Heath
“DON’T JUST FUCKING STAND THERE!” I roar at both Elliot and Helen, who wear matching stares of horror. “Do something about this baby!”
The child—a girl covered in blood—squawks in my arms, but I’m not concerned about her. She’s chubby and flailing. Safe and alive. It’s my motherfucking soul that’s in jeopardy here. My Catrina is pale and unmoving.
She’s not dying.
Not on my fucking watch.
Helen and Elliot both seem to snap to attention. They take the baby and tend to her while I shove towels between Catrina’s thighs in hope to staunch the bleeding. Elliot manages to cut the cord with his pocket knife and then they move away. Everything blots out except for her and me.
“Sweet love, listen to me,” I beg. “Stay with me. Do you hear her crying? You did that. That’s your little girl. You have to stay awake to hold her.”
Warm heat floods around my hand and it’s then I realize blood has completely soaked through the towel.
No.
Fucking no.
She’s dying.
My love, my life, my goddamned soulmate is draining away second by punishing second.
“No,” I croak. “Please no.”
Hot rivers of devastation run down my cheeks and splash on her pale face as I kiss, kiss, kiss her all over. Not enough kisses. All the kisses in the world still won’t be enough.
Nooooooo!
My bloody palms cradle her cool cheeks, streaking the pasty white flesh crimson.
“I love you!” I wail, almost as though I am cursing her. “I love you and you can’t leave me!”
I swear her lips move.
I love you too.
I blink, blink, blink away the blur and rain more kisses on her. So many to give and not enough time. I want her to have them all. So long we were denied the time for kisses and sweet caresses. I’ll give them to her now.
Kiss. Kiss. Kiss.
I try desperately to give her what she deserves in her last moment. I want her to know my love for her won’t be snuffed out the moment her heart takes its last beat. Our hearts are one. Mine will continue beating for her. Always for her. Never-ending for her.
Goddammit!
I clunk my forehead to hers and nuzzle my nose against her cold one. Kiss. Kiss. Kiss. Those lips are so chilled. I have to fucking warm them up. Someone cries. Ugly and heart-wrenching and gutting.
It’s me.
It’s me.
It’s me.
All alone without her.
Please don’t go.
I plead with my heart, hoping somewhere, somehow, she still feels me. That since we share the sweet beats she will feel my desperation and cling to it.
The sobbing gets worse and everything is dark around me as I bury my face in her hair. The scent is one I remember from when we were children. My safety net, this woman. My solace. My motherfucking peace.
She’s taking it all away from me.
Stealing it so she can have something to hold onto in the afterlife. A memory of us.
I’m left all alone.
Fucking alone.
I want the memories back. I want her heart beating. I want us, goddammit!
Shaking her, I try frantically to get her to wake back up. But can you wake the dead? I’ll sure as fuck try. I shake, shake, shake my heart, praying to force it to beat.
This is war.
I’ll fight for this tooth and nail.
Fight against her eager escape into death.
We are life. We are now. We are here.
Not separate. Never separate. We cannot exist apart.
She knows this and yet she leaves me anyway.
She fucking leaves me!
Voices and crying and a baby sighing.
Fuck them all.
Fuck their motherfucking beating hearts.
I just want hers.
I’d give up my own for her.
God, take the stuttering part of my heart because you already stole the other half!
Her body is limp and grows stiff. Lights flicker. Time doesn’t exist. Hours go by. Hours and hours. I don’t fucking care. I hold her. I cry for her. I smell her sweet, sweet hair.
I have her pinned on the sofa, stroking the soft locks of her silky hair that is sticky with drying blood. I kiss, kiss, kiss her neck and whisper how I love her. I promise her I will never leave her.
I’ll hold her forever.
You cannot let go of part of your soul!
It’s fucking impossible!
Those sobs. Loud. Horrible. Mine.
The other three beating hearts in this home have left me to my unbearable grief.
It’s just the one that doesn’t thump and the one that is nothing without the other.
Dead.
I may as well be dead too.
I am dead.
She fucking killed me the moment she sucked in her last breath.
Oh, God.
“Catrina, my love,” I whisper. “Why did you leave? How will I ever find you again?”
My body shudders as a chill sets in. In my bones. In my soul. So cold.
Clackclackclackclackclack.
My teeth chatter together and the never-ending tears on my cheeks are icy rivulets.
Clackclackclackclackclack.
I could sleep. Just close my eyes and let death steal me too. It’s so cold in here. My love is frozen stiff now. Or is that death that has turned her into a beautiful statue? If only—if only I could keep her this way. Rather than burying her in the cold earth, I’d love to keep her like this. In my arms. Prone to my continuous kisses.
Sleep.
Sleep.
I’ll be gone soon too.
Death, take me to her, motherfucker!
Clackclackclackclackclack.
The chill is warming. It invites me in. I close my eyes.
In the dark, dark darkness I hunt for her. It’s so fucking cold here. I will find her.
“Catrina!” I wail. “Catrina!”
In the dark, dark darkness she hides. I can sense her. A stifled giggle. Her scent lingering in the air. That overwhelming presence whenever she is near.
Searching and searching.
I follow my heart and come up empty.
Why is life so cruel?
My body is shaking. From the cold? No, someone is doing it for me. They steal me. They take me away from the most important hunt of my existence.
Clackclackclackclackclack.
“You’re so cold,” Helen rasps. “Heath, come and stand by the fire so you don’t catch pneumonia. At least change out of those wet clothes.”
I cannot stand. I will not leave my love. Squeezing my stiff, beautiful love in my arms, I snarl at the prying woman. “Go the fuck away from me!”
