by Dea Poirier
Voices rise and fall around me, but I can’t make out the words. They bleed together, like a song. But the beats that would be the drum, are the fists against my face. One sound in particular mutes all the others, the thunder of my heart in my ears. One of my wrists comes free, before I can move, a wet hollow thud cuts the air. His fist pounds into my face, over and over. My eye screams in pain, and throbs after every impact. Explosions of light blind me each time he hits.
The guards take their sweet time breaking up the fight, or the pummeling, as you could call it. My face is bloody, my nose is broken, and one of my teeth feels loose against my fat lip. I dig at the tooth with my tongue, feeling the wiggle. Two of them drag me out of the cafeteria. The other two grab Becks. As I’m dragged out of the dining hall, I see him slip something to each of the guards.
I don’t even get the chance to fight when I realize they’re taking me to the white house. Tears pour from my eyes and I beg for them to let me go, to take me anywhere but there. The moment I smell the stench of shit, piss, and vomit, my stomach turns. My eyes are nearly swollen shut, I can’t see anything as they drag me. They throw me face-first into a crusty mattress that reeks of whiskey, iron, and pee. The last thing I remember is something hard, maybe a gun, hitting me in the face.
After
“I don’t think this one’s going to make it. They just pulled him in from the white house.” A high, soft voice trills, but it sounds like she’s far away, or underwater. The woman’s voice is stricken, pained.
Though I try to open my eyes, I can’t. No control over my body remains. The world seems to rush around me, like I’m moving. There’s the sound of metal. Something pricks my arm, my veins run cold. Icy plastic presses against my face. There’s a hissing sound to my right. An uneven beeping marks the seconds beside me.
“He’s hemorrhaging. I need a pint of O negative,” a rough voice says.
I feel a tugging, something snaps. Though I’m no longer moving, my head swims. Warmth rushes from my head. A salty coppery taste fills my mouth, then it’s cut by bile. My chest heaves, like I’m being tossed, thrown around. But I’m not in control of it.
“Make that three pints,” the voice says, again, urgency hovers there.
I hear a trickling, like rain dripping from the roof into a puddle.
“He’s coding, get me a crash cart.”
There’s a rush of movement I try to look, to see what’s going on. I still can’t open my eyes, I can’t even move. Somehow, I’m aware when I hear the last beep.
After
I unravel myself from unconsciousness. Pain is hidden away so far in the recesses of my mind, it takes a long time for it to creep in. It laps at me, waves of discomfort spread through my body. As I become more aware, it grows into a crest of crippling agony. My muscles are locked, rigid. Throbbing pools at the back of my head. The air around me is unusually cold, it tastes crisp, sterile as I breathe it in.
Realization floods to me all at once. The pain, most of it, is from how hard I’m shivering. As I breathe, my hot breath hits my face. A sheet is pressed to my body, covering me. Cold crusted blood makes it cling to my nose and chin. I sit up, and rip it off. Confusion twists my mind into a frenzy of clouded thoughts. A dimly lit, damp room surrounds me. Metal tables, surgical instruments, walls covered in small doors. The air is so cold, I can see my breath.
What am I doing in a morgue?
I stand, my bare feet curl when they touch the concrete floor. I see myself reflected in the slick metal of a cabinet. Confusion clouds my mind and slows my thoughts. Blood and iodine paint my chest. A trickle is dried, and forms a red river down my face. My stained clothes lie on a table near the door. I pull them on, and drape the sheet around my shoulders. My breaths quicken as panic flares through me.
What the fuck happened?
When I open the door, it squeals, a strangled grinding sound. The heat outside is like a punch to the face. Pain in my muscles melts away with the warmth. The way the light falls across the campus, I’m not sure if it’s early morning or late evening. Purple and black clouds roll in front of an orange horizon. I find myself behind the hospital and work my way around the building. I cut through the cornfield, sneak past the stables, through the rows of orange trees, and finally take a deep, unsettled breath when I reach the back porch of Madison.
