Ghosts #2
That is not true. That is a lie. Time is not forgiving, it is evil.
It wants to manipulate you; it wants to bend your mind and gaslight your reality.
It wants to lull you into submission, into a calm that looks like peace, and that stupid, stupid feeling that there is nothing to rush about.
Time is a liar and I hate it. There is never time and you should panic every time you look at the clock.
The air inside the cabin did not shift, but the light did.
The amber of the highway receded, replaced by the bruised dark of West Bridge.
The trees on either side of the road grew taller, thicker, their leaves blocking out the moon until the dashboard was the only source of light left in the world. And even that was dim.
Ten minutes. I did not know what to expect when we got there.
I did not know what I was walking into and that was my least favorite kind of walk.
I wanted the map; I wanted to know where the path leads.
Maybe the heart attack was not bad. Maybe it was just a minor one.
But maybe it was really bad. Maybe he would have to get his chest cut open and have his minuscule veins sewn back together by a stranger who does not even understand how his heart works.
Yes, whoever it is will understand the beats, the pulses, and the mechanics, but they will not know how his heart works.
My phone did not buzz. It did not make a sound. But the screen, sitting face-up in the cup holder between us, suddenly flashed white.
“Seren.” Zane said my name like he knew it was going to bring me back from the ocean of my thoughts and the waves that were tumbling around. The waves had not taken me down yet, but the raft was starting to rock beneath me.
“I know,” I said. But I did not reach out to the white light.
“You should answer it,” Zane told me. I did not look at him because his eyes were too seeing and they would hurt me.
“We’re almost there,” I reminded him, pointing to the glowing numbers. “Nine minutes. Let’s just wait till we get there.”
“Seren,” Zane’s voice was firmer and the shift in his tone made me turn to look at him. His jaw was tense and his knuckles were white against the wheel. He was looking back and forth between me, the road, and the thing he did not want me to see.
The phone kept ringing. I stayed still. The car slowed down. Zane was pulling the car over to the side of the road, not bothering to put his blinker on because there was no one behind us. Everyone else was asleep and paused and we were going so fast it scared me.
“What?” I asked him, not forming the full sentence.
He did not answer as the car stopped completely. He put it in park. My phone screen went dark again, and for just a second, the pressure of the air around us lessened, the waves calmed and my raft was not rocking.
Then the screen turned bright again. The flashing number I did not want to recognize.
“Seren,” Zane urged me again, a hint of desperation cracking through the calmness Zane usually used when he spoke to me. I bit my lip again.
Zane sighed, and he was the one who reached for my phone. He kept looking at me like he was not sure why I was stuck here, frozen. But he knew I froze when the bad things happened. Zane knew that about me. I froze; I always froze.
“Hello,” Zane’s voice answered the call, I watched him press the speakerphone button and held the phone closer to me. I wanted to take it, but I was still frozen. So, how can one move when there’s ice flowing instead of blood?
“I’m calling for Seren Garcia.” The calm clinical voice was the same and it had not changed, had not been asleep, had not been paused.
Silence, a second, a week, a year, forever. I don’t know.
“Yeah,” I finally said what the ice allowed me to. “I’m here.”
“Hi, Seren. I’m calling from West Bridge Medical Center, we spoke on the phone earlier.”
“Yeah,” I repeated the word because there were not any other words to say.
“I’m just confirming you’re on the way to the hospital.” She said it like a statement, but it was a question and I knew it was a big one.
“Yeah, we’re almost there,” I told her. “Nine minutes away.”
“Okay,” she said quickly. “Thank you, that’s all…”
“Is he there? Can I talk to him?” I asked her and I was not even sure where the question came from. There was an urgency there that I did not want there. I wanted the urgency to go away and live hidden in my bones like it usually did, refusing to come out and refusing to make me feel alive.
Silence. Riptide. “No, I’m sorry, I’m not able to do that right now. We will see you in a few minutes when you get here.”
“Is he awake?” I asked her, knowing she was lying to me. She was lying to me because he was sedated with tubes in his mouth about to have his heart cut open. I knew it.
Silence. Tidal wave. “We’ll see you when…”
“Is he dead?” He was not dead. I knew that too. I just needed her to confirm it.
Silence. Tsunami.
