The Good Girl (23 page)

I only wanted to be normal.

A normal kid.

A normal family.

A normal life.

I watched them move about. Almost as if in a coordinated dance, they stepped around each other, passing instruments back and forth. Metal clanged against metal and light from the overhead lamps flashed off the blood stained steel. I knew they were trying to save me and I prayed to the universe that’d failed me up until now to finally do something to release me – to answer One. Fucking. Prayer.

Every time the heart monitored flat lined, my head would fall back, relief slowly smothering the pain that Eleni had left trapped in my chest. But that relief was short lived and the pain would return – hotter, heavier – crushing against me in waves, drowning me in the weight of knowing she’d left me. She didn’t want me. Our love had been a lie just like everything else.

The demons didn’t laugh this time. They didn’t have to. Life’s cruel joke was torment enough.

Since losing my parents – my aunt – I’d never thought I would know what it was to be loved. Eleni was a prisoner to me, but I was never sure if it was the cage or her heart that held her in that house. Despite everything I’d done, she still touched me tenderly – sweetly – not affected by the rough scars of my skin, the patches that made me feel more like a reptile than a human being.

There was another flat line and another surge of pain when my body refused to give up – when it wouldn’t release the soul that had been crushed and killed long ago.

I knew I wouldn’t be released and I knew that the doctor who stood over me wouldn’t quit working until I stopped bleeding.

All I wanted to do was float away.

But fate was never that kind.

* * *

The heat of her palms was on my chest and I smiled. I felt her looking at me, smiling in a secret way that showed the true innocence inside her. Without the effects of her poison, her eyes shone blue and I glanced down to see her skin peeking out from the emerald green sundress she wore. My hands reached out to touch her, but she playfully pushed me away. She said something, but I could barely understand her. Her words were muffled, as if she were standing at the other end of a tunnel.

She’s happy – not angry, or frightened or scared and I smiled thinking that maybe it all worked out.

Despite the fact that she acted like she was ready to die with me – despite her walking behind me, making love to me and never objecting to what had to be done – I still believed she would deceive me. There was poison in the wine, but it would only speed up the effects of the poison I cooked into the food. That was the substance that would ultimately kill her. And what I put in the wine would only cause us to fall asleep, to go out peacefully while our bodies convulsed and foam poured from our mouths. Death was never pretty – but if your mind wasn’t there to experience it, it could be peaceful in the end.

She never had the chance to drink the wine and I was sure her death was as painful as mine.

After realizing what she must have gone through, I looked back up to her, wondering why she smiled when I’d not only lied to her, but also caused her to die painfully. Her eyes were filled with love and laughter and her hair looked like spun silk glimmering against the summer sun that shone above her. I tried to look around to see where we sat, but the landscape was murky, endlessly moving until I couldn’t determine what surrounded us.

She didn’t seem to care and I shrugged it off, not giving a shit about the location as long as she was sitting there with me.

“Are you alright, Gabriel?”

Her brows narrowed between her eyes and the skin on her forehead crinkled in concern. I chuckled to see the expression on her face. I loved to see her without the sweat of fear shimmering across her skin.

I reached up for her again, but she pushed me away. When I tried once more, she backed away from me. I reached out, feeling something stopping me from moving, and I screamed out for her as she walked further out of my reach. I pressed forward but it was like a force against my chest.

My eyes opened.

I saw the nurse above me.

And I realized it was her hands on my skin.

Grabbing her hands, I tried to scream – but something was down my throat. I dug my nails into the tops of her hands and crushed the delicate small bones between my palms.

Her mouth opened and she screamed as well.

“GABRIEL! LET ME GO!”

Chapter Forty-One

~ Eleni ~

When I woke up, the nurses were buzzing around me and a man with a lab coat stood at the end of the bed. I could only assume he was a doctor. His deep voice welcomed me as I took a couple deep breaths and fought off the nausea.

“Eleni, it’s nice to see you awake. You’re lucky you got to the hospital when you did. It wouldn’t have been much longer before the poison you ingested did some real harm to your body.”

He held up a chart, and made a couple notes.

“You should make a full recovery. Another doctor will be in here shortly to speak with you as well; now that we know you are awake and coherent.” He smiled and left. Doctors - always too busy to take their time with the patients that truly needed it. I looked to my left and saw Adele sitting beside me. She smiled warmly and brushed the hair away of my face.

“Gave us quite a scare, but you should be fine now.” her touch is tender and caring, and it helped to relax me. I closed my eyes and took in all the sounds of the emergency room; the beeps of the machines surrounding me. The chatter in other cubicles only separated by thin sheets providing minimal privacy. My mind spun thinking about the baby and the fact that Gabriel almost accomplished his goal of taking me out. A tear slipped from my eye, because I was certain his rash behavior had killed the life I was possibly carrying. Disappointment washed over me and I tried to push the thoughts away. I shouldn’t have been disappointed. I should have been relieved.

“GABRIEL LET ME GO!” A woman screamed from the other side of the wall. A crash echoed through the open room and medical staff came running from all angles. Gabriel. They were touching him. He was already lost and they are only going to push him further into the darkness he was trapped within. If I didn’t help him, this wasn’t going to end well.

Despite being attached to various machines and an IV, I ripped everything from my body and jumped out of the bed. He needed me. Gabriel needed me right then. I pulled the sheet back and instinct took over.

I ran from the room where they held me and rounded the corner only stopping when I’d finally reached his bed.

Throwing myself between his body and the doctors and nurses, I screamed, “Don’t touch him! He doesn’t like to be touched! Please stop!” The nurses were scrambling to restrain him to the flimsy hospital gurney. I stepped to the side, pressed my hand to his cheek and began whispering into his ear.

“Gabriel, I’m here, love. It’s okay, they’re just trying to help you.” His body began to relax as he listened to my voice.

