Black Memories

The morning and it’s weather was perfect. Everything was the complete opposite of my mood. I stared at the mirror in my bathroom, my hands placed on the sides of the sink. I detested what I saw. Another trick my mind had conjured up to make me feel sick in the stomach. I saw blond hair, blue eyes and a pretty smile staring at me in the reflection. 

Nausea clawed at my throat and I quickly went and bent over the toilet bowl. I lurched forward as my stomach violently contracted and a gagging sound erupted from my mouth. Nothing came up, except for the saliva in my mouth. Since I had yet to stomach anything. My face was pale and beaded in sweat. 

I got up and went back to the sink, turning the tap on. I splashed the water onto my face, it’s icy touch stinging. I looked back up into the mirror and saw what I was supposed to see. It was my reflection, not hers but mine. My dull brown eyes had heavy dark circles under them. I couldn’t remember the last time I slept peacefully. My black hair had been aggressively cut short. It was edgy, uneven and unflattering. An art piece created out of my own negative emotions, mostly rage.

I hurriedly wash up and leave the bathroom. I make myself a nice warm coffee, the aroma soothing me. After my fiasco in the bathroom, I couldn’t possibly have anything more than my coffee. My apartment looked lonely. Just like me. The curtains were drawn and I only had one dim light on. The objects in my place created shadows of their own as if they were the friends that they chose to craft from their imagination. 

Even if the day outside was looking promising and welcoming, I didn’t bother stepping out. I stood silently in the kitchen sipping on my coffee. Out of the corner of my eye I could see my phone going off, its screen lighting up as it lay on the counter. I sighed knowing who it was but I ignored it, like I always did.

How long had it been since I left the apartment? Two years, maybe three. After that day, I completely shut myself in, away from the world. Technology was really my savior. I could do everything from home thanks to it. I stopped socializing too, cut everyone off. It had been so long since I had replied to the texts and calls that constantly flooded my phone. 

I put my empty coffee mug in the sink and head back to my room. I scan my room for my laptop and my eyes land on the picture set up on my nightstand. It was a picture of me and her. Don’t look at it, I tell myself. I walk over and slam the frame of the photo, facing it downwards so I wouldn’t have to see it. 

Sam! 

I flinch. The voice echo’s inside my head. Not just any voice, it was her voice. Her sweet voice but to me it sounded frightening. “Stop.” I whisper out, my hands starting to tremble.

Sam! Sam!

“Stop! Go away. Stop playing with me, stop making stuff up in my head.” I say louder and cover my ears with my hands.

Sam! Sam! Sam! 

“Stop. It’s not real, I know. So stop. Please!”

Sam! Sam! Sam! Sam! Sam!

“No.” 

Sam! Sam! Sam! Please! Sam! Sam! Sam! Sam! Sam!

“Shut up!” I scream out with all my might and the voice immediately stops. I stagger and put my hand on the wall, catching my balance. A headache starts to creep up into my skull. I slide down the wall, sobbing. Horribly. Terribly. My heart feeling like it’s about to burst. I curl up into a ball, rocking myself back and forth to calm down.

I stop crying and crawl over to my nightstand and jerk it’s drawer open. Fumbling around in it, I pull out a piece of paper cut out from an old newspaper. 

Kidnapped Girl Escapes Kidnapper And leaves Best Friend Behind To Die

I read the headline, I had read it so many times, almost every single day. It never changed and I didn’t expect it to but I definitely wished it would’ve been different. My nails dug into the paper, rage building up in my eyes.

“I didn’t leave you. You told me to go and get help. You told me you would be fine. And you lied.” I quietly said.

Why? Should I have stayed? What did I do wrong? I couldn’t save us both alone so I trusted you and left to get others. 

“Why did they word it like that? I didn’t abandoned you, I would never do that. I kept my promise but you broke yours.” I mumbled. 

Images of a young girl’s body ran through my head. Her eyes wide open and lifeless. A hole in her chest and a pool of crimson surrounding her. I had violently shook her when I saw her. My hands and clothes covered and soaked in her blood. 

More images flooded my brain. Her frightened face when she laid tied next to me. Her mouth gagged and tears streaming down here cheeks. The masked men. Their beatings when we refuted. The agonizingly long days. The fear. The nightmares. Everything. I remembered all of it so vividly like it was only yesterday.

They were only able to catch one of the men. The other man was still somewhere out there on the run. Every day I found myself incapable of going to sleep. I was scared. Terrified that he might find me and come to take me. I’m being haunted by my own memories. Every night I cry into my pillow, thinking if things would’ve been different if I hadn’t left. 

If that wasn’t enough, then we had this article. Directing people’s hatred towards me. I was the shameless friend. The fake friend. The bad friend. The selfish one. The real murderer. I was the villain. They thought they were being just by targeting me when all they had was fake news, half the story, nothing more. 

I chewed the inside of my cheeks and harshly scratched and picked at the skin around my thumbnail. I was so angry. At the world and myself. I stared at the paper with resentment, my body trembling while I sat on the floor. Every day I was at war with my sanity while the flames were being fanned by my past.

I heard my phone going off and it brought me back to my senses. I looked at it lying on the floor next to me but didn’t attempt to check it. It rang again. I didn’t pick up. Then again. And again. Suddenly calls after calls came and texts swarmed my phone. One after another. Again and again and again. Desperately trying to get me to respond but I didn’t.

Pick it up. Sam! Pick it up. Pick it up.

“Why are you back? Stop. I’m not picking it up.” I said.

Pick it up Sam! You need to pick it up.

“No! Leave me alone!” I shouted.

You need to. Pick up. You need to. Hurry. Pick up. Now now now.

The voice got more desperate and my phone continuously went off. I felt the nausea come back to me, ready to empty the contents of coffee but I swallowed it down. My pale hand slowed reached out to my phone. The number on it’s screen so familiar. How long since I had heard her voice? Her calming and care filled voice. I received the call and put the phone slowly to my ear.

“Sam?” her voice called barely above a whisper. I felt another round of tears threatening to fall after hearing her voice.

“M-mom.” My quivering hoarse voice replied.

“Oh God, sweetie. I thought you’d never answer.” I heard her sobbing on the other end and bit my bottom lip to stop myself from doing so too. “Come back! You can come back. Come back here. There are no more monsters.” She said in between sobs. “They caught him. The monster. They caught him for good.” 

My eyes widened as the words left her mouth. I blankly stared at the wall in front of me, the phone still next to my ear. I was dead silent and my mother’s voice calling me out over the other end, blended into the background. The words then seeped into my mind, processing the information. Realization hit me like a rock.

The tears I was holding in before came pouring out like a waterfall. My hand clutched the shirt over my heart and a primal sound exited my mouth. The pain I kept to only myself was now let out. My crying was hysterical. The screaming sobs rang out in my once dead quiet apartment. My attempts to gasp for air broke in between my wild crying. All my raw emotions came out and every cell in me was screaming. 

It was over now, right? I no longer have to be scared every night, right? You can also be at peace now, right? You won’t haunt me anymore, right? For the one that was haunting the two of us has been caught. I can move on now, right? I can now finally tell everyone of our story, right? The true one, the real one. I can tell them it without being scared of being killed, right? 

I thought while I continued to sob my heart out. My heart felt like it would explode. Like it couldn’t handle the severity of my feelings. My mother had completely gone silent on the other end. She knew. She loved me more than anything so she knew. She knew I had to let everything out. She knew I could now heal. I knew that she knew. I knew something else too.

I knew that I could now finally live.