The rest of us were told to walk across the street to the lunch in. It was a very despairing walk to the other building filled with the moving sobs of the crowd. The light drops of rain stung my face in the unusually cold air. The grey clouds darkened the sky giving the day a grim tone.
As we walked in the door of the lunch service building, the smell of fake flowers assaulted my nose. The revolting smell made my stomach roll and the bitterness from my stomach began to rise to my tongue.
“Did you just gag?” Ryder said smiling.
“The smell of fake flower perfume is apparently not good for me.”
He laughed at me softly, once again trying to lessen the blow of this situation. We followed uniformly with the rest of the group to get our food. My stomach trembled as we got closer to the start of the line. I wasn’t hungry but I knew I needed to eat something. I added a few items to my plate and sat down next to Ryder. I moved the food around in front of me and picked at it for nearly a half hour.
“Aid, maybe we should get going. You seem uncomfortable and you’re getting a little pale,” Ryder finally said as he grabbed the plastic fork out of my hand.
“I just can’t believe she’s gone.”
“I know.”
I stood up and turned toward the garbage. The next thing I knew, my left cheek was throbbing and my skin burned uncomfortably.
“You little shit! Do you think this is some kind of sick joke?” Mandy screamed at me as she shook the envelope I had given her in my face.
I stared at her in confusion as she lost it in front of everyone. “What are you talking about?”
“Do you think I’m stupid? She was my daughter dammit! Did you think I wouldn’t notice that it wasn’t her damn handwriting?” She was distraught and flustered as she reamed me a new asshole.
“I don’t understand,” I said softly to her, still utterly confused.
“I want you to get the hell out of here! How dare you do something like this to me!”
I ran out of the lunch area as quickly as my legs would carry me. I could hear footsteps pounding behind me but I didn’t care, I needed to get out there. I didn’t even understand what had just happened.
“What the hell was that, Aid?” Ryder yelled behind me. I stopped and swung my body back toward him. Tears ran down my face and the mark of Mandy’s hand stung sharply against my pink skin. She had openly slapped me in front of everyone. “What was that?”
“She said it wasn’t her handwriting! I don’t understand what she meant! It came straight from her diary,” I said hysterically in a panic. “Ryder, something is wrong with me!”
“Maybe it didn’t look like her writing usually did. You said yourself that you thought she may have been writing it while she was dying. Isn’t it possible that she might’ve just been that far gone when she wrote it?” he said to me trying to rationalize the situation.
“There was blood all over the page. She bled to death so I can only assume that she had to have been writing it then.”
“Let’s just go, you’re shaking,” he said softly. He wrapped his arms around me and we walked slowly to his car.
~
After the funeral, I stayed home closed in my room for days. On the third day, my phone began to buzz at me. I leaned over, expecting to see Ryder’s number but surprisingly I saw Ethan’s name instead. I decided I would let my voicemail get it and if he chose to, he could leave me a message.
A minute later I heard the ring of a message. Now I was truly bewildered that he had left a message, let alone even called me. I quickly opened the phone up and played the message back.
“Aidriana, I’d really like to talk to you. Please, call me back. I realize you are angry with me but just give me a few minutes to explain. I really hope you call me back.” I dropped my phone down on my bed and laughed. He sounded horribly pathetic and worthless. I had no intention of calling him back. I put my head back down on my pillow and drifted back off to sleep.
~
My eyes shot open as the banging on my door grew louder. I pulled my blanket off of my body and slumped out of bed. I slowly opened my door and my mother looked frantically at me. “Aidriana, I need you to come upstairs.”
“Okay, what for?”
“There has been an accident.”
“What kind of accident?” I asked slightly worried.
“Just come upstairs and we will talk about it there,” she quietly urged.
