by Su Williams
I lunged at Deputy Blair. “No!” He held me at bay by my wrists. Someone was shrieking. The whole world secretly shifted a degree on its axis and forgot to tell me. I groped for a hold on the Earth and my sanity.
One of the troopers put a strong arm around my waist and began leading me inside. A wave of nausea twisted my stomach. I leaned over the porch rail and retched on the rose bushes. They guided me into the house, sat me on the couch and gave me a drink of water. My body shivered, in shock.
“Miss Sweet, is there someone we can call for you?”
Don’t you get it, you fucking moron, there is no one else! “No. I can call my Uncle Adrian.”
Blair handed me my cell from next to the couch and after three fumbling attempts, I dialed Adrian’s number.
“Uncle Adrian? Something…it’s Mom and Dad. Their car…they crashed. The police say they’re…” but I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t give life and solidity to words of death by speaking them aloud.
The troopers stayed with me until Adrian arrived. One of them was some sort of chaplain/cop or something. I didn’t really have much use for him, all things considered. So I sat, blind and empty, and caved in on myself.
Vaporous phantoms of the past haunted my wakefulness. Remembrances of happy times with my parents, family vacations to amazing places like Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon or chasing whales off the coast of San Diego. Tender moments that brought brief joy to recollect, but cut like a double-edged sword.
Nightmares of blaze-engulfed wreckage staked their claim on my sleep. An array of painful and gruesome images assaulted my mind each time I closed my eyes. Chimera stalked me, left me dreading sleep. I resisted its pull until it finally overtook me and I collapsed from exhaustion or narcotic inspiration.
And when the sting of my sleep wasn’t poisoning my brain, I teetered on the precipice of my prison wall with nothing but an inky nebulous below. The slightest gust of wind or the change in barometric pressure would be the catalyst that plunged me into those lurid depths. I gave no resistance to the gusts of icy air, and surrendered to gravity. In freefall, I plummeted into the mire, acquiesced to the darkness, obediently bowed to its command.
STONE COLD By Emari Sweet
Cold, Stone cold
Piercing frost, frigid ice
Tender flesh, damaged soul
My heart may break
And soon may shatter
For it has turned
Cold
Stone cold
Only rage, burning hot
Conquers all the others
Suppressed and pressed on every side
Show nothing…feel nothing
BE NOTHING
O how I long for a gentle touch
Soft and warm
A caress that desires nothing in return
A hand that seeks to give and not to take
And yet I stand
All alone and
Cold
Stone cold
A warm wind blows, not long enough
To melt this stone cold heart
Icy prison, Frozen gates
I’m safe from you, yet trapped within
Who will crash the gates and rescue me
No figment knight in shining mail
Sets me free
Captive of
My cold
My stone cold heart
Unrequited dreams
Delusions, illusions and fairy tales
A fool’s errand to believe
Daydreams shattered
Reality’s icy shards
Ruins at my feet
And the scattered battered pieces
Of my cold
My stone cold heart
Chapter 6 My Last Breath
My days fused together, drifted in diverse shades of grey.
Ivy came out to the house one day to check on me. She knocked and rang the bell. My phone remained off and I hadn’t yet bothered to check messages. She was worried. Baby did that. She knew I was home. There were no new tire tracks in the freshly fallen snow, so my car remained in the carport, right where she parked it when we got home from the hospital the other night. I could hear the clump clump of her combat boots as she paced the length of the porch.
I just wasn’t ready. I sat on my bed, curled in a ball, my arms wrapped around my legs, and watched her reflection in the hall mirror. Animatedly, she talked to someone on her cell phone as her free hand gesticulated dramatically. So Ivy. I could only rock and hum to myself. As much as it grieved me to see her sweet care-worn face twisted in worry, it just couldn’t be helped. I was safe. I was where I needed to be, where I chose to be. Alone.
Finally, she placed a beautiful bouquet of mixed flowers by the door and heaved a vaporous sigh. Her fear that I’d done something self-destructive vibrated through her, but she turned and shuffled miserably through the snow to her car and drove away. Perhaps the person on the phone had assured her of my safety; although, I wasn’t aware of anyone with that kind of surety.
