Wraith ; Semblance

by Riley Mason

  Wiping at my face, I realized there were tears there again and I could feel a sharp pain in the back of my throat when I swallowed. Then I tasted it.

  When I went to wipe my face, I felt that hot sticky solution climb onto my skin. Looking down, I realized it was blood shimmering on my open palm.

  That's when I felt it sliding down my nostrils.

  “Oh my God,” I said as I held my hand under my nose to catch the spill-off looking around for a tissue to plug it up.

  When I found some, I wadded them up and slid it up my nose until it was stuck there—I could feel the blood begin to seep into the thin paper.

  I passed my watch in front of my eyes and saw I had some time left before the family was due to show and then after that was over, I would have to get to work on the body that was waiting for me.

  It was better to get out, I needed to get some fresh air back into me, not the sterile air they have to float around the basement of the examiner’s office. Air coated in bleach and fragrance.

  I took off my lab coat and exchanged it out for my real coat, throwing my bag over my arm and pulling the tissue out of my nose, checking it several times to make sure the flow of blood had finally stopped. When I was satisfied it had in fact stopped, I left, back into the public eye. Out of my own personal basement perch that concealed me mostly from the rest of the building, subtracting, of course, fellow co-workers.

  I made it out of the building with minimal interactions, still quite certain I looked the better part of a train-wreck. Subtly covered in tears and blood and grit from my stint laying there on the floor, pooling about past memories I wished would just vanish.

  The air felt good, though. Regardless of the bite that it carried with it, or that the second I walked outside I could see my breath stream out of my lips, and my skin tightened against the chill, and my eyes began to water. I didn’t quite care about any of that. It just felt good to be out of that building, away from the problems which seemed to not only live in that level but thrive there.

  Firmly tucking my hands in my pockets against the cold that was biting at my fingers, I started to walk. In no particular direction, just away, leaving the anchors I was wearing back where they belonged.

  Just to be out of there felt so releasing. It was a place that had given me so much solace through all of that but at this moment, right now, it felt as tainted as possible. Like there was some environmental spill that had concentrated solely on my floor and hazmat personnel had to come and fumigate the entire property to make sure it was safe for human interaction.

  It was just a feeling I didn't particularly get along with. Days like today happened so seldom but they did still happen. It didn't really matter how many years I put between today and the events of my past, they were never actually going anywhere outside of my own personal boundaries.

  Today was more intense though, almost as much as it had been on the nights that it happened. I remembered what I felt, not just in theory but in practical experience. That sensation of what it was like to have a hand wrapped around your throat and be so unwilling to let it go. To have that ache in the back of your throat, the same one that I had carried for days after Luke had finally decided that he was going to take my advice and leave.

  All of it was so real and vivid that it was hard to shake, even being away from the place where the flashback occurred. It wasn’t the same, but it was at the same time. It was something quite unforgettable.

  CHAPTER 23

  Starbucks was filled with people. All of them there to get their fuel to travel through their lunch break, either supplementing real food for black water infused with caffeine or to help fight off the slow struggle of digestion after a bigger lunch than they should’ve had. I was the former. The last thing I felt safe doing today was to fill my stomach with food which I had absolutely no craving for.

  I knew had to eat, but the thought of food was more than enough to send nausea through me. It felt good to be out of the office, but at the same time, I felt almost confined, as if something was still enclosing me. The office I had groomed for and trained for still angled around me, even when I was out and about in the open world.

  The busy nature of the coffee house did little to alleviate the agony of that very thing I just couldn't shake my mind free of. Despite hearing the roaring calls of barista’s shouting out orders and names into the chaos of the crowd ahead of them and being surrounded by perfect strangers, I still felt alone. Their presence did little to offset what was stewing in my head.

  It was hard to shake that last bit of dread that was in there. Not so much that I was going to have to show off the deceased remains of a child, that was still center stage in my head, but at the same time there was something else sharing the space. Something just as sinister and just as horrific if I had to draw a sharp contrast between the two.

  The very thing that brought this level of discomfort and uncertainty about what my job was about to demand me to do and the thing that made the entire situation all the more delicate and dangerous were playing with one another. They had come on stage at the same time, as if to remind me of how deep this particular trauma dove into my mind. Buried long ago in the soft tissues of my head where they had a chance to breed and fester and rot the smooth flesh around me. Tainting some part of me I would never be able to retrieve back from it.

  It felt so real. It was almost as if I was there again, having to reclaim all the bad memories. It was as if I was the family being called in tonight, to stand there, to watch, to look, and to confirm that “yes, these are my memories,” in a public forum. For some search for closure to affirm by all reasonable doubt that these events, that this evidence was directly related to them and to no one else.

  It sent wild shivers up and down my spine. A frozen, icy stream that seemed attached to my spine and sent goosebumps all over my body adding a freezing sensation to me that not even a bath in the overheated coffee could warm.

