Heaven, Hell and the Love In Between
by A.J. Downey
Text Copyright © 2014 A.J. Downey
All Rights Reserved
Acknowledgements
As always, to my wonderful and understanding fiancé who has loads of patience when it comes to me writing these things. I love you, through good times and bad and everything in between, just like the title suggests.
To the real Vonfrost, never forgot you, often think about you and still writing for and with you. I am so glad we could reconnect just as this story found its happy ending. We really must stop these long gaps in communication. Seven years is just too long.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Epilogue
Author’s Notes
About the Author
Chapter 1
The ivy of despair had taken root in my chest months ago. There was nothing specific that had happened that I can remember that brought on my depression. I didn’t lose my job, or a boyfriend, no one had died, still, it had taken root within me somehow, and as the days grew shorter and the rains had come the vines had grown, constricting my heart within my chest, blocking out all light and anything that was good and warm and comforting. Things I had once taken great pleasure in doing, the restoration work I did at the museum, painting, the theater… all of it suddenly seemed dull and I just didn’t know what to do with myself.
Some of my acquaintances had stopped calling, I call them acquaintances rather than friends because true friends wouldn’t give up on someone simply because they were feeling blue, even if that blue period lasted longer than a few days or weeks… would they? No. I don’t think so. Roxanne, my oldest and longest friend, my best friend, had no given up on me. She’d said to me: “Gracelyn, I’m here for you. No matter what, you just call me.” I had smiled and we had hugged but I didn’t know how to quantify what it was that I was feeling.
I was sad, all the time, but I didn’t know why I was sad. I hurt for no reason, cried for no reason and I was tired all the time for no reason. I had finally gone to my Doctor who had diagnosed me with depression. She’d given me pills, which I dutifully took, but didn’t help. I felt lost and adrift and therapy wasn’t an option, not only was it not covered by my medical plan, you had to have a problem to work the problem out didn’t you?
The heels of my boots clicked sharply against the pavement as I made my way home to my apartment. The January wind bit along the exposed skin of my face and I scrunched down further into the collar of my black winter pea coat.
I had no problems, I grew up in a loving home, raised by my grandparents after my parents had passed in a bad car accident… which is something I had come to grips with a very long time ago. While I had not been popular in school growing up, I hadn’t been unpopular. I’d had friends, gone to college, gotten my Masters in Science of Historic Preservation and was certified by The Academy of Certified Archivists and was working on a dream project preserving historical artifacts from an archeological dig. I mean what was more exciting than preserving artifacts from a Viking raid in Scotland?
I turned and clacked up the steps to my building and let myself in. I lived in a modest high rise apartment in a relatively quiet neighborhood… well as quiet as any neighborhood in New York could be. It was relatively close to the museum I worked out of, only two subway stops away. I could walk if I wanted to most days and I did, the life as an academic isn’t exactly an active one so I walked to and from work most days and ran two or three times a week to stay in shape. It was getting harder and harder to resist the call of the subway though as all the joy in my life slowly leeched away worse than the color out of a painting left too long in the sun.
I unlocked my apartment door and closed it heavily behind me, locking the deadbolt and leaning against its worn surface. I dropped my purse and tote bag in the entryway and my keys into their dish on the little hall table I kept near the door. I hung my coat and scarf on the back of the door and before I did anything, unzipped my riding style boots from knee to ankle and toed them off.
“I’m home.” I called to no one in particular. I lived alone. Hence why it didn’t really matter if I left all my stuff in front of the door. I padded in my tights clad feet to the kitchen and opened the fridge, then closed it with a groan. Who was I kidding? I wasn’t hungry. I used to enjoy cooking for myself but not since the black ivy of my depression started choking the life out of me last year. I went into my bedroom and undressed, hanging my black blouse and deep green skirt and jacket back in their places.
I peeled out of my tights and underwear after casually flipping my bra into the dirty laundry basket. The tangle of undergarments sulked on the top of the pile and I let them as I padded across the hall into my bathroom. I let the shower heat up, pulled some towels out of the linen cupboard and climbed in, letting the hot water beat my tense shoulders into some semblance of submission.
Today had been meeting after meeting with the walking wallets that were funding our project. I hated dealing with the suits with a passion, my time was better spent in the lab with the tools of my trade, brushing dirt away, recording details and small discoveries about whatever artifact happened to find its way to my worktable. My day had been especially frustrating due to the fact that what currently occupied my worktable was the hilt and a good third or more of a genuine Viking blade circa the tenth century. That’s right, the tenth century… you know it gets exciting for a history nerd like me when you start dropping into the lowest double digits before the word century.
