Can’t let you go
A pale shaft of sunlight poured through the bars of the window. The room was mostly dark and the faint light coming from the world outside was all on Adam. His eyes were bloodshot, the exquisite turquoise color of his irises now painful and agonizing. Just woken up, he was all by himself in that room, whose walls were all painted black. He painted them himself five months before, in July, just after the tragedy. Since then, he kept peering at the walls, melting into them, still dreaming ceaselessly. Sometimes, when his mind was wild enough, his dreams would seem more real and he would drown in them gratifyingly.
That was the only way he kept alive in those five moths – through hallucinations, through fantasies and illusions. He learnt how to lie to people, he learnt how to lie to himself. He said he was better off by himself, he said he could overcome it. But they were still lies, no matter how hard he tried to believe them – not a tiny bit of them was true. But the truth was too painful to be recalled, the truth had to sink in the shallow waters of his memory, the truth was almost vanishing, but Adam still felt its sharp edges. Each second, he tried to forget it, though deep inside, he clung to it because he knew he couldn’t let it go.
In five months, he struggled not to close his eyes and go to sleep, for whenever he did, that recurring nightmare would fill his mind. It wasn’t something fictitious, it wasn’t the creation of his weary psyche. It was a vivid memory . . . of that night.
* * *
‘You have to let me in! Please!’ Adam shouted at the nurse standing in front of the ward door. She stretched he hands forward in protection, seeing how Adam was getting wilder . . . and wilder.
He took a step back, but was bound to go all the way and see Emma. He let out a whine.
‘Please,’ he cried. ‘Let me see her.’
The nurse shook her head slowly, looking into his somber eyes. She seemed to be searching for the right words before she quickly spoke.
‘Miss. Lancey is in a very serious condition. You can’t see her, I’m sorry.’
Adam put his head in his hands and tried once more.
‘She needs me. I have to be there for her,’ he whispered, his right hand in the pocket of his blazer, coming across a little box he’d forgotten about.
The nurse shook her head again, this time not looking at him. He looked once more towards the door and then trailed off toward the chairs aligned by the wall in a military fashion. He sat down on one of them – the closest to the ward door – and browsed quickly through his pocket, taking out the little box he touched earlier.
He held the red box in his hands and then opened it to look one more time at the ring inside. Then tears started falling without him realizing. He didn’t lose hope but it just felt like hope was not enough. His eyed remained fixed onto the closed door of the ward for the whole night, his fingers lingering on the shiny little ring he had wanted to give to Emma that night.
The story some people he didn’t know told him sounded fake and incredible. They told him Emma got hit by a car rolling way too fast while she was crossing the street. That could not happen. Emma was such a wary girl – though she didn’t give the impression to be, she always took care of her actions. That could not happen to her.
Hours passed, but Adam lost all sense of time. Already, he belonged to an imaginary reality - a frightening one – and the only one who could drag him out was lying on a hospital bed behind the closed doors he was gaping at. Breathless.
The door opened, a middle-aged doctor coming out. Adam jumped to his feet, his heart suddenly thudding. The doctor looked at the ground after seeing his eyes. He opened his mouth to speak but the words came out much later.
‘Mr. Herbert, I’d like to . . . present my condolence. I’m sorry,’ the doctor trailed off, but Adam didn’t hear him anymore. He heard strange voices, and each sounded so similar to Emma’s, but none was close to her sweet caring voice. Tears were falling down again, but this time, there wasn’t any hope left in them. There was just agony.
He didn’t say anything, but struggled to move his legs away – away from the pain which kept following him nonetheless. He immersed his right hand in his blazer, touched the ring again, and wept all the way to his car, perpetually denying the fact that she was gone.
* * *
Adam ran his fingers across the blade of the knife he tried to slit his wrist with several times before. Each time, he felt too weak to do it. The thought of seeing Emma again in one of his reveries always kept pulling him back into this world.
He stood up and struggled to the door. He picked up his coat from the hanger, slid it on, and walked out of the dark apartment, down the stairs and into the cold December air. He flickered his eyes, nor baring the brightness of the light too much. He walked down the street and turned right at the first crossroad. Then, he continued walking for a bit more than half a kilometer before he went into the cemetery.
