Celeste
I know I’m dreaming.I know the nightmare is nothing more than a memory on replay. That should make it easier, shouldn’t it? You’re reliving a moment of hell, but it’s in the past, and you’ll wake up safe in your bed. Somehow, though, it is worse, as if I’m locked in my body, screaming for someone to stop the movie... and no one does. I cannot wake myself up. I must suffer through it. Again.
The shot comes first. It always does. A gunshot, and a surreal moment of realizing I now live the kind of life where I recognize that noise. It doesn’t sound the way it does on TV. There, you don’t feel it vibrate through the air. You don’t smell the gunpowder.
The first few times I heard live gunfire, I mistook it for everything that teens like me mistake it for—firecrackers shooting, cars backfiring, even a jackhammer. I no longer make that mistake. I live a life where I will never make that mistake again, and of all the lessons I have learned, this may be the one I hate most. That I know the sound and smell and visceral feel of gunfire.
Then comes the blood. I know that smell, too. The smell of it, the taste of it dripping into my mouth from a broken nose, the hell of cleaning it from a shirt because, goddamn it, I really liked that shirt, and I should have known better than to wear it when Aaron was in a mood.
I am not abused. I hold that delusion high and proud. Yes, he’s broken my nose. Yes, I’ve had to wear sunglasses when there’s no sun. But those incidents are few and far between, and I give as good as I get. Aaron may be a man accustomed to solving his problems with his fists, but it takes a lot for him to turn those fists my way, and when he does, I’ve learned to raise mine back, and he respects that.
So I tell myself I’m not abused, and I’d bristle at anyone who labeled me as such. That does not mean I am happy. It does not mean I am staying. I have a plan, and I will be gone soon. Free of him. Free of this life.
Then comes the shot. And the blood. Shot ringing in my ears. Blood splattering my face, hot and thick and stinking.
He has found out.
He knows I am leaving, and this is his answer, and I am dead. I’m dead, and my body hasn’t figured that out yet. A shot in the head, my brain still spinning, my last moments on earth spent navel-gazing on the fact that I know what a goddamn gunshot sounds like.
I am dead, and no one will care. That’s what he’s told me, time and again. No one will notice. No one will care. No one will shed a tear.
Then someone screams. It’s a horrible scream, like a rabbit caught in a trap. A rabbit like me, knowing it’s already dead, screaming as it waits for its body to shut down. Waits for the mercy of death and shrieks for it to hurry.
I take comfort in that scream. It will be the last sound I hear as I slump to the floor. Someone screaming for me, proving Aaron is wrong. That I died, and someone did give a damn.
A slap comes, hard and fast against my cheek, and I gasp, and the scream stops. The scream chokes off in that gasp, and I clutch my throat as if I’ll feel it there. I do, my throat raw and sore.
I was screaming?
That was me?
A wash of despair as I realize no one was crying out for the loss of me. Who the hell did I actually think was screaming? Aaron is right. No one cares. This is the mess I’ve made of my life in three short years. From a suburban kid running away on a lark to this girl who will die alone and forgotten.
“That’s better,” he says, a formless voice in the void. “Now help me clean this shit up.”
I blink, and Aaron comes into focus, that handsome face I’ve learned to hate.
I’m dripping blood, cheek stinging from his slap, as I breathe my last, mourned by no one.
Except I am still breathing. Still breathing and feeling no pain except that slap and the rawness in my throat.
“Did you hear me?” he says. “I gotta clean this shit up, and you’re damn well going to help, since it’s your mess.”
I look down at my empty hands. Then I see the body on the floor and the gun shoved in Aaron’s waistband.
“Did you think I wouldn’t find out?” he says. “Did you think you could sneak another guy into my house and screw him right under my nose?”
“W-what? N-no.” I stare at the body, and it takes a moment for the shock to clear, for my mind to rewind and remember who this is and what happened.
“I wasn’t— I don’t even know— I got up to use the bathroom, and I heard a noise, and he grabbed me. If you hadn’t come in...” I fall against Aaron. “You saved me.”
He takes my chin, fingers digging in as he lifts my face to his. “If you screwed him, tell me. If you tell me you didn’t and I find out you’re lying...”
I meet his gaze firmly. “I didn’t have sex with him. I didn’t even kiss him. I didn’t do anything with him.”
The first two are true. The third is not completely true, but in the context of sex, it is, and so I can say it with a clear conscience.
The truth?