by Stella Noir
He looks at me in surprise. “But you love Moet, my love,” he says, confused.
I just shake my head and pass him the glass. “You have it.”
He shrugs, accepting my glass and toasting me with a whisper. “To us,” he says.
And I smile, knowing it’s a done deal.
My fate, sealed.
Chapter 22
The reception is taking ages, and everything is hurting. I feel awful, and it seems like Matthew isn’t doing much better. He keeps complaining of a headache and a burning in his throat, and I tell him I feel exactly the same as we look at each other, rolling our eyes, hoping the party ends as soon as possible.
We steal moments away together, kissing whenever we can, and for one of the first times since what happened that summer that painted my whole life in darkness, I feel blissfully happy, like nothing bad will ever happen again.
“I love you so much,” Matthew is currently whispering in my ear, and I’m smiling despite my throat burning up.
“I love you,” I say, and then I repeat it over and over again against his lips as he kisses me, not sure if I’m telling him or convincing myself.
Matthew starts coughing, covering his mouth with his hand. “I really don’t feel good,” he admits, and when he moves his hand away from his mouth, it’s sprayed with small droplets of blood.
“Matt!” I gasp, worried. I look up from his hand to his face, which is ghostly pale. “You really don’t look good,” I tell him, but he shakes a hand dismissively.
“I’m perfectly alright,” he claims, but in the next moment he stumbles.
In a split second, Matthew is falling, the buffet table crashing on the lawn along with him. I scream and rush to help him as the guests start to notice something is amiss.
“Matt?” I yelp, looking at him worriedly.
He’s convulsing on the lawn, shaking, frothing at the mouth.
I’ve never been this scared in my entire life.
All of a sudden, I’m pushed out of the way by none other than my new mother-in-law. “Matthew!” she cries out desperately, clasping his horribly twisted body in his arms.
His eyes have rolled back in his head, exposing the white, he is shaking badly and I realize so am I.
“What’s happening,” I whisper. “What is this, what is this?”
“Matthew!” screams Barbara Roberts. “Someone call an ambulance!”
I fall back into a pair of strong arms and suddenly, everything becomes blurred.
The screams.
The blood.
The paramedics.
The heavy breathing.
The awful, blood curdling cry.
I realize at some point someone’s dragging me away from a lifeless body in the floor. I turn back, feeling stunned, looking at Dylan’s beautifully sculpted face.
“He’s gone, Lola,” he says brokenly. “Nothing you can do …”
Nothing you
Nothing
Nothing I
Can do
Nothing
“Murderer!” a pained voice breaks my thought. “Killer! Vixen!”
I look up in a daze to see my mother-in-law being torn away from the lifeless heap, which I’m only now realizing, is my husband. She keeps screaming, keeps shouting, while my head splits down the middle and my brain falls on the lawn.
Or so it feels.
“You two,” she hisses, ripping her out of the grip of two paramedics, standing in front of me and Dylan, panting heavily. “You did it. You did it. You killed him.”
I stare at her in wonder and amazement.
“YOU KILLED MY SON!” she yells at the top of her voice, her hands outstretched before her.
And then she comes for me, and I do nothing at all, because in that exact same moment, someone loads up a body on a gurney, covering it with a black bag, and it’s all happening again.
Again
It’s happening
Again…
Chapter 23
This isn’t happening.
It can’t be true.
It just cannot.
I’ve been a bride for a few hours, and I’m already a widow.
And my childhood love, the only friend I have – he could be the one that murdered my husband.
All I remember is screaming, and screaming loudly, and the rest is all a blur.
I remember getting married, remember the anxiety I felt before I walked down the altar, and even during the time I said my vows. I remember the hesitation; the fear of knowing this was for forever, wondering if I was doing the right thing.
The past is coming to me in fragments, reminding me of the horrors that took place.
*
We steal moments away together, kissing whenever we can, and for one of the first times since what happened that summer that painted my whole life in darkness, I feel blissfully happy, like nothing bad will ever happen again.
“I love you so much,” Matthew is currently whispering in my ear, and I’m smiling despite my throat burning up.
“I love you,” I say, and then I repeat it over and over again against his lips as he kisses me, not sure if I’m telling him or convincing myself.
Matthew starts coughing, covering his mouth with his hand. “I really don’t feel good,” he admits, and when he moves his hand away from his mouth, it’s sprayed with small droplets of blood.
*
I should have known right then and there that something wasn’t right. I should have realized he was hurting, sick, that something was wrong. Maybe if I had called the ambulance in that moment, he would still be alive and well. But he’s gone now, and I’m left all alone …
Something made him like that, and I know he wasn’t sick. He was always healthy, always taking care of me when I had the flu, or a cold. He would make me endless cups of tea and bowls of chicken noodle soup, bringing them to me in bed, even though the housekeeper could have done it.
He always insisted he be the one to take care of me.
But who is going to do that now?
*
“Matt!” I gasp, worried. I look up from his hand to his face, which is ghostly pale. “You really don’t look good,” I tell him, but he shakes a hand dismissively.
