by Emerson Rose
“He told us that you are moving in with him and that the party this weekend was an announcement of sorts. He would like to go on with the get-together. Maybe make it a smaller, more simple dinner party. He asked us to re-invite you, as a guest. But he would prefer you as a hostess, of course.”
Of course. If my own parents, who watched the aftermath of my torture unfold in front of their eyes, can’t understand that I was too scared to live in that house after what happened, how can Marcus?
“I can’t. I can’t go back. I can’t see him. I can’t be in that house. I can’t worry about losing him or about being attacked!” I scramble for control, and my mind claws at the cliff of sanity. I’m going to lose it and end up in a loony bin if I can’t get a grip. Deep breaths in and out, in and out. Maybe I should stuff my head between my legs like I do when I’m going to faint?
“Imani!” Dad yells, startling me out of my anxiety attack.
“It’s going to be ok. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. Stay here as long as you need to. Go to the party, don’t go to the party, go back to work, whatever. You know we’ll always support you.”
Finally, information I can process. Stay here, work, and be supported. Hey, it’s a start. My heartbeat slows, and I feel my control returning. Thank God for my dad.
“Ok, I’m staying here. No party, no Marcus, and I’ll go back to work next week as planned.”
“Oh, honey…,” Mom sighs with obvious disappointment. Marcus must have made some impression on her.
“Mom, that’s what I need. If you can’t understand, I’ll just go home.”
“No, no… stay here. I won’t say another word about it, promise,” she says.
“Thank you.”
“But I insist on the security guard, at least until that woman is caught.”
“Jade!”
“No, Nero. I won’t have her running around unprotected. She needs security!”
“It’s ok, Dad, the guard can stay. If I send him away, it’ll only encourage Marcus to pursue me harder. Let him have his way on this one.”
My new life plan is set into motion at my parent’s kitchen table on this late October afternoon. Great.
Over the next few weeks my life falls into a routine of work and secluding myself in the guest room at my parent’s house.
I can be pleasant enough to get along at work with my patients, co-workers, and even my parents, but only for a short time. Then I retreat back into the dark, numb place that is my life without Marcus.
I wonder if the emptiness will go away with time? Maybe I’ll return to my old self after purging him from my heart. The longer I go without him the less I feel anything.
It began with a horrible period of immeasurable pain and heartache, and then anger over the way things have turned out. And now, nothing.
It’s better than the pain and anger, but how can I build a new life and a future with nothing left to give? I drift from one day to the next without making any progress, and my parents have started to worry.
They suggested I return to my old therapist. I considered it for a second but decided that it’s too much effort. I just don’t care anymore, about anything or anyone.
My future is destined to be me trudging through all the days between now and the day I die. I just have to make it into my grave and pray my next life will be better.
Thirty-Six
Marcus
I’m lying in bed next to Imani listening to her soft breathing as we sleep. She is the most beautiful creature, so delicate, and, for now, so peaceful. It won’t last. I can feel it in my gut. She’s going to run.
I don’t think she even knows it herself, but I do. We share tormented pasts, and after today’s break-in she no longer feels safe with me here in my home.
My home, the place where I wanted her to feel comfortable and secure, the place where she could let down her guard and not worry, has become her hell instead of her refuge.
She was coming around. I could have made her happy, but that fucking intruder had to go and derail my future.
Who the hell is she? If she is even a she, and what does she want? How is Nick involved? There are too many questions and not enough answers.
Mr. Black has been looking at it from every angle, and he has his theories, but Nick is one of the people I am able to remember the most about. He is loyal to a fault. I saved him from drug addiction years ago. He wouldn’t do this unless he was being blackmailed. He knows crossing me is the equivalent of signing his own death certificate.
I shift onto my side so I can see her better. I’m memorizing every curve, every smooth, sensitive part of her body, knowing I won’t be able to touch her for who knows how long.
I miss her already and she is still lying next to me. I tense when she begins to stir. I don’t want her to wake up. I don’t want this to be over. But it won’t be long before another nightmare shakes her from sleep.
She drifted off with her mind full of memories that an intruder drudged up from her past. An intruder I allowed to enter my home, armed with a hunting knife.
Watching that video was like seeing my own life threatened. If Imani were taken from me, there would be no reason for me to continue. I fought to open my eyes for one reason and one reason only, for Imani. We are bound so closely that neither one can survive without the other; a fact that I know but she hasn’t figured out yet.
The moment our lives collided, our souls united. A magnetism formed that is impossible to ignore. It’s palpable in the air around us. She is everything that is good in the world, and I am everything bad, opposites that tragically attract.
She is leaving me, but she will never be out of my reach. She needs time, and I plan on giving it to her, but not too much.
Imani
Work gives me purpose, somewhere to focus on others, because I sure as hell can’t help myself. I’m pathetic, and if I had the capacity to give a shit, I’d be embarrassed of myself. After three weeks mom and dad were prepared to have me committed to a psychiatric unit. Instead, I went back to work. They say it’s the only “normal” thing I do these days.
