LesbeanAda
Today was a rather busy day at the little dive bar on the edge of town. I’d been serving drinks and snaon-stop since my shift had started a few ho, something I was rather grateful for as it kept my mind off of other, more painful things. It has been a year, but the ghost of that night still haunts me every day. I haven’t been the same sihen, life feels empty, and everything feels like it’s obscured and distorted by static, growing worse every day.
I had just pced down another beer for one of the regurs when someone approached the bar at the edge of my vision. Turning on the best smile I could manage, I turn towards them.
Seds pass before I register who is there in front of me, heart rate pig up as realization hits and the room seems to close in on me. I put down my palms on the edge of the ter, fingers digging into the wood as I barely mao get the words out with a hiss, trying to stay in trol. “Markus. You’re not wele here.”
He’s dressed immacutely, as always, with the same false smile directed at me that he wore when apologizing for the act. His voice is loud and clear, making sure others hear him over the din of the bar. “Oh, Ada, I didn’t know you worked here. Quite the step down, is it not? Though, my dear, why would I not be wele here? I don’t recall visiting this pce before.”
His voice is grating in my ears as I bite my too keep from saying too much. I couldn’t keep talking to him, the memories were starting to flood back, the screeg of tires, the heat of the fire, the wetness of blood as she bled out in my arms. I take a deep breath, steeling myself as I look just past him, my eyes falling on the woman he was clearly here with, blonde and dainty, the exact opposite of Anya. Did he move on from his obsession after what he did, or was he just here to taunt me? I slowly exhale the breath I had been holding. “You know why you’re not wele here. Your brht protect you, but don’t think I’ll ever fet.” My eyes turn towards his, the venom dripping from every word I speak.
He reaches across the ter and pces a hand on mihe disgusting feeling of his oily skin on my hand makes me want to snatch it away. “Ada, dear, you wound me. Do you really still believe that what happened was on purpose? It was an act, we both know that, everyone knows that. I am sorry that you lost your dear fiancée, and that you carried so many scars away from it, but… wasn’t it lucky I was there to call the ambunce? Most others would’ve just fled and you’d not be here either.”
Insed, I extract my hand from underh his and lean forward. “You are one sick asshole, you know that? Anya was my wife, NOT my fiancée, and you know that. That’s why you did what you did after all.” My anger drips from my words, and before I stop myself, my hand flies out and sps him across the face. His shocked expression is priceless.
My voice drops to a deep growl as I speak again, loud enough to be heard by the others sitting at the bar, their attention clearly on me. “Leave. Now. Never e back.”
The womao Markus finally speaks, the first time sihey got here. Her voice is shrill as she screams at me. “How dare you! Assaulting someone like Markus!” She tugs at his arm as she turns to leave. “Let’s leave this rotteablishment, I am sure there are much better pces.” She begins to stride out as Markus scrambles after her, his posure clearly broken.
I take a deep breath as I survey the bar. It’s quiet now, people are staring. What I did is only now starting to set in, alongside the memories of that night. My eyes widen, the silence is deafening. I o go somewhere else, away from the people… but I ’t leave the bar. I turn from side to side before finally dashing into the ba, fishing out my cell phone and making a call to the owner.
It rings a few moments before e picks up. “Hey Ada, everything ok?” Her voice is calm, ed. I don’t usually call her while on shift.
I try to speak, but my voice forsakes me as only a pitiful sound escapes me. The line is quiet for a few moments as I try again to find my voice, with little luck. My throat is tight, the taste of smoke in my mouth as I gag a little, uo breathe.
“I’ll be there as soon as I , hold on for a few more minutes.” Her voice is reassuring as I respond with a small whimper, she knew what happened a year ago, she was my best friend after all. “Take a few deep breaths and sit down, wait for me.” The line goes silent as she hangs up. I slump to the grouo the door leading bato the bar. Drawing my legs close to my body, I remind myself to breathe in and out, slow and steady. The quiet din of the bar behind the door has picked up again. It’s not as oppressively silent anymore, though the quiet murmurs remind me of the hospital, all the whispers and the pity in the looks.
