She left me…She really left me.
I stared at the blank wall across from me as tears streamed down my face.
“Dklsowkdllkspowln?”
I looked up at my friend Jeff. “What?”
“Do you want to go for a ride and see if that will make you feel better?”
I looked at the floor, staring at my shoelaces for a moment. I nodded my head before standing up. I felt like a zombie as I followed him to the car. He talked to me the whole way, more than likely making dumb jokes like he always does, but all my ears heard were a dull murmur.
As we headed down the driveway, Jeff handed me his phone as another mumble escaped his lips. I looked at the device in my hand to see a list of song playlists. I picked one at random, and I handed it back to him as I felt the bass begin to rattle beneath my feet. We drove in silence for a while, listening to one bass booming song after another. Dozens of blurred red, green, and yellow splotches flashed by as we drove. The soft pitter-patter of rain began to hit the windshield.
Did I not do enough for her? Is there a way I could get her back?
Jeff slammed on the brakes suddenly, causing me to nearly fly into the dashboard. My hands slammed against it, bracing myself for possible impact. I slammed back into my seat before it came as Jeff’s horn wailed at its target: an SUV that had pulled out in front of us. His hands waved dramatically as he yelled at the other driver. The moment of anger passed swiftly, though, and we were back on our way before it had even ended. He mumbled something to me, but I felt too numb to care.
I have to try and get her back. I can’t live without her. I don’t want to.
I felt the rattle of the bass diminish. “Dksljpowklejeioenrk?”
“What?” I asked, broken out of my trance once more.
“Do you want to go through McDonald’s and get a coke? I’ll buy you one to help make you feel better.”
“Thank you,” I responded. It wouldn’t make me feel better, but I thought it was kind of him to try.
The bass increased once more, vibrating my whole body. As we entered downtown, I could see the yellow arches in the distance like peaking mountains. I closed my eyes and tried to minimize my thoughts, focusing them on cheeseburgers and milkshakes instead. When that didn’t work, I counted the beats as they rattled my fingertips and played the guessing game of what song might be playing.
I was in the middle of a guessing attempt for the third song when I heard Jeff let out a horrific scream. The car jerked to the left as my eyes shot open. I caught a glimpse of a dark-haired woman in a white dress just before the car began to spin. Her ghostly complexion contrasted with her dark and brooding eyes.
“Alice?” I said before we slammed into the pole.
-
I woke up to the horn blaring and the bass still rattling under my fingertips. A glance to my left told me why the horn was screaming: Jeff lay unconscious on top of the steering wheel. His arms were splayed out at awkward angles on the dashboard, and his bloody forehead could explain the huge crack in the windshield. His head bent over the steering wheel as if he were looking deeply into the instrument panel, his chest practicing road rage etiquette.
What the fuck happened?
My brain felt even more zombified than before like its gears were attempting to run through jello. I tried to rub my neck, but it was hurting too much for me to even touch it. It wasn’t until I looked over at Jeff again and thought, Man, he’s bleeding a lot, that my brain seemed to click back into focus. I hopped out of the passenger side, ignoring my body screaming in pain, and made my way to the driver’s side. I winced in pain as I dragged him out of the car. My whole body felt so sore, but I ignored it sending warning signals to my brain. I needed to make sure Jeff was okay.
I laid him gently down on the asphalt beside us, grabbing a stray jacket out of his back seat to place under his head. Hovering over him, I listened closely to see if he was breathing still. I let out a sigh of relief when I realized he was, and I leaned back, sitting on my legs beside him. I patted my pockets to see if I could find my phone.
Shit, I left it at his house, I thought.
I slowly stood up to go look for it in the car, but I got distracted. I saw the woman in white off in the distance, just staring at us. When I noticed her watching, she headed toward us. She had a determined look on her face like she was on a mission. As she got closer, I realized it was my ex-girlfriend.
“Alice?” I called out, shocked.
“Hello, Alex,” she greeted me. How cold her voice sounded sent chills down my spine. She didn’t sound like herself at all.
