Page 17 of Don't Leave Me
5
Marc
It could have been a second or an hour. I don’t know how long I stood there, staring at her. Taking in the fact this was real. She’d said my name. With a voice I thought I’d never hear again.
In a sudden, quick move, she sprinted through the door. Back into the kitchen. She was running. She was running from me.
Instinct sent me vaulting over the counter to chase her. I ran through a narrow kitchen filled with shiny silver bowls and kitchen machinery, to a back door she’d already pushed through.
I followed her outside, around the length of the strip mall. She was sprinting across the street toward the park. I didn’t stop to see if there were cars before I chased after her. I heard a horn blare, but it didn’t slow me down. She wasn’t fast. Her lungs had never allowed her to be so. In two strides, I had her from behind. Lifting her off her feet, caging her in my arms so she couldn’t run from me again.
I kept her like that. In my arms. Not moving, not willing to put her down.
“Marc, put me down.”
Never. How long could I hold her like this? Forever?
“Marc, put me down before you attract police attention.”
The wordpolicegot my attention. Carefully, I set her on her feet. Then I fell to my knees. “Don’t run from me,” I croaked out.
I felt her turn, felt her fingers drift through my hair.
“Marc…”
“No! Shut up. Don’t say anything. If this is a dream, I don’t want it to be over yet. I don’t want to wake up.”
Now, both her hands were in my hair, gently stroking my head as if I were a child. Like my mother had done for me before she abandoned me.
“It’s not a dream.”
I looked up at her face. I looked into her eyes and knew, now, without a doubt, this wasn’t a mistake or a dream. This was real. Ash wasn’t dead.
Ash wasn’t dead.
Ash was alive, living in Florida, working at a bakery. Using the name Marie Campbell. My mother’s name. And she’d let me think…this whole time…
I ducked my head, unable to look at her. Unable to understand how she could have been so heartlessly, so magnificently cruel.
“How could you?” I whispered. I felt my hands shaking.
“Marc, we need to talk. I didn’t make a plan for this. I honestly didn’t know if this day would ever come. ”
Slowly, I got to my feet. My whole body now trembling. “You lied to me. You let me think you were dead.”
“I had no choice,” she said softly.
“You let George believe you were dead. He had a fucking memorial service! Alone. Because I was in prison.”
She lifted her hand to touch my arm, but I pulled away from her. I couldn’t see through the madness of what she’d done.
“Please, come sit over here and I’ll explain.”
It was strange, because part of me wanted to walk away from her. To no longer feel this horrible sense of betrayal. It was worse than grief. It was worse than anything I’d ever imagined. She hadn’t run away. She hadn’t disappeared.
She’d died.
The finality of her abandonment was so utterly devastating I found it hard to breathe.