The living room is abandoned as I climb the stairs to find Sayid. He’s still asleep. Face pressed into a pillow. His hair splayed across it, like a black squid. It must be morning. I sit on the bunk next to him, and give his shoulder the lightest nudge. His eyes pop open, his hand automatically wipes the drool from the corner of his mouth. He looks at me and all the color drains from his face. Like he’s seen a ghost.
“What’s wrong?” I ask him.
He sits upright and shifts. His back presses against the wall. There’s an ocean of white around his brown irises.
“How are you...” he points to the bed and his voice shakes, “here?” I notice the raw red edges of his eyes, the way they protrude, swollen. Pink clings to the edges of his nostrils. It looks like he’s been crying. Not a few tears, but a night-long sob.
I recoil away from him, his reaction makes my heart drop. Dread gathers inside me. After a hard swallow, and a few second to compose myself, I ask, “What do you mean?”
“You were in the hospital, they said you weren’t going to make it,” he looks down when he says it, his face falls. Tears crowd his eyes.
“Clearly they were wrong.” My voice shakes. I know they weren’t wrong. But I can’t admit that out loud. It’s too crazy. It can’t be real, it can’t be true. There has to be another explanation, a sane one.
“One of my customers works in the hospital. There was a hole in your skull. They had to cut you open, there was internal bleeding... and complications,” he explains, his eyes never moving from the spot they’re glued to the floor.
“Maybe they lied?” I offer. There has to be an explanation, an explanation that isn’t what I’m thinking. Because it can’t be possible. It can’t.
“You were dead. You are dead.”
I shake my head. It’s not possible. This had to be a dream, a hallucination, something.
“Asher, what the fuck is going on?” Sayid asks as tears gather in his eyes.
I reach for him, but he inches away. My hand shrinks back, and the sharp sting of rejection cuts through me. His eyes wide, his jaw set. My head swims, and my thoughts bleed into one another. Tears sting my eyes, and I look away.
“I don’t know.” I manage to choke the words out. “Does it matter? I’m here now. Does it matter what happened?”
He looks down, balls up the sheets in his hands, and wipes his face. “Yes it matters. You were dead, Asher. You were dead.” His voice cracks. “Don’t you get it?”
“Stop saying that.” Every time he says dead, my mind rejects the word. Before he can pull it away from me again, I grab his hand and hold it firmly in mine. “I’m here. I’m real,” I say.
But the way he looks at me doesn’t change. I may as well be a ghost. When he doesn’t try to pull his hand from mine, I move closer. I crawl onto the bed and wrap my arms around him. Sayid lets me hug him for a moment, his arms pinned at his sides. A shuddering breath slips from his lips, and his tears are slick against my neck. He hugs me and pulls me closer.
“I love you,” the words slip out before I can stop them. My heart swells, and regret slams into me. It may be how I feel, but I shouldn’t have said it. Sayid holds his breath, and then sobs.
“You were dead,” he says as his tears soak through the sheet around my shoulders.
“I’m not.”
“I can’t lose you. I can’t,” he sobs.
“You’re not going to.”
I can’t die. A foreign voice is low and insistent in the back of my mind. I shake my head, and push back against it. No. It can’t be true. That isn’t possible.
“Why are you wearing a sheet?” he finally asks, and tugs on the ed
ge gently.
I pull it open, and expose my bloody shirt. His eyes tighten.
“How do you explain that?” he asks, challenging me with his words.
“No idea, I don’t really care. Can you just come stand watch while I shower, please?” I’m too exhausted to care. Mentally, I’m worn, beaten down. It feels like I’ve been wrung out.
“But what if—” he starts.
I hold my hand up, and silence him. I shake my head. The way he looks down, sullen, it crushes me. Sayid grabs my arm. I’m ready for him to argue. What I’m not ready for is the hug he gives me.
