Deeper into Darkness

by Maria Ann Green

I’m terrified as I run, kicking my nightstand before doubling over onto my bed to cradle my foot. This is a movie. It can’t be real. This is how fiction goes, horror and drama; it’s not how things work out for either of us. Paused, lying on the bed, I’m overcome with guilt.

  I can’t leave him.

  But I can’t lose everything, after all I’ve gotten through until this point.

  I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.

  Jumping up, I start to turn for the hallway, for the kitchen, then I stop. Starting to move back, toward the office, toward my computer, I stop again.

  Writing.

  Keys.

  Clothes.

  I don’t know what to do first, where to go, what to think. And it’s all catching up. I start to feel lightheaded, and instead of getting anything else, packing anymore, I sink to the floor. And just like I heard Aidan doing before, I breathe too quickly, in too short of bursts. I can’t stop, even though I know I should.

  I try to count, slowing my breath, but it doesn’t work, won’t help. The room starts spinning, and my heart catches up to the pace of my breathing, everything collapsing and suffocating and hot.

  Am I dying?

  Is this what they’ve all felt?

  Maybe it’s better to leave now, leave him, before it all goes to hell. Before he finds out what I haven’t told him yet.

  Before he leaves me.

  Grabbing my phone, ready to pull my bags with me along to the door, to my car, to the road, to a new life, I check my notifications. And there’s a missed call. From days ago, but the little red balloon just popped up in the last few minutes.

  Piece of crap phone.

  I almost throw it to the bed, leaving it behind with thoughts of a new one, but I stop myself. Curiosity will always win out, and I click it, having to know. There’s no voice mail, but it was Harwell who called the other night, when I was walking away from a second Parker.

  Twice now he’s had impeccable timing.

  But he didn’t leave his voice behind this time. I hold onto that. I hold onto it so tightly, that little fact, that my knuckles crack and my fingers go numb with the sheer force, with the intent to keep hope alive.

  What the hell does that even mean anyway, that he didn’t leave a voice mail?

  Still paralyzed, I hold onto my phone, unsure of anything anymore. All I know is that I can feel the sweat in my hairline, at my spine, at the base of my neck, and under my arms. It’s gathering, and leaving me slippery, ready to get through anything.

  My eyes dart, looking for any last thing I need. I’m ready to leave, with narrowed eyes and sore joints. I’m still not sure I should, if I even want to, but I’m ready anyway.

  Then something lands on my lower back, hard and warm, and I stiffen.

  I scream.

  I scream like my life depends on it, like tomorrow won’t show up unless I let out every molecule of air and sound from my lungs, from my panicked and exhausted body. It goes on and on, and I’m too scared to turn around.

  The body behind me, and I can feel it’s a body, is huge. It’s menacing, and looming over me. It feels like a monster in the dark, pushing me deeper into the depths of darkness I’ve created for myself.

  It’s someone come to kill me, to take me away and then kill me. I know it.

  I’m so sure that whenever I turn around, I’ll see pointy teeth and black eyes so dark they’re the utter absence of light, so dark they’ll pull me inside and swallow me whole, no chewing required.

  It’s only been seconds, my screams just petering out, but it feels as if I’ve been frozen here for years, for centuries. And visions start to flash before me, painting themselves on the whites of my walls, movies playing for my horror, for the monster’s entertainment. I see myself standing before Harwell, with a knife in my hand, and blood seeping from his throat, covering his scruff and staining his suit.

  And in that moment, the monster morphs into a detective. Tall and broad, but human. Horribly human. His harassment punished with a sharp blade—it is possible. I could do it.

  Then the vision changes, my head spinning now, and I see an army, of police. I see them standing in rows, all in front of me. Guns are pointed at my face, my chest, my soul. Harwell, his throat sewn back up, says the word and they all start shooting, stopping me from having another rendezvous, stopping me from loving Aidan.

  My vision goes gray and fuzzy, forcing me to blink.

