Between the Stars and Waves

I don't want them to find me here. 

To my left there is a half-eaten carton of Chinese food I've suddenly lost my appetite for. On my lap, my fingers are still curled around the glowing screen of my shitty smartphone, the one Gerry had managed to pick up from the pawn shop two blocks north. My lungs have forgotten how to breathe and I sit still, quiet as the night, as if that would change the words of the text message still glaring up at me. My eyes find the water of the bay, which shifts and moves with the tide yet somehow manages to mirror the sky above. It looks like the stars are dancing in the sea and ordinarily it’s a beautiful sight. But tonight it's making me nauseous and paranoid that the slurp of the water will drown out the sound of approaching footsteps or perhaps the quiet click of bullets being loaded into a chamber. 

I know where you're headed. 

Stomach churning, I stand on legs that have gone numb from sitting here in the cold for the past hour. I don't allow myself to think as I head towards the railing that separates passersby from the dark waters below. My breath mists into white clouds with every exhale, and I watch them dissipate into the air as I hurl my phone over the edge. A soft splash resounds and it offers a fleeting moment of respite. Hands shaking, I grip the railing until my knuckles turn white, hoping that the cold press of the metal against my palms will bring some sort of clarity, direction, anything. But it seems tonight that my luck has run out and despite my mind now whirring with the varied sensations of panic, I don't know what to do. 

Enough of this, Karlye. 

How did they find me? No... how are they currently in the process of doing so? I'd been so careful. Every two weeks I'd changed my number, even gotten another phone. I hadn't stayed in one apartment for more than two months at most, and even then, I'd changed cities three times. Crossing the state line had made me feel safe, and maybe that had been my fatal error. Because I wasn't safe, and never would be again for the rest of my life. 

I begin to walk, in the opposite direction of home. I need to get out of this park. It's too isolated, too dark, and I shove my hands in my coat pockets while I mutter a private sorry to whoever is going to clean up the mess I'd left on the park bench. Maybe a homeless guy would find it before it froze over. Not that I'll ever know, but still. 

I just want to talk. 

This is my fault somehow. Though I can't think of it now, I've made some kind of mistake. My pace quickens in time with my racing mind, and suddenly I'm doubting Gerry. He had never wanted me to marry Adam in the first place, had even refused to come to the wedding. I don't know why I'm thinking of it now, but I'll never forget how angry it had made me, how he had so failed to grasp what it was like to be a pregnant 19 year old girl with no friends, no family, no support. Adam loves me, I had told him. And I know that he'll make me happy. 

And we had been happy. Right up until I gave birth to an already-dead son. 

The lights of the city feel blinding after the sanctuary I had found in the tiny park. There are swarms of people around me, arms chock full of last-minute Christmas gifts. I make my way through the throng in a daze, drowning in snippets of Christmas carols and frenzied conversation. I've walked into the middle of the holiday market, which I usually hate, but right now I'm relieved to melt in with the rest of them. I'm nothing but another face here and it gives me more time to think. 

Gerry wouldn't betray me, I don't think. He had offered his help from the first moment I'd come into work with a limp and was the only one who didn't believe I had tripped on the ice in the parking lot. Whatever you need, he'd said. I’m here. That was two years ago but thinking about it now was like looking back on a life that wasn't mine. 

I make my way up the incline of the sidewalk, carefully eyeing every person who passes by me. It doesn't matter how Adam found me; it only matters that he did. Of course, I'm now wondering if he was bluffing - just because he'd gotten his hands on my number doesn't mean he'd found me yet - but I can't risk it. His brother has contacts all over the state, people who know how to hide and cheat and track you down. I wish I had left when I'd found out about their drug ring. But that was stupid, stupid to wish now. I had made every excuse under the sun for him up until the night he almost killed me, and even then I had wanted to believe it was an accident. Gerry had asked if it was because I still loved him as he drove me home from the ER, his tone flat and his expression grim. 

No, I had said. I don't love him anymore. But he's inescapable. 

The weight of my own words pulls heavy on my heart and though I try to summon tears, nothing happens. I feel empty now, almost resigned to the fate that life has dealt me. I have nowhere to go. I've got cash, perhaps too much to be carrying around, but it won't buy me more than a few nights in a shady motel. I have no way to contact Gerry now, but a part of me is glad for that - I won't put him at risk. But that doesn't take care of me in the here and now. 

What's your next move, slick? I can practically hear Adam mocking me, just like he used to when I was still living with him. I hated it when he called me slick because it had used to be something fond between us, a nickname born out of an inside joke. I'll never cease to be amazed at how he's so adept at twisting the things that made me happy into something sinister and gross and evil. Where you gonna go? 

I don't know, I think as I turn my gaze to the night sky. I have no clue if I'm being followed or not, but I hang a right turn anyway and hightail it out of the marketplace. I don't know where this side street leads, but there's still the warm envelopment of people here and I want them around me. I want to feel their energy and the soft glow of the streetlights, which now seem to be the only things tethering me to any semblance of hope. 

I walk for what feels like ages, willing my mind and my heart to calm. Hours have passed, or so it feels - the moon is still high and bright in the sky, a sliver of chilled sunlight in a tapestry of stars. It takes me a moment to realize that I'm approaching the bridge which sits directly across the water from where I'd been sitting before and I squint into the dark, impossibly trying to catch a peek of the bench I'd left my food on. The night has turned bitter and the wind whipping off the tiny waves feels like pellets of ice on my face. My gaze then falls to the water below, a good sixty feet. It still seems to be reflecting the vastness of the cosmos and for a moment, I feel as if I'm trapped between them. 

He's inescapable. 

Where can I go? 

Inescapable. 

It's so cold out here tonight. I can feel the hollow ache of it in my chest. 

I just want to talk. 

I've been on the run for so long, I find myself wondering what the point of it all is. The numbness from before is seeping into my bones but it's not just from the chill, no; it's a weariness of spirit I didn't know I was carrying with me until those texts came in. He'll probably catch me, after all. I guess I've always known that. 

I hover between the top of the world and the bottom, suspended in the space between two thoughts. Both the waters and the sky seem to be calling to me as I continue walking, desperate to capture the peace I'd always sought. I'm on the edge now, and the slightest breeze or jolt of passion would send me toppling into the inky sky beneath my feet. 

Inescapable? Maybe. But that doesn't mean I don't have a choice.