The human body is an amazing thing the way it shuts itself down in order to heal. My body shut down they drilled holes in my skull to let the pressure out and I stayed trapped inside myself for an eternity. I could hear, smell and feel the world around my bed, but not matter how hard I tried my eyes stayed closed.
My mind screams to just get up. The time turns to a song on repeat, Art, Shannon, Sahib. Quiet, nurse. Shannon, Nurse. I feel nothing at all. Except thirsty I am dying of thirst all the time. I dream of a cool glass of water sliding down my throat.
Memories haunt me, steal me from myself and take me to other places.
“Callum you little cunt, show your brother what being a man is all about. Come on, he pissed himself. Show him or I will.” My father tells me with the barrel of his gun against my temple. My eyes are locked on the deathly blue ones of my best friend. He is meant to be a killer, not me. I see the single tear escape as I lifted the gun to his bound and beaten father's head. It is me or him, I know it. My dad hates me enough to kill me. Rowan stares at me and nods just a little. He knows it too. I have to kill his pop, he loves his pop. He will hate me forever. I was told not to make friends. I didn’t listen; now look. I feel the gun press harder into my temple and the subtle click of it loading and I fire without another thought. I am not ready to die, I will make it right one day. I will kill them all and make it right. Neil cries like a girl in the corner, my father helps him up and says “It’s okay son. I will make you a man yet.” While glaring at me with disgust. Not even killing my best friend’s father could make him proud. I turn around and see Rowan holding his mother and dead father as they both cry for what I have done. The rain pours as I walk away to the cemetery and I feel the pain of my dad's hatred deep in my soul.
The ambient noise of medical staff and beeping machines brings me back to the present, for a while. I still cannot open my eyes. I am not sure I want to. Maybe it is my time to die, time to pay. I can smell Shannon, she is here. She has stayed, that has to mean she feels something for me.
I can smell the ocean air of my home and I can see the beautiful flat top of Table Mountain in the sun. I laugh at my silly sister and she giggles with me. My heart hurts at what I left behind, but what hurts more is why I left it behind. I see my brother, my real brother Rowan and his passion for everything he does. I walk with Laurie and we eat cupcakes from Charly’s under the trees with the squirrels and long to feel those things again without the heaviness of my monster. I want to go home, to the vineyard where we shared meals and news of good things and bad things. To my family.
I remember horrors too. The beat of my heart amplified by the machines monitoring it lulls me back into the vile, dirty recesses of my mind where disgusting things are buried.
My mother’s body covered in blood on the cold steps of that house. Rowan’s face as I killed his father. His forgiveness, when it was done, hurt me even more. I remember Cassie and my hand on her chest before she fell and the halo of blood that turned her into an angel. Cassie, the girl who stole my heart and captured my dreams. I fucking loved her. I still do.
Shannon’s body after I beat her. Those images play on repeat along with the others that came before her jumbled in between. I have tried to find love in sex and sex in love. It never came. The way I hurt woman was never a kink or a fetish. It was hatred bread into me. “Callum you little shit come here.” Mirrie’s nails dig into the skin on my neck making me bleed. She holds me still while Neil lays into me. She is teaching him to be a man so that Connor won’t hate him as much as he hates me. “Neil, one disappointing son is enough. Put some effort into it boy.” Her wicked voice is laced with malice and the vicious jealousy of where I came from. Then she grabs me by my cock and plays with me until I come and tells me. “Filthy boy, that’s all you are is filth.”
I hear voices, real ones around my bedside. I can smell Shannon. Just her smell is enough to make my heart squeeze in my chest. I don’t deserve her, even if she is worse than me. I don’t deserve any woman after the things I have done. The vortex of my past sucks me back again and again.
This time it is Neil, the boy who stole my life. He stole my father's love and he took anything that I ever had. He introduced Rowan and Cassie when he knew I loved her. I might have been fourteen but my heart already beat to the rhythm of hers and he took even that.
My brother’s eyes as he realized I was the angel of death coming to get him are burned into my brain. I remember my monster all too well. As I float through the past but I cannot find him in me any longer. I should be fighting to stay alive, to wake up. For her. But I cannot find the strength I need to do it. My demons are gone I am weak without them.
The song repeats over and over I cannot keep track any longer it is blurring the lines of time and I feel as if I am my own ghost. I don’t want this any longer. I don’t know if I want to live or die, but this is neither.
“ROBIN, SOMETHING ISN’T right. Callum would come if he knew. I cannot speak to Neil he isn’t there anymore I keep getting Art. I don’t understand. I know I am the sister who should be dead, but my heart tells me my brothers are in trouble if they are not both fucking dead.” I fight the tears as I try to tell my husband what the little ghost in my heart is saying to me. I have tried everything to contact them even calling Neil, who shouldn’t even know I am alive. I even googled them. It’s like they have just been deleted from the earth. Nothing, nothing and I’m scared.
I am done with losing everything I love to this fucking world. I hate it. I hate the very blood in my veins. I fucking hate that I am an O’Reilly. I changed everything, my name the way look the colour of my hair everything! But I cannot erase my father’s blood from mine.
