Becky drove me back to the hospital so that I could get to my car. I asked for her phone number, saying that I'd call her with funeral arrangements. As I drove back I thought about her. I thought about Amber.
Becky made me feel better. I felt drawn to her and blessed that things had been so strange, that we'd just happened upon each other. For some reason I felt that she somehow would be able to heal me. I loved her. And I missed Amber. At one point on the drive back I had to pull over because I couldn't see the road through my tears. I sat in the car, breathing, holding my head, every attempt to stop the tears only making them come more. And the silence killed me, the way I was scared of hearing Judith and didn't want to risk turning on the radio. But the crying was so hollow, and made me feel so pathetic as it filled my ears. I loathed the situation.
Finally I turned the radio on, wincing as the music came into focus in my ears. Spit it Out by Slipknot. The heaviness of the song calmed me, and I felt myself relax slightly.
"Breathe, Kane…" I said to myself. I leaned my elbows on the steering wheel, running my hands in my hair, letting the music calm me. And it did, and my sobbing slowed and came to an end. I sighed as I began to drive again, trying not to think of Amber or Claudette or blood or murder or anything involving them.
It was a hard thing to do.
Understand that save for a few days in the beginning, Amber and I had been together nearly the whole time we'd known each other. Except for the times before she started traveling with us and the couple days in the hospital with Claudette, we'd slept in the same bed every night. Everything we did, we did together.
Nothing that could once have made me laugh made me happy. If I thought of funny music or something in a comedic movie, all I knew was Amber and her laughter. I could see her in my memory, looking down at her, holding her, her body shaking from the peals as a movie played, as Ray Liotta and Joe Pesci argued on as Goodfellas played, as Dante exclaims in the movie Clerks: "You sucked thirty-seven dicks?!?!?" and then later when it is asked: "In a row??" I could think of an Aquabats song, Amber doubling over in laughter by The Cat With Two Heads.
Everything was Amber. I couldn't get away from her. She was everywhere. It made my skin crawl and my heart hurt. I felt like I was dying. I don't care what any kind of doctors say, but it was physical. It was pain tearing through my body, my organs burning, skin stinging. I hated it. I hated…everything. And myself.
It was confusing and frustrating the way my mood would swing, the way I could break down and cry and then calm down and just be rational, I couldn't stand it. I had a headache.
Sometimes I would simply know what had happened, and sometimes I would actually realize it, and while I only acknowledged the truth I would miss them…and then the full reality would hit me and I'd fall to desperation and really feel it.
And all of this in the span of a couple days.
Never again would I wake up and have her clinging to me in a dark hotel room. Never would I open my eyes to see the purple and blue abstract designs which painted the bedroom in the apartment, and laugh as she pointed out shapes that the haphazard lines made. Never again would I see her bathed in the clean white morning light which poured through the huge windows of our bedroom in Vermont.
More than anything I realized that I'd never get to kiss her, and tell her how much I loved her again. I would never hear her sweet voice telling me the same thing, or listen to her singing in the shower. I hated myself for taking so long to get home that night. I hated the snow that made me take so long. I hated A Perfect Circle for playing as I found her. I hated everything.
I remember screaming out loud in anger as I drove. All I wanted to do was to find this…this FUCK who had done this, be it a man or woman, and I wanted to kill them. Actually it was more than a want. I was going to. Nothing would stop me.
When I pulled into the parking lot of the hotel a song was coming onto the radio that I recognized, Spiders by System of a Down. My heart felt weighed down as the music came to me, as I could see me and Amber dancing to it. She and I had danced to it before. I could feel her body resting against mine, feel the warmth and the comfort, feel her hands playing with my hair.
Again I began to cry. I parked and turned the car off, the song no longer playing, and yet I still cried, holding my head and leaving my elbows against the steering wheel and sobbing. Eventually the door opened and I felt a hand on my shoulder, looking over to see Raven. He was crying, too, and helped me out of the car. The two of us walked up to my room, where I collapsed on the bed.
Raven was talking to me but I really wasn't listening to him. I couldn't concentrate or care what he had to say at the moment. I just curled up, ignoring him. The drone of his voice made me miserable.
I thought of that night when he'd nearly killed himself, and how much I loved him and how I couldn't imagine him ever being gone. He was one of my three best friends. I couldn't fathom not having him around, not having him there to joke around and play, or have around to talk to. And here he was, talking to me, and I couldn't even acknowledge him. It was wrong of me.
He was crying. After a while he finally said, "Kane…please don't do this to me…just because you lost your wife doesn't mean I didn't just lose one of my best friends…I don't want to lose you, too…"
My heart felt like it would burst, just pop and bleed out of my body. Such a pain tore through me with those words that I couldn't bring myself to look at him, only cry more. It was the worst thing to happen at the moment, because I felt what he said and I understood him and I wanted to hug him and talk to him but I physically couldn't bring myself to do anything except just sob and curl up tighter so that he thought I was ignoring him. It felt horrible.
I hated myself so fucking much. All I could think of was how much of a fucking idiot I was to go out to the grocery store, how much of an asshole I was to not bring her and Claudette and Jake with me, how much of a bastard I was for not thinking that it would be a good way to spend time together. I just fucking hated it.
"Amber…" I said out loud, weeping. Raven put his hand on my shoulder.
"She was my friend, too, Kane…" he choked.
It was making me feel so guilty and selfish, worse than I already felt. I collapsed under his touch, surrendering to his help and leaning against him. It was so pathetic.