by Holly Ryan
H O L L Y R Y A N
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Cover design by Hang Le
Editing by Kari Green
Copyright © 2016 Holly Ryan
http://www.authorhollyryan.com
First Edition: October 2016
All rights are reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form, with the exception of short, referenced quotations for the purpose of critiques and reviews.
ISBN-13: 978-1539180043
ISBN-10: 1539180042
“His love roared louder than her demons.”
- Unknown
PART ONE
The Fall
Avery
It was less than a second, but it changed everything.
What it changed isn’t as important as how.
The how is the forgotten memories – the regretful, invasive non-thoughts I try to sigh away from the depths of my hospital bed, late at night when all my visitors have gone home, taken their bundles of flowers back with them because I already have too many to squeeze one more dozen in, and shuffling out with smiles of relief that they think are hidden.
You should have screamed.
I don’t remember much.
But still, Avery, you should have screamed. Come on.
I’ve tried to remember more. I tried that night, and I’m still trying to this day. So give me a break, Self.
Fuck you. I still say you should have screamed.
I wake without breath.
I want to open my eyes. I try, but my lids won’t budge. They’re heavier than usual. Where am I? I was just asleep, wasn’t I? – I must be in my bed. But my bed has never before felt so hard, so uncomfortable. And never before in my room has there been such a fast breeze, even with the window open in an attempt to cool me down in the middle of the night, or has there been such bright sunlight flowing through.
Slowly, sensation returns to my body. It begins with the stinging cold of pavement against my cheek, and then I feel bits of gravel and dirt sticking to my skin. The sun must be hitting me because my skin is warm.
I gradually return.
That’s not warmth. That’s burning. That’s pain.
Fuck, that hurts.
I adjust my sleeping position, but it doesn’t work – the pain only grows, and I can’t get away. It follows me.
I open my eyes. What the hell is this?
I’m on the ground. I’m in a secluded cove of the sidewalk, sheltered from the street by overgrown bushes and a few trees, their limbs lightly blowing in the breeze.
I place my palm against the pavement and push myself up, hoping to prop myself to get a look around. Immediately, my body gives out.
Fail.
I look down. I’m a mess. My dress is torn, and even filthier than it was when Cole left me. One sleeve hangs off my shoulder, the black, weightless tulle blowing here and there like the trees in the wind, and I can somehow see streaks of red through the black fabric. I feel around my body with what little energy I can muster, using my least painful hand to scope myself out. Here and there among my dress are patches of wetness, but I have no idea what they’re from.
Something happened to me. Something physical. Maybe I had a stroke, or maybe I fainted from exhaustion, or maybe all the stress from Cole just became too much for my body to take and I collapsed, just like that. Can that happen at eighteen years old? I guess it could. But I don’t remember feeling weak …
My mind drifts away.
When I open my eyes again, my phone is lying next to me on the pavement. Its glass screen is shattered even more than I am, the cracks forming a constellation of creative horror. I pick it up and press the Home button. It lights up through the shards and missing pieces. It actually works. I squint; I barely make out the word MARA running across what remains of the screen.
Mara.
That’s right. How long has she been trying to reach me?
I can’t think for too long because my forehead throbs. I instinctively touch it, wincing, then pull my hand away. My fingertips are red. My forehead, and I presume the rest of my face, judging by how it feels, is covered in blood. I stare at the red, and then, with no effort on my part, my eyes close once again and I continue to forget.
“Avery.”
I don’t hear someone say my name – I feel it. Hard. The words reverberate through my body like the painful little shockwaves they are. They come to rest at my head, amplifying everything horrible that I’m feeling. My head pounds, pulsing with rays of pain just like when I first woke up.
I squeeze my eyes shut. This time, I’m not going to bother opening them.
“Avery.”
It’s my mother. That I know – I recognize her voice.
My eyes stay shut. I want to see her, but it’ll hurt too much to do anything other than continue to lie here. Plus, I’m exhausted, totally and utterly exhausted, more than I’ve ever been in my life. I feel like I just ran ten marathons and now all I want to do is to continue sleeping. She can wait. Besides, didn’t we just talk about me approaching adulthood, and her leaving me to manage my own waking times? I only hope she remembers to close the door behind her when she leaves.
A few minutes pass. I still sense her in the room. I turn my head over on the pillow, away from where I think she is. It hurts to do so, and I cringe a little, but maybe she’ll get the hint.
I don’t hear her close the door. I hear nothing.
Instead, I feel her touch my hand.
The sensation of touch isn’t nearly as painful as sound, but her fingers feel cold against my skin.
“Avery,” she says once more.
I swing my head around and open my eyes. That was a bad idea. Pain shoots through my neck, over the back and up to my jaw. Everything hurts, so I close them again quickly. It was awfully bright, too.
“Open your eyes, dear. Can you? Can you open your eyes?”
I try to say no, but my voice is halted by an uncomfortable dryness in my throat. I gag.
“Just try. Please.”
