Page 86 of Into These Eyes

Gavin

L ight bleeds into the darkness behind my closed lids, creeping in with flashes of memory. Something I don’t want any part of.

I’m floating, untethered from my body.

There’s no pain.

Just the comfort of nothingness.

And I embrace it.

I can’t be sure if seconds, hours or days have passed, but there’s something insidious squirming inside me. A foreboding lurking beneath the surface of this floating comfort. The nothingness buries a truth I can’t quite grasp.

Dread. Seeping in around the edges, tugging and seeking a way inside. I can’t let it. I won’t.

When a warm hand squeezes my arm, I let the nothingness take me back down into sleep, into that safe place where there is no reality, no pain. Where my heart doesn’t hurt.

The next time consciousness tugs at me, I’m no longer numb.

I move a little, gasping as the pain snaps my grainy eyes open.

I’m in a stark white room. A television hangs suspended from the ceiling, and beeping comes from beside me. Carefully turning my head toward the sound, I discover I’m tethered to various machines. A cannula’s taped to the back of my hand, a pulse monitor clamped to my index finger.

An uncomfortable looking padded chair rests close to the bed, but it’s empty.

Jamie.

Memories flood my mind. Finding Reid in the kitchen. Being shot. Twice. The struggle, the fight to stay conscious, the drive to protect Jamie. Spiralling into unconsciousness.

The gunshot.

Fuck. Fuck!

Jamie.

Where is she? Where—

Searing pain abruptly stops my effort to get out of bed. Slumping back, darkness bites at the edges of my vision as the heartrate monitor’s beeps increase.

Where the hell’re the nurses? The doctors?

Sliding a hand off my thigh, I touch what feels like a remote control. I jab randomly at the buttons, hoping it’ll summon a nurse.

Instead, the TV bursts to life, instantly drawing my attention. I can’t hear anything, but I don’t need to.

A female reporter stands on the footpath in front of Jamie’s house, police tape all over the fucking place. My heart jackhammers, and before I can fumble with the remote to turn up the volume, words scroll across the bottom of the screen.

Female lawyer murdered. Police calling on public for help.

I want to float again. I want nothingness. Darkness. I want to cease to exist, to go to a place where nothing matters, where nothing’s real, where nothing hurts.

I close my eyes, shutting out the world, the words on the screen, the sight of Jamie’s house surrounded with police tape.

It’s all meaningless, because it’s just a dream.

A stupid nightmare reflecting everything I fear deep down in my subconscious.

That’s all this is. I’m in bed beside the love of my life and I’m having a nightmare.

A nightmare I desperately need. Because I’ve let down my guard.

I’ve let love overtake me and blind me to the reason I’m in her house.

That’s what this is. A wake-up call. When I do wake up, I’ll touch the curve of her hip and wrap myself around her warmth.

And I’ll remember that I need to stay vigilant, that I’m here to protect her.

When I draw in a sharp breath, pain snaps my eyes open. I’m still in this empty hospital room, the beep of the monitor faster, images moving on the TV, the reporter in front of Jamie’s house replaced by a newsreader in a studio.

Onto the next story.

Like the previous one meant nothing.

Like she meant nothing.

Desperate, I raise the remote, find the volume and turn it up. Then I change channels, over and over until I find what I don’t want to find.

A male reporter faces the camera this time, a slightly different angle of Jamie’s house behind him.

“—was shot and killed in her home in this quiet suburb last night. Currently, there are no leads as to the identity of the shooter. Police are canvassing the neighbourhood, hoping someone saw something that will give them the lead they need to track down the offender. Over to you, Ron.”

There’s a new sound in the room, a keening that hadn’t been there moments ago. I turn my head toward the closed door, but no one’s there.

And then I realise I can’t breathe. My throat’s closing up tight, the air barely entering my windpipe. It’s me. The sound’s coming from me.

I can’t … I can’t … fucking breathe.

It’s not real.

But I still can’t draw a breath. And I told her just last night, when you stop breathing, so will I.

No. She can’t be gone. No, no, no, no, no, no.

As my useless body tries to suck in air, my mind races.

I should have known the life I’d fallen into was too good to be true. Just when I thought I had everything I’d ever need to live a good life with the woman I love, it’s ripped away. Again. Like some cruel joke. Giving me a taste of what’s possible, then snatching it from me forever.

Her life. Extinguished by a monster who thrives on destroying others.

The knowledge that I can give the police what they need to eviscerate Reid is utterly pointless. What does it matter?

Reid killed her.

That fucker should never have had the chance. I should have killed him. I should have followed Benny’s plan. I should never have let her get under my skin. Instead, I let hope for a future that was never meant to be mine blind me. If I’d only done the wrong thing, she’d be alive.

Now I can’t touch her, hold her, look into her eyes. Everything is meaningless.

My father’s face suddenly swims before me. And now I know. I truly know what he felt the night Jamie’s mother was murdered. Everything became meaningless for him in the blink of an eye. Including me. And I can’t hate him anymore.

But it doesn’t matter anymore, does it?

Excruciating pain suddenly tears through my body.

Then I’m falling.

When I crash into something hard and unforgiving, the pain screams. But before I can vanish within that soulless darkness again, the hurt that tears my heart right open obliterates anything my body throws at me.

On some level, I realise I’m on the floor, trying to drag myself to the door that seems to retreat every time I inch closer.

