66 Chapter Final

Was it him I wanted to see? My blurry eyes slowly materialized him there – Joe – sitting by my bed. Yes… I was strangely glad to see him. The past hours had been agitated, anxious, I longed… and for what? My bones rattled when they should rest, and they went limp when I was supposed to get up and move.

And I wasn't home.

Being away was both a relief and a stressor, depending on which memory I visited. But to see Joe's face, after a couple of long, medicated days… somehow, it was purely pleasant.

He held my hand as he explained to me what happened that night, how he got us help, how my parents were contacted and rushed to the scene. The scene… it was funny how he was a different guy when he talked like that, as if he had been on the outside… I liked his way of retelling: it made it all feel like a movie… nothing but one!

Heavy-hearted, he told me about Susie: about how, in the chaos of my father questioning the police, she separated from them and ran away to look for me, eventually going to the school. When her absence was noticed, Joe personally fled his own ambulance and took chase with some fellow officer, and they eventually found her by the school gate, having already done the deed… missed the shot. My shoulder ached as I recalled there was a wound in there, most dramatically…

…and my heart ached to the memory that she didn't miss it. I got in the way. But shame kept me quiet.

Then, finally, having skirted around the subject as much as it was possible, running in circles that inched closer and closer by the minute, the core was eventually reached – the very reason for all the unfolding, like a whirlpool sucking everything in: When he said his name, the air ran out of my lungs, and my chest went cold. A curious way of reacting to its sound, as if my brain wasn't constantly repeating it whenever I closed my eyes or was left to silence!

"That man… Chris…" he sighed. "…did you see where he went?"

"Oh!" I whispered in a medicated surprise. Of course he hadn't been captured! Of course he had not been found that night! Would he ever? Not now. My heart stung. I didn't know what I wanted.

"Well?" Joe entreated, being careful as to be kind "…did you?"

I swallowed the lump that grew in my throat as I watched the scene in my head: The long goodbye, his heart pressed to mine, his acknowledgement of my sacrifice – of my taking a bullet for him! His seeing me… finally seeing me: for all I felt for him, and for all the pain he'd inflicted… His sincerest apology, and a goodbye kiss, tender and unsullied. Bitter fantasies: a mere projection of my brain. My lower lip puckered. I didn't know where he went. I didn't see him go. Didn't watch him leave… didn't think he would. Instead, one moment I was there, and the next I was awake, surrounded by all these people. Why so bitter? Why did it make me so bitter?

"I never saw him go…" was my answer as my thoughts trailed off into that night.

What a strange agitation disturbed the flow of my blood. What an unsavory, bitter taste filled the back of my tongue – was it some medicine? Choking, like an incoming cry! I made sure I sat as still as I could, my face an impassive mask, as I experienced what I did: anguish. An electric, irrational urge to turn back, to run back there – into that dark kitchen, where I was. To run and get just one more word in – one punch, maybe one kiss, I didn't know… To go back and stab him before it was as late as it was now: before he had slipped into oblivion! But I couldn't do that… he wasn't there anymore. Time had passed without my permission and I wasn't there to see it – how it ended! My chest felt like a burned forest, blackened and ashy. I clenched my fists, I tightened my jaw… and that was all I could express, while Joe was in the room.

"Abby…" he patted my hand once more. "…we're gonna catch him!"

DO! – my soul ached, my eyes pleaded silently. Catch him! Bring him! It's not done – not as it should, it's not fair.

NOT FAIR… and my eyes welled up.

Joe pursed his lips, gave my hand a hearty squeeze, let me stare ahead through the beads of my tears in a quiet, respectful moment, never caring to ask – or to even wonder to himself – what drove them down. What sick, somber, obsessive force caused those tears? I myself didn't know. Was it hatred? The keen sense of justice failing, of cosmic retribution mocking me? Was it sheer, shameful longing? Or was it just the memories? – all of them, still so fresh and intact in my brain, my undying brain, the one the doctors swore would be okay to carry on living and remembering – and remember it did, at times spontaneously, at times coerced.

Of course Joe's visits to the hospital weren't the only form of interrogation I'd be subject to. They did always try to make it just as subtle… but there were words that, regardless of how much they gnawed at my consciousness, I detested to hear spoken out loud. My mother would say if you recount an evening's nightmare before breakfast, it would come true… the same ominous feeling surrounded words when I had to sit there and tell people what had happened – and hear them say it back to me…

Dark, foreboding feelings were there when I had to correct them once, to correct them twice: he didn't rape me. Not by much. To hear them say it all over again: The night of the rape. To see them take notes, scribble down my answers, only to ask the same things in a week hence, and start it the same way: "tell us about the night of the rape". It wasn't rape… it wasn't a night. Not a single night. It wasn't any of that, it wasn't anything like they called it. It was at once much more, and at times much less than they assumed, and that made me so angry! 'I was there too', Joe would sometimes remind me in lieu of support, taking his colleagues questions… but my affirmations he didn't defend himself… he didn't know, not as I did. Though he liked to think otherwise, he wasn't there all the time. Hell, he wasn't there for the most of it! But he liked to think he had… He liked to think we had been through it all together, and survived together, and that somehow it made us equals – together in that dark basement, as opposed to alone. It was a warm feeling the one I experienced whenever I saw him… a feeling of truth, of wearing no masks and expecting no forced smiles… but it was extra disappointing to hear him say it, having forgot; to call it that - the night of the rape – when it had been short of just that, and full of so much else!