I plucked the hair band off the end of the long dark braid hanging over my right shoulder and worked the strands of my dishwater blonde hair out of their thick rope. The water against my scalp felt good, but maddeningly I remained numb and indifferent, which frustrated me. I scrubbed my hands over my face and stuck it in the shower spray, huffing out a sigh. It was late, I was tired and all I wanted was my bed so I decided to make some seriously quick work of this shower, lathering my hair and rinsing it quickly, I skipped the conditioner and used my honey and milk body wash equally as quickly in a quick head to toe lather with my bath poof. I rinsed well and shut off the water, reaching for a towel.
The storm of a meltdown was brewing, I could feel it in my chest, and behind my eyes. I didn’t want to cry, I d
idn’t want to be alone and yet I couldn’t help it, the tide of emotion was rising and I was about to be swamped. I wrapped the regular sized bath towel around my hair and twisted, straightening up and flopping it back turban style on my head. I used the bath sheet to dry my body starting with my face before finally wrapping it around my self twice below my arm pits and tucking the corner tight so it wouldn’t slide off.
I wiped a streak in the steam coating my bathroom mirror with my hand and looked at myself. Cornflower blue eyes stared back at me, high cheekbones and a narrow chin bracketed a full mouth above and below. I was pretty by the generally accepted standard but I had never relied on it. I valued brains over looks and didn’t have time for people that wanted to base their opinion of me on my packaging rather than what I had to offer in the intellectual department. Sometimes it got lonely, okay most of the time it got lonely, especially after the black ivy of despair moved in on me. I used my Tuscan honey lotion on my hands, arms and legs and wrung my hair tightly one last time with the towel before letting it down. It was a tangled mess of snakes and there was no way I could sleep on it this wet, so I brought out the brush and hair dryer.
I shouldn’t have skipped the conditioner. The brush snarled painfully in my locks and the sharp pain in my scalp brought the sting of tears to my eyes and that did it. The floodgates opened, the tide rose, crashed into my careful walls and decimated them with the force of a tsunami that pretty much poured out my eyes.
God damn it I couldn’t do anything right.
I cried my tears and dried my hair, brushing through the snarls and the pain on autopilot. Once dry I pulled it over my shoulder and braided it quickly to keep it from being a nightmare in the morning. I tossed the towels into the dirty laundry once back in my room and slipped a satin and lace nightgown over my skin. All of my sleepwear is sexy, an indulgence, my underwear is much the same. It was something Roxy had talked me into trying. An attempt to drag me out from beneath my black cloud. At the time it had been a marginal success, but they’d just rolled in again.
What was wrong with me?
I crawled into bed beneath my thick down comforter and lay in the fluffy marshmallow softness of my bed. The tears welled hot and immediate and spilled over. I just wanted this to end so badly. I wanted the hurt to stop, I wanted to sleep forever. Nothing helped, not my friend, not my work, not the pills. I felt like I was going mad and the fight, well the fight to just get out of bed in the morning was becoming harder and harder. I just didn’t know how to cope with these feelings, and I didn’t know how much longer I could live like this. So I sobbed into my pillow and hugged another to me, helplessly caught up in the storm of my emotions. I don’t know how long I lay this way, weeping brokenly, alone in my apartment, but eventually, I fall asleep.
Chapter 2
“Gracelyn, do you have a moment?” Jared’s lyrical voice emanated from directly from behind me causing me to nearly come out of my skin. I had been entirely focused on the sword on my bench and hadn’t heard him come up behind me. I pressed a gloved hand to the chest of my lab coat and urged my thundering heart to be more quiescent.
“Jared, you scared the life out of me!” I exclaimed breathlessly.
“Obviously, are you all right? I hadn’t realized how engrossed you were.” He took off his glasses and polished a lens with his handkerchief, something that had always endeared me to him, the fact that as young as he is, that he would use a handkerchief. Jared was in his early to mid-thirties and was typically clad in an Oxford shirt and Chinos with loafers on his feet. Today it was a light blue Oxford and khaki colored Chinos. On most people it would look like they were trying to hard or like they were some kind of rich arrogant ass… Not Jared though, oh yeah, he was rich and could be arrogant if the occasion called for it but he was also a passionate academic and a very sweet soul. I smiled at him tiredly and put my hands on my knees, the brush I’d been using hanging limp in my cotton clad fingers.
“What can I do for you Jared?” I asked, and smiled tiredly. He put his tortoise shell glasses back on and frowned at me pushing his ever present flop of dark blonde bangs off his forehead. His hair was short, a crew cut except long enough on top that it swept down across his forehead in front. When he went too long without a trim it would brush the top of his glasses and he would be forever sweeping it off his forehead until he finally got annoyed enough with it to actually do something about it.
“Gracelyn, are you getting enough rest?” he asked concerned and reached out trailing an index finger in a light touch against my cheek, just under my eye. Both my eyes were ringed in dark circles that were bordering on a deep purple reminiscent of a bruise.
