Echo (Black Lotus #2)(14)
She rushes into the kitchen and quickly returns with the kettle as well as a cup and saucer. I watch as her frail hands pour the hot water and dunk in a tea bag before setting it down in front of me.
I don’t refute her accusation that I’m a liar. I’m too emotionally drained to play games, and then she remarks, “Your eyes look like they hurt.”
And they do.
I’ve cried more in these past few weeks than I have in my whole life. Pike taught me how to shut off my emotions, act like a machine so that no one could hurt me, and he taught me well. But the strength it takes to turn it all off is beyond what I feel I’m capable of at the moment.
My eyes are a constant shade of pink, and the salt from my tears has burned through the tender skin that surrounds them. Makeup only irritates it and stings, so I go easy with the powder in my feeble attempt to look as presentable as possible.
But I have to wonder why I’m even concerned about how I present myself. I’m thousands of miles away from America. I’m no longer pretending or fighting because I’ve already lost.
I don’t want to be Nina anymore. I don’t want the stupid life of Mrs. Vanderwal. It’s over. There’s nothing left of it because everyone is gone. Maybe, just maybe, I can stop fighting, stop the lies, stop fearing and hiding. For the first time since I was eight years old and left to decay in Posen, maybe now I can finally breathe. I just wish I knew how. It’s been almost twenty-one years of suffocating, and when I look over at Isla and see the years marked in the wrinkles of her face, I give her a little more truth.
“I went to the home he used to own.”
She reaches across the table and places her hand on my arm. “You said you lost him. What happened? Did he leave you?”
“Yes,” I choke out, trying to hold back my tears. “He died.”
“Bless you, dear. I’m so sorry.”
Swallowing hard, we both sit for a while before she breaks the silence and tells me, “I lost my husband eight years ago. Nothing can compare to the pain of losing the man you give your spirit to. When you put everything you have—everything you are—into the one who promises to take care of you, you become transparent and utterly vulnerable to that person. And when he’s taken away, so are you, and yet here you remain, left to continue living your life as if you have something to live for.”
“Then why go on living?”
“Well,” she starts, looking over to the fireplace mantel where a menagerie of picture frames line the wooden structure. “For me it was for my family. My children. It took a while, but eventually I found the strength to pull myself together and live for them.”
I scan the array of family portraits and candid snapshots, and when I turn back to Isla, she smiles, asking, “Do you have children?”
Her question hits me hard. I’m not sure how to answer because it wasn’t that long ago that I did have a child. A baby. A tiny baby growing in my womb, and now that womb is empty. So, I keep my answer simple, “I don’t have any family. It’s only me.”
“Your parents?”
Shaking my head, I repeat, “Just me.”
Instead of telling me how sorry she is about this fact, she does her best to encourage. “You’re so young. You have time in this life. For me, I was an old woman when my husband passed on, but you . . . you have youth on your side. You live for that. You’re beautiful; you’ll fall in love again, and you have time to create your own family.”
“I don’t think I’m strong enough to fall in love again.” I’m also unworthy and undeserving of love after everything I’ve done.
“Maybe not now. It takes time for wounds to heal, but there will come a time when you’ll be strong enough.”
I’m smart enough to know that not all wounds heal, but I nod and give a weak smile before standing up. “I should get out of these wet clothes,” I say and excuse myself from the room.
After a hot shower, I tend to the cuts on my hands and then wonder why I even bothered to do so as I pick up a bottle of sleeping pills from my toiletry bag. The pills lightly pad against each other as I roll the bottle in my hand. I keep wishing for some sort of relief, some comfort, but it’s been here the whole time. Right here in this bottle.
What’s the point of life when life has nothing but vile hate for you?
My body is numb, a casket of waste. I feel nothing in this moment as I consider my escape. I don’t want this life anymore. I never wanted it.
I’m outside of my body, standing next to a pathetic woman whose bones now protrude through colorless skin because she refuses to take care of herself. I look at her, slowly deteriorating. She stops rolling the bottle of pills in her hand and stares into the translucent orange before popping the lid off.
“Do it,” I encourage. “Put yourself out of your misery.”
I know she hears me as she moves gracefully, pouring the pills in her hand and then lifts her head, staring across the room at nothing in particular.
“Just do it, Elizabeth. Everything you want is waiting for you. They’re all waiting for you.”
And then she does it; holding her hand to her mouth, she dumps the pills in and takes a long drink of water from the glass on the bedside table. I walk over to her when she lies back on the bed and run my fingers through her hair, soothing her the way a parent would a child. I meet her craving for tender affection. She looks peaceful in the stillness of the room, breathing in a soft, rhythmic pattern. I notice tears puddling in her blue eyes, but she doesn’t cry, and I know she’s ready.