Epilogue
Three months later, I move.
Different city. Different apartment. Different fucking floor plan because apparently there are things therapy cannot fix and living beneath another human being is one of them.
I throw away everything from the old apartment.
The clothes. The furniture. The sheets. Every jar. Every photograph. Every piece of skin.
Almost everything.
August’s tooth sits inside a small wooden box in my nightstand.
I tell myself I keep it because it’s proof.
Proof that he existed. Proof that I didn’t imagine any of it.
Proof that for a brief, terrible moment, someone loved me enough to destroy the world and then finally loved me enough to let it go.
Some nights, I hold it. Some nights, I fucking hate it.
Most nights, I just miss him.
My body is mine again. Mostly.
Five fingers. Two green eyes. My scar has returned above my knee. The first morning I noticed it, I sat on the bathroom floor and cried for an hour. Three little white lines.
Sarah.
Mine.
My memories have settled too.
The others aren’t gone.
Not completely.
Sometimes I remember London streets I’ve never walked. A cigarette between fingers that aren’t mine. A song August sang badly in a room that no longer exists. I remember loving him in ways I never actually lived. I remember hating him too. I don’t know if those memories will ever disappear.
Maybe they shouldn’t.
Eleanor existed. Anna existed. June existed. All of them did.
I refuse to bury them twice.
So I write their names down. Every one I remember. I don’t call them past lives. They’re women.
That’s enough.
Tonight, rain taps against my new windows.
Of course it fucking rains.
I stand in the kitchen waiting for water to boil when something catches my attention outside.
A man across the street.
He’s standing beneath the awning of a closed store.
Watching me.
My stomach drops.
No.
He’s too far away for me to see his face clearly.
Tall. Dark coat.
Hands in his pockets.
I turn off the kitchen light.
He doesn’t move.
My pulse pounds.
Don’t be stupid. People stand outside. People look at windows.
August is dead.
I watched him die. I watched what remained of him turn to dust.
I grip the edge of the counter.
The man steps into the street.
A car passes between us.
For one second, he’s gone. Then he appears beneath the streetlight. Gray hair. Black coat.
My blood turns cold.
No.
The kettle begins screaming behind me.
I don’t move.
The man looks directly at my window.
Then smiles. I know that smile. I’ve seen it in a memory that wasn’t mine.
How badly do you want her back?
My knees weaken.
He crosses the street slowly. Like someone arriving exactly where he expected to be.
I back away from the window.
My phone rings.
Unknown number.
Every hair on my body rises. I don’t answer.
It stops.
A text appears.
Unknown:
Hello, Sarah.
I drop the phone. “No.”
Another message.
Unknown:
Or should I call you Lenora?
My stomach turns.
I grab the phone.
ME:
She’s dead.
Three dots appear. Disappear.
Then…
Unknown:
No, darling.
My hands begin shaking.
Unknown:
She molted.
I stop breathing.
Something taps against the window.
Not rain.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
I look up.
The man is gone. Then someone speaks behind me.
Soft. Warm. Amused.
“There you are.”
…The end of Specimen Nine.
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