I winced and gently pulled back away from the touch. Jared was sometimes too familiar with me, for the most part I chalked it up to the social awkwardness that many academic personalities harbored, but sometimes I’d catch him looking at me and well, it wasn’t how a boss should look at an employee.
“Sorry,” He mumbled and had the grace to look embarrassed.
Cue momentary awkward silence between us.
“Sorry, you needed something.” I closed my eyes and shook my head, a frown of my own furrowing my brow. My concentration was horrible today.
“Yes, I was wondering if you would accompany me tonight to the investor’s dinner. Several of them were quite taken with you yesterday.” He was watching me, a wrinkle of concern between his eyes. I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding and slumped a little on my stool.
“I…” I opened my mouth, closed it, and then opened it again. I didn’t want to go, I was tired, exhausted in fact, I felt like I hadn’t slept a wink last night and woke up just as tired as when I’d gone to bed, but the investors looking at financing an exhibit of our historical find could be the first step in generating enough revenue to fund our preservation efforts both at the Fernyness Wood site and beyond. Jared blessedly saved me from my predicament.
“No, forget I even asked. There will be other dinners and events.” He plucked the brush from my loose fingers and set it down on my work bench near the sword. He took my gloved hands in his and shook them.
“Go home Gracelyn, you’re done for the day. Get something to eat, sleep, this will be here tomorrow.” He tugged on my hands and with a groan I slipped off my stool and onto my feet.
“I’m sorry Jared. I slept last night, I guess I just didn’t sleep very well.” His hands were warm through the cotton of my gloves and I quickly took mine back, making a pretense of pulling the white cotton off my hands, stripping off the latex gloves beneath them and pitching them in my waste basket. My hands were cold despite the latex but still clammy with sweat. I wiped them on my lab coat. Jared took a reluctant step back out of my personal space, though I didn’t think he was being inappropriate with his proximity, I think he was genuinely concerned. My thoughts were confirmed when he said:
“Well you should sleep well tonight, you look as if you’re ready to collapse. I’ll see you tomorrow.” He gave me one last looking over and turned on the heel of his brown loafer and walked away crisply. I sighed, it wasn’t that Jared wasn’t attractive, he was… it was just I wasn’t attracted to him and he was my boss and I really wanted no part of a scandalous workplace affair.
Jesus. I was tired. I needed to go home and sleep. I peeled out of my lab coat and hung it on the old fashioned wooden coat tree beside my station. Stepping well back from my eighth century baby I plucked down my winter pea coat and shrugged into it. I lifted down my grey infinity scarf and wound it around my throat, buttoning my coat. I sighed and pulled on my black leather gloves to warm my chilly hands and tried to ignore the tickle against the side of my neck from some strands of hair that had come loose from my braid.
I lifted down my purse and hung it across my chest, making for the exit, the heels of my low pumps clacking smartly against the linoleum. I left the well-lit laboratory for the dimly lit hallway, the tone of my footsteps deepening as I made the transition from linoleum to ha
rdwood. I took the stairs and used the museum’s employee exit to step out into the freezing side alley. I thrust my hands in my pockets and burrowed my nose into my scarf, breathing out into the material to warm the lower half of my face.
I caught a flicker of shadow out of the corner of my eye and started, thrusting my back against the door I’d just come out of, but when I looked there was nothing… I had sworn whatever I had seen had been big, man-sized at the very least. I swallowed my rapidly beating heart back down into my chest and moved quickly out of the darkened alley and onto the bustling street. I gave one last lingering look down the alley but seeing nothing moved in the direction that would take me home.
I would swear on a stack of bibles that the shadow had come from the direction of the mouth of the alley and moved further back into it, which didn’t make sense, the alley had no outlet so if someone had moved past me as I exited the door I would have seen them on looking back… Wouldn’t I?
I strode with purpose down the sidewalk and shivered a shiver which had absolutely nothing to do with the bitter January wind at my back. I couldn’t shake the itching feeling between my shoulder blades, that sensation we have all had at one time of being watched.
I turned at the last second and slipped down the stairs to the subway. Depression, meet Paranoia! Paranoia, this is Depression. You two should get along fine. I thought to myself as I clattered down the steps and lost myself in the crowd of commuters. I got onto the train, doors hissing shut behind me and grabbed onto the overhead rail. The car wasn’t overly crowded but I always felt better standing on the train than sitting. I don’t know why, it just was what it was.
I held on against the rock and sway of the train as it sped along the tracks and got off at the second stop. With a great sigh I disembarked and moved toward the stairs and the surface. I was feeling pretty silly at this point about jumping at shadows, yet still couldn’t shake the unnerved feeling it had brought on. After my parents had died, I’d had anxiety attacks for a time. This felt much the same, though on a vastly smaller scale.
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