He crouched down next to her grave, while his cheeks wetted again. He ran his fingers over her name engraved in the tombstone, and closed his eyes.
A friendly hand on his shoulder made his lids spring open. He turned around quickly, blind with grief, and breathed in ease when he saw Kris. Kris was his best friend, Emma’s brother, and the only one who kept close to him when it seemed like he was going crazy, when it seemed like it was dangerous to stay around him.
‘Hey, buddy,’ Adam whispered, still too weak and too confused to speak properly.
Kris looked at him with pity. He had been down for a long time after his sister’s death, but Adam seemed to have been affected by it much more. He never thought Adam really loved her that much before he saw how he wasn’t getting over it.
‘It’s ok, Adam,’ Kris comforted him when he started weeping louder.
Adam shook his head vehemently.
‘She’s not dead, Kris. I need to find her!’ he bellowed.
Kris put an arm around him, wondering how to help Adam forget his sister.
‘Look,’ he said in a low voice. ‘I know you still love her, but she’s gone.’
Adam buried his face in Kris’s shoulder and grimaced.
‘But she’s coming back, isn’t she? I want to see her once more. I need to see her eyes.’
Kris swallowed. Adam was really losing it. Maybe he should get him to a doctor or something. It didn’t sound like he was ever going to forget Emma.
‘No, Adam, she’s not coming back,’ he said, trying to make his voice sound comforting.
Adam winced, slowly and weakly pushing Kris away. He went close to the tombstone again and took his face in his hands, still sobbing desperately.
‘She’s coming. I can’t let her go. She’s coming back to me,’ he continued.
‘She’s not coming, Adam. She’s in . . . Heaven.’
He turned to Kris, looking at him madly, his eyes piercing and dark and made a grimace while finding the strength to speak.
‘But, I promised her, Kris. I promised we’ll always be together. I promised –- ’
‘Not all promises can be kept, buddy,’ he told him, feeling like crying himself. He pulled Adam into an embrace, constantly patting him on the back.
Snow started falling slowly, automatically, in a constant pattern, and Adam gazed at each snowflake with rage, with despair. He was still trying to push away the idea that he would never see Emma again, but he wasn’t strong or capable enough to abolish it. Thoughts would still creep into his mind, eat up the little childish hope he still had.
* * *
The room was now only lit by a little neon lamp which was just enough for Adam to see what he wanted to see clearly. It was still snowing outside and everything was silent and nice. Just like it used to be when he came back from the hospital that night when Emma passed out.
Kris had left half an hour ago, after Adam had begged him to. When he departed, he was a bit worried and scared about Adam’s situation, but he knew staying there would just make matters worse. He would come the next day anyway and get him to some psychologist. He couldn’t make this alone.
The silence shed in the room was burning him. He felt choked out again. But this wasn’t going to last any longer. It was two days from Christmas, and Adam had always loved that day, its atmosphere and spirit, but the thought of spending it without Emma was indescribably excruciating.
He picked up a piece of paper and a pencil from the floor and placed the paper on the table in front of him, pencil in hand. He touched the paper with the pencil but no words were coming into his head. There were just images with Emma. He threw the both away and stretched out his hand to carefully pick up the bloody knife sitting at the edge of the table. It was good Kris didn’t see it when he was here. He would have taken it with him.
He laid the blade on his wrist and unhurriedly pushed it into his skin. It didn’t hurt that bad. In fact, it was pleasant, satisfactory. He continued sliding the blade across his skin until blood gushed out of him, its rusty smell filling the room. He stroked Emma’s picture once more and let his head fall back, his eyes staring at the ceiling.
‘I promised, Emma. See, I’m keeping my promise!’ he shouted at the ceiling.
He knew where Heaven was. Heaven was somewhere up there, and Kris said she was in Heaven. So he was going there to find her.
He had never lost this wish to see her again, to talk to her again, to hold her in his arms again, but now, at the end of the road, it just felt like the wish was not enough.
He sat back into his chair, and as he shut his eyes, his last tears fell down his face.
<3
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