I don’t know how much time passed before I’m pulled bato the here and now by e squatting down in front of me, one gloved hand reag out to me, a small soothing smile on her face. “Hey there.”
I take another breath and swallow before I mao speak. “Hey there.” I realize I have been g, my mouth is dry and my cheeks are wet from the tears.
“You don’t seem like you’re doing very well, Ada. I shouldn’t have let you work alone, not today of all days. What happened?” She pces her hand on my knee and soothes me a little with some gerokes.
I shake my head a little as I stammer out his name. “M-Markus… he was here.”
e’s eyes widen at my words, her other hand tightening into a fist. “I see, you should probably go home, rest a little. Today must’ve been hard. Do you wao take you? I’ll just have to close up, it won’t take long.”
sidering her words for a few moments, I eventually shake my head, I don’t want to burden her with my issues, she was already doing so mue. “I’ll be fine… probably. I might visit her grave before I go home…” I feel the sting in my chest, the heartache still as present as if it were yesterday.
She siders me for a few moments, before she sighs and nods her head. “Alright, but, please, if you need me, I am just a call away, alright? You don’t o be aloh this.”
A tight smile is all I manage. “I know, I’ll try… maybe we watch a movie together sometime…” Even as I say it, it feels hollow, just like everything does nowadays.
e stands up and holds out a hand to me to help me up. “I’ll take over for the rest of today, please stay safe, and the offer of my therapist is still open, you know? It wouldn’t hurt.”
I take her hand a her help me up, but I don’t respond as I ease out the creases on my work clothes befrabbing my coat from the hanger nearby. I turn towards her and give another smile. “I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?”
She shakes her head as she steps up to the door. “Only if you feel better.” She opens it for me and motiohrough, the is pin in her eyes, for little broken me. I don’t feel like I deserve it, but I don’t tell her as much.
I make my way out of the bar, avoiding the ghrown my way, and step out into the chilly night, a slight drizzle coating the road. Pulling up my coat, I start making my way through the little town we live in, to the graveyard where Anya is buried.
The rain had gotten a bit stronger on my way there, but I don’t mind; It keeps my thoughts from wandering as I make my way through the rows of gravestones, until I finally reach her. Tucked away into a little er, underh a willow tree, sits her gravestone, a rather simple one, with her name engraved on it and not much else. She never wanted more than that.
I squat down in front of it and run my fingers across her name, recalling the good times we had together, how we met in a little bookshop in aown. The travels we went on, our first kiss at a moonlit pond not far from here.
A small sigh escapes as my recolle tihe day she proposed, despite our love being so different, our small and lovely wedding, the honeymoon and then, just a few short days ter, she died. The act, which really was anything but. Markus had been stalking and harassing her for a while. o move to another city soon, as we couldn’t do much about Markus here, with the chief of police being his brother and all. We never expected him to go that far.
My firail across the tour of a knife fasteo my belt, one I’d been carrying ever sihe act. Anya had gifted it to me for one of our camping trips a few years ago. Holy, I wasn’t quite sure what I po use it for. Clearly not its intended purpose, but maybe vengeance? Probably, though it wasn’t really an option. Maybe as a way out. It was something I’d sidered on some days, like today, the ones where it all just seemed hopeless.
I sit down oone, leaning back against the gravestone. “Hey Anya, I hope wherever you are is a better pce, if there’s anywhere you are now, that is.” The tears I shed are washed away by the rain as I look into the sky. “I miss you. Today has not been a good day. One of those days I sider joining you. But you wouldn’t want that, you’d wao try my best to keep living. It’s not easy.”
