is going to be okay. At this moment in time, I’d happily accept a lecture from her. I want her to shout at me, tell me off. I need her to show me her fire hasn’t been completely extinguished.
But I don’t have that luxury. So I stare at her, memorising every line on her face and committing it to my memory as she stares back at me and I pray that my presence alone however confusing is bringing her some peace and reassurance.
A tear slides down my cheek and before I know it all the emotions I’ve been running from and bottling up come flooding out. My shoulders start to shake from the force of my muffled sobs and I let my head drop to her bed.
I’m not ready to be without her.
I’ll always need her.
I cry into her bedsheets like I’ve never cried before. Our life together playing through my mind and when I think my heart has finally broken I feel a graze on my head. I freeze for a moment before turning my head slightly and see ing my mum still just staring at me but somehow she’s managed to muster the strength to move her hand and lay it on my head
. No stroking or patting, it’s just resting on me and through my tears, I smile, like a rainbow through the rain. Some motherly instinct reached out to me when I needed it the most.
“I love you mum,” I whisper
Ashton
Aftermath is an ugly thing. More ugly than the cause of it.
But that’s what her leaving caused.
Waking up to find Fliss gone, not only from my bed but from the apartment fucking hurt. At first, I didn’t understand, but once it started to sink in, it doesn’t take a genius to figure it out. Was I not worth a goodbye? A fucking explanation? Was a conversation too much to expect? But more than hurting it unleashed anger. I’ve spent the last few days taking out my torment and fury on the apartment working up to a blind rage. Dealing with feelings I don’t like and can’t stomach. I feel used. That’s the bottom line. Used and discarded. Wondering how I ever lived alone before her. The whole atmosphere, the space feels so different, empty, quiet and without joy. So after the initial confusion anger came knocking. I’m not a miserable bastard by nature, being anything like my father is something I fought hard against. Easy going came naturally to me though because negativity is poison to the soul. I think that’s why I write, because any negative emotions I might contain are released onto paper and not with actual words. Writing them takes away the sting. But being left high and dry does something to me. It's released a side of me that I don’t like, don’t recognise and I’m not proud of. I need to expel it. The feeling is so unfamiliar that the only way I’ve managed to deal with it is taking it out on the apartment.
How could she just up and leave? No note, no thanks for the good times, nothing. She won’t answer her phone and that’s most frustrating of all, she’s ghosted me and I have no fucking idea why. Habits are hard to break though and before I leave the bathroom I find myself drawing a smiley for her on the mirror above the cabinet. When I realise she’s no longer here to appreciate it I swipe it away and storm from the room.
I find myself in her room and sprawl out on her bed. Her scent lingers everywhere. She really left. And now I’m lost. Who will watch Netflix marathons with me? Who will entertain me with their hideous outfit choices? That was always my most looked forward to part of the day, waiting to see what she’d wander out of her room in. I’ve never known anyone with such a dedication to onesies. I finally had her, tasted her. I thought we’d finally reached the point where we were honest about our feelings. All the cat and mouse was over or was that just me? I was her first for god sake and whether she admits it or not we connected on a whole other level that night, then she ups and does a runner? Was that it, I scared her off? I feel a strange emptiness. And I realise it’s because I was addicted to how she made me feel. I was addicted to who I was when I was around her. Withdrawals are slowly pulling me under.
I roll to my side and open her bedside drawer to find she’s left her journals. I never knew what she was writing about but she was more committed than me when it came to getting her word count down. They’re all numbered, five in total and I can’t resist looking through the pile until I find number one. I hold it for a while telling myself not to do it. Don’t invade her privacy. How would I feel if she read my manuscript without permission? I tell myself all these things and more but I already know I’m going to open it. I knew the second I found them. Only when I turn the page I realise they were left for me purposely. A yellow post-it note is stuck to the left-hand side, addressed to me.
Dear Ash,
I’m sorry.
Firstly, for leaving you the way I did. Just know if I could have avoided it I never would have left you. Living with you has been the best time of my life.
Secondly, I haven’t been completely truthful with you. I always intended to come clean and not in this way but now the decision has been taken out of my hands.
Please read my journals. I hope they will explain what I couldn’t bear to tell you in person. I know this is the cowards way out but I’ve always been better from behind a screen than in person.
I love you and hope one day you’ll be able to forgive me.