“What are you doing here?” The gears once more felt like they were taking a swim in some jello as I tried to figure out why she would be here. Is she here to come to our rescue? As I looked into her eyes, the iciness of her stare made my body feel rigid. I didn’t get the feeling that she was eager to help.
She very suddenly slapped herself, catching me so off guard that I gasped.
“What the hell happened?” spoke up Jeff, making me jump. I winced once more at my sore muscles. “What is Alice doing here?”
I looked over to see him holding a hand up to his head. “My head is killing me. What the hell is on it?” He pulled back his hand and shrieked when he saw the blood.
“Alex!” screamed Alice. “Don’t fall for it!”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” yelled back Jeff.
She ignored him and kneeled down beside me, grabbing my jaw to return my focus to her. “You have to stay away from me, Alex,” she warned. “No matter what I say or how I act, do not come back.”
Tears welled up in my eyes as I looked into hers. “What are you saying all of this for?” I asked, my voice cracking.
“She isn’t me,” is all she said before looking in the distance behind me. Sirens came within hearing distance, and her eyes widened at their approach. Before I could say anything else, she dashed into the woods behind McDonald’s. I stared unblinkingly at the two trees she retreated through, wondering if I should follow her.
“Has she completely lost her shit?” I heard Jeff comment.
Two cop cars and an ambulance pulled up behind us. Besides the usual whiplash, I felt fine. Jeff was showing signs of a possible concussion, though, and, along with that and the gash on his head, they decided he needed to go to the hospital. While I was getting a hefty scolding from the paramedic about not removing injured bodies from wrecked vehicles, they loaded Jeff onto the gurney. I piled in the back with them before we peeled off.
We spent a very long night at the hospital, but, long story short, the doctor found that Jeff did, in fact, have a concussion, he needed stitches for the gash on his head, and we both had some pretty bad whiplash. Other than that, we were fine. We ended up taking an uber back to Jeff’s place. After an hour of him whining about being too scared to go to sleep, me reassuring him that the doctor said it’s fine, and him begging me to stay up with him, anyway, we both crashed on his sectional. I woke up at about 12 p.m. the next day. Jeff was snoring like a freight train beside me, so I decided to leave the bus stop and go look for some grub in his kitchen.
As I was making ramen noodles, Alice texted me.
Alice: Would you like to come over for dinner tonight? I’m making your favorite :)
Questions that I wanted to ask raced through my mind going 90 to nothing, but she texted once more before I could ask them.
Alice: I’m sure you probably have a million questions, and I want to talk it all out tonight. Do you think you could come at around 6?
Her text practically read my mind, and I felt slightly relieved at the possibility that things would be settled tonight. I eagerly agreed to come, and then I spent the next few hours daydreaming about what would happen tonight. She said to be there at five, so, after chowing down on my noodles, I quickly scribbled down a note for the sleeping Jeff, requested an Uber, and then went home to get ready.
I got to her house ten minutes earlier than needed, flowers in hand and hope in my heart. The delicious smell of spaghetti filled my nostrils as I entered the house, and I felt like drool was about to waterfall out of my mouth. Spaghetti was one of my favorite meals, but Alice’s was on another level of amazing. I couldn’t help but wonder if she had made it because she felt bad, but I shoved that thought into the back of my mind. I have no idea why she had broken up with me, and I had no confirmation that this dinner would end with us back together. Patience was key and putting myself on a high horse like I was a trophy to be won was not the way to handle this.
“You’re just in time!” she exclaimed. “Come sit down at the table!”
I sat down at my usual spot as she headed back into the kitchen. A few moments later she walked out with a pot.
“I’m just going to come right out and say it,” she said as she walked the pot of spaghetti over to the table.“Honestly, I feel so bad about the breakup. I felt so stupid after I did it, and all I could think about was finding you and fixing things.” She motioned for me to place a dish towel down and then set the pot on top before she finished talking. “Lo and behold, there you were, crashing a car in front of me.”
“Well, technically, Jeff was crashing the car,” I said with a chuckle.
She rolled her eyes, “He’s always been such an idiot.”
