Chapter Fourteen
I lied to my mother and said I was sick, because there was no way she would see me and not know something was horribly wrong. I stayed holed up in my room for the rest of the weekend. I couldn’t believe this nightmare I was in, and I desperately wished it was something I could wake up from.
Shelby tried to call me a few times, but I ignored her calls. I texted her and told her I wanted her to disappear from my life, and if she actually felt sorry for what she did, to pretend that I never existed. And then I blocked her.
I heard nothing from Jason. I told myself I was glad he had accepted the end of our relationship, and I was lucky that I found out what kind of person he was before we started our life together. But I knew I was waiting for him to call, to beg me for forgiveness. Not that I would accept it, but it was the least I deserved.
I was afraid that I would run into either Shelby or Jason during the last week of classes, but either they were avoiding me or I was lucky, because I never saw them. I fleetingly thought about whether they were meeting up behind my back, but I told myself I didn’t care. They were both dead to me.
I dreaded graduation, but since we were all in separate majors in school, I sat far apart from them. My mother had asked me what had happened between me and Jason, but I had just told her we broke up and I didn’t want to talk about it. I rushed her and Keith home after my graduation ceremony, telling them I didn’t feel well and just wanted to go home.
And just like that, it was over. Shelby and Jason disappeared from my life. Chloe got a job offer right after college in Florida, so she stayed down there. She was the one person who I had told everything to, and a part of me was glad she was in Florida. Since she was the only person who knew, I could pretend like none of it had happened. Jason had never been the love of my life, and a friend had never betrayed me.
I spent the summer after graduation looking for a job, and ended up getting an editing position that had me working from home. It probably wasn’t the best choice, because working from home only removed me further from the outside world, but I was relieved that I didn’t have to put on a fake happy face everyday. I rarely left the house, unless it was for a work meeting that required in-person attendance, and that only happened roughly once a month, if even that.
I knew my mom was worried about me. She kept asking what was wrong, if I was depressed, if I wanted to go talk to someone, like a therapist. I knew I was causing tension between her and Keith, because he was irritated by my reclusive tendencies and said I should be living on my own and being independent.
He wasn’t wrong, but it felt like I was physically unable to pull myself out of the deep hole I was in. The more I withdrew, the more my mom worried. And the more my mom worried, the more frustrated Keith became. I started looking for an apartment, because I didn’t want to cause a strain on my mother’s marriage, but the thought of moving out seemed insurmountable. The amount of energy and coordination that would take seemed almost impossible. It was all I could do to get my projects done for work, and I had nothing left after that. I wanted to shake myself and snap out of this funk, but I needed to care enough about myself to do that, and I just didn’t. A part of me wished I would just disappear.
Thoughts of Jason would creep in every now and then, and I tried to shut them down, but I couldn’t help wondering where he was, what he was doing. I told myself not to care about that cheater, but that didn’t stop my heart from hurting any less. Jason’s mom had contacted me a few times over the summer, but I ignored her. I didn’t know what I could possibly say to her, and I was relieved when she stopped trying to contact me.
It was now December, close to Christmas, but I felt absolutely no festive cheer. It was cold, and getting darker earlier, which I welcomed. At times, I resented the sunshine, since I was so miserable in my life. It almost seemed to be mocking me.
“Daphne, do you want to help me put some Christmas decorations up?” My mom had dragged out the box of Christmas decor that she put up every year during the holiday season, and was busy puttering around, setting things up. Normally, I would help her, but I felt no desire this year. She and Keith had already decorated our Christmas tree last night while I had been holed up in my room.
“No, thanks,” I replied. “I’m pretty tired. I’m going to go to my room and take a nap.”
My mother frowned but she didn’t say anything as I went upstairs. She was used to me declining things, but that never stopped her from asking. I felt guilty for all the worry I was causing her, but that didn’t seem enough to snap me out of my self-imposed misery.
