by Dixon
Forty-One
A few weeks later…
The cemetery was littered with brown frosted leaves, the many glittering fragments shining brilliantly in the wintry light. Today there was no wind, no rain, nor cloud, just sub-zero temperatures. Even the stems of the leaves lay white and sharp. The path meandering throughout the well-kept grass glistened in the early morning sun like white quartz, the concrete dusted in shimmering ice crystals.
All that beauty over everything dead.
Clouds of white rose into the air from Nate’s lips as he gathered with a crowd of people around a grave and stared down at the casket being lowered into the earth. His expression was stoic, feeling nothing inside apart from the gaping void in his chest, while others visibly showed their raw pain. The two Archer girls, Heather and Suzannah, embraced one another in silent screams of anguish and there wasn’t a single dry face—not even from Mr. Archer as he stood before the mourners to give his goodbye speech.
“As many of you know, the woman being buried here today wasn’t just my co-worker,” Tom spoke loud and clear despite the obvious quiver to his voice. “In every sense, she was what a father wanted in a daughter. She was someone that brought joy into every one of our lives and will forever remain in our hearts.” With cheeks glistening with tears, he tossed a single rose on top of the coffin before his two girls followed suit by dropping their own in as well.
As Little Archer’s trembling hand covered her sobs, Nate’s jaw twitched as he tried to remain composed. He wanted to stay strong and be a supportive rock today, but it was hard not to think of the lively and tenacious woman lying at rest in that black box. It wasn’t sadness that plagued him as much as it was the vengeful anger at the innocent woman being taken far too soon.
She didn’t deserve this.
His nostrils flared with emotion just as icy fingers laced through his own, pulling him back from the brink of an outburst and reaffirming that he had to keep it together today.
“You don’t have to say anything if you feel you can’t,” he whispered down to the best friend in mourning, however, the woman was already strutting awkwardly towards the side of the grave upon two crutches, defiant as ever and mustering strength from God only knew where.
“Samantha Eastley was more than just my friend,” Ava announced with a splitting voice as she sniffed back the tears that ran down her face like two waterfalls and gathered in the seam of her pale, cracked lips. “Most people believe that they are given one soul mate in life, one person they are destined to meet that will complete and guide them. She was it for me. Samantha completed me in ways that transcends words, she was my north star. In every sense of the meaning, Sam was my soul sister.” She looked up at Nate with red bleary eyes, taking strength from his encouraging nod that helped her to push the words out of her trembling lips that twitched into a melancholic smile. “If Sam were here today, she would have wanted me to say something wholly inappropriate right now,” she scoffed, her throat feeling tight as though splinters of her heart were forever lodged there. “But I wasn’t the funny one in our relationship. She was the one always making people laugh, whether that be with some rude Scottish turn of phrase, some crude innuendo or anecdote, she always brought joy to everyone’s day.
“I believe that when good people pass, they leave in us a part of their goodness, and in that way, forever live on in us. Even today, a day of pain and sadness, of frustration and anger, we can all feel it and want to reach out for that goodness, and to have the memory of our Sam keep our broken souls burning bright.” Her words brought on sad smiles from the small crowd as she turned her attention down to the grave. “So, I’m sorry, Sammy, but I can’t do you justice by making some wise-crack comment today. All I can say is that I will forever be grateful for everything you have done for me and you’ll be sorely missed.” She tossed a single pink peony flower, her friend’s favourite, into the grave and wept. “Goodbye, my lass, I will always love you.”
Long after the funeral had ended and the crowd had dispersed, Ava remained in place, alone by her friend’s grave, peering down at the letters etched into the white stone.
She had spent days in denial over the unspeakable events that had transpired. It sickened Ava that she was the one who got to live, that even Charlotte Forbes got to see the sunrise every morning, albeit through bars, while Sam rotted in the ground.
All that pain and suffering plagued Ava every single night with the same reoccurring nightmare of her best friend dying in her arms only to wake up and realise she was living this hell. The dream itself was a memory, vividly crafted down to the minutest of details to torture Ava, and it always started and ended the same way as it did in real life.
I can hear the wail of sirens echo far into the distance, painfully aware of the gun being pointed to my forehead and knowing that any hope for my soul was just that little bit too late and out of reach. My eyes are scrunched up so tightly that the twinkling of stars blinks across the black canvas of my vision.
The bang of gunfire cracks the air in front of me and penetrates my ears, rattling my skull as my breath hitches in my throat before a mass of weight suddenly tumbles down in front of me. Confusion twists my stomach as I nervously open my eyes and look down at my best friend curled up in a ball.
Why is Sammy on my lap?
When I peer up at Charlotte, the lack of certainty increases as I see the alarm on her face, the gun she is holding still pointed straight at me. I don’t feel fear, nor do I even flinch as the woman’s finger aimlessly begins curling back on the trigger only for it to click repeatedly against an empty cylinder. All I feel is confusion and I’m not sure if that has anything to do with the amount of blood leaking through the hole in my leg.
“S-Sam?” I falter, dread turning my bones to winter and my blood to ice as I carefully peel my friend’s arms away from her body. “Sammy?!” A flash of red covers her chest, blood seeping from the bullet hole and spreading like wildfire over her shirt.
