When We First Met

They say that when you die, you are teleported back to the event that ultimately caused your demise. I blink wearily up at the shadowed ceiling. I wonder if that’s true. Despite the warmth of the red-orange fire crackling in the fireplace, icy chills race down my back, and I shiver. Even that small of a motion sends my body into a fit of achiness. My breathing is heavily labored as I fight for each tiny gasp of air. My time is nearing. It has been for quite a while now. “Noah.” My voice is raspy and grating on the ears. He turns slowly, face covered by the shadow cast by the fire. “Could I have some water?”

Noah nods. “I’ll go ahead and get you your medicine too.” I close my eyes. I may have been cursed with illness, but Noah says my beauty is untouched by it. With large, plump lips and shiny brown hair, he calls me perfect. The crackling of the flames are an insistent murmur against the all-consuming silence of the dark room. I’ve been here my whole life, laying here on the couch for such an amount of time the armrests became my arms and the cushions became my torso. I’ve been in such a sickly state for longer than I can remember. The illness has gripped its claws around my head, and often I find that my memories have been lost, like a book in a library being stolen every time I try to read one. It was unnoticeable at first, but now the shelves of my mind are barren and without purpose.

Footsteps lightly enter the room. I look up and find Noah’s dark brown eyes peering down at me. There’s a fresh cup of water in one hand, and a white pill bottle in the other. “You should probably go ahead and take your medicine, Harper.” There’s a slight intensity to his gaze, with an undertone of concern that lingers.

“I’m lucky to have someone like you,” I breathe, feeling the chilled liquid press against my lips. The cup is not glass, however; Noah hates mirrors, and the reflection of the glass made him uncomfortable. It was amusing, his fear of mirrors, but frustrating that I never get to see myself in one. Water soothes my weakened throat as the amount in the cup lowers, until it’s almost gone. The pills in the bottle rustle as he fidgets with them, managing to get two out so I can swallow them. I do just that, downing the rest of the water while I’m at it. Noah sits down at the foot of the couch. A tired silence stretches between us.

“How’s your memory?” He asks finally. There’s a hidden question within his expression that reaches much deeper than the one he asked. My head is filled with a disconcerting fog now more than ever. The harder I desperately try to latch on, the faster the memories flee.

I swallow hard. “I don’t remember much lately.” Small tears poke at the corners of my eyes. Memories are what makes a person, and I don’t even have those.

Noah wipes them off gently with the swipe of his hand. “Did I ever tell you,” he whispers, “how we first met?” We both smile, and I giggle a little bit. I don’t remember fully, but he’s told me enough times that I know he’s told this one to me often. I can only picture this one because he’s told it to me so many times, but it is my most treasured memory. I recall a blurry image in my mind. It looks almost like an old VHS tape, one that’s been used one too many times to where the audio is sometimes distorted and the video is muddy at best. I’m laying down on the couch of my house, feverish. I’ve been getting worse over the last few weeks. The medicine I need should arrive soon. I ordered it a while ago. A doorbell timidly rings from the front door. The medicine is here. I stumble out to the door. The wood floor beneath me is spinning rapidly, making me trip and hit the wall a few times before I make it out. Hands shaking from effort, I turn the doorknob and blink down at my package.

I look up and realize a young man is there, about my age: 17. His dark brown hair rolls in the breeze, and a small bit of envy bubbles up in me upon seeing such a normal, healthy body in comparison to my internally crippled own. He stares at me in such alarm that I mumble something incomprehensible that is supposed to resemble a thank you. “You’re really sick,” he states finally. “Is your mother not home to take care of you? You shouldn’t be all on your own when you’re so sick.” Oh yeah. This is the neighbor’s son. I had almost forgotten he worked as a delivery driver. “Let me help,” he insists when I don’t respond. He places a hand gently on my shoulder and guides me back down to the couch, grabbing a cool, wet cloth and placing it on my forehead. I had fallen asleep quickly, relieved to not be on my own. “Yeah,” I respond to Noah after a minute. “You’ve told me a few times.”

I can feel my mind drifting off to sea, towards an unexplainably enticing light on the horizon. The feeling in my arms and legs phases in and out, and I struggle to move my jaw enough to squeeze any words out of my mouth. My time… I think it’s finally here. But I’m not scared. No– in fact, the sensation is quite tranquil, a soft reminder that in death there is no illness. “Noah,” I manage. He notices the sparkle in my eyes slowly fading, and so he grabs my hand grimly. We both know what’s happening. He’s not delusional– I’ve been in a rough state for such a long time. “I– thank you.” He says something in response, but my senses are already in a different place. His dark silhouette slips out of sight, replaced by nothingness. It’s relieving here. I stretch out a hand in front of me, and my hands don’t tremble. My lungs don’t refuse to function. A smile touches my lips. I look down as I levitate over the room I spent my life in, but it’s too dark to see much. The roar of a thousand strikes of thunder overwhelm my ears, and a blinding flash rips me from this reality to take me back to a different day in time. My birth, maybe, since I was born with this illness?What else could be the cause of the sickness that caused my death?

