Last Words: A Diary of Survival

by Shari J. Ryan

  Charlie closed us back inside the shower room and placed his hands on my shoulders. “Amelia, no one has managed to escape. Not one person in over a year.”

  “Why can’t I be the first?”

  “Because if you’re not successful, you’ll be executed like the others.”

  I shrugged since I didn't care much anymore. The difference between death and the state I was living in couldn't have been too different. In fact, I imagined heaven to be a very peaceful place in comparison. “Charlie, I don’t care if I die trying.”

  “I do,” he said, sternly, through his clenched jaw.

  “We’re friends,” I told him. “You have fed me as I’ve needed food, you’ve made me smile when I shouldn’t be capable of such an expression, and you have made me feel less alone, but you're going to walk away, and I’m not.”

  “You don’t know that,” he argued.

  A gentle smile pressed against my lips. “In my heart, I know I’m the only person who can save myself.”

  “They won't get away with this forever,” he said. The look in his eyes pleaded with me to change my mind, but I had to try.

  “They have already done too much damage. Look around at how many forevers are over now.”

  “Don’t leave me, Amelia,” he blurted out.

  At first, I wanted to tell him he was selfish, and I almost did, but I calmed myself first while trying to understand why he cared so much. “What about me?” I asked.

  “I’ll never leave you,” he muttered through a sudden hoarseness in his throat.

  “We’re only friends, Charlie. Sometimes friends must leave each other, especially friends who should never have been friends in the first place.”

  “You’re not my friend, Amelia.” The broken sound in his voice was gone, and replaced by a firm tone of determination.

  My breath felt sticky in my lungs as I was struck with the shocking truth his statement revealed. I had wrongly assumed that the time we had spent together and the help he given me defined a friendship. Maybe he was just going for sainthood while the rest of his kind were running toward the gates of hell. In any case, no matter what his reasons, he would always have a place in my heart for what he had done for me—giving me hope that there was still kindness peppered into a world full of hate. “I understand,” I told him.

  “No, you don't.” His hands squeezed tightly around my shoulders as his eyes blazed with darkness.

  “Charlie,” I whispered as I tried to tug myself free of his grip. I should have been scared by the unfamiliar look in his lake-blue eyes, but I had never feared Charlie before. I believed his acts of aggression weren’t a portrayal of who he was inside.

  My world stopped spinning when his unequivocal gaze ravaged my breath. I couldn’t read him or understand why his chest was rising and falling so fiercely. “Are you okay?” I asked.

  He nodded his head with little movement, then inhaled sharply as he crashed his lips into mine. My heart thawed, creating a thick fog in my chest. His lips were warm, soft, and just large enough to engulf mine. Within the bliss of kissing him, I was acutely aware of how awful I smelled and how bad my breath must have been, but I tried to put the thought into the back of my mind as his arms slid around my back to hold me a little closer. He didn’t seem to care about the things I was worried about, and it meant everything to me at that moment. I needed air, but if I could, I would have gladly suffocated against his lips and endured that way of dying over anything else. I would have willingly given up my last second of life for that moment—one, I was sure I’d never experience. Charlie’s kiss took me by surprise, but I didn’t want it to stop. For the first time in so long, I felt alive again. I didn’t want Charlie to know, but that was my first kiss, and I wasn’t sure how to kiss him in return. I had hoped he didn’t notice my inexperience, but maybe that’s what intrigued him about me.

  Time felt as though it was running away as my thoughts continued to race. How was I blind to the fact that Charlie had those feelings for me?

  Tingles ran up and down the length of my body, and I was sure my feet were no longer touching the ground as Charlie’s hands slid up to my cheeks. The pressure from his lips softened, and he pulled away with more trepidation in his eyes than he had just a few minutes prior.

  Not knowing how to respond, I said, “I’m sorry. I must smell so terrible. How could you want to kiss me?”

  “Amelia, don’t be ridiculous. None of that matters to me. Besides, your circumstance here is beyond your control. How could that possible influence how I feel about you?” he asked. “To everyone else, we're so wrong, but what does that matter when nothing else in this world is right? Amelia, I—I’m in love you. I love you.”

