Bound by Broken Memories #3
I close the book after a quick flip through, realizing I’m invading her personal thoughts because this is a leather-looking diary.
The date on the front catches my attention, and my fingers rub over the golden numbers.
Golden numbers that are wildly inaccurate.
I open the book again, fingers tracing over words as I catch a glimpse of what appears to be five years in the future.
A vision flashes in my head, Slayer screaming in my face, his spit flying everywhere.
His dirty breath haunts me, and I blink back to the here and now.
My eyes are immediately drawn to words that prove Slayer haunts Sasha, too.
His name is all over these pages. Words that speak of his creepy spectral form visiting her at night.
But he isn’t dead?
I read the words again.
He visited me again today, so angry and hateful. His taunts over Lee hurt the most. The way he thrives on reminding me of the look in her eyes as the light dimmed while her soul slipped away.
What is she talking about? That thought hits me hard enough to straighten my spine.
My head snaps to Sasha, still peaceful and pretty, resting in bed.
That pain in my neck returns, pulling me back in the direction of the diary, where it hurts less.
Another painful flash inside my mind takes me from the words to Sasha’s face, but it isn’t peaceful, it’s pained.
Her face is covered in bruises and tears. Her mouth opens, the word, no, silent to me as she screams it over and over. Another word, please, croaks from somewhere. From me, as I almost feel Sasha’s pain. I feel other pains. My neck is aching worse than ever as I plead again.
The memory of breath on my cheek before a sloppy kiss that I cringe over, then a whisper…
“A broken neck for a broken heart.”
A cruel laugh fills the air, and something in Slayer’s eyes changes, making them appear darker with all the hate he feels for me. It’s the last thing I hear before a deafening crack ends it all.
“No!” Sasha screams in my reverie. I scream it here in reality, snapping myself from the cruel memory and Sasha from her peaceful sleep.
Sleepy eyes immediately fix on the pages before me, the ones where blue ink tells me that my life ended that night.
That it was all over.
That I’m dead.
A strange loss settles over me, and I feel sadness inside me—inside my soul.
“What is this?” I ask, my voice so low I’m not sure Sasha will hear me.
“It’s a diary.”
“I see that. It’s dated 2026.”
“This year.”
“But…” I look down at my dress, the style so perfect for 2021.
I swallow hard and force words through the blockage of emotions I feel.
“It says you miss me, that Slay—” I can’t bring myself to say that monster’s name right now.
“Lee, you weren’t meant to find out this way.”
“What are you talking about!” I snap, and for the first time during this stay, she gets the brunt of my anger. “I’m here.” I refuse to acknowledge the truth because it can’t be true. I can’t be dead. “I met you here,” I add with a softened tone.
“You’re here in that dress? Haven’t you wondered why?”
“It’s a pretty dress,” is all I say.
“For here?”
“It’s a strange fashion choice, sure, but…I must have been at a party last night. I’m always at parties,” I reply.
“You were at a party. The senior prom,” she says.
“So that explains my dress.”
“The senior prom was five years ago. Do you remember?”
I don’t know if I wish I could remember all of it or go back to when I knew nothing, only minutes ago.
“Everything is so fuzzy,” I shake my head.
A warm feeling wraps around me as Sasha moves in.
“Lee, I wanted to tell you.”
“How do you tell someone that their life is over?” I ask.
“I don’t know.” Her head drops with the slumping of her shoulders. “I thought we’d start with the dance. And I’d tell you that I had the best time with you, looking so pretty in your dress.”
I glance down, my fingers moving over the chiffon material. Whatever glamor was hiding my pain earlier shifts as my fingers catch in one of many tears in the material. Red marks adorn my wrists, and my gaze moves there.
Sasha notices and clues me in before I have to ask the painful question. “He wrapped his tie around your wrists.”
“And his hands around my throat?”
Sasha’s tears are the only answer I get. They take me somewhere else, to a place where two carefree teens dance in a twirl of white chiffon and black satin.
“You look so beautiful.”
“You look ravishing.” I smile back, but Sasha can’t see it with my face nuzzling into her neck.
“Oh, yeah, do you want to ravish me?”
“If I did, I’d die happy.” I laugh.
“He saw us dancing,” Sasha’s voice cuts through the memory, guiding me. “Saw me leading you out to my car.”
Her beat-up red beetle was parked at the far side of the parking lot.
“He saw us kiss.”
The memory of the windows fogging up on both sides of the car flutters into my mind.
The memory turns dark as one of the doors opens, and I’m pulled from the car by my pinned-up hair, over Sasha’s body.
She falls out behind me, and not caring that I hurt her, rushes toward me, even as I stare at the scuff on her thigh from my heels.