I don’t know where I’m going, or why. I just need to leave this room, the truth it holds within its walls. If I’m not in here, maybe the truth can’t follow me, maybe I can stop my heart from disintegrating.

Or better yet, maybe it’ll vaporise and end the dread that’s engulfing me.

Please , I beg. Please stop beating.

I need it to stop.

Just like hers.

I’m sinking, drowning, and I want to slip under the water and let it swallow me into its darkest depths.

“Gavin!”

I raise my head. Anika stands in the doorway, her expression horrified as a coffee cup slips from her hand, splattering across the shiny lino.

Beside her, an equally shocked uniformed cop stares at me.

“Get help!” Anika screams at him. “Go!”

As he takes off, my sister races toward me, skidding to her knees, lifting me under my arms until my upper body leans against her. Engulfing me, she rocks me, muttering nonsense words that everything’s okay.

But it’s not okay. Not if Anika’s here. She only just left to start her new life.

She’s back because her sister’s dead.

Heaving sobs burst from my closed throat. And I hate it. Hate it because it means I’m still here in this nightmare. I’m breathing. She’s not. It should be the other way around.

“Gavin,” Anika says into my ear. “Gavin, I’m so sorry, I—Fuck!” There’s careful jostling, then she’s kneeling beside me, my back pressed against something firm. The wall, I guess.

She takes my face in her hands, just the way Jamie does.

Did .

Now she’s crying too.

Through my own tears, through the wracking sobs that send shockwaves of pain through my body, she forces me to look at her.

“Gavin!” she screams on a whisper, her trembling fingers tightening on the hinges of my jaw. “Gavin, listen to me.” She leans in so close, her breaths cool my tears. “She’s okay. She’s alive. She’s fine.”

I know she’s only saying that to calm me down. And it’s fucking brutal.

My eyes ping to the TV screen above the bed. She follows my gaze, her face coming back, head frantically shaking.

“No. No, Gavin. It’s not true. It’s a false press release. The cops are trying to bait … It doesn’t matter. Gavin. I promise you, it’s not true. She’s alive and she’s so worried about you.”

I stare at her, wanting to believe every word coming from her mouth. One thing stops me.

“If she was alive, she’d be here,” I croak.

“She’s in protective custody. She can’t be here for you until this thing’s done.”

I don’t believe her. Nothing makes any sense. “Then why … why’re you here?”

She looks at me with such confusion in her eyes, my heart sinks.

“I’m here, dickwad, because you’ve been fucking shot. I turn up for my family. Deal with it.”

I stare into her eyes, desperate to believe her, but my only family wasn’t there for me when I needed him. I can’t help but doubt her words, can’t help but think she’s only here because Jamie’s dead.

Before I can argue with her, soft soled footsteps race into the room and someone gasps. I don’t look at the source of the sound. Instead, I follow Anika’s eyes as they latch onto my torso.

Blood blooms on the hospital gown covering my torso and, even as I watch, it grows wider, darker.

Then a nurse is on her knees, hiking up the gown to inspect the source of the blood.

Anika’s gaze snaps back to mine. “Well, fuck,” she says, anguish still bright in her eyes even as a glimmer of the girl I’ve come to know shines through. She scrunches up her nose. “I just got an eyeful of my brother’s junk. You realise I’m scarred for life now, right?”

As more staff enter the room, I hear the nurse say I’ve ripped open my stitches. Then there’s a pinch in my arm, and that wonderful floating feeling sings through my body.

Before it overtakes me, I chuckle, watching Anika grin back at me, one hand still on my jaw, the other gripping my hand. There’s no way she could crack a joke if her sister was dead.

I stare into her eyes. And I see truth.

Letting it in, I bring it with me into the darkness.

When I wake again, I find Anika sleeping in that uncomfortable chair beside my bed, the TV remote firmly clutched in her hand.

Turning away, I stare at the ceiling, trying to piece together what happened. I suppose it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that Jamie’s alive.

My heart squeezes tight, remembering all too well the excruciating pain of believing I’d lost her. It’s not like I haven’t experienced loss before. My mother’s death, my father’s decision to abandon me. But somehow, the intensity of losing Jamie was … soul crushing.

Even though I know she’s alive, the trauma’s still fresh and overwhelming.

My mind twists and turns, thinking the unthinkable, then latching onto it anyway.

I’m not sure I can go through losing her again.

Loving her like I do means annihilation.

She might have survived this time, but will she ever really be safe?

Is anyone? She could die in a car accident, get run over on a pedestrian crossing, crushed by a falling tree.

She could get terminal cancer. Or she might decide at some point in the future that she doesn’t love me after all.

The thoughts race around and around until I realise they all lead to one thing, and one thing only.

One day, I will lose her forever.

There’s only one way to prevent that from happening.

She has to lose me first.

This thing called love is utterly fucked up.

No matter what, it can only ever end in pain. Whoever gets left behind to endure it is a total crapshoot.

I contemplate the idea of pushing her away, or simply disappearing so I can avoid this inevitable agony in the future.

For about two seconds.

I could never deliberately cause her that much pain.

When I imagine her walking into this room, I know I’ll see guilt and fear in her eyes. And I can’t have that. None of this is her fault.

When her eyes meet mine, I want them filled with love. It’s my job to put it there, to keep it there. I know that’s selfish, but I don’t care. When she looks at me that way, she makes me soar.

As I close my eyes and drift back to sleep, I know I’ve learnt something significant about myself.

My love for her far outweighs the pain of losing her.