Day 71—home
The soft notesof the piano disappear into the dark room. I remove my fingers from the keys and wait as the silence of the still house wraps around me like a wool blanket. My gaze drifts to the window. Pitch black. It’s two in the morning, it’s dark outside, which means I can’t sleep. Ever since I’ve been back, I only sleep during the day. I spend the nights wondering and contemplating, missing him even though I’m told I shouldn’t. I’m terrified that one day, I’ll forget what his face looks like. It’s not like I have any pictures to remind me of him, and sometimes I wonder if I just made him up. If maybe I have literally lost my mind and everyone feels sorry for me, so they just let me be crazy, lost in my own little world of darkness and pain.
My fingers glide over the smooth keys and the rich notes once again fill the air. I’m home. I should be happy. Everything should be right, but it feels all wrong. I keep waiting to hear his voice. To see him walk into the room. Truthfully, I feel lost without him. I stop playing Beethoven’s “Fur Elise” and exhale before closing my eyes. Max’s face—those eyes—immediately materialize in my mind. And comfort washes over me. I swallow. My chest tightens and I fight back a sob.
“I miss you,” I tell the nothingness because it won’t argue that fact with me.
Love…
If you think about it, love is the force which drives this entire world. Nearly everything in life is centered around love. Most people search for it like an addict desperately searching for a hit. And now I know why. If you ever find actual love, there is no mistaking it. The moment you find someone whose mere presence can soothe you, who can make even the most horrid of situations seem hopeful, bearable, your soul will say, “And there you are.” And when that happens, nothing—right or wrong—can make you believe you don’t belong with them. In a world where nothing makes sense, where from moment to moment things change, having something you know will remain a constant in your life until you draw your last breath, well, that’s something that makes an existence an actual life.
But I’m told: that person for me is wrong.
That person for me is terrible.
That person for me is bad.
If that’s the case, I’d rather have merely existed. Forknowingthe type of love not even Shakespeare could describe and being unable to own that love, thatisdeath. I may be free from that room, but I’m still a captive because Max owns a piece of me no one else ever will. And as long as he does, I may as well be locked up in a cellar because living without him is still only existing. It is a smokescreen of freedom. And there is nothing more tragic than being forced to pretend you are living when you can hardly bear to breathe.
A jarring clash of notes sound from the piano when I collapse over the keys and bury my face in my hands. I want to scream, but instead, I rake my fingers through my hair and cry. I’m told this gut-wrenching feeling of loss, that it’s just a reaction to the trauma of it all. That with time I will see him for what he is: a criminal, a manipulator, a horrible person who used me.
But I know that is a lie.
He killed for me.
He loved me.
My sobs echo from the high ceilings. I try to control myself, I try to calm myself down because there are worse things in life. There are…but those things are merely momentary. The awful parts of your life—even the shit I endured as a child—was but a fleeting moment in time, but never seeing Max again, well, that is a life sentence, so maybe there are no things worse. He is a living person encased within a false death. And I hate it.
The overhead light flickers on. I quickly wipe the tears from my cheeks and glance to the doorway. Mother makes her way across the large room, cinching the tie to her robe. She’s still half asleep, her eyes not really open. “Honey, why are you up?”
I shake my head and cry even harder, my shoulders trembling with each hard breath I drag in. “I can’t sleep,” I say.
Her arms wrap around me and I collapse into her. This sense of comfort, of undying love, can only be found within a mother’s embrace, and I soak this feeling up, knowing all too well one day I won’t be able to.
That seems to be the only thing I can think of lately—that one day I will lose everyone I love. Max already lost everyone he loves…
“Honey…” She squeezes me and I breathe in her familiar scent only to cry harder. “Oh, Ava,” she whispers. “I know it’s hard to understand it all. I know it must be. It’s hard for me, but…” She takes a step back and wipes the tears from my face. “I’ve thought a lot about this and the thing is…” An understanding smile forms on her face. “Well, if you love him, well, youlovehim. Don’t you? And that’s not something you can help.”
I nod, burying my face against her shoulder. I’m nineteen and sobbing on my mother like a seven-year-old with a broken leg, but that’s what mothers are best at, isn’t it? Consoling you when no one else can. Understanding things no one else could hope to understand.
“And you feel guilty?” she asks.
“God, yes.” I choke back the tears that won’t seem to stop. “Because I shouldn’t love him, but you’re right, I can’t help it. I don’t want to help it.”
Her hand rubs over my shoulders and she nods, bringing me back against her chest and holding me tight. “No, you can’t help who you love. Love isn’t something we have control over. I believe that with every bit of my soul. And you shouldn’t feel guilty for something you can’t control.”
“He’s a bad person.”
“Maybe, but so is your father,” she whispers. “And we both love him now, don’t we?” I stare at the wall, my head on her chest, her hand gliding over my back. “Ava, all that matters is if he’s bad toyou. That may sound selfish and wrong in every way, but that really isallthat matters in love. Is he a bad person to you? Because the one thing I’ve learned in my forty-eight years of life is that love has no morals so you can’t hope to ever explain it.”
Love has no morals…Never has a truer statement been spoken, for love doesn’t care if you’re promised to someone else, if you’re young or old, a preacher or a captive—when it digs its jagged claws into your flesh, well, it’s for good.
36
Max
The crisp springmorning breeze sends chill bumps racing over my bare skin. I stretch before sitting on the dock, sinking my feet beneath the surface of the cold water before I pull the last smoke from a pack and light it. I take a large drag and stare out over the placid lake as I roll the smoldering cigarette between my fingers. She’s most likely reading…or maybe she only did that because she had nothing else to do.
