Chapter Two
I don’t remember going to sleep, and by the time I rolled over, the sun streamed through my window, so bright my closed lids did little to block out the glare. I groaned and sank beneath the covers.
Last night, I’d spent the entire ride home pretending to sleep in order to avoid Gracie’s questions. It wasn’t because I didn’t want to talk to her. I couldn’t talk to her. What happened with James terrified me, and voicing those fears aloud to someone, even Gracie, would legitimize them in a way I wasn’t ready to accept.
Just remembering last night had tendrils of fear slithering from my belly and twisting inside my throat. The memory flashed like a strobing light, and my lungs seized with panic. I threw the blankets from my bed and stood, gasping for a breath I couldn’t catch.
It was happening—everything I’d ever feared. I was becoming my worst nightmare. I was becoming my mother.
I pictured myself wandering aimlessly through my apartment and speaking nonsense to Gracie. Would my eyes, like my mother’s, plead with her to understand? Would I try to make her see my version of the truth? I shook my head and tried for a steady breath. That couldn’t be me.
Or could it?
My stomach lurched and a crushing headache throbbed between my ears. I swallowed the vomit building in my throat and made my way to the bathroom. Flipping on the light, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. A layer of cold sweat burst across my skin, and my heart stuttered. The haunted reflection I saw was familiar, but it wasn’t mine.
It was my mother’s.
I blinked until the face staring back at me morphed into something that more closely resembled my own. But nothing I did removed the dark shadows framing my blue eyes, or smoothed the tangles matted in my hair. I looked feral and disconnected—exactly the way I remembered my mother.
Unable to stand the sight of myself, I ripped the clothes from my body and stepped into the shower. Welcoming the sting of water as it pelted my skin, I scrubbed myself with a vengeance. I needed to erase her image and wash away the self-loathing—the hate—that clung to my skin and bubbled in my gut when I thought of her. But it didn’t help. Her image, and my guilt, lingered.
Pressing my palms flat against the tile wall, I breathed slowly until a semblance of control returned. I wasn’t my mother, and I wouldn’t let whatever this was destroy me like it had destroyed her. Dressing in a pair of oversize sweatpants and a long-sleeved T-shirt, I composed my features and prepared to face Gracie. No doubt she’d have questions.
On my way to the kitchen, I found her in the entryway, glued to the peephole with a cup of coffee forgotten in her hand. I cleared my throat, and she jumped, spinning toward me with a guilty expression.
“It’s moving day.” An embarrassed smile crept across her face before she eyed me from head to toe. “You look terrible,” she said as if she’d already forgotten what happened last night.
Deciding to ignore the later part of the night, I joked, “Well, I blame you. You should’ve never given me those shots.” I moved to the sink and poured a tall glass of water. “What time did Xander leave this morning?”
“How did you know he slept over?”
“I didn’t, but now I do.”
Gracie blushed and shook her head. “I was drunk.”
“I was, too, but you didn’t see me crawling into bed with my best friend.”
She dropped her hand against her hip. “That’s because I’m your best friend.”
“Exactly. My best friend was too busy getting it on to worry about me.”
“Nothing happened. We’re just friends.” She laughed as she turned back to the peephole.
I didn’t believe her for a second, but let it go. “Did someone finally rent Darren’s old place?” I asked. The apartment directly across from ours had been vacant for the last two months while management repaired the damage done by one college sophomore and six dogs.
“Looks like it. I’ve seen him once, kind of. Not his face, but the body looks good, and it seems like he’s living alone. Want to go over and introduce ourselves?” She clucked her tongue and smiled with excitement.
“Absolutely not. That sounds horrible.” I rifled through the cabinet until I found a bottle of Advil.
“Well, I’m going over there later. I hope he’s cute.” She walked to the kitchen table and sat in one of the two chairs to sip her coffee. “Lord knows I need someone besides Hairy Larry to look at.”
