Page 14 of Monster
Dominik
Six months ago
After she crieson me for almost an hour, soaking my hoodie completely, her cries slowly die down to almost nothing. Her heavy breathing alerts me she fell asleep, but I don’t move. I keep holding her just as tight, not moving an inch. Even in her sleep, she needs to know I’ve got her.
The door to the room slides open quietly, breaking me out of my thoughts, and Joyce walks in. Her eyes widen slightly when she sees me in bed with Essa, but she doesn’t make a comment about it. She walks over to the side I’m lying on and glances over at Essa. She purses her lips slightly.
“How’s she doin’, honey?”
“Not good. She cried on me for an hour before she passed out. Probably exhausted. I don’t know what to do.” I shrug slightly, careful not to jostle Essa.
“There’s nothing more you can do. Just keep doing what you’re doing, and she’ll be okay.” She brushes her hand over my arm before turning and leaving the darkened room. The sun has now set and the exhaustion I’ve been fighting seeps into my bones. My body is stiff from being in the same position for so long and is screaming at me to move, but I don’t. I swallow down the urge and close my eyes as “Snuff” by Slipknot plays, lulling me to sleep.
* * *
The crinklingof a wrapper rouses me from my sleep and when I peel my heavy lids open, I see Essa unwrapping a package of gauze. I’m confused for all of two seconds before I see her arm—the one she sliced open—unbandaged and exposed. My heart stutters in my chest as I take a good look at her wound. The doctors stitched her up, but I already saw what it looked like before and that’s the image stuck in my mind as I continue to stare.
Flesh gaping. So much fucking blood.
I fight the chills crawling across my skin as I start to sit up.
“What are you doing?” I ask her, my voice raspy from sleep. She ignores me as she begins to wrap her wound with new bandages. She works quickly and efficiently, finishing in only a minute.
I sit up further on the bed and swing my legs over to the side. She is obviously not in the mood to talk, and I don’t want to force her, but as I move to stand up, she darts her arm out and grips onto my sleeve. I swing my gaze to hers and my eyes lock on her face. She has the wrappers clutched in one of her hands and her eyes are downcast, staring at the blanket by her feet.
Her long lashes fan across her high, pale cheekbones and the small rays of sunlight peeking through the gaps in the blinds highlights the bruises across her skin. My heart sinks as my eyes lock on the horrid bruise circling her neck. I want to believe the bruise is from the accident, but the pattern on it and the way it wraps around her entire neck, forces me to believe otherwise. I want nothing more than to ask her what it’s from, but I know I have no right to.
“You don’t have to go.” Her voice is hushed. I pause, unsure of what to do. I don’t want to go. I know I shouldn’t go, but I can’t force myself on her, either. No matter how bad I wish I could.
“I don’t know what to do here, Essa.”
“You think I do? I’m not even supposed to be sitting here right now. I was supposed tofinallyfucking die.” She spits the last sentence out with so much venom, but so damn quietly, I don’t think I was meant to hear it. But I fucking did.Finally?
“Essa…” I trail off. “What do you mean finally?” I ask her cautiously. My palms grow sweaty with unease as I rub at my right inner forearm. I don’t want to know her answer—but I fucking do.
“Do you really think I took a scalpel to my arm because I wanted to fucking survive?!” she shouts while standing from her bed. She’s unsteady on her feet, and she grits her teeth in pain. I shoot my arm out to help steady her, but she backs away and holds her hand up, halting me.
“I don’t need help. I know you don’t know this, but I’ve been through far fucking worse. You see these scars all over my fucking body? I’m sure you have—they’re fucking everywhere.” She brings her hand up to her neck, tracing an angry scar which is still visible through the bruise with her pointer finger absentmindedly—knowing exactly where it is without seeing it—as she tips her lips up in a disturbing smirk.
“Yes. Of course I’ve noticed them, but it’s not my place to say anything.”
“And you think it’s your place to be here to begin with?” she asks. I pause, not knowing what to say, because she’s right. It’s not my place to be here, but I couldn’t help myself. I guess that’s what I’m good at—putting myself in positions I have no right to be in to begin with. Inserting myself where I truly don’t fucking belong. I figure I would’ve learned to keep myself out of these types of situations by now, but Ijustcan’t help myself. Helping people makes me feel whole again—it fills the void.
“That’s what I thought.” I glance over to her and she’s staring out of the window at the now darkened gray sky. She moved the blinds out of the way so now we can see the clouds overhead moving in, thick and dense. Even with a pane of glass separating us from the outside, you can almost smell the rain that’s imminent.
“But I didn’t want to make you feel bad. I want to thank you for everything you did for my sister and me. I know you tried to help her, but it was too late. That’s not your fault, but I don’t think I can forgive you for saving me. I was never meant to live this long, and I don’t want to. I lost the only family I had left.” She pauses and I can see her shoulders shaking slightly. I want nothing more than to force the few steps it would take me to reach her and wrap her in my arms. To comfort her. Protect her from her own pain. Pain I understand all too fucking well.
“I lost my only opportunity to make my own, and I lost Vin—” She cuts herself off and takes a deep breath, her shoulders shaking harder.
“What I’m saying is there is nothing left for me here. I appreciate you trying to be here for me, but the truth is, I don’t want it. I have to do what I have to do, and I can’t have you here when I do it.” She sounds so certain. Determined.
My heart beats harder against my ribs with every word leaving her mouth. She’s throwing so many things at me at once, I don’t know what to say. She lost her sister, heropportunityof a new family? What does that even mean? And who the hell is Vin? She has to do what she has to do? Is she going to try to kill herselfagain?Hundreds of questions swirl to the forefront of my mind and as I go to ask the most important one, I freeze when something catches my eye.
The hospital gown she is still wearing makes it easy to see the red liquid trailing down both of her legs. I think it may be blood and more keeps trailing down so fast, it has almost reached her ankles in the few moments since I noticed it.Well, one ankle because she’s wearing a boot on her other leg.
“Essa… Are you… bleeding?” I ask in a shaky voice. My hands tremble as fear coats my entire body. Another sense of forbidding comes over me and suddenly, the words she spoke just moments ago click.I lost my only opportunity to make my own.
“Essa! What’s going on?” I rush up to her, yanking the blanket from the bed and begin to wipe the blood off her legs, not knowing what else to do. I think the blood has slowed down because I am able to wipe most of it up, but when I pull the blanket away from her legs, more trails down. Essa doesn’t move an inch the entire time. She remains stoic, still staring out of the window which is now covered in water droplets from the rain which is pouring down outside.
