I Love You to Death (28 page)

I see smoke start to fill the room, it’s everywhere.

I can’t stop the scream that escapes my mouth.

I know what this means
I think, as my legs collapse and I sink to the floor.

Why does it have to happen again? Why does it have to keep happening to me? What have I ever done to deserve this?

∞

When they finally took Sam away from me, I was completely numb. Frozen. I couldn’t move, couldn’t talk, and couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t undo any of what had happened.

I remember them asking me so many questions, the police, the paramedics, people I’d never seen before. Questions I couldn’t answer. What happened? How long had he been like this? Is there someone we can call? Do you have any family?

I wanted to scream at them all to shut up. I wanted to scream at them that I had no fucking idea what had happened and why this kept happening to me. I wanted to scream and never stop, but nothing would come out, no words, no sound, nothing.

I remember my whole body shaking uncontrollably. My arms were wrapped tightly around me, like a vice, as I fought my own body and tried desperately to hold myself together, knowing anyway that I was about to completely fall apart. Someone put a blanket around me, forcing me to sit down. A burning cup of coffee was placed in my hands. I barely noticed it and it slowly went cold as I held it. I imagined Sam had done that lying in my arms too.

I couldn’t talk.

I couldn’t think.

I couldn’t do anything.

I could barely even breathe.

Sam was gone. He was gone forever, the only person I had left in the entire world and now he was gone. I had no idea what was I going to do. Had no idea how I was ever going to be able to survive this. I didn’t want to be alive anymore, didn’t want to face the thought of going on alone. No friends, no family, no love.

I just wanted to be dead. I deserved to be dead now.

Eventually everyone left. Eventually they took Sam away from me. When they’d gone and I was truly all alone, I thought I’d try and drink it all away; the vision, the memory of what had happened, even myself. I just wanted it all to go away. But no matter how drunk I got, the nightmare forced its way in, dragging me from my stupor. And even though I’d passed out, the nightmare still let me relive the horrible memory over and over again.

∞

I can hear people talking and yelling everywhere, but I can’t move. I’m on the floor behind the counter, my head is in my hands and I’m crying. I can’t bear to face this. I can’t possibly look up and see what’s happening. I don’t want to see it. I don’t want him to be gone.

Paramedics are coming in to the shop now. The fire alarm is going off. Noises are everywhere.

Sarah comes over to me, pulls me up, and gently tells me, "Ash you should go to him."

I am so afraid.

"Ash, go to him," Sarah says more forcefully now, pushing me into the kitchen.

"Ash?" I hear Luke call out. "Ash, come here, come here."

For a second my heart stops. If he’s talking, he is alive. If he can talk to me, he must be alive.

"Ash, please…." Luke pleads.

I don’t want to go. I’ve already made it so bad. But I can’t help it, I have to and I feel my feet walking over to him.

"I’m sorry," I say, tears streaming down my face as I catch a glimpse of him.

Luke is burnt and I caused it. I am doing this to him. It’s happening all over again and there is nothing I can do to stop it.

"Asha," he whispers, reaching his hand out to me. "Come here, please." He’s sitting on a stool in the kitchen and he slides his arm around my waist and pulls me to him as the paramedics start to work on his burns. His left arm is stretched out on the counter. I tuck my face into his neck because I don’t want to see what I’ve done to him. I’m still crying.

I am so afraid.

Luke is gently kissing my face as he holds me tight against him. He’s whispering words of comfort and reassurance in my ear, stroking my back and kissing away my tears. I’ve done this to him and he’s in so much pain right now, but it’s Luke who’s comforting me. I want so badly to make him be okay, to make all of this be okay.

The paramedics make him go to the hospital and Luke makes me come with him. We go in the ambulance and Luke doesn’t let go of me. They take him straight into the emergency department and still, he doesn’t let go of my hand. I’m still crying I think, but I follow him anyway.

The doctors come in and treat him. They try to get me to leave, but Luke doesn’t let them. His left arm is burnt, although the doctor tells us it isn’t too bad. A large bandage is wrapped around his left arm, from his wrist to his elbow. They say he’s lucky. It shouldn’t be permanently scarred or damaged and it will completely heal. He is very lucky. He never lets go of my hand.