  I couldn’t speak. I was too surprised by Charlie’s confession, and I was trying to process whether the feelings I had for him were just friendship or something more. Maybe I was in denial to protect my emotions because I knew I couldn’t handle someone else being taken away from me.

  In that instant, though, my thoughts changed as if they were on a switch. I questioned whether it was reality or a dream, but as the cold air touched my lips, I knew it wasn’t a dream. “I won’t leave you,” I told him without hesitating—or thinking—for that matter. He loved me. I was not alone anymore. Somebody loved me.

  His lips curled into a smile and his eyes squinted against the rise of his cheeks. “Charlie, if I tell you I love you, you’ll leave me just like everyone else I have ever loved, so I’m sorry I can’t offer you the same affirmation in return,” I told him, fearful of speaking the truth of how I felt about him. It was love, which was why I couldn’t repeat his words.

  He didn’t argue. “I don’t care if you love me. I don't care if you do and never tell me, but I needed you to know that I love you, and I will do whatever I can to protect you.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Emma

  I can't help pressing my hand against my chest, feeling guilty for peeking in on a kiss that should have remained private. “Grams,” I say through a breathless whisper.

  “Now, mind you,” she says without missing a beat, “I had nothing to compare that kiss to, but what I can tell you is this. Nothing has ever come close in comparison.”

  Grams is staring through me, appearing lost in her memories. Her bottom lip quivers briefly before she pulls in a sharp inhale and shakes her head around. “Are you okay?” I ask her.

  “Don't be silly,” she waves me off with her hand. “Of course, I'm okay.”

  “You know, it’s all right if you're not. You can tell me anything.”

  “Emma Hill, don’t you talk like that,” she scolds me.

  A nurse meanders into the room and lifts the printed reports of Grams’s heart monitor. “What is going on in here, Ms. Amelia?”

  Grams doesn’t answer her, causing me to glance back at her frozen stare. “Grams, what's going on?” I ask, standing up from the chair and placing her diary down in my place.

  “Amelia,” the nurse says, more sternly this time. “I'm going to need you to focus for a minute.”

  A variety of odd beeps on Grams’s heart monitor suggests that her heart rate is erratic but slowly regulating to a normal rhythm. Immediately, Jackson reappears, and the nurse greets him with a slightly panic-stricken glance as Grams smiles gently and murmurs, “Charlie, where are you?”

  “Grams, Charlie isn’t here,” I tell her, but Jackson's hand falls softly on my shoulder, stopping me from saying any more.

  “Emma, let her be until she can calm down, okay?” Jackson tells me.

  I can't just sit here and let her suffer, if that what’s happening. Is she suffering as she smiles and asks for Charlie? None of this makes any sense to me.

  “Charlie, why didn’t you find me? It was our plan.” A lump forms in my throat, and I’m not sure I’m strong enough to sit here and listen to her delusions and maintain my composure. I don't know what else to do, so I take Grams’s hand and hold it against my cheek, hoping she feels the conne
ction so it draws her back from wherever her mind has taken her. “Charlie!” Her voice is stern and demanding as if he were standing here, ignoring her plea.

  “Grams,” I call to her softly.

  “Emma,” she replies in a mirroring tone as if she’s trying to find me. “He’s not here. Why isn’t he here?” A tear falls from her left eye.

  I stroke my hand across her cheek, trying to calm her nerves. “I’m not sure, Grams.”

  “You have to find him, Emma. You have to!”

  I don't even know if this man is dead or alive. If he’s alive, I have no idea where he lives or how to find him. He could be in Germany or the United States. He could be anywhere for that matter. She’s never once mentioned his name to me before this week.

  “Amelia, Emma will see what she can do,” Jackson says from behind me. I whip my head around and give Jackson a questioning look. What is he telling her? I can't agree to this. I don't know anything about this man other than they were friends and shared a kiss, decades ago. I can't just hunt him down. If he is alive, he is an old man and probably has a wife and a family somewhere. I can’t do what Jackson is saying, just to appease Grams’s confused thoughts.

