Unravel(86)

Lachlan doesn’t turn around. His lips are in a flat line, nostrils flared, and eyes flat. “I caught him. I—” He tightens his grip on me. “I saw him. I saw him—” his voice croaks and fades.

Dr. Rutledge approaches us slowly. She touches Lachlan’s shoulder and he tenses up. She backs away and quickly speaks. “This was self-defense, okay? He was going to come after you and you had to protect yourself.”

Lachlan turns and looks over at Rutledge. “That’s not what—”

“Lachlan, you had to protect yourself and Naomi.” Dr. Rutledge utters meaningfully.

Lachlan nods.

“It’s done,” she whispers. And I want to know who she’s talking to, me or Lachlan?

I hear footsteps outside the door and the murmur of voices. My mom walks into the room. All kinds of emotions run through her eyes as she stares at my dad’s lifeless body. Her face crumbles. She runs over to him and drapes herself over him. She’s sobbing so loudly my ears ring.

In the midst of her tears, Dr. Rutledge is on her phone, speaking frantically. I know that cops and EMT’s will be here soon. I know they’re going to ask me questions. Ask Lachlan questions. I know they’re going to take my dad away in a black bag, placed on a gurney.

What I don’t know is how I’m going to survive all the pain Lana has given me.





An hour later, I’m sitting outside on the front steps with a blanket draped around my shoulders. Cop lights are flashing. Five cops are here. Three of them are walking in and out of the house. The other two are talking to Dr. Rutledge and Lachlan. They’ve talked to me a few times and I know it won’t be the last. Two EMT’s walk down the sidewalk, flanking a stretcher. My mom’s still inside, still sobbing. I haven’t talked to her. And she hasn’t looked at me once. If she did, I don’t think much would pass between us. With Lana’s memories, my memories, slowly coming to me I see there was nothing there to begin with.

I look ahead. Lachlan is walking this way. This whole time he’s been Max. I still can’t wrap my head around it. There’s a lot I can’t wrap my head around.

He stops in front of me. “I’m going in for questioning.”

My eyes widen. I go to stand up but he places his hands on my shoulders, and kneels next to me. “It’s standard procedure.”

“I want to go,” I say, my voice is hoarse and scratchy from all the screams.

Lachlan smiles but it never quite reaches his eyes. He’s trying to make this entire situation appear better than it looks. It’s a waste of time though because I know it’s bad. I know that what happened inside that office will have serious consequences for him.

“Lachlan, I—”

“Naomi, it’s okay,” he says, his voice steady.

Dr. Rutledge walks over and sits down next to me. She places an arm around me. “I’m going with Lachlan. I promise everything will be fine.”

My eyes are wide, frantic. “I’m not staying here by myself!”

“No, you’re not staying here.” Dr. Rutledge looks at Lachlan and back to me. “You’re going to the hospital to get checked out.”

“I’m not—I’m not ready…” My voice wavers and veers off because I can’t form the right words. I don’t know how to tell them that I’m ready for nothing. Haven’t I been through enough in one day? Questions have been answered, but there are a whole slew waiting to be answered. Those answers are in my head, waiting to be uncovered. I’m too scared to reveal them.

My body starts to shake. Behind Lachlan two police officers are walking over. I grip his arm tightly. He leans his head against mine. One by one his fingers curl around the back of my neck. “He can’t hurt you anymore, Naomi.”

He kisses my forehead and stands up. I stare down at the sidewalk, refusing to watch him leave. I want to feel numb right now, but I feel everything. Isn’t that what Lana was so good at: being numb? Keeping the pain at bay? I now realize just how endless her pain was. I place a hand over my heart, as if that will make the ache lessen.

A car door slams and then another. I hear a car pull away.

“Miss?”

I look up. An EMT is staring down at me with a calm expression. “Are you ready to go?”

Freedom is heady, yes, but as my life falls down around me I see the underlining truth: freedom has a price.

I just wish someone had told me it was my life.





“When a person is lucky enough to live inside a story, to live inside an imaginary world, the pains of this world disappear. For as long as the story goes on, reality no longer exists.”



Paul Auster


UNVEIL


Life moves forward whether you’re okay or not.

The ground is frozen, with a blanket of sound covering it. It’s a freezing winter night, where the stars are out, twinkling brightly. I watch all of this with a smile on my face, grateful that for once, I’m on the okay side. Once, there used to be a barrier between me and the outside world. That barrier was once the truth and it held me back from so much.

For decades, my life had been put on pause. I stopped breathing, living. To put it simply, I stopped existing. But for the past year, I have been trying to exist; all the while knowing everything that has happened to me and not letting that define me.