Eventually all the doctors and nurses leave. They draw the curtains around his bed and they leave us alone. As soon as they’ve gone, Luke pulls me onto the bed with him, wrapping his arms around me.

"Asha," he whispers to me. "It’s okay, I’m okay." He runs his hand through my hair. I can’t stop the tears. "Ash," he says, more force in his voice now. "What’s going on, talk to me, please."

I pull back and look at him and once again his thumb brushes away my tears, his hands cradling my face. "This is all my fault," I say.

"What? No Asha, no. This is not your fault, it was just an accident, a hazard of the job remember?" he says, reminding me of that time with the knife as he pulls me to him, holding me in a tight embrace. "It was just an accident Ash," he whispers. "I’ll be okay, I’m okay beautiful."

I push back from him. "Luke I’m so sorry I did this to you, I am so sorry." I pull myself from his arms and as I force myself to step backwards from the bed, my heart feels like it’s being ripped from my chest. "You are better off without me, you are safer without me. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry," I cry as the tears just keep falling and I tear myself away from him.

I turn and run from the room, hearing Luke call out my name. I hear something crash and I hear Luke swear, but I keep running. I am destroyed. I don’t want to lose him, but I don’t want him to die either. I need to protect him. I need to leave him.

I run.

I run forever.

I run until I’m back at my apartment. Then I run inside and collapse on the floor, unable to do anything else anymore. My breath escapes in hard painful bursts, broken by sobs and there’s an ache in my chest that feels deep and permanent. My apartment is freezing. I haven’t been here in so long, that the heat hasn’t been turned on for winter. I realise now that I’ve spent so long with Luke, in his house, in his arms, in his bed. That’s why it’s so cold in here, because I haven’t stayed here once since the very first night I spent with him. I haven’t wanted to come back here and I haven’t been able to leave him.

I feel the ache in my chest deepen, as my heart starts to break apart. I feel it as it shatters into a thousand tiny pieces in my chest. A thousand tiny pieces I know, I will never be able to put back together again.

Already I miss him.

But I should’ve known it couldn’t last. I should’ve known that everything would eventually catch up with me. That time was always going to run out and I would have to face it all over again. Losing Luke, my heart breaking, and being forced to go on without him.

I should’ve known it could never last.

∞

Part of the reason Sam’s death destroyed me so much, is I never had a chance to say goodbye to him. He was the person I was closest to, he was my whole life, the only person I had left, the only person who knew everything about me, and I never got the chance to say goodbye to him.

I never got to say
I love you
one last time, never got to kiss him goodbye knowing it would be the last kiss we ever shared. I never got to say sorry for all of the things I’d done to him, for all of the pain I’d caused. Never got to thank him for everything he’d given me.

Now though, I realise that saying goodbye, having the chance to say goodbye to the one you love, is worse. Because knowing they’re still out there and you’ve made the choice to walk away from them. Knowing that if you wanted to, you could actually turn around, go back and be with them. That makes goodbye so much worse.

Death by comparison, is so final, so definitive. The End. There’s never any going back.

When I lost Sam it was in an instant. One day I had him and the next day, I didn’t. I didn’t know it was going to happen then and despite everything I knew, I was never really prepared for it.

He’d always said to me, "But I’m still here babe."

I don’t know if deep down, those words were somehow finding their way inside of me, if maybe I was starting to believe them. But when it finally happened, when Sam died, then it was just…over. That was a part of my life that I’d destroyed. That was a part of my life that was now finished. It literally killed me when it happened, but it still just happened. I couldn’t change it and I couldn’t undo it. There was no going back.

This time though, I said goodbye. I actually had the chance to say goodbye, knowing I was walking away from everything I wanted to keep, and all I could hear in return was Luke calling out my name, begging me to come back. And when I actually had the chance to say my goodbye, all I could feel was my heart breaking at what I was giving up, at what I couldn’t have. This time when I said goodbye, all I could think was,
he is still alive, but you are walking away from him
.

Saying goodbye is so much worse.

