by Lucy Swing
I heard the door crack open, allowing a narrow shaft of light in behind it. Claire silently made her way over to the bed and knelt on the floor. I could feel her gaze on me. She hovered a few moments, probably making sure I was still breathing. I didn’t know how long I had been lying in this bed in the dark, and thinking about it only made me breathe in shorter gasps. Her warm, soft hand found my shoulder.
“We’re right outside if you need us,” she whispered, tenderly kissing my forehead before moving away and leaving the room.
I wasn’t ready.
I closed my eyes and let the tears roll once again. Claire’s explanation of what had happened—how my parents had been killed by an animal—came back into my mind. The pain grew, enveloping me, stabbing me like a thousand daggers. But my sorrow, instead of bleeding out, grew inside me.
The sobs came louder each time. No matter how much I tried to muffle them, they kept coming louder and louder. I breathed in and out, trying to calm myself down. I screamed into my pillow, wondering if she would come in and check on me once again, and threw a few halfhearted punches into the mattress. I couldn’t bear the thought of opening my eyes just yet. Couldn’t face the reality of what my life had become.
I was left all alone in the world. My life had been ripped right out of my hands, with no way of turning back the time. I could not face the fact that I would never see them again, feel their arms around me, or even hear their voices calling my name. How was I supposed to keep going?
Once I had let out some of the pain I rolled onto my side, pulled my knees up, and wrapped my arms around them. The pain was unbearable, paralyzing. This was all I amounted to: a broken heart, a broken soul. I felt my own essence dissipating and drifting further and further away. I kept my arms around my body, trying to hold myself together. The darkness that hung in the room had somehow sucked the remaining life out of me.
Would it ever stop? Would it ever get better?
It wouldn’t. This much I knew.
I don’t know how long I cried before I drifted into a light sleep in which I was not awake, yet still conscious of my surroundings. All I heard was the TV in Claire’s living room. It was just a slight humming in the background but always there, keeping me company. Claire came in periodically, leaving a tray of food that sat untouched until she came back to pick it up and replace it with a fresh one.
The doorknob twisted, and I hugged the pillow. I waited for the door to open, for someone to come in, but instead the knob went back to its normal position. “She’s sleeping,” I heard Claire say.
“I need to see her.”
It was his voice. It did something to me, temporarily lifting the darkness that had fallen over me. “I have to be with her.”
“I know that, but she isn’t ready,” Claire said. “Not yet.” There was silence, and I wanted to scream for him to come in, to hold me in his arms and never let me go. I had fallen into a monotonic numbness and despair and needed to feel something.
“Just tell her I was here. If she wants me, I’ll come anytime.”