I Never Stopped

by Elizabeth Mitchell

  I Never Stopped

  Elizabeth Mitchell

  Contents

  1. Sloane

  2. Before

  3. Francesca

  4. Sloane

  5. Francesca

  6. Sloane

  7. Francesca

  8. Sloane

  9. Francesca

  10. Sloane

  11. Francesca

  12. Sloane

  13. Francesca

  14. Sloane

  15. Francesca

  16. Francesca

  17. One Year

  18. Francesca

  19. Francesca

  20. Francesca

  21. Francesca

  22. Sloane

  23. Francesca

  24. Sloane

  25. Francesca

  26. Sloane

  27. Francesca

  28. Sloane

  29. Francesca

  30. Francesca

  31. Sloane

  32. Francesca

  33. Sloane

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  I NEVER STOPPED

  * * *

  Copyright © 2018 by Elizabeth Mitchell

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Little Key Press.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, and events either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, or events is entirely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without written permission except in the case of brief quotations included in articles and reviews. For information, please contact the author.

  First Edition

  Edited by Tessa Garrett

  Cover Designed by Elizabeth Mitchell with images from:

  Lesley found on Pexels

  Matthew Henry found on Unsplash

  To the man I’ll never stop loving,

  Wesley

  1

  Sloane

  After

  Francesca crumpled at the sound of Sloane's name, the smell of her sweaters, the honk of their model-car home phone, even leftovers she refused to deal with in their refrigerator.

  Sloane watched and trudged through a surrounding muck as though a failing iron lung breathed for her. With a hazy filter tinting Sloane's world, an emptiness settled in next to the pain.

  Being silenced by fog, Sloane could deal with, but the desperation to see a slight impression where she lay or see a wisp of Francesca's hair move when she attempted to brush it from her face consumed her. Sloane tried to rub her back or wrap herself around Francesca as she always did–forever the big spoon–but she'd slip right through.

  The first time it'd happened, the first time her hand had slid through Francesca’s, Sloane's scream could have ripped the universe open. She’d exploded, the sensation akin to dropping from the top of a roller coaster. Each time following made her gasp; each time her sounds were swallowed.

  For months, all Sloane could do was break into pieces–with Francesca, but without her; beside her, but missing her skin's warmth.

  Francesca sat in her large leather chair, wrapped in a cable-knit blanket. A book lay on the stacked wine box table beside her, open and faced down.

  Sloane gently cupped Francesca's cheek. "It'll be alright, my love. I'll figure something out, I promise. I've been working on it."

  With a start, Francesca cracked swollen brown eyes open and let shaky fingers brush her face as she looked around. "Sloane?" Wiping her freckled face dry, she admonished herself aloud. "Sure. Haven't you only wished that a thousand times?" Francesca hated waking up–she'd cried that out so many times it rattled in Sloane's head like loose dice. Francesca's voice became small. "Sloane? I miss you. I've said that so many times by now you'd have told me to shut up." A barely noticeable smile flashed.

  Sloane nodded shakily. "I wish we could be saying our, 'I love you's,' not 'I miss you's,'" she said–but her words were sucked up. Only she could hear herself now.

  Could Francesca remember the sound of her voice? She wouldn't watch videos of them like they used to do.

  Did she even remember Sloane's face? Francesca hadn't been able to glance at pictures after she'd ripped collages from walls, knocked frames from shelves, and tore magnetic vacation snapshots from the freezer door with an overwhelming heartache that cracked through and shook the nearly-there place that held Sloane–the place she called The Gray.

  Sloane had shivered with Francesca's pain.

  Francesca tried once, just to peek at a Polaroid being used as a bookmark in a collection of poetry they'd read to each other. As blood-curdling as the night of the crash, she cried Sloane's name out like a prayer, a curse, a plea. Sloane's attempts to calm Francesca were frustratingly lost in The Gray.

  Sloane remembered trying to respond the night of the accident too. She would have sworn she'd called out, "I'm here, my love. What's happened? I'm here. I'm here."

  Instead of answering, Francesca had ripped the grass, clawed at it with bleeding hands and screamed for Sloane who kneeled beside her.

  They'd seen Sloane's body at the same time.

  2

  Before

  Francesca

  Branches cracked and shifted the air in jagged patterns. Heaving breaths and an unsteady heartbeat echoed loud, rising to meet the steady horn filling her ears.

  Above it all, animals cried, mourning. The musical of the accident hadn't included Sloane.

  Yellow flashed in her spotted vision. Rubbing at her eyes burned, as a weeping wound dripped blood into them.

  Glass cut into her knees and stabbed into her hands as she crawled through the remnants of a bumper and bits of brush. Francesca screamed Sloane's name, but through cotton-stuffed ears, she heard no reply. A broken horn in a crushed car with useless seat belts could have drowned her out. Francesca rose on shaky legs and propelled herself towards the passenger side.