The rain drowns out my sobs as I break down into tears, the reality of her loss so fresh on my mind, luckily the rest of the cemetery is empty due to the rain, there’s no oo disturb me. Eventually, my legs hugged in close, I mao still myself a little. “I’ll try, my love, even if I am like this sometimes… I just wish you were here with me.”
My thoughts drift before they are snapped bato focus as something shifts. It’s nothing in my surroundings, at least not anything visible. The static that I’ve been feeling over the past year grows in iy, washing over my senses, drowning them out for a few moments. I mao fight through it, though. The static is still there however, it feels almost like it is pushing into me, causing me a little bit of pain, slowly growing in iy the more the static grows.
The static doesly feel wrong, despite the pain it is causi feels familiar. Familiar in a way that I do not like, in a way that is quickly breaking down barriers I’d built over decades. Barriers shielding me from memories I had long repressed, pushed away into the furthest ers of my mind.
The first memories that e bae are from before things turned bad, from when I was still very little. Memories of pying in the backyard, sometimes alone, sometimes with friends or with my mother, each of them happy, each of them ending with the same static as I am experieng now, just less obsg, and ing mostly from inside. When my mother is there, the static doesn’t cause pain, she seems to teach me, calls it magic. Simir memories e flooding back, but they quickly turn darker. My mother disappears from them, then my father bees unpleasant. The static is there in these memories too, it’s always there, hiding me from his ire when he is drunk, its pain is better than that he’d inflie. I age in the memories, my happy times turning darker and darker with every passing day, my body feeling more wrong the et, the magic slowly fading. Then, there’s the day the magic disappears entirely. That day, my father dies. Spontaneous self bustion the news called it. I knew better, and I knew better than to tell them, I told him, about me, about feeling wrong, about the magic, he called me an abomination. Tried to make me disappear, just like mother. I didn’t let him, burning what little I still had alongside him.
More memories e and go in a blur, of teenage years living with fear, wanting nothing else but to not be me anymore, to finally be free of that body. Theop, as suddenly as the memories came, they are gone again. My sciousness returns to the real world, and I try to shove the memories bato the farthest recesses of my mind. It takes me a long few moments to realize I colpsed eo the ground, curled up into a fetal position, still shaking. The rain has drenched me, but I do not care. Instead, I grasp for the static, pulling it into me, the pain spikes alongside it, though its feeling is still familiar, safe despite the pain, and the more I grasp for it, the less obscured the world feels.
I y there for minutes, slowly rec, I ’t tell whether the magic is real, or just a fabrication of my broken mind, but regardless, it helps. Eventually, I mao sit up, leaning back against Anya’s headstone, and I start giggling. “Magiya. you imagine?” My words barely make it out, the giggles quickly repced by sobs again. “If only it were real. Maybe I could’ve saved you. Or maybe it is, and I failed you.” My mind rages against that idea, if magic is real, and I had known of it, then why is my wife dead? Did I kill her, am I responsible for her death? My mind begins to spiral again, my memories tearing down the walls I am trying to build up again, g into me, slowly pulling me under again.
What saves me is a loud rumbling sound, the thunder of lightning high up in the sky, but more visceral than anything I heard before, pressing into me on aential level. My eyes are drawn upwards, where a giant bck ball of lightning floats, its presence sug up the light, darkening even the gloom of the storm. A tendril of lightning arcs from it and into the ground somewhere far away, and the rumble repeats, the visceral feeliurns. I have a hard time parsing what is happening, my mind is broken, and the sky broke alongside it. Not just the sky, I betedly realize. It’s not just the lightning causing the rumble, but the earth itself shifts beh me, crag, but not in the way of ahquake. Like reality is breaking apart.
My giggles return, it’s the only way I know how to cope with this. With the end of the world. “I guess it doesn’t matter if I failed you, Anya. I am sorry though, I am joining you today after all. I hope you five me.” Another rumble passes through me, taking my sciousness with it. The st thing I see is a cra reality spreading across the graveyard, heading straight for me. I hope death by disiion still lets me go to where Anya is.