If It Ain't You Then Who's Gonna Love You [Kellin Quinn]

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

After the last patient had left, I was exhausted to the point that I couldn’t keep my eyes open. My hands were still cold, almost numb from the blood loss so it had required every last bit of concentration I could gather to not make any dangerous mistakes.

I decided to take a nap, ashamed for secretly wishing I would really die in my sleep. It was never easy to shut out these thoughts, but as I finally drifted off to sleep, I perceived a hand stroking my head. “Shh, it’s okay, sweetie. No one judges you for what you did. I’m always here, we are here, and always will be. We’ll never leave you, baby girl.” Suddenly, I was wide awake.                    

“Mom?” But of course she was not there. It was just my imagination.

When I was thirteen, my parents, my sister and I had gotten into a terrible car accident that took both my parents’ lives. It was awful. Even at the funeral I could not bear to look at them again so the last time I saw them will always be their lifeless bodies, caught in their seats, my dad pinned behind the wheel.  I slowly traced the scar that the seatbelt had left across my neck. When I touched it, I always felt their presence. Tears welled up in my eyes; I silently started to cry, burying my face in my pillow. My dad’s strong arms around me and my mom’s familiar voice comforting me; all of this had seemed so real… Every time I thought about it, I couldn’t believe that they were gone. They did not deserve to die, they’d had so much to live for and most of all, they would never have wanted to abandon Betsy and me. I knew that I had been extremely lucky to have survived the accident, which made me feel even worse about deliberately trying to bring about the possible reunion with my parents. Hopefully no one would find out what had really happened last night because the excuse I came up with seemed so plausible; it is just one of those things that would typically happen to clumsy me; I am the kind of person to trip and fall into a wire-netting fence, so why would this arouse any suspicion? I knew I should actually not give a damn about what people say, but after becoming an orphan, I had slowly acquired people’s hate and the reputation of being an “ungrateful bitch”. Just because I didn’t know how to react to their sympathetic faces and compassionate statements; just because I had been numb and empty, emotionless and unable to interact with any humans, even my sister.

In my opinion, I had managed quite well to keep hold of my life. I mean, I did hold on until now, didn’t I? Still, as the evening approached, I felt myself slowly slip into the hole of dark thoughts again, although I did not want to let that happen, so I called my friend Debs, wiping away the last tears that had already started to dry on my cheeks, trying to swallow the sobs.

“Hello?”

“Hi Debs.” I choked out.

“Hey, Kate. Sorry, I can’t talk right now, we are at a-“ She was talking horribly fast and she had said “we”, which meant that she was probably with her boyfriend, Marcus.

“Please, Debs. Please.” I was sobbing again.

“I’m so sorry, honey. It would be really inappropriate to talk longer.” She paused before whispering: “We are with his parents.”

“Debbie, don’t go. I need you.” I whispered back. Too late, she’d already hung up. A perfect example of how much I meant to my few friends. I had also tried to call her last night but only got her voicemail and I’d considered it –to pick up the word she just used- inappropriate to leave her a message saying that she was to blame for my death, among others of course.

Holding back the tears, biting down hard on my lower lip, I tried to suppress the screams swelling up in my throat. I didn’t want to be here. I didn’t want to have to do this. Slowly, I let myself sink back onto my mattress and just listened. I listened to the mothers and their kids whom they had just picked up from kindergarten walk by my window; listened closely to every step and concentrated on figuring out which step belonged to which person. All of a sudden, one of the children passing by started to run, screaming “Mommy, mommy!” It sounded frightened for no reason, so I thought.

Only a few seconds later, fear started to creep up my bones as well. A voice that I knew all too well spoke up.

“He, kiddo, no need to worry! I dun’ wantchu.”

The child and its mother strode away while Joel’s steps kept coming closer.

“Kate!” He shouted. “I know you’re in there! You can’t hide from me!” I heard glass clink against my window as he took a big gulp from the bottle he was holding. I peeked through the other window, safely covered by the curtain so he wouldn’t see me.

“Kate! Your friend, Debs, she’s prolly not tooooooo much of a friend, huh? She tol’ me you ne’er were at her house after the night you left! So I figured you had to be here!“ His words were slurred. He’d probably had more than that one bottle already. What he said was true, though: I had left him a note that said I was sleeping over at Debs’, which I did, but I never came back to him.

“Kate!” Joel started to hammer on the window. “Open the goddamned window, for fuck’s sake; I know you’re in there!” He slammed harder and harder, until the sound of glass shattering forced him to stop. “Shit!” He hissed, wrapping his sleeve around his bleeding hand. I crouched down in the corner below the windowsill, watching him walk away as he winced in pain. The only words I heard were interrupted by Joel himself, taking sips from the liquor bottle.

“God, please forgive me… Fuck, this hurts!… Kate, I love you… Come back… I love you…”

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