I closed my door when I got to my bedroom and laid on my bed, closing my eyes, wiling myself to sleep. Sleep was my escape, where I didn’t have to think about everything that had happened, everything that I had lost. When Jason and I had first broken up, it seemed impossible to sleep. I had lain awake most nights, crying and wondering how everything went so wrong. But then I had gone to the other extreme. No matter how much I slept, I always felt exhausted. And I could sleep anytime, no matter if it was morning or afternoon.
I drifted into a blissful sleep, where nothing hurt and no memories existed. I wasn’t sure how long I had been asleep when I was jolted awake by a loud sound. It was completely dark in my room, as night had fallen while I slept, and my lamp was off. I strained my eyes, trying to make out the time on my phone while they adjusted to being open. It was almost midnight, but I wasn’t surprised I had slept so long. I would have slept even longer if I hadn’t been awakened by what sounded like something falling.
I sat up in bed, rubbing my eyes. I debated just falling back in bed and going back to sleep, but the need to pee overruled that decision. I opened my bedroom door, my eyes adjusting to the light coming up from downstairs. The lights were off in the hallway upstairs, but the kitchen and living room lights gave enough illumination so I could see where I was going.
I peered over the bannister, wondering if something had fallen to make that loud sound.
“Mom,” I called downstairs. “Did something break?”
It was silent, but eerily so. I felt the hairs on my arms stand up. My heart started beating faster as the silence continued. Had someone broken in? How come my mother wasn’t answering? If she had gone to bed, there was no way she would have left the downstairs lights on. She was always nagging about turning off the lights after leaving a room.
Fear was creeping up on me, and it seemed like my heart was beating audibly. What if someone had broken in and my mom was in trouble?
I stepped back into my bedroom as quietly as possible and frantically looked around for what I could use as a weapon. My eyes locked on a pocketknife on my dresser. Keith had gotten my mom into camping, and I had gone a few times with them. He had bought me the pocketknife because he had said you should always be prepared when camping. I had thanked him, but then tossed it aside, never used, but now I was grateful for it.
I grabbed it, sliding out the blade. My hands were shaking, and I took a deep breath to calm myself. I couldn’t panic now.
I slipped my phone in my pocket, in case I needed it, and crept back into the hallway and down the stairs, being as quiet as possible. When I got downstairs, I flattened my back against the wall and moved towards the kitchen. I breathed a silent sigh of relief when I found it empty. I passed the kitchen, moving to the living room. At first, I thought it was empty as well when I saw no one, until I rounded the corner and saw the other side of the room.
Nothing could have prepared me for the scene before me. Keith was standing over my mother, who lay crumpled on the ground. She was on her side, her face turned away from me, her legs stretched out awkwardly. I would have thought she had just fallen if it wasn’t for the blood. The rug beneath her was soaked in red. There was so much blood that it had seeped beyond the rug to the wooden floor, making a dark red pool. Her clothes were soaked as well, her peach colored blouse, her favorite because of the way it made her brown eyes look hazel, drenched in blood.
Everything felt like it was happening in slow-motion. I ran to her, but it seemed to take forever to get to her, like I was fighting underwater to reach her. My ears felt clogged, and my footsteps sounded muffled. I fell to my knees when I finally reached her, brushing her hair out of the way, an inhuman sound escaping me when I saw her face.
As horrifying as the blood stains were, the lack of life in her face was what ripped my heart open. She looked cold, and expressionless…and gone.
The blood rushed to my ears and popped, and suddenly everything was crystal clear. Sounds were unmuffled and time snapped back into regular speed. I grabbed her shoulders, trying to pull her up and awaken her.
“Mom!” I screamed, not feeling the tears running down my face. “Mom, wake up!”
I was horrified when more blood gushed out of the wounds in her chest. I looked up at Keith, scared she was gone.
“Help her!” I screamed. “Call an ambulance!”
That’s when I saw it. The knife clutched in his hand. The blood on his clothes. The dazed look on his face.
This couldn’t be real. Keith couldn’t have killed her. I had never even really seen them fight. Sure, they argued, but nothing beyond some cross words. Most of their disagreements between them were about my current state of life, but even then, Keith had just expressed disappointment, not rage. He had never laid a hand on her. He was a mild-mannered man that seemed to worship the ground my mom walked on. Keith couldn’t have done something like this to her.
