Page 53 of Born of Ice

“I don't know what you are talking about.”

“Don’t play dumb, Electra, or do you preferElle?” As soon as that nickname leaves my mouth her lip curls. Good, angry is good. Angry is a hell of a lot better than apathy.

“Don’t call me that.”

“Why? That was what you went by, no? What that fucker called you. Where is he by the way?”

“None of your fucking business.” Her jaw clenches and then my little star rams into my shins, using my surprise and yelp as her chance to get out of the room. Too bad she can’t get that far, and I catch her while limping when she suddenly stops in the living room, my still open computer on full display and her eyes catching the video of her last routine. Electra freezes. It’s not playing but I paused it the moment when she fell.

The temperature in the room drops and those tentacles of darkness and crippling chill wrap themselves around us.

Fuck. I’m losing her.

“No,” I snap, sidestepping in front of her and dragging her chair closer to me and giving it a good shake, hoping it’s enough to chase whatever crawled over her. “Don’t disappear on me. Don’t fall down that hole. Tell me. Tell me what you felt.”

Her chest rises rapidly, and I shout, “Look at me!”

“Leave me alone! Why won’t you leave me alone, Exton?” she screams, and I let go of the chair itself, grabbing her by her slender shoulders. Electra stiffens at the touch as if it's foreign, as if no one has touched her like that in a long time.

“Why?” Her voice is far weaker than it should be. “Why can’t you just let it go? Let me go?”

“I don’t know,” I whisper, and her lost eyes find mine. “Tell me, talk to me. Hurt, Electra. Hurt!”

“I don’t want to,” she screams. “I’m tired of hurting. That’s all I’ve been doing since I woke up in that hospital. I don’t want to! I don’t want to hurt anymore.”

I fall to my knees in front of her, cupping her tiny face with both my hands. “Hurt with me.” I search her eyes for even a flicker of life but instead it’s her tears that soak my hands.

“You don’t have the first clue as to what it feels like to hurt.” Her voice is hoarse, almost bitter, and I want to laugh in her face; to tell her she has no fucking clue, but I keep it in.

“Try me.”

“Do you know what it’s like to die? And then as soon as you cling to the last thread of life, to have it cut off,” she asks, her eyes empty, that blue light snuffed out of them completely.

But it’s not her state that has me swallowing a thick lump. It’s her question.

“Do you know what’s it like to watch your own life pass in front of your eyes. To lose it all in one moment? Or what it feels like when you feel like nothing more than a failure…a disappointment…a disgrace? When you wake up in the morning and can’t bear to look at yourself in the mirror because if you do, you will claw out your own eyes?

“Do you know what it’s like to be afraid of the night. Because the night brings it all back. The ice. The loss. The pain. Do you know what it’s like to equally want and crave that night to come, and to finally take you forever? Do you know what it’s like to live with the knowledge that your mother died because of you?”

A chill far worse than the one I already felt, runs down my spine.

“That she sacrificed her own life so you can have yours and you wasted it…” There is so much self-hatred in that one sentence. So much pain. I doubt she realizes there are silent tears running down her blank face but I’m more than aware of the ones I’m holding at bay, feeling every ounce of her pain deep in my soul.

“Yes.” My voice is barely audible and gruff yet her empty eyes snap to mine. “I do.” I get up. “Come, let’s go to bed,” I tell her and without waiting for her to follow me, I go back to her room.

Screw me for wanting to help her. For making her talk. Screw me to the deepest pits of hell. I should have known she’d make it all come up. I should’ve known she was the one who could make me relive it all.

I tug almost every piece of clothing off my body, nearly ripping it in the process.

Do you know what it’s like to live with the knowledge that your mother died because of you?A violent shiver rakes through my body, but I won’t let it break me. I won’t let my own issues come out when I’m here to help her deal with hers.

The fucking irony. I was afraid of what the pain would do to her but never even considered what it might do to me because somewhere along the way, her pain hurt me more. It hurt me deeper because it shined light on mine. It reflected against it hiding in the dark corner, covered by my anger.

She is the one in the wheelchair, but I’m the real cripple here. I’m the disabled one.

16

Two quarters make a dollar

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