  Jackson nods his head toward the door, and I follow him. “I don’t think I can read to her anymore,” I tell him as soon as we're out in the hall. “It’s obviously causing her serious distress, and I don't want to be the cause of that, especially after the trauma she has been through this week.”

  “I agree with you one-hundred percent,” he says, looking down at me with sincerity. “But, as I’ve been saying, we have to try our best not to upset her. She needs to heal and get well, and agitation is going to make that more difficult for her.”

  “Don’t you think this stress is going to hurt her even more?” I argue.

  “Maybe you should consider trying to find this man,” he says again. Is he serious? When he first mentioned it, my immediate reaction was a firm, “No.” Even though I’m slowly uncovering the fact that Grams has been hiding something from me her entire life, I feel like I need to know what the outcome of their relationship was. I don't know if I fully understand how someone can be married to one person for more than sixty years while longing for someone else at the same time. That would make me miserable, but Grams has always seemed so happy. If she was so in love with this Charlie, why didn’t she try to find him and undo whatever decision she had made? Unless the part of the story that she doesn’t remember yet, is that he’s dead...

  “I can’t,” I tell Jackson. “My grandfather was a wonderful man, and he would be absolutely crushed. None of this feels right to me.”

  “This isn't about you, Emma,” he says.

  I'm not sure why Jackson feels so passionate about this situation. We only met a couple of days ago, and he isn’t part of our family. While I understand that Grams is his patient, this is going a little above and beyond his responsibility with her care.

  “I can’t even make my own decisions, so how can I make them for her? Clearly, I’m not the best person to decide someone’s fate.”

  Jackson presses his hand into the wall beside me. “You’re being a little hard on yourself, aren’t you?”

  “I’m thirty-one years old and I just found the courage to end a six-year relationship that was bad right from the beginning. Then, on a bribe from my grandmother, I accept a date with a charming, eye-catching doctor who just kissed me like I've never been kissed in my entire life, so obviously, I’m a bit challenged when it comes to making rational decisions.”

  Jackson’s infectious smile reappears, illuminating his eyes under the fluorescent lights. “Better late than never.”

  Better late than never. Is that what's going through Grams’s head right now too?

  “If you want my advice, which I know you don’t,” Jackson begins. “Finish reading the diary. Find out how the story ends, then make your decision based on what would be best for her…and you. The reality is, Charlie has got to be in his nineties and may not be capable of doing much of anything at all, let alone coming here to see your grandmother. Then again, he might be—”

  “I know.”

  “You know you’re going to keep reading it anyway, so figure it out afterward. In the meantime, we’ll pacify your grandmother and keep her calm, okay?”

  I look up into Jackson’s piercing eyes and the reflection of the light highlighting his gaze. He has more common sense in his pinky finger than I have in my whole body. “Okay,” I agree with a slight nod.

  “On another note,” he says, looking around briefly. “Are you having any ex-boyfriend troubles before I ask you to have drinks with me tonight?”

  “I thought we had a date set for Friday?” I ask, keeping a coy sense of control over this situation.

  “We do, but what if I were to get hit by a bus tomorrow?”

  “I probably wouldn’t know about it because I don’t even have your phone number yet,” I play along.

  “We’ll have to fix that problem, and I’ll make sure to label your number in my phone as ‘Contact If Hit By A Bus.’ Now, you don’t want to pass up a chance to hang out with the guy who just kissed you like you’ve never been kissed, do you?” he asks with a smug grin, seeming quite amused with himself.

  I can’t stop the laughter from pouring out of me. “A funny doctor. I didn’t believe you at first, but you really are multi-talented.”

  “I'm the whole package, you know? I come around once in a lifetime.” His words sway along with an exaggerated fake yawn as he groans and stretches his arms above his head. I slap him in the gut with the back of my hand, and he buckles forward with a chuckle.

  “I need to go get some work done after I make sure Grams is okay, but where should we meet for drinks?” I just keep falling for his ploys—such a charmer.