She jerks her hand back and affixes me with a distraught stare. Finally, the woman leaves, but it’s only to add logs to the fire in the fireplace. I stare at Catrina’s perfect blue lips with the red flames reflecting off her pale, bloody skin giving her the deception of life behind those dull features. The room warms, but my heart stays frozen. It’s dying. A broken heart is real and it’s a killer.
Oh, God, how it fucking hurts!
A warm blanket is draped over me and I want to push it away. I want to freeze to death. I want to die. But I’m too weak to do anything.
All I can do is hold her.
Hold mine.
My Catrina.
Scraaaape!
The sound of metal on metal has me cracking my lids in protest. Bright light shines in from a window. Helen stands by the window where she’s recently dragged the curtains open.
“Leave, woman,” I growl, my voice a bitter croak.
“I will not, Mr. Heath.” She waves a hand at me. “You’ve not moved in two days. I’m sorry to say this but…” she trails off and holds her nose. “The body is starting to stink.”
I glower at her. “Leave, you meddling bitch!”
She purses her lips and walks forward but not too close. Her nose crinkles. “The electricity is still down, but I could run you a warm bath. We have candles galore. You need to eat and drink a little something. I’m afraid you’ve fallen ill with pneumonia.”
“I’ll stay,” I hiss.
The smell makes my nostrils flare, but I ignore it. Stale blood isn’t pleasant. But know what’s worse? Losing your motherfucking soul. That’s worse. I clutch Catrina’s hard body tighter.
“She’d have a fit, you know,” Helen says softly. “Knowing you let her stay in such a state. Ruined.”
I wince at her words. “She can’t speak against it, now can she?”
She huffs. “But if she could, she’d want to be cleaned up at once. Please take a bath and allow me to clean her up some. We can plan her burial. You can see the baby—”
“I don’t care about the baby!” I roar, my body trembling with fury. “The only thing I’ve ever cared about is gone! Gone, Helen! How can you stand there so unfeeling? You loved her too.”
“Dear Lord, Heath, of course I loved her,” she exclaims. “And because I loved her, I know what she would have wanted. She wouldn’t want this…”
I lift up, my body weak and shaky, to stare down at Catrina. Without her life burning through her, she is a cold husk. Simply a body. Bile rises in my throat. I’m hugging a corpse. Her heart is gone. Her laugh and wit are erased from this world. So what in the fuck am I still clinging to? Decaying flesh?
Shuddering, I pull away, disentangling my limbs from her stiffened ones. Our clothes are nearly fused together from the blood and I peel myself from my other half. I stare at her body, my heart tearing in two all over again.
Heat leaks down my cheeks.
A man has never cried as much as me, this I am certain of.
I’ll never be able to turn it off.
“Come now,” Helen urges, wrapping my blanket back over my shoulders.
I stand on wobbly legs and the room spins. A pang in my stomach outmatches that of my heart. All I feel is pain. All I’ll ever know is pain. This is my future. My past—God, I loved her beautiful smile—has dictated this for me.
We slowly make our way from the room and the scent of candles—fruits and home baked goods—assault me as we enter the hallway. It no longer smells like death and despondence. Carefully we step up the stairway. One, two, three. We go and go until we’re at the top. She guides me along the hall until I hear it.
A sound.
Tiny little whimper.
I stop in a doorway to find Elliot in a rocking chair holding a bundle to his chest. He creaks and creaks as he pats the bundle with his palm in attempt to soothe the wiggling beast.
“Mr. Heath,” Helen whispers.
Ignoring her, I stalk into the room, fury, a match to my soul. I’m on fire. I want to burn everything. When I tower over them, he finally looks up at me. His eyes are swollen from crying, but he’s not crying now. His cheeks are not soaked like mine. His soul is not wrecked.
He is sad.
I am ruined.
“Do you want to hold her?” he asks huskily.
With a curl of my lip, I stare down at the child, who waves a mighty fist at me. The little mother murderer. She lets out a wail and he produces a bottle. Greedily, the abomination suckles from the rubber nipple as if she always preferred fake to the perfection only a mother could provide.
“I want her buried beneath her favorite willow,” I snarl, my glare never leaving the baby. “You know the one.”
“Catrina?” he asks in confusion.
“She’s the only corpse in the house,” I snap. “But trust me, Elliot, I’d love nothing more than to change that.”
He holds his baby to him, terror flickering in his eyes.
But I’m talking about me.
If someone handed me a rope right now, I’d gladly hang myself this instant.
“Don’t be silly, Heath,” he says, his voice tight. “We have plots in the cemetery because she is my wife—”
“SHE IS YOUR NOTHING!” I scream so loudly the baby starts screaming too.
Helen tugs at the back of my jacket and tries to pull me from the room. “Oh, honey, you need to get ahold of yourself.”
I allow her to pull me to the doorway, but I grab the frame before she can steal me away.
“You will pay,” I threaten. “You will all pay for this.”
Elliott’s eyes go wide. “It wasn’t my fault,” he whines. “I didn’t want her to die.”
“You will bury her as she would have wanted,” I seethe, my eyes burning into him. “You will do it. I want your word now.”
“Okay,” he mutters. “We’ll see. Just leave me and my daughter alone.”
I give him a hellish, evil smile. “I’m afraid that’s something I can’t promise.”
This time, Helen yanks and I go.
To wash away the worst moment of my life.
The blood may run clean from my skin, but I’ll never be able to fill the gaping, horrible hole in the middle of my chest. That wound will bleed until I take my last breath.