Possession

by Johnson, A. M.

  Touch her.

  Without thinking, I reached my hand out and took a lock of her hair between my thumb and finger. She gasped again, but this time with fear as she whirled around, her hair ripped from my easy grip.

  “Declan?” she nearly shouted. The hand she brought to her mouth trembled, and her wide, empty eyes filled with that pretty shade of blue I knew all too well.

  Stagnant. I felt utterly wrung out. The bags under my eyes were circled with what looked like bruises. My nightmares kept me tossing and turning for the majority of the night, and though I was grateful Chandler let me take the morning off, I was sure he’d have me make it up to him somehow. I exhaled a noisy breath at the thought. I’d spent most of the previous night remembering after sifting through the box Clark had sent me. Forgotten dreams, forgotten songs—a forgotten life. I’d spent so much time focusing on how we, Declan and I, had ended that I’d let the treasures fade. I paid for it by letting myself look through those small memories. My eyes fell to my fingertips, and I could still feel the soft shred of cotton I’d saved from one of his old t-shirts. Keeping the whole thing, I would’ve never been able to hide it, so I’d cut a piece off and put it in the box. After I’d fallen asleep last night, I’d been haunted over and over again. It had been the same dream no matter how many times I’d woken up, each time I fell back to sleep, the last days of us, of him, played viciously through my head.

  I rubbed my arms as a sudden cloak of cold covered my skin. My eyes welled with tears, but I quickly wiped them away. Declan was a constant ebb and flow. Clark had tried to wash him away, tried to bleach my colorful mind clean. The church kept me down with tales of sin and used my crimes, my own fears, against me. I’d become overly exhausted, always hungry, but not able to eat much. I was falling apart.

  At least today I had some luck on my side, The Gallery was empty except for the artist in the back. His music breathed through the walls of the store and it was the only thing holding me together. I loved this album and I’d used to paint to it. I turned and stared at the studio door. Chandler had said only to disturb him if I thought it necessary. I was curious. It wouldn’t be so terrible if I wanted to see what the guy was working on. I loved art and I missed it. I’d take a quick look, possibly offer him some water. Maybe he needed more paint. Besides, it would be a nice distraction from reality. My stomach flipped and I bit my lip. It was settled. I’d let myself have a peek.

  My hands were clammy as I moved toward the door, and I rubbed them on my jeans, feeling more nervous than I’d felt in a long time. I’d been sheltered by my husband’s perversions of God, being immersed in this world of art again, as much as its beauty swallowed me whole, it scared the heck out of me, too. Because all I’d had before was art and Declan, and what if I’d forgotten how to create? What if Clark, the church, had sucked every last bit of who I was from my veins? I’d never have Declan again, but I still had hope in the smell of paint, and the feel of a brush in my hand. After what I’d done, I wasn’t sure that I deserved hope, but as my fingers touched the cool metal knob of the studio door, hope bloomed inside me like a sterling rose.

  The dream-like quality of the music fed my heartbeat as the door opened. I took a few timid steps and realized no one was there. The place was empty. The lights were on and there was a stool holding a palette filled with paints, but it was covered, as if he’d finished. Maybe I missed him leave while I was counting out the register with Chandler. I noticed an iPhone plugged into the stereo, and wondered why he hadn’t shut off the music. The door shut loudly behind me and I jumped.

  A nervous giggle erupted and I shook my head. “Hello?”

  Nothing.

  My feet felt weighted as I took a few more steps, and once my eyes landed on the canvas, my chest tightened with each erratic beat of my heart. Gorgeous swaths of color filled my vision. Purples and oranges mixed to create a stunning sunset effect behind a pair of blue eyes. I stepped closer to the painting as the hair on the back of my neck stood, and goose bumps pricked at my skin. The sensation in my fingertips tingled as the familiar color, set, and brush strokes stared back at me from the canvas.

  A whispered gasp spilled from my lips. Those were my eyes. Was it possible? I was about to take a step back, take a better look when I felt something touch my hair. My scream caught in my throat as I spun to see what or who had touched me. My eyes widened and the strangled scream came out as a loud, breathy gasp.

