78. Dollie—present day #2
Tears fill my eyes, and so many fall as I blink in the shock of those words. The choking feeling in my throat returns. My mouth drops open, but I don’t suck in air. I don’t even breathe. I tremble, the phone moving to and from my ear.
“Ms. La’Darragh, are you there?”
My breathing picks up, too many breaths coming out in a rush. Words stammer out, “What? No? No! He was fine when I left. I left like twenty minutes ago. He was fine.”
“He was fine, but there was a clot we were unaware of.”
“No. He’s fine. HE’S FINE!” I can’t believe otherwise. “I need to speak to Ambrose. Put him on the phone. I need to speak with him now. I have to speak?—”
“Ms. La’Darragh?—”
“NO. You’re not listening to me! I need to speak to him now!”
“Unfortunately, the blood clot traveled and resulted in a heart attack.”
“No. He is not dead. He’s not. He can’t be dead because he wouldn’t do that to me. He wouldn’t just go and leave me here all alone. He wouldn’t do that!”
“I’m terribly sorry?—”
My shaking worsens, and I drop my phone to the dirty floor.
“He’s not gone.” I sink to the ground, onto my knees, seeing the wet patches there from all the sadness flowing from me. I know I’m not audible when I pull my phone close and say, “He wouldn’t leave me. He wouldn’t just give up without me.”
I sniffle, but it’s not enough to stop my snot from running over my mouth and down my chin.
“Bring him back. I’m begging you, please bring him back.”
“I’m so sorry for your loss. Do you have someone who can be with you at this?—”
A scream attacks my throat, vacating from the deepest part inside me. So loud, my voice breaks, and it turns into a whisper.
Bubbles comes rushing in, Nyx following her.
“Dollancie, what is it?”
I throw my phone into the distance, and it bounces off Nyx’s hard chest. Another scream runs up my throat as I push up onto my feet and attack all my favorite things, kicking everything from around the chaise and dragging furniture around like it’ll make me feel better.
I stomp the chaise with a soiled foot. I kick at the stack of hoodies I have behind it.
I pound at the walls, at my magic supplies, at my aching heart as I will it to stop.
The silent screams drag on, hurting my already pained throat as I fall back to the floor, surrounded by the mess I’ve made.
Bubbles barks, constantly, my anxiety triggering something inside her and releasing her own. Every time her mouth opens, my nerves squeeze that bit tighter, and I want to destroy something else.
I push at her mouth, hoping to silence her. I fail, and she keeps barking and howling.
“Get her away from me! She’s too loud.”
Picking up my phone, Nyx grabs Bubbles’ collar as he stands, leading her back into the yard. He closes the door, locking her out. She doesn’t pester the men this time. She paws at the door to get back in. The noise from her feet and mouth torments me.
It’s too much. Too loud with all the noise already in my head.
I can’t block it out.
I can’t escape all the painful thoughts of Ambrose not being here to read with me and cuddle under the covers in my dome.
The few memories we had on the sofa call to me as I step into the kitchen behind Nyx.
My future Ambrose had never been promised, but having it ripped away, my heart that belongs to him goes with it.
Giving up on shushing Bubbles, Nyx spins around to me at the sink, the biggest kitchen knife I own in hand.
“Dollancie!” He places my phone down on the breakfast table, next to the mess Shane left there this morning, and he holds his hands up. “Don’t!”
I angle the blade inward toward my sternum.
“Dollancie! Stop, stop, stop!”
“I just can’t live without him, Nyx.”
“Who said you have to?”
“He’s gone.” Even the words hurt me. “And I can’t do this.”
With quaking hands, I retract the blade enough to build force and bring it back to my body with the speed I’ll need to break through skin and muscle and the pumping organ in my chest that’s already broken.
Nyx’s rough hands wrap around my wrist, preventing the giant kitchen knife from piercing my sternum.
It’s so close, my pajama shirt tears as I breathe out.
“Dollancie, give me the knife.”
I shake my head, sweaty palms wrapped tightly around the pink-painted handle.
“Come on, give me the knife, and we’ll call the hospital together.” Nyx’s fingers weave between mine, breaking my connection to the blade that falls through my grip and to the floor.
His soiled work boot kicks it away as I scurry to retrieve it.
“No, don’t.” He pulls me into his chest and whispers, “Just take a minute to tell me what happened.”
His heart thumps next to my ear. Contracted workers stare through the window at my meltdown. The fear on some faces doesn’t faze me. Neither does the judgment on the others.
“Come on, tell me what happened?” Nyx’s hand moves on my back, encouraging me to talk, to relax.
“The hospital called. They said he’s gone.” And I can’t breathe because of it. I sob, and I muffle the airless cries by turning into Nyx.
“But Annabelle is still there. She’d have called.” He rubs my back again until a breath slips out.
Taking a hand from my body, Nyx picks up my phone from the table and unlocks it. My call history shows the word UNKNOWN at the top, glaring back at us both from the screen.
Failing to return a call to that number, he pulls out a chair for me and places me in it.
The knife calls to me again, in these most painful minutes of my life, where every struggle for breath comes out with unstoppable sobbing.
A quick online search gives him the number to our local hospital.
The call connects, and the ringing becomes the reason for the sweat on my brow.
“Please, don’t make me hear them say it again,” I beg, eyes still on the knife.
“Dollancie, all those people out there, it could be a hoax. Annabelle would know if something had happened. I literally just spoke with her.” He pulls out the chair next to me and falls into it.
“No one has my number, Nyx.”
“Hi, yes,” Nyx says into the phone as someone picks up on the other side. “I need to speak with someone in the emergency department, thank you.”
A few minutes pass. Long, slow, and painful minutes where I try to catch my breath, try to hold on to the hope that this isn’t real. That Ambrose is here.
“Hello. My name is Nyx, and my friend was brought in this morning. Ambrose La’Darragh. I’m here with his sister, who believes she just got a call from you. I’m gonna put you on speaker.” Nyx clicks the button. “Can you please confirm this? And if he’s okay? She’s very distressed.”
A young female voice replies, “His doctor actually just passed by. Mr. La’Darragh is currently under evaluation, but I don’t see any record of a call in our system. One moment, please.”
“Thank you.”
More silent minutes pass. My hand slides into Nyx’s, holding tight. Too tight.
“I was mean to Bubbles,” I break the silence.
“She’ll forgive you.”
“Hi, hello, Nyx?” the hospital staff member’s young voice returns. “The hospital hasn’t made any calls, and Mr. La’Darragh is okay, but he is still with the psychologist. We can pass along a message for when they’re done.”
“Just that Dollancie’s waiting for him. Thank you.” Nyx hangs up the phone and places it on the table.
“You did see that someone called, right? I don’t know what’s even real anymore.”
“I did, and I’m gonna maybe step out of line here, but if you were my sister, I’d want someone to tell you.
You need to cut ties with Shane. If no one else has your phone number, it could only be him.
I saw you earlier, the fear in your eyes.
I hated that you told me to go. I saw the look in his. He is a very dangerous man.”
With that said, my phone pings, vibrating across the table.
We both glance at the message from Shane, telling me we need to talk.
“I’m not answering that.”
“I don’t think you should answer him ever again.”
Another ping, and I’m ready to block him, but the message isn’t from him. I swipe his name away, leaving only Lucky on the screen.
My heart flutters as I open the message.
It isn’t Lucky—my Ambrose—but it’s another confirmation that he’s okay.
Lucky:
Enough with the mushy shit until we hand his phone back.
Start counting down those hours. You have forty-eight of them until he’s all yours. – Valaria.