Page 33 of Only Forever

The back of my legs hit the couch and I collapsed onto the floor. All of a sudden, I was back in my body, and I felt myself throwing up until I was gagging.

What had I done?

Chapter Fifteen

I had no idea how long it took for the police and ambulance to arrive. Everything was a blur. I heard words like ‘shock’ and ‘murder-suicide,’ but when people tried to speak to me, it was as if their mouths were just opening and closing with garbled noises coming out. I was in a daze, unable to see or hear anything clearly.

I was in disbelief over what had happened. Both my mother and Keith were pronounced dead on scene. When detectives tried to speak to me, I just stared at them. What would I say? That I killed Keith? I couldn’t even claim self-defense. I had murdered someone in cold blood. I tried to justify that it was deserved because he had killed my mother. But the way I had held my hand over his while holding the knife, swinging it down to pierce his stomach…what kind of monster was I? I would have never have thought I was capable of something so evil.

The only thing I could manage to tell police officers was that I had found both my mother and Keith stabbed and on the floor when I woke up from a nap. It was decided that I was in shock and needed a few days to be able to be questioned. The house was declared a crime scene. I was allowed to pack a small overnight bag, and told that I couldn’t re-enter the house until they were done processing it for evidence. I didn’t know what to do and where to go. The only person I could think of was Chloe, so I called her, trying to explain in a garbled mess what had happened through tears. But I told her the version I heard the police officers hypothesizing. That Keith had killed my mother and then committed suicide by stabbing himself. I couldn’t bring myself to tell her the truth. That I had murdered him.

Chloe was shocked and horrified by what I told her. She told me that I should go stay with her parents, and that she would call her mom and tell her what happened. I had a feeling that shewouldn’t have to tell her much, considering all the news trucks that were outside the house. The entire town of Hyattsville probably knew what had happened.

Chloe’s parents picked me up and took me to their house, their faces concerned and worried. But all I could think about was that my mom was dead. And I had killed Keith.

The next few weeks were a living nightmare. Chloe flew up from Florida to be with me. The police finally questioned me, and I continued the lie that Keith had killed himself after murdering my mother. I convinced myself that he deserved it. For whatever reason, he had brutally murdered my mother. He deserved worse than what he got.

I told the police loud noises had woken me up, and when I came downstairs, my mother and Keith had both already been stabbed. I knew I had to explain my fingerprints on the knife, so I said I had momentarily grabbed it, wondering if I should take the knife out of Keith’s stomach, but then I decided it was better to keep it as is, so the bleeding wouldn’t get worse.

I was amazed at my ability to lie. Amazed and disgusted. Who was I? What was I capable of? Self-preservation had kicked in, and I went on auto-pilot. All I could think about was that I wanted my mom back. For the longest time, it had just been the two of us. She had been my anchor in this world. And I had been so happy for her when she had met Keith and gotten married. I thought she finally got the happy ending she so deserved. Only for her ending to turn into a tragedy.

The investigation was completed and closed quickly, and my house was released back to me. Chloe had taken care of getting the house professionally cleaned, and when I returned, it was eerily as if nothing had happened there. Except I was all alone now.

If I had been depressed before, now I felt completely detached from the world. The funeral was attended by far more peoplethan I had expected, but I bitterly assumed it was because it had become big news in our town. A part of me had thought Jason would attend, but I saw neither him nor his family.

After the funeral, I retreated back into my house. My reclusive tendencies from before now transformed into me becoming a total shut-in. I wanted nothing to do with the world, and I knew I deserved nothing good from the world. Chloe consistently tried to get me out of the house and into counseling, but I adamantly refused. Eventually, she had to go back to Florida, but she called me often. In the beginning, she sent her mom to check up on me, but she eventually gave up when I refused to answer the door.

I existed only in the four walls of my house. I worked from home and paid the bills as best as I could, but that was the extent of my existence. My work was understanding of the trauma I had been through, and allowed me to work strictly remotely. Slowly, as the months passed, I started letting myself enjoy small things, like a funny tv show or delivery from a restaurant I had been craving.

Months became years, and three years passed living in this state. I became used to being in my own company, and decided this would be the rest of my life. At this point, I had nothing to live for, and was just living, waiting to die.

Chapter Sixteen

I hit send on the email and then gave a sigh of relief. My latest editing project had been a doozy and I was glad to be finished with it. I stretched my arms over my head, yawning loudly. My back hurt from being hunched over the computer for so long, and I rolled my shoulders, stretching out my neck from side to side.

My stomach growled, alerting me that I hadn’t eaten anything all day. It was already dinnertime, and I considered ordering a pizza, and then quickly decided against it. It would be faster to just heat up a frozen one and I also wouldn’t have to deal with getting it delivered.