  Still and nearly covered by fractured trees, Francesca found Sloane covered in lacerations. Parts of her were twisted outside where they should have been in. She shouldn't be seen so, so exposed. Francesca tried to put everything right again and not to cry as she saw leaves mix in. Despite the cacophony around her, Francesca's world had gone silent.

  Turning Sloane on her side, Francesca fitted herself in the crook of Sloane's body–always the little spoon. She intertwined Sloane's mangled fingers with her own and wrapped Sloane's limp, tattooed arm around her weak, bare ones. As her lace dress soaked with Sloane's warmth, Francesca stopped existing.

  When flashing lights arrived, hands pulled Francesca away from Sloane. She screamed as carefully packed organs fell out in a horrific tableau.

  The responders shivered.

  Sloane

  A fog-like exhaust surrounded her, suffocating.

  There had been no time to mourn for herself, as fear for Francesca had taken hold.

  Sloane stood by her as Francesca had done the unthinkable and re-stuffed Sloane as if she were an old ratty toy whose stitching had come loose.

  Horrified, they grieved together but worlds apart.

  Sloane tried to follow as they whisked a broken Francesca and Sloane’s gory body away. She only remembered taking one step before being sucked through the mists and dropped in her living room as if she'd meant to be there all along. Heartbroken, Sloane sat and stood, stood and sat–listless, alone, gone.

  Francesca came days later, mute and swollen.

  Each night she tossed and turned in Sloane's pajamas on Sloane's side of the bed. Francesca tried to avoid sleep, just crying and breathing, but spiteful exhaustion claimed her nightly. Morning waves of grief made it easy to keep
track of days.

  3

  Francesca

  After

  She leaned in. “It's okay to talk about her."

  Francesca's third therapist since her brief hospital stay sat in a two-piece Easter-egg pink business suit. An uncomfortable looking armchair framed her, making her appear small and insignificant, which wasn't too far off. Francesca chose her at random in search of a less talkative head who wouldn't start each session with, "It's okay to talk about her".

  Was that the reason she'd come? Or had she come to stare at another stranger and wonder, 'Why her'?

  Francesca stayed silent. Her potential new therapist, Jessica, readjusted her ankles.

  Out of place for her outfit and the environment, shiny onyx stilettos squeaked as they brushed each other. Francesca pictured Jessica in a corset and not much else, standing on some man's chest, shouting at him, whip in hand.

  "Why don't we start with something smaller?" What could that be? Perhaps the day's events? "How was your day?"

  Sighing, Francesca muttered, "Well, my boss finally gave up on me." Not that she blamed him. She shouldn't have hit the fuck-you button when he'd called to ask her when she'd finally show up to work.

  He'd given her months off, but the one day she'd made it into work, she'd fallen apart. The smell of the burnt coffee had reminded her of griping to Sloane when she'd come home every night. Francesca had tried work since; she'd even driven to the office once and sat in the parking lot. She'd chosen a grey day–a mistake. Pounding rain had felt like an invitation to sob. Her tears, her shaking body, were hidden by the thick drops smearing grey across her windshield. When she could breathe again, Francesca had driven away knowing she'd never work there again. Still, she hadn't had the energy to tell him she quit.

  Useless Jessica nodded. Making odd noises, she scribbled furiously as though Francesca had said something terribly interesting and insightful.

  She stuck her pink glossed lips out. "So, how does that make you feel?"

  "You're kidding right?"

  With a questioning look, Jessica said, "No." That ended Jessica's short-lived life as her therapist.

  She sputtered and waved her hands helplessly as Francesca abruptly stood and left her boxy room filled with decoupaged tissues boxes and calming posters made for dentists' offices.

  "We could–" she began. An overly heavy door slammed on her sentiment.

  As if her mother had psychic abilities, Francesca's phone rang before she reached her car.

  "Hold on," she answered, annoyed. She almost hadn't picked up, but she'd ignored two of her calls in the last week due to her inability to speak through hiccuping sobs, so she owed her at least one conversation.

  With her mother on speaker in her lap, Francesca felt it safe to start talking. "Hi Mama, what's up?"

  "How was your appointment?"

  "Well, technically I should still be in it, so you tell me."

  A string of syllables crackled through Francesca's cell phone. Full sentences were lost, but her mother's concern about her adding another mark on her psychiatric belt came through crystal clear. Francesca's phone hung up on Mama, saying what she wouldn't.

  When she'd made it out of the parking garage and onto the highway, heading towards home, she called Mama back.

  "Parking garages, am I right? I could barely hear you, but I get it."

  "Do you?" Italian flew over the line. "We've gone over this, Essie. How many is that now? Four? Five?"

  Three, actually. If Francesca hadn't felt like a week old balloon, she would have corrected her. Three wasn't terrible. They were not dissimilar to shoes; she couldn't just go with the first one she tried on. There were hundreds of pairs at hundreds of stores within a few miles drive.

