After Life Lessons (Book One)

by Laila Blake

  “It is what it is.” Even as Annika’s complexion was ashen, hadn’t changed since the day before, her voice was steady. “And no two... events are the same. Apologizing for this is like apologizing for rain or something, when you’re getting married. Don’t make me go Alanis Morrisette on you,” she added, with a faint smile.

  It took Emily a moment to understand the reference, mind getting stuck halfway through her reply.

  “I was going to get married once—well, I don’t know, we talked about it, he asked me but...” she shook her head, touching Sullivan's ring, making it go round and round on her finger.

  “The one who died?” Annika provided, and Emily nodded, feeling less guilty and sad about that than she had for the past months.

  “Why didn’t you marry him?” Back to chopping the potatoes, Annika let the question hang in the air, clearly allowing Emily to decide if she wanted to answer or not.

  “I don’t know, I suppose...” she stopped, then sucked in a deep breath, “Maybe I never really believed he would, in the end. Or if he had, then... for the wrong reasons but, I don’t know. Then everything went down and it didn’t really matter anymore.”

  Annika nodded, silent for a moment. “I only got married because I got pregnant,” she said, finally, looking up with a slight curl of her lips, a more genuine smile. “Not the marrying type, I always said. But then, hey, health insurance was cheaper.”

  “Yeah, not the marrying type,” Emily whispered and came up beside Annika, looking at the chopped potatoes. “But you were happy? Even though... you weren't sure?”

  “Of course.” She scraped the potato peels away into a pile to take to the compost, and reached for the grater. “We'd been together for years already, I just didn’t see the point. I loved him. Still do.”

  Emily nodded. She couldn’t stop touching her ring, the little heart, held in two hands.

  “He was my family, he and Song.” She exhaled a shaky sigh and sat down again. “Are they still playing? They are so quiet together...”

  Annika listened for a moment. “They’re fine. I know exactly what the door sounds like.” Her fingers were wet with the juice from the potatoes and, absently, she wiped them on her jeans.

  “Have you checked on him?” Annika was obviously afraid to say his name, already distancing herself. Emily, for the most part, couldn’t blame her.

  “A few times. He drifts in and out.” Emily swallowed down a wet lump and tilted her head back, holding her eyes wide open to dry any hint of moisture. “He’s still alive. I try to... Sullivan said he knew he was going after a few hours so, I... I keep hoping it’s just, just the wound and exhaustion and pain, I...” She stopped then looked at the back of Annika’s neck. “Be honest, is that a good sign?”

  “I don’t really know,” she replied, slowly, fingers toying with the top of the grater. “The cloudiness comes on early, but he lost a lot of blood, and the trauma was pretty intense. He might not be able to feel it, you know?”

  Emily nodded again. She felt the need to look after Song but knew she’d just get in the way, remind him of everything again. She rubbed her face and took a drink of water.

  “He said he loved me,” she finally said, so quietly Annika hardly heard her over the sound of the grater.

  There was no clarification needed, though. Annika nodded. “And?”

  “I didn’t say it back, I… I didn’t...” Like a dam breaking, she found the ring slipping off her finger, lying in her hand. She still didn’t cry. “He’s such an idiot.”

  Song and Lani trotted into the kitchen before either of them could expand on that idea, and Emily pulled Song against her, hugging him tightly.

  “Emmy,” he complained much too quietly and much too late and she let go, kissing his temple. Nobody asked if they’d had fun that day while the potatoes were sizzling in the pan. He fussed when she put him bed after dinner, it was early and they both knew it. She read him a story and then another one and Emily grew more and more anxious.

  “You wanna go see Aaron, don’t you?” Song finally asked and Emily wanted to close his eerily ancient eyes and pretend she hadn't heard. “See if he’s dead?”

  “He isn’t dead,” she replied instantly, far too fast.

  He nodded as if he believed her. “Okay,” he said, gamely. “But you don't wanna be here.”

  “Has anyone ever told you that you’re growing up too fast?” Emily asked, trying to smile. She ran her fingers over his hair, the cupped his cheek. “I want to be in both places.”