So I try.
And this time, it works. I force my eyes open, just a little, and my mother is there, sitting next to my bed and holding onto my hand with her cool fingers. I look behind her and realize I have no idea where I am.
Where am I?
I’ve never seen this room before. Everything’s plain and undecorated; nothing at all like my colorful bedroom. I hear a steady whoosh whoosh, which matches the pace of several shadowy figures moving behind a big panel of frosty glass.
I don’t like this. It’s all horribly unfamiliar and I’m starting to feel nauseous.
“Mom?”
“Yes, dear. It’s me.”
Then, I look back to my mother and whisper through the tubing and discomfort, “Sorry about the dress.”
And that’s it. That’s all I remember. I know it seems like a lot – most people, when I tell them, think it’s a pretty good recollection. But it’s not good enough for me. See, there’s this thing no one tells you about surviving an assault. You’ve survived physically, but you’re left with this hidden feeling of violation that you can never quite identify or recover from until you know what it is. And it is the black time. The blank space. The time you were out. The that passed when something was happening to your body, your possessions, to your soul.
In recovery, you talk about this mysterious predator who came to take away everything you once thought was yours. But what they don’t tell you is that from that day on, you’ll be dying to know wh
at else he may have stolen from you, the memories that hide in the shadowy parts of your mind, formed when your body was so overwhelmed that the only thing you could do in defense was shut off completely.
I’ve been trying to play Glass Half Full Girl since the attack, like everyone’s told me to do. It happens all the time: they fill me with their superficial words of encouragement, all while petting my head from my hospital bed. I smile sweetly and thank them a million times, then lay back and cherish my alone time when they leave.
They’re right, of course. I know that. I want to think a redeeming good can come out of the bad, somehow, but there’s no denying there was a curse to the whole thing, too. How can they not see it? I think, as though there’s some compartment of the brain that they can block off but I can’t. And secretly, when no one is around, I spend most of my time in that compartment. The thoughts I can’t get rid of hide there, the thoughts that cause me to rub my temples in clockwise circles in the earliness of the morning in attempts to wind it all out of me. And those thoughts – they don’t stop.
Maybe I could have done something. But what? Why did I go down that one road? Why didn’t I take the other route?
What if it hadn’t gone down this way? What if my hero had appeared? What if he’d somehow helped me, kicked that guy’s ass, and then, awkwardly, but with all the luck in the world, had taken my hand and pulled me to my feet. And because of him I went home, healthy and whole and unharmed.
I sigh.
My hero is a tall man, imposing and handsome. He protects me fiercely, and when I reach to meet his hand, I see a love glowing in his eyes that speaks to my soul, telling me that I’m safe at last.
I’ve had a lot of time to think about this, in case you can’t tell. And I once bothered to talk to someone about it – my aunt – in an attempt to play Glass Half Full Girl to a tee. You know, get everything out in the open. Feel it out, digest it together. Re-ingest it, all fixed. Voila. So I opened myself up to her on a vulnerable day, on a day I felt weakest in my heart. Her response?
“Let’s drop it, Avery. It doesn’t matter anymore, does it? It’s over. It happened. So just let it go.”
Then she hopped a plane back to Missouri.
Let it go. As if it’s the easiest thing in the world, as easy as releasing the tight grasp of your fist and allowing what you’re holding to be swept into the air. And after letting it go, you’re left with empty hand, empty heart, shit-eating grin plastered across your face.
I can’t let it go.
I reach over to the sterile nightstand beside my hospital bed, slide open the drawer, and grab my journal. I turn to a blank page and write a number in the upper right hand corner: 24.
It’s the twenty-fourth day I’ve been in the hospital, and it somehow feels like forever and no time at all. Every day that I’ve felt well enough, I’ve recorded my thoughts inside this journal in the hopes of remembering some of the Blank Time. It might not be the healthiest thing, since it’s kind of verging on an obsession by this point. But it’s something I have to do right now. I pick the pen back up and reposition the journal with my one good hand. Today, I’m going to write about the boy.
There’s a boy I keep imagining while I’m asleep. He’s half my hero, half reality. Or maybe he’s all dream, and zero reality … I don’t know. It’s the weirdest thing. I’ll shift my weight in the middle of one of my many naps, and I’ll feel the presence of someone watching me. I’ll open my eyes and I’ll see him there. Not every time, for sometimes I peek without the sensation, and out of the simple wish that I’d catch a glimpse of him once more, but it happens often enough. I see him in a blinking, frosted haze. The second I see him, my body drifts back off into a frustrating, drug-induced sleep.
I wonder if he’ll appear tonight.
The very first time it happened, I was sure it was Cole. This boy had darker hair than Cole, and where Cole is bulky, short and muscular, this boy was tall and well-proportioned. He had a fit body, a sportsman’s body, opposite of Cole’s bulky wrestler frame. No, it wasn’t Cole. And that hurts. Because how could Cole not visit me?
