by K. S. Thomas
“Please, Es. It’s important. I know it’s hard. But you have to keep going.”
I nod. For the first time in eight years, I hate him a little. And then I hate myself for feeling this way. “As soon as I realized what had happened, I tried to look for you. But I was struggling to open my eyes. Every part of my body was fighting me. Then I heard his voice. A firefighter I think. I never saw his face, but he told me to stay calm. Told me you were already out of the car and that he was going to get me out as well. I believed him. Mostly because I didn’t have any other choice.
“The next part...I don’t know. Sometimes I think about it and remember it taking an agonizing eternity before they finally cut me out of the car, and other times, it all seems so fast I hardly see more than a blur of images, leading from the car to the ambulance.” I feel my mouth move like it’s trying to say more, but not a sound comes out. What I remember next is the part I’ve tried hardest to forget.
“They were about to load me into the ambulance, but I was pleading with them to let me see you. To find out how you were. I wasn’t leaving there without you.” I gasp for breath and realize my intention not to cry today has been completely overruled. I’m a sopping mess already and I wipe my cheeks using the palms of my hands. “Then I heard them shouting. The paramedics who were working on you. They couldn’t find your heart beat.” My eyes searched for Carters, but he’s facing the ground. Why the hell is he making me face something he can’t bear to face himself? Suddenly, the pain begins to morph into anger. If he wants to hear it so badly, I’m going to let him hear it alright. No more holding back. “You almost died, Carter. You were going to leave me. Right there on the side of the highway. ON OUR FUCKING WEDDING DAY! IS THAT THE PART YOU’VE BEEN WAITING TO HEAR? HUH?”
He lifts his head slowly. He’s crying, too. “What happened next?”
I shrug, pressing my lips tightly together. I’m done playing this sick game. I don’t want to do this anymore. “I don’t know. I blacked out and didn’t come to again until the next day.”
Carter runs his hands over his face like he’s trying to wipe away every trace of the feelings he’s showing me right now. Then, he stares me square in the eye. “That’s not true.”
“What are you talking about? Of course it’s true. How would you know what I do and don’t remember?” The same panic from before flutters in my chest and I can feel my legs begin to tingle like they’re starting to go numb.
“Because, Es. I saw you. We...talked.” His jaw is clenched tightly and he looks like he’s drowning in the same pain I am. “Please, Esi. You have to remember.”
I close my eyes and whisper, “I don’t want to.”
And then...I do.
I’m in the ambulance and I’m coming to in waves. My eyes never stay open for more than a split second and all I really know is I’m not alone. I see flashes of faces. Uniforms. Movements. And I hear things. Voices mostly. Familiar ones. They’re working together. They’re trying to save me. I hope they do.
The next time my lids lift I’m blinded by an excruciatingly bright light. The voices and faces from before have been replaced with new ones. Scrubs. Everyone is wearing scrubs. And there’s shouting. Way too much shouting.
I’m moving. I wish I wasn’t. The motion is making me dizzy. I want to throw up, but I can hardly catch my breath, let alone do much else. I fall asleep again. This time, there are no more flashes of light or snippets of voices. Just black silence.
I feel like I’ve been sleeping for days and yet, I’m pretty sure I could sleep for another week straight and still not feel rested enough. My head is all foggy like it’s in a cloud and I don’t even want to bother opening my eyes. It’s too much effort. And honestly, who knows what I’ll see. If I just keep them shut, I can stay in the dark. I can sleep. Yes. More black silence. That’s what I want.
“Esi?” My mother’s voice is shaken. It takes me a moment to understand why. As soon as I remember, I wish I didn’t. My heart aches in a way I can’t even describe. For her. For me. For Carter...
“Ma,” I mumble. It’s the best I can do. “Carter. Where is he? Is he okay?”
Her hand trembles as she reaches out to stroke my cheek. “He’s here, Esi. They brought him in right after you, but no one has told me anything yet. I think they’re waiting for his mother to get here.” She takes my hand and kisses it. “God, Esidora. You don’t know how scared I was.” For my sake, she musters a smile. “Please, you need to get some sleep. Just, sleep now. Everything else can wait until the morning. Right now you need to do everything to regain some of the strength this night has robbed you of.”
