All is Fair in Love and Espionage

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Six

Last thing I see is Dale’s back. His shirt is red with blood. It’s the same shirt he’s been wearing for the past three weeks. At the start of the week, it was green. I see the fabricated tears, where wolves’ claws have riddled it with holes and punctures, and I see the trail of intestines sweeping across his neck, under the fabric, out of sight. My stomach buckles, and I sink onto the puffy wrinkles of a hospital bed. Shafts of sunlight from a nearby window spread across the rich-colored duvet, illuminating every piece of dust that floats above my head. In the next room over, I hear Nora’s perky voice- she is busily conversing with the doctor about education, training, medical degrees, a number of things. I remember that before all this, she wanted to become a doctor.

My eyes blearily focus on Dale’s hand as it whisks the hospital curtains around him, shielding me from sight. Seconds later, I hear a door slam. And then another. A bing, as the elevator whisks him even further away from me. I crumple to the bed, like a piece of wet tissue paper falling in on itself. Why do I always compare myself to wet tissue paper? I must be secretly weak. It’s the only explanation, I think, as my paled hands cradle my head. The tips of my bangs are wet with salty tears, so when I brush them back, they stand up on end. My bangs did that on my first kiss, too.

Silently, I lay wallowing in my own self-pity. The thin, translucent hospital blankets are wrapped around my shoulders like a cocoon. I watch the ghostly image of my hand picking up the paper-thin ends, and letting them flutter back. Picking them up again, and letting them drop.

When Nora comes out, my face is slick with snot and tears. For a while, I cry into her arms. I hate crying- it makes me look soft. Not only that, it’s uncomfortable. When I cry, my voice will buckle, and I can’t seem to breathe. I start choking, and people pity me even more. My solution is to bury my face into her stomach, until not only is it seemingly impossible to gather oxygen, but not even Nora can hear my silent whimpers. She does, though.

“I Dmphf wmph to tmph...” My voice is raw, scratchy, stuck in my throat, and muffled by my friend’s shirt. Nora gathers my black, clumpy hair into her two fists, and lifts my head off of her shirt. She rests me in her lap, like a baby before the feeding. I breathe out at the feel of her slow, caressing fingers as they sweep back my sweat-drenched bangs. She starts braiding my hair.

I’ve no idea how to braid hair- I know about separating it into three sections, but what order did the motions precede? Was it over, than under, than over again? Or something like left, right, left... My mind drifts off. When Nora finishes, she sits me up and holds onto my shoulders, in case I randomly burst into a fitful outbreak of tears.

“What did you say before, Alice,” she politely asks.

“I said that I didn’t want to tell you. I still don’t.” Nora pauses, her pallid face morose under the harsh, white and unflattering lamplight above her. Before I know it, her arms are wrapped around my heaving shoulders in a vice-like embrace. I am reminded of Nora’s semi-Nordic blood as I gladly hug her back. Two friends comforting one another- that’s what we are. What we have become. I’ve known Nora since I was born. We share birthdays. In fact, we’ve mashed our parties together, every single year. When we were five, Nora’s mother took us to the zoo. When we were six, we went rock-climbing. But I have never felt this close to Nora- not as a newborn, or as a five-year-old letting the cold tastes of lemon sherbet  melt on her tongue. Not as a naïve child of six- climbing rocks and getting blisters. Could anything good have come out of this?

“Please tell me,” Nora pleads. She pats my back reassuringly, and I feel a sob rising like bile in my throat. I cough, choking it down for good.

“He left. He was mad at me,” I whine.

“Why would he? You know Dale loves you.” I look up, astonished to see Nora wincing as she says this. Nora looks into my eyes. But this time, she really looks. Her gaze flickers to my stomach, and back up to me.