  The silence in the room, the half second after I finish screaming, is filled with a throat clearing, then awkward laughter.

  Aidan’s laughter.

  I nearly faint; turning and searching, I see his mouth curved upward. I hear the lightness in his giggles. But I must not look good. The fear must be written across my eyes, in my lips, throughout the tightness of my chest, because he blanches. Aidan’s face goes completely blank before his eyes widen in concern at the look of me, the color draining from his cheeks then his neck.

  And it lingers, the fear still grips at my heart with sharp talons. I can see him, but it’s still only half real. My eyes still want to play tricks on me. Reaching out my hands, I grab at his clothes, pulling him into me and clutching at any part of him I can reach.

  “Baby,” he says, shushing my whines. “I thought the scream was fake. I didn’t know I really scared you.” He runs his fingers through my hair, trying to calm me. “I’m sorry.”

  He says it a few times.

  And the last time I hear the five letters, a switch flips inside me. I start babbling. Words are bursting from my throat, clawing to get out of my mouth, and filling Aidan’s eyes with confusion.

  I know I sound hysterical, but I can’t stop. I try, putting my hand over my mouth, biting my tongue even, but the urge keeps coming until I’m out of breath and a little dizzy.

  When it’s mostly subsided and I’m quiet, I stand, grab Aidan’s hand, and drag him along behind me to the kitchen.

  He’s said nothing, just watched while I bubbled over. Now he stands next to a chair at the table—his hands on the back, gripping it—while, my hand shaking, I pour myself a drink. It’s full to the edge, one more drop and amber liquid would be spilling down the sides of the glass. I throw back the entire contents, resisting a gag at the strong taste, and slam the glass back onto the counter.

  While I debate another drink, Aidan walks over. He takes the bottle from me and sets it down, then leads me to the living room where we both collapse onto the couch.

  I don’t know what’s happened since Aidan called, not really. I lost my mind briefly, from the stress. But I do know one thing. I do know I will never, never admit to Aidan that I was about to run without him.

  I can barely believe it myself.

  If I could, I would wish away the thoughts I had, erase them completely. If I could make it so those horrible reactions never happened, I would. Because I honestly don’t know what Aidan would do if he knew. And I cringe, thinking about it, just before he pulls me in for a warm and completely enveloping kiss.

  Then another.

  ***

  I drink another amber drink that warms my throat and calms me one step further while Aidan puts on sweatpants and orders delivery for dinner.

  When he walks back into the room, I’m settled, more normal and letting go of the off feelings. I’m still worried; I mean, who wouldn’t be? Plus, my expectations were too high for make-up sex—it failed miserably, only adding to my anxiety—which is normally beyond fantastic. There are a million reasons to have felt disconnected and disappointed, and I try to let go of them all.

  “The interview,” Aidan says, sitting next to me on the couch, wrapping a blanket around my shoulders, “it was short and sweet. You were right; there was nothing to worry about. I shouldn’t have worked myself up so much.”

  “I’m always right,” I say, smiling with one side of my mouth.

  Getting up, I drop the blanket to the couch, and I walk to the bedroom still naked with an idea. I dig around in my jewelry box and find what I was loo
king for—a pair of earrings from Aidan, a donation he collected from a playmate. Then I dig in my bag to find the lingerie I remembered to grab before leaving the fake Parker.

  Snapping everything into place, I head back to the living room, my skin exposed from the underwire down, sweat from earlier still glittering on my skin.

  “Hot damn, baby,” Aidan’s eyes pop when I come out to show him.

  “Ready for round two?” My voice sounds pathetic, desperate, to me. But I want a better round, I want to connect better, less discourse inside.

  “Seriously?” he asks, with a look on his face I never want to associate with an offer of sex. I tilt my head, harden my mouth, and narrow my eyes.

  Yes, of course I’m serious.

  “Okay, okay.” Aidan raises his hands in surrender.