  "I just want to go home."

  "Oh, Essie! I'm so glad to hear it. I'll make a bed for you now. When do you want to leave? I'll pay for the ticket, but it should be one way, no need to plan when you go back. Maybe you don't? Pack light. We'll shop when you arrive; it'll be like a whole new start!" her mother exclaimed so rapidly, the entire conversation might as well have been on an episode of the Italian Gilmore Girls.

  Mama hung up the phone before she could respond, or think, or breathe. What just happened?

  A horn honked somewhere close, and her heart stopped. Francesca slammed on her brakes so quickly the seatbelt bit into her chest. Screeching tires, yells, and slamming doors followed more horns. Francesca looked up to realize nothing horrible had happened; another angry driver had gone berserk about who-knew-what. She had almost created a pile-up on the Southern Embarcadero Highway.

  Maybe Mama had been right, she needed another break–not forever, but for a little while.

  The gas pedal seemed to press itself to carry her away from the angry mob.

  Worried someone would have called the police on the crazy woman who brakes for ghosts, Francesca took back roads from then on. Luckily, she hadn't been far from home. She only had seven anxiety-laden turns, four heart-pounding stop signs–one of which had a police officer who had looked at her little blue bug sideways with its half scraped away sign–and six irritating pedestrians in her way.

  When The Dick had called her earlier in the day, she'd had a feeling her car would need a new paint job.

  "Um, Francesca," he'd stuttered. "I've tried to be patient, you know? But I call, and you don't pick up. Don't say anything…" She had no intentions. "I've just got to say this. You're… you're fired. We can't have unreliab–"

  "Okay. I'll come pick up my stuff later." As Francesca hung up, she'd known she wouldn't. She'd strolled outside with an ice scraper–something Sloane made fun of her for having–and started scratching. Some of the letters peeled away smoothly, while others took the royal blue car paint with them. They'd left only the silver metal frame with jagged scrape marks. After an hour, she'd given up; what remained read, ' rli 's v Pl n g . t us h w k fo you. Call us now at (8 0) 5 3- 0 89'. Charlie would love it.

  Street parking had always been horrible. On any no-good-very-bad day, it became especially awful. She had to park at least three blocks away from their shoebox above a bead store. It had been a mistake to wear Sloane's favorite flats; they were one size too small. Blisters formed by the time she arrived at a front door they'd painted so many times rainbow chunks peeled off when it moved. Their landlord never minded what they did, because they were going to stay there until they were old and wrinkled. Never grey, Sloane had always said.

  "They make hair dye for that. Silver or purple, maybe, but never grey."

  4

  Sloane

  A shadow flickered in the room's corner keeping her from spiraling further by focusing on the past months. Sloane whipped her head to the right. Was it a trick of the light? Their house phone honked, interrupting yet another thought.

  Francesca stared at the answering machine in vague anticipation. A familiar woman's voice rattled off Italian.

  Sloane remembered hearing it for the first time and wishing she'd had subtitles. Mama Nuccio only visited once a year–if they were lucky–still, she'd insisted on learning. No matter which language Mama Nuccio wanted to use in person or on the phone, she'd understand it. For the next two years, Sloane had learned and relearned bits and pieces of Italian. Her brain hadn't been able to grasp any foreign language until Francesca.

  "You can do this; you've just got to stop and breathe. You're getting too stressed about the tenses. It's not as hard as you're making it out to be, love." Francesca had giggled at Sloane's frustration one evening. "Let's play our game, see if that can't de-stress you a little. Or was that your plan all along?"

  Maybe. Sloane loved Francesca's hands-on style of teaching, what could she say?

  "If you think it will help, Teach," Sloane replied. She'd jumped onto the bed and tried not to shiver.

  Francesca had straddled Sloane and spoken slowly as she pulled off her tank top. Each time Sloane repeated the word or phrase incorrectly, Francesca would slide the shirt back on excruci
atingly slowly.

  However, when her Italian pronunciation had passed the grade, Sloane had loved the pleasure of hearing the hooks of her bra snap and feeling the band release from around her. Francesca's lips, hands, teeth hadn't touched her until they'd finished the entire lesson. By then, Sloane had lain on her back naked with the windows still wide open. Some nights they'd touched and teased until stars collided. Others, it was fast, hard, and parades two blocks away could hear them.

  Nights like those allowed Sloane to understand most of what Mama Nuccio's message said.

  "The plane leaves at 5:30. It will cost a lot of money to change, so don't be late. Okay? It's for the best, Essie," she said, calling Francesca by her term of endearment. "Sloane would want this for you. You know that."

  Wait! What did she mean? Was Francesca leaving?

  No, Sloane wouldn't want that for Francesca! She'd want Francesca to stay in their home until they were old and purple–never grey–just as they had planned. It would give Sloane the time she needed; she hadn't accomplished anything.