“Miss Garcia…” She didn’t say no and everything was hit by salted ocean water and the water wanted me to drown.
“If he’s dead you have to tell me,” I said sharply. I sounded very rude and I did not care. My head felt very calm, but my heart was beating so loudly I thought it might explode. “Tell me if he’s dead.”
But then, my rudeness fell and pleading came out of my mouth as I pulled the phone toward me, as though the closer my voice the more she would understand me.
“Tell me if he’s dead. Please.”
“Seren,” her voice changed from clinical to slightly mother-like. For a fraction of a second, she reminded me of Lucy and the way she handles me so delicately. “Are you with someone?”
“Yes, I’m her boyfriend, I’m driving her,” Zane answered quickly. I was not in fast forward anymore, but I was not asleep and I was not paused. I was stuck in this moment, and I feared it would last for the rest of my existence.
“Okay,” she said, then she took a small breath, but it was infinite. “Miss Garcia, we are supposed to wait until you arrive. I am so sorry, your father was pronounced dead at 4:01 AM.”
The phone lay heavy in my hands, but it felt like it was on fire, and I threw it across the dashboard with a sense of anger I do not know if I have ever felt before. The anger was red and glowing, and it was alive and it crawled from the hole in my chest.
“Fuck,” I let the word slip from my mouth.
My body started moving. My head shook from side to side.
My hands rubbed my face, the pressure harder like I was trying to rub something away.
I unbuckled my seatbelt, opened the door, and stepped into the empty road filled with trees that did not understand what just happened.
My thumbs pushed into my eyes. My chest was not caving open, and the ground was not opening. The world was not falling apart around me, but I thought it should be. Everything should be stopping, like time but like I said, time is a worthless liar.
I heard Zane’s door open and then slam shut.
He came to me, of course he did. I felt his hands on my shoulders, and I let my thumbs go from their pressure point and looked at him through blurry eyes.
Not from tears, but from the way I wanted to push my vision away like it could have rewound the clock.
“Seren,” Zane said. There was a tear slipping down his face but there were not any on mine. “I am so sorry.”
“That’s not fair,” I said and my words were rushed and held something explosive in them. I felt my face distort as I heard them come from my mouth. It was true. It is not fair. “That’s not fair,” I said again. “That’s not fair.”
“No,” Zane ran his hand down the side of my face, cupping it gently. “It’s not fair.”
“That’s not fair,” I repeated. I was not meaning to say them. “That’s not fair. We’re almost there. That’s not fair.”
“I know,” Zane was frowning as he looked at me. He kept pressing gently on my face like he was trying to absorb something through my skin. “I know.”
“That’s not fair.” But this time, it was not urgency. It was despair and it tackled me suddenly and completely. “No, that’s not fair.” Tears found me. All at once. I am drowning.
Something else came from my mouth but I did not know what.
It was a scream and a cry and a plea, all the same time and it sounded like I was an animal left alone to die in the woods.
I was not making the sound, but it was coming from my mouth, I could feel it, and oh I could hear it and oh, I did not want to hear it. I would hear it forever.
Zane looked like he was being burned alive while he watched me scream.
Or cry. Or plea. Or whatever the fuck I was doing.
My knees started to collapse on the side of the road.
My body wanted to be on the dirt, but Zane did not let me go there.
His hands went under my shoulders, holding me from crumbling like water that does not know where to go.
“Help.” The word leaked from me like a Hail Mary. And it was desperate. I needed Zane to help me because the pain was so intense, I was sure it was going to consume me.
Zane closed his eyes. His lips rolled together. He pushed his face so close to mine. I let him because maybe then the pain would lessen and it would not take everything I am made of. His eyes opened. They were so wet.
“I am so sorry,” Zane said but I shook my head because that is not what I needed. I needed help. The sound came out of my mouth again, so loud I wondered how it did not exist in everyone’s ears. “I am so sorry. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do.”
His words rebounded around me.
Zane did not know what to do. My dad is dead. The world is broken.
My body stilled. Or, maybe let go. Zane had all my weight now and if he let me go, I would never come back up. He held me for a while. The tears flowed down my face, but nothing made sense. My mind went empty in a way that was so terrifying I was surprised my blood was not rushing. Empty.