Jahleel

by S. Ann Cole

  The mechanics of breathing eluded me as I stared down at the little girl. One couldn’t deny she was Jahleel’s child. She was the spitting image of him. From her thick sandy-brown hair to her golden eyes, her straight nose, her lips. Everything was from him. I couldn’t stop staring.

  “Sure, Claire,” the woman said, her voice frail. “Give Mommy a minute, okay?”

  She pushed the little girl back a bit and stepped out, closing the door behind her, which forced me to take a couple steps back. Her hands remained behind her, holding fast to the door handle.

  I blinked a few times, then cleared my throat. “Is JK—”

  “I just got him back,” her voice cracked as she cut me off.

  Confused and taken aback, I stuttered, “W-what?”

  “He’s trying with us. Me, and Claire. And now you’re here to fuck things up,” she rushed out. “I just got him back. I can’t let you take him.”

  “I never had him to begin with,” I told her, watching the dread on her face, the annoyance and inconvenience of me being there.

  Did this woman really think getting Jahleel was as easy as showing up on his doorstep? It took me five bloody years, and it took her a stolen condom of sperms and a turkey baster.

  “Look, I’m just here to—”

  “No!” she hissed, as quiet as she could. “He can’t see you.”

  “I—”

  The door handle rattled, but she kept her hands firmly gripped on it, tears springing to her eyes. “Please,” she pleaded. “You’re rich and famous and….you have everything in the world. I just have this one—”

  The door handle rattled again and the woman struggled to keep it from opening.

  “The fuck?” I heard Jahleel’s voice say on the other side. “Marsh?”

  “Please, don’t let him see you,” she continued to beg in a whisper, tears streaming down her face now. Real tears, not faked or forced. This woman genuinely loved him. “Please.”

  “Marsh, you okay?” came from the other side.

  In the midst of the door handle rattling, my desperation to see Jahleel and this woman’s teary plea, it dawned I was the one who needed to do right here.

  If she was terrified of Jahleel seeing me, then she knew something I didn’t. Something such as, say, I had power over Jahleel as much as he had power over me. If I fought, I stood a chance of getting him back. But did I want to break up a family? No.

  Undeniably so, I loved, wanted, needed Jahleel, but the woman in front of me seemed more desperate than me.

  As she began losing the battle with the door handle, I nodded in agreement to her plea and bounded down the steps. By the time I got to the bottom, the woman lost the battle completely and Jahleel came out, questioning her.

  My feet moved faster.

  “Sassy?”

  I stopped sharply for just a second, my shoulders tense, palms sweaty, heart pounding. If I turned and saw his face, I wouldn’t leave. The sight of him would weaken me. So instead of turning around, I ran forward.

  Tears blinded my vision as I sprinted down the cobblestoned path, almost tripping.

  “Sassy!” I heard his bare feet slapping on the stones behind me. “Fuck. Shit. Sassy, wait!”

  But I kept running until I got to my ride, diving straight in the back. “Drive!”

  At the sound of palms slapping on the windows, accompanied by a muffled, “Sassy, please. Wait. Please!” I squeezed my eyes shut and buried my face into Amanda’s bosom, her hands curling around me.

  I didn’t want to see. I didn’t want to hear.

  The vehicle drove off, no sounds of palms slapping against the car, no muffled pleas to wait. Just the sweet melody of Zedd’s Clarity flowing through the speakers.

  Only when I knew we were a distance from his block did I allow myself to look out the back window. All I could make out was his silhouette standing in the middle of the road, watching me slip farther and farther away.

  “Saskia? Are you alright?”

  I blinked. My blurry vision became clear and revealed the sight of Gildene Matthews, her bright green eyes watching me with concern, the light above our head suddenly too bright.

  Reality clocked in as I glanced around, and I remembered I was in the middle of a live talk show. I’d zoned out again. A frequent occurrence of late.

  “Yes, yes, I’m fine.” Making a show of pressing a palm to my forehead, I told her, “Just a light headache. What was the question?”