His hair is soft against my face, neck. The smell of lemon laundry soap is thick on his skin. As he pins me beneath his embrace, a warmth spreads through me. Like a fire slowly building. I lean into it, rest my shoulder on his, breathe in the scent of him His neck is so close, inches from my lips. Each beat of my heart billows the flames of desire, and I find myself leaning further into him. He shifts, the warmth of his neck is close enough to brush my lips. I’m painfully aware of his body, his movement, his breaths. My hands fall to my sides.
With Olivia, I fought for so long for her attention. For her affection. It’s still jarring that with Sayid, my feelings are returned.
“Sorry,” he says when he finally lets go. He won’t look at me.
“It’s alright,” I say, the words uneven.
With each step I take toward the bathroom, the desire edging inside me slowly slips away. Sayid disposes of my bloody clothes and the sheet while I wash the evidence from my body. My fingers search my chest, my skull, for any signs of injury. But there’s nothing. Not a stitch, not a bruise, not even a scar. Sayid is painfully quiet while I shower, though I try to talk to him a few times.
He’s scared of you. He doesn’t want to be around you. If you tell him the truth, he’ll never talk to you again.
After I’ve toweled off, and wrestled my clothes onto my damp skin, Sayid finally talks.
“You coming to breakfast?” he asks.
“After what happened last time, I think I’ll skip it,” I say, and walk out onto the porch. There’s also the pesky matter that rumors saturate the campus that I’m dead, I should keep a low profile.
Sayid turns toward me with his arms crossed. He tilts his head as he looks at me. “Do you want me to bring you something? Or come with you to the stables?”
I do. I want him to come have breakfast with me in the loft like before. But I know we can’t. It’s too risky for him, it’s too much to ask.
“It’s fine, I’ll see you later,” I say as I give him a little wave.
“Suit yourself,” he says, and jumps off the porch toward the cafeteria. A few feet out, he turns back to me. “No ducking today, guards are out in full force. More kids have gone missing,” he offers.
“Thanks.”
“Anytime,” he calls back, and waves.
Ginger isn’t happy when I get to the stables. She’s got her eyes narrowed, ears back. She even flicks her tail at me. I curse myself for not at least getting her an apple from the cafeteria.
“What’s wrong, girl?” I ask, and reach out to pet her.
She pulls away, bristling, and tousles her mane. Her large brown eyes follow my every move. She’s tense, I notice every single time her skin twitches. Ginger’s always had a bit of an attitude, but this is an angst I’m not used to. It’s never been directed at me.
“Fine, you win.” I grab her lead from the post next to her stall.
The moment the metal jingles, her ears perk up. Her head shakes back and forth as she snorts happily. I slide the lead over her head, and open her stall. She trots out, her head held high. It’s exactly what she wanted.
I’ve been trained by a horse.
I tie the lead loosely to a post, and grab a brush. It slides through her hair, her skin ripples. Outside the stables, the wind kicks up. Dry branches pop and snap. Across the campus, I hear dogs bark. I’m not surprised, those will be the bloodhounds. After all, they have a chase to conduct. Deep down, I know the missing kids are probably in the white house. Or they were already killed.
Footsteps on the concrete, shuffling, and a rush of voices draw my attention. There’s no surprise when Ginger pulls against the lead. Two guards stand at the other end of the stables, they eye the horses. As they walk closer, I recognize one. He’s the guard I saw with the student, the one who dragged me to the white house twice. His holstered gun bounces as he walks, there’s a jingle, keys on a key ring. Eyes focused on me, he holds his belt as he saunters toward me. The way he squints his eyes, it’s like he didn’t expect to see me here.
“You,” he says, the word trails off, saying more than he means for it to. “I thought they said you died.”
My pulse is frenzied. I swallow hard and search my mind for what to say. “You must have me confused with someone else.”
His eyes narrow, and he looks at the guard to his left. “We need three horses saddled and ready to go.” I’m relieved when he drops it. How do I explain away that I should be dead?
“Okay, I’ll have them ready in a few minutes,” I say, far more cordially than he deserves.
