Page 49 of Love Sick

I take each step carefully, as I don’t want to break the other leg, and when I finally get to the bottom of the staircase, I take three deep breaths as that took it out of me. I’m still too weak to even contemplate an escape.

As much as I want to play piano, I decide to check out the rest of the house and any possible escape routes. The kitchen is as operational as the bathroom, which again surprises me. The rest of the house is in shambles, however.

I walk through a doorway which leads out into an abandoned greenhouse.

The glass panes are mostly intact, but the windows are so small and barred, there is no way I could squeeze through them even if all the panes were broken. The ground is littered with leaves long fallen from their branches.

Vines wrap around the pillars which appear to be squeezing the life from them. Seems an appropriate analogy for this entire clusterfuck.

My boots echo in the silence and although it’s daytime, the green moss on the windows shadows the room in murkiness, tricking the brain into thinking the sun has surrendered to the moon.

There is a door at the end of the room and that door is slightly ajar.

Is this a trick? The classic horror movie script where viewers are screaming for their beloved hero not to go out the door as nothing but danger looms?

I pause with my hand splayed against the splintered wood, wrestling with what I should do.

In the end, curiosity overtakes good sense and I push open the door.

It’s a dreary morning with fog so thick, I can barely see three feet in front of me. It’s cold out, but as I commence a slow walk into the grassy field, I forget everything because this is the first time I’ve been free.

It feels foreign—something which is a basic human right was taken away from me, and now it feels like I’m relearning how to walk, which is in fact true thanks to Alanna breaking my fucking knee.

The crutches catch in the soggy grass, but I persevere.

The white fog is soon dotted with slashes of red and that’s because there’s a fire burning ahead. It appears contained. I venture toward it and the closer I get, I hear the crackling of the fire, as well as someone’s tears.

“Alanna?” I say when I see her standing around a drum of fire.

She peers up, quickly wiping away her tears. “Hi. Glad the clothes fit.”

Really?

But I play along.

“What are you doing out here?”

She shrugs, and for the first time ever, she seems…vulnerable. “I was just thinking.”

“And you had to do that around a fire in the fucking cold?”

She half smiles but she appears tired. “I know you think I’m crazy. And cruel.”

I don’t disagree because that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

“But I did all of this for him. Love makes you do some crazy things. I know this isn’t normal…but I can’t stop,” she says in a whisper, as if ashamed. “How do I make it stop?”

“Make what stop?”

“The hurting of a broken heart.”

I refuse to feel any shred of sympathy for her, but it’s hard to see her as a monster when she begins to cry again.

“I know I’m not innocent in any of this, but neither was Joy. Or Jonathan. Or Misha. Or Luna.”

My teeth clench at the mention of her.

“Luna has done nothing. She lost her son, her fucking sanity, because of you and Joy.”

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