  Gildene smiled sweetly. “I asked you how it feels to be nominated for Best Album three times in a row. But since you’re not feeling well, I think we can cut this short.” She turned to the audience. “Can’t we?”

  The audience clapped and cheered in agreement, and she turned back to me. “Are you still up for performing?”

  “Of course!” I exclaimed, forcing exuberance. “Plus, I will be singing a brand new track. Exclusive. Right here on Late Night with Gildene, you’ll hear it here first!”

  The audience cheered, while Gildene grinned at what this would do for her show ratings.

  Standing up from the armchair, I hugged her tight, smiling when she whispered, “You are awesome.”

  After embracing, I walked over to the stage prepared for my performance. And sang my heart out. Because it would be the last song I sang.

  Untold stings from a golden arrow

  Our tragic ending, you knew

  And still…

  I love you more

  Pencil lead scratches on white paper

  Our worthless memories, you drew

  And still…

  I love you more

  Me shattering before you

  But her loveless kisses, you choose

  And still…

  I love you more

  365 repeated at 5

  365 repeated at 5

  Hated you on each breath

  Loved you more the next

  365 repeated at 5

  365 repeated at 5

  Go, wonder what would be

  Had you chosen me

  And think…

  Do you love me now?

  Go, grab a glossy image

  Next to an incomplete sketch

  And think…

  Do you love me now?

  A black silhouette in the dark

  Watches a Phantom hot on wheels

  And you think…

  I love you now.

  365 ended at 6

  365 ended at 6

  Loved you on each breath

  Hated you more the next

  365 ended at 6

  365 ended at 6

  To what you never wanted

  I say goodbye

  To what we never were

  I say goodbye

  365 ends at 6

  365 ends at 6

  The ride home was quiet and heavy. Amanda kept quiet, but judging from the wringing of her hands in her lap, I knew she wanted to say something. She wouldn’t, though. Because I wouldn’t care for her words.

  I got up each morning and lived as everyone expected me to. Lion expected me to keep up appearances, and I did. Being the ‘awesome’ everyone thought I was. However, I couldn’t help zoning out in the middle of interviews and talk shows.

  The night I ran away from Jahleel, I died.

  We are told to do right in this life, so I did the right thing for him and his family. But I killed myself in the process.

  He’d inundated me with calls and text messages since I ran two weeks ago, but I ignored them all. I wouldn’t be a selfish Krissy and let him break another woman’s heart.

  That woman regarded me in the same light I had regarded Krissy when I was with Jahleel. In her eyes, I recognized the same desperation I had, so I knew the pain she would feel if I were to barge in and let him choose me over her. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t.

  Therefore, I rejected his calls and deleted his messages and emails without opening them. This was the end of my obsession. The end of who we weren’t. The end of me.
>
  Alina and Ferbie were lounging and joking around in the living room when I got home. Her leg tossed on his lap while he drew something like a bracelet around her ankle with a pen.

  She grinned at me, babbling something about the late night show earlier, but her voice was a tunnel echo as I ignored everyone, kicked off my heels and went straight into the kitchen to grab a bottle of Vodka.

  As I made a U-turn in the kitchen with my Grey Goose Vodka, I felt Amanda’s stare eating into me from behind like maggots on fucking carcass, as she tailed less than two feet behind me.

  With my arms spread wide, I spun and announced to the house, “No one disturbs me for the rest of the night. I need to be alone.”

  Still, as I marched off, Amanda followed me. “What’re you going to do?”

  In a fit of pique, I whirled on her. “It’s almost midnight, Manda. I don’t have a man to fuck my brains out or massage me to ease my stress. So, if you really wanna know, I’m going up to my room, in my house, to strip naked, pop in a porn DVD, empty this vodka bottle, then fuck myself with it.” I tilted my head to the side. “That okay with you, Mum?”

  Without waiting for her reply, I turned and continued up the stairs.

  Once in my bedroom, I snatched up my iPod and headed to the bathroom, hauling a chair behind me. After closing the door, I turned the lock and jammed the chair up under the handle, then stripped naked.

  Setting the bottle of vodka and iPod on the side of the bathtub, I plugged the tub and turned on both the shower and the lower pipe.