But what I was seeing was undeniable. His bloody hand that had been clutching the knife opened, and the knife clattered onto the floor. I stared at the knife on the floor, at the blood on the blade. My mother’s blood. And then I looked up at him.
“What did you do?” I hissed. I felt no fear. I wasn’t afraid of Keith. I just felt an overwhelming rage. Anger wasn’t a strong enough word to express what I was feeling. The emotion erupting in me wanted to tear Keith limb from limb with my bare hands.
“Daphne.” Keith’s voice was shaking and he looked scared. His gaze shifted to his hands, covered in blood, and he shook his head.
“No,” he wailed. He dropped to his knees next to my mother. His hand reached out towards her, but I pushed him away.
“Don’t touch her!” I screamed. “What did you do to her? Why?”
My last word came out in a howl. I didn’t understand. I couldn’t understand. Why did he hurt her?
“I don’t know,” Keith said, sobbing. “I don’t know. We were arguing and the next thing I knew, she was on the ground and the knife was in my hand. I must have blacked out. I don’t remember anything. It’s like I had a mental break. I swear I would never hurt her, I love your mom. She’s my life.”
I shook my head. “I don’t believe you.” Tears streamed down my face and I screamed it again. “I don’t believe you!!”
My blood ran cold when the despair dropped from his face like a mask and he smiled. “That’s too bad. I thought I was pretty convincing.” He shrugged his shoulders, standing up. “I’m sure the police will believe me, though. I was just having a psychotic episode.” He put his finger to mouth, tapping his lip thoughtfully. “I’ll be the doting husband who lost his mind. I’ll get the insanity plea.”
“But why,” I sobbed. Who the hell was this man in front of me acting like a psychopath? This wasn’t the man my mom had married. “Why would you do this?”
Keith’s lips thinned. “You don’t need to know. Just feel lucky that I didn’t stab you in your sleep.”
Something in me broke. I got up and rushed towards him, gripping the pocketknife still in my hand. But Keith was too fast for me. His hands came up quickly, grabbing my wrists. His eyes looked crazed as they bored into me.
“Now, now,” he said tauntingly. He squeezed my wrists so tightly that the pocketknife dropped out of my hand. “That was stupid of you. I guess you have to die, too.”
I shrieked in feral anger and pushed against his grip, causing him to stumble backwards. He let go of my wrists and fell back, his head hitting the floor hard. He groaned, his eyes rolling into the back of his head.
I backed up from him quickly, and grabbed my phone from my pocket. I needed to call 911 before Keith became conscious again. I prayed my mom could still be saved. Maybe she wasn’t dead.
“911. What’s your emergency?”
“My mom,” I sobbed into the phone. “My mom has been stabbed. Please send an ambulance as fast as you can.”
I gave the 911 operator the address to the house as quickly as possible, and she told me police and ambulance were on the way and to stay on the line with her. She started asking me more questions, but my eyes were glued to Keith, who was still laying on the floor. Something deep inside me awakened, and an unfamiliar feeling surged inside me. What if he got away with this? What if he played the insanity card and got away with it, just like he said? What if he was somehow able to convince a judge and jury that he had been out of his mind?
“My stepdad, too,” I said to the operator. “My stepdad has been stabbed, too.”
The operator started to ask more questions, but I hung up the phone. I stood up and walked over to Keith.
Keith moaned and I saw his eyelids start fo flutter. He wouldn’t get away with it. He would pay.
It was as if I was watching a version of myself, like I was outside of my body. I watched myself take the knife he had used on my mother. I put it in his hand as if he were holding it. I slashed the knife down in a flash, my hand gripped over his. I was surprised at how little resistance there was as it went through the flesh of his stomach. I would have thought it would have been harder, but it was quite easy to stab someone.
I let go of the knife and backed away. The knife was sticking out of Keith’s stomach, his shirt rapidly staining red, and blood gurgled out of his mouth.
The back of my legs hit the couch and I collapsed onto the floor. All of a sudden, I was back in my body, and I felt myself throwing up until I was gagging.
What had I done?