Reality jerks me violently onto an interstate at noon. The roaring of engines makes me flinch as streaks of white, gray, and black hunks of metal race down the road. Where am I? Why am I here? I blink, and suddenly I’m in the backseat of a car, buckled up on the leather seats. A woman is driving the car, but I can’t quite see her face. She gives me an unusual sense of deja vu, although I can’t quite place it. Who is she? How is she related to my death? Questions flood my mind. My hand grasps the seat hard, leather cracking under the pressure of my hold. She’s got to be going at least 20 miles over the speed limit. I peer out the window as cars fly by. A scream erupts from the woman’s throat as the windshield shatters. We tumble in a now crippled car, glass sticking out of the woman’s skin like painful porcupine needles, thin, sharp, and deadly. Flames sear out from the trunk and engine and hiss against her brown hair as I stand there, motionless. Legs shaking, I try to climb out, but something is holding me back. I can’t leave. I whip my head around frantically as I try to claw my way out of this mess. It may not be hurting me, but panic is pouring out of my pores like sweat.

Another car had crashed into the back of this one, smashed into the rear of the woman’s car, disfigured from the impact. The man in the other car struggles to open his door; but he succeeds, and races towards the woman shouting something unintelligible. I peer at his face, but the smoke filling the backseat like sickly perfume is distorting his image until he’s nothing but writhing shades of gray.

Light flashes before me, making me squint until the brightness begins to throb slowly away from my sight. I’m no longer in the car crash. Biting, sanitized air nips at my senses, and an intensely cold light bores down from the ceiling. There’s a faint but consistent beep of machinery and rustling of sheets. I blink hard, and the room comes into focus. The woman lays on a hospital bed. Her breathing is ragged, and she’s been majorly injured from the car crash. I suck in a quick breath, feeling bile making its way up my throat. Angry red burns wrap their way all up and down her body. Her face has been horribly damaged, with the skin being completely absent where her lips should be, and one of her eyes as well. Cut marks from the glass are tattooed up and down her back and shoulders, with one prominently irritated gash running from the woman’s left shoulder down to her collarbone.

A small murmur takes me back to the moment. I tear my gaze away from the poor woman and take another shocked step back. A young man with brown hair and eyes stands talking to what I assume is the doctor. His smile is something I remember all too well. Noah? What is he doing here? “Will she be okay?” Noah was asking. “I crashed into her, so that means I am responsible for what happened.” He was the one who caused the crash? But why? I’m dizzy from the questions swirling like a tornado inside my mind. The doctor gives a halfhearted attempt at consolation before sighing.

“I’ll be honest… it’s not looking good. She won’t make it much longer.”

Noah’s face pales. He’s concerned. He’s such a good person, I whisper internally. But how come he never told me about any of this? The beeping of the heart monitor fills the silence. “I’ll go to prison for life if she doesn’t get better,” he mutters under his breath. I almost don’t even catch it. My brow furrows in confusion. Isn’t he concerned for her? I blink, and suddenly the hospital room is almost pitch black except for the blue light of the monitor. It’s just me and the woman now, who is completely unrecognizable. A clock in the corner reads 2:00 AM.

The door creeps open slowly, creaking with protest at being used in its old age. A dark figure slips into the room. He turns his face towards the woman. I squint at his face, illuminated softly by the blue light. “I won’t go to jail because of you,” he hisses down at her maimed, sleeping face. My eyes widen. It’s him– Noah. I push all of the questions desperately bubbling up away as I watch it all unfold. He yanks out the IV from her arm, tearing off cords as he lifts her up over his shoulder. She gasps, face contorting in pain and shock. “Luckily for you, murder is quite messy and would cause more problems than solutions. Don’t make a sound.” The kind, caring face I knew was nowhere to be found; I searched and searched, but all I could find in his gaze was a cold, unyielding selfishness that oozed out of him like slime. I shiver, pulling back from him. I stare in disbelief, rooted to the floor as he heaves a breath and stands for only a moment; then he runs, escaping from the hospital with a hostage in hand. This is not the man I know. Or is it?

