I felt…nothing. My limbs were almost like static, I couldn’t move my arms or my legs, twist my head, lift my chin. It wasn’t that I couldn't but rather, I wouldn’t. It felt as if time was frozen and as I stared at my hands I wondered how long I could sit here and watch myself without moving. It would be a comfortable eternity to sit and stare, feel weightless and fixed in my spot. No cares, responsibility or anywhere to be, at least no regard for them. Anytime I tried to focus on one thing, the sound of static in my head grew louder, like when I was just a child and the old, dinosaur television with the huge back attached, would emit that static when there was no channel station. It was hell and yet almost content like living in a conscious limbo where there were endless opportunities to take any sort of action. Yet, jaw clenched, hands twitching, aching to make a move, were denying themselves the very pleasure. The desire to make any sort of action drowned out by the white noise dominating over any sense of will. The questions directed towards me only powered the surge of static within my bones and my mind.
-
I can hear him. The words he’s saying. And keeps repeating. But I cannot, will not, bring myself to answer.
“Are you okay?” He asks.
My head shakes side to side.
“Are you coming to bed with me?”
Another shake of the head.
There’s silence.
The more he asks those questions, the tighter my jaw sets and my teeth gradually sink into my tongue.
He sets forward now and my gaze locks onto him. I will him to understand the look in my eyes to stay away but he does the exact opposite. He sits next to me and my teeth are grinding together, praying he doesn’t touch me. That he doesn’t look at me with the soft eyes that match his voice when he repeats the question, “Are you okay?”
A single tear sliding down my cheek is the only response. I don’t move. I don’t want to. My body is screaming don’t touch me but his soft voice, the warmth of him right next to me. More tears fall.
He puts his hand on my shoulder and the sobs become audible. The breathe I was holding, gone.
I can hear myself screaming like I’m in the other room listening, like I’m not within my body for the process. Deep sobs wrack through my body and gibberish spews from my lips as I gasp for air. My arms feel numb and I don’t remember putting them on my face but here they are, just like the arms wrapped around me I didn’t notice until now, squeezing tighter as if they’re trying to get every single drop of this out of me. It feels like minutes but it could have easily been an hour. There is no sense of anything but trying to expel the breathe from my lungs that come out as screams and gurgled coughing. There are some words I can make out through the whimpering and I can’t tell which is which. “No.” “Why?” They’re caught in the gasps for air. Sensed in the drawn out screams that slowly melt into incomprehensible sobs.
If he had just kept his hands to himself this wouldn’t have happened.
But that’s the first clear thought I’ve been able to make up all night. The smallest part of me sighs in relief, comforted that I’m not completely lost to oblivion.
I can’t decide whether that’s a good thing or not. At least some sense of semblance has returned to formulate some words into a clear thought.
She’s gone.
She let herself slip away in the sliver of a moment. When they stepped out of the room just for a glass of water and to check on her elderly mother. I guess she thought it would be easier that way, or rather choose in that instance, to let go.
That was her moment.
And this is mine. For her.