I listened as her tires crunched through the frozen snow and the memory of her pain overwhelmed me. I rummaged through the mountains of Kleenex for my cell phone and cursed it for booting so slowly. Finally, the screen glowed: a picture of the three of us, Ivy, Jesse and me, mugging for the camera. I messaged, “Baby, I’m OK. Honest. Plz, just a little time. Will call. Promise. Sweets.”
*
Darkness slipped over the house. The living room glowed TV blue in the wee hours of the morning, the only light in the house. I lay cocooned in a thick fleecy blanket on the couch, a cup of cooling herbal tea on the floor within reach. I watched the glowing screen without seeing for what seemed like eons, until the twang of a country western crooner pierced my non-thought. Images of frail, neglected puppies and kittens intermixed with graphics like “pain,” “loneliness,” “sadness” and “never know love” flashed across the screen and crashed through my retinas. They pounded into my heart like one more nail in my coffin. Sweet little animals with wide sorrowful eyes, pleading for love that no one would give them. I swiped away tears with the back of my hand. Aw, how stupid could I get? I harassed myself. What is wrong with me, crying over a stupid TV commercial? I lay there and allowed the tears to soak my cocoon. What’s the deal? It’s just a commercial. The images played and replayed in my mind, unbidden. What was the deal?
A penetrating darkness pierced through their irises, and it clicked. I remembered those eyes, that expression. The same expression I’d seen in my own eyes the last time I dared to look myself in the face in the mirror. The same forsaken stare gazed back at me in the glass. I was the huddled kitten, the tiny pup, shivering in the gutter, cold, alone, and sad. “Never to know love.”
My chest throbbed with pain, the rupturing and shredding of my heart was audible. How strange. As I lay in my bundled cocoon, and shivered and twitched as if some metamorphosis rippled within my skin, I realized that these strange, inhuman noises, like the keening of an injured animal were tearing from my own throat.
Outside, the wind roared through the towering pine trees around the house, and I hoped that it drowned out my primal screams. Vagrant leaves escaped their prison of snow and skittered across the porch like little brown mice scurrying to safety. A strange shadow crossed the doorway, something almost human in form. I tried to control my sobbing, as my swollen, gushing eyes searched the wintry darkness and found nothing but whorls of sparkling snow. My finite fragment of control crumbled and the creature inside me broke free again. Not even a stun gun could subdue it now.
The cold outside made the joints of my old house pop and groan. Each protest from the house sent electrocutions of fear zapping through me. Then, mixed with its aged grumblings, I could have sworn I heard a floorboard creak. I froze and held my breath. Listened, watched, waited. I slid my hand under the couch cushion, groped for the curved hardness of the stun gun. My fingers curled around the cool grip. As I rolled off the couch onto my knees, I withdrew the gun and pointed at the effervescen
t glimmer of the snow reflected in the glass of my built-ins. I scanned the blue darkness, ferreted the house, turned on every light in every room. Soon I was sure my house could be seen from space. For the hundredth time, I re-checked every door and window to reassure myself they were bolted from the inside and alarmed.
Finally satisfied, I crawled to the corner of my bed, wrapped in a blanket cocoon. I rocked and hummed.
“Twinkle, twinkle little star. How I wonder what you are,” was my self-pacifying hum. The song drifted into a nameless melody, soft and consoling. It tumbled from my throat and filled my mouth and heart. I rocked myself to mollify my ache, and drifted into a daze. Soon, a warm, peaceful sleep ensconced me like a heavy winter blanket, though the song played on from somewhere inside me, became my sleeping lullaby.
I dreamed a cool hand touched my emotionally fevered cheek in a gentle caress. A peaceful sigh drifted through me. A hum of relief responded. For the first time in days, real sleep enveloped me—warm, quiet, sleepy sleep, not drug induced, or the kind laden with monsters and phantoms stalking vulnerable prey. For the first time in months, my slumber was devoid of nightmares, or worse, replays of reality. Just sleep.