I want to argue. I want to tell her sleep can wait until after someone comes to tell me about Carter. I’m his wife. That trumps his mother. His mother. I can count on my fingers the number of times she’s seen Carter in the last seven years. She’s hardly earned the right to anything.
But I don’t argue. I don’t even have another conscious thought. I’m too tired. Too numb. Too disconnected. Blackness once more.
Then, I can feel him. I know he’s in the room before I even open my eyes. When I do, the place is draped in shadows, no sign of daylight yet. Sitting in a chair in the corner is a hunched over figure. His long legs stretched out into the one stream of light coming in from the hall. I don’t have to see his face to know it’s him.
“Carter.” My throat is so dry I can hardly hear my own voice. But he hears me. He starts to move.
“Es.” It’s the best sound I’ve ever heard in my life. My name has never sounded so beautiful coming out of anyone’s mouth as it does just then. Carter is here. With me.
He stands from his chair and starts to move into the ray of white cutting through my small room. My heavy lids are refusing to let me see more than what the small slits will show me. First his legs. He’s wearing his khaki pants. He must have changed after the accident. Then, his shirt. The green one. The one I love.
Then, at last, his face comes into focus. I’ve never been happier to see that handsome face. Those gorgeous hazel eyes. That perfect jawline. The only thing noticeably absent is his lopsided grin, always ready to challenge me in some way.
I open my mouth to tell him to smile. To tell him it’s not as bad as it looks. Then...
“Carter? What’s going on?” I can’t put my finger on it. Something is wrong. Something is very, very wrong. “Are you supposed to be in here? Did the doctors check you out?”
He doesn’t say anything. Just keeps walking toward the bed. And the closer I get, the better I can see what I’m not seeing. There isn’t a single mark on him. No cuts. No bruises. Not a single scrape. Nothing. It’s almost like...
“No.” I shake my head, hesitant at first. Then, the motions take on an almost violent speed. “No. Carter. NO!”
Tears are rolling down his flawless skin. “I’m sorry, Es. I’m so, so sorry.”
I’m standing back in the field. I’m gasping for air, but no matter what I do, it’s impossible to catch my breath. Carter is still here. Completely still. An unspoken apology in his silence.
I want to reach out for him. I want to hold him. Want him to hold me. But I don’t. I can’t. If I do, there’ll be no going back. And I’m not ready. I’m not ready to see it. I’m not ready to feel it. I’m not ready to know. Only I do. I already know. And no matter how badly I want to, I can’t escape it.
I suck in one desperate breath to say the words before I get too scared to say them out loud.
“You died.”
Chapter Thirty
Carter ~ Seven Years Ago
It’s moving week. Staring at everything I own, piled up in boxes around Esi’s apartment, it hits me. I can’t go. No way am I leaving her for an entire year. It’s not possible.
I drop the box of clothes I was about to take down to the moving truck. It makes a loud thump as it hits the ground. “I’m staying.”
Esi sits up from the box she’s so carefully filling with my art supplies, most of which I ha
d for years, but never had the chance to use. Until now. “You’re not staying.”
“Yes. I am. Look at you. What kind of an idiot would I be to walk away from you?”
She laughs. “What kind of an idiot would you be to stay, knowing I’ll follow you wherever you go?”
“What if some other asshole runs into you outside of class while I’m gone?”
“I’ll punch him in the nose and tell him to look where the fuck he’s going.” She grins. “What? You think that shit you pulled would have worked for just anybody?”
“So...I’m going.”
She nods. “You’re going.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Esi
My name is Esi Harper. Well, it’s Esidora Maelyn Harper, to be more specific. Over the years I’ve learned to be less specific and just sort of gloss over things. Like when people ask me what my mother does, I say, ‘she owns a quaint little gift shop downtown’. Or, when they want to know about my father, ‘he died in the line of duty’. When they ask about my job, ‘I’m a grief counselor’. Those answers are sufficient in satisfying most curiosities and generally spare people the details they sometimes aren’t equipped to handle. Like my name. What a fucking mouthful. And the part that makes me so different from most people. The thing that scares them.
