September Rain Bk 2, Savor The Days Series (38 page)

Cobwebbed. Dusty. Though the blood is
still fresh.

Blinking, I force myself to focus on
the table in front of me. I have been completely lost inside the
past and realize that I’m not sure which parts I have shared and
which I’ve kept to myself.

On the opposite side of the table are
two empty chairs. The small lights on the cameras that have been
steadily glowing through every session are now black. A hand
belonging to my lawyer snaps the small button on the base of the
microphone that sits in front of me, shutting it off.

His overcoat is shiny charcoal gray
and noisy. The material has a large weave to it, reminding me of
the hospital gown, the fabric scrapes together as he turns to me.
“Miss Patel.”

I keep my eyes on my left hand,
forcing my fingers to relax, though I feel like punching something.
“Yes.”

“I’d like to talk about how you’re
feeling.”

I shake my head, letting my overlong
hair fall forward and block my peripheral vision.

“I’m fine, Mister Brandon—” I hate his
name. I knew a kid in fourth grade named Brandon. I think he might
have been nice, but having a lawyer with that name ruins the vague
taste of the memory—turns it bitter. “I’m splendid, actually. Just
trying to talk about the most painful night of my life.”

“Miss Patel, I think you’ve
misunderstood the purpose of these interviews. It is not, and I
repeat,
not
to
relive the events of the night that led you here. The purpose is to
allow you space to reflect on your actions, which help us determine
the proper course and security level for further treatment. While
doing so, you may recall the finer details of that time, but this
session is not for that purpose.”

There are parts of that night I don’t
remember and if I have any say, I never will. But I’m not telling
him that. “I can remember simple instructions. I’m not
incompetent.”

His shoulders seem to relax. “Whether
you believe me or not, whether you like me or not, I’d like you to
remember that I am here to help you, Miss Patel. If you need
anything, all you have to do is ask and I will do my best to
satisfy your request.”

I’m not falling into that
trap. The last six years has taught me this: nothing is free. And
the only one that can help me is
me
.

“I’ve been thinking about what I saw
when I woke up.”

His face softens. “Have you recalled
anything new?”

I shake my head.

“Well, don’t strain yourself. We’re
all aware of your diagnoses and want to make this process as
simple, as relaxing as possible.”

I drop my eyes back to my
useless hands. I don’t even know what that fucking word
means.
Relaxing
.
It’s a farce.

While I stare at the slightly frayed
material on the cuff of my short sleeve jumpsuit, the door opens
and the slapping sound of feet hit the worn floor in time. I keep
quiet while the two agents of the court reenter to talk with my
lawyer. Funny thing is I didn’t even notice they were gone. When
each side of the table seems satisfied with whatever the hell
details they’re trying work out, I am prompted to delve back into
that night.

My guts begin their crawl back into
frigid knots.

I’m a dumb fish, gasping on the bank
beside violent river waters; cast out when I tried to swim
upstream. I can’t take in the air, coated in dry dirt. My hands
clutch the arms of the chair. Hot tears prick at the backs of my
eyes as I dive back into that terrible torrent: the place I’m dying
to get away from and the only place I can breathe.

“It’s all fragments—snapshots of the
larger picture. A dark shape on the floor.” I take a deep, slow
breath, forcing my eyes to stay open. If I blink, I’ll see . . . “I
thought it was a pile of laundry . . .”

+++

In the cool, dark of the bathroom
floor, I found myself wide awake and sweating, wondering how I had
managed to sleep. Cautious fingers groped my head and the knotted
muscles of my neck. My migraine had receded for the most part. My
head still hurt, but I could think.

There was a stretch of light creeping
in from under the door and a . . . a staggered sound—almost like a
whimper—coming from beyond on the wall. It was low, but still a
shrill sound. A howl. Like a dying animal. I banged on the nearest
wall—no, the front of a cabinet—and called out for
Avery.

What’s going on?
I wondered, making my way onto my hands and
knees, cautiously probing the cool tile as I approached the door,
because even though I was crawling without irritation, I was sure
my headache would come back if I got up too quickly. Carefully,
slowly, I stood and reached for the knob.

The room was darker than I expected.
From inside my hole, the light that streamed in seemed so bright,
but the room was actually very dark. The strange howl had stopped,
but I made out the echo of breath, a grunting or hoarse gasping
like a runner makes when they’ve just finished a sprint. My eyes
went to the carpet, where I caught sight of a pile of laundry that
had been tossed in the corner, between my bed and the
wall.

+++

Shaking my head, I look across the
table at the blocky framed, emotionless eyes of Tight Bun Tara.
“There’s a blank spot right here.” This memory photo is
blank.

“That’s alright. Just move along to
the next thing you recall.” Tight Bun nods her head, waving a hand
towards me.

My eyes lose focus, letting go of
what’s in front of me. “The feeling . . . I think I literally left
my body the moment I saw . . .”

+++

I was floating in a vat of black.
There was a burning—it felt like a light going on. First there was
nothing and then it was everywhere, strong and solid, but it was
more than that—it was like light was breaking. There was pain
everywhere; I didn’t feel it as much as sensed it. What I felt was
dread; as if a giant fissure had opened up, wanting to drag me in.
I was yanked out and away from the center of my universe, into
something strange and unknown, where the sun had exploded or died
or blew a hole in the fabric of space and it was sucking every
particle of good from the cosmos.

That’s what the black felt
like.