He tried to speak, but the tube down his throat prevented it.

“Yes, love. I’m here. I’m sorry but this is for your own good. We’re going to help you get better. We’re all here to help you. I love you, Gabriel. It’s all going to be okay. I promise you.” I kissed his cheek and he calmed down enough for the staff to restrain and medicate him. Tears rolled down my face watching them treat his wounds - the wounds that I had caused.

“He’s schizophrenic…” I offer them, “..and he has been off his medication.” I waited for him to fall asleep from the tranquilizers before going back to my gurney and crying myself to sleep. But the sleep didn’t last long because a laundry list of doctors had an agenda with me.

“Miss Richards?” The new doctor woke me. I nod at her presence, acknowledging her in the most minimal way I could without being completely rude.

“I’m Doctor Williams from the OB/GYN department.” With her words, my head snapped to the side and I sat up in the bed. She had my full attention.

“We’ve run some tests and it appears the poison you ingested didn’t affect your baby at all. You’re in the very early stages of pregnancy - probably about five weeks or so. We detected a faint heartbeat when you were brought in but we would like to monitor you closely for the next couple of days. We would like to take you for another ultrasound if you’re feeling up for it.”

I could only nod my head as the tears began to fall again.

I protected our baby. I saved our baby.

Our. Baby.

Epilogue

~ Eleni ~

Five small fingers, a tiny hand that held mine as we walked through the parking lot leading up to the building that would forever change his life. His steps weren’t balanced, but he was so proud for making them, small ones that would turn into large confident strides when he finally grew into the man I knew he could become. He was a new beginning, an angel that meant more to me than the one that graced my leg. He was my protection, my growth and my reminder that from the ashes, beautiful things could be reborn. He was my Phoenix, the living and breathing proof that life didn’t have to end the way that it started out. He was proof that the combination of two wrongs could sometimes make a right, and that deep within the suffocating darkness, small sparks could be created that birthed brilliant light.

When I left the hospital after three days of being treated for the poison that Gabriel had fed me, I was a new woman - three long days that I spent wondering if my child would survive Gabriel’s cruelty – the delusions that led him to believe that we both were meant to die. However, the baby blessedly kept living, his heart beating strong each day that they let me listen to the small thumps of the monitor – the hurried flutters that would one day become slow and strong.

In those three days, something extraordinary happened. I had too much time to think; but for once, my thoughts weren’t glued to the past. After living through the nightmare that Gabriel had forced on me, and after learning that I would walk away not only as a stronger person – but as a mother – my thoughts shifted to the future, to what my life would become, to the joys and glory of bringing new life into the world and finally being happy with the one I’d lived all along.

It was odd, but I think I finally learned about forgiveness in those three days. While lying alone, strapped to the numerous cables and tubes, I thought of my parents and what they’d done. I thought about Gabriel’s parents and the life that was stripped from them and from the boy they’d carried in the backseat of their car. I’ll admit that discovering the circumstances of their death had hurt worse than what they’d been able to do to me in my short life – to learn that their addiction not only left me alone, but Gabriel as well. However, I was able to forgive them for their weakness - only because it meant I could forgive myself for mine.

Gabriel had been correct in the things he showed me. Despite the cruel way he went about showing me the truth about myself, I was grateful that it happened. Looking back, I was allowing my life to fall aside, allowing myself to become just like the people who’d destroyed the light inside me. I liked to think they didn’t know better because, in retrospect, neither did I.

What Gabriel did to me was wrong – I realized that. But what he awoke inside me was right, it was renewing, it was the pain that I needed to endure so that I could come out stronger on the other side. I couldn’t blame him for his actions. I wanted to hate him, to view him as the monster he’d allowed himself to become. However, in those long hours that I stayed alone inside that dark hospital room, I thought back on the other side that I saw of him in the moments when he’d been gentle and kind.

He wasn’t a monster after all – he was simply haunted by the same nightmares I’d run from all my life. I could escape into a bottle, I could escape into the false reality I created to hide from the emotional scars – but he couldn’t hide from the physical scars that every day served to remind him of everything he had lost. In those quiet hours, I began to understand what happened to him and, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t hold it against him.

And now, as I took small steps to match those of my son, I appreciated the man who helped create him, the man who took me from my life and, through the pain, through the heartache, and through the misery he bestowed upon me, had released me back into the world a different person than I had been before I ever knew he existed.

The Eleni that was abducted never returned to the world she’d known before. I never drank another drop of alcohol, I didn’t contact the people who never bothered to look for me or even notice that I was missing. After gathering my things, I ditched my apartment and moved over to a better side of town – leaving behind the job I never wanted and the lifestyle I should have never let happen.

I’m sure you’re wondering how I was able to do that – just disappear without the means to support my own life – much less the one growing inside me.

I have to be honest when I tell you that I had Gabriel to thank for that.

His hospital room had been next to mine for those three days. Each day, I heard him struggle against the doctors and nurses and – while they still believed that we were boyfriend and girlfriend – I convinced them to allow me in his room during his attacks, to whisper softly to him enough to calm him down so they could treat his wounds and administer his medication.

By the third day, he was stable and he’d regained touch with reality once again. I’d visited his room when I was discharged, worried that my absence would send him careening back into the nightmare that he’d fought so hard to break through. When I’d walked in that room, he smiled – a real smile that brightened his face, but was overshadowed by the pain and guilt I saw in his eyes. I knew it was insane to care about him after everything he’d done – but I couldn’t help the sympathy I felt for him and I couldn’t forget the small spark of love I’d developed for him in the few sweet moments he’d shown me. He’d been wrong for what he did – but he was still the only person in my life that cared enough to try and change me. I couldn’t hate him for that and I realized that a bond had formed between us despite the manner in which it had been born.