But yes… remember I did, as they expected me to! I'd do it once every second, I'd do it by the hour, and eventually I'd do it daily; prompted or otherwise! I remembered the pain; the fear shaking my bones spasmodically, stretching my skin taut, oversensitive to the slightest touch… I remembered the dark, figurative and real: not knowing what was going to happen, not seeing what was in front of my eyes. I remembered the agony, the sore screaming throat, the coarse voice that wouldn't do it – wouldn't save me, no matter how loud I employed it!

…But memory wasn't selective. I remembered still those first days of him… The kiss he gave me, the fluttery feelings inside my stomach, the warmth I had never felt and the excitement of having him there, with me. Interested in me, still unaware of how dangerous that could be. I'd sometimes catch myself thinking about it wishfully: wishing it had been different with my inflamed brain conjuring up alternative memories, fake ones.

Chris wasn't caught that night. He wasn't caught a month later… nor a year. He wouldn't come back for me – or so Joe, the occasional friend, would tell me – but that was a good thing. A great thing. Sometimes, I had to remind myself of that.

Still, I was a good girl. I followed my parents in their new pieced-together life. We all moved to the countryside, to turn a new leaf, a brighter and happier life together now they had been blessed with a good enough motivation. Uncertain at first, they thought they could do it – become a couple again. Surprisingly, they pulled it off: they were better at it, also – more concerned with each other, more attentive and forgiving. They were much better parents for Susie, who dearly needed them: It was over three months after that unfortunate shot that she began speaking again. But when she finally did… everything was okay.

As for me… soon, I decided I couldn't do it. Realized I didn't have to: my one-year compliance was enough to heal all which was wrong with them, and I moved back, no different than when I first arrived: back to the suburb, to the same school, to that house and the memories that had never left me… to the Chris that would never return. Not that it mattered that much: part of him had invariably stayed. Not in the house, but in me, somewhere I couldn't pluck him from, however hard I tried. Perhaps in my shoulder, inside my scar? I sometimes felt like digging for it with a knife, but I knew it was only a silly, irrational feeling: a dramatic metaphor, and not the best one either: If I allowed myself to look inside and analyze it – something I rarely ever did – I'd understand it felt more like some form of venom… like he'd bitten me, but the poison, instead of killing or being cleared out of my body, lingered and adapted, becoming part of my coursing blood and burning my veins anew every day. Somedays, the venom was easy to bear… I'd be okay with its ubiquity, it would even make me feel stronger, braver for enduring it! Other days, it would burn me so bad the pain kept me from leaving my bed.

Some nights, I cried because I dreamed I was still there, in that basement, in that situation, certain I would never get out. Some I cried happy tears for having made it out alive. Others, however, I would cry just because I hated the ending… I hated not knowing, not seeing him go, not saying a word. In those nights, I suspect I missed him – and those were the ones that made living with myself the most unbearable.

They were the ones that made my parents so willing to let me go, too. I couldn't blame them: I didn't like it any more than they did. It was just an unfortunate marking, the worst I could possibly have had: Looking back at my life, Chris had briefly given me the best moments I had ever had, and ever would get to enjoy again. Subsequently, he had given me the worst. How to filter that? I had fallen off a cliff, having briefly flown, and the crash maimed my wings so that I'd never soar again.

But time had its share of comforts.

With time, everything would fall back into place. Soon, people would forget I was supposed to be this traumatized victim… They'd move on with their lives, finally leaving me to be truthful to mine. 'Leave her be', they'd eventually tell themselves, instead of poking me for some reaction they deemed appropriate to the 'healing process', whatever that might be. And they'd leave me be. They'd do it so that they could move on, relishing the benefit of occasionally forgetting. They'd do it soon, before my wound healed, before it stopped bleeding when I rolled in bed at night.

Sometimes, I thought it would never heal – not while he was still out there, not with all those things trapped inside, ripping to get out, aching to find him! To find Chris!!

…And do what?

I was always too sleepy when it came to deciding. At this point of my ravings, I'd have tired myself out, and I'd be lulled by Joe's promise: someday they'd find him... and then I'd finally know if I regretted being alive.

The End.