“Imani, why don’t you go out with your friends; they miss you. Or maybe you could go to the glass blowing studio? Just get out and do something fun, something you enjoy.” She’s standing at the island in the kitchen, cutting vegetables and pleading with me.
I know how much I am disappointing her, both of them. This is the darkest place I’ve ever been in my life, darker than the year following my attack. I feel like this struggle has no light at the end of the tunnel.
Marcus is a danger that I have to leave alone. As much as I’m hurting, at least I know where I stand when I’m alone. Loving him is the single most beautiful, fulfilling experience I have ever had. It was also the most destructive.
I may have been able to get past the stalker but since we have had distance between us I’ve realized a few things.
I was scared.
I was scared of losing him to one of a half dozen bizarre circumstances, including but not limited to: personality change, another coma, blindness, tumor rupture, or being targeted by any number of enemies.
The odds were stacked against us from the start. When I took myself out of the eye of the storm, I realized I was living in a fantasy world, drugged by Castillo charm and beauty.
None of that makes me want him less. This week I missed him so much I came close to caving. I got out of bed, dressed, and sat in my car with my head resting on the steering wheel for an hour trying to talk myself out of it.
My heart finally won out, and I started driving. I ended up sitting in the parking lot of Dominus for an hour praying to catch a glimpse of him coming or going. I felt stupid sitting in a busy parking lot, freezing my ass off, stalking the very man that I ran away from. I went home, back to bed, where it’s safe.
A few weeks after I left he sent my belongings back to me in a box. I thought it was his way of accepting my decision. It wasn’t.
Th
at night my phone lit up with a notification on my bedside table. I haven’t been able to keep the sound on since he tortured me with his heartbreaking ringtones.
I picked it up to turn it off, but instead of holding down the power button like I should have, I tap the message app and open a text with a link to a music playlist.
The message is from anonymous, but I know who that is.
He’s trying to communicate through music since I won’t take his calls. And because lately I am a glutton for punishment, I press play on the first song. It’s the first song that he assigned as my ringtone when I left him.
I lie there listening to song after song about loss, coming home, and love. I had no tears left to cry, but I listened, and I hurt.
I thought I was holding on to my sanity, albeit by a thread, until a few nights later when I opened my eyes and saw him sitting on a chair in my room.
He was beautiful in his dark grey suit, sitting with one ankle across his knee. His elbows were on the arms of the chair, fingers steepled touching his lips deep in thought.
He stared at me with tormented green eyes. I closed mine thinking, ‘this shit isn’t real,’ and when I woke again closer to morning, he was gone and I was right.
That’s when I was sure I was cracking. Maybe I should see a therapist. I shouldn’t be working if I’m losing my mind, right? I could care less about myself but I won’t put my patients in danger.
Mom is thrilled, to say the least, when I tell her I’m ready to see someone. I didn’t tell her any particulars, and she doesn’t care, as long as I get help.
“I’ll make an appointment for you, honey. Don’t worry about it. I know your work schedule. I also have something I should tell you, and I don’t want you to be upset with me, please.”
I cringe inside and start to think of things she may have done that I’d be upset about, and all I can come up with is that she invited Marcus to dinner. If that’s the case, she knows damn well that I’ll be pissed.
“I invited Lana and the girls over tonight for a girl’s night in. This seclusion isn’t healthy for you, and, frankly, your friend Lana isn’t good for me. She’s driving me up a wall with her update requests and phone calls. You need to see them.”
I groan. I don’t want to see any-fucking-body. I just want to be left alone. I get up and go to work three nights a week, isn’t that enough? Mom is relentless, however, and I find it ironic and maybe a little funny that Lana annoys her. They’re very much alike. I’m too weak and empty to fight with my mom.
“Okay.”
“Really?” Mom bounces up and down on the balls of her feet, clasping her hands in front of her like a kid going to Disney World. Her enthusiasm is instantly exhausting to me. I think I need a nap.
“What time?”
“Tonight, six o’clock. They’re bringing movies and wine. I’m making my famous chicken tacos.”
She’s trying to kill me slowly with this girl’s night business. I should be grateful; I’d rather be dead than fake my way through a night with my friends. I’m going to have to sit down here and eat my mother’s chicken tacos, drink wine, and watch movies, all while faking being OK which I am most certainly not. I know it’s melodramatic, but it’s the truth. I really don’t care about my social life anymore.
I leave her alone in the kitchen and return to my room without eating. I haven’t had an appetite for nearly a month and I’ve dropped a few pounds; well, maybe more than a few.
There’s no way to ignore the way my clothes hang off of my body. They’re gaping here and sagging there, but I don’t give a shit.
It’s one in the afternoon, and I’m back in bed. I lie here a lot but I don’t sleep. I’m too scared of the nightmares that come when I don’t take my sleeping pills. I stare at the ceiling, or the wall when I have enough energy to turn onto my side. Life is one big beige canvas; the walls, the ceiling, all conveying my mood: emotionless, beige, blah.
I barely hear the doorbell ring a few hours later, but a light rap on my bedroom door tells me it’s time.