As I sit cradling my friend's crying baby in my arms, I know she is crying for her mama, the mama who isn’t coming home. I know she has a broken heart, and she is only a month old. I do not think any of us will live through this unscathed. Laurie had fixed us all just a little bit; her ability to not only survive but thrive after the years of torture was astounding. We watched her change into the most beautiful woman, we watched her thaw Rowan and make him feel. She brought him to life and then they found their common ground, a way to be together in their darkness. Now she is gone, he is broken, and I know that there is no one who could fix him this time. Laurie always said that losing each other would be the worst pain in the world. I am watching him in agony. Worse than that I am aching too. I lost a friend probably the only friend I have ever had. I am holding her baby forced to face the loss of my little boy and I cannot walk away just because it hurts I have to just sit here and let it hurt me. Rip my heart out and crush it. Again.
Callum has been gone so long I am not sure what to think but I know something is wrong. I left a message for him he should know by now. He should be here, Rowan needs him right now. This is his chance to make up for the wrongs between them and he isn’t here. The connection I feel to him is lost and I fear that he is dead in the aftermath of our father’s unfortunate dealings with bad people. I know that there are bad things happening to my family. I don’t care about them in fact I hate them all, but Callum, he saved me and I love my brother dearly. I hope that he isn’t just another casualty in this war. Another black-hole child just like the one I am holding destined to be the price of her parent's name. This little girl is born out of blood, murder and vengeance, but love to.
We buried Laurie today and it feels like a lifetime since we walked in to find Rowan holding his baby girl and her dead body on the floor. Her devil came to get her in the end she sacrificed herself to save them, she loved them that much. That was the difference in Laurie, she could love unconditionally. That is a different love than what is permitted in this world of ours, everything has conditions for us, even love.
Everything has been turned into a black and white film around me, it moves slowly without sound and the colour has been rinsed away. I may have a black heart, but it aches today for the crushed man in front of me and for this sweet baby girl who will
never know that love. She will be one of us now. Her village lost its angel.
Where the fuck are you Callum? You are the one person in the world that Rowan needs now. We fucking need you.
My carefully constructed world is crumbling into chaos and ruins. All I feel is the loss of everything I have ever held close. Robin holds me to his chest as I cradle little Avery in my arms I cry for all that this world has taken from us. Every life that has been ripped away to pay for our family’s sins breaks my heart. It will never end unless we choose to walk away from it all.
I DIDN’T SIGN UP FOR this shit. I know he is in there, I fucking know that monsters don’t just die that easy. But this, I cannot do this limbo anymore. I am not a doting fucking fiancé who will sit by his side for all eternity. I am a killer and I am going crazy. Twenty months, six hundred and eight days of this static unmoving torture.
At least I can still make sure that I get the Phenacetin into his system because he has a feeding tube. I don’t know what drives me to continue with it. Maybe it’s the anticipation of the high that will come from his death. He may just fucking die from his injuries he doesn’t need cancer, but I need an insurance policy. He has been in a coma – or vegetative state for so long now that most have given up hope and just wait for him to die. He still breathes on his own but hasn’t shown even a hint of waking up, not even once. His beautiful, healthy body wastes away, his hair is long and reminds me of the Callum I saw in the graveyard. I cannot do this forever I want to run away, but Art watches my every move. I want to leave so I will stop killing the man I love, but I am trapped so I just carry on. Phenacetin is a painkiller that was removed from the market because it causes cancer. I have been giving it to Callum since the day we got engaged. I cannot stop myself.
I buried Neil all alone, I spit on his fucking casket as it was sinking into the cold, wet ground and I picked a hideous headstone. I would have left him in the morgue forever if it weren't for the public image we needed to uphold, I am the unofficial boss now. I am the head of a criminal empire and army of evil and I fucking hate it! Neil didn’t deserve a funeral, he should have suffered longer. Being a crime boss is not what I signed up for, ever. I don’t want any of this shit. He better wake up someday so I can kill him for this clusterfuck. I need him to wake up and hurt me so I can justify killing him.
I exist in a limbo between the hospital and the ghost house. Every single day is the same and it is killing me. I haven’t been able to kill someone in twenty months and the grey is so much it consumes every waking moment and I suppress the urge to kill every person who crosses my path. I cannot do this forever. I need an out or to kill someone. Worst of all, I miss him. I miss his touch, his kisses, the love. I miss the pain and that makes me feel dirty and shameful.
I finish giving him his ‘food’ and wipe him down, moving him to help with the bedsores that have begun to form, when a young nurse knocks at the door. Her shifty little eyes won’t meet mine.
“Miss, sorry I mean Dr Shannon, your mum has been brought into the emergency room they asked me to come get you.” She sounds nervous as she delivers another blow. I do not need my mother added to the metric shit ton of crap in my life right now. I pull a sheet back up over the skeleton that is Callum and follow the girl downstairs. I hate my mother. “Shannon you will never be Cassie so stop trying, it’s annoying.” I was never good enough for her. She knew what my father did to me, I used to hear her crying in the room next door. She never once tried to stop him from raping me. She just gave up on life and went bat shit crazy, leaving me alone with him.