“H-hurts…” she croaks, her chest trembling every time she inhales as though her body was rejecting oxygen.
“Why did you do that? You shouldn’t have done that! Why?!” I yap with panic thrashing my insides as I compress the wound to reduce the blood loss, but as I look up, I see Charlotte picking up Peter’s gun and aiming it at us again. All I want to do is open my mouth and scream vengeance from my lungs until this woman shatters into a million pieces and leaves us alone. However, before I can, the thunder of several feet running towards us grows louder until the law enforcement rounds the corner of pallets and barks at Charlotte to lower her weapon.
“Ye ken…yer ma…best pal, ae?” Sam struggles, stealing my attention as I hold her close in my arms like a mother swaddling their child, but there is so much blood, warm and watery as it slips between my fingers like the grains of sand in an hourglass.
“Last warning, drop it now!”
Gunfire opens, a series of short, sharp bursts that brings Charlotte to her knees before her face meets the ground.
“Do you think…the NHS will give me a free…boob job…for this?” The words splutter from Sam’s lips, wheezes of air struggling to pass through her lips that are turning an alarming shade of blue.
“Only you would crack jokes at a time like this, you cunt!” I blurt out through nervous laughter that causes clear domes of emotion to well up on the surface of my eyes.
“Scottish cunt,” she corrects me, however, suddenly begins convulsing in my arms as blood splutters from her lips.
“Sam?!” I shriek, quickly turning her onto her side to stop her choking, but as I do, liquid life is pouring also from the exit hole in her back and her eyes are beginning to flutter as though her consciousness was slipping. “Why are you just standing there? I need a medic now!” I scream at the officers through my tears before pulling my best friend closer to my body as if that will somehow protect her. “Don’t you bloody dare leave me! Come on, Sam, hang in there, just a little longer!” And she does, my determi
ned wee lass opens her eyes and looks up at me even if the blood continued to splutter from her cold lips. “You can’t leave me, I need you. We’re soul sisters for life, remember?”
The worst feeling in the world is feeling helpless, to feel all hope drain from your body, that sinking feeling in your stomach as your brain logically decides the odds are not in your favour.
Despair was all I felt as Sam opened her eyes for the last time, her trembling lips stained like two rose petals sat upon a frozen blue lake. It was then that my best friend uttered one word with her last breath. One word that would forever be etched into my soul and haunt me until my dying day.
“Always.”
Forty-Two
Weeks went by like the turning of a page for Nate. Autumn had faded into a cold winter as snow blanketed the ground and stripped the remaining life clinging to the trees.
In that time, he had stayed at Ava’s apartment, caring for her as she mourned the loss of her friend and struggled with daily tasks due to her leg injury.
He believed that when Sam died, she took with her a part of Ava. It killed him to see her like this, a walking shell of a woman, a ghost that spent her days silently in front of her bay window staring outside or down at her cell phone replaying videos of her friend’s laugh.
He could never fully understand the pain and torment she felt, how hard it must have been for her with the daily reminders on the news about her friend’s death, the goddamn media banging at her door for a statement from the blonde girl in the Facebook video.
God, it must have been hell for her.
The worst part was feeling completely useless, trying everything in his power to ease her discomfort such as helping her into a bath every night, preparing her hot meals, and then encouraging her to actually eat those meals. He supported her throughout the gruelling physiotherapy even when her outlook was poor and that she’d likely remain on a walking stick for the rest of her days—a walking stick that she refused to use despite his incessant nagging.
It wasn’t lost on him that in those few weeks he had cared for her in a way that any husband should care for their wife—another sick joke made by the universe.
He was patient with her healing, not just physical but mental healing. She needed a friend, God did she need a friend right now, and his shoulder was there no matter the time of day or night. Nate gave her space, crashing on her couch and suffering the neck ache for it.
Each night, he found himself falling into the same routine: running into her room at exactly 3 a.m. as she cried out for her friend. His body had become so used to it that it naturally woke him up just before the clock struck three.
However, tonight was different. There was no crying, no screaming, only an unsettling silence that shrouded the apartment. He lay awake staring at the clock on the fireplace reading 03:26 just as the floorboards creaked behind him as bare feet stumbled towards him on the couch.
“Ava, is everything alright?” He shot upright, ripping the blanket from him as he turned to see her, his heart melting on the spot. Ava wandered closer to him, her casted leg dragging behind her and her hair a bird’s nest of unruly golden curls. She looked adorable with that comforter swaddled around her, so tiny and innocent, childlike. “Did you have a bad dream again?” he asked and frowned when she shook her head. “Then what’s wrong?”
“I didn’t see her tonight,” she mumbled with her bottom lip trembling.
Nate knew straightaway what she meant. She would rather the painful experience of dreaming of her friend dying than not seeing her at all.
“Come here, sweetheart,” he sighed softly, coaxing her to lie down on top of him and grimacing at the noise she made at the discomfort her leg gave her. She never admitted she was in pain, but he knew better. As she nestled her face into his white cotton tee his heart sang a symphony for it was the most intimate they had been in weeks.
“It should have been me.”
