After You Died
Page 9
The flies buzz loudly around me. In the distance, I can hear the laughs and the screams from the pool. Sweat has soaked through my shirt, it clings to me like a sticky second skin. As nice as it’d be to fall face first into that pool, I’ve got work to do.
I move from stall to stall to check on each of the horses. Nothing has ever made me feel as good as being around horses, it makes the persistent throb from my face fade into the background. This was always my escape, how I healed after fights with my dad. They’re skinnier than the horses my family breeds, but that will change once I start feeding them. On each stall door there are names scratched, my favorite of the horses is Ginger. She’s a sweet, rust colored Arabian. She reminds me of Lady, my favorite horse from home.
Halfway through cleaning, the sun dips toward the horizon. Sayid leans up against the stall and watches me for a few minutes, but doesn’t say anything. He holds out a pack of cigarettes, I take one. I wince as I slip the cigarette between my lips, the filter brushes up against a cut.
“Who happened to your face?” he finally asks, his eyes appraising me, like he might be able to tell who did it, if only he stares long enough.
“Becks and his cronies,” I say as I shrug.
He shakes his head and looks down, “Seriously? He’s such an asshole. One of those dogs that has to piss on everything to prove it’s his. I’m not surprised, though, after how long you took this morning.”
“Yeah,” I say, the scrape of my shovel hitting the ground cuts the air. “You could have warned me.”
“You going to be alright?” He takes a step closer to look at my wounds and touches my arm. His warmth seems to meld into my own, my arm tingles in response. My eyes linger on his lips.
“I’ll live,” I shrug. It’s not that bad, I wave him away. I’m not about to go to see the nurse over something as trivial as a fat lip and a couple black eyes. Though the wounds pulse every few minutes to remind me of their existence, my dad has put me in far worse states.
“You should probably steer clear of him,” he warns, he crosses his arms as he talks. “Becks can do a lot worse than this, rumor is, he has.” His face is flat, the color drained. I’m not sure how he manages to keep up appearances around him, if he’s this scared.
“How does that kid not end up in the white house for his handiwork?” I ask. Last I checked, fighting was firmly in the against the rules category.
“Know how I told you about those privileged few?” he asks and takes a drag from his cigarette.
I nod.
“Well, if the others are privileged, Becks would be their king.”
I shake my head. “Of course.” It doesn’t surprise me in the least.
“I’m pretty sure his father’s money lines the pockets of every single guard in this place,” Sayid says as his eyes scan the trees.
“Any idea what his dad does?” I ask.
“Something about rifles, or some kind of guns,” he shrugs. “I’ve heard someone mention it, but I didn’t really pay attention.”
Hopefully he hasn’t smuggled guns into Dozier. Keeping yourself out of the white house is one thing. Guns would be much, much worse.
Sayid flicks his cigarette to the ground, he digs in his pockets for another. The lull in the conversation reminds me of the favor I wanted to ask. If I don’t want to lose my nerve, I’ll have to ask fast.
I stop shoveling for a moment to look at him.
“I need another favor.” The words are easier to get out this time, all the adrenaline in my blood makes it hard to feel anything other than the buzzing.
“My, my. Another? Already? I haven’t even gotten the letter in the mail.” His tone makes it obvious that he’s joking, but I don’t laugh.
I’m going to owe him big for this one, I know it. And the price is going to be far too high for me to ever pay. But whatever the cost is to see Eden, it will be worth it. “I need you to arrange a meeting with my sister.”
His eyes nearly bug out of his head. He crosses his arms, and I see a familiar look on his face. I know it well, I’ve seen it on Eden’s face many times: determination. This isn’t a normal request, because of that I think he might be more likely to help me. Hopefully, he likes a challenge.
“That’s going to be a tough one.” He starts to pace, his eyes tightened in thought.
“Is it even possible?” I ask.
“Anything is possible.” He stops pacing to smile at me. “It’s going to take a few days to coordinate, but I think I can make it happen.”