I thought that comment was strange, but, before I could respond, my breath was taken away as she piled my plate high like an altar for the flying spaghetti monster. She handed the mountainous thing to me and said “I panicked due to the crash, so I wasn’t thinking clearly. Words just kind of jumbled out of my mouth. I felt like you deserved better, so I told you not to come back.”
“Why’d you run into the woods like a hermit?” I jokingly asked while twirling some noodles onto my fork.
She shrugged while looking down at her plate, smiling a bit as if she was trying not to laugh. “I felt rather stupid, and I just kind of wanted to hide. You know, Jacie’s house is just like a block away from McDonald’s, so I made a run for it.”
“Ah, I forgot she lived in town.” I took a bite of the spaghetti and had to fight the urge to moan in delight. That sounds strange, I know, but her spaghetti seemed even more incredible than normal. I don’t know if it was part of the fear of losing her and losing out on all of the wonderful little things she had to offer or if she had just put crack in it this time, but it was hard not to gobble the dish up in a couple of bites.
I took a sip of my drink in an attempt to slow down, washing down the food with some acid-filled soda. She picked up her drink but quickly set it back down. “I almost forgot,” she said before getting up from the table and heading into the kitchen. She came back with a bottle of honey and a teaspoon, filling it up the utensil before dunking it into her drink.
“Can’t have tea without honey,” she said with a chuckle before taking a sip. “Anyways…do you want to watch a movie after we finish eating?”
I looked up from my plate, brow furrowed. “Is that it? You don’t want to talk about the breakup anymore?”
“Oh, well…I just thought me apologizing…” she paused for a moment as she looked down at the table. “You know what, you’re right. I shouldn’t expect you to be okay with just a simple apology.”
“Wait, that’s not what I meant,” I replied. “I’m just a little confused on…” I paused as well, trying to think of the proper way to word this tricky conversation. “…why it happened in the first place?”
“I was just being an idiot,” she explained bluntly. “It’s simply that. I let anxiety and worries get into my head, and I doubted us. I made a decision based on that, and it wasn’t fair to you.”
“So all the junk you were saying about not listening to you or getting back together with you…that was you not thinking clearly?” I reiterated.
“Of course,” she agreed. “I mean, I literally slapped myself. I don’t think anyone who randomly slaps themselves is thinking clearly.”
“What about you saying ‘she isn’t me?’ What was that about?”
She laughed a bit before responding. “The me before my freak out felt like a different person, and I had all these thoughts in my head convincing me you deserved better. I guess I thought I had *actually* become a different person.”
I looked at her strangely. “Are you okay? Like truly okay?”
“Oh, yeah,” she said. “Just now I have another interesting story to tell my therapist.”
The rest of our dinner flowed beautifully. She asked me to be her boyfriend again, and I felt so many butterflies in my stomach that I thought I would take flight at any minute. We laughed and talked like we always had. She seemed slightly different somehow, though. Refreshed, maybe? I mean, I had never seen that side of Alice before, but we had only been together a little over a year. Maybe this was just how she acted when coming down from something like that.
Some things about our visit tonight did worry me, though. Even with how well things went, two things jumped out at me about our visit tonight, but they didn’t seem important enough to mention at the time, especially not when we were discussing a sensitive topic like getting back together. I mean, they could really be written off with the mood change’s possible explanation, which could be stress. But they just seem so incredibly unlike Alice, and I’m really worried it has become more than just stress.
She loves my friends, especially Jeff. All my past girlfriends thought Jeff was an asshole, but Alice was always fond of Jeff because she saw him as I see him, which was like the brother I never had. Sometimes he got on her nerves, but, hell, he gets on mine, too, sometimes. And, at the end of the day, she is grateful he has always been there for me when she couldn’t be. For her to call him an idiot was strange.
Alice absolutely hates honey in her tea. She said her mom used to drink it when she was little, and she couldn’t stand anything that reminded her of her mom.
