In Continuum.

When the Haze Comes Part II: Rachel's Bitter Pills

You know how one's life flashes you by right before death.Well that's true,and despite it being a split second deal,you find your brain being capable of taking in a suddenly enchanced amount of information in that short period of time,and you find yourself smiling,regretting,laughing and crying all between the moment of flashback,from the very start till the very end;when the car crashed through the barrier and when my vision blurred and went black.

'I'm having insomnias again.' Rachel confessed.

'The voices are back?' i asked.

'No,you were.' she said,smiling from ear to ear.

We were at the mall after closing hours.The security guard came around an hour ago,but Rachel and I found ourselves hiding in the bushes,as the guard's torchlight flashed across our faces,so ignorant of our existence.Rachel giggled then,and i placed a hand over her mouth,feeling her excitement and my anxiety,mixed with a tad bit of fear and strange enough,guilt.

Guilt,for what i had in the back of my head,as i covered her mouth with my hand,as if i didnt want her to utter a word or a sound,a single tear after my confession.A state of denial,to refuse her reaction because it might deepen my guilt and doubt the sensible side of me,the side still clinging desperately to the cliff of logic and responsibility.But the other side of me was falling,falling from the edge of reason into the arms of another.This other woman,Victoria,is the target of the guys in school,and in high school,especially in senior year,getting a girlfriend from the cheerleading squad was almost as prestigious as obtaining a scholarship.Only,this scholarship comes with a woman and a hell lot of sex.

The guard left,and we found ourselves on the wooden bench on the edge of the roof,overlooking the rest of the city below.The midnight traffic busied themselves below us,the tail lights flashing by and disappearing into the night,and the warmth of Rachel's body against my left arm,as she leaned closer to me and rested her head on my shoulder.Normally i wouldve reached my arm over to her shoulders,but tonight it was a little different.Victoria was there,sitting on my arm,preventing it to reach over.She was tugging at my heart,and making a knot around my tongue.Aside from the comment that Rachel's eyebags have deepened i made no other comment that night,but still Rachel smiled throughout our meeting,as if she had a story to tell,a secret to hide.

'I want to tell you something' she said,as she placed her arm through mine. 'I'm going to marry you James,i dreamnt about it.'

'Marry?You are seventeen and thinking about that?' i replied.

'I am seventeen and already taking pills to fall asleep,so what's the surprise?'

'Maybe it's a side effect.'

'Maybe you are scared.'

Was she wrong to say that?She wasnt,because i was scared.My palms wear sweaty,and my knees were weak,my head felt heavy.The confession rose to the back of my throat and sank again,like the vomit of a bad hangover.A night out with too many drinks.I wanted to tell her,to end this all,i felt obliged to tell Rachel about Victoria,but at the same time the way her eyes pierced mine through the lenses of her glasses,and the memory of those smile brightening up the darkened room of my heart,was preventing that from happening.But i had to do it,i told myself.It was the night,the night that it ends.

Her lips stretched into a smile no more,and now slightly parted in the centre.Her head lifted from my shoulder,arm retracted towards her body.Her warmth parted from my body,and soon i found her staring at me blankly,with a slap of her cheek by the words that came out of my mouth.Vividly,i saw the face of Victoria on her cheek and in her eyes,reflecting through the tears the guilty face of mine.They rolled down her sore cheeks and down to her neck.She refused my offered hand and slapped me across the face.She said nothing,only the sound of her sobs as she dashed out of the entrance of the garden.The echoes of her feet ran down the hall,and the pounding of her shoes on the hard floor banged against the walls of my heart,comforted only by the thought and beauty of Victoria.

A week afterwards,a long wait in silence.An empty chair in the classroom and a concerned phone call.Her parents refused to allow me to talk to her,and mentioned something about a locked room and cold meals.I wanted to comfort her,but it felt like bandaging the solder of a battle,aiding the enemy you just shot and killed.It didnt matter then,as i hang up the phone.I didnt matter if the tears were dropping for us,that she was crying herself to sleep for the past seven days.It's not like she was able to sleep in the first place,i told myself.Convinced,i drove out to meet Victoria,and that night at her place we made love for the first time,under her sheets and in the dark,so careless and free of Rachel.

It was Sunday morning the very next day,and Rachel's parents knocked softly on her door,telling her about being late for church that morning.The sound of her crying stopped over the night,and her mother thought God would be able to comfort her perhaps,instead of a locked door and boxes of Kleenex.But Rachel didnt answer the door,and neither did she answer her father's desperate calls.He banged the door down,the pain in shoulder did not match the horror of the sight before him,for his daughter laid on the floor,with a puddle of vomit under her face,soaking her beautiful hair.An empty bottle in her left hand and unsuccessful attempts to cut herself in the wrist.She emptied the bottle of sleeping pills she take as medication for her insomnia the previous night,and there before her parents' eyes she revealed her ultimate despair,the materialization of her desperate call out for help,and for love.