  “I know.” His head rested heavily on his pillow and though his eyes were hooded, he was clearly not all that sleepy. “I'll wait.”

  “Do you want me to check if you can sleep in Lani’s room? Just while you wait? I don’t want you to be alone.”

  He shook his head. “I’m not gonna sleep,” he decided, lifting his chin at her. “I’ll wait, I said.”

  Emily watched him, the changes in his little face, the stubbornness—she saw herself in him so rarely that it was always a surprising thing to discover.

  “If you get scared, you can run over to the bathroom, open the window and call me from there, okay? I’ll hear it.”

  The night outside, indeed, was quiet, and though she carried a flashlight with her axe, it still felt too dark beyond the edge of the property, where the trees thickened nearer the stream. Emily shivered, just a little, fumbling with the padlock key before managing to make them meet, the lock clicking in her hand so that she stood in front of the closed doors.

  Sucking in a breath, she eased it open. She realized, too late, she should have lead with her axe, but, as it was, Aaron hadn’t really moved. The smell of the shed made her fight against her gag reflex—blood and burned skin, something else she didn’t really want to dwell on—but Aaron looked, mostly, the same.

  His fingers stirred against his chest, in the smallest approximation of a wave, mouth forming a very small smile. “M’not dead yet, see?”

  Just like that, the tears she’d been holding onto all day blubbered forth and she knelt down by his side.

  “Sorry I didn’t come sooner,” she managed, gingerly touching his face.

  He shook his head, and his hair stuck to the hay behind him, making him look a little rumpled, almost cute. “S’okay. You don’t have to keep tracka me. Ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

  “How are you?” she asked, ignoring his answer. The shed floor dug into her knees, but her nose was almost getting used to the smell.

  “Here,” he said, with a little chuckle. It might have been a condition of having been in the military so long, but Aaron was able to make light of anything, even if he could hardly keep his head upright with the pain that radiated from his arm and all the way through his body.

  Emily tried to smile, too, tried so very valiantly but, in the end, she sat down next to him, gently leaning her head against his healthy shoulder, and reached for his hand.

  “You okay?” he asked; it was instinctive to try to regard her through the pounding in his head, even as all he could really do was raise his shoulder to nudge at her cheek. Emily snorted though, rubbing her cheek back against his it.

  “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry,” she managed, squeezing his hand.

  “Hey, no.” He couldn’t lift his hand, not even the one attached to his good arm, but he leaned closer to her, a little, just enough that he wouldn't topple into her lap.

  “You have no reason to be sorry.”

  “I shouted at you, I just went... off on you like a madwoman.”

  His smile turned deeper, even in his shattered weariness. “I dunno. I might’ve deserved it.”

  “Well, that’s beside the point, isn’t it?” she asked, trying to meet his smile and shaking her head at him. “Zombie apocalypse 101: don’t shout around outside?”

  “We could write a book about it?” he suggested, clearing his throat. “Practical suggestions for livin' in the afterworld?”

  Emily chuckled wearily and then kissed his shoulde
r, rubbing her nose against it.

  “Get your emotions in a row before going into unprotected areas?”

  “Don’t turn your back in an open area just ‘cause you can’t stop lookin’ at a girl?”

  Her vision started to swim again and her throat thickened. Trying to keep her eyes closed, she did her best to breathe deeply in and out. It was harder than she thought.

  “I guess I can be a bit selfish, huh?” she breathed, and then quickly, before he could respond added: “’Cause... you have to stay alive for me, okay?”

  “You’re not selfish,” he countered, almost instinct, like breathing. “You were right. I’m sorry.”

  “I... didn’t even say anything,” she countered as though even now, she couldn’t stop fighting albeit in softer voices and with her hands shaking. “I was just feeling humiliated and... I dunno, afraid, I guess.”

  “I was an asshole.” He pulled in another breath when he shrugged out of habit, and everything in his body hurt in response. “I shouldn’t have made you the bad guy. It wasn’t fair.”

