AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Put it away until tomorrow.
The thoughts rush on. They do not stop. They will not heed my command to retreat. Clutching the sheet hard, my knuckles turn as white as the bedding.
To be like Sean. That was what I originally wanted from him. To learn how to seal out the world, the pain—the suffering. Nothing got to him. Ever. I see him in my mind, sitting at the piano, isolated. Alone. Unfeeling. Yet…a ray of light breaks through.
Tomorrow will be better.
The strangle hold won’t release me. A voice in my mind counters the spot of hope, hissing, “That’s not true.”
It’s not, is it? The voice is more timid this time. The realization makes me shiver and I try to shove it away but it lingers, leaching the life out of me.
I pulled Sean back from the abyss. He was hurtling, head-first, straight for Hell. Nothing mattered to him anymore. Not even his brothers. He said so. The emptiness consumed him, every last ounce. The scrap that I swear I saw, was no more than an ember—the final remains of the man he once was.
Is that where I’m standing now? On a precipice with flames below? It feels like the cliff is gone and I’m caught mid-fall, flailing. Sean inhales deeply and shifts in the sheets. I realize that I’ve pulled the top sheet up to my neck and strangle it like it can save me. I drop the fabric and sit up.
Don’t crack, Avery.
I tell myself that forty times a day, but my God. Will tomorrow be better?
I’m not so certain anymore.
It’s a mantra I’ve told myself for the longest time. Surviving justifies anything. And I survived, but at some point there will be a reckoning. I know it.
The shrink practically waved the huge-ass gonna-be-a-nut-job flag via our satellite sessions every single time. Even from that distance, with a computer screen between us, I felt Chang’s ominous words.
You’ve shoved every thought, every emotion behind a mental dam. Those feelings cannot reside there, unresolved forever. One day, probably when you least expect it, the damn will burst. If you do not reconcile and make peace with all you endured, I’m afraid you’ll drown in the flood.
That warning still sobers me, but I’ve spent too much time with tears on my face and too many hours filled with fear. Too much time wondering if I was right or wrong. I’ve wasted so much time that I don’t want to continue squandering it.
Still. The memory. The touch of Marty’s slick skin, the look in his eyes at the end. Almost apologetic, like he was sorry he couldn’t save me. The thought sickens me.
I don’t know who I was that night, but I regret what I did to him. There was no way to know which side he was playing and although I’ve relived that situation again and again looking for a way to tell, to find an ending without bloodshed—I come up empty. His death haunts me. It seems unnecessary. Evil.
Draping my legs over the side of the bed, I move. Get up. Stop the cascade of darkness. I have to hold it back, if not for myself, for the baby. Inhaling deeply, I focus tightly on the slit of light at the bottom of the drapes, the thin bright line developing on the carpet beneath the window. It’s sunrise.
While the sins I committed are behind me, they’re not gone. There’s blood on my hands and it doesn’t appease me to know it was the blood of a deranged murderer, or of a friend who desperately wanted to save me. Even the pilot who tried to kill me in Sean’s cabin.
They all feel the same. The guilt is equal.
CHAPTER 8
There is an easy way to escape the destructive barrage of guilt and worry during the waking hours, before my mind splinters with grief—walk outside to the balcony. So that’s what I do.
Silently, I sneak away from Sean, letting him sleep, pull on a robe, and grab my coffee before padding down the long hall that leads to the central living area. Floor-to-ceiling glass windows frame an orange and pink sunrise smudged at the edges with a burnt blue.
I head for the windows and pass through the large glass doors that let out onto the wrap-around balcony. We’re up so high that no one can see me out here. It’s not like walking down the city streets below.
As soon as my feet touch the slate tiles outside, the whisper of Mel’s voice slips through my mind. That panic as we raced through the mansion, thinking Sean and Henry were dead. The fear I felt back then licks at my spine, clawing at me to relive it.
No. I refuse to relive these memories again. I won’t be haunted by my past.
I reach out, touching the metal railing, forcing a new sensation—a new memory to replace the old one.
Maybe I need a better shrink. Even so, with everything I learned in school, it’s clear that no one can take this toxicity from me. I have to extract it and move on. It’s up to me, to allow myself to feel happiness once more.
Part of me wants that more than anything. The other part… I don’t want to think about the other part. I fear that one day the monster within will become so engorged that I can’t contain it.
To think, that’s what drew me to Sean in the first place, his ability to control his feelings—to claim that numbness and master it. I had no idea what I was asking for back then. My psych courses should have clued me in, but I was so deep into survival mode, that it didn’t matter. I simply didn’t see it.
The human spirit can recover from horrors too hideous to imagine. That’s what I remember most from class, so that’s what I fixate on. Make new memories. Push past the ghosts that try and drag me into the past. It’s a new dawn, new light, and I won’t shrink away and hide. It’s another day, another sunrise. Another chance at happiness. I need to live in the moment, to be here now, and stop looking backward.
There will be a reckoning. I shove the thought away. It makes me feel helpless. If I surrender to it now, I’ll bring the flood on myself now. It’s my choice. I’d rather delve though everything in tiny fragments so I don’t have to face the bigger picture, so I don’t have to admit what I am.
Murderer. The word finally takes shape in the back of my mind. My thoughts nearly trip on it, but I focus outward and annihilate the inner dialog running through my mind.
I will not crack. Not today. Not here. Not now. Just, no.
There’s a chill in the air this morning, making me shiver. I rub my hands over my arms as I pad outside on the balcony. Sitting in a deep blue chair with a thick cushion, I put my feet up on an ottoman, and inhale deeply. Golden rays of light touch my cheeks, warming my face. There’s a great deal of courage involved in starting a new day. Inhaling slowly, I close my eyes. I picture myself, determined, smiling, moving forward. If I don’t, the thing that scares me most will inch in and overtake me.
I don’t want to become the woman I was that night. The murderer. The one who felt nothing, would do anything. Chase her away. Don’t let her back in.
But there’s a problem. I can’t even admit it to myself, but I know—deep down, I know—she’s already there.
Waiting.
CHAPTER 9
I hate doctor’s offices. When we finally get back into the room, it’s cramped, with one exam table, a tiny stool with spinner wheels, and a narrow chair wedged into the corner. Constance had a stroke when I said I wanted to use my doctor and not the Ferro family doc. Part of it is level of comfort. I’ve known this doctor for a few years. The rest is privacy. I seriously doubt Dr. Liz will violate HIPPA laws.
Sean looks like a giant shoved in the tiny corner of the room. He wrings his hands as he tries to fold his leg over one knee, and then tries again with the other leg. He shifts in the tiny chair, mutters an obscenity and rises. Thrusting a hand through his dark hair, he stands by my head and looks down at me. “We could have invited the doctor to the mansion.”
I snort. “She wouldn’t have come. She’s busy.”
Sean blinks at me. “We don’t know that and this room is incredibly tiny. The thought of standing in here for months is somewhat claustrophobic.”
“Weenie.”
Sean snorts, then leans down, kisses my forehead. “You like my weenie.”
Smiling up at him, I tease, “Sometimes.”
A voice comes from the door, “Well, she liked it enough to end up here.”
Mortified, I feel my face heat as Dr. Liz walks into the room. She’s grinning as she extends a hand toward Sean. “Pleased to meet you. And you are?”
Sean takes her hand in his and shakes it. He’s eyeing her like he doesn’t know what to think. “I am her husband, Sean Ferro. This is our baby.”
They step apart and Dr. Liz looks down at me. If she’s impressed at a Ferro standing in her office, she doesn’t show it. She skips straight to business, “How are we feeling?”
