Traces of Delilah

Twenty

"Hey." There were two light taps on the door and a voice. "Don't forget to come downstairs and eat before your food gets cold! I know you're not feeling well today, so I wrapped it up for you and left it on the stove."

"Thank you!" I yelled back. I snuggled my face deeper into the blankets.

I wasn't sure what was wrong with me. 

Delilah's stress could have finally been getting to me. It was possible my own stress had finally been getting to me too. Whichever one it was, I'd been coming down with a fever. My body ached, the cool wet compress on my forehead did little to cool the temperature, and my nose had been stuffed all day. It was the absolute worse.

I shivered and pulled the blanket further up until it was covering all of my skin. "What the hell? Did it get colder in here?"

Still, my body fidgeted. It hadn't taken long to figure out what the problem was, when I saw the cracked window, inches away from my bed. I hadn't remembered leaving it cracked though. I wasn't sure what that was about.

But I realized it wasn't my doing when I noticed myself sitting upright, feet dangling off the edge of the mattress. My, or Delilah's, bare white feet thudded against the cold, black, hard, metal railing underneath the mattress. 

I guess my sick, weak body wasn't going to prevent the memories for now as I'd hoped.

The paint chipped off Delilah's nails as my teeth nibbled on the edge of them. 

Each crack weighed heavy in my ears. I could feel my leg bouncing at an uneven pace, my anxiety sky rocketing out of the roof. Holy hell, what was she so nervous about? My mind was going to explode if she kept it up.

"I remember now. . ." I bit harder on my nails, nearly digging underneath the entire nail completely. It made a small plucking noise every time. "Shit, I remember. She was right. I fucked up. It's all my fault. I fucked up big time," I repeated under my breath, inhaling sharply with every word. 

I knew guilt when I felt it. She was experiencing it first-hand right now.

And she was thinking hard about something. Her brain must've been kicking at full-speed because I could see every little thing she was thinking about as she sat quietly, bundled up to herself in her room. The images were much clearer, slower, and easier to follow than the other few times she remembered something while I was in one of her memories.

But what the hell had she been remembering exactly? 

It reminded me of how she thought about the events between her and Silvia in Jeremy's house. Except, there was no blood here. And I wasn't struggling to keep track of what was going on nor were they only briefly flashing through her head. But it was all so sudden—like blurry figments unveiling one at a time.

Hundreds of voices drowned my thoughts. Screaming. Laughing. Heavy pairs of feet walking across a hard surface. There was also what sounded like customers yelling orders to bartenders. Well, I assumed they were customers judging by the environment she'd been confined in.

"We didn't think you'd come out with all of us tonight!" That voice was familiar. 

I had trouble recognizing it through the slurring words though. It screamed over the base of the music bumping against the colorfully LED lit, brown walls.

"I'll admit, I wasn't going to, but you guys convinced me." Delilah was smiling at someone. 

A bottle of beer was in her hand, half-way empty. The smell of cheap beer and expensive alcoholic beverages lingered in the air, alongside the stench of worn-out cigarettes. The memory was so strong she could still taste the smell going down her throat. As if it was something she could swallow.