TW: This chapter may not be suitable for everyone. Extreme mentions of blood, illness and miscarriage.
She is already seated in the car when I arrive. The convertible roof pulled down despite the January blizzard, her silvery hair spools around her, covered by an almost heavenly light. Snowflakes land, dappling her skin, highlighting her ghostly disposition, yet she does not flinch. She is the child of summer, this glistening apparition, the memory that is my wife. Smiling, eyes dancing, her cheeks are simultaneously flushed yet as white as the snow. I try and fail not to get lost in her icy, baby-blue eyes. She smiles, as though we are on the cusp of some brilliant joke, and grinning, I burst into pearls of laughter with her. There are a hundred versions of her all at once, the brunette, the blonde, the scarlet temptress, a version for every year, every day she had been seated in the passenger seat of the Alpha Romeo, a million different versions of her, smiling at me, in that way she always did. Her racing jacket arm slung upon the windowpane, her feet resting on the dashboard. I await her faint whisper; "where are we going, rockstar?"
I blink, and she is gone. I am met with nothing but the empty stare of the snow gathering in the footwell of my car and Freddie's strange, questioning gaze. I grunt, throwing a fistful of the snow from the car before pulling the door open.
"Great" I huff. I can't remember when I had last left the car here, once more returning to the sanctity of the airport instead of spending the Christmas period with my family, but in my haste, I failed to restore the roof. The thing I used to love, amounted to little more than a crystalized ball of ice. Chilling to the bone, just like her dead, lifeless gaze. She is seated now in the backseat, her entire demeanor changed. Her cheeks are shallow, her pallor no longer heavenly but akin to a zombie's sallow skin. Her eyes are unblinking. The resentment towards me for allowing Freddie to take her place is simmering, turning her tears into shards of ice. She is flesh and bone and blood.
"You could have at least put the roof up, you know" Freddie groans through gritted teeth, trying in vain to brush the snowflakes off his seat. I ignore him, tugging the convertible roof so harshly I'm surprised it doesn't snap in my hands. Once the material is fastened over our heads and I have brought the roaring engine to life, I turn the heating on.
"Stop complaining, I'm giving you a lift, aren't I?" I complain bitterly, as Freddie makes a dramatic show of warming his hands in front of the car heater. I turn my gaze to the rearview mirror; thankfully, she is gone. "You'll warm up soon enough" Usually attentive to his every need, I find myself lacking in patience today. My mood is as black as the ice coating the perilous roads. The snow turns into sleet, battling heavily against the windshield, but still, the Alpha Romeo speeds down the motorways with ease, its engine roaring as loudly as the beat of my heat. The blood rushes past my ears, filling my being with adrenaline, as the needle of the speedometer climbs higher. Even though I know it will only bring us more misery, I still find myself racing to meet her, my fingers drumming against the steering wheel, my shoulders hunched over the dashboard.
Her laughter haunts the car.
She has the strangest effect on me. She could be a thorn in my side, digging painfully under my skin and still, I would ache for her. It is like she is the iceberg penetrating the side of the great vessel, and I am the idiot still aboard long after the lifeboats have sailed off, playing the violin in mighty defiance.
And for what? She doesn't want you anymore; she's made it clear she's not interested in your sad soliloquies.
And deep down, you don't blame her.
"You know, you and Victoria would be so much happier in London" Freddie comments. I realise with a start we are outside his house, the car already pulled up to the pavement. I cannot recall when his tirade started; just now, or has he been talking with no response for the whole journey? Either way, he does not seem irritated. To the contrary, much like my wife, he prefers speaking without my sullen response. "You could come around for dinner, dearies" Freddie beams.