I swallow hard, “And what will I owe you?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know, I’ll think about it. Want to get dinner?”
I prop my arms up on the handle of the shovel. Becks must have knocked me out for a while if I missed lunch, even the bell hadn’t woken me up. But I’m not hungry.
“I’ll pass.” Even if I was hungry, I’d probably still avoid the cafeteria. I don’t want to explain my face, and I don’t want to see Becks. It occurs to me, if it’s nearly time for dinner, that means I need to hurry to see Dr. Lennox.
“Suit yourself,” Sayid says and shrugs before walking away.
I turn and notice he left a pack of cigarettes sitting on the stable wall. For a moment I stare at them. I can’t keep them, as much as I might want to. He’s almost out of the stables. I grab them and run after him.
I hold them up and call out, “Hey, you forgot something.”
He looks back long enough to say, “No, I didn’t.”
After
I rush from the stables to see Dr. Lennox. I’m late, but I hope that he’ll still see me. When I burst through the door, the receptionist doesn’t bother to look at me, instead he waves me back, nose buried in a magazine. The clock on the wall tells me that I’m only fifteen minutes late. That should still be long enough for a session, and not so long that I can’t talk my way out of it.
“I’m sorry I’m late,” I say as I open the door.
Dr. Lennox waits for me, sitting in one of the arm chairs with a notepad in his lap. He’s wearing a gray suit with a light plaid pattern on it. Beside him on the small glass table, is a glass filled with an amber liquid.
He nods, but doesn’t say anything. Instead he eyes my face, and I’m not sure if he’s staring at my wounds from the fight, or if his cloudy eyes can even see them from this distance.
We exchange small talk before he finally asks, “How are you doing today?”
“Not so good,” I admit.
“Oh?” he asks, but he doesn’t bother to grab his notepad.
“I need some answers, and I think there’s only one way to get them,” I say, my voice far more sure and steady than I expect it to be. Deep down, I need to know what happened that night. But the thought also terrifies me. It haunts me. Whatever thoughts my mind has locked down so deep could tell me that I’m a killer, that I did it. And that would mean that I’m capable of doing it again.
“Are you sure you’re ready to try regression therapy?” he asks.
I’ve toyed with the idea for a couple weeks now. In our meetings we’ve discussed my home life, the friends I had, my relationship with Olivia—but none of that is going to give me answers. Those are the things I already know.
“Yes.” My stomach leaps as the word slips out of me. My nerves nag at me, and I can’t help but wonder if I will be able to handle the truth hidden in my mind.
“You understand that sometimes the visions may not be completely accurate, but may instead have some symbolic meaning?” he says. This is at least the tenth time he’s told me this. “What you could see might end up being worse than nightmares. It could also cause other memories to return, or resurface.”
“I understand,” I say again. It’s not like my brain could really get much worse.
He hesitates, and narrows his eyes. I can tell by the way he’s looking at me, he doesn’t think it’s a good idea.
“Please,” I plead. I have to know, I have to try.
“I’ll need you to lie on the couch,” he rel
ents.
I lean back on the couch, the leather is cold against my skin.
“Close your eyes,” he instructs. “Count back from ten slowly, at ten, your arms and legs will begin to relax.”
“Ten,” I whisper, but I feel nothing.
“Nine, your thoughts will become lighter.”
“Nine,” I whisper, and something prickles at the back of my mind.
“Eight, slowly the rest of your body will become lighter, weightless.”
“Eight,” I say as my eyelids flutter. It feels like I’m slipping away.
“Seven, all the tension, all the tethers to this world will begin to fade away,” he whispers.
After seven, my mind blurs. His instructions seem to drift away, mingled within my fuzzy mind. The next thing I remember is him telling me to imagine a bridge with mist on the other side. Slowly, he instructs me to cross the bridge, and beyond it I’ll find the memories I’m searching for. I cross the misty bridge, and then slowly, I begin to descend into darkness.