  “Declan?” My voice sounded fake, like I hadn’t been the one to say the word. Like looking at him, in the flesh, was just a dream. I was stuck in a dream. My hand shook as I brought it to my lips.

  He just stared at me in horror. His light blue eyes filled with insecurity, as if he wasn’t sure I was really there. His shoulders were too broad, much broader than I remembered. He had a full, but trimmed beard. The dark blond color of it was appealing. He looked like a stranger, but the confused, sad sheen of his eyes made me ache to touch him, to soothe him.

  I took another step forward and he backed away. The movement bringing everything into pristine clarity.

  “No.” His deep voice stabbed me. I’d lost the quality of it years ago and hearing it almost brought me to my knees. “How—”

  He closed his eyes briefly and his jaw clenched before the full bore of his hatred hit me in the chest.

  This wasn’t the Declan I knew. The Declan I knew was a boy on the cusp of manhood. His eyes had been kind, his body had been strong, but lean. His facial features had still held the softness of youth. This Declan… he was a man. Etched and stark. His body was built and full of cut muscle. His arms were covered in full sleeves of tattoos and they flexed nervously under his paint-splattered, white t-shirt. He was worn, weary and absolutely beautiful. My stomach knotted as the silence grew. His eyes scanned my body and I wondered what he was thinking. There was no happiness on his lips, no joy in those crystalline eyes.

  “How did you know I was here?” He shook his head again, his eyes closed, and he brought the heel of both of his palms to his temples.

  “I-I work here.” My stutter caused his eyes to flick open and lock with mine. His arms now hung at his sides, his hands balled into fists.

  Declan’s lips moved, but nothing came out, no words and no sound. My heart hammered as I watched the man transform into the boy I had loved, that I still loved. He was sifting through that noise in his head and every nerve ending in my body wanted to reach out to him like I used to. It was what I’d always done. The urge to console him won over self-preservation. My hand touched the twitching muscle of his bicep and it was surprisingly soft. His eyes darted to where my fingers rested. My blank skin against his ink. It didn’t match… not anymore.

  He shrugged away from my touch. “Don’t fucking touch me.”

  The threat in his voice gripped my spine and I stumbled backward. “I’m sorry.” The terror in my tone registered and his eyes softened.

  How did I proceed? What could I say? The last time I’d seen Declan was a week after we’d both decided to abort our pregnancy. He never wanted to do it, it was against everything he’d believed. He would have married me, he would have lost himself inside of some crappy job, given up everything he’d ever wanted to support us just like his father had for his mother. I was young, scared, and his dad had turned into a drunk.

  It didn’t help that my parents had started attending that damn church and had told me to leave Declan several times. They’d begun to plant seeds of doubt even back then, and when it looked as if I wouldn’t comply, they’d threatened me, told me I’d have nothing if I stayed with him. And when I found out I was pregnant, instead of celebration, all I felt was agony. My parents would have sent me away if I’d chosen to keep the baby, and I would’ve never seen Declan again. At the time, terminating the pregnancy, it felt like the only option.

  Declan hadn’t originally said it, but he’d hated me for asking him to agree to it, hated me for making him take me to the clinic, and hated me for actually killing our child.
It had taken exactly seven days for our entire world to end. Declan had never looked at me the same, and that last night we were together… everything we’d loved about each other had been laid to ruin. As I gazed at him now, anger rolling off his shoulders, with each rapid breath I knew, he still hadn’t forgiven me. He still hated me and had every right to. I was a murderer, and I’d killed everything.

  “I’m sorry,” I repeated and the tension in his shoulders eased as tears poured from my eyes.

  He swore under his breath and turned toward the stereo. For a moment, I wanted to bolt. Leave the studio and the store behind. I wanted to run and jump in my car. Flee, get as many miles between me and my past as possible. Instead, I stood still. Trapped by his smell and how it mixed with each unsteady breath I took. I missed it. I missed him, and how he used to make me feel. There were so many things I wanted to tell him, that he should know, but the room went silent and he pocketed his phone. He turned and made a move to come forward but stopped. Nine years was an eternity compared to the fifty feet between us now, but as his eyes clouded over, I felt him slip into the darker side of never again.