My mother, my problem a burden I never wanted, yet another thing I have no control over in my life. I feel the grey becoming a permanent presence and fear I may snap and become a spree killer and murder twenty people in five minutes. The sound of my footsteps echo down these big halls as I walk through the corridors of death and disease, it is fitting with the sterile smell and hanging aroma of death. It is like my soul belongs here. I gravitate towards death, constantly seeking it.
I am met by rush of doctors and emergency nursing staff all crowded around the weak woman’s body. She is barely recognisable as the woman that I lived with for all those years. The flurry of activity for a woman who doesn’t even know what day it is anymore makes me feel even less than always do when I see her.
The doctor who I recognise from when Callum was brought in greets me. “Shannon, your mum has suffered a stroke. We are doing what we can.” I gag at his use of the word mum, she was never a mum, she was mother. If this stroke doesn’t fucking kill her I, will give her one that will. I need this more than she needs to live. She isn’t really alive at all, her mind is long gone and her body is failing her now too.
“Doctor, do not take any extraordinary measures, my mother is old and senile if it’s her time to go, so be it.” My voice is icy and I see a hint of confusion in the doctor’s eyes after I was so vicious with them to do anything to save Callum this must seem callous.
“Are you sure Shannon? You are her medical power of attorney so I have to do as you say, but please think about that.” I want to punch him in the face, but I don’t. I stay calm and cold. I don’t need to think about it. “Doctor, I want to sign a DNR for my mother NOW.” I seethe at the man standing in front of me living a dream that I once had for my life. He shakes his head and sends a nurse to get me the papers. I wanted to be a doctor in a big hospital once. Instead, I got the mob and all its problems. Instead I got Neil the boy who took everything from me and gave me nothing for it and Callum the monster that changed me. I got my desire to kill instead of save I didn’t get any of my dreams.
I sign the papers without a second thought and return to Callum’s bedside in time to help with his meds, a daily routine that has become the monotonous soundtrack of my life.
My mother lives. She survives the stroke, this time and is now even more of a waste of oxygen than before. I cannot look at her any longer. I know what I need to do, I slip back out of her door and leave the hospital. I go home to the ghost house and prepare to get rid of my ghosts. I fill a syringe with a large dose of vitamin K for my mother and take more Phenacetin for Callum’s feeding tomorrow.
The halls of the Spillane mansion still echo with the ghosts of lives lost here, the strongest echo of all is the little boy who they shattered on those front steps. I shower in the eerie silence of the one place on earth I finally feel settled. When Callum called me a ghost, he had no idea how close he was to the truth. My mind spins with memories of his touch, of his brutality and his words. No matter how long he has been gone I cannot seem to let him go, I want to hang onto him, but I want to kill him more. I want to feel the love he felt, I want to bury the empathy that I feel, I am torn into small pieces of myself when it comes to that man.
I know that there will be business to attend to in the morning and that Art and Sahib will expect me to make an appearance tomorrow. But my mother is sick and I will be at her bedside instead. It will be the last time I am at her side. I do not intend to be at her graveside.
I cannot be everything forever. This has to end soon. If he weren't breathing on his own, I would switch off the machines and walk away and never look back. I just cannot bring myself to kill him quickly. I keep telling myself that maybe I don’t want him to die, after all. I love him and I don’t want to let go – or hold on.
I climb into the bed where the bindings that he used to tie me up with every night still hang from the bedpost. His clothes still hang in the closet, rows and rows of black suits. His body won’t die and neither will his memory. My body has long since healed, but I still feel his hands around my throat strangling the life out of me. I close my eyes to the sleep I know will be haunted by Callum and his possession of the only feelings I have ever known. I will wake up to hate him and love him again. I won’t have cuts and bruises. My skin is not on fire with the welts from his belt but I will still have an aching heart and that pain is more than I can take.
My dreams are overtaken by Cal
lum’s tender times, when he worshiped me and touched me like I was precious and not poisonous. Those are the worst. He saw something in me that doesn’t exist and it caused lines to blur between us. He loved me past my murderous evil, he loved me while I killed. He saw something more, something that I could never find in myself, not even now.
My dreams are disturbed by my ringing phone a little after one in the morning. I groan at the intrusion, it's not enough my sleep is bad, but they must wake me in the middle of it. I don’t even look at the screen before I answer it can only be Art at this hour of the day, the man never sleeps he is a walking machine.
“What?” I bark into the phone my voice rough with the dryness of sleep. I wait for a response.
“Um, Dr Shannon, I mean … Ummm …Mr O’Reilly is awake. They asked me to call you first.” I am instantly awake, did she just say that Callum is awake? My heart stops and starts again at the news. Now what? Who will I get when I open that door?
“I am on my way, they are not to do anything until I get there do you understand me?” I let the tone of my voice tell her how serious I am about this. We don’t know what sort of brain damage has been done and I want to see for myself before they fiddle with him.
Once again in a moment my life is turned on its axis and everything changes in a second.
It is time to face my monster. It is time to let go of the hate and the fear and to love him while he heals. I know I do, I just have to let myself. I am going to get a chance to love him and nothing could be more terrifying.
Monochrome My Madness Page 20
