Page 50 of Kylie

Rather than sit around and fret about how soon death would claim me and put me out of my misery, I was coming to peace with my existence. Or rather, the end of it. It wasn’t difficult since the heat was beginning to have a negative effect. For the first few days, I had attempted to keep my strength up, standing up frequently and walking the perimeter of the room. That dwindled as the days continued until I no longer bothered to get up. At this point, I wasn’t sure I could.

Sleeping worked best. It allowed me to escape this shit hole and venture into a world I longed to get back to. My dreams were always of my family. With every passing day, I knew I was missing out on more and more. More birthdays, more milestones, more firsts. I didn’t get to see any of them. Since Martin had informed me that my family had moved on, I could only assume they were now enjoying their days without me. I didn’t know exactly how long I’d been dead to them, but it was more than a year, less than two. Long enough for them to have moved on.

But I hadn’t. And I wouldn’t. Not until the day I went to sleep and never woke up again.

Since the dreams happened when I closed my eyes, I had to assume the daytime hallucinations resulted from the dehydration and hunger. Not that I minded them. They involved conversations with my family and friends, so it was a win as far as I was concerned. I wasn’t sure it did much for my sanity, but I found distinct pleasure in believing my husbands and my children could feel my love across the universe when I talked to them.

I was going to celebrate another big one today. It was Haden’s fourth birthday.

God, I remembered his smile, the way he would giggle at everything his brother and sisters did. How his eyes would glitter with excitement whenever Kate walked into the room. She had spent so much time with him when he was born, helping me to take care of him. I wondered if he still talked without saying his R’s. If he did, were Travis and Gage thinking about getting him a speech therapist? Or had they already? Perhaps he’d grown out of it.

Tears welled, but they didn’t fall. I didn’t have enough energy to expel them at this point. They were a good sign, though. At least I wasn’t dehydrated yet. Or was I? Maybe you could cry even if you were dehydrated. I wasn’t sure.

Nor did it matter.

“Happy birthday, Haden,” I whispered, forcing a smile even as my chin wobbled. “I hope you have a lovely day.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Wednesday, July 6, 2022

Kylie

Twenty-one days.

That was about how long it took for time to become irrelevant. The tally marks on the wall continued to increase, but only because I feared that if I didn’t make them, there was a good chance tomorrow wouldn’t come.

Back before, I’d never noticed certain things. Like where the morning sunlight lands on the floor and where that sliver of light is just before night comes. No matter how hard I tried to recall the individual rooms in my house, I could never see the sunlight land anywhere. Here in this shit hole, I knew exactly where.

I now knew how many sips of water were left in a nearly empty bottle.

I was aware that smells, though distinct at some point, came together to create something fetid. Like stale sweat and infected skin, mildew and rust. Individually, they weren’t pleasant, but they were tolerable. As one, they were disturbing.

The good news was, my nose no longer registered what was in the room with me.

The same couldn’t be said for my sense of touch. I tried to sleep, but it was nearly impossible. I would drift, believing I would finally get a reprieve, but then I would feel something crawling on me. Was it a bug? Or my imagination? When I wasn’t thinking about what might be chowing on my flesh, the chain would shift and clank, the shackle scraping against the infection festering on my ankle.

There were splinters embedded in my elbows from when I tried to push myself up. Which wasn’t often anymore because I got dizzy when I attempted to sit up.

My muscles cramped when I tried to lie down.

Pain became almost tolerable when an infection worsened. At least that was the case with my foot.

My lips were cracked.

My head throbbed all the time.

My bruises weren’t healing.

My hands trembled even when I wasn’t moving.

The sound of a car door slamming drew my attention. I hadn’t even heard it pull up. Probably thanks to how loud my heartbeat had become in recent days.

I managed to peel myself off the floor and prop my back against the wall, legs stretched out in front of me. It took every ounce of strength I possessed, but it was necessary. Attempting to appear stalwart and strong was futile at best, but I refused to let him know he’d won. Not yet. Not today, anyway.

From here I could see the door and all the windows; plus it was the one spot in the room that rarely saw any sunlight. Not that it was cooler by any stretch of the imagination, but it was shielded from those little slivers of light, so surely it made a difference.

Or I pretended that was the case, anyway.