Heart pounding, I swallow down bile as I gaze out around the room. My surroundings have changed. I’m in such a familiar place; it’s a home, but I’m not sure whose it is. The house is dark, with a burning fireplace warming up the cold air. There’s a girl on the couch; it’s a girl, but the fire has cast shadows so deep I can only make out the girl’s silhouette. Noah sits beside the figure, stroking her hair softly and humming as he gives her medicine. I smile, but it doesn’t quite reach my eyes. A sense of dread has overtaken me. Who is that other woman? The Noah I know would never do such things to someone in need… Again with the strange deja vu. Time speeds up, and I watch as days and nights pass by. Time only slows down when Noah gives the woman medicine. He opens the bottle, and the woman swallows the pill. She’s able to speak now, although not very well. “Why,” she whispers, “am I here after the crash?” He says nothing, just offers her water and places a cool towel on her head.

The cycle repeats for a long time, possibly a few months. It’s hard to tell down here, but I’m confident in my guess. He gives her the medicine, and she blinks and asks him the same question over and over. I wonder why he never told me that he took care of another person. Again, the next day, Noah gently offers the woman her pill, and she swallows it obediently. “Takes care of the pain,” he would explain when she questioned him.

“Why.. why am I here?” The woman rasps.

Noah turns to look at her. “What do you mean?”

“You know I’m losing my memory… how long have I been sick in bed for?”

He sets down the cup of water. It clinks as it is placed against the wooden table. He kisses the woman on her cheek. I’m sick to the stomach at the sight. He loved another person? He promised me… He promised that he loved me. “Do you remember the day we first met?” They both smile and chuckle a bit. Her face has healed slightly, but angry scars streak across her, and the skin that was taken by the crash remains gone. It’s still a bone-chilling sight, despite her quiet and humble demeanor. “No,” she whispers. “Would you tell me again?” And he does. I sit down on the floor to listen to what he might say; I caused a car crash. I was going to have my life ruined, so I stole you away. Noah takes a shaky breath in and runs a hand through his messy hair. This is it. Go ahead and tell her.

“You had ordered a package to be delivered to your door. Your medicine was in it.” The woman closes her eyes and listens. I stumble back and slam into a wall. I’m dead; I can’t feel the wall, but waves of horror slam into me. Dismayed, I curl my hands into tight, shaking fists. That isn’t right. That’s my story! Why won’t you tell her? I get the urge to scream at him. He continues. “You were sick in bed. You’re my neighbor so…” Noah’s voice has faded to the ringing of loud bells clanging in my mind. You’re not sick. I was. Tell her, Noah! I’m appalled at the familiarity of the situation. I know that story. That story is mine. I swallow down my rising panic as he finally ceases talking, hugs the woman, and then leaves to go upstairs. I whip around and dash after him, vision swimming.

My eyes hurt as we exit the dark room. There’s tons of light upstairs, and it’s as refreshing as it is hurting my eyes. I follow him to what appears to be his living room. It’s strangely different from the man I know; a large mirror is across the room, something he expressly despised while I was among the living. The walls are a muted shade of gray, with dark leather couches facing a TV. A phone rings, and he glances down, frowns, then answers the call. “Hello,” he casually speaks into the phone. There’s a moment of silence; the man on the other end must be speaking. “Don’t worry, Larry, all of that’s taken care of. They’ll never find her.”

Another minute of quiet. “I’ve grown to quite like her. I don’t want her dead, so I give her medicine. Well yes, normal medicine, but also–” Noah is interrupted by the other side. “Yeah, it fogs her brain. Her memory has been ‘mysteriously’ declining, hmm? No, she doesn’t even remember the crash. In fact, in her eyes… I’ve known her my whole life. And if that ever gets to not be the case… I’ll end it right there.” I grip the leather couch so hard my fingers start to throb. How could he do this to that poor woman? This isn’t the man I know. What happened to him? Everything about the woman gave me a feeling of familiarity, but she couldn’t be me. I didn’t look like that.

Noah laughs and tells the man something else, but I’ve ceased to listen. There’s a lurking stab of horror that courses through my veins. He isn’t her lover. He isn’t her savior. He is a murderer. Repulsed, I back away from him, tripping over a trash can. I hit the floor with a thud. Groaning, I turn so I can get back up. Slowly lifting my gaze from the ground, I see my reflection in the big mirror. Heart stampeding, my eyes meet my face for the first time in many years. I cry out, kicking to get away from the image in front of me, shattering the mirror into a thousand needlelike shards. The mirror may be gone, but the reflection has been branded into me. Grotesque, twisted skin that doesn’t even cover the teeth, and angry, misshapen features had looked back at me.

It was the disfigured woman from downstairs.