“I’m perfectly alright,” he claims, but in the next moment he stumbles.
In a split second, Matthew is falling, the buffet table crashing on the lawn along with him. I scream and rush to help him as the guests start to notice something is amiss.
“Matt?” I yelp, looking at him worriedly.
He’s convulsing on the lawn, shaking, frothing at the mouth.
I’ve never been this scared in my entire life.
All of a sudden, I’m pushed out of the way by none other than my new mother-in-law. “Matthew!” she cries out desperately, clasping his horribly twisted body in his arms.
His eyes have rolled back in his head, exposing the white, he is shaking badly and I realize so am I.
“What’s happening,” I whisper. “What is this, what is this?”
“Matthew!” screams Barbara Roberts. “Someone call an ambulance!”
I fall back into a pair of strong arms and suddenly, everything becomes blurred.
The screams.
The blood.
The paramedics.
The heavy breathing.
The awful, blood curdling cry.
I realize at some point someone’s dragging me away from a lifeless body on the floor. I turn back, feeling stunned, looking at Dylan’s beautifully sculpted face.
“He’s gone, Lola,” he says brokenly. “Nothing you can do …”
Nothing you
Nothing
Nothing I
Can do
Nothing
*
I may not be aware of it, but I realize it’s sometime later now. I know I’m not at the wedding anymore. I know I’m wearing a robe, so I must be at home or at the hospital. They’re taking care of me, but who is going to take care of him?
I think darkly of funeral arrangements, of decisions about headstones and engravings. It puts my heart in so much pain, I have to mentally stop myself from thinking about it – it just hurts too much.
And for a second, I let myself believe it may not be true.
Maybe I got it all wrong.
Maybe he’s okay, and this is all an awful nightmare, a terrible dream.
But then reality starts seeping through, and I become aware I’m closing my eyes and myself away from reality. And I know I’ll have to face the cold, hard facts sometime. But it hurts so fucking bad when I admit it to myself …
This can’t be right. He can’t really be gone.
It was only hours ago that I held his hand, took his rushed, passionate kisses and returned them with the same fervor.
Except … has it really only been hours?
Or was it days?
Weeks?
Time means nothing to me anymore. It could have been months or years, but I’m so lost in a world of my own, I don’t acknowledge the time passing.
I’m afraid of looking in the mirror.
Afraid of seeing the date written down somewhere.
I’m scared such a simple admission to time passing would make my world crumble.
And it’s a mess already. I can’t take another hit.
*
“Murderer!” a pained voice breaks my thought. “Killer! Vixen!”
I look up in a daze to see my mother-in-law being torn away from the lifeless heap that I’m only now realizing is my husband. She keeps screaming, keeps shouting, while my head splits down the middle and my brain falls on the lawn.
Or so it feels.
“You two,” she hisses, ripping herself out of the grip of two paramedics, standing in front of me and Dylan, panting heavily. “You did it. You did it. You killed him.”
I stare at her in wonder and amazement.
“YOU KILLED MY SON!” she yells at the top of her voice, her hands outstretched before her.
And then she comes for me, and I do nothing at all, because in that exact same moment, someone loads up a body on a gurney, covering it with a black bag, and it’s all happening again.
Again
It’s happening
Again
…
*
I realize all the progress I had made with Matthew’s mother is now gone. She blames me for this, for all of this – and what if she’s right?
What if he’s gone because of me?
I cannot get the thought out of my head; it’s all that occupies my mind.
My fault, my fault, my fault.
I remember Matthew.
I think of him.
He cannot really be gone.
He can’t be dead.
Can he?
The problem is, without Matt I am nothing. He is my world. I exist because he is here, I stand because he supports me, and I walk because he serves as my cane. He is my all, my everything, and I’m afraid without him I’ll dissolve into nothing, like the little mermaid who became sea foam in the end, when her man rejected her …
Except my man would never do that, would never say goodbye.
Only when he didn’t have a choice.
I think of the lifeless heap I saw, his body leaking out life like a burst pipe. I think of the blood he coughed up, the froth on his mouth, the white of his eyeballs as his eyes rolled in the back of his head.
He is nothing now, but somehow, I’ve stayed. I remain when he is only ash and dust, I’ll still be walking when he is just a body, no soul.
I let the tears fall, still not aware of the world around me. I bathe in my sadness, the sweet and salty water falling from my eyes and dropping like rain to my parched lips, the taste tangy and foreign.
I haven’t cried in seven years, and in a sick way, I feel happy that I still can. Happy to know I’m still a person, still human, who can shed a tear for the person she loves most in the world.
Sorry, should have said loved.
Because whatever I do, however I twist the words, however much I try to close my eyes and pretend … there is only one truth, and it’s waiting right around the corner to jump me and take me down with it.
In the end, one thing is true …
He is gone.
Matthew Roberts, who once walked the same land as me, held my hand, made love to me, promised me he would give me a child … He is no longer with me.
And I’m left to face the music.
