6

Anna Westbrook v. An Apology

"You're so cute stumbling around in your sneakers after your surgery, red-faced and out of breath. You could never outrun me, Anna. You know that, don't you? You can never get rid of me."

Exhibit number 106: excerpt from a letter sent from the defendant, Noah Hall, to Anna Westbrook.

-o-

For once, the first time since coming home, Anna slept for a full eight-hour period. When she woke, she showed care towards herself. She made a healthy breakfast of porridge and fruit, and drank a tall glass of ice water. She brushed her teeth, tied back her dark hair, dressed in a pair of athletic shorts and a loose-fitting shirt. She didn't bother to put on makeup or perfume. She grabbed her glasses, wallet, and phone before heading downstairs.

At the front door she shoved her feet into her sneakers and then paused, her hand hovering over the handle. She hadn't left the house by herself since it had happened, since the letter, since her heart. She rarely left the house alone even before that. But Melissa was at school, unable to support Anna as she stepped out into the real world. She had to make this trip alone.

She turned and looked at her reflection in the circular mirror hanging on the nearby wall. Dull eyes returned her gaze. Her round cheeks were paler than usual. Anger blossomed in her chest. Who did she think she was? She had received a woman's final sacrifice, and for a week she had squandered it away. She didn't sleep, didn't exercise consistently, didn't eat properly. Didn't socialise, didn't work, didn't shop. Didn't even live. If she were here, her donor, she would know she had been wasting her second chance. Disrespecting her in death.

There was no avoiding leaving the house today. It would be a disservice to the woman who saved her life. She had an exercise regiment. She had changes to make. She had gratitude she needed to show through action.

She opened the door with one smooth motion before she had time to change her mind. Outside, grey wispy clouds covered the sky. The sun peeked out momentarily, before quickly being swept up again in a sea of unusual spring gloom. The street was empty, not a person in sight.

Anna drew a deep breath.

She stepped outside and swiftly pulled the door shut behind her, denying herself the option to turn and hide. She locked the door. Barely moved two steps before a light mist hit her skin. She looked up to the sky but it wasn't raining, it wasn't a spring shower.

By her feet, the sprinklers tucked away in the garden beds shot out water, misting her calves. Shh, shh, shh, shh.

Anna smiled.

-o-

Her return to the rehabilitation centre at Forks Community Hospital went well enough. They interviewed her about how she was adjusting, what she was eating, how much exercise she was doing in her own time. Then they hooked her up to machines to monitor her heart, and had her walk on a treadmill for thirty minutes. Embarrassingly, she was out of breath. The technicians were all supportive, but that was their job. And then just as quickly as she had come in, she was out the door again, this time with leaflets on how to exercise safely and a structured exercise program adjusted for her current abilities. She was to come back regularly for a while until she improved her aerobic fitness, and then this was to become a lifelong change. She was an athlete now, they told her, even if she didn't feel like that was yet true.

Afterwards, she headed over to Main Street. The roads were busy, and the shopping district was filled with teenagers who had just left school. Anna weaved through clusters of people on her way to Newton's Olympic Outfitters, a general sporting goods store. There, she bought a black duffel bag, a large drink bottle, and a decent pair of running shoes. She was an athlete now, she reminded herself. These were things athletes owned. She threw all of her purchases into the bag, and then crossed the road. She headed further down the street, towards her own shop.

Westbrook's rose in the distance, unassuming as always. A head of shiny orange hair bobbed outside of the window, doing something with the glass. Melissa. Odd, Anna thought. They hadn't agreed on putting anything new up in the shop window.

She quickened her pace, eyes widening as she neared. The whole front of the shop was covered in running red paint. Melissa was on her hands and knees, scrubbing the lower bricks with a bristle brush. A bucket of sudsy water sat next to her, a wet rag draped over the edge. Water dripped from the bricks and glass onto the pavement below. It ran down a slope and washed out onto the street, red paint swirling over the sidewalk.

"Anna." Melissa rushed her to feet. She reached out for her, her palms stained pink. "Anna, I didn't want you to see. I tried to wash it off so you wouldn't have to see."

She said nothing. Lifted her head from the mess of dyed soapy water at her feet. She peered past her sister's shoulder and looked at the paint. A message had been graffitied over the front of her shop. Melissa had scrubbed half of it out, but she could still tell what it had originally read.

Anna Westbrook is my filthy bitch. She loves su…

The rest of the message was smudged, one big blur of red paint shifted and wiped and passed over a hundred times over with a rag and a brush. Still, it was obvious what the rest of the message had been. She glanced around. Everywhere she looked people were staring and whispering.

It was like high school all over again. Suddenly, she was seventeen again. She was the girl in the corner who shifted uncomfortably when her friends talked about sex. She was the one receiving sex tips from drunk girls at parties, her awkward stilted laughter the sound of a lie cracking open.

Anna looked away from the people, back to the shop window. It didn't matter what anyone said about her. Anna didn't care. The town could think what they wanted. A numbness had frozen her heart and sealed her off from the world.

"I'm so sorry," Melissa was saying.

"It's not your fault." She walked towards the shop, picked up the wet rag from the bucket, and started scrubbing at the glass.