∞

I’m lying on the floor in my cold apartment. My whole body feels frozen now and I can’t move because I just don’t care anymore.

Someone’s knocking at the door. It’s late, after eleven. It has to be him, Luke.

My broken heart is pounding, telling me to open the door. My head is screaming at me to protect him, to stay away from him. I want to listen to both. He’s still knocking, louder now. He knows I’m in here.

"Ash!" I hear him say. "Please Ash, please let me in."

I want to.

"Asha, please," his voice is begging, pleading, breaking as it reaches out to me.

I lie on the floor, silent on the other side of the door, desperately wanting to open it but unable to.

Luke keeps pounding. "Ash!" he says firmly. "I’m not leaving here, I’m not leaving until you talk to me, tell me what’s going on here."

He’s very stubborn when he wants to be. He fights for what he wants.

I wish I had the courage to do that.

There’s only silence now, the knocking has stopped and I wonder if he’s given up. I don’t want him to give up.

I don’t want to give him up.

I’m trying to work up the courage to open the door, trying to convince myself that it’s okay to open it, that he will be there. That I can just open the door and pull Luke inside. That it’s okay for me to do that, it’s okay for me to want him.

I want to move, but I can’t.

Minutes pass by.

I try and listen for his breathing but the only sounds I hear are my own hard, painful breaths as they force themselves from my lungs. My chest still aches.

The silence seems endless and it’s torturing me as I imagine him gone now. Luke gone, no longer caring and no longer fighting. Has he walked away now, has he said his goodbye?

The air feels impossibly still as I hold my breath, willing myself to hear him. Willing him to say something more; to ask me to open the door again, just one more time.
Please Luke, please don’t give up on me.

His pleading voice finally breaks the silence, "Asha, please. Please talk to me."

And this time it cracks something inside of me. He hasn’t given up, and now I give in.

I uncurl my body, crawl to the door, stand and unlock it. He’s there on the other side and he looks wrecked, completely wrecked. I say nothing as he pulls me to him. Say nothing as he wraps his arms tightly around me. He pushes me back inside, never letting go of me as he kicks the door shut with his foot. He walks me to the couch, sits us down and pulls me into his lap. I’m so weak, I let him do all of it. Let him wrap me completely in his arms. Let him stroke my hair back from my face, brush the tears from my cheeks. Let him kiss me everywhere with his lips.

I can’t let go of him. I can’t let him go.

"Ash beautiful, please talk to me. Please," he begs. "What’s this all about?"

I want to tell him.

I want him to help me.

I want him to make this all stop.

I just want him.

He presses his lips to my ear, whispering, "Please Ash, I promise you can tell me anything, anything at all. Let me help you, please just let me make this all okay." Luke’s voice is pleading with me and I can hear the ache in his words, can feel the ache inside of me.

I want to tell him everything.

"Please Asha." His voice is barely a whisper.

So I do. I take a deep breath and tell him all of it. I tell him about every single death, about all of the death that was my fault. I tell him about my mother, Grace, my Grandad, Adam, Selena, Nate, Angela, my Grandma, Dad, Seth, Lara and Sam.

All of them. I tell him how I killed all of them. How I thought I’d killed him. How his accidents; the knife, Liam, the burn, have all been because of me. How I’m afraid every time something happens to him, it will be the last time, and I will lose him. He asks me about each of them, what happened and I tell him everything. He asks me about Sam. I tell him.

∞

Sam’s funeral very nearly killed me. It was back in Seattle, I didn’t have a choice in that. Despite five years together, Sam’s parents decided everything. I wanted to be a part of it, I was so alone and I wanted them to let me be a part of it. But it destroyed me, him dying and I couldn’t do anything. I could barely speak, even to them.

His parents tried to offer some kind of comfort, but they were in shock themselves. His brother was like me, numb and couldn’t speak to anyone. And his sister blamed me. Kate blamed me for what had happened to Sam, and I knew she was right. Knew she was right about me from the very start. That I was never good enough for Sam, that I would never make him happy and that eventually he would leave me and come back to Seattle. She was right, because in the end he did end up back there without me, and it was all because of what I’d done.