I snorted and then laughed. “What about Xander? He seems to be more than willing.”
“I told you, he’s just a friend.” She leaned over the table, and her smile faded. “Speaking of Xander and friends…” Her words hung in the air, the tension palpable. So much for thinking she’d forgotten.
“What?” I asked as I tossed two pills into my mouth and swallowed them with a drink of water.
“Are you going to tell me what happened last night, or am I going to have to pry it out of you?” she asked.
“There’s nothing to tell,” I said.
She laughed at the absurdity. “Nothing to tell? You left the bar like a crazy person. Then James came out of nowhere demanding to know where you went—not very nicely, I might add. And when I found you, you were outside with him, and that,” she said with emphasis, “definitely wasn’t nothing.”
I shrugged my shoulders. “I’d gone to the patio to get some air. We met. It wasn’t a big deal. He wanted to make sure I was okay.”
“Not a big deal,” she repeated. “You’re not telling me something.”
“And you’re reading way too much into this.”
Her lips quirked to the side as she studied me. “I don’t think I am.”
I wanted to smile and reassure her, but I couldn’t. The memory of James and me running through a darkened alley resurfaced. I tried not to think of it, but the bitter taste of fear stuck to my tongue, impossible to ignore. She was right. This wasn’t nothing, but it also wasn’t something I was ready to explain.
“Okay, that’s fine, if that’s how you want to do this, but”—she looked down at her cup—“there are things you should know. Xander told me that James—”
I lifted my hand. “No. No more Xander. No more James.” I shoved my feet into my running shoes and grabbed my keys. “I’m hungry—with a serious craving for Mexican food—and I’m hungover in a way that Advil can’t help. Can we forget last night ever happened? Please?” Gracie stared at me until the pressure to say something, anything, took over. “I’m never going to see him again. Better?”
“It’s a start,” she said. “Now, bring me some tacos.”
I threw a smile in her direction and walked backward out the door. Putting in my earbuds, I flipped through the playlists on my phone. As I pulled the door closed, my heel clipped something that unbalanced me. I took two quick steps, tried to right myself, and slammed my foot into a cardboard box. I flipped around and yelped as I fell into someone’s arms, knocking us both to the floor.
We landed in a pile of elbows and cuss words, my foot still stuck in the box.
“I’m so sorry,” I said as I attempted to untangle myself from his lap. I shook my leg, but the box wouldn’t give. Sitting up, I braced my hands against the edges and yanked until I was free.
Standing with the mangled box in my hands, I faced the person I’d flattened during my fall, and my cheeks flushed with embarrassment.
“I didn’t see it.” I searched for something more profound to say, but came up empty. “I’m sorry.”
He pushed himself off the ground and stood. His body towered over mine, and by his expression, I couldn’t tell if he was annoyed or indifferent. That was, until his smile broke, wide and ridiculous.
“Not a problem at all. I’ve always wanted to be trampled by a gorgeous woman.”
I snorted with laughter and shook my head. Reaching forward, I held the crumpled box at arm’s length. He took it and shoved it through the open door of his apartment.
“I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that, but I hope I didn’t break anything.”
His only answer was the impossible widening of his grin. His hair was dark red and his eyes piercing green. He was broad and lean, and he defied every red-headed stereotype I could imagine. Gracie would be happy. This guy was hot.
He shoved his hand out to me. “I’m Mack.”
“Abigail.” His fingers engulfed mine, warm and firm, and I marveled at how my hand disappeared inside of his. Pulling away, I crossed my arms over my chest.
His smile faded, but the sparkle in his eye remained. “It was nice to meet you.” He nodded to my door. “I’m sure I’ll see you around?”
I nodded. “Yeah, sure. Only next time, I promise not to knock you to the ground and fall on top of you.”
The corner of his mouth lifted, and he chuckled. “It’s okay if you do.”
