Chapter 4
Words speak louder
SPOV: I awoke, still lying by the door of my new flat. Lifting my head off of the floor I realised that the light coming through the wafer thin curtains meant that I had stayed here, lying on the floor, throughout the last few hours of yesterday and all of last night. I tried to see the clock on the coffee table but a whitish blur was blocking it from view. As my eyes came into better focus I realised that it was a piece of paper folded in half. I could only see the first few letters of the short word printed on it from this angle S...e...p. Where had this come from? I lay for a few minutes contemplating the unexpected appearance of this paper on my floor, finally, curiosity overthrew my state of depression and I reached out a shaking hand and my towards it, my fingertips brushed the rough surface of the paper as I stretched further and managed to get hold of it. Pulling it back to where I lay I held it close to my face and saw that it was my name printed upon it, Sephy. My curiosity now taking over, I slid my finger between the two halves of paper and pulled the top back revealing the neatly printed letter underneath. I quickly started to read, devouring each word. I was half-way down the page before the world went from underneath me.
CPOV: Shit. It has to be here. I was sat on the floor of my bedroom with all of the things I had from prison strewn around me. I looked for the hundredth time in all of the pockets and corners of my main bag and then repeated this exercise with the other smaller bag lying on the floor. Shit. Flinging the bag down on the floor I started scrambling through the piles of crap on my floor. It wasn't there. Defeated I got up and started to put things away. I had decided to unpack everything this morning to at least give the impression that I had a normal life and I had realised that there was one major deficiency in my belongings. The letter. Even now I couldn't believe I had ever had the strength to write it, so much poison, so many lies. I couldn't believe I had let it get away. Once Sephy had planned to meet me outside the prison I knew that it was pointless but I couldn't let go of it. I had planned to drop in a dumpster near Sephy's house but I had run out of time for that. No matter how much that girl had hurt me I knew that she never deserved to read the contents of that letter.
Sephy,
I'm writing this to you because I want you to know the way things really are. I don't want you to spend the rest of your life believing a lie.
I don't love you. I never did. You were just an assignment to me. A way for all of us in my cell of the liberation militia to get money - a lot of money from your dad. As for the sex – well, you were available and I had nothing better to do. You should have seen yourself, lapping up every word of that nonsense I spouted about loving you and living only for you and being too scared to say it before. I don't know how I stopped myself from laughing out loud as you bought all that rubbish. As if I could love someone like you a – a cross and worse than that, the daughter of one of our worst enemies. Having sex with you was just my way of getting back at your dad for being a bastard and your mum for looking down her nose at me all those years. And now you're pregnant.
Well, I'm ecstatic. Now the whole world will know you're having my child, the child of a blanker. That if nothing else is worth dying for. Whether you come to my hanging or not, I'm going to announce to the world that you're having my child. MINE. Even if you do get rid of our child, everyone will still know.
But no one will know how much I despise you. I loathe the very thought of you and now when I think about all the things we did when we were alone in the cabin, I feel physically sick. To think I actually kissed you, licked you, touched you, joined my body with yours. I had to think of my other lovers the entire time to stop myself from pulling away from you in disgust. God knows, I'm disgusted with myself but the object of the exercise was your total humiliation – and at least I can console myself with the knowledge that that's what I've achieved. Did you really in your wildest dreams believe that I could love someone like you? You've got more ego than any fifty people I know. And you've got absolutely nothing to be egotistical about.
I've told Jack to deliver this to you only if and when you have our child. I can imagine your face now as you read this and at least that gives me comfort as I wait to die. Once you've had our child and you've read this, no doubt you'll hate me just as much as I hate you. But just remember, I had you first. Go ahead and try and forget about me. And while you're forgetting, you can do something else. Never tell our child about me. I don't want him or her to know who I am or how I died or anything about me. I don't want you to mention my name ever again. That shouldn't be too hard after all the things I've told you in this letter. All the true things. You're probably so conceited that you're telling yourself what I' saying isn't true. That I'm only saying this so you'll move on with your life, but I never for a second doubted you'd do that anyway.
I won't tell you to take care of yourself. You're a cross who was born with a jewel-encrusted, platinum spoon in your mouth and even if you don't take care of yourself, others will do it for you.
Forget about me.
I've already forgotten about you.
Callum.
SPOV: Shit.
CPOV: Shit.
The window that looked into Sephy's bedroom looked small and grubby from the street below. Mind you it probably looked like that even if you were right next to it. Standing here had given me time to think about things.
I had just been to the garage I had worked in before I had gone to prison to try and get my old job back. They didn't let me. A sudden and unexpected surge of anger swelled inside of me so I clenched my fists in my pockets and. Not getting the job had really just put a mouldy cherry on top of the festering cake that was my life. I was so pissed off I could easily hit one of the people walking past me now, just an innocent bystander of the train wreck that I live in.
