Chapter 14 I’m Losing It
I’m losing it
Aurora
How can you feel someone next to you when they’re not? I close my eyes, balling my fists to stop the slight tremor running through me.
I think I’m losing it.
First, I couldn’t remember when I filled my car to a full tank, then I swear the dishwasher broke last week, but when I came home the other day, I saw Betsy using it just fine. And I explicitly remember saying no to an ice cream Emett wanted at the store because we already have some at home…
Well, the next morning when I opened the freezer it was there, right smack in the middle.
And the most troubling one is that I feel him. I physically feel his presence almost every day. It’s fleeting. It doesn’t last longer than a few seconds, but I feel a rush of wind as it runs down my spine and my heart flutters nervously.
Can a person steal your sanity with just one kiss? Because that’s how it feels. It feels like I’ve lost all semblance of normal and control ever since Severin walked out the door.
A week, then two passed. One day flowing into another in a pattern of gray clouds and murky skies yet the touch of his lips wouldn’t vanish from mine no matter how hard I tried to forget that night.
I want to forget him. I need to forget him. After all, he did as I asked, he disappeared into the night, and we haven’t seen him since.
It’s for the better. I know it, he knows it, the whole universe knew it when it sent that thunder, tearing us apart. But it doesn’t make it any easier to just forget. Especially, when my son has been sitting in front of the window almost every day, waiting for Mr. Brick to come again.
He tricked Stella and me into coming to Blade’s more often than not. He even decided he wanted to try the figure skating class I teach three times a week, pretending he suddenly grew to like it when we all knew he was just making sure he wouldn’t miss Severin.
My heart broke a little more when I saw his disappointment grow each day.
Why doesn’t anyone teach parents how to deal with this? How to explain that life is complicated and twisted and you’re just trying to protect them?
And then there are the never-ending Outlaws hockey games Emett insists on watching. And I watch them with him, like the masochist I’ve turned out to be. But a deep part of me wants to know how he’s doing. I want to see that he’s moved on, that he’s happy so that I can hate him a little easier.
We were nothing, sharing all of one kiss, yet it left me shattered. I didn’t even feel like this after Joey left me, literally destroyed and alone with our unborn son. I felt anger, resentment, even hate but I wasn’t sad. I never felt like a part of me was stolen.
“Goal!” Emett shouts, his small feet jumping up on the couch as he cheers.
It’s the weekend, and I had an earlier shifts at Blade’s today, making sure I had the game recorded for when we finally got home since they played at lunch time.
“Did you see that, Mommy? Did you see how Goram just spinned and made that goal?” His eyes are so wide with excitement they’re about to pop and I smile.
“I did. That was very cool!”
“Yeah! Now, Mr. Brick just needs to make sure no other pucks go in, and we’re golden!”
I chuckle, shaking my head at him. This kid and his extensive adult vocabulary. Sometimes I wonder if Joey ever thinks about his son. Who he is? How’s he doing? Does he look like him?
He’s never called. Not once ever since making sure those papers were signed in the hospital after the accident. And I haven’t either.
We’re better off without Joey.
But are we better off without Severin?
The game picks back up and I focus on the commentators’ voices as Severin makes miracle saves.
“And the puck is brought ahead by Teremko. Pass. Shot by Oakley. Stopped! Rebound by Minaev! He’s diving to his right.”
“Did he get the paddle on that? What a save! What a brilliant save! Wow!”
“The Serpents aren’t done yet. Another play. Oakley comes down the other side, behind the net. They think they might be able to get one past Minaev.”
“Minev is down! But he turned over, diving across.”
“He reaches back and that’s off the heel of the stick!”
“Do you hear the crowd?”
“Oh, that was so close! I think it’ll be reviewed if the puck crossed the red line, but we haven’t seen saves like that in a long while.”
“Yeah, you’re right, Jeff. It looks like the Brick is back to his form.”
“I wonder what changed, but he needs to keep it up! The Outlaws need all the luck they can get.”
“That and Exton Quinn back on that ice. Minaev can’t be both a goalie and a defenseman all by himself.”
Their voices trail off as Emett and I both watch the reply of that magnificent save made by Sava with our mouths propped open.
They were all on him. There were at least four players from the other team harassing him by the net.
They kept shooting the puck into every corner until Severin was down.
He slipped on his skates making a save, and the other team found an opening to shoot but Sava was there!
He was there, reaching over with his stick and deflecting the puck with just the tip of it.
“Wooow,” Emett whispers, his voice full of awe, and I can’t blame the kid. “Mommy, did you see that? Did you? Did you? You know what that means?”
“That they’re going to win?”
“Lincoln!” Emett shouts, jumping up with his hands in the air. “Mr. Brick brought Lincoln with him to the game!”
Oh Jesus, he’s so excited by this idea I don’t have the heart to tell him otherwise, so I just smile and nod.
At least one of us is allowed to believe in magic and luck and all the fairy tale stuff, and I’ll take all the gloom and doom for Emett to be this happy.
I’m still watching him scream and shout and shake his little booty to his happy song when I feel it.
There…I feel it again. I spin around, my breaths fast and labored as I frantically search my surroundings.
But there’s nothing. The house is empty apart from us, and outside the rain is pelting against the windows, turning Iris Lake into spring mush with all the rain and warmer temperatures we’ve been getting.
No Severin.
“Mommy? Are you okay?” I turn, replacing my worry with a small smile.
“Yeah, baby, I’m fine. Just thought I heard someone knock.”
“It’s not Uncle Aaron, is it?”
“No, there’s no one there.”
Emett settles back on the couch, happy about my answer but I’m not.