  While the bath filled, I went over to the cabinet and bundled up all the bottles of pills I found in my arms, then tossed them into the bathtub before climbing in and lowering down into the water.

  Picking up my iPod, I stuck the plugs in my ears and set Jack White’s version of U2’s Love is Blindness on repeat.

  Next, I reached for the bottle of vodka, screwed off the cover, sipped some, then poured some in the rising water. I selected a random bottle of pills from the scads floating on the water, screwed it open, popped a pill in my mouth, and sipped a mouthful of vodka to wash it down. “365 ends at 6.”

  I popped another pill, took another sip of vodka, Jack White screaming in my ears.

  “365 ends at 6.”

  Pop. Sip. Swallow. “365 ends at 6.” Pop. Sip. Swallow. “365 ends at 6.” Pop. Sip. Swallow. “365 ends at 6.” Pop. Sip. Swallow. “365 ends at 6.” Pop. Sip. Swallow. “365 ends at 6.” Pop…Sip… Swallow…

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The little blonde girl dipped her head under the gushing river stream.

  Where did she go?

  A further distance down the stream, her head popped up. “365 starts at 6,” she sputtered, before allowing the water to swallow her whole again.

  “Hey, where are you going? Come back!”

  I tried wading into the river, but as cool, clear and fresh as the water looked, it burned through my soles like hot coals, forcing me to jump back on the riverbank.

  I couldn’t enter. I couldn’t catch her. I couldn’t save her.

  The little girl’s head bobbed up once more, her wild blonde curls dry as dirt even though she’d just been under water. The stream carried her even farther away from me, but her eyes were like wide grey disks, glistening, her face a blinding sun-ray of hope.

  One tiny hand rose up out of the water, and in it she held a microphone too large for her proportion. Her other hand came up next, and in it she held planet Earth, rotating slowly in her palm. Bringing it to her lips, she blew, and like a suds bubble, planet Earth floated towards me.

  I caught it, now rotating in my palm.

  “365 starts at 6!” she repeated.

  Rearing back her hand with the microphone, she pitched it towards me, and allowed the river stream to wash her down the falls. Gone.

  The microphone she threw came at me in full force. I held up my free hand to catch it, but it careened on its own and slammed me straight in the stomach.

  Bloody hell, that hurts!

  As I made to clutch my stomach to fight against the pain, I found I couldn’t, my hand wouldn’t move. On its own, the microphone drew back and jabbed me in the stomach again, and again, and again.

  “Please!” I cried, “Stop! It hurts!”

  But the inanimate object continued its torture. I felt as if I were being ripped into two halves.

  “Make it stop, please!”

  Pain. Pain. It hurt so much. So much pain. “Make it stop!”

  “She’s talking…talking…talking…talking…” a voice echoed all around me.

  It was so damn loud. My head hurt. My throat. My eyes.

  “Success…cess…cess…She’ll live…live…live…” that loud, grating voice echoed again. “Continue…tinue…nue…”

  The microphone came at me again, ramming me in the stomach, brutally hurting me, over and over. The pain became unbearable. No more. No more. I could take no more.

  I gave up, dropping the rotating Earth and falling into the river which was now boiling hot.

  Then, nothing.

  “…you ever fuckin’ talk to me? Are you even real? My whole life, all I hear is how good you are, all about the many fuckin’ miracles you perform, you’re this and you’re that, and if I seek you, you’ll be there. But even when I did everything I was taught, you still hated me. You never speak to me, you never answer me, you never help me, you never do jack-shit. I ask for one thing, just one, and this is what happens? And here I am talkin’ to myself like I’m fuckin’ crazy. Because you aren’t real. There’s no You, is there…?”

  The ranting voice, I recognized even in death. It belonged to the person who’d been so far away from me. The person who made me want to be far from everyone. From life.

  Now the voice was so near. Right…there. Here.

  Although my eyes felt like sandbags, I forced them open. After a few ponderous blinks, blurriness faded and Jahleel came into focus. He was sitting on a chair beside the narrow hospital bed I laid in, hooked up with drips.

