3. Veronica
3
VERONICA
T he muffled hum of voices. The soft beeping of a machine. The dull distant click of heels on tile. The sharp scent of antiseptic. Where am I?
My head feels heavy, like it’s filled with wet sand, and every inch of my body aches, a deep, bone-deep kind of pain that makes me want to sink back down into the darkness.
“…still no ID?” The voice is close. A woman in the same room as me.
“Nothing,” another voice replies. A man. “Been unconscious for a month. No one’s come looking in that time. No wedding ring. No result on the prints. Nothing.”
A month? My heart lurches though my body can’t move. A whole month? What happened to me? Am I in hospital?
“Who brought her in?” the woman asks.
“Get this. Some guy out sailing apparently saw her and jumped in, pulled her to shore. Waited with her for the ambulance but left before anyone could get his name.”
“Who the fuck is out sailing at four in the morning?”
“Someone up to no good.”
“Well, that’d explain why he didn’t hang around. What do you think?”
“My money’s still on attempted suicide.”
My chest tightens. I want to scream, to shout that they’re wrong, that I didn’t jump. But my body won’t cooperate. My throat feels like it’s been sandpapered, and even opening my eyes feels impossible.
“Maybe,” the woman says. “I’ve seen cases like this before. No friends, no family. Would make sense. Guessing she had nothing to live for.”
Nothing to live for.
The words hit like a slap. My parents are gone, and I’ve never let anyone get close enough to care apart from Elena.
Who’s Elena?
I wrack my brains, forcing thoughts to come forward.
Elena. My best friend.
It all comes back to me at once.
I try to shift, to move my hand, my foot, anything to show them I’m awake. Pain slices through my chest, and my body feels like it’s weighted down with lead.
I open my mouth to tell them to call Elena. She’ll be looking for me. She’ll be beside herself with worry. I need her here. Need to tell her to get her husband to rip Marco’s fucking head off.
The effort of trying to speak is too much. The darkness pulls me back down, but this time, it’s filled with long forgotten memories.
I’m eight years old again, standing in the doorway of my parents’ bedroom. The air smells like it always does, a thick, cloying mix of alcohol and stale perfume.
My dad is slumped on the bed, his head in his hands, his shoulders shaking from the crying. Mom’s suitcase is open on the floor, half-packed with clothes.
“You’re just going to leave?” my dad says, his voice cracked and broken. “Walk away from your only child like a coward?”
“I can’t do this anymore,” Mom snaps, shoving another dress into the suitcase. “I’m not her babysitter, James. And I’m sure as hell not going to waste the rest of my life with some loser who wants to control me. I’m done.”
“You’re right, you’re not her babysitter. You’re her fucking mother.”
I’m frozen behind the doorway, my breath caught in my chest. They don’t hear me.
“You have a daughter who needs you,” Dad continues, his voice rising. “What am I supposed to tell her? Sorry, your mom chose the booze over you, kiddo?”
My mom doesn’t even pause. “She’ll be fine. Kids are tough these days.”
“She needs her mother.”
“Yeah, well I don’t need her. My life has sucked since she came along.”
She storms out of the room. She sees me standing frozen in the hall. For a moment she looks like she’ll say something. Then she walks straight past me.
The slam of the door shakes the walls, and I’m left alone, listening to my dad cry.
I’m thirteen. My dad is in his hospital bed, pale and gaunt. The cancer has eaten away at him, leaving behind a hollow shell of the man I used to know.
“Don’t cry, kiddo,” he whispers, his voice thin and rasping. “I’ll be home soon enough.”
I shake my head, clutching his hand like it’s the only thing tethering me to the world. “No, you won’t,” I say, my voice breaking. “Not this time.”
He smiles, but it’s weak and fleeting. “What animal can work an MRI machine?”
I shrug. “Please, Dad. Don’t. Not now.”
“Cat’s can.” He laughs and blood trickles from his mouth. “Geddit? Cat scan, cat’s can?”
“I love you Dad,” I reply, my heart breaking in two as I squeeze his hand.
He dies that night, and I stop believing in happy endings.
I’m sixteen, sitting on the floor of my bedroom, surrounded by stacks of books. My school backpack is abandoned in the corner, along with the unfinished math homework I’m supposed to be working on. My foster parents are yelling at each other in the kitchen. Again.
I tune them out, losing myself in the pages of an old paperback, the kind with a creased spine and yellowing pages. I look at the cover. Jane Eyre.
If they come in, they’ll tell me books are for losers. So I hide under the blankets, reading by the flickering flashlight, batteries dying. Again.
Books are safe. They don’t leave. They don’t die. They don’t tell you they love you one minute and walk out the next. They’re the same every single time. Predictable. Safe. Everything I want but can’t have.
I decide I want to open my own bookstore. A place where people like me can find an escape. A place where it’s okay to disappear into someone else’s story for a while.
The stove top. Marco holding my arm against me. Screaming. The smell of burning flesh. Me begging him to stop. His grip, so tight. The pain is too much. I sink back down into the darkness.