  I often wondered how I had been put in that situation. I had faith in my brilliance, an understanding for what my own mind was truly capable of, but I had failed to realize the change in nature of a person when something dangerous was put in their path. How they’d react, what changes they’d go through, how the person you know may not be that person any longer.

  Almost out of some sheer surprise of instinct, my hand went to my throat, feeling the skin there, feeling as if there was a hand that was embracing it. Some infected heat was leaking off of me, a byproduct of the friction of the fibers that had gripped the cylinder of skin between my head and my chest. It was so vivid, it was almost as if I had stepped back to that moment.

  It all seemed far too real.

  CHAPTER 24

  It was something I couldn't quite shake, regardless of how hard I was trying to shed it, to get rid of it at all cost. Something just didn't feel right to me.

  I leaned back in my seat against the wall, crossing my leg over the other, keeping my coffee tucked firmly in my hand, watching as the people scuttled in and out to get their fixations handled through the hour that was allowed for them to do so.

  I wondered how it had all come down to this, how all these changes had just been sprung on me, no notice, no warning.

  I wondered about Luke. I did that from time to time, though soon after the feeling had come and gone, I realized what sort of absolute mistake it was to entertain the idea of rekindling contact with him. While he wanted to, often it seemed, I never did, despite his attempts to see me, to reconcile.

  In my head, I had thought that both he and I had gone through two entirely different things. That we had two uniquely angled ways of dealing with the tragedy that fell on both of us. While it was harder on one, that didn’t quite outline it wasn’t just as difficult for the other.

  I had placed blame on him only because it felt right, not because it was the right thing to do, I knew that now and I regretted my part in it.

  There were more than enough reasons to think that I should keep the blame fre
e and clear from him because neither of us was in total control of the situation. If anything, we had handed over the control of both of our lives and hoped for the best in the outcome, as if there would be a happy ending to all of this.

  Despite what the outcome became, how poorly it had gone, once the situation had been delivered full circle, blame couldn't be squarely placed on either of us. It wasn't fair for us not to take an equal share of what we were deprived of.

  Even now, with such a fresh relapse of memories so firmly at the front of my mind, it was hard to hold negative feelings for someone that I had been so deeply in love with.

  I was sure, just as sure as most people are on some level, that you can never really hate someone that you’ve fallen in love with, despite what paths you choose to take without one another.

  Not just someone that you’ve exchanged that phrase with but rather someone that you feel it deep down, wrapped around your bones, at the center of your heart.

  Those are the people that can never see the alternative set of emotions waiting on the other end of the spectrum.

  Despite what was in my head now, what had seemed so real no more than half an hour ago if not a little bit less, I still missed him. It was things like that that had spawned who he was to me before all the madness had come and gone. That loving person I had once given my heart to, who had taken it and sworn an oath to protect it. The same one who had lost not only their temper but a little bit of their mind in the process once the news had been delivered of what their future together was going to consist of.

  Now, I reached down into my bag, pulling out my phone. He wasn’t blocked by any means, I had left all the lines of communication open for whichever of us decided to strike up that conversation first, and it saddened me knowing that while I hadn’t exactly reached out, he had made sure he hadn’t either. That was usually the tiebreaker that fell between us. That was the water to the fire that was surging my desire to reach out to him. Knowing full well he had abandoned me just as much as I had abandoned him.

  It was a two-way street that had bridged us and now it was a two-way street that divided us. But still, he was in there, the idea of him was swimming around my consciousness, unaffected by what he had done to me. Some devote protectorate of what I was about to go through, what vile misfortune my life was about to endure in experiencing the death of another child, a family waiting to see the remains of their dearly departed.

  I wanted him there, to console me. To understand more than he had the first time. To keep a better eye on his temper and to be the person he had been before all this had happened. Before the scars of our life together had changed some part of him and forced him to become something I not only hated, but someone I was absolutely terrified of.

  Then I saw him.

  CHAPTER 25

  My eyes hadn’t realized it at first, they were busy moving up and down from the shimmering face of my phone. Barely able to focus in on the chaos of the coffee shop and all the people flooding and receding its lobby, watching the chaos happening around me, enjoying that I was separated from it.

  My mind was too distracted to make out any one single face there in the audience around me. Not even one I would so clearly recognize given the opportunity.

  When I saw him, I wasn’t entirely sure it was him. His face had turned in my direction and had turned away too fast for me to make out any clear sort of definition in him. There were people around him, too, strangers that were blocking my view of him, so I wasn’t entirely sure if that was the man I knew buried in the crowd.

  My heart skipped when I realized who I might be seeing. Something unsettled inside of me at once and I wasn’t entirely sure if it was good or bad.

  There was a longing when I saw him, when my eyes were first drawn to him, seeing his side profile as he wandered through the crowd, looking for something.

