She is crying tears of blood: the pain, all-encompassing, cuts straight through her abdomen and expands, throbbing down through her legs, her arms, her skull; sirens wail forlorn in the distance and the tinkling crush of shattered glass makes her think of parties and the pitter-patter of rain, heavy, smells of gasoline, and his voice, thin and pale, murmurs her name over and over again like a prayer. His mouth is on hers, desperate, but the air doesn't take hold, gushing flat into her stomach, useless; she tries to turn this into a kiss but she can't gather up the requisite strength.
Her heart thuds, one long slow pulse like a drumbeat through her, and he is shaking above and beneath and all around her, and Tell my sister I love her, she all but vomits out, each word a controlled spasm, and she thuds, and thuds, and stops.
To this day she doesn't know why those last words made him gag.
There is no brimstone, no fire, no narrow passage to gates of light.
She is cold, and that is all.
"You will haunt him, Juliet Burke," the tall blond man sighs, perfunctory. He doesn't even look up from his loom. She'd say her mouth tasted like ash if she were able to taste at all.
She's whisked away before she can ask why or who are you, natural questions to be sure, but that last one she thinks she already knows the answer to, and the first he wouldn't tell her anyway.
Don't you understand, Juliet, someone laughs quietly, in her head or out of it, it's hard to tell now, you will never be free, and she hates, she hates.
They burn her. She always thought that'd be the way to go.
She almost, almost feels the tingle of smoldering ash down through her toes, her fingernails, watching from above and beneath and all around. Rachel, healthy beautiful Rachel, crying all the while, scatters her to the four winds.
He is at the service, knuckles white wrapped tight around the edge of the pew, crumpled suit and battered body huddled in the very last row; the others cling to each other, words swirling and rising up to the rafters, Julian, five years old now, their warm core.
Jack is the black hole, the dark shadow in the corner: self-loathing, its stench, hangs on him like disease, and no one dares come too close for fear of catching it (half of them think he might even deserve it).
He stays there, hunched, 'til the autumn afternoon fades and the dust motes settle on his shoulders; she slips up behind him, or rather they make her, and he gasps aloud at the feel--the lack of feel--of her hand, weightless over his mouth; she is a breath of night air, a glimmer of light.
Tears well up in her eyes but refuse to fall.
She hates, she hates it, this, these chains shackling her to him and his agony.
"I'm so sorry," he shivers, the hundredth time over, and the papers, white and fragile, slip through his fingers, fluttering loose to the floor. She can't be sure, but she thinks he must smell of something strong and senseless.
Moonlight streams in via the open window and she wonders dully if it makes her transparent. The TV, careful green light flickering, crackles dim, glowing around his dark silhouette, his eyes bright and so wide.
He shifts, trembling, away from her, and the kitchen knife in his hand goes to his wrist, hovering indecisive over the blue-green vein. Her scream is silent.
The blade clatters to the floor, and Jack falls with it.
She is cold, and it is endless.
Rachel plants a tree in her honor. Sun names her second baby Juliet. Kate stops calling. James visits her plaque in the cemetery every now and again.
They move on.
All but him; she--they, the gods that rule this pathetic purgatory--make sure of that.
He comes back from work late, turns on the lights; they flicker and shudder and go off, and she is there, silent in the corner. She is always there in the corner. He flinches, catching sight of her, but looks almost relieved.
The next morning, and the morning after that, he calls in sick.
He becomes accustomed to her presence quickly, too quickly. He doesn't drive any more, walks everywhere, although these days everywhere means down the block to the drugstore. He talks to her, all the time, words slurred and overlapping, sweet and sad, and people shy away from the crazy man soliloquizing to the air.
The revolver in his medicine cabinet is always loaded now. The trigger slips familiarly through his fingers .night, and sometimes mornings, too, jammed between his thumb and forefinger, and the barrel makes an imprint on his forehead. His groan of frustration rings, visceral, behind her numb lidded eyes.
She is cold, and she hates, she hates.
"I suppose this is what you'd refer to as punishment, Juliet." Jacob, whoever, whatever he is, still won't look at her full-on. He leans back in his rocking chair. "For you or for him? That's your choice." The shutters clack and the thick tropical wind rustles, restless, blowing her hair against her neck. "Christian here knows what I mean."
When the silver-haired man smiles, sardonic, she sees Jack. "Welcome to hell, kiddo."
She has a voice now, around this man at least, but finds she has no desire to use it.
"I loved you," he tells her, tells the wall, one long summer morning. Humidity rises and swirls around them--she is still ice. "Love," he amends. His hands make loose fidgeting fists in his pockets; his hair is graying at the temples. She listens, weary though she needs no sleep, aching though she feels no pain. "Sorry I never let you know," he mumbles, swaying, barely on his feet.
A child laughs in the next apartment over, and the heavy drone of a plane from LAX swooping down low above makes him cringe and then look back at her, longing, apologetic.
When his eyes, blurred, bloodshot, but still so soft, finally drift shut, she is allowed to move closer. With her fingers splayed translucent across his chest, her head, weightless, buried in the crook of his neck, she can almost feel him.
His heart beats, once, and his last stuttering breath is hot in her ear.
He is cold, like her, and she can hate no longer.