Chapter 6 #3
The shaking didn’t stop at my shoulders. It proceeded down my arms, until my whole body rattled. My emotions were balls of light, thrashing, crashing, into one another for dominance. There were only a few clear thoughts in my head:
One: Lawrence understood working on a Seal alone was wrong.
Two: He knew he made a mistake.
Three: He fucking went through with it anyway.
And four: I knew the location of the safety deposit box.
I re-read the letter once, twice. Each read through hitting me harder than the last.
I MADE A MISTAKE.
He knew he made a mistake. He knew and he did it anyway. Why didn’t he come to me? Why did he only leave me a note? How was it that he was in so far over his head that he could make these infuriating clues but he couldn’t leave?
He had made a choice. To continue with the mistake. Lawrence had always been stubborn. But the only reason he would have pursued something so dangerous, so wrong, was if he thought he was protecting me.
My heart couldn’t have clenched harder if someone reached into my chest and squeezed.
I MADE A MISTAKE.
It killed me. I fell to pieces.
The paper shook in my hand like a rattling leaf. Anger and grief fought for dominance. Heat burned my face. Hot wet tears pooled and collected on my chin, before splattering on the translated page. Tears blurred. Ink smeared.
I took one shaky breath after another, fighting for control.
The closed door between motel rooms would do little to mask sounds that wanted to escape. The emotions hurtling out of me couldn’t be tamed. And they were growing louder.
I wanted to scream.
Instead, I took a breath. Two.
I MADE A MISTAKE.
I heard the words in Lawrence’s voice. Deep. Warm. Apologetic.
Red splintered across my vision. My lungs ragged and heaving, I wanted to slap him across his stubborn face. Hard enough to leave an imprint of my hand on his dark skin. If he had just come to me. If he had left, he could still be alive.
I was angry because he chose to leave me. I was angry because his choice killed him.
I MADE A MISTAKE.
One breath. Two. Three.
My clenched fists pumped, knuckles whitening. No, that wasn’t going to work. I needed to shout at the top of my lungs. I needed to break something. Preferably something glass, so it would shatter into a thousand different pieces.
Get a grip. This isn’t you.
It sure as hell was me. It was me who felt angry, abandoned, and miserable. It was me who locked myself in the washroom and turned on the shower to drown out my tears. It was me, in my need to feel something else, anything else, that I punched the shower tile.
“Fuck.”
Pain radiated white and throbbing up my knuckles. I shook my hand, cursing under my breath, before cradling it close.
It was admittedly stupid, but it was also effective. The sharp throbbing took my focus out of my head and the swirling kaleidoscope of rage and despair slowed.
My breathing steadied.
One breath. Two. Three. Four.
My tears stopped.
I don’t know how long I stood there, listening to the rush of the shower like static crackling across the deep recesses of my mind.
It was clear that I overreacted. The voice in my head had been right.
I should have gotten a grip, before punching the shower tile. But it was a little too late for that.
It also begged the question, if my reaction wasn’t me, at least not entirely, who was it?
I MADE A MISTAKE.
My heart sunk. Not the tight-fisted clenching from before. This was a sad lowering. A realization.
My passenger.
The presence of my passenger was responsible, in part, for the sudden swing. The amplification of emotions and anger that were already there. Mixing the signals that were in my blood and in my brain.
But there was another deeper sinking feeling that took hold. I grabbed onto the edges of the sink, head bowed to avoid looking at myself in the mirror.
I was angry with myself.
Lawrence’s words, his mistake, resulted in him choosing to continue down the wrong path. And I had a similar decision to make. To continue. To not continue.
But which one was the mistake?
Pins and needles filled my lungs, coated my tongue. I shook my head. No, whatever mistake Lawrence thought he made paled in comparison to not asking for help. His real mistake was in not coming to me. For going alone.
The tremble in my limbs returned.
“Fuck.”
I had to tell Jack. Even though the choice was mine, he was the only person I could tell. If anyone else found out we crossed the line—
I smoothed my fingers over my hair.
Not yet. I would tell him. But after. After the gathering. After I visited the safety deposit box. I still had time.
But not much.
Well and thoroughly exhausted, I got ready for bed. Sleep couldn’t come soon enough. I made to cross the room to shut the lights, when I caught something out of the corner of my eye.
It was so small I almost missed it.
On the ground was a piece of paper, torn from a larger sheet, slipped under the door from the adjoining room. It was a note, though the writing was nearly illegible: You are not alone. I’m We’re here.