I sighed. “No. I just can’t.”
“Are you all right, really? I can tell that you’re crying.”
“I’m—” I stopped before the wordfineleft my mouth. I wasn’t fine, not in the least. “No. I’m dying, Gretchen. It just keeps getting worse and worse. I’ve never felt anything like this in my life.” There was dead silence on the line, and eventually, I continued. “I’m so hurt and angry. At David, at myself. At Bill.”
“Bill?”
“I need him now, and he needs me. But he left. Without him here, all I can think about is David. I feel—” I paused when my voice cracked. “I feel like I’m slipping, and there’s nothing to grab onto.”
“I’m worried about you,” she said fervently. “I’m coming over.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” she said and hung up.
I fell immediately back into my couch. When she arrived, she let herself in, looking concerned as she peeled her trench coat away. She ran a hand over my hair with sadness in her eyes. She wiped the spoiled milk from the floor and the walls. She turned off the television and helped me into my pajamas. I wanted to stay on the couch, but she forced me into the bed I’d come to fear. She held me as I cried myself to sleep, shaking for David like an addict.
* * *
It’s only a shadow, but it’s as real as the bones in my body. If I stop moving—if I look behind me—it will consume me. But it’s already here, inside me, waiting. It’s been waiting—waiting to pounce, waiting for the end.
“It’s okay,” I hear. “You’re safe now. I’m here, and nothing can touch you.” I breathe a sigh of relief. Finally, I am safe in his arms. David strokes my hair and tells me it’s okay to cry. My chin quivers. My eyes water. It was just so sad. So profoundly sad. My grief was bottomless, but it’s over now.
I opened my eyes to the same blackness of my dream. Everything was still at that lifeless hour. The shadow from my dream was there with me, because it was part of me. Underneath my head, the pillow was a cloud; beside me, Gretchen was warm. But it felt like the end. And that night, a piece of me died.
24
The next evening, alone again, I stood in the doorway of the bedroom Bill and I shared. A framed wedding photo sat on my nightstand, his dirty socks lay just inches from the hamper. On our bookshelf was a coffee table book about the Chicago Bulls I’d given him for our first anniversary.
Thunder sounded, ripping me from my trance. I didn’t know when the sun had set or how long I’d been standing there. The day had been a haze of crying and vomiting and fits of broken sleep. After calling Beman to say I was sick, Gretchen had insisted on staying with me until she’d had to go a couple hours earlier.
Fog veiled the city. Gray clouds, weighty with rain, crept languorously across the sky, settling overhead like an old man in his favorite chair. My mood was as heavy as the atmosphere, and I let the gloom wrap itself around me like a cloak. Rain started abruptly and severely, a violent storm that finally alleviated the day’s thick air.
The faintest glow came through the window as dusk encroached, casting darkness everywhere it didn’t touch. The lights went out. I flipped the switch but only got an emptythud. I felt my way to the hallway closet, where we kept candles for the times when the electricity cut out. I lit each one in the bedroom along with the decorative ones that were already out. Little tea candles glowed, and the room filled with scents of cinnamon and vanilla.
I sat alone in the silence, on the edge of my plush white comforter, unsure of what to do with myself. Everything was eerily still, and all I heard was the increasing violence of the falling rain. Lightning lit up the room. As when I was a child, I counted—one one-thousand, two one-thousand, three one-thousand—until I heard thunder cackle somewhere in the distance. I thought of David and our last words to each other.
There came a slow but deliberate rap against the apartment door—knock, knock, knock.I passed the bedroom mirror, glancing at my reflection out of habit. I could only see the faint glow of my pale skin against Bill’s navy crewneck sweater. It hung from my shoulders down to my mid-thighs and over ratty jeans. My hand went instinctively to the hair knotted at the top of my head, and I tucked some renegade pieces behind my ear. I was thankful that it was likely only Gretchen, back to check on me.
I put my cheek to the door. “Who is it?”
“Open the door, Olivia.”
David.
I sucked in a breath. The wood burned against my cheek, and I suddenly felt hot in Bill’s sweater. As my heart rate increased, life seeped out of my muscles, leaving my limbs shaky.
I didn’t say anything, but fitted myself against the door, yearning for what was on the other side.
“Olivia.”
“What are you doing here?” I asked so softly that I doubted he’d even heard. “What are youthinking?”
“Do you want me to tell the whole hallway why I’m here?” he countered in an equally low voice. I unlatched the door and looked at him with hard eyes. He pushed his way in, slamming the door behind him. “The electricity’s out?”
I didn’t answer, just walked through the dank, dark apartment to the candlelit bedroom.
“What are you doing here?” I demanded. “You can’t come here. Ever.” I knew by the look on his face that he heard the wavering in my voice. Sweat trickled down my stomach, and my jeans stuck to my legs, stifling me.