Or, as it would be better put – Matthew’s mother, my mother-in-law.
I know she is going to pounce at me the first chance she gets. I know she blames me.
And the more I think about it, the more I’m sure she’s right to believe it …
Chapter 24
I wake up to the smell of disinfectant, and am aware something isn’t right. This is hospital smell, and I hate hospitals, so I already know I didn’t end up here based on my own decision.
My fear is confirmed when I try to move my hands and realize something is stopping me. I direct my bleary eyes to my wrists and realize they’re bound with belts, strapped to the sides of my bed.
I begin to thrash in the bed, trying to break away, but to no avail. I scream for someone to come and help me, and an alarm goes off, blaring its sound across the entire room.
I hear rushing footsteps just when my eyes land on the window leading out of the room. There’s a door, too, but somehow, that window gives me a sense of safety, just seeing the world outside, the blue sky, and the green leafy trees
I realize only a second later that the window is barred. There is a thick steel overlay over it, preventing me from escaping if I were so inclined, and barring my view of the beautiful outdoors.
Freedom …
Before I have a chance to react, the door to my room opens with a thud and several people in white coats rush in, gathering around my bed. I’m hyperventilating, my breaths coming to me fast and heavy as I look from one person to another in the ensuing panic.
“What’s happening?” I whisper softly, my voice cracking. I realize I’m parched, my lips dry and cracking and my voice breaking and trembling over the sounds coming out of my raspy throat. “Why am I here? Where is Matt? Where is Dylan?”
The doctors look away uncomfortably, and only one nurse keeps her eyes on me, brave, unrelenting. My eyes take her in, from her voluminous hair to the rich chocolate shade of her skin. My eyes shoot up to her face next, stopping on her full lips, which are shaping a word I don’t recognize.
She repeats the motion again, again and again, and I realize what she’s trying to tell me.
Remember.
Remember.
Remember.
And in the next second, I do.
I wish I didn’t.
I begin screaming, my throat rasping with the animalistic sounds I never would have thought would come out of my mouth. I thrash in the bed again, fighting against the restraints that are holding me back, as the memories start seeping back into my mind.
It feels like I have a sifter in my head, and memories are leaking out.
But the facts start piling up until the holes in the sifter become too stuffed. And I wish I could forget, but when I remember, there’s no escape. No going back.
I’m married.
I’m a widow.
And it’s possible that my childhood love killed my husband of a few hours.
I scream again and again until my voice breaks and only whimpers come out of my mouth. I look around, searching for answers in the faces of the doctors around my bed. Once again, only the beautiful nurse meets my eye.
“What is happening,” I whisper, my voice already broken. “Why don’t you give me something?” My voice gets panicked, too high, unnatural. “Why don’t you help me?”
“Mrs. Roberts,” a doctor begins nervously, and, I gasp.
“Mrs. Roberts is my mother-in-law,” I spit out, a gut reaction to hearing
him call me that. But I realize that is my name now. I’m a married woman – a widow – and I signed the paperwork, taking on my husband’s name.
The doctor looks away uncomfortably and I feel tears prickling the back of my eyes as I, too, look away. It hurts too much to face the facts. But the doctor doesn’t seem to think so.
“You were sedated,” he keeps saying, his eyes now on a chart in his hands I didn’t notice previously. “You were on some heavy medication and we must wean you off of it. In time, you will feel better, but we must not give you a sedative at this moment.”
“How long?” I whisper.
“Excuse me?” the doctor looks at me, completely confused.
“How long have I been out?” I repeat, louder and angrier, and a sick pleasure overcomes me when I see him nervously twitch at the sound of my raspy voice. I hope he knows just how uncomfortable I am, so I fight against my restraints one more time.
He refuses to answer, furrowing his brow as he looks at my chart.
“A week,” the kind nurse speaks up, and my eyes connect with hers. They’re beautiful, a dark grey color. They remind me of the man I love …
But not my dead husband.
“Thank you,” I whisper, falling back on the pillows supporting my back as reality sinks in.
A week.
I’ve been sleeping for a week.
I’ve been a widow for a week.
My life changed completely only a week ago.
Just one week.
“Thank you,” I whisper again, and then I realize I’m repeating the two words over and over again, while the doctors shift uncomfortably around my bed. Someone is testing my restraints, and that brings me back to reality, stopping me from uttering those two useless words.
“Can you take the straps off?” I ask weakly, motioning with my head to the restraints.
Two doctors exchange looks, but before they can utter a single word, the nurse is already at my side, unbuckling the belts that are holding me back as I sigh with relief.
“You have to understand, Mrs. Roberts,” the doctor from before begins, and I think we both flinch at his use of my name. “You were trying to hurt yourself. We did this for your own good.”
I look at him doubtfully, right before my gaze slips to my wrists. And indeed, right beneath the ridges left in my skin by those restraints, there are long marks, which look like they’ve been caused by my nails. And as I stretch out my hand, I realize my nails have been filed down to nubs. Probably so I couldn’t hurt myself.