“Imani?” Lana says softly, opening the door a crack. “You’re lying in the dark, woman.” And in typical Lana style, she flicks on the switch by the door and gasps when she sees me.
“Oh, Imani. You’re so fucking skinny, and those bags under your eyes. Lord, we came just in time!” Well, fucking thanks. I know I’ve lost weight, but really? She’s dramatic and over the top; surely I don’t look that bad, do I?
Lana doesn’t waste time pulling me from bed and dragging me downstairs into the living room chatting nonstop on the way. All the girls are waiting, along with one guest I wasn’t expecting, Latoya. My sister’s eyes mist over when she sees the condition I’m in.
“Don’t,” I say, holding up my hand. I don’t want her pity, but she crosses the room with her arms extended and hugs me close. With her cheek pressed against mine, she says into my ear so no one else can hear, “It’s going to be ok. I’ll be right here when you wake up.”
My entire body locks up; every wasting muscle that has been lax for weeks suddenly becomes alert and tense. I jerk away, eyes wide, and I step away from her.
“What did you just say? You’ve talked to him, haven’t you?”
She nods in confirmation. Those are the same words I spoke to him when he was unconscious and on the brink of death in my ICU. Now he is trying to use them to bring me back from my self-inflicted brink of death. And he’s using my sister as a messenger.
He’s not playing fair. Sneak attacks are cruel punishments. A tsunami of pain that is a million times worse than before rushes through me.
All of this time I’ve been conditioning myself to be numb, but those thirteen words explode in my head, and the shards of my pain and grief scatter everywhere.
I’m right back to that first morning weeks ago here at my parent’s house, the morning I ran, except now I’m physically weak. I drop to my knees and let the tears that I thought had dried up pour out of me.
“Oh my God, Imani. I didn’t mean to upset you. He asked me to relay that message. He said you would understand. He said you’d know how much he loves you if I said those exact words to you.”
Latoya is on the ground, rocking me back and forth in her arms. Mother is behind me trying to get me off the floor. I don’t know how much mom told my friends, but they, I’m sure, didn’t expect this.
All I can do is sob. My body is wracked with actual physical pain, my soul is shattered, and my heart is long since broken.
I need him. I can’t keep doing this. Something has to change.
Girl’s night is over before it begins. I’m back in bed where I prefer to be, and my sister is sick with guilt.
“I should have never listened to him. I… I thought it would help. She’s a different person. And that shit in there, that’s not natural. My God, Mom, did you see how skinny she is? How did this happen?”
I hear them whispering to each other outside my door. They must think I’ve gone to sleep, but I’m hearing every word.
“Latoya, she hasn’t exactly lived a normal life, you know. This is the first man she ever let in, her first love. Just think of how devastating it must be for her to finally let someone in and then to have it fall apart so badly.”
“Yeah… but, Mom, there’s not much left of her. I can’t believe she can still work at the hospital. Does she ever eat?”
“Not much. I have to beg her to eat anything, and she stays in that bed all the time, just lying there staring at the wall. It’s like her life switch has been turned off.”
That’s pretty accurate, Mom. My fucking life switch is off, so just leave me alone and let me rot in this bed.
“This is worse than after her attack. At least then she wanted to get better. Let me stay with her. I feel bad for saying that shit and making her cry. I just wanted to help and I ended up making her break down in front of all of her friends.”
“Don’t curse, and it’s ok, honey. Nobody’s blaming you for anything. Go be with her
.”
Mom creeps downstairs to clean up the non-party, and Latoya slips in the bed, spooning me the way we did when we were little.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s ok.” No more words are exchanged. She stays with her arms around me all night. I don’t sleep for a long time. Hours later I reach out for my sleeping pills on the table next to the bed.
I hold the bottles close to my chest and the thought of downing them all crosses my mind. I can’t do that to my family, especially my sister. She’d blame herself forever.
I open the bottles, shake one pill out of each, and swallow them down. Temporary release from the pain comes not long after, and I sleep a dreamless sleep.
Lying in bed with my eyes closed, I’m aware of someone in the room with me and then I remember my sister stayed with me.
I open my eyes to see what time it is and see Marcus standing in my door with his hands in the pockets of my favorite soft jeans.
Great, my sister is gone, and I’m hallucinating again.
His head is bowed and he looks defeated. I wish that he were real. I want to touch him, breathe his familiar scent, feel his arms around me, have his hands tangled in my hair again. My eyelids become heavy again and sleep pulls me away from my vision of Marcus. Hours later I wake to an empty room. Latoya is gone, my hallucination of Marcus is gone, and, once again, I’m alone in bed with my stupid broken heart.
Marcus
She looks terrible, skin and bones, a mere shadow of herself. Her parents say she is not functioning. I can see with my own eyes how lost she is, and I should know, I feel the same way. We need each other; it’s as simple as that. I’ve given her enough space, no more. It’s time for plan B.
Imani
I feel like shit, my stomach rolls like ocean waves, and I’m burning up. Mom’s thrilled to have an excuse to get me to the doctor, who will undoubtedly tell me how bad I look, how depressed I am, and how terribly I’m coping.