Forever & Always

Forever & Always

By: Kristen Feyt

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window.

The thought of the mocking flickering candle raced through my head as I attempted to clear my gravel encrusted eyes and blackened mouth. I could almost hear the cackle of the flame dancing in joy as the weight of the Earth engulfed me and swallowed me whole. The soot and red clay sifted through the wooden cracks and rained upon every crevice of my being. My teeth crunched on eroded rock as I projected desperate belly filled curdling screams for help. I felt the air thinning with every breath I released, knowing it was only to be absorbed by the velvet darkness never to return again.

I knew no one was coming. It’s a strange moment when you finally get to see what it is that kills you. The one thing you’ve always wanted to know, finally presents itself to you like a highly anticipated blind date.

As my flaky fingernails peeled back and bled from my desperate hands scratching on the thick-grained cedar wood, my heart suddenly dropped. I could feel the blood seeping into my navy work-appropriate blouse. I reached down and touched the silky material. It felt spongy, almost bouncy, like the carpet did the day Adam killed himself in the cabin. The darkness shrouded the deep red color of my blood, but I knew it was the exact shade as the roses I placed on Adam’s coffin at his funeral.

The colorful stained glass windows of the church, depicting various stories of Jesus’ life, seemed almost out of place. It was as if the eyes of the viewer shunned the colors, wishing to stay in the dark black mood that permeated the emotions of those who were attending. I had been standing in the parking lot unable to move. I couldn’t believe I was here. Things like this, heart breaking and horrifying, were for the true crime stories I munched popcorn to on Friday nights.

The cool wind brushed across my legs, rustling my black lace dress, almost begging my feet to budge and take me inside.

I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t walk inside and see all of the pitiful and accusatory looks from Adam’s loose friends and distant family in attendance. I couldn’t just walk in and sit in the first pew of the church and see the black cedar coffin that was now the final resting place of my dead fiancé.

“Emilia.” I almost jumped out of my skin at the sound of Ian’s voice. “We have to go inside, people are waiting.”

I turned and looked at him. Ian was Adam’s brother, but you would never have guessed it by looking at him. Adam had black raven hair, vanilla ice-cream cone colored skin, and cold piercing blue eyes that you could almost ice skate on. Ian had sandy blonde hair, warm summer sun beige skin, and soothing brown eyes that invited even the most reserved persons to open their heart to him.

“I guess you’re right.” I sighed, and we began walking to the church. Ian dared not to put his arm around me, not today, not after what we had done.

The smell of the blood red roses greeted me as I opened the tall cathedral doors. Everyone stared as Ian and I walked to our place in the center front row of the church, my black heels clicking on the tile floor.

Another thing no one ever tells you is that when someone you love commits suicide, you might as well have been the one who pulled the trigger. You become the executioner in everyone else’s eyes, because if you made their life happier, then they wouldn’t want to die, now would they?

I felt like a murderer the moment I caught sight of the corpse filled box surrounded by scarlet roses. I couldn’t take my eyes off of it. It was as though my brain was forcing me to sear it into its soft folds, my mind branded forever with a scarlet “A”.

The Priest began to speak, his monotone sermon echoed through the large room. His words sounded like static AM radio to me as I avoided eye contact with the black box. I could almost feel Adam’s frosted eyes glaring at me through the cracks in the wood grains, his corneas candy coated in the red glow of the stained glass.

The funeral was moved out to the graveyard that was located behind the church. I never saw how the coffin got to the gravesite. It seemed as though it had appeared there by itself, ready to be put into the ground once and for all.

The cold air chilled everyone who stood around the coffin, but not me. I felt numb. I would never be able to see his face again, because he coffin could not be opened due to the bullet wound. The worst part was watching his brains seep out of his head the night he put the bullet there.

It had been raining that night. Of course it was raining the one night I was running late from my little back seat rendezvous in my office’s parking garage with Ian. I had begun to think that Adam was starting to suspect something, but often dismissed it as my own paranoia. Adam was always extremely jealous and possessive, often becoming angry with me when I talked to other men. If he had found out, it would have been the end of my selfish and self-centered world. A world where I felt the need to be loved no matter the cost to those involved.

Adam decided we should spend the weekend at his parent’s old cabin to clean it up and have some alone time alone together. I reluctantly agreed, even though I hated being in the middle of the boondocks.

I approached the poorly aged cabin and pressed open the thick creaking wooden door bracing myself for Adam’s rage at my being late.

“Adam?” I called for him in a timid tone as I felt the thickened energy in the house.

There was a pause until I heard his soft masculine purr answer, “I’m in the bedroom, Emilia.”

Cautiously I walked down the hall, the old floorboards revealing my presence, and turned the knob to the master bedroom. Adam was standing in the center of the rustic room with only a single soft white candle lit that glowed against the small glass windowpane. Dark shadows danced around the room with each flick of the flame. Adam walked over to me, brushed my hair aside, and gently kissed my neck. His plump lips felt cold as winter while they made their way across my throat and veins.

“Forever and always.” he whispered in my ear with his deep velvet tone. He always said that after he kissed me.

“Adam, is everything alright?” I ask, my words stuttering with my quickened heart rate. Something was off; this was not an act of passion. I could see it in his eyes and his demeanor. Adam smiled a crooked Cheshire cat smile that would have made Lucifer himself shrink away with fear. Adam reached into his soft denim pocket and pulled out a sleek metal gun and put the barrel firmly to his head. I was paralyzed with fear, my brain scrambling for what to do.

With the demonic smile still plastered on his face, Adam said ever so softy, “I’ll be seeing you very soon, Emilia.”