*
In the morning, I awoke feeling almost normal, though the hollowed out cavern inside remained. Perhaps the only ‘normal’ I knew. The beauty outside my window of the new fallen snow, white and pristine warred with my inner blight.
I shuffled to the bathroom and stood shivering. The fear of my reflection in the mirror launched my heart into V-tach. My face felt better, less swollen, but I hadn’t actually looked at myself in a few days. I drew in a bracing breath, and prepared myself for the ugliness. With forced courage I finally turned around to look myself squarely in the face—a difficult feat even without the trauma.
“Oh my god!” I launched myself closer to the mirror. It was unbelievable. Miraculous healing, though I didn’t believe in miracles. Not anymore. The bruises, the bloody flare of the hemorrhages in my eyes were already diminishing. Obvious handprints still ringed my throat, evanescing ghosts of the former gore. The corners of my mouth still curled up slightly. My secret smile. My daddy’s smile.
I inspected my face in the mirror, gingerly pressed around the stitches to check for infection, and angled a hand mirror to get a look at the sutures at the back of my head. The bathroom filled with toasty heat; and with the heat came the courage to assess the rest of the damage.
Okay, the rest of me, I thought, bravely bolstered by my unexpected progress.
The blanket fell to the floor in a heap around my chilled feet. My scowling skull jammies slid into the cloth puddle. Gathering my courage I pulled my eyes back to the mirror, and was staggered. My arms, ribs and legs, where the beating had been slightly less severe, only showed traces of bruising and abrasions.
I released my forgotten breath. Maybe, I might be okay. Maybe I wasn’t as fragile as I’d imagined under the jackhammer of fists.
Steaming water tumbled into the bathtub and I dumped in some ‘Bubble Up Girls’ huckleberry milk bath. The sweet creamy fragrance flooded the room. I closed my eyes and savored the juicy, tart scent—it smelled almost edible.
The morning after I came home from the hospital I’d showered, scoured and soaked myself clean. I knew I could not still smell like him but I could still smell him on me, still taste the ashtray-cheap-beer of his mouth crushing mine. My stomach roiled at the memory.
As the tub filled, I scrubbed my teeth and rinsed with mouthwash that stung the still-healing wounds inside my mouth. When the tub frothed with luxurious steaming foam, I shut off the faucet and sank slowly into the inviting depths. The hot water seared my tender skin but eased my aching muscles as I steeped in the heat and fragrance. Aw, to be human again.
The hot bath did wonders. I did feel almost human again dressed in my zombie sheep pajamas. A tattered green sheep shambled across the chest. ‘Brainzzz’ he bleated. I smirked at our resemblance.
I turned on my cell phone. Once it booted up, all the bells and whistles sounded; missed call alerts, voicemail alerts, text message alerts. I pulled up the text messages—all from Ivy.
“Sweetie, call me when u wake up. Luv u. Miss u. Ivy”
“Sweets, call me, I’m getting worried. Ivy.”
“Emari…I KNOW u r home. Come answer this door right now!”
“Em, plz call me. I miss u really bad and I’m worried about u. Ivy.”
“OK Sweetums, I know u just need some time. I won’t pester u anymore. Call or TM if u need me, ok? I love you! Ivy”
Sweet Ivy. I knew I’d better call her soon, before she imploded.
I checked the voicemails next. More of the same from Ivy, but the anguish in her voice was more wrenching, her voice raw with pain. A lump caught in my own throat as I realized just how much this girl cared for me. She was one of the reasons I would ever only imagine that scalpel blade to my wrist.
Shock jolted my heart when, in the midst of the messages, one from Adrian played. His voice was tremulous. “Emari…” Seconds ticked by and I could hear muffled sounds as Adrian composed himself. “We keep hoping it’s not you we’re hearing about on the news. Please,” his voice broke, “call us, as soon as you can. Celeste is worried sick. We both are. We love you. Please call.”
I sat frozen in time, remembered the major confrontation he and I had after my parent’s funeral. We’d stood, toe to toe, in this very living room, and glared at each other like two snarling pit bulls. He and Celeste had wanted me to live with them, wanted to coddle and baby me…
“Leave me alone,” I screamed into Adrian’s face.