I leaned against my counter in the kitchen as I waited for my pizza to cook. I couldn’t be bothered with using the oven, so I was just nuking it in the microwave. I surveyed my kitchen while I waited. Although it was clean and neat, it was looking outdated and a bit shabby. I imagined what it would look like with new cabinets and updated appliances. I knew I would never get it done. Never mind that it was way out of my budget. There was no way I could deal with people working inside my house. But still, it was nice to imagine what it would look like. My mom would have loved a kitchen with white cabinets and shiny stainless steel appliances.

My breath caught at the thought of her. It still hurt to think of my mother. Three years had passed, but it felt like yesterday that we were in the kitchen cooking dinner together. But I never thought about Keith. I had removed him so completely from my mind that it was like he never existed. I had gotten rid of all his belongings in the house until there was no trace of him left. He couldn’t exist in my mind because I could never forgive him for what he had done. And I could never forgive myself for what I had done to him. But if he never existed, nothing tragic had everhappened. My mom had just passed away peacefully, and not in a shock of horror and violence.

The beeping of the microwave broke me out of my thoughts. The crust of the pizza was soggy from being cooked in the microwave, but I didn’t care. I was eating to quiet the rumblings of my stomach, not for the taste.

I settled into the living room with my pizza in front of the TV. I ate while watching reruns ofI Love Lucy. Syndicated tv shows had been a constant companion these past few years, whether it was in black and white or more current. There was comfort in watching a TV show and already knowing what happens. There were no surprises, and the characters stayed the course. I avoided any news channels. I had no desire to know about what was going on in the world. It was all terrible anyways. I didn’t want to hear about the violence going in on the world, and the people who were suffering. Economic crises and government scandals didn’t interest me. My world was confined to the walls of my house, and I was content with that.

The pizza lay heavy in the pit of my stomach, and I ended up eating less than half of the personal size pizza. Food was one of the few things I had left to enjoy, but even that was starting to lose its appeal. Lately, I just ate to silence the hunger pangs.

Besides working, eating, sleeping and watching TV, I spent a lot of my time knitting. I had picked it up soon after I started staying exclusively home, and it was a good way to burn through time. I often did it with the TV on in the background, and it was a peaceful hobby. I mostly knit dog sweaters and small blankets, and when I had amassed a large enough collection, one of the volunteers from the local animal shelter would come pick them up. It made me feel like I was doing something productive with my time instead of just being holed up in my house.

I felt too tired to knit now though. It was only eight o’clock but I badly wanted to go to sleep. But lately I had been sleepingmore and more, and it was starting to concern me. Even though I never left the house, I tried to keep structure to my day and not just sleep, but lately sleep was all I ever wanted to do. It was easier to resist during the day when I had to work, but once work was over, it was so tempting to just fall into bed.

I told myself I needed to stay up until ten o’clock, and then I could go to bed. I had two hours to kill but I wasn’t in the mood to knit. I was mindlessly flipping through TV channels when my phone rang. I looked down at it and hesitated. It was Chloe, but I didn’t want to answer. I knew it would be a lot of questions about whether I had left the house, if I would consider getting therapy, if I was eating enough, etc. I knew it was out of concern, but I couldn’t deal with her nagging. While I loved her, I was glad that she lived in Florida, otherwise I knew she would probably be at my door all the time, trying to drag me out.

She had gotten married to her longtime boyfriend, Gareth, last year in Florida, and I had promised myself that I would make it. I couldn’t remember the last time I had left the house, but I couldn’t miss Chloe’s wedding. I had even bought the plane ticket and booked the hotel. But in the end, I couldn’t do it. The thought of going to the airport, getting on a plane with all those people, and then attending a wedding was too much. I couldn’t even step out of my house at this point, never mind travel. Too much was out of my control, and I couldn’t fight the feeling that something terrible would happen if I went.

So I chickened out. I thought Chloe would hate me and never speak to me again, but it was even worse than that. She was so profoundly sad. Sad that I couldn’t make her special day, but also so sad for me for the way I was living my life. What she didn’t understand was that this was the only way I could live my life. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be here. Sometimes I thought that would be for the best, but I still trudged on.

Chloe’s family didn’t live in Hyattsville anymore, but she still came up every now and then to visit me. As much as I loved her, I dreaded those visits. It was full of stress and pressure, although I knew she was just trying to help. A part of me wished she would just forget about me, and live her life. But it was also scary to think that there wouldn’t be a single person in the world who I mattered to. Chloe was the one person who still cared whether I lived or died.

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