Still no sign of Cole. My mom did me a big favor. She called everyone that was listed in my phone book and told them what happened, and that I wouldn’t have my phone for a while. The police confiscated it to search for evidence. She said everyone replied with well wishes, and since then, some of those people have visited me in the hospital with flowers and desserts and cheesy cards that blare music when you least expect it. But not him.
I’m still writing when my mother taps on the door with her knuckles. I close my journal and push it under my pillow just as she steps in.
She moves carefully, as though she’s afraid making sudden movements is bad for my health. “Hi, dear,” she says. She hands me an oversized muffin. My mom is a small woman,
I push myself up against my pillow. “Thanks.” I take the muffin – banana nut. My favorite. I take a huge bite.
My mom sits on the edge of my bed, waiting for me to finish chewing. I know what she’s doing. She’s hesitating before finally speaking, almost as if she has something rough to talk to me about. We’ve had lots of these conversations since the attack.
“Look,” she says before I have a chance to object. “I don’t want this to make you upset, so if you’d rather this happened at another time…”
I take another bite. I was hungrier than I thought. “Mm-hmm,” I dismiss.
“It’s just that … well, you know the police are going to need to keep talking to you.”
I sigh. “They’re here again, aren’t they?”
She nods. Silently, the way she knows I hate.
“Mom, I already told them everything.”
“I know you have, Avery. But they need to make sure. They need to make sure you didn’t leave anything out, that’s all. You know: turning over all the stones? They’ve caught the guy, and now they need as much information as you can give them for their case. You know all this.” She grows impatient with me, grabbing for an empty Styrofoam cup.
“Yes,” I say, “I do. And I didn’t leave anything out.” I stare at a spot on the blanket, all my interest in food now gone. “I thought that was the lawyer’s job, anyway.”
She glares at me. “Please?”
Ethan
It’s midnight, and I’m asleep when my phone rings. The light wakes me before the ring – it’s set to the brightest setting, and the glow reverberates off the four close walls of my bedroom.
I groan as I reach and my eyes squint at the brightness.
It’s my cousin, Ashley, who should have no reason to call at a time like this. I flip off my covers and swing my legs over the edge of my bed.
“Hello?” My tired voice cracks.
“Hello? Ethan?”
I blink hard a few times. My eyes adjust to the light, and I can make out the shadows coming from the window. “Ashley? What is it, what’s going on?”
Silence.
“Do you know what time it is?” I ask. My eyes refuse to adjust more. I can’t see anything in the darkness of my room, so I flick on the lamp that rests next to my bed.
She sighs. “Yes. Ethan, I’ve got some news for you. And…” She takes a breath. “It’s not good. I’m sorry. Are you ready for this?”
My shoulders go back. I unconsciously press the phone harder to my ear. My head rises. “What is it? Where’s Mom?” My mom should be safe and sound in bed, like I was.
“She’s fine, she’s fine. This isn’t about her. I just talked to her. You’ll want to give her some space.”
“Dammit, Ash. Will you tell me what’s going on?”
“It’s your dad, Ethan. He was … he was arrested a few hours ago.”
She gives me a moment, a breathless pause.
“Your mom couldn’t tell you herself, so I offered to be the bearer of bad news. Don’t hold it against me.”
As if I could think of anything right now but that last word she uttered about my father: arrested.
/>
“Ethan? Are you there?”
“I’m here.”
“Okay. Well, it’s serious. They’re thinking he’ll be there for a long time.”
Don’t tell me the charge.
“I’m sorry.” I rub my forehead. “I need a minute.”
“I get it. I’m sorry, Ethan. It’s shitty news, but I think we all saw this coming. One way or another.”
I breathe in and lift my head back up. I nod to the phone. “I know. Thanks, Ash.”
“Do you … do you want any details?”
“No. I don’t.” Details about my father’s arrest? I can still barely comprehend the word, I shudder to think what details will do to me. I’ll have the rest of my life for the details. “Thanks again. I know it had to be hard.”
I can hear her face smirking on the other end of the phone, cringed in sympathy for the way I’m taking the news. “If you need anything, I’m here. Okay?”
“Okay. Right. Thanks again.”
I set the phone down. I stay where I am, my hands on my knees, looking straight ahead because I know if I dare to look anywhere else before I give myself time to process this, I think I’ll lose it.
I fall backwards into my bed, covering my face with my elbow.
When I sit up again, I see that Ashley’s texted me.
i know you didn’t want to hear it, but you need to know a little. it’s bad. he hurt someone. we should have known this was coming. that’s all i’ll say. love you. stay strong and take care of your mom.
He hurt someone.
That’s it. There’s no way I’m going to sleep tonight. I rise and open my bedroom door as quietly as I can. I have no idea where my mom is, but if Ashley said I should give her her space, then I should give her her space. There’s no one out here. I make my way down the long, unlit hallway, through the living room and kitchen, and to my father’s den. I swing the double-doors open and they move with a creak. I stop, then resume at a slower pace.
