Take Care of Her – Chapter 3

 

Chapter 3

Merlot was easy. Not cold. Not hot. Not sweet. Not something she had to think about. Not something she had to remember. The first glass was fast. The second, she drank as slowly as she could manage, thinking about every sip. Still fifteen minutes before her therapy appointment. She couldn’t wait any longer. Gretchen gulped the last of the wine in one sip and paid the bill. At least it was happy hour.

Rachel didn’t call her back into her office until 6:02.

“How’s the week been?” Rachel started.

Gretchen’s eyes filled with tears when she answered. “Same.”

“That’s okay,” Rachel said. “Remember what we talked about last time. You’ve had a loss. And you’re grieving. The feelings that you are experiencing, that are making things difficult for you, are normal. And expected.”

“Still?” Gretchen asked.

“There’s no timeline on sadness. I think you’re doing fine.”

“I don’t feel fine. I feel like I’m dying.”

“Is that a reasonable description of what you’re feeling?”

“I don’t know,” Gretchen said.

“Do you think it’s possible that you might be mis-naming this continued discomfort? Calling the feeling something a little unreasonable? That while you may be hurting, that you know you’re not actually dying?”

“This isn’t helping,” Gretchen said.

“Why do you think that?”

“I know what you’re looking for. Yes. I brushed my teeth today. Yes. I went to work. I slept. More or less. I ate. More or less.”

“And you don’t think that’s doing well?”

“I also cry every day. I think about him every day. I hurt every day.”

“That’s absolutely expected.”

“Maybe I should hurt. Maybe it’s my fault. Maybe I deserve it.”

“That’s a false thought.”

“That’s all I have.”

“Gretchen,” Rachel said.

“I know,” Gretchen said.

Rachel settled into a long pause. “What was your favorite birthday party as a kid?”

“What?”

“A true thought. A time. A happy memory. Something you loved.”

“I can’t think of anything happy. Nothing’s happy.”

“Is that a false thought?”

Gretchen curled her knees to her chest and tucked into the upholstered chair.

“What’s another version of that thought? Take your time and give yourself a chance to remember. To really consider all the possible choices.”

“My fifth birthday,” Gretchen said. “My mom let me paint my nails purple and I got a white cat.”

“That’s happy,” Rachel said.

Gretchen nodded.

“Was that girl worth it? The purple nails and the white cat? Did she deserve those things?”

Gretchen hugged her knees tighter to her chest.

“Consider that as an equally true and valid thought.” Rachel made sure she had Gretchen’s full attention. “You didn’t ask for this hurt or sadness. But you’re dealing with it. You didn’t ask for the job of healing yourself, but you got it. And your job is to take care of that five-year old. So make sure she knows how worthy and good enough she is.”

Gretchen didn’t cry any more.  She didn’t say much for the rest of the session.

She listened.

Take Care of Her – Chapter 1

(Favorite season means new fiction, new horror, new images. Slowly releasing my new short story.)

Chapter 1

Gretchen dragged herself through her apartment. She was sweating, even though she only wore shorts and a tank top—the same ones she put on Friday afternoon when she had come home from work. It was Sunday night. She hadn’t walked outside her door since then. Only inside. Pacing. Losing focus in the bedroom and finding herself in the kitchen, but not remembering how. It had been 47 days. They said, with time, it would start to hurt less. It hadn’t.

Why was it so hot? It was March. She walked to the door, to check the thermostat, but stopped at the couch. She was tired. Standing felt like she was trying to push away the weight of a dump truck with her feet. She needed to sit. So tired. She never made it to the thermostat. She put her hand on the arm of the couch and lowered herself into it. Her glazed eyes scanned the room. Didn’t see much of anything. Until the ribbon. It was wrapped around the base of a purple candle on the coffee table. She’d missed it.

They had gone to a jazz club the day after Valentine’s Day. Not this year, of course. Last year. He had to work on the day. She didn’t think she was a girl that cared about that nonsense. She didn’t want to be. But maybe she was. Gretchen didn’t remember getting off the couch, but she found herself on the floor, the red ribbon in her hand. The club had given those at the door instead of tickets.  They each had one, worn around their wrists until the end of the night. She’d saved hers. How was it still out? She’d packed everything away. Where she wouldn’t have to see it. She didn’t want to see it. Couldn’t. So, she closed her eyes. The ribbon curled in her hand. She heaved herself back onto the couch and fell asleep.

Rolling and Action

Setting the Stage

 

Take it in
Or move it down
Inside your brain
Swallowed sound

Of raging voices
Screaming truths
Convinced of lack
Inked with proof

A game of words
Pronouns defend
Lighted eyes
Deferred send

Now you see
Body real
Indulging full
The hurt you feel

A twist of truth
A curl of cuts
Under lights
Marks and ruts

In the veneer
Of… fine
And talk later
…Sometime

Good to relate
Walk in shoes
Laced to go past
And forward, a ruse

Lit with love
And real passion
Audio dubbed
Broadcast captioned

Back to base
Edit for use
See what’s there
In flesh, not obtuse

It’s a brilliant idea
Shy short on conception
Third act falls apart
Only basement perfection

Still a story to tell
Commit to these players
Immersed in this world
Of witches and sooth-sayers

Learning to trust
Willing to believe
The feelings will endure
A nervous reprieve

Rolling and action
only mean start
to the ones pretending
not the ones staged apart

Drowning Above Water – an excerpt

Malina and the Dock

Malina’s head felt as if it had been smashed in by a cinderblock. It hurt so much she was convinced that if her neck didn’t keep straining or spasming, her head would simply topple off her body. Her mouth was dry and gritty. She retched onto the floor but there was not enough food or liquid in her system for her to vomit. She only managed a sandy cough. It was stark black inside the trailer. She couldn’t see anything, didn’t know if it was day or night. Her legs ached and begged to move, to rise, but she was afraid to try to stand because she felt fairly certain she couldn’t. The grinding of machinery and wheels in the last hour had awoken her, letting her know that she wasn’t on the water any more. She’d made it across and she had no proof that she was dead. Felt like it. Would have been preferable. But she wasn’t.

Kneeling. That was the thing. Crawling. Try that first. Getting to her hands and knees, she felt moderately stable. But, a few strides later her arms stared to quiver. Another two paces and they collapsed under her. She didn’t know where she was in the tank, so she had to keep moving until she felt metal, which would eventually turn into the metal door. Turning, she sat down and inched her way ahead, using her heels to slide her along and her arms just to keep her from falling backward. It felt like hours. She counted forty-seven pulls until she felt her toes hit metal. Then she adjusted, putting her flank as close as she could to the metal plane. One corrugated segment at a time, she searched for the door. She was weeping with exhaustion.

When she opened her eyes again, she was still lying against the metal. Her face was flat and flush against the wall. She might have been passed out for thirty seconds or the better part of a day. She couldn’t remember where she had been or not been inside the box, so she started her forward scooting again, following her feet. Counting, she pushed forward seventy-two bumps and finally her hand brushed over the horizontal bar of the segmented door. Pulling herself to her knees she grasped the handle in both of her fists and pulled as hard as she could. The door creaked and leaned upward by an inch then flopped back into place. The tears wanted to come again, burning and itching her eyes but Malina disallowed it. With a wobble, she got to her feet, not taking her hands off the bar of the door. Throwing her weight up and back, she screamed as she lifted with everything she had. She laughed when the door slid open only a foot and a blaze of sunlight cut a path into the black trailer. She dropped flat to the ground and started to wiggle under the opening of the door to the other side. She had made it to the dock.

 

(Drowning Above Water is the new novel from Alyssa Herron. It is available now at Amazon.)