  I can only guess that it’s me he’s here to find me, he wants to talk to me. I don’t know which version of him I’m going to get, which one is inquiring about me, which one of him wants to find me. I’m nervous, despite how much I miss him, there is no control, regardless of how much time has passed. Irrelevant of what I’ve done to make sure these casual encounters not only don’t happen but can’t, not once the judge and his signature scrawled along that paper, making it illegal for him to be this close to me.

  My eyes followed him, staring at him as he found a seat, sitting alone, speaking to no one, just another face amongst the crowd of strangers.

  I watched as he sipped his coffee, drinking it, blowing the heat off it as the brew steamed into the air. He could’ve been anyone, another faceless set of features, wandering past on the street.

  I could see the scar that ran through his neck, the one that had been grafted to him in an accident he was involved in back when he was a teenager. I could see the cryptic jade eyes that stared into the street out ahead, watching the countless people move past the window, his eyes searching for me in the clutter.

  For a moment, my eyes wandered where his eyes went, moving through the crowds until my vision had paused on the window, watching the same traffic that he was from my own personal angle.

  In that second, I was there with him, sitting at his side, holding my phone in my hand, my thumb hovering above the call button, knowing it would pull his attention and force him to me.

  CHAPTER 26

  My emotions jammed through the doorway of my chest, clogged while my brain tried to figure out exactly what it should be feeling at this very moment. Lost, scared, afraid, anxious, all of them made sense, all of them would’ve been acceptable to feel.

  Part of me felt a longing somewhere inside of me, in the deep chasm that all these emotions lived in, far beyond my reach but not far enough for my attention, for my imagination to dip in every now and again.

  Another part of me was gripped inside of frozen panic, my body trapped inside the ice walls of a glacier, knowing that the last time my eyes and his had met, there was a hand wrapped around my throat. A hand that may have killed me if there hadn’t been enough air to beg him to stop, to remind him that wasn’t who he was, that wasn’t who I had fallen in love with.

  That was the winning feeling, the one that made it through first, the one that mattered the most because it was the one I felt strongest about.

  I was terrified, and I froze, my body already shutting down, scared to death at what was falling into place around me.

  As I watched him, I remained as still as I could, knowing that if I moved, he would spot me. The second that his eyes fell on me, he would come over to me, I would have to speak to him, he would put his hands on me again, it didn't matter that we were in public, I wouldn’t have time to plead this time around, to beg for my life again.

  CHAPTER 27

  I felt my heart almost unhinge inside of my chest, unstrapping itself from the coils that it hung onto. It was hard to manage my breathing, and my palms had become slick with sweat. My eyes followed him for as long as I could manage it without putting forth too much effort into moving my body, making sure I sat still, motionless while his eyes searched around him.

  I knew I wanted to run out of there, to be as far away from him as possible. To find a cop, tell them I was being stalked, attacked by someone who wanted to kill me. To get Luke as far away from me as possible, knowing what would happen if he violated his Order of Protection, where he would go.

  I wanted to get back to my office where I might not be the safest in the world, but I would feel better protected, better aware of my surroundings, trusting of the people who shared my office with me.

  I was well aware of his schedule, where he worked and where he had moved to the second he was no longer welcome in their department, the second he’d had a recommended safe distance from me.

  This was nowhere near any of that. This was so beyond his own zone that I knew that this was intentional. This was no accidental rendezvous inside some random Starbucks just a block and a half away from my job. He wanted it to appear r
andom, to find me by chance, not by planning.

  Luke had gone about his day putting pieces together to make sure there was a run in with me for some reason. I didn’t want to know why, I had no reason in the world to be curious about it. I wanted to be as far away from him as I could, I wanted to be safe. I wasn't entirely sure how he had progressed after our split. Where his head was at when he was going through the courts about the Order of Protection and keeping as far away from me as he could, because not only did I want nothing to do with him, I also had no desire to be in the same room with him. When he signed over those rights, he did it with me far away and my lawyer, his lawyer, and the judge in the room making sure that signature was valid, three strangers made sure the former love of my life couldn't be in the same room with me.

  Panic was bubbling inside of me. Luke had stood up, his coffee in hand, moving through the crowd, eyeing the line, keeping an eye drawn to the window to the street.

  It was almost nonchalant. Like a man who had come there for his afternoon coffee, some revival to his day, some fuel to wake up the engine that had gone dormant throughout the workday.

  There was no look on his face that seemed dangerous, nothing that seemed at all out of the ordinary, he seemed calm, almost plain. Even the people that I watched him pass, moved out of his way with grace, just one casual person to another.

  I looked down and realized that my hand was shaking, I had to press it down to the table to make sure that it stayed still. I know he was still looking around, searching for this chance encounter he wanted to instigate. He had that look tied into his face.

  I wasn’t sure what I was going to do if he did see me. This panic that was in me, this violent slamming of my heart against my ribs was no indication, not a clear one, not one I could trust. It was running on the injection of terror that had been sprayed into it.