Friend Of A Cannibal

Chapter Two

Eleanor jolts herself awake in a sticky cold sweat. Her chest heaves along with her heavy breathing, eyes searching the room to check for her safety. They land on her alarm clock. It's 5:00 PM and it's still dark outside thanks to daylight savings. There's no way she's going back to sleep now.

Once her breathing slows, she crawls out of bed. She walks into the bathroom, turning the shower on, the water slightly cold. She removes her damp clothes and gets inside, letting the water pour over her.

It only happens a few times a year. Reliving in a nightmare the night that she killed James Keys. After the first month of their relationship, things changed between them. He tried to control her. It was back and forth with him, sometimes he was as sweet as could be to her and sometimes he would just snap! It didn't happen often, but when he got angry - he got angry. He yelled and screamed, throwing things around the dorm. She tried so hard to not provoke him.
She didn't purposely stab his neck so that he would bleed out and die, she was just trying to get him to stop assaulting her. But it was dark and she was struggling for power over him. Had she thought about how killing him would make her life much more difficult, she would have been more careful when defending herself. But after years of denying how good it felt to kill him, she couldn't any longer. And no one knows that. No one knows how good it felt when she woke up in the hospital and they told her that he was dead. She doesn't want to carry that secret to the grave, but she doesn't know who she can trust.

After drying off and putting clean clothes on, she checked her phone. A missed call from her mother from last night and a text from her friend, Lydia. It's 6:00 PM now. The text was sent an hour ago.

[Lydia]
I'm coming over. I'll be there at noon.

[Eleanor]
Ok.

Lydia is one of the seamstresses that will work at the tailor shop in Baltimore. They met about four years ago when they both lived in New York City after college. Eleanor grew up in Detroit and Lydia grew up in Syracuse.

Her Saturday morning consists of taking her dachshund, Lady for a walk, making breakfast, calling her mother back, sweeping the kitchen, and tidying her work room. Lydia arrives an hour early.

"Good morning. I brought danishes." She sets them on the counter and removes her coat, hanging it up.

"Ooh, yummy." Eleanor takes one, taking a bite.

"What are you doing tonight? Have any plans for the weekend?" Lydia asks, pulling a chair out from the table and sitting down.

"No plans, really. I think I'm just staying home. The only people I know in this town are you and the other seamstresses." Eleanor places her danish on a napkin and glances out of the kitchen window, watching her neighbor pull into his driveway.

"Oh, that's right... We should go to the beach!"

"In late November?"

"Yeah! It's cold, but I think it will still be fun."

Nora agreed to go to the beach. No one was there but them, just the sound of the waves and the seagulls flying above. Eleanor picks up a pink shell, brushing the sand off of it. Throughout her life and growing up, she spent time at different beaches. Detroit had the beaches of Lake St. Clair and New York City had so many. The beaches of Baltimore, Maryland made this place feel more like home to her.

"Nora! Nora!"

Eleanor looked around. Lydia was nowhere to be found, but that wasn't Lydia's voice. Where was it coming from?

"ELEANOR!"

James. It was James' voice. And it was so loud. Why am I hearing James' voice?

"ELEANOR! ELEANOR!"

So. Loud. Make it stop! His voice shouting her name, playing over and over and no one was around, but it sounded like he was there shouting at her. She covered her ears and begun to sob, kneeling on the beach and closing her eyes, wishing she could make it stop.

"Nora? What's wrong?" Lydia found her kneeling in the sand, crying. She shook her shoulders and Eleanor opened her wet eyes, looking relieved to see her.

"I-I don't know... I was hearing voices." She said, standing to her feet. "We should go."

"Alright." Lydia helped her to the car, taking Nora's keys, deciding it would be best if she drove. On the car ride home, Nora stayed quiet. This wasn't the first time she witnessed her friend breakdown from her schizophrenia symptoms, but it didn't happen often when she was around. "What kind of voices were they?"

But Lydia doesn't know about that night at the college party. No one knows, except for her parents and a few of the friends she had from the year it happened. "Mean ones."

"Oh." The usual. "I wasn't far away, why did you panic?"

"I couldn't find you. I looked around but you weren't there." Nora stared out of the window. It was getting dark outside.

"Are you going to be okay at home by yourself?" Lydia asks.

"Yes. Thank you."

Lydia parked her car in the driveway and made sure Nora got inside safely before leaving. Nora removed her coat and shoes and sunk into bed, ready to end the day and hoping tomorrow would be better.