“What?” He craned his head back to peer down at her.
“This is my fault. Sam received the death penalty and all I suffered was nerve damage and a fractured femur. She didn’t deserve this. She wasn’t even closely involved in the Forbes mess.”
“No one deserved any of this, Ava,” he sighed with his arm wrapping around her small frame as he smoothed her hair.
“Did I ever tell you what Jenson Forbes asked Sam just before she died, Nate?” He knew it was a rhetorical question so remained silent and waited on her to continue. “He asked her how far she would go for love…” She peeked her head up to look at him, tears trickling down her face that he caught with his thumb. “But I never thought she would go as far as this and I can’t live with it, Nate. I can’t live knowing she’s gone, and I get to stay!”
After all this time, Nate thought that seeing Ava cry would get easier, but it still managed to reach inside his chest and squeeze the life out of his heart.
“No, beautiful. You’re looking at it the wrong way,” he soothed, cupping her face with both hands so she looked at him. “You’re right, you do get to live, and that isn’t a burden but a gift, Ava. If Sam were here, you know for a fact that she would tell you to get up and start living your life to the fullest. She’d want you to live the shit outta each and every day.”
“Oh, I know what she’d tell me. She’d tell me to stop being a dramatic cow and get off my tinky arse and wear something other than her onesie!” Ava laughed through her misery.
“Yeah, she’d no doubt have something to say about you sniffing her dirty laundry as well,” Nate chuckled, his face lighting up for the first time in weeks to see her attempt to let the joy back into her life. It was like he had managed to find a flicker of light trying to break through all of the darkness his girl was drowning in.
“I miss her so fucking much, Nate.”
“I know, sweetheart. I didn’t know her as well as you, but I miss her too.”
“The worst part isn’t the fact that my friend died in my arms…it was seeing her suffer. It’s knowing that her future will forever be an unwritten chapter, that she will never receive her promotion at work, never laugh again, and cease to exist in this world.”
“I can’t imagine what you’re going through. I feel like a fool for how I acted that night. I should have got to you sooner,” Nate confessed and watched her face twist in confusion. “That night…I went to your apartment looking for you when your neighbour told me you left with Peter. I’ve never felt heartbreak as bad as that. I thought you didn’t want me—”
“That’s not—”
“It’s fine, I know…but I didn’t at the time and I ended up in a bar drinking my problems and I found out all too late just how goddamn foolish I was,” he groaned, slumping back onto the sofa as he stared at the ceiling.
“You couldn’t have possibly known,” she protested, her legs straddling his sides as she sat up and reached for his face to turn him to look at her. “Tell me you don’t blame yourself for any of this.”
“I…”
“Nate, none of this is your fault! It’s no one’s fault! Who could have possibly known how twisted and wicked those fucking Forbeses were, or how manipulative and convincing that redheaded cunt was! If it is anyone’s fault it is theirs!” she attested, receiving raised eyebrows from him and suddenly realising that what she just said applied to herself as well.
“You should take your own advice…” He gave her a sweet smile, reaching up to brush her curls from her face before pulling her down so he could plant a loving kiss on her forehead. “Get some sleep.”
Ava nodded and settled back down onto his chest, taking comfort from the soothing song of his heart echoing in her ears. She realised that all the tears she cried kept her soul alive in the furnace of this pain, but they also helped clean and repair the soul. The only problem was…Sam was the other half of her soul, and no amount of time nor healing could ever make her feel whole again.
Nate awoke the next morning to the smell of burning that caused him to jump uprigh
t and look around for Ava, who was nowhere to be found.
“Ava?!” he called out in alarm as he rushed towards the source of the smell.
“Sorry…I’m not really the best at baking…” Ava fretted, stood in front of the stove, fully dressed in clothes for the first time in nearly a month.
For a moment, Nate just stood there gawking at the grey knitted dress fitted to her curvaceous figure. Even with the white cast wrapped around her leg, she still managed to knock him on his ass with her beauty.
“Baking? What are you…oh—” He paused, seeing the black circle stuck to the frying pan and laughed. “I wouldn’t qualify pancakes as baking, sweetheart.”
“Well it is, look! Eggs, flour, sugar, and one of these whisk thingies!”
“An eggbeater, yes.” He covered his smirk with his hand and watched as she grew more and more flustered.
“Oh, bugger off, you know what I mean!” Ava huffed, flicking the utensil at him, and gasping as pancake batter flicked across his face in creamy splatters. “I am so sorry, let me clean that up for yaah—!” she shrieked as Nate suddenly picked her up and set her down on the kitchen counter.
“That was incredibly naughty, Ms. Archer,” he tutted, running the tip of his finger through the batter before licking it off and waving his index back and forth in front of her face.
“It was an accident…”
“Oh, really?” He smirked, standing between her legs as his knuckles pressed down on the counter.
“Yep, but this isn’t!” she blurted as she blew flour into his face, her hair tumbling down her back as she tipped her head back and laughed.
“Oh, you’re dead…” Nate growled as he gripped her hips tight and tugged.
“No-no-no! Invalid remember!” she protested as she pointed down to her thigh, watching his eyes soften from their scowl.