My eyes widened, and heat flooded my cheeks. “No, it’s not,” I said, embarrassed, as I made my way to the stairs. “Good to meet you, though.”
I began my descent and glanced back one last time. Mack was leaning against the doorway with his hands shoved in his pockets. The laughter that had chased his lips was gone, and our gazes locked. Nodding once, he disappeared inside his apartment.
Monday morning was dreary and cold, the kind of freezing wet only Houston could offer. But even with that, I walked into the arts building for my very first class of my very last semester feeling better than I had in twenty-four hours. Well, maybe not better, but strangely optimistic. The connection I’d made between my mother’s condition and the events with James seemed distant and unrelated.
I hadn’t had another hallucination and Saturday night felt more like a bad dream than a reality. That’s not to say I didn’t think about James, or what may or may not have happened between us, but at least it was far enough removed that I could rationalize it. It was nothing, and it meant nothing. Simply an effect of too much alcohol and too little food.
I pulled open the door to my classroom, slipped inside, and found a seat near the back. The room wasn’t exceptionally large, but I wouldn’t have expected a course in the history of Renaissance art to garner that big of a crowd. Pulling out my phone, I occupied the remaining time with texts to Gracie. Oblivious to everything around me, I hardly noticed when the seat next to me was taken.
“Abigail?” A shiver ran the length of my arms and settled in my fingertips. I hadn’t heard his voice since Saturday night, but that didn’t lessen its effect upon me. It was soft and gentle, but it hit me like a sack of stones.
I turned only when he said my name again, and I froze. James’s eyes were focused on me with an intensity that left me paralyzed. “What’re you doing here?” I asked.
“I’m here to take a class on Renaissance art.” I don’t know why I expected him to tell me he’d followed me, or purposely found me. I never would’ve thought, at a university as large as this one, that we’d have a class together.
“Of course, you are,” I mumbled, dropping my gaze. Several things crowded my thoughts, many of them with exclamation points on the end, and my heart took on a nervous beat.
“Will you look at me?” His voice was hypnotic and impossible and demanding and hesitant. I swallowed, my throat already dry, and glanced sideways in his direction. He leaned forward and studied me from beneath dark lashes.
When he didn’t speak, my breath hitched inside my chest, and in a panic, I scooped up my folder and pushed myself from my seat. Before I could leave, James placed his hand on top of mine and squeezed. I pulled away, and my gaze flew to his.
“I’m sorry. Don’t go,” he said, his eyes dark and searching.
The door opened, and the professor entered the room and introduced himself. I looked from James, to the professor, to the exit, and then sat, realizing I didn’t have another option. For the next hour, I did everything in my power to keep focused on the lecture, but it wasn’t any use. I was hyperaware of James. Every shift in his seat had my nerves jumping, and with each second that passed, I wondered if this was the moment the vision would return.
“That being said,” Professor Stalt stated, “I hope that you find an appreciation—if not a love—for Renaissance art. My office hours are posted on my website. If you need anything further, please feel free to stop by or email me.” He picked up his leather briefcase and gave the class a nod before walking out as efficiently as he’d come in.
I shoved my things into my bag and stood.
“Can we talk?” James asked, standing next to me.
“I’ve got another class,” I said as I stepped around him.
The hall was crowded and loud with conversations, but even through the chaos, I knew James was only a few steps behind me.
“Abby, I just want a minute.” His voice was insistent and impossible to ignore.
I veered into the stairwell where there was less traffic and an easy exit. When I turned, he was close enough that I had to look up to see his face, and in this small space, I could smell the faint scent of soap on his skin. Every part of me wanted to lean into him, but I shook myself and stepped back, giving myself some much needed separation.
Staring at his black, V-neck sweater, I gripped the straps of my bag. His presence was overwhelming and consuming. It ate at the air around us and pressed against me in a way that shrank the room. Seconds or minutes passed, and the hall beyond became quiet.
“I’m glad I ran into you today.” There was a pause. “I wasn’t sure I’d ever see you again without having to involve Xander.”
