38. Chapter 38
Chapter thirty-eight
Sunshine
I feel nothing and everything at once.
Aches shoot lightening up my calves from galivanting through the city without shoes on.
Rocks, glass shards, and other foreign objects have found themselves embedded into the tender soles of my feet.
Then there are my lungs, ballooned beyond capacity with oxygen I'm not worthy enough to breathe, and tears so dry they've left black paths scoring my face.
The demons, they...they can have everything as long as I don't have to hurt anymore.
I'll trade their freedom for an eternity of hiding in the afterlife instead of feeling another bite of pain.
At least there, the mind isn't connected to the body.
Even my thoughts are more theirs than my own.
I'll have nothing to worry about; no fear, no hunger, nor pills to dull my sharpness into a blunt edge—I would be alone.
How do people live like this? Exist with a hole the size of Russia in the center of their chest and run from things they can see but know aren't real?
How do they move on after they've damaged what small pieces have kept them alive?
Is it stubbornness? When is it okay to give up once we're completely washed out, and no longer the person we were before? Will we ever be normal?
Light blinds me in a burst, its thunderous clap sends my shaking palms and hands to the pavement.
For a brief moment I thought it was my saving grace, the universe finally taking pity on me by sending a star to rescue me from this nightmare.
Then reality comes back with more remorse tacked on the end—angels will never let me through the gates.
On my hands and knees, small rocks sting the longer I kneel.
They're sharp as they stab into my knees and shins, dulling the burn warming my palms. Torn skin turns blister-red as blood migrates to the surface and seeps through the open-ended capillaries.
Its deep-red glares accusingly at me between haunting flashes of light, and high-beams that whip by without stopping to see if something's wrong with the girl on the ground.
There's so much I can't take back. Pain I've caused.
Nightmares people must live through when they think of me.
The stress that comes along with loving—no, no they don't love me.
Who could? Why would they? I'm so far beyond broken nothing can put the pieces back together, and even if they tried the parts would reject each other, become necrotic, and fall away.
Like everything else, it reminds me I'm still here. I'm still alive. And even if I'm exhausted and can't decipher what's real versus something trying to rip me apart, I haven't given up.
Things keep getting worse and they always will, it's inevitable. I'm so tired of being the ball and chain of my family, their disappointment, that my heart can’t take much more.
I want to disappear. To feel nothing. For the weight on my chest to stop its crushing descent. Whatever I have to do to make it stop, I’ll do it, but...please, please let it stop.
What if I just stay here and wait for someone to find me? No one will. They're not coming. I'm alone, the voices made sure of that. Everything's on me now.
Pushing away from the pavement, my last shred of determination brings me back to my feet with an unsteady sway. My clothes are soaked through with both blood and rain, yet somehow, they still don't weigh as heavily as the mountain-sized personalities clawing inside of my skull.
We are too many.
Insurmountable thoughts twist me into knots. Then, from the mouth of monsters, words fall and tear me from the tips of my filthy toes and their chipped polish, to the brittle ends of my butchered hair.
Run, abomination.
A ghastly cackle booms near my left ear, causing me to twist to the side as a car horn blares past me with headlights so bright they burn my eyes. I can't see. Everything's happening at once. Lightheaded, another passes and sends water sloshing violently out of landlocked puddles to engulf me.
I hate how the grimy water drips and crawls down my skin—slow, viscous-like, and wrong. I shake my limbs to fling off the awful caress when a guttural keen squeezes free from my itchy throat.
Worthless girl, one of them chides. I can't tell whose voice is whose anymore. They sound the same when they yowl over one another and when their ghost-like hands arc around my forearm? There’s no refusing as they yank me to them.
Blood vessels burst under invisible fingers, staining the tissue with a red halo at the edges of enraged impressions.
Their sheer force lugs me out of the road, not yet finished with how they love to toy with me.
Of course I fight, jerk my arm, dig my heels into concrete that scores the flesh, and wail amongst the shrill of life pressing on.
I can't let them, even when I feel like throwing in the towel, I'll allow someone else to take me as long as they don't.
A small fire sparks low in my belly when an insane idea hit—at least, I think it's insane, what do I know?
Another tug pulls me forward, instead of my feet obeying, I snatch my arm away and run. If they want me, then come get me. They'll have to work themselves to the bone before enough of me is beaten into submission. Then....then they can have what's left.
"Sadie!" one bellows. Behind comes Kate's heavy scurry and her vicious snapping jaws.
I can't believe I broke free. I'm outrunning them. My arms pump and bare feet slap but I don't feel it anymore. I'm so close.
"Dammit, Sadie! Stop!"
No. I won't. I'll never stop.
You ignorant girl!
What are you doing, child?
Something snares the tail of my shirt and jerks me to the side, where I slam into the stone barrier. Grappling with the edge, I haul up my right leg and clamber onto the top. Wind hits but I'm on a mission. Back on my feet, I sprint.
"Fuck, get down. Please!"
A quick look over my shoulder is all I give the voices—they can't be trusted. They'll lie and grift to get me back in their clutches. But I see him. The demons...they...they've never taken on his face before. This, him, is a trick, I know he is, but I slow to a stop anyway.
"S...sunshine, p...please come down," Elias gulps down his labored breath.
It’s him, I swear it is. The green in his eyes...it's perfect.
I see fear swirling in them, his cautious movements, and hear the tremble in his voice as he tries to coerce me off the edge. Calloused hands that have held weapons of mass destruction rest mere inches away from my arm, silently begging for me to fall into them once more.
God...the comfort and acceptance he radiates calls to me.