  He comes over, wrapping me into his arms, but he doesn’t start kissing me right away. When he finally does, it’s halfhearted. I move my fingers inside his waistband, grabbing at him. I start stroking, hoping to get him more in the mood. But after too many seconds, I know the moment is lost. He seems inside his head, distracted. Or maybe I just pushed my luck, wanted too much.

  “How about later tonight?” he asks.

  The doorbell rings, saving me from answering, and he goes to get the food while I go to the bedroom, to skip dinner to stew and question everything until I fall asleep alone.

  Blue.

  Red.

  The lights get closer.

  Blue, red, blue, red,

  blueredblueredblueredblueredblueredblueredblueredblueredbluered, on cycle. On repeat.

  “Get out of the car,” the cop yells.

  His gun points into the car, at Aidan, at me, at me through Aidan.

  The police officer’s features are in total shadow, like he’s faceless. But his voice is present, deep and booming. I can’t see his mouth moving when he speaks, and that makes the scene feel even more wrong, like his voice is looped in and it’s not really him talking.

  “Get out, with your hands up,” he screams again.

  I start to open my door, and suddenly there’s another cop on my side of the car. His face is there, but it’s blurred, fuzzy, like it’s been half erased and there are no defined lines. He’s yelling too, but the words aren’t coming out right. He slams my door closed, his gun pointed at my head.

  The first officer yanks Aidan out of the car, giving him directions that he doesn’t wait for Aidan to follow—forcing him to the ground roughly. I hear a noise I don’t want to identify, a noise like bone meeting concrete.

  Before I can panic, the second cop pulls me through the window, not bothering to waste time on opening doors, his words finally coming into focus, though his face doesn’t.

  “GET ON THE GROUND.” He shoves me there, my teeth connecting with the road. I taste blood, and my tongue finds a hole where my front teeth used to be.

  “Did you two think you’d get away with it forever? Did you think we’d forget about Eva?” one cop asks. I can’t see either, but it doesn’t matter which is talking. Nothing matters.

  Nothing will ever matter again.

  “You left evidence.”

  “You made mistakes.”

  “You’re caught.”

  “Fucking murderers.”

  ***

  The sound coming from my mouth is full of air, sucked in too quickly. I’m gasping and shaking before I even realize where I am or what’s happened, choking on the fear.

  One hand goes to my mouth, checking for teeth, or holy hell a lack of them, and the other goes to Aidan’s chest. I twist his shirt into my fingers, fisting it and pulling it away from his skin, trying to get closer to him—or get him closer to me—trying to feel real and present, and reassured.

  Another sound fills the room, chasing the heels of the one I’d made, and it sounds eerie, similar but deeper and only partially present. And in a movement faster than I anticipate Aidan’s sitting up and coming at me, all fists and muscles and adrenalin. He’s ready to fight, half asleep, and I have exactly zero seconds to think.

  So I don’t think.

  My hands move on their own, unconnected from the thoughts still swirling in my brain, and I shove them forward, trying to stop whatever is about to happen. I close my eyes, tight, and block it all out.

  I wait to accidentally be knocked out. I wait for the pain of the unconscious attack. I wait.

  But nothing happens to me.

  Then Aidan screams. It’s only after a string of profanities start falling from his lips that I feel a sharp pain in my hand. It throbs for a moment before my eyes bounce back open, and it’s all another blur.

  In my defensive move, my hand went between the two of his, and directly into his nose.

  “Fuck,” Aidan screams, his hands to his face and an ominous darkness spreading between his fingers.

  “I’m sorry,” I breathe out.

  I was scared, I grabbed him, I scared him, and he flipped the hell out in protection mode, to which I promptly punched his nose.

  “I think it’s broken,” he whines through the barrier of his fingers.

  “Oh my god.”

  “What the fuck?”

  “I’m sorry. Babe, I’m so sorry,” I say again, standing this time.

  Hovering over him, I don’t know what to do. My hands flutter over his head but land nowhere, because what can I even do for him? Then I run to the kitchen to grab an ice pack, and on the way back I snag a towel as well. I forgot pain killers, or at least a drink, but I’m back to him before I realize what I can go grab next.