I couldn’t see anything. I could feel
the floor under my feet, the air in my lungs, but that was all
there was, besides the dread that held on like a poisonous
whirlpool. A cry came ripping from my throat like a rush of red
pouring from a gaping wound. I didn’t know why I needed to weep
aside from that sense of what I couldn’t see. All I knew was
something was very wrong. I blinked several times and kept at it;
counting to ten, telling my eyes to start working. I took lots of
deep breaths until the motel room came back into focus.

Then all I saw was Avery. She was
standing beside me, saying, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. So sorry,”
repeating it, like a mantra.

+++

“She kept saying it over
and over and over. Slow at first, and then faster and faster, until
it stopped making sense.” The soft blue walls take in my words as
my mind skips to the next thing I remember. As I try—and fail—to
simply deliver the words and
not
to picture it, the interview room
shrinks.

“I don’t know how, but I was . . . on
the floor . . .”

+++

Everything was a puzzle. I was lost,
just like that time in the corridor at school. I was in my motel
room, but there was no more room, or carpet, or bed, or light.
There were only my fingers, curled around someone else’s. I
followed the length of them up to a wrist and an arm. I studied the
pale skin, utterly confused by each detail. I was just trying to
breathe, waiting for what I was seeing to make sense. The palms of
the exposed hands were marked with thin slashes.

Red marker lines.

I knew whose hands they
were, I
knew
it,
but there was something blotting out my understanding, so I kept
staring. Familiar fingers and those forearms were crumpled
awkwardly across the chest. I remember thinking,
he
. It’s a
he
. And even in that
vulnerable state he looked like he was trying to protect himself.
When I straightened his fingers, the cuts on his palms relaxed
apart. A long, deep gash that stretched the length of his forearm
made my stomach wretch.

The synapses of my brain were not
firing. I couldn’t find words to identify what I was seeing or
think of what I was supposed to do about it. I knew there was
something, some type of instruction for moments of holy terror,
times when you find limp hands. But I couldn’t find the answer;
like it was trapped behind a brick wall. Everything I saw was a
question picking at the blocks in the wall, but my mind stayed
blank. There were only my feet stuck to the floor and my stunted
brain, my hands grasping relaxed palms, and my eyes stuck on a
sleeping face my mind couldn’t comprehend. I couldn’t find the
language to process my situation or what needed to happen
next.

The only thing I could put
together was this: the motel room was a dank, dark place where
terrible things happened. Whatever those things were, Avery was
responsible.
Why else would she
apologize?
Thinking her name triggered
another and then the pieces of what I was seeing started falling
together. Not all of them, but enough to start hating
her.

His name came into my mouth. “Jake?” I
fell on him, pulling at his hands—the hands that had spent hundreds
of hours holding me—and pressed them to my lips, feeling how cold
they were.

All the strength was drained from my
body. I let go of the room, willingly this time. I had to disappear
and made myself shrink, keeping my grip firmly on him. If he was no
more, I wouldn’t be, either. I would take him with me into my
tight, tiny ball, where neither of us would exist.
Together.

+++

I’m shrugging, trying to disconnect
myself from the picture in my head. “I had no practical experience.
I mean, I’d left dozens of people, but I had never said goodbye to
any of them. I never said hello, either.”

My voice quavers. “I said hello to
Jake every time I saw him and there was so much after those hellos.
So many moments that changed me.”

Can they understand? Do
they realize that I would never hurt him?

Tight Bun Tara’s eyebrows are drawn
together as she studies my every word.

“Before Jake, I didn’t know what love
was beyond the songs and lyrics I had heard. It was this phantasmal
thing: intangible and unreachable, a poetic dream of something
higher that died with Romeo and Juliet.”

I didn’t
know
.

“Then, I met him and heard his music.
I was afraid I would forget what it felt like, that I would never
find it again.

“How was I supposed to know the
‘hello’s’ were over? That it was time for goodbye?”

The blue interview room
seems to flicker red while I ponder the limp word.
Goodbye.
It’s
insufficient. One word formed from two meant to imply that leaving
someone is a good thing.

“Before I knew losing him was
possible, he was gone. And I was . . . crushed.”

+++

When I found myself again, I was
holding his head in my lap. Tears were falling down my face,
landing on his and he wasn’t flinching or complaining, or trying to
wipe them away and comfort me, the way he always did. He was just
laying there with his eyes closed and the sight was so painful, I
couldn’t get past it to even think his name. Recognition was
enough.

I caressed the stubble on his cheeks.
My memory flooded with images of us; giggling at something stupid I
did—the way he would cover his mouth when he tried not to laugh at
me. The way he’d sometimes dance with me in the crowd while the
other bands played. His pouty lips; the way they always twisted
when he was really concentrating. The way they molded around my
name.

He was just laying there in my lap. So
still. Too still.

He was supposed to be waking up in a
few hours and packing his bags, heading for his future; a record
deal, a recording studio. We were supposed to move to California
and work and make our dreams come true. Jake had often told me that
I had an eye for talent, so I planned to use that instinct to help
him. I was gonna go to business school and learn how to be the
bands’ manager.

But none of that would happen
now.

He was stuck. Still and cold in my
lap. His eyelids weren’t twitching as he dreamed.

His dreams were dead.

“I’ll die. I’ll die, too.” I rocked
him in my arms, feeling warmth run through me at the thought. I had
to be wherever he was.

“If we start a fire, there’ll be
sprinklers and alarms.” The voice broke through my
concentration.

The image of those words threw
horrible pictures into my head. “What?”

Avery walked over and knelt
down. She was in shorts and a t-shirt. No shoes. She set a hand
over mine, both of us touching
his
chest. “I was only thinking out loud. We need to
leave, though. We can’t stay here.”