Because society has told us to be scared. But it’s not scary. Not really. Not for me. But then, I wasn’t raised by mainstream society. I was raised by my mother. Just your run of the mill, slightly out of the ordinary, woman who was just a teensy bit more sensitive to certain things than other people, and interested in a wide variety of magical and spiritual...well, for a lack of better word, let’s just say things. Things she passed on to me. And my sister.
I was eight when I first realized we were different. I’d been invited to my first sleepover and come nightfall, my friend Jamie had thought it would be cool to steal her older sister’s Ouija Board to try and summon Princess Diana who had only just died a few months earlier.
I explained to her very matter-of-factly that it was highly unlikely Princess Di would show, so Jamie suggested we try for her dead grandmother then since she was likely to be more motivated to chat. I told her that while that was true, we definitely didn’t need the board. Grandma Maevis had been sitting downstairs in her recliner all evening. If Jamie had a question for her, we could just go and ask, although, I warned, she was a bit miffed about Jamie’s parents having thrown out all of her knitting needles since she’d died.
I didn’t get invited back. Nor did I get asked over by anyone else after that. Nobody wanted to hang with the kid who could talk to dead people. Apparently, that shit was only cool when you used a board game to do it.
Cool or not, I couldn’t change who I was or what I experienced. And neither could my sister. Although she tried. Hard. Insisting for years she’d been born normal. But normal is relative, and I’ve seen her do things, know things, no one would claim was normal.
Never the less, she intentionally lives her life in denial of her gifts, while I’ve always taken the opposite route and embraced them. And I’ve never been sorry. Until today.
***
“How?” My breathing has gone from one extreme to the other and where I was gasping for air a little while ago, I’m taking slow and shallow breaths now. I feel like parts of my body are shutting down. I can’t feel anything below my knees and the numbing sensation seems to be spreading. Everything happening inside my head feels like it’s happening to someone else. Like I’m reading someone else’s mind. Hearing someone else’s thoughts. It’s like an outer body experience, I’m completely disconnected.
“It was just...too much. There was nothing anyone could have done. They brought me back for a minute, but I couldn’t stay. My body...it was just...too much.” He looks helpless. I can’t even imagine what this must be like for him. What this whole year has been like. He’s been in limbo this whole time. And suddenly it’s not about me anymore.
“Why didn’t you move on? You should have found your peace. You should have gone to the light, Carter.” I lift my hand toward his head. I know there’s no skin. No flesh. Nothing to touch. But his energy. It’s still there. And I can still feel it.
He smiles meekly. “I did. That’s how I found you again. You are my light, Es.”
A sob escapes me. I can’t do this. I can’t face this. “Why now? Why are you making me remember now?”
“Because it’s time, Es. I made a promise. And I’ve stayed to fulfill it. But I can’t stay forever, no matter how badly I want to. And you know that. It wouldn’t be fair. Not to you.” The quiet rumble of his voice is cut off by his own emotions.
“What if I don’t care? What if this is enough?” I know the answer. But I have to ask. A building desperation within me needs to find the loophole. The glitch between life and death where we can still be together. Where this doesn’t have to define us. Doesn’t have to change us. Doesn’t have to end us.
“It’s not.” But I’m not the wise one anymore. I’m not the one with the big picture perspective. He is. “I’ve been gone for a year already. An entire year I’ve let you go on believing that everything was okay. That nothing had changed. And I told myself it was the right thing, told myself that you needed to believe it. That you needed more time to get stronger. To heal and that you would see the truth for yourself when you were ready. But I was lying to myself the same way you were. Because I wasn’t ready either. I’m still not.”
“Neither am I.”
He holds his hands out to me, palms up and I lay mine on top of them. Not touching. Just feeling the warmth of where he used to be. “This year. It’s been a gift. The most amazing gift I’ve ever received. I got to stay with you. Was able to see for myself how you recovered. Watched you every day as your pregnancy progressed. I got to see our daughter be born and was able to spend these last months by her side. And the only reason I’ve had any of it, is because of you. Because of how much you’ve loved me. How deeply you’ve allowed me to love you.”