Standing here while I felt like this probably wasn't the best idea but what else did I have to do? All these thought kept running through my head is she O.K? Has she read the letter and in a state of anger I wondered am I starting to believe the letter? The anger gripping hold of me I suddenly stalked over to the front door of Sephy's building and wrenched open the door. I was going to rip that bitch in half and laugh at her screams.
SPOV: Considering what I was about to do I felt surprisingly calm. I placed my personal retort to Callum's letter in my jeans pocket and walked into the kitchen area. On the mouldy counter top was a knife, picking it up in one hand I positioned it over the wrist of the other, took a deep breath and...
CPOV: I took the stairs three at a time a murderous rage pulsing through my veins. I finally reached her floor, raced along the landing and paused in front of her door. I shoulder barged through it breaking the flimsy lock, Christ that hurts more than they make it look in films, and found myself witnessing something my worst nightmares are made of.
SPOV: ...sliced through the flimsy skin that covered my veins. Pain ripped through my arm as a crash sounded behind me. I tried to turn my head but the movement was too much for my blood deprived body and I fell to the ground then everything went black.
CPOV: the anger flooded out of me as quickly as Sephy's blood was flooding out of her. I noticed a bulge in her jean pocket and plunged my hand in to grab hold of her mobile phone. A piece of folded paper came out of it too that had my name on it.
It looked too similar to the letter I wrote Sephy so I scrunched it in my hand and focused on dialling 999 on Sephy's phone. My fingers couldn't seem to move fast enough as I prodded the tiny buttons. Eventually I got through and a calm female voice was on the other end.
After giving her Sephy's address I threw the phone aside and pulled my t-shirt over my head then clamped it to her bleeding wrist. Oh god there is so much blood. Applying pressure as the emergency operator had told me I looked down into Sephy's ashen face and I felt a disobedient tear escape my eye. The LM had taught me to hide emotion and bury it deep within myself, but Sephy made me forget that, she made me forget that I needed to be angry; she made me forget I had to fight, to kill; she made me forget I was a soldier. When I was with her I might as well have been a 6 year old boy for all the strength and resolve I showed.
The minutes dragged as Sephy's crimson blood soaked through the light fabric of my t-shirt. The rebel tear had caused a dam to burst within me and now, with each tear that ran down my face, I felt the murderous rage that had pulsed through me moments before being replaced with complete despair at the scene of tragic beauty at my feet.
My thoughts were interrupted by a voice behind me "hey is this number 8, only the door has been ripped off?" My head snapped around to see a young cross standing in the doorway in a green jumpsuit carrying a small box with a red cross on the side. "Yer this is it" I managed to rasp out removing my hands for Sephy's frightfully cold ones to wipe my sodden face.
As he ran in and started to inspect Sephy's arm I stood up and turned around to see two more men coming in carrying a stretcher between them. The three men busied themselves with Sephy as I looked on helplessly. "Is this what she used?" one of them asked pointing to the knife. I nodded dumbly. "What are you doing here anyway?" He asked shrewdly. "I...I'm her boyfriend" I stammered not sure if Sephy would agree with me right now. "Why didn't you try to stop her?" he asked looking directly at me now. "I found her like this" I said desperately.
"Right that's all we can do for her here, let's go" he said to the other two men and in desperation I asked "will she be alright?"
"Well there is a lot of blood" he replied as he walked out of the door with me following dumbly behind them.
The next few hours were a rush of hospitals and waiting rooms. I noticed a distinct lack of Sephy's parents as me and mum sat and waited on any news. Once we had got here she had been whisked away into a windowless room so I couldn't even stand outside and see how she was doing. They had let me ride in the ambulance grudgingly but letting me know what was going was apparently one step too far.
A nurse had noticed my half naked blood covered self standing in the middle of the hallway, after letting me borrow a scrub top form the nurse's station she had noticed how I winced as I put it on and informed me that I had a dislocated shoulder. I barely noticed the pain as someone prodded and poked it and then crunched it back into place. I now had a stylish foam sling around my neck and a bottle of painkillers in my pocket. They had had to call mum because I was still a minor and she had agreed to stay with me as I waited for news on Sephy.
"I can't take any more of this" I heard mum say beside me "I need to do something, do you want a coffee?"
Without looking at her I mumbled my consent and continued to stare into space. Once she had left I became aware of the paper still clenched in my hand unscrunching it I read the name on the front Callum. The eerie resemblance to my letter made me shiver sending a burning sensation down my bad arm. I flipped over the front of the paper and began to read.
Your eyes
Long ago I looked into your eyes
And I knew that I was home
Now your eyes are cold and I am on my own
Nothing's worse than feeling alone
What do you do when hope runs away?
What do you do when it dies?
Somehow you gotta fight through the pain
Somehow you gotta not cry
Sitting on the beach and picnics in the park
Memories we have so few
What I wouldn't give to go back to those days
What I wouldn't give to be with you
What do you do when hope runs away?
What do you do when it dies?
Somehow you gotta fight through the pain
Somehow you gotta not cry
Sitting here alone thinking of those days
Wondering if we could've had more time
Loving you was great in so many ways
Just being able to look into your eyes