-
I fought the urge to yawn as I stared at the TV screen. Alice had chosen another rom-com, and I was just never into those. It was always 80% cheesy romance and 20% comedy. I looked over at her laying down beside me on the couch, and I noticed her eyes were closed. She began snoring, and I couldn’t help but grin at the familiar noise I had always found adorable. My phone beeped loudly on the armrest beside me, and I grabbed it before turning it to silent mode. I looked over to see Alice still sleeping peacefully. I looked down at the notification on my phone and realized it was from Alice’s friend Jacie.
Jacie: Hey, I heard u and Jeff got into an accident. I just wanted to check on u guys
Stretching a bit beforehand, I got up from the couch and headed to the sliding glass doors. I needed some fresh air, so I decided to relax on the back porch. I slid the door shut carefully behind me, not wanting to disturb Alice.
Alex: Alice must have told you. It honestly wasn’t that bad, though. Jeff ended up with a minor concussion and some scratches. We both have some whiplash. That’s about it.
I stared off into the woods, listening to the chirping cicadas. My fingers traced the wooden grain of the rocking chair I sat in, gliding around it in rhythmic circles. It didn’t take long for my phone to ding again.
Jacie: Oh no, not at all. I haven’t heard from Alice in like a week. I just saw the picture Jeff posted of the car on his story. It looked pretty bad, and I was worried about u guys. I’m glad u guys are okay though!
Reading the message made my heart race. Why would Alice have lied to me? My fingers hovered over the keyboard, debating what to say back. The sliding glass door opening behind me sent me into a frenzy, and I quickly locked the phone and placed it downwards onto the chair’s armrest.
“You okay, babe?” asked Alice as her brow scrunched up in worry.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I said. I tried to calm my heartbeat, afraid she would hear it.
“You hiding something on your phone?” she asked.
“Uhhh…” I grabbed the device up, pressing the button on the side for it to light up. “Nah, nothing.” I looked up at her again, and I could see I hadn’t reassured her at all. I thought of something on the fly. “Alright…” I began. “I have a little surprise planned for you. I ordered it online, so it isn’t here yet.” I looked up at her to see a soft smile on her face.
“Really?” she asked. I nodded, earning myself a kiss on the cheek.
She wrapped her arms around my shoulders and pulled me in for a kiss. The rest of the night was history, and her lying was the last thing on my mind.
-
The alarm clock evaded my dreams with its incessant ringing. I accidentally shoved it off the bedside table in my haste to quiet it. Flopping over onto the other side of the bed, I felt the cotton sheets against my skin. I opened one eye and noticed the empty space beside me. Sunshine rays peeked through her blinds and highlighted her abandoned spot.
Where’d she go?
Right on time, I heard her walking down the hallway. I look towards the doorway to see her bringing in her tv tray with a plate of breakfast food on it. The meal of eggs, bacon, buttered toast, and orange juice smelled heavenly and instantly made my mouth water.
“Goodmorning, honey,” she greeted me with a smile. She walked over to my side of the bed and nodded her head at me to say “sit up.” I followed her orders and sat up against the bed frame while she placed the tray before me.
“How did you sleep?” she said as she sat down in bed beside me.
“Pretty good, but I still feel tired,” I responded while yawning. “How about you?”
“Like a baby.”
I chomped on a piece of perfectly cooked bacon. It was chewy, just how I loved it. I aimed the piece at her mouth, and I smiled at her as she took a bite.
“I really am a good cook,” she bragged.
“The next Gordon Ramsey for sure,” I agreed.
She laughed at my cheesy joke before heading to her closet and changing into some workout clothes. “Feel like going on a hike?” she asked.
I raised an eyebrow at her. “How about a nap?” I countered.
She grabbed a pillow and lightly hit my arm with it while giggling. “We just woke up, silly!”
After many minutes of haggling, we were on our way to a local hiking spot. I let her drive while I focused on rubbing the sleep out of my eyes and yawning. The sunshine helped me perk up a bit, though. We spent several hours under it at a local hiking spot. It was one Alice had always been worried about, but she told me she was feeling a little adventurous today. The eager smile on her face when we got there is what made me not question it. She looked like she was ready to conquer the world, and I was excited at the possibility of her stress levels lowering.