We walked together to the kitchen and I couldn’t help but wonder why she couldn’t just tell me down in my room. That was when I saw the officer standing distressfully in the dining area. His hands sat above his belt on his hip, one hand remained dangerously close to his pistol. He was a county cop and his face seemed fairly familiar, though I couldn’t place how I would recognize him. I walked slowly into his view and a stern, aggravated look replaced the bored glaze he had been wearing only seconds ago.
“Ms. Masters, can you take a seat please?” the officer asked in a casual tone. The look on his face said otherwise though and this wasn’t in any way a casual meeting.
“Sure?” I said perplexed. “Why exactly are you here?”
“We are looking for Ethan Reynold. His mother gave us your name, along with Ryder Ainsley’s, and said you were friends of his. His vehicle was pulled from a river a few miles from here but his body wasn’t in the car. The car door was ajar. We’ve had a search party looking in a large radius around the location of the vehicle but there hasn’t been any sign of him thus far.”
I sat there frozen, just staring at him in shock. “Oh my God,” I said panicked. “He called me hours ago and left me a message. I haven’t talked to him in weeks. I fell asleep and never bothered to call back.”
“I see,” he said looking at me suspiciously. “I was under the impression that Ethan was your boyfriend. You haven’t spoken to him in weeks?”
“No Sir. He must not have told his mother that we had a falling out a few months ago. We broke up over Christmas break,” I explained. I purposely left out the fact that he had been dating Alexa and that me and Ryder were now together. I instantly realized how guilty we could both look in this situation.
“Mr. Ainsley also mentioned not speaking to him in weeks. Is there anyone else that would have talked to him recently?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Okay, well if you hear anything, please call the department.” He handed me a card with the department’s number and his personal extension on it.
“I will, of course,” I said trying my hardest to smile. A large part of me was filled with dread and trepidation. Something about this situation was wrong. Some part of me knew they weren’t going to find Ethan for one, and he was dead for another.
As the officer left my house, relief instantly hit. I ran down to my room with my parent’s phone and dialed Ryder’s house number. It rang several times but there was no answer. My body instantly went back to the tense strain I felt moments ago. An overwhelming sense of guilt flooded my body and emotionally I began to shut down. I let my head fall to my pillow and almost instantly I fell into a deep and unforgiving sleep.
~
I woke with the jolting intensity of my nightmare screaming death at me. I wasn’t quite sure what my dream had been about but there had definitely been blood. Lots of blood. And it was all over me, coating my hands and face, even my clothes.
My parent’s phone began ringing loudly on top of me. It was a number I didn’t recognize but I answered it because it was more than likely for my mom. “Hello, I said quietly.
“Is Aidriana available?” a familiar voice said.
“Mr. Keitz?”
“Aidriana, where have you been in the past day?”
“Sleeping mostly. A cop came to speak to me hours ago about Ethan being missing. It’s been a really off twenty-four hours, why, what happened?”
“Have you seen Ryder today?”
“No, I tried to call him after I found out about Ethan and him being missing, but he nev
er answered.”
He sighed loudly, “Shit.”
“Mr. Keitz, what happened?”
“Aidriana, I don’t know how to say this but there has been another accident.”
“Mr Keitz, what do you mean there has been another accident?” I asked him.
“Sweetie, Ryder’s house caught fire. They think it started in his bedroom.”
“Oh my God! Where is he now? How is he doing?”
“Aidriana, he never made it out of the house.” I instantly couldn’t breathe. My body was frozen in a constricting paralysis. My mind swirled down the drain of insanity and I stared into the blank chasm that was my life. The white light burned at my core and I realized the restraints had found their way back around my wrists and ankles. I felt the soft touch of skin gently rest against my arm and panic boiled within.
“Aidriana, you’re safe. Just try to relax for me, please,” Ms. Kaitz urged. But just as quickly as I had seen her, she was gone and I was back in my room. The phone still rested against my ear but the busy tone blared loudly in my ear. The overwhelming sense of loss entangled my very being. Unlike my dream though, there was no happy ending waiting for me. All that was left was the brutal reality that I was less than sane.