I gulp down the baseball sized lump burning in my throat. “I’m always going to love you. Always. And so is Evan. She’s going to know who you are, Carter. I promise. I won’t let her grow up not knowing. And I’ll remind her of the songs you sang to her. I’ll remind her of how you adored her, standing beside her crib for hours just watching her.”
He nods, a stray tear trickling down his chin again. “I know you will. You’re going to be okay, Es. You and Evan. You’re both going to be okay. You’re going to be happy again. You have to swear that you won’t shut down, won’t run when it happens. It’s okay to keep up the walls though. The right person will be willing to climb them.”
“Don’t. I don’t want to talk about anyone else climbing my walls, Carter. Not now, not ever. I just...I just, I want you to stay.” My fingers push down involuntarily, grasping for him, only there’s nothing there to grasp onto.
“You know better than anyone, Es,” he leans in closer to my ear, “Even though I can’t stay, I’ll always be with you.”
“Promise me. Make a vow,” I whisper.
Carter smiles and it’s bittersweet. This is it. The moment I’ve been waiting for since last year. Only then I thought it would mark a new beginning. Or at least, a celebration of our newest beginning. Now, I know it will mark the end. And as much as I wish it would never come, knowing that it will anyway is an agonizing pain I’ve never experienced. I’ve lost before. My father. Grandparents. Friends. But it was always sudden. I’ve never known ahead of time that I would lose them. I’ve heard about people taking the time to say good bye and I’ve wondered if those people were better off. If those moments of knowing beforehand made things easier. They don’t. They’re a harder, darker hell than anything I’ve ever experienced. There is a blessing in not knowing. Not having to prepare. Because in reality, saying goodbye to the love of your life isn’t something you could ever possibly be prepared for.
“Esidora Maelyn Harper,” he begins his vows
the same way he did on our wedding day, “from the moment I first crashed into you, I knew you were the one with whom I wanted to share my life. Your breathtaking beauty, passionate heart, and enlightened mind inspire me to be the best person I can be. I promise to love you for eternity, respecting you, honoring you, being faithful to you, and sharing my life with you. Even after death do us part. This is my solemn vow to you.”
It’s my turn to say something, but I can’t. And, because Carter is Carter, he doesn’t expect me to. Instead, his gaze drops briefly to the grass at our feet then back up to meet mine. “Let’s stay a while,” he says quietly and I nod.
My body seems to be moving on autopilot as it follows his motions, lowering myself down until we’re both lying on the ground, facing each other. It’s surprisingly soft, but even the thick cushion of grass separating me from the dirt below, isn’t enough to seal in the cold of the earth. It’s autumn after all, and though the sun has been shining down on us all morning, it’s not enough to warm below the surface. Not of the earth. Not of my body.
“How long will you stay?” I want him to say, ‘forever’. I want him to say, ‘until you take your last breath, Es’, but he’s already taken his. He can’t stay. And it’s selfish of me to even think it.
“A while.”
And so we lie, staring at each other. Thinking a million different things we should say out loud, now, while we have the chance, but remaining completely silent. There are no words grand enough, no term meaningful enough, no sentence capable of capturing the importance of these moments, and so, we don’t try. It would be wrong to try. It would diminish the enormity of the moment. Deny the truth that there is no way to make something so obscenely painful somehow acceptable.
So, in the absence of words, I listen. He still breathes in and out. A manifestation of my own mind because this is how I see him. I know that. I know that for the same reason I can’t pretend he hasn’t worn the same green shirt and khaki pants every day for the last year because those were the clothes I loved to see him wear most. The same reason he’s had a five o’clock shadow every second of every day since the accident because I find him intoxicatingly handsome when he has that slight rugged edge to him. He breathes. It’s an illusion. A beautiful one. A comforting one. And so I listen. And by some miracle, it helps me breathe, too. In. Out. In...Out. No more hyperventilating. No more going numb. I just...am.