Unhinge - Calia Read Page 0,103

the damage had been done.

I thought it was the end. For my life as well as my baby’s.

Wes slid down the cabinet and sat next to me and stared up at the ceiling. The only sounds were my pants and the operator: “Sir? Are you there? I need you to talk to me.”

We said nothing. I couldn’t even if I tried. I was starting to see bright lights, thousands of shades of yellow. So beautiful.

“Are you there? Sir?”

Nothing.

“Sir, I need to know everything is okay.”

Wes brushed the hair away from his forehead as he hung up and dropped the phone. I wanted to flinch but my head wouldn’t obey.

“Look what you made me do,” he repeated.

Over and over he repeated that phrase. And then he glanced at me, his eyes wide. An idea was taking shape in his mind. I couldn’t move.

“Please, don’t,” I whispered.

He picked the knife up. “You hate me now, don’t you?”

Wes put the knife in my hand, but my fingers couldn’t get a firm grip. “Do it,” he urged me. “Do it. I know you want to.”

I shook my head. My clothes were becoming soaked with my own blood. I was shaking. Wes’s eyes were wide, frantic. “Do it!” he screamed.

The knife dropped to the floor. Wes loomed over me and brushed a hand across my cheek. “Everything I do, Victoria, I do for you. Can’t you see how much I love you?”

His voice was fading away as I drifted in and out of consciousness and soon he stopped talking.

I don’t know long I stayed in that position. I closed my eyes. I felt so much pain, physically and emotionally, that I was almost numb. It was a terrifying thing, not to feel. I hummed to block out everything. I hummed because it reminded me I was still alive.

I was still breathing.

I still had a life that depended on me.

I refused to think that this was the way everything would end.

Outside, the rain picked up.

Slowly, I rolled over and got on my hands and knees. A slice of blinding pain streaked through me, making me gasp. I moved toward the keys and ignored the sound of my blood dripping onto the floor.

Before I crawled outside, I glanced over my shoulder, for one last look at my old life.

Wes was now standing, staring down at the blood smeared across the floor with a dazed expression.

I told myself to breathe. That I couldn’t think about him. I lifted my arm. I turned the doorknob weakly. The door cracked open and I slipped out onto the back porch. It took me minutes to make it down the steps. The rain hit my skin, powerful enough to wash the blood off my hands. Twigs snapped underneath my palms and cut open my skin. I barely registered the sting. I kept crawling. I counted my steps.

Twelve, thirteen, fourteen…

My hair fell around my face like a black curtain. I started to tell myself that if I kept moving, my life would be so good. So, so good.

I told myself that the warm substance making my pajama top stick to my skin was just the rain.

There was no blood on me.

No pain.

Nothing.

I was fine.

I hummed louder.

Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen…

It was getting harder and harder to move. The ground was getting closer and closer. The tips of my hair were dragging in the grass. I started to hum louder and louder until I was full-out singing.

Eighteen, nineteen, twenty…

The car was in sight. I pressed down on the unlock button but I didn’t have enough strength for it to work.

Twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three…

I had to keep moving, but I was starting to feel dizzy.

And at twenty-four steps my knees gave way and I dropped to the ground in a big heap. The water soaked through my bottoms, chilling me to the bone.

It felt as though my body was fighting so hard to stay alive. But something inside me was giving up. It was dying.

There was nothing but blackness and the cool, wet ground beneath my cheek. My eyes closed. I pressed a protective hand over my stomach. I hummed a beautiful hymn.

My eyes started to close. I drew in one final breath before my world went dark.

May 2015

I distantly heard the sounds of a baby crying.

My head lolled to the side. Slowly, my eyes opened into slits. My vision was blurry, as if a white veil were over my eyes. I opened my eyelids wider and my vision cleared. The crying let up too.

Beep, beep, beep…

Wires were