  “Landsdown at eight?” he offers.

  “Sounds good to me.”

  “Meet me outside of Landsdown, though,” he says.

  “Why?”

  “Just because.”

  I playfully roll my eyes and brush past him, rejoining Grams, who has fallen asleep in the time I've been gone. Hopefully, she’ll be more relaxed when she wakes up. At least I know she’s in good hands here.

  I take the diary from the seat and slide it into my bag before tiptoeing out of the room. In the large elevator, I fall heavily against the wall and close my eyes for a moment, overwhelmed by everything in my life. I concentrate on taking in a full, deep breaths, feeling as though I have forgotten to do so in more than a few days. I feel like my life is spinning out of control, and I'm having a hard time finding something to hold onto. It’s a bit like Alice in Wonderland, falling down a hole into uncharted territory, with no way of knowing exactly what happened or where I’ll end up.

  The words sinking into my mind aren’t easily digestible because I can’t relate to the circumstances and sensations she experienced. It’s hard coming to terms with the fact that I may not ever truly comprehend what she has been through, and now it’s causing this invisible gap between us that has never been present before. Grams has been living with this all these years, knowing she’ll never have the chance to experience what she should have during those impressionable years, and worse, her young love was filled with torture and torment. I thought for sure that we were similar, but I know now I’ll never be able to be half the person she is. I could never be as strong as she was. She is a survivor in the truest sense of the word.

  My thoughts carry me out to my Jeep and I toss my bag inside before sliding into the seat. As I go to close my door, I see a note pinned between my wiper blade and windshield. I stare at it for a second, realizing it's an envelope. That's weird. I lean back out, pull it free, and bring it back inside.

  The envelope isn’t sealed, making it easy to retrieve the note. Unfolding the unevenly folded paper, I find Mike's messy handwriting.

  Please, no more apologies.

  Emma,

  Please don’t throw this note away without reading i
t first.

  I have messed up more times than I can count. After having some time to think, I can honestly say that I was a lousy boyfriend. I don’t know how to be a good one, and I guess that doesn’t say much for me. I realize it shows immaturity on my part, but in my defense, I’ve never had a role model to follow when it comes to treating another person the way they deserve to be treated.

  I’m aware of how much I have hurt you, and cheating is inexcusable. I don’t expect you to forgive me for what I've done, especially after how well you treated me throughout the last six years. I gave you nothing in return, and I'm know this note might be tossed out your window in a matter of minutes, but I couldn't walk away without at least trying to do the right thing by you.

  No more promises from me. I know I can’t keep them. I can’t tell you I’ll stop drinking because I’m pretty sure I have a problem, just like my stellar father. I treated you like shit because there was never a woman around in my life to show me how one should be treated. I’ve been blind to it. I know I don't deserve you, and I didn’t deserve the last six years of your time, but I hope you’ll forgive me someday, even if it’s just for wasting your time.

  You may never believe me, but I do love you, and it hurts as I slowly come to the realization that we are really over this time. I have boxed up your things and dropped them on the back patio of your mom's house. If you need anything, you know how to find me. Thank you for trying to fix me. I guess some things are just too broken to repair.

  * * *

  Love you always,

  Mike

  * * *

  Wow. I didn’t see that coming. Maybe it’s a little sad that my first thought is that someone wrote this for him, but on second thought, this must be his final attempt to gain my forgiveness.

  I lower my head down to the steering wheel, as tears form in the corners of my eyes. I was never trying to change him, but I did hope he would see how much I cared about him and wanted us to work out. Investing so much time into something and then closing the door to walk away is difficult—nearly impossible—for me, but at this point, I don’t know what it means to be happy in a relationship. I used to feel it when I made him smile, but that’s just it. It was always me making him smile. He was never willing to put any effort into making me happy. The note falls from my hand, landing on my lap as it leaves me with nothing but an emptiness that fills my chest. I won’t miss him because there is nothing to miss. He gave nothing, and that’s why it’s finally over. Six years was a long time to waste, but it’s better than a whole lifetime.