It would be so easy to let go and shiver beneath the rough rasp of his fingertips—across the dip of my stomach, along the so-close ridges of my sternum, my throat that has screamed and cried for him, through my hair until he tangles his fists there.
Even the weight of them as he held my hand at the hospital, then held his forehead against our laced fingers, calls to me.
I could let him close the gap because a part of me wants to lose myself in this man. Sink into him because I know he will keep me safe, hide me if I want him to.
I just can't anymore.
One second's all I need.
Our eyes meet and the world stops its mundane spin. Lifting my arms out, I let myself fall.
"No!"
Air captures my hair, my clothes, and soothes my skin as I soar amongst the clouds where freedom hoists my tattered wings through a thunderous sky.
I'm right where I belong—angels carrying me home.
Elias
You go, I go.
There's something to be said about soulmates and universes working in mysterious ways. When her feet disappeared over the edge, not only did my heart go with her, but I followed directly behind, as if there's a rope tethered between her existence and mine.
I understand what it means to believe this is the only way—to know she thinks the world would be better off without her. While they may never know she exists, I do. If there's anything that ever matters, she does and I'm not letting her go alone.
Together or nothing, Sunshine.
Angry, pitch-black waters swallow her in one horrific gulp. In a blink, she's gone.
Bitter cold slams into my body when my hands pierce the surface and I let it consume me, too.
Momentum and gravity pull me deep before I slow and start to kick.
Without resistance and lighter than me, the current will carry her faster, so I have to blindly swim with it and have faith I'll find her in the fray.
Years have prepared me for extractions like these, but panic is dismantling every bit of calm.
I thrash when I can't find her. Left and right, my arms fling through suspension, reaching to grab anything I can find.
There's no such thing as a soldier left behind, a dedication I refuse to prove wrong.
Until she's in my grasp, I won't leave her.
She won't do this alone. Again and again, I swim a bit, stop, and reach haphazardly into the dark.
A ghost of sensation flutters near my right hand so I shoot my arm out and feel it again.
Cotton—saturated, unmistakable cotton. That stupid baggy shirt she always wears, two sizes too big and ready to disintegrate like other shit in her wardrobe.
Surging forward again, I snag the worn hem—a small bit is all I need—and burn every muscle in my hands and arms to pull us together.
Finally, I crush her to me with a gurgling cry.
She...she's here.
My head and lungs are on the verge of exploding but I have her as I kick for the surface. There's no way I can tell which way we're moving, as long as we're headed up.
Water bends, reluctant to release us from its deadly grip. The barrier aims to trap victims and lay claim to souls that are not his to take. Its inescapable tension bows then snaps as my head breaches the water's edge and I gasp painful lungfuls of air.
The bottomless water hates to let go as I heave Sadie high enough to keep her face above water. From here, the noise of wheels rolling briskly over the bridge’s seams have blotted to low knocks while remaining stupidly unaware of my whole damn world floating limply in my arms.
Storm water carries us further downstream until the lights from the bridge fade into tiny twinkling specks.
My boots finally catch onto sturdier bedrock. I strain every muscle in my body to lug us closer to shore, all while holding her to my chest with one arm as the other fights the current with every strained step.
A hidden rock takes me by surprise and I stumble. My knees buckle out from under me and drop both of us into the cruel waters. A mouthful rushes into and down my pipes, making me choke. Most I spit out, though some manages to get deep enough to steal my breath.
At least here the water’s shallow. Hasty waves lap harshly at my chest, waist, hips, and finally my thighs as we rise from the depths. Before I can get us out of the river, rubber squeals across nearby asphalt followed by the hard thud of doors slamming—ear-numbing in the painful air.
On the bank, we finally collapse, both Sadie and myself too arduous to make it the rest of the way on our own.
"Sadie!" Nadia screams and slumps to the ground with a single hand cradling the full swell of their unborn child. Kace narrowly catches her when her legs give out, just as shocked in how he watches me pull their daughter's lifeless body onto solid ground.
"Kace! Please, please. My baby!" Her voice fractures.
He's dead silent, holding his wailing wife and trying to swallow through the boulder lodged in his throat.
"Sadieee!" She sobs her daughter's name like there's someone out there listening to her wordless prayers.
Rolling her onto her back, my knees are numb as I drop to them. Instinct, that's all I have. I've done this too many times to count; my body knows what to do even if my heart's breaking.
Two fingers tilt her chin back as I pinch her nose closed and crash my mouth to hers. I'm not...I can't allow this be the last time I feel her lips pressed to mine.
Once, twice, three times, I force a breath into her lungs and watch her chest rise. Each one, I pray, is the one that brings her back to me.
Over and over, I try to drag her home and each time she doesn't move—doesn't cough up water that's filled her lungs.
At her silence and stillness, my heart plummets.
She looks like she's asleep with her wet and clumpy lashes fanned over her cheeks, lips parted, and relaxed when she usually sleeps fitfully.
Her eyes don't jump under their fleshy lids like they do with the most beautiful of dreams. My whole world is lying here motionless as I kneel at her side and watch my worst nightmare unfold.
No, no we're not doing this.
I'm not losing her.
Planting the frigid heel of my palm on her breast bone, the other covers its back into one solid unit, and compresses.
They crush her sternum towards her spine, splintering her frail ribs in multiple grotesque snaps.
My arms pump her chest until they burn, desperately trying to reach the one thing I'd give my whole life for.
"Dammit, Sunshine, breathe!" I plead with a crack in my voice.
Don't ever leave me alone.
Don't make me mourn you.