Invading our argument, which mainly consists of me being screamed at while I apologize and try to break off my relationship at the same time, Slayer punches Sasha in the face. He hits her once, and she falls back. But that isn’t enough for him.
“He punched me, but you intervened.”
His big body straddles her much smaller one, and he hits her again, over and over, her small nose exploding under his giant fist. I rush at him, pulling at his arm and disrupting his momentum.
Sasha is close to blacking out when he shifts his attention to me.
Pushing me back, I land awkwardly on a rock that rips at my dress and disorients me. Everything turns black for a moment.
Returning to my senses, my hands are already bound behind my back, leaving me defenseless.
“He tied you up, then pulled you from the ground.” Sasha sniffles.
A rough hand slaps at my cheek, making sure he has my full attention before it returns to my throat.
“We don’t have to relive the bad stuff.”
I blink my eyes open, seeing Sasha trembling and all her tears falling on the bed.
“I didn’t want to die.” I’m sure I’d cry, too, if I could, I think to myself, staring into the mirror where I only see Sasha, daring to touch me.
Twisting to her, her gentle fingers caress my face, and I wonder what it’s like for her to touch something like me.
“I didn’t want you to die, either, my precious girl. God, I love you so much. I hated him for taking you from me. And your parents, Lee—the lawyers they got to put him away.”
“Are they okay?”
“They miss their daughter. They have created charities in your honor.”
That sad feeling returns, knowing I’ll never see them again.
It’s been five years.
Five years since I last saw them. Since I last saw Sasha.
“How have you never seen me? Until now. Why here?” I lean into her, hoping some of the comfort she’s always given me will take away the empty feeling I have.
“Please don’t panic.”
“Oh, God. Why am I stuck here?” Panic is the first thing I do, twisting my head away from her touch and scooting back on the bed. “Are those creepy rumors true? Old Man Venom, did he collect my soul? Why?”
“Slayer died shortly after you. Your parents were vying for life in prison, but he ended his life before his sentencing. From what Slayer has told me, Venom was aiming for him, and something went wrong. You must have been close by for him to get you instead.”
“Slayer told you this? Slayer who beat you to a pulp and ended my life?”
“You’re wondering why I’d speak to him?” Sasha questions, staring into the mirror.
I wonder if she can see us both. “I speak to him because when a ghost came to me from my past, I hoped it would be you, but you never did, and I already opened that door. He wouldn’t leave.
He’d taunt and tease, but he was the only one who would talk about you without crying.
Recently, he told me where to find you, saying there was no way to reach you from what owned your soul now.
But I didn’t believe that. So, when an opportunity to come here came up, I jumped at it, and there you were, waiting for me. ”
“And now you’re trapped here.”
“For not long enough. But I’m so glad we got stuck here, Lee, because I don’t want to leave.”
“Because I can’t, right?”
“There’s a machine in the basement that myself and some of the others think controls you guys, keeping you trapped here.”
“Meaning us ghosts?” I don’t want to be bundled with them. “Can it bring me back to life?”
“No. But we think it can set you free.”
“Can you maybe just stay here. Would he even notice?” I ask, with a shrug of my shoulders.
“I think someone would. When the snow passes, I’ll have to leave.”
“But then we won’t be together, and I was finally ready for us to be together.”
“I know. You told me that night. But don’t worry, you won’t be alone for long. Wait for me.”
“Are you ill?”
Sasha smiles, and it’s a bittersweet image.
“Let’s just say I’m one day closer to getting everything I ever wanted.” Her nose touches mine with a loving caress.
“Do the girls know?”
“No. It’s our secret. For now. So are you.” She takes my hands in hers, and her trembling calms.
“What do you mean?”
“They can’t see you, Lee. For whatever reason, you haven’t presented to them. Just me.”
“But I threw the wine.”
“They saw the glass flying.”
“But I talked to them…and…they ignored me.” The realization hits. “They can’t see me.”
“I think they see the others.” Sasha laughs. “I guess you wanted this trip to be just us.”
God, I really did.
I give her a smile, and she gives me one back, a knowing one.
“Am I allowed to look at this?” I take our joined hands to the diary.
“Never any secrets between us. But I will join you, as a lot of it is around him.”
“He’s not here, right? He isn’t one of the ghosts?” I honestly would break down if he were.
“He isn’t. He eventually moved on…very recently. From me at least.”
“How did he even die?”
“In quite a disturbing way. How about we read through it together?”
We read the diary together, and when I come to the last page and see it’s filled with Sasha’s interactions with me here, I ask, “What now? What comes next?”
“We enjoy one last day, until we’re lucky enough for another.”
The end.