I haven’t seen my brother since that day Severin showed up. It’s like he completely vanished, and I don’t like it.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t miss his harassment but it’s never a good thing when he’s too quiet. It’s unnerving and I have enough unnerving going on at the moment.
Another shiver runs down my back just to prove my point.
I just hang up my apron and take out my phone to log into our payroll app when the door to the break room swings open and in flies Sierra, another waitress here.
“Oh, thank God,” she breathes out with relief when she sees me at the same time as a nagging suspicion tugs on me.
I know that tone all too well. She rushes over to her locker, pulling out her coat and purse before I can blink even once.
“I have to go, Mika got us tickets to the new movie, and I cannot miss that, you’ll cover for me this once, right?
” Sierra looks over her shoulder with a sweet and very much fake smile on her face as she wraps her knit scarf around her neck without awaiting my answer.
Damn it…
I heave out a long sigh. This once is the third time this week alone and Sierra’s supposed to close tonight.
I still haven’t said a word in response, but I guess she takes my silence and a sigh for an answer we all know I was going to give her anyway, and she runs over to me, planting a smooch on my cheek as she sing-songs, “You’re the best,” before disappearing through the doors.
Clock out. Clock out, Aurora. It’s not your problem, just do it.
Don’t even think about it. My finger hovers over the app that would let me do just that, but I don’t click on it.
Instead, I tuck my phone into my back pocket, pull my apron back on, and rush over to one of Sierra’s tables and so the night continues.
The rain is blasting mad tonight, and it looks like half the town’s left without power, so they made it here.
I can’t leave when there’s work to do and it’s not even about a paycheck. I simply can’t leave and let our elderly employer who is already so good to us to pick up the slack. I can’t.
Speaking of…
“Aurora? What are you still doing here? I thought you were off at nine tonight?” Mr. Ross sneaks up on me from behind, and it’s a true testament to how exhausted I am that I don’t even make a sound when he startles me.
I simply turn my head his way, still wiping down the table.
Mr. Ross is the owner of Blade’s. He’s in his early seventies with well-worn smile wrinkles around his eyes, and I wonder what kind of wrinkles I’ll have when I’m his age. But no doubt they won’t radiate life like his do.
I don’t know how to say no, that’s what I’m still doing here. But I don’t voice that thought. I never voice thoughts like that and sometimes I think if I’d ever try to open my mouth to speak up, it will shut closed all on its own before I could take one breath.
My past had taught me to keep my mouth shut most of the times.
I’ve been told I have a deep-rooted need to do everything for everyone. Maybe I do, maybe I don’t, but if it’s within my power to help someone out, why wouldn’t I?
Because if you keep helping others instead of yourself, there will be nothing left to help, Stella’s voice echoes through my head, her decade long teachings, still not taking root in my mind.
“Just helping out a bit.” My smile is small and faint, those poor muscles not able to keep up the pretense any longer.
Apart from the usual worries, I now enjoy a streak of restless nights because every time I close my eyes I see his, and my heart starts beating wildly as if trying to escape me.
I have this nagging thought that it means something, that maybe I did know Severin in some other life. But then I realize how crazy my idea sounds. However, it still doesn’t help the situation.
Mr. Ross looks around, his brows furrowing further and further with every second. “Where the heck is Sierra? Isn’t she closing tonight?” he asks, but I stay silent. “She left again, didn’t she?” He doesn’t sound pleased at all, but I’m not going to be the one to add fuel to the fire.
Stay in the shadows, blend in with the walls is always more my thing. It’s easier that way. But I swear, if anyone would take a peek inside my head and see all the devious ways I’m killing them with my thoughts, they’d never believe it.
However, no one is ever interested in the real version, preferring the sweet, kind me to the bitch I could be. In my thoughts only. It’s safer this way and safety trumps everything in my books, especially when I grew up without it.
Heck, I still don’t have it. No, my problems just seem to multiply out of thin air.
Mr. Ross sighs, pulling me from my thoughts and says, “Honey, you shouldn’t have stayed past your shift. Go home.”
I’m shaking my head before he can finish the sentence.
“No, it’s okay. It’s still too busy for you to do it all alone.”
“Aurora.” His voice grows sterner when I don’t make a move away from the table I was cleaning. “I’m not some fragile baby chick,” Mr. Ross huffs. “I can take care of my own damn bar.”
“I’m sure you could. But it’ll go much faster if I help you, and you need to get home to Mary.” Mary is Mr. Ross’s wife who’s caught a nasty flu bug. “In fact, you should leave to see her now.”
“I’ll just call Liam to come down and help.”
“Nope, you won’t. He’s on vacation, remember?”
Mr. Ross curses under his breath, and at that exact time a group of five walks into an already crowded bar.
I turn to my boss. “It’s okay, I got this tonight.”
He sighs with resignation. “Every time I think angels aren’t real, I remember you and think better of it.”
I laugh at his dry tone. “I promise, I’m no angel. Stella is home with Emett and Dad so they’re all good there, and I don’t mind closing tonight.” They’re all used to my hectic schedules.
Do I want to? No. But a small part of me is a little elated about it because I desperately need a few extra dollars.
Just yesterday Stella announced she’s found this special hockey program for kids and wants me to take Emett. It’s in Boston, and if I’ll be gone for a few days I need to save up to cover those working days.
“I will be hiring someone competent tomorrow to help you,” Mr. Ross grumbles, his face morphing into that unhappy grimace he had on earlier when he saw Sierra had gone, and with another parting wave he shuffles out the door.
I’m so busy, so engrossed in my work, I miss every warning the storm outside slams against the windows or the front door. I miss the thunder and lightning as it slices the sky open right before my eyes.
And I realize a little too late that I’ve been humming that same warning tune. Both chilling and ominous.
The one I heard five years ago…when it’s too late.
Again.