  Emily shook her head again, this time more insistently. Her mouth stayed shut though even as she drew little circles on his wrist with her thumb.

  Finally: “I just thought you knew.”

  “Knew what?”

  She shook her head at first but then changed her mind and pulled away enough to look at him.

  “That it’s not... not like that, at all. At all, Aaron, I promise.” Again she shook her head, clenching her jaw and then her fist, as though getting ready for an attack. There was still hardly any light in the shed and even with the strategically placed flashlight, she could only see the outline of his face—that warm, kind face, the bulbous nose. Instinctively, she reached to touch the ring on her finger, and then realized that she’d left it in the kitchen.

  He clearly didn’t understand, and just tipped his head to knock against hers lightly, some kind of crippled version of a hug.

  “It’s okay,” he said, gently, voice still hoarse, and weary. “If you ain’t mad at me, that’s all I want.”

  “Promise?” she asked, voice quivering like it hadn’t before. “Is it really?”

  “Yeah.” He shook his head then, looking somewhat chagrined. “I dunno. But that’s what I want now, ‘kay?”

  “Okay.” She tried to smile again and kissed his shoulder. In the darkness it didn’t seem to matter that she let her tears flow as long as she tried to keep her breathing as regular as possible.

  “We did pretty good, you know?” he said, after long minutes where his breath rattled entirely too much in his chest. “Got all the way here. Most people didn’t make it a few months, and we made more than a year, thousand miles. You kept Song alive, kept moving. You found him a place to grow up. That’s not a little thing.”

  “Don’t talk like that,” she finally chided. Deep breaths made talking—if not much easier, at least possible. “You are not dying. If you make it through the night, I’ll talk Annika into letting me use the last antibiotics we brought on you and give you painkillers and you’ll be just fine. We’ll do this together.”

  “I know.” He looked tired, so drawn, Emily found it hard to look at him.

  “Hey,” he said, after that long moment, where he could hear himself breathing all too clearly again. “You said you'd paint peaches on the wall for me. You still gonna do that?”

  “You’ll just have to wait and see, won’t you? And we’ll have to fix the car and go find more paints and seeds and stuff.”

  She took a deep breath, shaking her head.

  “You know, I should be better at this.”

  “Better at comforting a dying guy?” he said, and though there was a note of teasing in his voice, he choked a little on the words, finally raising his hand to rub at his sweaty forehead.

  “You’re not dying. I won’t let you, okay? Not this time.”

  “I don’t wanna die, Em,” he said—finally sounding as scared as he was under the heavy layers of weariness and pain. “I really don’t.”

  “Hey... hey,” she whispered, pushing her nose against his cheek again. “You’re doing well. It’s more than 24 hours now, you’re doing well. You’re just hurt and exhausted, but I'll stay with you, okay? I’ll stay here and you won’t die?”

  The skin of his chin wrinkled, belying the set of his jaw, throat bobbing with a swallow, all the tell-tale signs of the tears he was afraid to shed, since his eyes were already watery and red.

  With effort, he swallowed again, harder than before, the obstruction seeming to have grown in those few seconds.

  “I was never scared of it before,” he said, voice low and rough and thick. “Out in the desert, plenty of guys are, and there ain't no shame in that. But I never was, just thought if it happened it happened, you know?”

  “What changed?” she asked, sneaking her arm around his back and curling against him even as he smelled sticky and hurt.

  He made a small noise. “You.”

  “I’m sorry,” she breathed, managing a smile as she rubbed her nose against his shoulder. “I wanted to avoid that, you know? I didn’t want...”

  “I told ya before, remember? Rather that than not.” He coughed, blinked back tears that he blamed on that, on the pain. “I... I'm sorry, Em.”

  “For what?”

  The effort to lift his hand was clear on his face, but he managed to move it to hers, slide his thumb clumsily over her cheek.

  “I can’t promise I’m gonna survive, Em. I can’t. Because, if I don’t, then I lied to you at the end, you know? I’m trying not to die, promise, I don’t wanna, but I ain't gonna say that I’m not going to. Not to you.”

