by Olivia Grey
“Are you okay?” he asked and the words, they sounded sweet, as they always did, coming from him. But that sweetness was tainted by a truth that he was deceitful enough to hide. A truth that he wished to bury me in. Except I’d risen, out of the shell that once blocked my eyes.
His arms extended, hoping to secure me in their embrace.
“How could you?” I spat, waving him away. “You’re just… Just disgusting. I know what you did to Jemma, how you made it seem like you were the one that needed to be pitied, like you deserved something better, like you deserved me. Fuck it, you hated her, for whatever reason. But me, Axel. How could you do the same thing to me?”
My hands were swaying around with random gestures of anger. There was too much in me, too much that needed to be said but not enough words to say them.
“I would never do anything to hurt you,” he promised.
“You’re a liar. A fucking evil piece of shit liar. I can’t believe it. I just can’t believe that I was dumb enough to even think…”
“That I love you,” he completed my statement. A statement that didn’t warrant completion. “Because I do.”
His voice was like salt, being thrown at the open wound that I was. “Fuck you,” I screamed, so hard, so loud that my lungs seemed to close in on themselves. I gasped in half a breath and went again. “FUUUUUCK, YOOOUUUU.”
“What did she say to you Frances?” he tried with that arm thing again. As though he offered any kind of protection.
“Don’t you dare put your hands on me,” I warned, flashing my hands in his direction.
“Whatever Jemma said to you is a lie. That’s what she does, she lies.”
“And you break people. You’re the one I need to stay away from. You’re the… the… the real devil here.”
“Just tell me what this is all about and I’ll fix it,” he said.
There was something glossing over his eyes, liquid, threatening to fall. Tears begging for pity, begging for sympathy.
I had none. A fool is the person who would have someone like him yield another nest and set them in it.
“The video that you made of me,” I said, more rage shooting through me as the words quivered across my lips.
He reached out again, hoping to console me and my hand moved, fast and then slow and then not at all. There was a bang, and then a light, like I’d pulled the brightness right out of him and it wanted to blind me. I let go, opened my hand and felt as the metal hit my foot. The gun. Axel dropped, his knees buckling beneath him, in an uncontrolled stumble. I didn’t hear the thump. I just saw him hit the ground with no resistance; no hands pushing out and down to break his fall. There was ringing, like I’d been standing right by the school bell at the start of lunch time with my ear pressed up against it. He wasn’t moving. Completely lifeless. My hands. I could still feel the metal there, the remnants of something cold and heavy. His body. I could see the red, tinting his baby blue shirt, almost a perfect circle forming over his chest. Blood, just so much blood. My feet, they wanted to move, to run- to him or away? I wasn’t sure. I stood, for what felt like a few more minutes, watching, hoping, praying. I was wrong. I… I…
“Frances,” came Jemma’s voice in shocked, stuttered whimpers. “Frances…. Frances…Frances.”
I moved, toward him. My head against his chest, a finger circling his wrist for a pulse. My hand on his chest, pushing against the wound, hoping for a heartbeat that I knew was unlikely. His lips on my lips. I blew. Pushed. Blew. Pushed. Nothing.
My hands were stained, red and warm. So warm. Push. Blow. Push. Blow. I continued, warm liquid transferring from his lips to mine. Push. Blow. Push. Blow. The taste of iron traveled over my tongue, to the back of my throat.
“Wake up. Wake up,” I begged. “I’m not done yet. I’m not done loving you. I’m not finished hating you. Just wake up.”
“Frances,” Jemma called again, only a whisper of a voice.
“Axel,” I screamed. “Get up. We’re not over. This isn’t over. Oh God. Oh God. What did I do? I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Don’t leave. Axel,” I wailed and wailed and wailed.
Push. Blow. Push. Blow. Nothing. Just a body rocking back and forth in my hands. I wasn’t done but he was. His lips were still parted, smeared with red; red that lingered all the way down his cheek, past his hair and disappeared in those brown locks that I used to run my hands through.