The explosion of the round exiting the gun’s chamber infiltrated my eardrums and radiated through my nervous system. Adam fell to the floor with a soft thud, the crooked smile still frozen on his face with his dry ice eyes staring up at me from the red stained carpet.

I had found out a few days later that Ian had called Adam that night and told him all about the affair. The words of the priest awoke me from my trance.

“Emilia, would you like to have a moment to say goodbye?”

I walked up to six-foot deep pit and stared down at the coffin. I pulled on my left ring finger until I felt the two-carat solitaire diamond first resist, and then release from my hand. I looked at the band and saw the engraving, “ Forever & Always”, glimmer against the white gold. Thick black mascara blurred and burned my eyes as they released my sorrow down my cheeks. I took one last look at the ring Adam specifically designed for me, and dropped it among the red sea of flower petals floating atop the coffin in the frost ridden ground.

I decided to follow the advice of my discount therapist and subject myself to what Dr. Spencer referred to as, “immersion therapy”, by returning to the cabin to “heal my trauma”. As my Chevy Equinox rolled up to the house the hairs on my arms stood up at the familiar sound of gravel crunching beneath my wheels.

With shaking hands and trembling breath I push open the chipped door. I looked around the rotting green cabin and breathed in the smelled of mildew. I stood in the doorway for a moment contemplating if I should run back to the car.

I heard the words of Dr. Spencer echoing in my head and forced myself through the threshold. I slowly walked down the hall towards the bedroom and turned the knob. The room was exactly how I remembered it. The dark blue drapes covering the windows, a black duvet cover still remained unmade on top of the large king sized bed, and a half burned wax dripped candle by the window.

Adam’s blood had been cleaned from the carpet in the bedroom, but I felt as though I could still see the liquid ruby red bound to the place of that which it had been spilled. I felt the burn of tears in my eyes, as the same repeating sentence echoed in my mind over and over again.

“I’ll be seeing you very soon, Emilia.”

My heart jumped and quickened at the sudden sound of a knocking at the front door. I walked to the window and pulled back the heavy drapes and peered outside. I didn’t see a car and I soon became uneasy. I slowly walked down the long hallway, the heavy knocking still pounding the door. I turned the key and slowly opened it. I was surprised when I saw a pair of familiar brown eyes greet me as I peered through a crack.

“Ian!” I gasped in relief, flinging open the door. “What are you doing here?”

He stepped inside of the cabin, an air of sadness in him. “I’ve been trying to call you for hours. You shouldn’t be here alone Emilia, I told you I’d come with you to clean up. I miss you so much, baby. I know that we both feel responsible, but that doesn’t mean that we have to be away from each other and face this alone. Please don’t shut me out again, Emilia. Please, I need you.”

Tears welled up in his big brown eyes and I threw my arms around his soft-bronzed skin and kissed him deeply. “I need you too Ian, more than anything.”

We began kissing each other deeper and deeper, desire vibrating from our skins, desperate to remove any opening that separated us. Ian pushed my passion-ignited body further into the house. We fumbled down the hallway towards the master bedroom, never losing space between our pulsating hungry bodies. Ian threw me onto the black duvet stripping off my navy blouse. As I reached shaking with desire to unbutton his jeans, I caught a glimmer of light twinkling from my peripheral.

Ian bent at the waste and enveloped me with decadent sultry kisses. I wanted so desperately to feel good again. I wanted to feel his body connected to every single nerve ending inside me. My mind decided to suppress the flickering candle now somehow alight against the window, and Ian and I melted deliciously into each other.

I awoke a few hours later feeling as if I was floating on a cloud. It had been so long that I felt this good. I peered over my shoulder and saw the back of Ian’s sandy blonde hair tousled and cow licked from sleep. I turned over to press myself against him and connect the warmth of our puzzle piece bodies together. As I flipped over, I felt an immediate absence of Ian’s back. I sat up rapidly and the sandy blonde hair rolled down the pillow and toppled off the bed. Vile rose to my throat as I leaned forward to peer from the edge of the mattress. I was met with brown eyes wide open and frozen with shock peering up at me from Ian’s severed head.

My bladder released itself as I let out a chest-shattering scream. I pushed myself back from the edge of the bed paralyzed with panic. I sat on the memory foam trembling with fear when I noticed a glimmer on my hand catching the light from the dancing candle by the window. I looked down and saw the two-carat diamond ring sitting so casually on my finger.

I rapidly stood up from the bed only to be met with a new panic that flooded my bloodstream. Paralyzing fear suddenly took over my body, and as painful sobs erupted through me, my hyper focused senses caught a distant creaking sound. I silenced myself and could hear soft thumps like footsteps ascending from the cabin’s cellar to the kitchen.

In one swift movement I quickly retreated to the white door closet across from the bed. I stood engulfed in a pure inky darkness; hand over my mouth, trying to breathe as quietly as possible.

I felt my cramping heart release as the sound of the footsteps descended slowly from the kitchen towards the front of the house. Tears and snot poured down my face as I heard the creek of the door slowly open and slam shut.

The candle in the bedroom illuminated small bands of light through the shutters of the closet. I felt a cold sticky sensation beneath my feet, and looked down to investigate the cause only to find them tainted in crimson. As my eyes adjusted in fear, I looked to the left and saw Ian’s headless body stuffed into the corner of the closet seeping blood through his opened neck.

I was about to burst through the closet door in horror and disgust when I felt an Antarctic frozen kiss softly land on my neck. A shiver crawled up my spine like a scarab beetle rummaging around my flesh.

Adam’s dry, dead voice whispered into my ear, “Forever and always.”