“You would’ve done that?”
He shrugged. “If I had to. I wanted to see you again, and up until an hour ago, I didn’t know if I ever would.”
I shifted my feet, unsure what to say. “I really can’t stay long. I’ll be late.”
“Here. I wanted to give you this.” He held a glossy flyer in his outstretched hand. I reached to take it, and when our fingers brushed, an energy buzzed, thrilling and frightening before it pulsed painfully toward my heart. I sucked in a loud breath and stepped out of his reach, letting the paper fall to the ground between us.
A curious expression crossed his face as he rubbed his hands together. “You okay?” he asked.
“No, I don’t think I am.” I squeezed my eyes shut and braced my hands on the stair rail for support. Images of James and me in that darkened alleyway surfaced with clarity. It was happening again.
A pop rang out like a crack of thunder, sharp and distinct, but there was no light, no flash in the dark. Nothing to assure me that it was, in fact, an oncoming storm. I scuttled away from the moonlight reflected in the pool of water at my feet and sank into the shadows when the yelling began.
I couldn’t distinguish the words; the shouts were too far away. When another crack sounded, this time closer, I jumped and could no longer hope it was thunder. This time I knew exactly what it was.
James grunted from somewhere above me, guttural and low, and my heart dropped out of my chest when the unmistakable smell of gunsmoke filled my nose.
“Tell me where it is,” said a voice.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” James said, his voice laced with pain.
“Shall I have my friend here jog your memory?” A stranger’s boots crunched against the grimy concrete, and the sound of a bullet being loaded echoed in my underground hiding place.
I pressed my hands over my mouth and tried to quell the scream rising in my throat.
“I told you, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Whatever it is you’re looking for”—James inhaled a labored breath—“I don’t have it.”
There was a scuffle, and with a thud, James landed above me. An anguished sob ripped from my chest. He narrowed his eyes and gave me the smallest shake of his head.
“Remember,” he mouthed.
I choked on my tears and held my breath. He stared at me for a moment longer. A sad smile crossed his lips before he was jerked upright and out of my sight.
My hands gripped the stairwell railing so tight that when I relaxed my fingers, the blood rushed back painfully.
“I didn’t mean to upset you,” James said.
I clenched and unclenched my fists as I backed away from him. The memory felt alive and lurking, like it was waiting for the right moment to engulf me.
“Abby,” his voice was soft, but it carried a resonance that reverberated inside of every cell of my body. “I don’t know what I did.”
He reached toward me but stopped just shy of touching my arm. There was fizz of connectivity that popped between us before his mouth pinched into a frown and he dropped his hand. Gunfire cracked in the recesses of my mind, bringing the memory of the vision to the forefront of my thoughts.
This was why I needed to stay away from him. What happened on Saturday night, no matter how much I tried to convince myself otherwise, wasn’t because of the alcohol. If anything, what I felt now was stronger than what I’d felt then—as if the alcohol had only dulled my reaction.
“You didn’t do anything,” I told him. “But, I can’t do this.”
I needed to leave before the emotions clogging my throat escaped. I slipped past him, but he was there, bracing his hand against the cinderblock wall, and even though I could’ve easily stepped aside, I paused. His lips pressed together, and some internal struggle I wasn’t privy to caused his thick brows to fold down.
“I don’t know what’s going on, but something happened just now.” He dipped to better look me in the eye. “It happened the other night. I want to know what it is.”
I thought of my mother, of her condition—of my condition—and it was like being submerged in a barrel of ice cold water. “Look, I don’t know what you think you know, but there’s nothing to explain. Excuse me.”
Instead of using the main door, I spun the other way, choosing to exit the building through the doors under the stairs.
“Abby,” his voice was soft but sharp enough to make me stop with one foot outside, my fingers barely holding the door ajar. “There’s this thing I’ll be at Saturday night. Six o’clock at Reed Street. Will you meet me there?” The paper that he’d tried to give me earlier was back in his hand and extended toward me.