“Wake up,” I cried.
I checked again for a pulse. And again. Nothing. When I let go of his hand, it fell, with no resistance, lifeless. His eyes were still open, little brown worlds still glistening but not as brightly. A tear, dried on the corner, leaving only a small trace of salt.
“Axel,” I pleaded. “Please. I don’t care what you did. I don’t. Just wake up. Just do that one thing for me.”
I was breathless, exhausted, completely worn. My face was wet with a mixture of tears and blood, salt and iron. My hands were marked with the last thing he had left to give. Not a word. Not an emotion. Just red.
Jemma’s hand grabbed my upper arm, pulling me away and I struggled to stop her, to remain where I was- pushing and blowing. Forcing him to take my breaths. I wasn’t done. I still had things to say. He wasn’t done. He still had a life to live.
“He’s gone,” she whispered.
“I… I…”
“You didn’t do it on purpose,” she sympathized.
“I… I killed…”
“Shh.” She pulled me into her. “Just shhh.”
37
Jemma
I heard them coming before I saw them. Sirens disrupting the quietness of the outdoors. When they arrived, a tall man, way over six foot and a lady, at least two feet shorter, pinned up hair and a freckled face. They looked at us, two broken girls who couldn’t fully comprehend what had happened. One to blame- Frances- who didn’t hide the fact that she should be locked up for life. That they should take her, bury her in a cell so deep that she’d forget what the world outside looked like. She confessed, to all the things she did, all the things she wanted to do but didn’t do yet. She threw herself at their feet, begging them to take her away. Her hands were red with his blood, and her face freckled with dried up bits that her tears tried to wash away. Broken, that’s all she was, and it’s all she wanted to be. She wasn’t looking to be consoled, she wanted to be punished.
I’d won, a secret, wiped out with Axel’s failure to exist.
Or at least, his failure to breathe on his own, to speak, to open his eyes, to convince the doctors that they shouldn’t pull the plug. That was my only mistake. Had I known, I’d have given him enough time to completely drift away into the afterworld before I’d called the cops. In her panicky state, Frances couldn’t properly check for a pulse. And I’d been too convinced with my perfect aim to check for myself. But I had faith; faith that in a matter of weeks his mom would decide that withstanding the cost of keeping him alive wasn’t worth it because he’d never truly be alive. She wasn’t the kind of lady to hang things on God, to leave it in his hands and pray about it. In a sense, she blamed him, just as much as she blamed Frances. How could God create something so evil? Why was she allowed to breathe when her son wasn’t?
I knew I’d have to accept my fair share of the blame. Not the actual blame that I deserved because well, with Frances confessing, no one even thought to ask if she really pulled the trigger. It was her truth. She was frantically waving that thing around and she had no idea what she had or had not done. The blame I took was to be there, to provide her with the means of doing such a horrid thing. But people, they were nice to me. Sorry for my loss. Giving me time to grieve. Even his mom was sorry that I had to go through such a thing. Sorry for me, there was a tinge of humor in it but I didn’t dare to laugh.
I knew that I did what had to be done. Befriending Frances, filming her and Axel, lying to her about it, having her take the last piece of cake and the blame that came with it. I knew that Frances’ downfall was necessary for me to accomplish what I
had. But killing, it changes you. Even when there’s someone else to take the blame, you can never forget that the truth remains in you. I was done. The life I lived wasn’t the one I wanted anymore. I was clear from having a hammer held over my head; free from worrying about Axel’s mouth and the words that left them. I could start over. Work on forgetting the past and build a different future. Go to college, be someone else, never worry about what the world thought. And my secret, no one was left to run away with it, except my family. They wouldn’t tell. Neither my mother nor my father would ever admit to selling their little girl’s body for monetary gain. And my uncle, he wouldn’t speak a word of the way he penetrated my mind, body and soul. It was his fault. He was the one who changed me, the one who took me from a child to a woman when I was still a child. But the rich, they’ve got their demons, ones that angels like Axel should never have the opportunity to free.