  She kissed his fingers, clung to his hand and shook her head. Not to him, either. It coursed through her then, fast and hard: Lies.

  “You were wrong, you know, in the rain? I... you were wrong. Just, it’s not like that at all.”

  “What?” As tired as he was, scared, sick, he still marveled at her appearance, all tear-stained and flushed.

  “Of course I love you, Aaron. Of course I do. I just... I was stupid, and I thought we could just be happy and I didn’t have to... I dunno, say it or betray him or let him go. But I do. I did. Of course I love you.”

  There was a smile, as small and faint as it was: a real, honest smile.

  “I love you, Em.” He licked his lips, which felt fiery and cracked. “I... I don’t know, maybe it’s not all that big, or impressive. I-I can’t write you songs, or poems, or paint you pictures or anything, but I thought I could sometimes. ‘Cause you’re worth it, you know.”

  She buried her face against his chest, wetting his shirt and trying to breathe, as though if she just held on hard enough, tightly enough then he couldn’t vanish into that dark place where she couldn’t follow.

  “I love you.”

  Letters From Abandoned Places

  Spring 2016, May

  Grayson, Kentucky

  Dear Sullivan,

  You would have known by now if it had turned out any differently, I suppose, in that imaginary place where you receive my letters. And I want to think that you’d have grieved with me. But Aaron didn’t die, and I didn’t lose another man I love.

  I read those last letters I penned to you, and I wince at the bile and the hopelessness. How angry I was at the world, at you, at Aaron—most of all at myself, I suppose. I want to tell you that I’m sorry. I don’t think of you that way anymore.

  We both know that it wasn’t always easy; I remember us sitting on that old rug with a bottle of wine toasting to it, proud of it, almost: that our love was work. That it didn’t come easily, that we fought for it every day. I know it wasn't easy for you, either. But I loved you and you loved me, and that is something that will always stay with me, and that’s what I will tell Song anytime he asks about you. I have no regrets about that. None of it.

  I am writing this sitting next to my bed. Aaron is resting in it. He still sleeps more than he is awake. His body is sti
ll wrestling with fevers and pains, and he only has a few conscious hours every day. But he spends them with me and with Song; he promises tree houses and hunting—those are Song’s promises.

  Mine are different. I stay with him as much as I can, draw him sometimes, because it makes him so happy and I love learning the structure of his face.

  He is not very much like you, even though I accused you both of that once. He doesn’t talk half as much as you did, and he doesn’t lull me to sleep with stories and songs. He just holds me tightly with his good arm, and then he sleeps, so calmly. He smiles a lot now, even when he's hurting and he tells me he loves me, tells me that all his life he’s never thought he’d find someone like me.

  I can hardly write it down without blushing, how silly is that? I always considered myself strong, you know? I left home, I fought my way through life on couches and in burger joints. And when I found you, for a while at least, I thought I could stop fighting all the time. I could rest for awhile, with you and with Song, that we could be happy and I would have a place where I feel safe—not a physical one, a place with you, with someone who would take me as I am, who I am, no questions asked.

  And I couldn’t know that that was the opposite of you wanted. I always thought you needed it, too, deep down, but it wasn’t what you wanted. And the more I settled and calmed, the less you did. It has taken me a long time to admit this, but I don't think we would have gotten married—and if we had, we wouldn’t have been happy. That is not an insult to your memory—it’s the truth, and I can say that now without resentment or pain.

  Aaron is different; he was looking for that place, too. And all this time he was hurting because I wasn’t, because I was staring into a dark abyss, yearning only to fall. But that’s not true anymore. Not anymore. I'm done staring down into that place, I think.

  I didn’t expect to fall in love with him, you know? I couldn’t have guessed that he would be the person who could make me feel so calm, so safe. He’s my family, and he makes me very happy—even now, even when he’s still in so much pain. We make a lot of plans, and Song is the one who gets to approve them. For now, I moved into his room—as Song put it: a room with painted stars on it is no place for a grown-up. So he has his own room again, and you know how much that has always meant to him. I told him I’d try to find him new maps but he didn’t seem all that interested.