I didn’t bother to take it. I knew I wasn’t going. Here, James was safe and whole, but in my vision, he was less than that. Broken, bleeding, and more than likely dead. I never wanted to see that again. If I was turning into my mother, I didn’t want him, or anyone else, to see me, either.
I let the door fall closed between us. A crushing weight yanked at my soul and ripped it somewhere between here and that place I didn’t understand. Ignoring the fact that I had three classes left, I walked to my car and drove to the only person I knew who could help me.
I pulled up in front of my father’s single-story house and turned off the ignition. We’d moved here when I was seven, and from the first moment, it had felt like home. I had imagined a perfect existence here, not realizing how horrible it would be toward the end of my mother’s life. Now, when I looked upon the neatly trimmed yard and wide front porch, I didn’t see the home I’d fallen in love with. I saw the place where my mother deteriorated.
I was halfway up the drive when the door opened. My father’s smile faded when he saw me, knowing that something was incredibly wrong. He opened his arms, and I fell into them. The security of his embrace broke the dam holding back my tears, and just like when I was a child, he held me until they subsided.
While he brewed a pot of coffee, I sat at the scuffed kitchen table where I’d had my last conversation with my mother. I traced my finger along some of the deeper nicks in the wood and tried not to imagine her sitting there staring at me with hollow eyes.
My father didn’t ask any questions—he rarely did—but waited patiently for me to speak.
“How old was mom when she got sick?”
My father stopped mid pour and contemplated his answer. He took a heaving breath. “A few years younger than you. Nineteen, I think.”
I frowned. “Y’all got married at my age. Didn’t you know?”
He placed a heavy mug in front of me. “Yes, I did.”
“Why? Why would you marry someone with her—condition?”
He shrugged and took a deep sip from his cup. “Love. Your mother was an amazing woman. Extraordinarily kind. Generous. Giving.”
“I don’t remember that.” Even my earliest memories were tainted by her sickness.
He raised his brows and leaned back in his chair. “She wasn’t always sick like she was the last fifteen years. It got pretty bad there at the end, didn’t it?” He took another sip of his coffee. “She’s the reason I decided to pursue psychiatry. I wanted to help her, or people like her.”
“How could you live like that for so long? I mean, she wasn’t even there most of the time.”
“It wasn’t like she woke up one day in her worst possible state. You remember how it was. Most times the good days made up for everything else. After a while, the bad days outnumbered the good until—” He looked at me, the deep crease between his eyes deeper now. “Medication worked for a period of time—and then it didn’t. We were always adjusting, trying to find something that would help.”
“Why didn’t it?”
“Help?”
I nodded.
He shrugged. “Mental illness isn’t a bacteria, and it can’t be treated as such. You’re battling the mind. And the mind, even when injured like you mother’s, is still a very powerful instrument. It can create and destroy. Your mother was convinced the medicine wouldn’t help her. She refused to take it.”
“Why didn’t you force her?” A mix of frustration and anger burned inside me.
“I know that sounds easy, but it wasn’t. You have to understand, I did everything in my power to help her get better.”
“There had to have been another way. When it first started. There had to have been something you could’ve done to keep it from progressing.”
My father’s head tilted at my words, and his lips parted a fraction of an inch.
“Why don’t you tell me what’s really wrong,” he said.
I think I’m turning into her, and I don’t want to. I want to stop these hallucinations before I’m wandering around lost inside my own head. I need you to tell me that I’ll be okay, and that I don’t have any reason to be scared.
“I just miss her. I’m sorry.”
My father’s footsteps were heavy as he rounded the table and pulled me into his arms.
“I’m sorry, too. I wish things were different.”
I don’t know how long we stood there, but by the time I got inside my car, the sun was a memory, and I was all alone with the thoughts I had hoped to come here and erase.