The After Effect
38
Frances
A plea deal, good behavior and a bunch of other terms entered one ear and left through the other. Prison, it’s where I belonged, where I wanted to stay. Anyone who could, intentionally or unintentionally, pull the trigger and take out someone they loved as much as I loved Axel, they deserved to be locked in a place darker than the deepest place on earth. I didn’t belong in the open, living a life I’d robbed someone else of.
One year or maybe a bit longer, that’s how long they’d kept me sleeping on a rock hard bed, eating indigestible foods. One year. Not ten. Not a Lifetime. I didn’t count the days like many of the others I’d met. I didn’t etch tiny lines on my wall, with the hopes that time would tick away faster. Instead, I’d accepted my fate; been wholly and completely satisfied with the jury’s decision to put me behind bars. But if I were the judge, I’d have set the sentence to years longer than any human has ever breathed.
I punished myself while I was inside. I spoke with no one, ate enough to make sure I was able to carry on but weak enough to feel like hell. Because I didn’t deserve more than just barely being alive, even in a place as cold as prison. One bad decision, that’s all it took. It didn’t matter that I knew, deep down, that the blame didn’t rest solely on my shoulders. Jemma, a half of the blame belonged to her, but of course, she would never take it. For a while, I’d spent a lot of energy hating her. I never quite stopped. I saw her face when I slept at night, a smile so tight it reddens her cheeks, while her eyes pierce mine. I knew that she was happy. Somewhere, outside of the walls that were now my home, she was living the life that I so desperately tried copying. Just like you, Jemma. I wanted to be just like you. It was my fault for wanting a life that had pried away my innocence and forever destroyed any hope of being happy. She didn’t deserve to be, but she was, that much I was sure of. I guess that was just another point of torment that I deserved.
Dreams of Jemma, however, paled in comparison to the one’s involving Axel. In these dreams, his eyes are fixed on me, his face wiped of all emotion and then blood. A wave of blood rushes out of him and then toward me. I run; away from him, away from it. Faster. Faster. But no matter how quickly my feet move, I’m never fast enough. It catches up to me, flows around my ankles, speckles my clothes with tiny crimson and maroon shades. It drenches me from head to toe and then I begin to sink. And when I can’t breathe, that’s when my eyes pop open. I think there’s a sense of disappointment that I feel when I wake. My dreams were trying to drown me; every night they tried and I think I wanted them to. I’d strained to keep my eyes shut, to allow his blood to fill my lungs, to do with me what it wanted - but I always woke up, gasping for air and soaked with nothing but my own cold sweat.
“It’s okay to smile, Frances,” my lawyer said, pushing the glass door open.
I lowered my head, clenched my chin into my chest and took the first stride to freedom. I could feel the rays of the Florida sun, greeting me, just the way they always had. Throughout kindergarten, then elementary and middle school and finally high school. But it felt different. Every ray seemed to carry a burden, weighing heavy on my pale skin.
The heat didn’t make me feel young, carefree and energized, the way it used to. It should have made me feel free, at least, leaving the thick prison walls behind. But I didn’t. I knew then that I would never really be free. I’d always be trapped in the ‘what ifs’ and ‘whys’, the regrets of being who I was and doing what I’d done.
“There’s nothing to smile about,” I whispered.
“Oh come on, Frances. You didn’t deserve to be in that place. You were young, you made a mistake and it’s not like you’re some cold blooded murderer.”
“Young? I huffed. “People who kill people are bad people, no matter how old they are. You should have never gotten me out.” I turned to face him, showing him just how serious I was. The smile he boasted seconds ago, turned into something grimmer.
“Axel’s not dead, honey,” he said, taking me by the shoulders.
My eyes widened and the light from the sun penetrated it with full force, but I couldn’t blink. Shock kept me alert, frozen with words I wished I’d heard sooner.
“He’s…” I felt my knees tremble, like someone shook the earth underneath me.
“In a coma,” Leighton said and my spirits dropped, my legs buckled and then darkness.
