Dead Flowers | H.S.

Chapter Twenty Four

The ground was frozen. I was frozen. The blood on my face was frozen. My heart was frozen-I had not felt it beat in hours. The river, however, was not frozen. It rushed busily and trickled down stone, broke sticks, drowned the fading moonlight. It was the only thing that reminded me where I was, where I had been, what had just happened.

My dress was still hiked up my stomach whenever I moved for the first time since Christopher had spat on me, right over my chest, before stomping away from me. I figured that he was waiting for me. He was perched in the bushes, watching me lie silent in the sounds of the flowing water and atop of the cold mud, waiting till I stood up to come racing out. Perhaps he would attempt to bend me over and rape me again. Perhaps he would gently guide his hands to either side of my jaw and twist until my neck snapped. Perhaps he would simply rush me into the water and hold me under until I whispered Wayne's name for the final time.

I got home. My feet, one bare and the other still with a white converse, carried me up the apartment stairs that were dark and empty. Nobody saw me. Nobody heard me. I was a phantom in the night, eyes empty and chest hard. Would I ever be seen again?

The apartment was empty, but Harry left the bedroom light on because he was good like that and he never forgot. I stayed in the doorway for a long time, staring at the sky blue platforms Harry had gifted me for Christmas, the Roy Orbison album on the record player, the plate of cookies Harry had left out on the counter, the tiny note written on the fridge in Harry's unmistakable writing: be home late. drinking to ease the pain of your late shift. god, I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you. my Pretty Woman. wait up for me.

My eyes dropped and for a moment, I thought I was feeling tired. Then I realized that my eyelashes and eyebrows were caked thickly with blood. I rubbed the back of my shaking hand on my forehead and touched the cold blood. I shivered.

I still did not move from the doorway. I closed the door but I did not lock it. Perhaps I wanted Christopher to kill me. I wanted him to find me, open my unlocked door, find me standing in the living room, waiting for him, let him wrap his fingers around my throat, let him kiss me to death, let Harry find me. I would be his Juliet.

The apartment that had become home to me only a few days prior was suddenly strange again. The usually obnoxious quietness suddenly ceased. The dishwasher chugging, the sink dripping, the fan churning, the candles burning, the cars outside-they were nothing. Nothing at all.

Finally, I moved. I shakily turned the record on, blasting it through Harry's beloved speakers. Then I went into the bathroom and caught a glance of myself-then couldn't look away. I was a woman from Blood Feast. It covered me from head to toe. The hair on my head was a mudded black and stuck against my skull. My face was red. My uniform was ripped, my skin was purple, my stockings were gone, my legs were shaking, fresh blood evenly poured from between my legs and warmly kissed the inner parts of my thighs.

No one could look as good as you, mercy.

The front door opened. I did not move at once. I wondered if Christopher had come to finish me off. I wondered if he was going to rape me before or after he killed me. I wondered if Harry was going to move on after I died. I wondered-then Harry called me name. My name, rolling off his tongue like a language only he was fluent in, sounded distorted and almost unfamiliar. I still did not move. I heard him move around, probably taking his coat off, probably kicking his shoes off and setting them by the door, probably glancing around for any sign of life.