Alice requested no phones while we were hiking, and I happily obliged. The only exception was when we took a selfie just for memories sake. I didn’t get to check my phone until we got back to the car. I had a few app notifications plus a text from Jeff, so I went ahead and responded.
Jeff: You feeling okay, dude? I know we just got into a wreck…but you looked kinda rough in that picture Alice posted of you guys on her story.
Alex: Dude, we went hiking. Of course, I’m a wreck. Other than that, I’m fine. How are you feeling?
Jeff: I feel like shit, but at least I don’t look like shit like you.
I rolled my eyes at his message and tried to think of a snappy comeback. He sent another one before I could.
Jeff: Jk. Let me know if you guys need anything, dude. Always here.
“You’ve been on your phone a lot lately,” said Alice, making me jump. I hadn’t realized she had returned. “My surprise better be good.”
“Oh, I’m just texting Jeff,” I said honestly before swapping to a white lie. “Your present is still in transit.”
Shit… I thought. I gotta remember to get her something.
We rode the rest of the way in silence. I was glad she chose to drive again because it gave me time to get a little snooze in. I had been so incredibly tired lately, yet it seemed like Alice had a constant burst of energy. Honestly, it was hard to even get out of the car as we made our way back home.
I stumbled inside and barely made it to the bedroom, collapsing like a sack of potatoes onto the mattress. My eyes fluttered open for just a second, and I smiled at the view of Alice looking down at me. She was smiling back, but it didn’t seem genuine. Just like the night of the crash, the happiness didn’t meet her eyes. Before my brain could register how weird that was, I was gone to dreamland.
My slumber was filled with nightmares. The night of the car crash repeated over and over in my head, only it was much worse. Jeff’s blood stained the asphalt as Alice’s incomprehensible screams filled my ears. I could see her off in the distance, watching, but she wouldn’t come any closer. Even when I beckoned her and flat out begged her for help, she kept her distance while howling something I could never make out. Jeff’s breathing always stayed steady, as did the blood flow, but he never woke up no matter what I did. After getting fed up with my situation, I tried to run to Alice, but no matter how much I tried to lessen the gap between us, she just seemed to stay the same length away.
And then it would start over: the impact, Jeff’s blood draining as he refused to wake up, Alice’s incessant screaming, and my inability to fix anything. It felt like I was stuck in my own eternally looping hell. That is, until whatever force that was keeping me away from Alice finally broke, and I ran to her so fast I felt my legs would snap like twigs. Her wails grew more painful, more urgent.
As I drew closer, I began to let out screams of my own as Alice dropped to her knees. She reached an arm out towards me, grasping at the air as her voice grew hoarse.
“I’m coming, baby!” I screamed. I was close enough to see the tears falling from her face now. It made my heart ache even more. But…wait, why would I be able to see tears?
I stopped a few feet before her, my body frozen from shock. She continued to beckon me, screeching more aggressively as I refused to step forward. It’s just…her face looked off. I realized it wasn’t tears that I saw falling, and that’s why I was scared to move forward. The feeling of fear in my gut only grew stronger as she reached up and dug her fingers into her cheeks. She dug deep, dragging the skin and flesh down until it fell to the ground. I slapped a hand to my mouth as I began to gag, but she just kept clawing. As my nose finally comprehended the horrific stench of her rotting flesh, the immobilization curse placed upon me broke and I began backing up.
“Don’t fall for it, Alex!” she screeched before giggling like a hyena. She clawed out an eyeball, throwing it at me as she stood up. “Don’t fall for it!” she repeated before she charged at me.
I sprang to action in bed, body fully ready to flee. Alice sat up a moment later and placed a hand on my forearm. I felt claws dig into my skin, and I looked up to see the same terrifying monster from my dream.
I reared back, ready to swing.
“Babe, babe!” she shrieked, flinging her arms up in defense.
My eyes adjusted to the darkness, showing that she was her regular self and not some dream demon. I felt her clawless hand caress my back as I slumped in defeat.
The blaring of my alarm made us both jump, and I reached over to my nightstand to turn it off.
“Time to get up for work,” I announced.