His voice brought back memories of dark rooms and broken bones.
I felt my breathing hitch as he approached, slowly, disbelieving. Although I generally tried my best to ignore it, I became very aware of the ache in my ankle, the break that never healed quite right.
I had only ever caught a glimpse of him before, after. It had been late at night, bright lights and torches, the blue sweep of the police cars and busy with people everywhere. Cars coming and going, people asking me questions and other people saying that it could wait, that I needed medical care first.
I was on a stretcher when I saw him, turning my head to look at the big, old house, the flashing lights, the tall trees that would cast dark shadows over the house during the day and hide it during the night. There was movement all around, but this particular motion had caught my eye because it was different from all the others. It was another stretcher, being carried through the door of the house. All I could see was a mop of dirty, greasy and blood stained, blond hair, until he looked around, his head whipping back and forth, terror in his eyes as he tried to figure out what was going on. Squinting in the light, so different from the pitch black we were used to.
He caught sight of me, silently staring at him, the shock that had settled in my chest preventing my brain from doing anything but laying still and quiet, the calm to his storm as he panicked – he had been there longer than me, God knows how long it had been since he had experienced human touch that didn't want to hurt him.
We had been in separate rooms, thin walls separating us, but separate none-the-less. We talked, but we had never seen each other. I had curled up with my hands over my ears, rocking back and forth with tears running down my dirty cheeks when I heard the blows and the cries in the next room.
The first blows, we had both experienced and told each other, had been to our legs. He seemed to think it had something to do with preventing us from trying to run, but I think it was more to do with the terror – if you can run, you can convince yourself that you can get away. If you can't, you're helpless and know it, as you sit in the damp and dark, hunger gnawing at your insides and the cold biting at your skin.
I had been taken to an ambulance, police hovering around and doctors forcing them to leave, blocking my sight of him. I had wanted to call out, to yell to him, tell him we were safe now and that he didn't need to worry; but my voice wouldn't work and all I could do was to turn my head to the side and moan.
And now, here he was. Standing in front of me, in the middle of the street. He favoured his left leg, it seems he hadn't physically recovered either, but the dirty hair was now clean, cut shorter, and his eyes, a deep brown, like hot chocolate on a crisp winter morning, were filled with nervousness, not terror. This was the same man who had spent months on the other side of a wall, had spent seconds within eyesight, who had bared his soul to me and listened as I bared mine. Yet, this man was different and, in a way, I was different. We weren't there anymore, we were free, warm and safe.
Neither of us seemed to know what to say as we stared at each other. If he hadn't been on the phone, we might've walked straight past each other. We didn't know each other from sight, but his voice, I would recognise his voice anywhere. And he had seen me staring, and he had frowned before it clicked in his mind and he mumbled something into his phone before sliding it into his pocket and walking numbly across to me.
"Tammy?" he had said my name so many times when we talked through the walls, as if he was afraid one of the times would be the last time I heard him say it.
My eyes watered as I stared up at him and he held his arms out, shuffling his weight to be more comfortable as I collapsed against him, my hands grabbing fistfuls of his jumper.
"Liam," I sobbed his name as his hand came up to the back of me head, holding me closer as he rested his face against mine, the drip of his tears on my shoulder.
"Tammy."
I wrote this story ages ago... This was meant to be the second part to my Writing Prompt Stories series, but for some reason I seemed to think that I would expand the story into an actual book. Ha, like that would ever happen.
After many months, I realised I was never going to get around to writing the story, so I figured I would just publish this post. If I eventually do write it... some people got a little preview!
Okay, that's all.
Bye!
No comments:
Post a Comment