VERENA GRAVENHURST
THIRTY-SIX
ONE MONTH LATER
Muffled voices echo throughout the room, but I can’t make them out.
I try to open my eyes, but struggle as my heavy eyelids flicker, adjusting to the fluorescent lights that hover above me.
I’m wading in and out of the darkness, my consciousness fighting to pull myself out of this haze.
The beeping of monitors and the soft hum of the machines sound next to my bed, and I become all too aware of where I am.
No longer in the arms of the man that I love, but back with the living in a hospital bed.
I open my mouth to speak, but my voice doesn’t come out.
My throat feels hoarse, like I’ve been deprived of water for days.
My eyes flutter open, finally managing to keep them that way, and they land directly on my best friend speaking to a nurse.
When the nurse leaves, I call out for Mauve, trying harder this time to make any kind of noise, a poor attempt to get her attention.
Mauve captures my movement from the corner of her eye, and when her gaze connects with mine, her eyes swell with tears, though it looks like she has been crying for some time now.
“Ren?” She stands there, frozen, staring at me in disbelief like she’s just seen a ghost. “Oh my God, Ren!” She rushes towards me, taking my hand in her palms, squeezing it tight like she doesn’t truly believe that I’m staring back at her.
I point to a cup of water at my bedside.
Mauve grabs it with haste, nearly spilling it all over me.
The cool water feels like heaven travelling down my throat.
“Why hello, Margaret,” I rasp, giving her a weak smile.
She tries to return a smile, but it doesn’t come. She looks down at our hands and then to the floor. The tears begin to fall down her delicate skin, and I wish now more than ever that I had the energy to reach forward and wipe those tears away.
“I-I’m so sorry, Ren. Th-they did everything they could. Archie…” A sob tears from deep within her tiny frame, and my heart cracks a little more.
“Hey…Hey! Come here.” I gesture towards the side of my bed where she crawls in beside me.
“He didn’t make it, Ren. They did everything they could to help him; he just wasn’t strong enough.”
“Shhh, I know.” I stroke her arm with the little energy I am able to muster. We cling to each other in silence, grieving and holding on to the only thing we have left. Each other.
“You know?” Mauve asks, and I nod.
“Mhm. I know,” I tell her, fighting against my heavy eyelids. “I’ll tell you everything, Mauve,” I promise, right before my fatigued eyes close.
THREE DAYS LATER
“I’ve no more business to marry Edgar Linton than I have to be in heaven; and if the wicked man in there had not brought Heathcliff so low, I shouldn’t have thought of it.
It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now.
” Mauve’s soft voice stirs me from my slumber.
Birds chirp softly outside, and sunlight bleeds through the hospital window, warming my skin.
My eyes flutter open to the feel of the comforting presence of my friend.
My tired eyes drift over the room and land on Mauve.
Her purple hair is in its usual messy curls, wild and untamed like the soul inside of her.
The sunlight dances over her tawny skin, illuminating her as if light itself is drawn to her beauty.
The room is quiet, save for the soft hum of the monitors and Mauve’s melodic voice.
She hasn’t noticed I’ve awoken yet, so I stay quiet, admiring her and enjoying the sound of her voice as she reads Wuthering Heights to me for the hundredth time since I’ve been admitted to the hospital.
“So he shall never know how I love him,” she continues, “and that, not because he’s handsome, Nelly, but because he’s more myself than I am. Wh—”
“Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same,” I finish the sentence for her, offering her a warm smile, imagining Loxen and his touch against my skin.
Mauve glances over the book at me with a gasp, before tossing it into the seat next to her.
Her excitement each time I wake from a nap tugs at my heart because I know there was a time when she thought I never would, and all I can think about is how I got so lucky to be gifted a best friend like her.
“Good morning, sunshine!” she exclaims, wrapping her arms tightly around me.
Her sweet, yet citrusy scent engulfs me, and I brace myself for a sharp pain in my chest, the way I do with any contact, but it never comes.
I guess that means I’m healing, and I know I should feel happy about that, but I don’t.
The wound above my heart may be mending, but the organ within aches, like a phantom limb.
The doctors say I’ll be okay to leave in a few days, and that I’m lucky to have survived an attack like that.
When he told me, all I could manage was a nod.
But the thing is, I wasn’t lucky at all.
I am breathing, yes, but I’m only half alive.
Mauve never told the doctors or police what happened that night.
She’s been a loyal friend and deserves more than anyone to know the truth.
“Mauve?”
“Hm?” She releases her hold on me, eyes scanning my face with worry. “What is it?”
“Do you remember when I talked to you about Loxen Gray?” Mauve waggles her eyebrows and nods her head.
“The pompous ass?” she teases, and I laugh.
“The one and only.” I scooch over in the bed, and she makes herself comfortable next to me.
Hours later, when all my secrets about the society, about Loxen, and every embarrassing secret I’ve had over the span of my life have been spilled, and the moon bathes Hollowcrest in its nightly glow, Mauve begins to nod off next to me. I rest my head against hers.
“Promise you’ll never leave me,” I say quietly into the night.
Mauve grumbles with her eyes closed, her breathing becoming heavy as she lulls to sleep.
“Never,” is all she manages to mumble before allowing rest to claim her.
I muster a smile, choosing to accept her promise as truth, if only for tonight.
Tears run down my cheeks, and I allow them to fall.
For my mom, for my grandfather, for Loxen, for Archie, and for Mauve, because one way or another, everyone always leaves.
Reed Sullivan slithers through my mind like the venomous snake he proved himself to be.
Months upon months of lies, deceit, and manipulation at his hand and in the end, he walks away from it all unscathed and scot-free?
I don’t fucking think so. I once promised that I’d never let a man make me feel small again, and when I return to Hollowcrest next semester, I intend to keep that promise.