That was the moment I realized I didn’t want to be here and wasn’t even reasonable enough to continue on with my life. Worst of all, I felt as though I had done something so terrible that I deserved much worse. So I said a quick prayer, begged God to forgive me for all of the terrible things I had done in my life, this being, by far, the worst offense.
I thought about leaving my family a note, especially for Brooke, but I decided it was far too cliché and knew there was nothing I could say to make this situation any better for any of them. As the decision set in, I began rummaging through my room for anything sharp. When I began to think there was nothing here and I might have to get overly creative, I saw my jewelry box lying upside down in my closet. I picked the box up and set it back on the shelf.
The glimmer of jagged glass caught my eye and I was drawn to it. When I stood over the broken mirror, I looked into the pieces. Like the mirror, I was broken and all of my pieces stay out in the open for the world to see. My shards were becoming more broken as each disaster devastated my life. The biggest piece that lay there was the one I bent down to pick up. I held it carefully in my hand.
It amazed me that such a small, yet beautiful thing could so easily become so dangerous and life threatening. I held it tightly now, causing the glass to cut into my right hand. I put the ridged glass against my left wrist and started to drag it across. The pain was instantaneous and the burn ran through my arm as the warm crimson trickled down my fingers. I did the same to my other wrist and the pain radiated to my shoulder. It was like feeling lava trying to escape from my veins and the fire quickly ignited and spread through the rest of my body.
When the endorphins finally began to make their appearance, I could feel the soothing numbness overtaking me. My mind worked fast at making the pain more manageable. The blood still leaked unceasingly from my wounds and I could feel the weakness of blood loss taking its toll. I knew it wouldn’t be long before I bled to death and hoped I would just drift into an endless sleep before my heart stopped.
All was peaceful until an urgent pounding rattled on my door. The noises echoed around me as I was slowly losing consciousness. A part of me hoped that I would just fall into a sort of comatose sleep before my heart stopped. I briefly remembered seeing Mr. Keitz plow through my door and my mother hysterically followed behind. Being in the state I was, I was having trouble following what exactly was happening.
It wasn’t until Brooke came barreling in to my room that I truly regretted what I had done. The look on her face was of both pain and hatred. I knew she would never forgive me. She was the last thing I saw before my eyes went blank. All that was left was darkness.
Chapter 19
I was left in a state of confusion after the shadows took over. I wasn’t sure how long I had been in this void but I was beginning to wonder if this solitude was a form of torture. I wondered if I was really in Hell. As I pondered the possibility, I began to notice a flicker of light.
Then it was like a light switch was flipped and I saw a window. The window was instantly familiar to me. I realized fairly quickly that I wasn’t in control of my body and was going toward the window. I opened it silently as I always had and climbed into Alexa’s room. She wasn’t inside so I sat down. I had no clue what I was doing here or when this even was. Was I experiencing some sort of flash back? I didn’t know the answer.
After a long time of waiting, I willed my body to move but I stayed frozen on her computer chair. I suddenly got up and began to look around. I was looking for something particular but what that something was, I didn’t know either.
It wasn’t until I lifted up Alexa’s mattress that I realized what I had been searching for. The crimson book found my hands immediately and I began shuffling through the pages. I looked down at an entry and I began to skim. It was her entry on the abortion and my skin rapidly began to blaze in fury. A silent and frigid tear fell from my eye.
When I reached the next entry, I instantly began to feel panic. Alexa had written about me but the problem was she mentions me as a name I do not go by. She called me Ariana. The unease spread through my existence but since I wasn’t in control, I couldn’t escape. I then watched as my hand began to write in the journal. The entry was dated May 2nd and signed as Alexandra Nivette. I was writing her suicide letter.
My mind began reeling and I was becoming lost in shock. The feeling intensified when I heard the door handle turn. The girl from the picture Ms. Kaitz had shown me came stumbling into her room, completely unaware of her surroundings. She was much skinnier than I remembered from the picture and she reeked of alcohol and self pity.
