~ Mason ~
It’s strange … missing someone you don’t really know. I miss the light she used to shine on my dark existence.
I’ve been watching her for two weeks now and she never leaves to go to work. She’s always in her bed. I don’t know why she hasn’t gone back to work yet. The one time I saw her, I didn’t see anything wrong with her. She looked like she had healed from whatever injuries she had from the accident.
But it’s been months and there’s nothing healthy about the way she’s hiding. Not that my life is a bucket of sunshine.
On impulse I walk out of my apartment and over to hers. I knock on the door and wait. I have no clue what I’m going to say when she opens the door. After a few seconds I knock again, but instead of Olivia coming to the door, Jane’s door opens.
I sigh heavily, not in the mood for Jane. She’s just a little too much to handle.
“She won’t open,” she says as she leans against the wall. “I have a set of extra keys to her apartment.”
I just stare at her, not sure if she’s offering to let me in.
“Let me get them. I want to see if she has some bacon. I’ve been in the mood for some all day long.”
I frown as she disappears back into her apartment, and I can’t help but think that Jane is the last person who should have Olivia’s set of emergency keys.
She walks back and unlocks Olivia’s door. As if she owns the place, she walks right in and goes straight for the fridge. I watch her take out a few things before I step into the living room.
“Damn, there’s only turkey bacon. It’ll just have to do,” Jane mumbles.
I ignore her and look around. It’s not as clean as it always used to be. Every time I got a look into the apartment, you could see the coffee table shine. Now it’s covered in a layer of dust. My eyes go back to the kitchen and I see a pile of old dishes. Empty coffee mugs litter the counter.
I don’t know why I’m here. It’s not like we were friends. Maybe because I feel the accident was partly my fault? Who knows?
Jane tosses the keys on the counter and gathers everything she just took from the fridge in her arms.
“You keep the keys. There’s nothing more in the fridge that I want and she doesn’t go shopping anymore.”
I watch Jane leave and just shake my head. Vulture, that’s all that woman is. I take the keys from the counter and put them in my pocket before I slowly walk in the direction of the bedroom.
Before the accident, she was scared of me. I hated it but it was necessary to keep her out of my life.
It’s funny, I joined Social Services because I wanted to make a difference. I wanted to help kids who got stuck with the worst of the worst for parents. I wanted to help those poor children find their way out of the darkness and into the light, but their darkness swallowed me whole. Now it’s a place where I’m most comfortable – the shadows.
I know Olivia worked at the hospital not far from here. Obviously, her uniform gave that away, but I’ve heard her talking to Jane about the children she worked with. She worked with the terminally ill, yet she kept shining her light – as if to give those poor kids a glimpse of heaven.
She used to be a guardian angel.
I stop in the doorway of the bedroom and look at the mess of covers with the small bundle underneath it.
I clear my throat and that’s all it takes for the covers to fly to the side and her wide eyes to find mine. Her mouth drops open and I watch the color drain from her face.
I see the red marks, almost like veins that are woven into her porcelain skin – and I finally understand why she’s been hiding.
I couldn’t see the damage the car did under all the blood. The day she came home her hair was covering the scars. Now I can see each scar clearly, painfully tangled as it covers half of her face. The one scar starts at the corner of her top lip, and it pulls at her mouth, making it look like she’s about to smile. It reaches all the way to her ear. It’s the longest of the scars.
“Jane,” I say and my voice sounds hoarse. I clear my throat and realize it’s hoarse because I feel overwhelmed with emotions. Besides guilt, I feel a sense of empathy. But mostly, I feel a wave of over-protectiveness wash through me. Someone needs to look out for this woman because she’s in no state to do it herself.
“Jane left your keys after clearing out your fridge,” I say and this time my voice sounds stronger. “You need to get up.”
Her eyes aren’t wide anymore, but instead filled with the same despair I saw when she came back – a kind of despair that dances in the shadows – luring you down into a pit you can’t climb out of.
And I’ll be damned, but it calls to me. It’s so loud and clear that I can’t ignore it. It calls to that part of me that just wants to help and I know there is no way I’ll be able to leave her to drown in this depression.