The engine of the car rumbles, sputters, and vibrates until my left foot falls asleep. Droplets of rain bomb the hood of my dad’s brand new Cadillac. Olivia is cuddled up against me, sitting on the small hump of a seat in the middle. My dad will kill me if he finds out I took his car tonight, but her smile makes it worth it. No matter what my punishment, at least I’ll have my memories.
“What do you think our lives will be like after we’re out of school?” She tilts her head slightly when she asks, but she’s still pressed against my side. Her warmth spreads through me.
“I’m not sure.” I have countless fantasies about how I’d like our lives to play out, in all of which she’s my wife, but I’m not about to tell her that and embarrass myself. “What do you want life to be like?”
She sits up, her face stern, she’s thinking about it. For the briefest of moments, I look at her, hanging onto the silence. In that moment, there’s enough time for me to imagine every word I’d like her to say. She chews her lip so hard, I can almost hear it. The moonlight hitting the raindrops on the windshield casts a glow on her face; the way it twists, it’s a dance.
My eyes dart back to the road. The headlights flood the street, but there’s a dark figure. Someone standing in the middle of the road. My body moves instinctively, jerking the wheel. While I was looking away, we’d started to cross the Sharpe’s ferry bridge on my route from Ocala to Howey-in-the-hills.
Rain collects on the bridge, I’m going too fast. I can’t pull the car out of the spin. We spin over and over, bouncing off the metal railing until a portion gives way. We hit the water, and Olivia hits the dashboard face first. Metal groans and aches, the water hisses as it pours into the gaps in the frame. I reach out, grabbing onto Olivia as I release my seat belt. She’s limp, lifeless as a ragdoll, blood pours down her face. Most of her blonde hair looks red.
As the water pours in, I pull her toward the open window. The car lurches forward as it starts to sink. I wedge my foot against the dash to steady myself as the water rushes over the windshield, I push the door open. My mouth fills with the taste of the swamp. I breathe in the water, and darkness takes me.
I’m gulping the air when my eyes open. Tears burn my eyes, even though I know it wasn’t real. I know it was a false vision like Dr. Lennox spoke about. But it doesn’t make the pain of watching her die fade. Dr. Lennox waits for me to sit up. His face is heavy, he’s as disappointed as I am. Why can’t my mind just cooperate?
“That can’t be what happened,” I finally say.
“Like I said, your mind may not give us the truth easily. You still aren’t ready to deal with what really happened that night. Your mind might slowly release parts of the truth, eventually you’ll be able to piece together what happened,” he says, in a comforting voice. “We’ll try again in a few days.”
After
For three days, I’ve been walking around like a zombie. Counting down the hours, minutes, seconds until I get to see Eden. Every part of me wants to go running into the woods until I find her. But I know she won’t be there yet. Though I try to shovel the stalls, and take care of the horses, a slug with a sprained ankle would have been able to do a better job than I have today. My eyes have spent more time searching the tree line than focused on my work.
The afternoon sunlight streams into the stables, and I swear when it starts to set, I can feel it. Excitement and anticipation bubbles up inside me in a nauseating mix. Ginger snorts at me again. She’s at least a welcome distraction. I lean the shovel against the stall wall, and scratch her beneath her jaw. Her skin twitches happily, and she closes her eyes. Sayid jogs up behind me, and I can hear the disgust seep out of him in a sigh. It’s obvious the way he looks at horses, he hates them, he looks at them like most people would look at rats.
“As soon as the dinner bell rings, we’re going to head into the woods,” he says as he leans against one of the support posts, taking slow drags from a cigarette. “They’re meeting us near the edge of the property, close to Marianna.”
I nod, and give Ginger a final scratch before leaning against the stall wall. She rests her head on my shoulder and watches Sayid. It feels familiar, like being stuck between parents that aren’t getting along.
“Are we going to be able to make it out there in time?” Dozier has a lot of acreage, it seems like a lot of land to cover in one night.
