Tonight
…
The chair is her favourite, always so secure, so relaxing. Tonight she cannot feel its comfort.
The blanket is thick and luxurious, but still folded across the sofa arm. Tonight she just shivers.
The room holds memories, so many of them beautiful and dear to her, treasured possessions shared by them both. Tonight she can recall none of them.
Most evenings she sits here beside the window, enjoys the view as daylight fails and their world dwindles to an intimate time and space within these walls. Most evenings follow a pattern, a gentle routine they have slowly, somehow easily adapted to. Tonight, though, as Grace stares out into the blackness and wonders if the indistinct shapes her eyes pick out are really there, or are just figments of her imagination, she cannot remember how it works, what happens first, and then next, and last.
Tonight she is lost. Tonight she is shocked; dazed. Emotionless.
Tonight she is far too impaired to remember.
Tonight she doesn't care.
Neither of them does.
This is not the answer.
The glass in her hand is cool, as is the air temperature of the room, the wine not quite warm enough to be fully enjoyed. It's not important though, not now.
No, tonight is not a night to be savouring and appreciating the taste, tonight is a night to be thankful for the numbing effects of the alcohol, to drink more than is wise and hope that the aching, burning pain in her chest will soon begin to dissipate, to leave her in peace. She finishes the remaining liquid in one long sip, momentarily squeezing her eyes shut to fight back the tears that aren't there but she wishes were.
She's cried rivers just recently, and now she feels bone dry. Raw with the crushing, exhausting emptiness.
Tears are cathartic, alcohol is just numbing. You're only putting the pain off until later – it's stupid, pointless.
Across the table, slumped haphazardly on the sofa, Boyd is idly toying with his guitar, his closed expression and posture telling her he too is struggling just as much. The notes that half an hour ago were an attempt – half-hearted though they were – at summoning some sort of cheer have long since petered out into something softer and far more melancholy.
A series of single notes, not close enough together to be called a tune, they fall into the air around her, each one a bitter reminder.
It's haunting.
Depressing.
Distressing.
Sad.
For both of them.
We need to face this, need to talk about it. If we don't address it, it will just get worse. We will just get worse.
But she doesn't know what to do with herself, and clearly neither does he. Not tonight.
Maybe tomorrow she will find the strength and the words, the start of some kind of understanding. Maybe.
For now though, they stay as they are.
The clock ticks, time passes. Day fades and night marches on. Seconds turn into minutes, and those into hours.
They don't look at each other; don't gravitate together as they typically do once darkness falls. Don't settle in the deep comfort of the sofa, side by side, or tangled together somehow, someway. Don't instinctively reach out, don't comfort, don't caress.
Instead the gap between them remains, the distance as cool and still as the evening air.
We can't go on like this. Something has to change.
And soon.
This isn't healthy.
Somehow there's a bottle in her hand – it's not her usual thing. A squat, toothy frog grins up from the label, ridiculously happy on his oversized lily pad and for a single, blinding moment she hates him with a fury she didn't know she had.
Stop displacing your emotions, Grace. Focus on what this is really about.
She concentrates on the drink, the solid glass container. It's a heavy beer, something imported. A leftover gift from months ago and all they could find when the wine was running out.
It tastes disgusting.
But she's past caring.
Stop drinking! Tomorrow will be hell if you don't.
Tomorrow will be hell anyway.
So will the day after.
How did this happen? How did we let this happen?
A leg pokes out from underneath the coffee table. Thick and chunky, and bent in far too many joints, it's at least as long as her little finger. More legs follow, and then a hairy, beady-eyed body almost the size of a fifty pence piece. Too drunk to screech and demand that Boyd catches it, Grace simply glowers, silently daring it to move.
A standoff ensues.
She's never been afraid of spiders, but she doesn't like them in the house. Entertains herself frequently by watching him chase, catch and remove them.
Legs shift and bunch in preparation; eyes narrow even further.
One step, two steps, an inch of floor at best, and then pause.
Wait. Wonder.
What next?
It's just a spider, forget about it, for God's sake.
Charge. Straight towards her.
For a sickening moment she's sure she can hear its footsteps on floor, and then her slipper is flying through the air.
Boyd bellows in shock as it bounces off his shoulder, missing the spider by a good six feet. Oh well, she never was very good at sport – always last to be picked for the teams.
It's bloody huge! Look at the size of those legs…
Three seconds.
Two seconds.
Fuck…
One.
Thud, crash. An automatic yelp of pain.
Blood drips onto the hardwood floor, the droplets forming tiny islands within a pool of beer, then blurring out, merging in.
Still she stares, transfixed by the blood, the mess. The sight of the spider neatly impaled by a shard of glass.
This time death is neither instant nor quick. The creature shakes and shudders, writhes and twists, its legs moving, contorting as the end slowly overwhelms it.
"Christ," whispers Boyd, as he stands, stares down at it too.
Watches as life slowly flees.
Silence, stillness, they stretch out into the gloom.
It's dead…
My God, how did that happen? What did I do?
Grace breathes, and gasps at the pain that flares in her hand, that burns through the liquid shield around her heart.
Glass and blood, beer and pain.
Bodies, broken and whole, yet empty all the same.
Spirits forever lost.
Memories and moments, laughter and fears. Arguments, triumphs, days of bitter anger.
Life.
Gone in one tiny little instant.
The tears come back with a vengeance; her eyes swim and blur as she reaches blindly for him.
Tonight there will be no reprieve after all.
This is my version of a challenge between myself, Joodiff and missDuncan. I own nothing. Thanks as always are due to Joodiff for the beta. :) xx
Challenge requirements: spider, frog, bottled beer, and Boyd must play his guitar for Grace. 1500 words.