Fliss
What the fuck is she on about? I read the last line again. We never said those words to one another, but she’s written them. She loves me but left the first chance she got? Funny fucking way of showing it. My veins have turned to ice and I’m equally reluctant to read more and desperate to. I slowly turn the page, dread creeping in along with my ever-present need for more information.
Diary entry
This is my first journal entry. At the age of 18 I never thought I’d keep any kind of diary but after this week I think it’s essential, crucial even. Today my world fell apart. It sounds dramatic to write that but in a way it did. I didn’t know there was such a thing as an expiration whilst still living. Today we finally had a diagnosis. For years mum has been more forgetful and not in the funny way she was when it first started. I used to take the mick out of her, tell her she was getting old, until it stopped being funny and became concerning. Mum became forgetful in a dangerous way. Mum ‘morphed’ into someone else. She became someone I didn’t recognise. And now it’s her who doesn’t recognise me. Mood swings and outbursts became a part of her when all she ever was before was supportive and loving. So when I say my world fell apart, I mean quite literally. Mum was my world and pieces of her started to vanish. My days started and ended with her, she was the best thing about being alive. When they said the words ‘aggressive decline’ I sat and nodded when all I really wanted to do was jump across the desk, punch him square in the face and scream ‘Not my mum!’
But that would have been impolite, improper and mum would be mortified to hear of such behaviour. It’s funny that I’m still programmed to think how my actions would reflect on her, how disappointed she would be because she hasn’t known me for weeks now.
She looks through me, not at me.
She doesn’t know she’s a mum and that makes the very essence of her gone.
Lost but still here.
Alive but dying.
The woman lying in that bed isn’t my mother. She’s as much a stranger to me as I am to her. It sounds awful but still true nonetheless. I keep waiting for it to thaw, for her memories to flood through. Just to hear her say my name and look at me with recognition one last time because it happened so quickly. I blinked and she was gone. Vanished before my very eyes. She doesn’t speak, doesn’t acknowledge me. Her dignity has been stolen. Her expression never changes – she’s stuck, somewhere inside and she won’t or can’t come back. She’s living in a body that’s fighting to survive. And I don’t think she’s going to win.
So this is why I need to have all my memories written down. If I ever develop Alzheimers like mum then I’ll never forget. My life needs to be written down because my future isn’t clear and if I’m going to write about my life it needs to be a life worthy of writing about. At the moment it isn’t. It’s uninteresting, mundane, and there really is nothing to document. If I had Alzheimers it might be a blessing in disguise to forget the life I live. So, from today forward I vow that I’m going to follow all my dreams, I’m going to make my life something worth writing about. Everything that scares me I’m going to achieve. I’m going to fall in love, real love that imprints on your soul and stands the test of time. I won’t forget, like I’ve been forgotten.
I close the book. A lump heavy in my throat. My heart hurts for her. The words jump from the page causing a mirror effect and I feel exactly what she was feeling when she wrote them. My stomach is an empty pit of sorrow – for myself and my loss and for her and hers. I run my fingers over her writing as though I can instill some light in her through her dark.
Jesus. I really know nothing about her. She never spoke about her parents or relatives, about anyone really. We didn’t speak about the deep stuff, only skimmed the surface of who we really are.
And now I know why, the topic is just too hard to broach. To voice it is to make it real. To ignore is to forget.
&n
bsp; All her frantic writing, while she lived here, makes so much sense. The raw emotion fucking leaping from every confession. These journals were more than just an outlet, they’re her life. These thoughts are so personal. She writes them to remember her history, just in case. Because tomorrow’s are never promised. These journals are Important and valuable to her, and she left them to me. Why would she leave something so sacred behind?
Felicity
Current mood – Resentful
Regret level - Continuous
Days have gone past since I left Ash and my happy existence behind. I visit mum every day like the dutiful daughter but I do it out of guilt for deserting her, not because I actually wish to be around her. I hate going and I hate myself for feeling like that but every time I do, I leave with another piece of me missing. I’m resentful, plain and simple. Support groups tell you it’s okay to feel this way, that it’s natural. But that doesn’t lessen the guilt for my impatience with her.
I feel that she’s stolen a part of my life and that’s partly where the resent comes from. I was always on edge in case people were disapproving or angry towards me. Towards my dwindling empathy. I lacked confidence and assertiveness. It showed in every ounce of my body language. Living with Ash reignited all of it. Living with him helped me reclaim part of who I was before this illness was thrust upon us,it also gave me the opportunity to flourish.
