Nanowrimo 14

Chapter 11

        Froid is more or less how I left her in her room the day before. She’s calmer now, though, as if Samuel no longer existed. Her once burdened breathing seems lighter. She smiles like before, before Samuel came, when we were eating oysters on the waterfront, taking in each other like we wanted to do nothing else. And we hadn’t. At long last, Froid is back to being happy. At this rate she and I can live happily ever after, without poetry, without Samuel, and without interruption. I smile at the idea greater than I had smiled at her.

            “You’re looking good today!” I exclaim.

            She blushes. “Just a nice day outside, isn’t it? I know it hasn’t been much of a day, but it’s been nice.”

            I put my hands on hers and kiss them. “Well, it hasn’t been much of a day now at the apartment either. I left Callahan there. I figured that you didn’t want to see him.”

            That’s a lie. I know he’s coming for here. And I know he’ll set her off.

            “Good,” she says. “I can’t stand the sight of him. Such a disgusting human being. I can’t believe I tolerated him so much.”

            “Now, don’t be too hard on him,” I mock-defend him. “He does have his merits. I mean, he’s easy to manipulate, isn’t he?”

            She smiles again, but it lacks all sweetness. It’s almost sadistic. “I wouldn’t know. Not sure I want to know, though. I wouldn’t mind ever seeing him again.”

            Oh, is she in for a surprise, then.

            “Ambrosia, to celebrate your good mood, do you want to make a list of things you want to do as soon as you get out of here?”

            She nods.

        “Well, since we went to the coast and had lobster and oysters for the first time, how about we change some scenery and go hiking somewhere if the weather’s nice? Or skiing? Mount Rainier has a nice ski way, and there’s a lot of snow up there now seeing how late it is in the fall. Maybe we can get up there on an off day. I can always take off from work so we can go up there. You’ve never skied before, have you? I suppose the snow on the east coast is too wet, and there aren’t enough high mountains to really get some good runs in…”

        I keep rambling at her, keeping the conversation going. I feel like Callahan. Except with me she smiles and seems interested in what I’m saying, even long after I’ve forgotten what I’m talking about. She nods earnestly, and when I say something apparently funny she laughs. It’s so perfect.

        “Ambrosia, are you sure this is all real?”

        She smiles. “Of course, why wouldn’t it be?”

        I cup her cheeks in my hands. “I couldn’t ever plan something that would go so well.”

        I close my eyes and she closes hers. My face inches towards hers.

        She is mine, at last.

        Our lips touch for a brief moment.

        But she yanks hers away when an unwelcome face appears before.

        “YOU!”

        Callahan appears in front of us. He’s exhausted because he’s been running nonstop since the apartment. His face is bright red from the cold and the strenuous commute, and his clothes stick to his pudgy, sweaty body. He peels layers off and unceremoniously puts them on the floor.

        “Good,” he says. “I’m glad to see you here.”

        “I’m not,” she replies, standing up from her bed. She’s pulled back briefly by her IV connected to her arm, but she tugs it out violently, blood beginning to trickle down her arm. She stomps over to Callahan.

        “What are you doing here?” she demands. “Get out. Now.”

        “Ambrosia, please,” says Callahan. “I know you resent me for saving your life, but aren’t you feeling better now? Aren’t you happy that you survived? Can’t you forgive me?”

        “You got in my way,” she growls. “You always have. You got in the way of me and Samuel, me and poetry, me and moving on, because all you want to do is get me in the end! You think that if you just hang around me long enough I’ll feel bad for you and come to you and love you. BULL SHIT! You’ll get none of that! And you will not interfere again with me! I won’t let you get in between me and happiness! I won’t! Just because you want me to always be the miserable poet who’s all mysterious and romantic and suicidal doesn’t mean that I’ll be that! I won’t be that! Not for your sake, not for anyone’s!”

        “Ambrosia, please!” Callahan pleads. Her reaction is so visceral that he knows that she won’t be listening to logic. She was going to only get madder.

        I see fear flash before Callahan’s eyes as he surveys his most preserving option: to run away. To flee with his life. To accept that Froid wants nothing to do with him ever again and that not even all the idealism in the world could make her like him.

        But I forget that I’m dealing with Callahan. Callahan has a martyr tendency. And he’s putting it on full display now.

        “Froid! You know that he can’t make you happy. He’ll only try to control you. I don’t care if you’re miserable with me. At least you’ll be free. You’ll be free to choose, to choose not to be with him. You’ll be free from the Coldridge’s and all of their horrible things!”

        I laugh to myself in my head. It’s fun controlling two pieces of the argument. I’ve got Callahan drilling Froid on the best argument to get away from me, but I know I’ll lose because Froid has dismissed everything that Callahan could ever say. Either way I gain a victory. It’s like playing tic tac toe with one’s self. It’s also just as boring. I decide that Froid’s done enough screaming and Callahan had done enough living.

        “This is MY choice!” she bellows one last time. She’s getting close to the end of her speech. She takes her IV in her hand and drags it towards Callahan.

        “And my choice is to for you to NEVER BOTHER ME EVER AGAIN!”

        This is where Callahan sees what’s happening. He backs himself into a corner, sweating profusely. He looks over at me. I smile at him. He knows I’m not going to help him.

        And then Froid tackles Callahan, bringing the IV bag and stand down with her as she wraps the pipe around his neck.

        From far away it looks like she’s giving him a neck massage. She’s kneading the pipe deeper into his skin, contracting his neck so much that the blood around the veins turns purple. Callahan squirms but knows that the more he squirms the faster her loses oxygen. He goes limp after a little while, accepting his fate, but not before he gasps out one word that not even I could have predicted.

        “Samuel.”

        And then his eyes roll back. He’s unconscious. Froid stands up and stomps on his neck. I hear his vertebrae splinter in several locations. He won’t be waking up from this one. His neck is indented where her foot was. His mouth droops open. He’s still. He’s dead.

        Froid stands over him, panting, looking at her work. She looks at me, and I smile at her.

        “You did the right thing,” I say encouragingly.

        I had thought that that would calm her right back down. But instead she screams and falls to the ground next to him, clawing her hands into his shoulders in shock.

        I keep all the doctors away. I kept them all away while she was killing him, and I keep them away now. They can come find Callahan’s body once we’ve left the building. But I can’t get her out of the room. She keeps screaming.

        “Ambrosia, you did the right thing. You did it. He won’t bother you anymore.”

        She doesn’t stop though. She grabs his hands, his face. She opens his eyes only to see them fall right back into his skull. She puts her hand in his mouth. Before long she stops moving and just stares at his corpse.

        “Cold,” she says, touching the floor. She touches her hands. “Cold.” She touches Callahan’s hands. “Cold.”

        I walk over to her and put my hand on my shoulder.

        “Cold,” she says again.

        I correct her, chuckling. “No, I’m warm.”

        “I’m cold.”

        “I can fix that.”

        “No you can’t.”

        I wrap my arms around her.

        “You did the right thing,” I say one last time.

        She looks back at me.

        “Luke, who is it you think I’m afraid of?”

        I tuck some hair behind her ear.

        “I know the answer.”

        “No you don’t.”

        I open my mouth to speak.

        “Fancy seeing you here,” an unwelcome voice says.

        I look up from my notebook. Callahan is standing over me at Starbucks with an enormous coffee in his hand. I smile at him.

        “I thought you didn’t drink coffee,” I declare, pointing at his cup.

        “I don’t.”