Absolutely Unforgivable(91)
I felt a warm sensation on my hands. I looked down and saw they were covered in his blood. I looked up at Billy. I didn’t understand. Where was all this blood coming from? Billy fell to his knees and that is when I saw the man standing behind him wielding a big knife. It was the same man from the Fourth of July fight. I recognized him right away.
I screamed in horror as he said, “I have you now” and jumped on top of me, forcing my skirt up around my waist, while holding my mouth with the hand he had the bloody knife in, trying to prevent me from screaming again.
Within seconds Vin picked the man up off of me, slamming his body on the ground while Devin and Rocco beat the man to a bloody pulp. I leaped up and threw myself over Billy’s lifeless body, crying and screaming for him to wake up. But he never did. Billy was gone and no amount of crying was going to bring him back to me. Pools of blood were beginning to form around him.
I leaned in and tried to breathe into his mouth as if somehow CPR would help. I didn’t know what to do. I just couldn’t give up. He couldn’t be dead. He can’t leave me like this.
Vin tried his best to get me to come inside and out of the rain but I wouldn’t hear of it. I clung to Billy’s body until the police and ambulance arrived and took him away.
I was overwhelmed by grief. My mind started playing tricks on me. As I lay across his body sobbing uncontrollably I started to think that this wasn’t real. It couldn’t be real. There was no way he was dead. We were going to be married. I was going to be Mrs. Billy Snow.
Snow ... yes. We could have a winter wedding, maybe on Christmas Eve. That would be so beautiful. Does it ever snow in Houston? Maybe we could bring in fake snow like they do in movies. How wonderfully romantic would it be that just as I became Stacy Snow, it floated down all around me?
I could see the wedding scene in my mind. But the thoughts of my dream wedding would soon go away as the paramedics and police arrived. They were trying to pull me off of Billy’s body but I wouldn’t budge. I just screamed out and cried, “Nooooo!!!”
Vin picked me up and put me over his shoulder and carried me into the house. I kicked and screamed as he did, demanding he put me down. But he wasn’t listening. I was hysterical so one of the paramedics followed Vin into the house to check me out.
He put something on my upper arm. “What is this?” I asked frantically as I tugged at the large square thing now stuck to my arm. My body began to tingle, and my eyes started to get heavy. I tried to fight back the desire to sleep and focus on what was going on. I blinked several times but sleep was winning.
“It’s okay ma’am. It’s just something to help you calm down.”
“No! I don’t want to sleep. Billy needs me.”
“They are taking him away right now. What you need to do is to try and relax.”
When I finally came to I found myself lying on the couch, with Mindy and Bree not too far away, their eyes red and swollen. They too had been crying. Even Darla and Starla had broken down over Billy’s death.
At first I didn’t move a muscle. My eyes were open but I didn’t move any part of my body. My eyes just darted from person to person. I had no idea what anyone actually said to me. Their words were all sort of a mash of strange sounds and noises.
Suddenly I remembered some voicemails Billy had left me that day I went to see Jeromy’s mom. I never deleted those. I jumped up off of the couch, frantically looking for my phone. I must have startled everyone in the room as they all rushed to my side. I pushed person after person back as I tried to find my phone. Jeromy, who always seemed to be able to read my mind, picked it up off of the little side table near the front door where we had always kept our car keys.
“Is this what you are looking for?” he asked as he handed me my phone and then put his arm around me and walked me back to the couch. In my grief I hadn’t even realized he was there.
Jeromy sat down on the couch first and then pulled me down on his lap, cradling me in his arms. I barely noticed. My mind was occupied with pushing the buttons on my phone to find those messages. Finally I found the one I wanted, pushed play, and held the phone up to my ear. “Hey. I miss you babe.” Then I played the next one. “Where are you, Stacy? Come home soon, okay?” Hearing his voice was so soothing. It was almost as if he was here with me again, just waiting for me to call him back. I closed my eyes and just let the sound of his voice run through me.
Finally the motion of pushing the button and then putting the phone back to my ear became too taxing so I put it on speakerphone. The room fell silent as I played message after message from Billy. There were probably about ten of them in all. I don’t even know why I saved them on my phone. I guess I just never got around to deleting them. Now I’m glad I didn’t. It was the only thing I had left of him. As I started to fall back asleep, Jeromy gently tried to take the phone from me but I fought him off and held it tightly to my chest. This was all I had and I wasn’t letting it go.