  “Declan, I don’t know what to say.” My voice cracked and he stepped backward.

  “There’s nothing you can say, Paige.” He winced at the sound of my name just before he turned and disappeared into the back hall.

  The blaring, overhead alarm went off. The emergency exit door had been opened and a hard sob burst from my chest.

  He was gone.

  Liar

  Her palm singed against my ink-stained skin.

  “Don’t fucking touch me.”

  Touch me.

  She deceived you.

  You’re weak.

  The room was a fucking vacuum as the roar in my head raged. My heart pounded, ripped, and almost tore through my chest. I couldn’t breathe. Her eyes. Those goddamn eyes brimmed with fear when I raised my voice, but her hands felt like fire and, having her skin on mine again, it was agony and glory all at once.

  “I—I’m sorry.” Her voice shook.

  My fury poured down my spine in crashing waves. Paige tried to shrink down inside herself, and the silence grew like an infection, the decayed air smelled like rust between us.

  “I’m sorry,” Paige spoke again, her tone soft, mournful… ethereal.

  My shoulders fell and the tight muscles in my jaw relaxed. The fury transformed into murky gray hues of sorrow. My war between hate and love, certainty, and the consequence of her, drummed deeply in my chest. My hand twitched. Her skin was just a breath away, and I had longed to remember the texture. I swore under my breath and turned. I had to put some distance between us before I did something I’d regret. I switched off the stereo, grabbed my phone, and turned to face the executioner. From this distance I could pretend she was just another delusion, another wraith I’d summoned to taunt and tease me. My feet moved toward her, involuntarily, my body seeking out its other half, but it took everything I had left inside of my shell of a soul to stop myself from moving closer to her. If I got too close I would surely burn.

  “Declan, I don’t know what to say.”

  It was the rejection I’d expected and the pain of it sent me reeling. I hadn’t even realized I’d allowed any hope to seep through.

  “There’s nothing you can say, Paige.” The truth sliced me open and the pain of it woke me from my dream. Paige Simon was a fucking ghost. Everything good about us died the day our baby did.

  The waiting room was sterile white. Magazines sat on the tables scattered throughout the room, with moms and babies on their covers as a giant ‘fuck you’ to those who were here to end life instead of nurture it. This was the last place I wanted to be. Paige’s cold hand was in mine, her face was stark as she stared forward. She wouldn’t, couldn’t look at me. I should’ve begged her not to do this, took her to the courthouse and married her the day she told me she was pregnant. She’d said she was only seven weeks along, and I’d told her maybe if we gave it time she’d change her mind. But she’d been petrified. Terrified of the future I’d offered her. She’d told me her parents would have never allowed it, and that if we kept the baby they’d send her away, and losing her… it wasn’t a possibility I wanted to entertain. What we were about to do, this choice, I’d been raised to believe it was the worst kind of sin, and if my parents ever found out, Liam… Kieran… I’d beg for Hell. But, part of me understood, we were too young, and when I married Paige I wanted it to be because she wanted to, not because we had to.

  She’ll never marry you.

  I closed my eyes. The stress of the past week had slowly dismantled my progress. Since I’d been with Paige the past four years, my meds, therapy, it all really worked. She was a constant in my life, and even though my doctor said it was my medication compliance, it was Paige who kept the voices at bay entirely.

  “Are you okay?” she asked and I opened my eyes.

  I shook my head. “No.”

  “Me either.” Her eyes were void of the color I loved.

  “We could leave. We don’t—”

  “Paige Simon,” a nurse wearing light blue scrubs called her name.

  Our hands were linked as we stood, and I was just about to follow her when she shook her head. “I’ll have them come get you when I’m in recovery.”

  “I want to be there for you.”

  Her eyes filled with tears. “Please, I can’t… I won’t… I need to do this on my own.”