He shrugs. “I’ve done it before, once a week actually,” he smirks.
I look at him questioningly, then remember it must be part of how he gets things into the school.
Sayid drops his cigarette to the ground and extinguishes it with the toe of his shoe. “You know, we could run.” He says like he’s not really sure it’s a good idea. I’m not sure why he’d want to run, he just keeps coming back.
Every thought in my mind screeches to a halt. We could run. But I’m surprised that I don’t want to. There’s still work I have to do with Dr. Lennox to get my memories back, and I can’t leave until I know for sure. Deep down I know what will happen though. If I find out I killed her, I’ll leave here in a body bag. If I didn’t kill her, I’ll have to find who did.
“I can’t, not until I’m done with my sessions with Dr. Lennox,” I say. The very idea that there’s an end in sight, a day that isn’t five years away, it makes me feel lighter. One day we’ll run. But I have to know what happened to Olivia first.
“One day,” I promise.
He looks at me surprised, he probably thought I’d flat out refuse to leave. Sayid opens his mouth to speak, but the bell rings across the campus. Behind us, the sun seeps toward the horizon. I pat Ginger, and follow Sayid behind the stables toward the tree line. The way Sayid stomps through the woods I’m thankful that everyone else is having dinner. Otherwise, people a hundred yards away would probably hear us. As the final slivers of light are snuffed out by the darkness, his footsteps lighten.
“You want a cigarette?” he asks as he thrusts the pack toward me. “You look tense.”
I am tense, and nervous, and excited. There’s so much going on inside me all I can really feel is the prickle at the bottom of my stomach and the sweat growing on my neck. I’ve got so much energy bound up inside me, I want to sprint off into the woods as fast as I can. Without Eden I feel perpetually disoriented. Every day of my life has had her in it. It’s hard to exist without her around. But tonight, knowing I’ll see her—it’s like getting a lost piece of myself back.
“Yeah, sure, thanks man,” I say as I take one from him. He lights it for me, and smiles. It’s obvious that he’s waiting for me to smile back, I don’t; instead I keep walking.
“How old is Eden?” Sayid finally asks.
“Same age as me, eighteen,” I explain. “She’s technically a day older though.”
“Twins born on different days?” he asks confused. But I’m not thrown off by the confusion, Eden and I have dealt with it our whole lives. It’s not often you hear of twins at all, let alone twins born on different days.
He doesn’t say anything, occasionally he takes a slow drag from his cigarette, and the wind carries the smoke into my face. The ember at the end bobs along with each step he takes, like a lantern caught in the sea.
“Do you have any brothers or sisters?” I ask when I’m sick of hearing the thrumming of my heart in my ears.
“Nope,” he says quickly, his word as sharp as a dagger.
I know better than to ask, or pry any further. Instead, I follow along silently. Sayid has never offered up much information about himself. He locks everything inside, and I’m not the kind of person to pry. Secrets don’t bother me, silence is much easier to swallow. No one ever got hurt keeping their mouths shut.
Ahead of us, between the trees, I see flutters of white. The memory digs at me. In my peripheral vision I see Olivia running, only to disappear the second I turn my head to look at her. My breath catches each time she appears, and then escapes the second she’s gone.
If I had to guess, I’d say it took us forty hours of walking to make it to the clearing right outside Marianna. It’s probably more like a three-hour walk, but the way my feet ache, it might as well have been clear across the country. If Sayid wasn’t so spooked by horses, I’d have ridden Ginger out here.
“How will they know to find us here?” I ask as he takes a seat at the base of a large tree. I use my t-shirt to mop the sweat off my brow, neck. Dew clings to the strands of Spanish moss, when the moonlight catches them, it looks like they’re wet with blood.
“Gave them some landmarks, a house a couple blocks away, the huge willow tree right out there. Really, we’re watching for them, they won’t be able to see us in the trees,” he says as he points to the enormous willow tree that looms over the field beyond the tree line.