Excerpt From Chasing Shadows
Thalia
“ Y ou have to eat, Ms. Smith.” My nurse sets a plate of lukewarm scrambled eggs, turkey sausage links, and a small plastic cup of mixed fruit on my small nightstand.
Her voice is shrill in my ears. It's too early in the morning.
I don't want to be up so soon, but the lack of curtains forces the sun's bright rays to pierce my plain white walls.
I only nod in response. My flimsy spork scrapes softly across the styrofoam plate, barely making any indentations.
“What would Mr. Jones think if he knew you weren't eating, especially now that you're eating for two?” He wouldn't think anything at all. He doesn't know that I'm pregnant, and I don't plan on telling him. My skin goes hot at her question. Redding my alabaster cheeks.
“You haven't told him, have you?” Her eyebrows raise in question, and she hands me my three large white pills in a small cup.
“You have to tell him sooner or later. You're already four months long. Baby Jones will start showing in that tiny belly of yours.” Her face is kind, but I can't match her enthusiasm.
Thank you for your unsolicited advice about me, my unborn child, and the psychotic man who forced me to give my life to him.
She studies me closely as I swallow each pill with a large gulp from the clear glass that normally sits next to me on the table. I move my tongue up and down, displaying my empty mouth. In a matter of minutes, I'll be a drowsy zombie of a person.
“Very good, Ms. Smith.” She smiles sweetly, collecting my empty items. “I know you don't want to be here.” Do you?
Can you see it all over my face? Or maybe it's the tears welling in my eyes when I mark up my wrists?
I've been here for a little over one hundred twenty days.
That's the number of scars that cover my skin.
She never comments on the cuts or how I made them.
After the countless searches my doctor has ordered, no one has found the small, sharp piece of glass I discovered in the bathroom.
The harsh fluorescent lights reflected off the edge, spotlighting itself in my peripheral vision.
I've been hiding the jagged segment of glass in my room.
“...but it's only temporary. Dr. Miller says you're doing very well in therapy.
You're opening up, and your night terrors are becoming less and less.” She caresses my head, smoothing out the frazzled strands and the knots in my faded hair.
The bright red shade is now paling into a copper orange.
It's dull compared to the deep scarlet color in the dozen roses Alan sends me every week.
They look like how I feel. Wilted, dried out, and slowly dying each day.
Alan visits me every night after work. I can't help how my heart beats when he walks into my room.
His lips feel so warm in mine when he first greets me.
He shuts and locks my door, and I wrap my legs around his waist. The beating rhythm in our chests matches, and he brings me into him on my tiny bed.
He kisses each one of my scars that align my body.
His wet tears coat my flesh as if he feels what I feel while I rot inside this institution.
“When can I come home?” I plead as he grazes his fingertips up my arms. The desire in his face twists to sadness, and he lifts my plain white T-shirt over my messy waves .
“It's not up to me, Listener.” Why do you still insist on calling me that?
He kisses the crook of my neck and reaches around my back, unhooking the metal prongs in my nude colored bra.
“If it were up to me, you'd be waking up every morning next to me and Artemis.” I miss my cat.
At least Alan is taking care of him while I'm stuck here.
“Alan.” I moan against the many freckles that cover his collarbone as his large hands massage my breasts.
“Yes, Thalia.” He mewls back, now moving his lips down my chest.
“Let me come home.” I continue to beg and unbutton each of his black, plastic buttons.
His sleeves slide effortlessly down his sculpted biceps.
“I need you more than a few hours each night in this small cell.” His mouth turns up into a grin on my skin.
I feel his arms wrap around me, and he moves us lower to the bed.
“I want you too, Thalia, but no matter how much I pay them, I can't make that decision.” I peer into his emerald eyes as he moves the elastic waistband of my black shorts down my hips. If it weren’t for your unhealthy, compulsive need for me, your lies would impale my heart as if you were using your switchblade on those you killed.
The sound of his metal belt buckle unclasping replaces my pleading.
“I need you to be strong for me, baby.” His hushed tone combines with his unadulterated obsession he has for me.
Alan hovers over me and cages me in with his arms. “Can you be my strong girl, and last a little longer for me?” He asks through heavy breaths. My body shudders from the impact of him sliding in between my legs.
“Yes, Alan.” I moan as he picks up speed. “I can be strong for you.”
“That's my good girl… Fuck , Listener.” My room fills with our soft groans and creaks from the old mattress.
A heat feels moves inside my body, and my thighs tighten around his waist. His hot breath sends shivers down my spine, and I feel him go harder inside me.
“Come for me, Thalia.” His passionate command sends me over the edge, and I ride out the wave of simple bliss.
“A-alan.” My voice is a cry for love, help, anything to let him see that I'm weeping internally.
“Yes, baby. That's it.” He holds me close to him, claiming me as he does every night before he leaves. “I love you more than life itself.” His words are a promise, a proclamation of his addiction. I want to believe you. I have to. It's the only thing that's keeping me alive in this place.
“I love you too, Alan.” His forehead is hot and clammy on my lips. Our pale skin is flushed and connected.
A thin sheet covers us as he holds me against him.
We're still naked, embraced in each other, fighting the hour we still have left.
He tells me of the dreams he has of the two of us.
Plans he's made for when I'm released. His mind is either clouded with love or he's oblivious.
I'm never getting out of here. I smile and nod at his hopeful intention, but I have plans of my own.
Alan leaves with a passionate kiss. Keeping his attachment as long as the visiting hours will let him.
“I'll be back tomorrow.” He tries his best to grin, but on the inside, we're both collapsing.
He wants me with him, and I want out of this fortress.
I examine his shadow as he walks out the door, closing it softly with one last glance behind his auburn eyelashes. He's gone.
“Goodbye, Alan.” I reach for my knife-like scrap of glass under the wooden slab in my box spring under my mattress. The shine is like a magnet bringing me in. It fits in my hand as if it were broken for me.
Like routine, I scan over each pink scar. They all hold memories. Moments of empty nights, beginning the hour he leaves.
The pointed edge cuts vertically in my blue vein.
“Goodbye, Lee.” The image of his beautiful smirk is at the forefront of my mind as the glass punctures my flesh.
I watch as my blood spills faster than it has on the other nights I cut into my arm.
My pristine sheets are no longer a bleached white, but splattered with crimson.
“Goodbye, Jace.” My body feels weak, and the piece of glass falls out of my hand, landing on the hard tiles.
“Goodbye, Artemis.” I lay back against my pillow, beaming up towards the ceiling, coating my bed with my blood and any strength I had left.