  “It’s definitely broken.” He doesn’t seem as mad anymore, more defeated and embarrassed. “What the fuck happened?” he asks, still confused, still waking up.

  “I had a nightmare.” It sounds so empty, so inexcusable, so not enough to be the real answer.

  “Are you okay?”

  I don’t answer.

  “We need to go to the ER,” he adds.

  His eyes are watering as I get him dressed and help him to the car, and then I cry, leaning against the driver’s side door, before getting in.

  ***

  Aidan’s moment of concern for me has long since evaporated, and he’s soured, softening into a puddle of complaints and nasal tones. We go round and round in verbal circles as we drive. Nothing gets resolved, nothing makes him feel better, everything makes me feel worse. So mostly I wait until I have to respond, keeping the rest inside.

  This sucks.

  “I can’t believe you broke my nose.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I wouldn’t have hurt you.”

  I’m sorry.

  “You didn’t need to defend yourself.”

  I’m sorry.

  “I would have realized and stopped before anything happened.”

  I’m sorry.

  “God, it fucking hurts.”

  I’m so sorry.

  “What were you even dreaming about that you had to grab me like that?”

  “We’re here,” I say, looking at the neon red and white light pointing the way.

  I park as gently as I can, trying to keep my face neutral, a blank page, anything but a reflection of how I’m feeling. I don’t blame him for his attitude; I can’t believe I did it either. But it was an accident, and that doesn’t help my guilt; nothing does. The shame is overwhelming and making me feel angry on top of everything—angry at Aidan for whining, angry at myself for grabbing him in the first place and starting all of it, angry at the buzzing, bright lights, angry at nothing. Just angry, angry and guilty.

  Aidan winces.

  The sulking doesn’t stop when we get out of the car, like I stupidly hoped.

  He drags his feet along the asphalt, toward the bright lights and the revolving door.

  It doesn’t stop after we check in.

  Aidan sighs more than he inhales.

  And it still doesn’t stop when we sit down.

  I don’t blame him. I understand. But my mouth fills with the grievance
s and the mollifications and the complaints. Every eye roll, every criticism, every sigh, every painful wince fills me up and stretches my throat, until I’m choking on them all, until I’m struggling to keep from vomiting emotions down my shirt and onto the floor, turning the lobby, the hospital, the world, chartreuse with shame and rage.

  But through it we wait.

  And we wait.

  And we wait some more, until it’s been longer than the time we were asleep before all of this happened. We wait until neither of us is speaking to the other anymore. We wait until finally his name is called. And when he goes into the exam room, he goes alone, not even looking back to me when he passes through the wide automatic doors.

  It’s another indeterminate, but at least century-long, amount of time until he’s walking back toward me, handfuls of others having come and gone while I sat quietly and tried to think blank thoughts.

  Aidan stops in front of me, extends his arm to help me from my chair, and holds my hand as we leave, but he doesn’t say anything. He walks to the passenger door, having dropped my hand once we were outside, and waits for me to unlock the car, still silent. It’s torture, and believe me, I know torture.

  If I thought I was choking on his mood before, I’m suffocating from the new one now.

  It’s awful.

  We get in, closing our doors simultaneously, silently.

  We drive, silently.

  It feels as if we’ll live the rest of our lives silently, at this point.

  I take him home, to his house, and don’t turn the car off after putting it into park. I’m sorry; I made a mistake, but screw being treated this way. I’m not staying over, and I’m not sorry about it. I found the end of my rope, and it’s right here right now.

  “But…” he says, running his finger from my elbow to the tip of my pinky.

  I shake my head, my hair shielding me from viewing the disappointment I know is written all over his face. One side of my mouth gathers together as I lift my shoulders to my ears, in the world’s angriest shrug. A combination of apathetic and enraged, a contradiction, it’s a perfect visual, and he gets it.