  My eyes blurred as she dropped my hand. The separation, I felt it in my gut, the hollow emptiness made me sick as I thought about how she would soon feel that emptiness too, if she wasn’t already. The nurse glared at us. We were holding up her day. Maybe she wanted to go to lunch, maybe she was judging us, or maybe she was just tired of waiting on kids who were making decisions too big to bear.

  “I love you,” she whispered and leaned up on her toes to kiss me on the cheek. The desolation in my stomach grew.

  “I love you, Paige.”

  I hadn’t realized back then that “I love you” really meant goodbye. The sickly sweet, brown liquor coated my throat and tongue as I sat on my bedroom floor and swallowed deeply from the bottle. I’d stolen some of my brother’s whiskey and locked myself in my room. I’d lost time again, intoxicated and hazed from the day and the Jack. How long had I been home? This was foolish, immature, and reckless, but I was done denying myself a moment to fade… crash, and I wanted to be devoured by the pain. The Christmas Kiss was hanging on my wall. I’d framed and placed it next to the painting I’d done of Paige’s eyes a few years back. Her eyes the day of the procedure had been especially void of color, and I wanted to paint them as a memorial.

  I kept my gaze trained on the Christmas Kiss as I stood and let the resentment spark the fuel of the alcohol. The music blared angrily from the speakers of my computer and the sound of it was the only thing muting the voices. They were mocking me, they rejoiced in my faults and, the more I drained the bottle, the worse they became. Disgust, hatred for myself, for her, for every-fucking-thing fisted my hand around the neck of the bottle. I wanted to break it, shatter it, and when it didn’t fold beneath my grip, I threw it. The bottle smashed against the wall, against the painting of Paige’s eyes. The liquid trickled down creating an illusion of tears and my eyes stung with my own.

  “Declan!”

  I slammed my eyes shut willing the voice away.

  “Declan, open the door!”

  My bedroom door handle started to rattle, and a pounding noise caused me to open my eyes. The door seemed to bow inward, and a spike of adrenaline ran through my veins.

  “Open. The. Damn. Door.”

  Liam.

  “Declan! Please. Please, God don’t—” his panicked voice rose above the music and the door strained on its hinges as he fought against it from the other side.

  I moved to unlock it, but before I had a chance, splinters of wood scattered to the floor from the door jam. The handle dangled, broken and useless. I stumbled backward a
nd the noise in my brain began to hammer around my temples. Liam’s eyes were wide as they fell to the floor. The room reeked of alcohol.

  “Why the hell didn’t you answer me? I thought… I thought—”

  “I was dead?” The words were flat.

  Liam’s eyes found mine. His jaw ticked with suppressed emotion, and he swallowed before he spoke. “Are you fucking drunk?”

  “I might have had a little.”

  He moved past me and turned down the music. “Talk to me, Dex, what the fuck?”

  “There’s nothing to say.” It was basically what I’d said to her and it still held true.

  His jaw clenched even tighter and he gripped my shoulder. “Talk to me, because this shit…” He waved to the shattered remains of his Jack Daniel’s. “Is not okay.”

  “I saw her.” The lump in my throat was like glass.

  “Paige?” he asked with an irritated patience.

  I nodded.

  “I thought you said the meds were working?”

  “I really saw her, at The Gallery,” I said, stepping back from his touch.

  “The Gallery?” He was skeptical.

  “Yes, that’s what I just said. She works there, I guess.” I turned away from him and grabbed the small garbage can by my desk as the realization of my truth filled his eyes.

  I carefully picked up the shards and placed them in the can. I’d deal with the ruined painting later. Liam’s eyes followed every movement waiting for me to dissolve, but I wouldn’t, not in front of him, not when he was barely escaping his own chaos.

  “So? What happened?”

  “Nothing… we saw each other, it hurt like hell, and I left.”

  He avoided my lack of details and I was grateful, the details were mine… private.

  “You should’ve called me, you shouldn’t be drinking.”

  “Just like you shouldn’t?” I threw the last chunk of glass hard into the trash can before I set it down.

  He raised his eyebrows. “I barely—”