I watched her shut her door and lock it. I assumed that her mother had left for work and she had been out all night drinking. She looked over toward me and jumped slightly.
“Ariana, what are you doing here?” she slurred.
“Are you drunk?” I asked her. Disgust lingered in my tone but the voice was not my own. It was the voice I had grown to despise.
“So what if I am,” she answered, clearly annoyed with both the question and my presence in general.
“No need to get testy with me, Alex. You’ll only make this worse for yourself.” The tone in my other voice is cold and unforgiving. It’s a sadistic tone I’ve never heard in my own voice. It’s a voice that screams insanity. If I had the ability to shudder, I would have. I suddenly felt scared for Alex because I could feel the large dose of adrenaline that was coursing through my veins.
She stared at me, wide eyed, terror undeniably displayed on her face. “What exactly is that supposed to mean?” She asked as her body trembled uncontrollably.
I didn’t have to say anything to her next; the small paring knife was enough. A smile crept onto my face as she stared at the weapon in my hand in shear horror. I made a step toward her and she instantly turned to run. She fumbled with the lock and I grabbed on to her arm. I pulled violently on her appendage and she was hurled backward into her dresser.
She slid across it and all of her things on top went with her. She was so frail and weak from her recent life decisions. Her skin was already bruised from being beaten over the last few months. No one would have ever known the difference between the old and new purple markings.
Tears ran down her face and she looked up at me overcome with defeat. “Why are you doing this?”
“Because I can,” I answered.
“Please, don’t do this,” she begged. “Ariana, please!”
“It’s too late, Alex,” I said coldly. “It’s time to join your child and meet your maker.”
She instantly began sobbing as I moved toward her. I didn’t want to watch anymore. I wanted to leave and stop this cruelty but my body kept moving closer. My hands wrapped around her arms and I tried to r
estrain her. She fought me for nearly fifteen minutes before I kicked her in the ribs. She sobbed hysterically and began coughing, trying desperately to catch her breath. A unnerving sense of amusement was coursing through me.
I grabbed her arm again while she was trying to breathe and watched the knife flay through the delicate skin on her wrist. The blood escaped out of the lesion rapidly. The knife entered the skin again and again until her left arm was butchered. I wanted to be sick. I wanted to flee.
Alex’s breathing was turning into short, drawn in gasps. She was hyperventilating. I stepped back and let her get up. I was teasing her, leading her to false hope. She stumbled around from the quick blood loss and it was smeared all around her room. She unlocked her door and went to open it. I threw her back against the side of her bed and blood splattered around her. She wheezed loudly and coughed up more blood. The fear in her eyes was unmistakable.
I walked over and grabbed the journal from the desk. I threw it at her and she opened it slowly. Her blood smeared across the front and dripped onto the pages. She looked up at me disoriented. “Write something nice to your mother. I’ll be sure to give it to her.”
“You’re a complete psycho. I wish you luck in Hell, bitch,” she said weakly.
I walked over and ripped through her other wrist. “Tick tock, you’re going to die anyways, Alex. Accept it and write goodbye to that worthless woman you call your mother!” I screamed at her.
She began crying again and wrote the same short note I had given to Mandy. Now that I was staring at her, trembling with the pen, using every ounce of strength left, I could see why Mandy didn’t believe it was her writing. I didn’t even recognize it as hers. The more lethargic she got, the shakier the writing got. The end of the note was just barely legible.
I stood there, unemotional as she died. I never thought I would be capable of such an evil torture, and yet, here I was, watching a side of me I thought wasn’t real. I was so confused at what this even was. I was supposed to be dead! I watched silently as she struggled for breath and I wanted to cry so badly, but my other side was so cold. I could feel joy running through my body and goose bumps rising on my arms and legs. “She” was enjoying this and I was sick just realizing it. Alex lifted her head up suddenly and stared directing into my eyes. She was using every last bit of her strength to make me pay attention, and I was.