Black and Blue

9 - I Get an Explanation, But Not My Aunt Back

I sank to my knees as he shuffled into the hallway, grazing my arm with a single claw as he passed by. I couldn't tell for the life of me whether he did it on purpose. I didn't want to care. I heard a loud crash from another room followed by the sound of shattering glass, and knew he'd broken a window for whatever reason. He could have just left through the one he came in; maybe he liked to leave a trail for people to find him. Maybe it was his way of taunting the police. Maybe he'd just gone completely insane.

But if he's insane, why did he remember me?

I kept closing my eyes and opening them again, hoping that eventually this would all disappear, that I'd be greeted with a snoring aunt Freyja and no traces of Jack to be found. I would rather have been hallucinating—better yet, dreaming—than have to deal with something like this. No luck.

No. No. Shut up, shut up, this isn't happening, he hasn't done a thing and I'm crazy and I wish I was dead and—

Before I could stop and think about anything else, I shut my eyes and screamed at the top of my lungs.

—

The date had been set for exactly a month later. My least sensitive professor, God bless her soul, had the nerve to tell me this should've made me even more determined to become a medical professional. She gave me a pat on the shoulder that I didn't ask for and one final "get to work" that nearly sent me over the edge.

Right. This'll make me more determined to get a job, and definitely not to punch anyone who so much as looks at me in the face.

I could tell most of my professors were secretly disappointed that I'd be absent for a whole week right after winter break, but of course they didn't say it out loud. I almost wished one of them would; the one thing I wanted right now was honesty. Not that bare-minimum "comfort" bullshit Dr. Johnson was trying.

If classes were hard to count before, now they were just blurring together in one big monotonous pile of sludge. I lost track of how many times I had to step out because somebody asked a question relating to blood salinity, or what happens when a patient doesn't make it—hell, I almost broke down once because the person next to me mentioned rabies. I tried my best to hide it, and I'm sure I did a good enough job. At least, no one said anything about it. It's a wonder I was able to remember much at all. Everything else passed in the blink of an eye but somehow seemed to go so much slower at the same time. It threw me for a loop in too many ways when I realized January was coming to a close.

It should've ended sooner. Or...it shouldn't be ending yet at all?

I nearly stuffed my fist into my mouth to keep myself from yelling something stupid. It was the middle of the day, but I couldn't bring myself to get out of bed. I was able to get away with it right now; I had no more classes until tomorrow. My covers had been lazily draped over my body, my pillow having become a sort of glorified sponge for all the tears I'd cried lately. I was shaking all over. Sleep had become an unattainable goal ever since that night, even a couple seconds of shut-eye felt like empty victory.

Just over three months ago, I was blissfully ignorant to all of this. If I'd slept somewhere different the night we met, maybe if I had gone out with some friends before the school year began, this wouldn't have happened. At the very least, Freyja's killer would've been a mystery, some faceless silhouette that I could direct every bit of my anger towards, some inhuman thing I knew I would never see again.

But I'd met him.

I was starting to like him.

If Freyja had died of natural causes, maybe even murdered by a regular person some hundred miles from the rest of us, I wouldn't feel this way. If she had died just like that, from old age or disease or organ failure, I wouldn't be tossing and turning at night, coming up with excuses for somebody I never should have trusted. I wouldn't be peering out my window, waiting for the next awful thing to happen, wondering if he even had the nerve to try talking to me again. Wondering if one day he would snap and finally kill me, once and for all.