  He held my left hand in both of his, forehead lowered to them as he continued on with his rant—to God, I assume—oblivious of my consciousness.

  Dragging my gaze away from him, I glanced around the plain, clinical room, a monitor beeping annoyingly on the right. Swallowing past the acridness in my throat, I pondered whether it was fortunate or unfortunate I survived my suicide attempt.

  I was supposed to be dead. Not lying here, with the man who induced it in the first place holding my hand. No, I didn’t want to be alive, because now things were going to be far worse than before.

  Did I not jam a chair under the bathroom door handle to ensure no one would get to me in time? Yet here I was. Alive.

  Not even Death wanted me. Fuck my fucking fuck of a fucked-up life.

  Bringing my gaze back to a still ranting Jahleel, I tried speaking past the rock in my throat. “Maybe if you tried omitting the plethora of swearwords from your prayers, he’d respond.”

  Jahleel’s head snapped up, and only for a fleeting moment did I discern a look of relief and elation in his eyes, as his features immediately hardened, his bloodshot eyes narrowing with something resembling anger.

  His face was shadowed in days of facial hair, which looked comely instead of shabby. His hair a perfect mess around his face and shoulders. Full and bouncy.

  He was beautiful. Like a tanned, untouchable, incontestable, magnificent Greek god who had untold riches of gold and silver and copper, diamonds and pearls and rubies, large fields of violets and roses, kisses in abundance and love enough for the whole world. He was all that, and more.

  I. Love. Him.

  Jahleel turned his head to glance briefly at the door, before pushing up from his chair to lean over me.

  My eyes followed him.

  Pressing his lips to my ear, he whispered with vicious stings, “See, everyone’s gonna be all nice and sympathetic towards you. They’ll say they understand when they fuckin’ don’t. They’ll she
d tears and offer words of comfort. I won’t. If there’s anything I want to do, it’s strangle you so you can die a proper death, you selfish fuck. If you thought I hated you before, you were wrong. Now, I do. I fuckin’ hate you so fuckin’ much for tryin’ to leave everyone…leave me. I. Hate. You, Saskia Day.”

  Slowly, he moved back and sat down, still clutching my hand even with all the venom he just spewed.

  Unsure of how that acrid statement made me feel, I blinked at him for several minutes before asking, “You’re not family, not even a friend, so how are you in here?” …And if you hate me so much, why are you in here?

  “I’m your fiancé,” he said in a flat tone. “And the only family you have here is an imbecile.”

  Aiming to moisten the dryness in my throat, I swallowed. “I thought you liked him. How could you say that?”

  “Would’ve said just about anything about anyone to get in here. They weren’t making it easy,” he said, shrugging. “You thirsty?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll go get the nurse, but…” he paused and glanced back at the door again. “Someone leaked that you ‘committed’ suicide, so yesterday it was all over the news that you’re dead. Then it switched to ‘attempted to commit suicide’, while some say you’re a drug addict and overdosed. It’s mayhem. You’ve been the topic on every news channel for the past 48hrs. If people think you’re suicidal, that’s it for your career. No one will look up to you anymore. They’ll try to move you to a psych ward to get help so this doesn’t reoccur.” He stopped to rub his eyes, obviously knackered. “Chad found a guy who’ll take the fall for—”

  “Take what fall?”

  He glared at me. “Just shut up and listen.”

  Maybe he wasn’t conscious of it, but his thumb was rubbing circles in my lifeline, even as he glared in hate at me.

  He continued, “The guy’s in some deep debt at the expense of his family’s lives. We cleared his debt. In a couple of hours, the police will get a tip about a homicide attempt, giving the name and address of the guy. They’ll pick him up. They’ll find valuables belonging to you in his apartment. In his cellphone, they’ll find messages from an untraceable number tersely discussing your hit, with strict instructions to make it appear as a suicide. He’ll admit to executing an unsuccessful hit, how he forced you at gunpoint. But in ‘fear for his family’s lives’, he won’t reveal who ordered the hit, and no, he doesn’t know why they want you dead.