I take Ginger, and usher her back to her stall. She pulls against the lead, angry about being forced back into her stall so soon. This isn’t going to help her sour mood.
“Why are you putting that one away?” he asks, annoyance cutting into every word.
“She gets spooked, she’s not going to be good with the dogs,” I say. Or the gunshots, I don’t say.
Thankfully the guard doesn’t question me about it. In a few minutes I have three of the other horses saddled for him. With the bloodhounds beside them the guards disappear into the tree line. Something inside me shifts, this is all a charade. They’re looking for students. Students that they probably know are dead. I shift my attention back to Ginger and listen as the barks of the bloodhounds disappear into the distance.
After
While the other inmates sleep, I sit on the back porch chain smoking like my life depends on it. What’s the harm after all? It seems nothing can kill me. My eyes are locked on the rows of orange trees as I will myself to see Olivia again. Really, even if I don’t see her, just avoiding Dom would be a win. Since our interaction in the stables, he’s all but disappeared, which is just fine, if you ask me. Soon I will have to find him. But I need answers first. After I know for sure what he did, that’s when I’ll find him.
This is where I always imagine her. It’s like the miles of orange trees surrounding our houses where we played when we were little. I’ve got ten years of memories with her disappearing into trees like this. But tonight, no matter how hard I try, I can’t see her.
There’s a void so deep within me, I feel like I’m collapsing into it. I look down at my feet when I expect the tears to come again, but they’ve run dry. My face is hot, but this time at least, I don’t cry.
A flicker of movement in the trees catches my attention. A burst of excitement explodes through me. But instead of her white dress, school issue jeans and a t-shirt emerge on a lumbering figure. Though I’m a good fifty feet from him, I know who it is before I can see his face. It’s Becks. And based on his stumbling, it’s obvious he’s drunk. I can see it when he notices me, even though I’d extinguished the glowing ember that would have given me away. His eyes narrow and he stops walking as he stares me down. My body tenses. Despite his missing cronies, I know there’s no getting away. If I go inside, he’ll follow me. Running is out, too, my legs are heavy.
“Flemming,” he says like it’s a curse. Like, I’m so far beneath him I’m lucky he even knows my name.
I should ignore him, look the other way and pretend I never saw him at all. But I know no matter what, he’s not going to leave me alone. So I say, “Becks,” and nod to him, far more politely than he deserves, like he doesn’t bother me a bit. I won’t to show my hatred, my disgust. No matter what he’s done to me, I will not give him power over me. I will not let him win.
He wavers on his feet for a moment. My guess is he’s trying to decide if he wants to go on his way, or if he wants to bless me with more of his presence. While he’s unable to decide, I light another cigarette and move my attention back to the trees.
I sigh when he’s made up his mind, and comes closer. Once he’s only a few feet from me, the stink of alcohol is so pungent, it makes the air smell sharp.
“You know what your problem is, Flemming?” He stumbles as he shakes his finger at me.
I could name a thousand. Though I don’t particularly care what he thinks my problem is, I say, “What?” because I know he’s going to tell me anyway.
“You think you’re the only person in here who’s in pain. You can’t see anything beyond yourself. No one else’s struggles, no one else’s pain could ever amount to yours, could it?” He spits the words at me. Then literally spits at me.
It takes a lot of effort to not roll my eyes. I can’t imagine what struggles a rich boy like Becks could have, and I don’t care to know. So, I shrug. He’s not one to lecture anyone on pain. By my count, all he causes is pain. Pain and misery.
“Typical, real fucking typical,” he says, irritation thick on every word. The harder he hurls the words at me, the more he wavers on his feet.
“Just go away. Don’t you have anything better to do?” I ask to try and get him to move along or make a decision to fight me. I just want to get it over with. This time there won’t be any guards to break it up, or drag me to the white house. He won’t have anyone to help him. I may not be able to kill him, but I’ll welcome the chance to try to cause some damage.
I glare at him. I force my fists to my side and hold the edges of the wood planks. The tension keeps my hands from shaking.