“You don’t need to be alone right now. You need to be with your family,” he argued.
I laughed sardonically, “So dead, then?”
“Emari, that’s not what I…”
“Well, you’re not my family, are you?” I saw him flinch, knew my jab plunged straight to the heart but I plowed on anyway, careless of his feelings. My grief was the most profound. “My family is gone. Shall I join them?”
Silence.
Adrian held my arms and I felt his body vibrate under the stress. I dropped my voice to a lethal whisper. “Now. Let me go and get the hell out of my house.”
His body froze solid with shock and grief. Zecharias and Jane Sweet were his friends, but they were my parents. He dropped his hands to his sides with a quiet smack and shuffled to the door. He paused, the knob crushed in his fist. “Emari…” his voice so strained it was thin, tight, fragile.
But I was merciless. “Get. The hell. Out.”
He walked out without another word.
I had been selfish, and ruthless. I couldn’t leave him in that kind of pain again. He and Celeste deserved better.
The next message was a “checking in” message from Collin, and the rest of the calls were from Jesse, all of them short and sweet. I smiled as I listened and erased each one.
As my phone snapped shut, a knock on the front door shattered the stillness of my home. Ice slashed through my veins. My fingers found the stun gun between the couch cushions. I crept slowly to the door, peered through the oval, beveled glass. Memories flagged and tumbled as I focused on a police officer on the other side. The stance was familiar; Officer Elliot in her cop pose. My eyebrows crushed together as I entered the alarm code into the pad and opened the door.
“Officer Elliot?”
“Molly,” she smiled.
“Um, okay. Molly. What are you doing here?” Although, as soon as the words left my lips, I knew the answer.
“Ivy,” we said in unison, and then laughed. I noticed the youthful timbre of her voice. She smiled at me, shrugged, and continued. “She called me because she couldn’t get ahold of you and she was worried.”
“Uh, yeah, I’m fine. I just turned my phone off for a couple of days.” Though I wasn’t really sure how many days it had been.
“That’s what I figured, but I told her I’d check up on you, anyway,” she smiled again and glance
d over my shoulder into the house. I wondered if she came prepared with a battering ram to ‘check on me’ if I hadn’t answered the door. The silence stretched and she shifted her weight awkwardly from foot to foot. “Could I come in? I wanted to talk to you, if I could.”
“Um. Sure.” I opened the door and gestured her in with the stun gun. Her eyebrow quirked. “Uh, yeah…I…uh…” I babbled and gingerly placed it on the shelf by the door.
“Don’t sweat it. I understand. Just be careful you don’t zap yourself.” One corner of her mouth ticked up in a lopsided smile.
We sat on the couch and talked about the weather and road conditions. I imagined her with her long dark hair down, out of its tight regulation bun, and in jeans and a t-shirt. I guessed she must not be a whole lot older than me.
“You look really good. You’re healing very quickly,” she said after scrutinizing my face a few moments.
“Thanks. I’m a little surprised myself.”
“I wanted you to know about the assault crisis programs available in town,” she said. “It might help you a lot to get involved in one.”
I scowled as I contemplated standing in front of people telling them my story. Yeah…No. I distracted myself from the thought, marveled at how easily she slid between her business and casual personas. It was as though being a cop was an innate part of her, something she was predestined to be. I still didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up. ‘Rich heiress’ had kind of been dropped in my lap.
“So, did you get—him, yet?” I asked, hopeful.
“Not yet, but we’ve got some solid leads. I have some pictures if you think you can ID him. If you’re feeling up to it. It would really help.”
I nodded and she reached into her breast pocket and withdrew four pictures, mug shots. I listened to the sliding shush of each picture, and the snap, like a card from a deck, as she placed them in a neat row on the couch cushion between us. I kept my eyes locked on her face, afraid to look. Pathetic! Letting a stupid picture scare you. “Is he there?” I nodded toward the row of pictures, my green eyes still locked on the tranquil blue safety of hers.