Melissa rushed over, following her. With the bristle brush, she scratched at the bricks. Side-eyed her every so often, eyes drifting from the red paint to her sister's face. Finally, she asked, "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she said, but it was a lie.

There was only one person who would vandalise her shop like this, who would try to humiliate her like this. Well, two, but her father was in jail.

Her stalker did this. Noah was in Forks.

-o-

Once the bricks were no longer tinged pink, and the glass was pristine again, Anna slipped inside Westbrook's. She checked over the shop, making sure everything was in order. Noah hadn't entered the building. The doors and windows were all secure and none of the stock had been touched. She found the shop cat, Jinx, curled up behind a stack of books. She petted his silky black fur. The cat let out a grumble as he stretched his paws before going back to sleep.

Satisfied that her shop was once more in an acceptable state, Anna walked over to the cookbook section. There, she flicked through half a dozen recipe books for baked goods. She found one she liked, with the recipe she was looking for, and processed the purchase.

That night, while Melissa was upstairs revising for her biology exam, Anna laboured in the kitchen for hours. She mixed dry ingredients with eggs and butter. Added more and more things as she progressed, until a light brown dough sat on her countertop. She wrapped it carefully in plastic wrap, then left it in the fridge to chill for two hours. This was the perfect length of time for a movie, so she crossed over to the living room and turned on the television. She watched a horror film with the subtitles on and the volume turned down to zero. The only sounds in the unit were the ticking of the oven timer as it counted down the minutes, the soft rain pattering on the window, and the sound of her hand passing through fabric as she combed through the tassels of the decorative pillow.

The movie ended uneventfully. Nothing horrible happened while she was watching it. Nobody broke into the unit. Anna didn't see anyone through the window, running up to the front door with a can of red spray paint or slipping a letter in her mailbox. She stood and stretched as the credits rolled across the screen.

She took the dough from the fridge and a baking tray from the cupboard. She lined it with wax paper, and then got to work taking handfuls of dough and rolling them into small spheres. She placed them on the tray and flattened each one with the heel of her palm. In the centre of each one, she placed a pre-sliced almond from an overpriced tiny bag of nuts. After this, she coated each circle with beaten egg, and then popped the tray in the oven.

The almond cookies didn't take long, only fifteen or so minutes. She took them out, was displeased to find she hadn't cooked them quite right. They were too brown, too well-done - the ones Rachel had brought over were undercooked in the middle, doughy when she bit into them - but it would do. She placed them on the nicest serving plate they had, a handmade dish one of Melissa's friends had gifted them when they moved. She covered the plate loosely with some plastic wrap, and then wasted no time in taking them downstairs.

Outside, the night was still. The sky was a deep shade of dark blue, not quite black. Stars spotted the sky, tiny white blips in the distance. The air was stagnant and warm, and a light spring shower sprinkled down from above.

Anna paid no mind to the hour. Her thoughts were entirely focused on crossing over to the neighbour's house. What she would say when she got there, she hadn't the slightest clue. All she knew was that she needed to do something to apologise. She needed to do something kind for Paul. She needed to do something that Rachel would have done.

She knocked twice and waited for a full two minutes. Just as she was about to turn back home, the door creaked open.

Paul appeared in the cracked door, haggard-looking. He looked sickly, a strange greyish undertone to his usual golden skin, a gaunt look to his face. He was wearing socks this time at least, but no shirt. He'd swapped out his shorts for boxers. Suddenly, Anna considered that she may have woken him from what little sleep he had finally stumbled upon this week.

She stared at him, all her transgressions against him playing on her mind. Why couldn't she do anything right by him? He'd never been unkind to her. Why was it that it came so easily to her, these acts of cruelty against him? Maybe this was just who she was: someone who didn't know how to be nice. She was destined to hurt the people around her, meant not to have friends. She was supposed to be alone. Even Melissa was cold to her lately. Her mother was dead. Her father was someone she was better off without. And a partner was out of the question, though she could never admit to that aloud.

"Anna?"

She had been quiet for too long.

"Sorry," she said. It was strange, she thought, how much coverage that single word could have. She stood awkwardly, then suddenly remembered the plate in her hands. She thrust it towards him. "I made you some cookies."

It was only after she said it that she realised how stupid it was. His fiancée was dead. Almond cookies weren't going to fix that.

But Paul was gracious. He took the plate from her with one hand. The movement required him to open the door wider. Past his hollowed cheek, she glimpsed the mess inside. She'd been over just the other week. There'd been more shoes by the front door then, but somehow less mud.

"Thank you for these," he said. His voice was hoarse. "Almond cookies are- were," he corrected, the word wavering in his throat, "her favourite."

Her eyes drifted back to his face. Anna hesitated for a moment, but eventually she asked, "Do you need help with anything?"

He looked at her for a moment as if he was staring straight through her. He blinked, once, twice. "You don't have to do that, Anna."

"I want to help," she said.

He looked at her, said nothing. After a short pause, he took half a step back. "I guess I could use the company."

She followed him inside.