I woke up, a cushiony mattress carrying my weight, a light blanket pulled up to my chin and my doting parents looking down on me, their eyes glistening with tears.
“Frances,” my mother whimpered.
“Frances,” my father followed.
It took less than a second for the tears to come rolling down their faces, dampening my cheeks as I was smothered in embrace after embrace.
“What would you like to eat?” mother sniffled back a portion of her tears.
“You’ve gotten so skinny,” father added.
“Nothing,” I shook my head.
“Well, if you get hungry,” mother said, “there’s lots of food in the fridge, just toss something in the microwave or eat it cold. But eat, Frances. You’ve got to eat something.’
I nodded.
They loved me - too much. More than I deserved. I was their daughter and so, no matter how much wrong I did, they’d always see the good in me.
I’d shut them out while I was locked away. I was allowed visitors, but never indulged in such luxuries. In a way, I was hurting them more than I was hurting myself, but still, I couldn’t bring myself to sit across a table from them knowing that Axel’s mother wouldn’t be able to do the same with her child - because of me. Punishing them wasn’t my intention. Unfortunately, it’s what came with delivering the justice I thought I deserved.
My parents weren’t much different from Axel’s mother. They all lost a child that day. Although my family didn’t have to deal with a change as drastic as that of Axel’s mother, their hearts still beat out of tune. I was still there, that’s true, able to speak, able to breathe, able to smile if I could ever find something to smile about, but I was changed – no longer the same Frances they had loved. I could tell they wanted me back and it hurt not being able to give them what they needed.
Axel and I were both alive, but not living. Our parents, they were losing bits and pieces of themselves right along with us.
“If you don’t mind,” I said, as softly as I could manage, “I’d just like to rest a little longer.”
“Okay,” my mother replied, pressing her lips together as though attempting to hold in an objection.
Mom and dad left my room, but not before reminding me of how much they both loved me; of how I shouldn’t beat myself up over a mistake.
I sat up, looked around my room, at the photo of Jemma and me - the one I’d so proudly hung on my wall. Why hadn’t mom taken care of it? I could have screamed just remembering that day. Remembering her was the ultimate torment. Everything she stood for was everything that ruined me. Had I never become her friend, I would have never had the chance to pull the trigger and turn my high school crush into a body vo
id of life.
I pulled the picture off the nail, allowing it to crash on the floor. It didn’t break. Not wanting to have my parents come rushing in, I refrained from bashing the frame into a million and one pieces. Instead, I shoved it under my desk and pushed the trash can in front of it. Maybe I should have left it on the wall, allowed her deceitful eyes to remind me that humans shouldn’t be trusted. That it is better to stick to what you know and leave your hands off everything else.
For at least two hours, I paced back and forth, left and right - until I heard their room door close. What I was about to do next was stupid and I knew the repercussions just as much as I knew my own name. Still, I snuck downstairs, like a thief in a graveyard and I dug out the keys to my mother’s car, clutching them against my hip to prevent the metals from clanking as I tip-toed to the front door.
It took thirty minutes to maneuver through the streets, park the car and make my way through the bleak hallway, past tens of sad faces and even more sleepy eyes. But the moment that made time take a pause, was the moment I spotted him. There was nothing there; nothing but a shell. I struggled to breathe just looking at him. I waited on the outside, a cap pulled over my face and my hair blocking out any features that would have caused his mother to recognize me. When, finally, she pushed her chair back and exited the room, a coldness stung like tiny daggers latching onto each part of me.
I waited until she was out of sight and took a long, hard breath before going in. I didn’t promise myself to keep it together. In fact, I didn’t think far past an apology. All I knew was that I had to see him; that I had to explain, even if he couldn’t hear.
When I took his hand into mine, I didn’t know what to expect. He was warm, so warm. I could feel the blood pumping through his veins and if it weren’t for all the machines buzzing in the background and the distinctly sterile smell lingering in my flared nostrils, I would have been inclined to think he was sleeping; dreaming, without a care in the world.