On the second floor, the distinct smell of dirty laundry rose up from one of the closed rooms. The bathroom door was open and, as she passed it on her way to the next flight of stairs, she saw the turned over mess. Bottles of women's shampoo and conditioner and bodywash littered the floor, laying on their sides, felled perhaps by the swipe of a hand along a shelf in the shower. The towels were creased and damp, and even from where she stood in the hallway she could smell the mildew.

The third floor was worse than the second. Like in Anna's place, it was an open plan, one big space spanning the length of the whole unit. The living room spilled into the dining room, which sat opposite from the kitchen. All of it was a mess. Mounds of unfolded laundry piled onto the couch. Empty beer cans lined up along the coffee table. One chair at the dining table was still pulled out, facing towards the kitchen. Anna had a suspicion that this was how Rachel had left it, that the two had chatted while one cooker or made coffee, that Paul couldn't bring himself to push it back under the table. A terrible smell wafted over from the kitchen. Anna glanced at it from the centre of the room. The countertops were covered with the remnants of takeaway orders.

"Sorry about the mess," Paul said. "It's been rough."

"It's okay." Anna moved into the kitchen, and located a roll of bin liners under the sink. She took one, and then started to stow away the trash quietly.

Paul sat the cookies on the dining room table, the only surface other than the floor that was visible. He sat himself down in one of the seats - not the one already pulled out - and tried not to look at her.

"I, um- I'm sorry about the other day," he said. "I don't-"

"It's okay," Anna said. The countertops now clear and the trash bag full, she tied it up securely and placed it on the floor next to the kitchen bin. "Things have been weird for all of us lately."

"Yeah." He nodded. "Yeah, things have been really fucking bad."

Despite the clear counters, the strange smell still lurked in the kitchen and it wasn't coming from the trash. Anna opened the fridge, and bit back a gasp. Tupperware containers of leftovers grew furry cultures. Fruit and vegetables split open and leaked juices. She didn't say anything, just got to work on clearing everything out.

"Thanks for helping out," Paul said once her back was towards him and she couldn't see his face. His voice took on a squeaky quality. "Rachel always did the kitchen. She wouldn't let me touch her kitchen. I did the bathroom, and she did the kitchen."

His voice broke, and he started sniffling. Anna swallowed, unsure of what to do. She knew he was crying, but she didn't know him. Not really. Not well enough to be sure of what he would want her to do. Comforting him felt awkward to her. She barely knew him.

She kept her head down and kept working. All the while, her thoughts raced. Was this a kind thing to do? Was this cruel? She couldn't tell anymore. She didn't know what was right or what was wrong. He'd be embarrassed if she comforted him, wouldn't he? Wasn't that why he had held on, held it together, until she wasn't looking?

His sniffles died down after a little while. Anna, having long-since finished with the fridge, finally pulled her head and arms out of the cold and shut the door. She dumped all of the rubbish in the bin. Next, dishes. She turned to the sink. Said nothing when she looked into it and saw that she couldn't even see the bottom.

"I'm sorry," she told him.

Quiet. She scrubbed the dishes without another word. Her fingers pruned in the warm water, and she stared down at the murky liquid, urging something sensitive for her to say to rise up to the top. Nothing. Nothing she could say could make anything easier. She'd never lost a partner, but she'd lost her mother when she was little. That was different, though. Not a life partner. And she hadn't had to process that death fully, with the mind of an adult.

"How are you?" Paul asked after a long stretch of silence.

Anna was careful with what she said and did next. She didn't want to flaunt her second chance at life in front of a grieving man. She couldn't be that heartless again. "I'm working hard to get better."

"You're still sick?"

"I was really lucky," she said. "I don't want to waste my donor's gift. I have to take good care of it."

He was quiet for a moment. Then, "Anna, there's something I need to tell you."

Her hands froze in the water, under the surface. That wasn't good. When a man said something like that, it was never good.

"You really don't," she said.

"I do."

Whatever this was, Anna didn't want to hear it. This was what a man said before he said something they couldn't come back from, before he shared thoughts nobody asked him to share. Rachel was barely cold. Her heart sped up, thumping in her chest. For the first time in a long time, it wasn't incredibly painful. Still, she slowed her breathing, tried to relax. This wasn't good for her health, was it? No. It couldn't be. Surely not. It wasn't part of her recovery program. It wasn't on the paper the hospital-

"This is going to sound insane-"

Oh, God.

"-but it's her heart. I know it is."

The plate slipped from her hands. A muffled thunk against the bottom of the sink called out from under the water. Her eyes flicked up to him.

He didn't know for sure. He couldn't. The anonymity policy worked both ways. There was no way he could be sure.

And yet there wasn't a hint of uncertainty in his expression. His chin was set, his gaze level and unyielding when it met hers. He looked at her with conviction, not challenge. He was certain.

"It's Rachel's?"

He nodded.

"How do you know?"

"I just know," he said.

And, oddly enough, that made sense to Anna. That was enough of an explanation for her. He just knew. It was that kind of love that knew someone blind, by smell, by touch, in death. And while Anna would never love a partner like that, she loved her sister much the same. He knew it was Rachel, just as she would know if it were Melissa's heartbeat calling out to her in the dark.

She was his family.

-o-