Is that Nancy’s voice or is that Nicky’s?
What’s happening?
My head is spinning out of control. I claw at my chest some more.
Darkness closes in on me.
I feel like I’m falling into an abyss of unending torment and as I hear the gurgling of blood, I just… give in to the darkness.
4
“Mia, wake up my love,” an urgent, distressed voice whispers in my ear as someone shakes me violently.
I jerk-knife awake, feeling groggy and disoriented. Where am I?
I look around the room, noticing the beautiful interior design and immediately realize that I’m still at the Fitzgerald mansion, but it’s a room I’ve never seen before.
I look up and see Nicky. She’s crouched on the side of the chaise lounge, tears streaming down her face, despair in her eyes as she hovers over me.
Why is she crying? And why am I here? What was I doing when all this—
“What happened?” I croak out. My head feels heavy, like cotton and rocks were stuffed in there.
“Oh, my baby,” Nicky cries, immediately folding me in her embrace that tightens each second. I can feel her body trembling like she’s cold, sniffling in my hair like she actually has a cold.
“Why are you crying?” I whisper, my voice still hoarse. “What happened?”
When she pulls back though, everything hits me like a flood, the big, violent waves crashing into me with one singular intent. To drown me.
Nancy and John…
The loud, beeping machines.
She was spasming and shaking on the bed.
“Mia, you almost gave me a heart attack,” she cries, her eyes red-rimmed, but it’s the shadow of pain in her eyes that steals my breath away.
“Nicky, what happened?” I croak again, the blank space in my mind too intense for me to handle.
“You passed out,” she cries, tears streaming down her face like an endless river. I can see the sorrow in her eyes as she stares at me. “I think you had an anxiety attack.”
“I have to go,” I murmur, pushing away from the chaise lounge but she pulls me back down.
“Stop, Mia,” she pleads, making confusion run through me.
“No, Nancy!”
She was having a seizure, and she couldn’t breathe. Did I do something? Did I help? I go to get up again, but just like before, Nicky holds me back, her hold surprisingly strong.
“No, Mia, you can’t go there,” she whispers hurriedly.
“No,” I try to shake off her hold, but she only holds on tighter. “Nicky, I need to see her! Let me go, please.”
“Mia, baby,” she starts as she grabs both my hands, looking me dead in the eyes. My heart starts racing as a cold shiver snakes down my spine. “Mia, I need you to focus and listen to me. You can’t go back there.”
“What?” I demand. “Why?”
She doesn’t respond, instead she seems to harden right in front of my eyes. The tears stop falling down her cheeks. The slight tremble in her body stops all together and I feel my stomach lurch, feeling the dread settle in the pity of my stomach.
“Mia, you need to go.”
And there it is.
“What?” I croak, blinking up at her like a cartoon character. “What did you say?”
She doesn’t answer as she gets up hurriedly and moves across the room like a tornado, almost blurring right in front of my eyes.
“You have to get out of here,” she says, moving around the small room. She grabs a backpack, then she starts stuffing things in it. Water bottles are put in there, bands of hundred-dollar bills are put in there. Then she stuffs something that looks like a new passport that I know isn’t mine. My passport has a black leather Prada Saffiano case that covers it. The one Nicky just stuffed in the bag looks new where mine is older.
Where did she get that from?
“Use these documents when you’re far from Palos Verdes,” she says, her voice low and strained like she’s running out of time. “Actually, try to make it out of California.”
Make it out of California?
“What’s happening?” I whisper, my body now trembling as sweat dots my brow. I think I’m going to be sick. “Why are you kicking me out?”
I’ve always known she doesn’t want me, but even after all these years? Is this a replay of when I was born and she threw me away in the trash?
Maybe this is the version where she kicks me out of her lying, conniving, asshole of a fiancé’s house because Nancy…
She doesn’t seem to care that I’m practically marinating in guilt, self-hatred and a kind of pain that I’ve never felt before. My head starts hurting, my vision dims and blurs, but I still manage to follow her figure around the room as she grabs a hoodie from somewhere and stuffs it in the bag as well.
“Throw away your phone or smash it and abandon it with the car. Buy a new phone. One of those old ones that can’t be traced.”
“No…” I whisper, but she doesn’t stop, nor does she waver. She keeps going like a machine, or a monster who wants me out. I want to beg her not to do this. I want to open my mouth and say something, but I can’t. I just sit there, staring at the epic disaster that is my life. “I need to see her.”
She ignores that too. “You parked your car behind the trees, right?” she looks over her shoulder at me but doesn’t look me in the eyes.
“I need to see her.”
“Mia, did you park your car out there, hidden among the trees?”
“Yes,” I croak. “What’s going on?” I can’t help the fear that seeps into my voice or the anxiety that’s now gripping me by my throat.
Oh God, what happened? What did I do? I must have done something to deserve this or else, why is she acting like this?
“You need to abandon that car. They can track it. Break all the windows to throw them off,” Nicky says, her movements fast and efficient, almost hypnotic as I stare.
“Throw whom off?” I whisper. “What’s going on?”
“Mia,” Nicky says, grabbing my hands with a tight grip, her eyes filled with tears but there’s no fear. It’s like she’s holding it all back, forcing herself to be nothing but strong—something I’ve always suspected was there along. My aunt/real mother has always portrayed herself as a bit too naïve, falls in love often but never stays in it. Some would think that she was a bit too vain, but Nancy always said otherwise and now, as I look into her eyes, I see what Nancy meant.
There’s something in her eyes, something like determination and steely resolve that now stares back at me.
“Baby listen to me, okay,” she starts, her voice low and hurried, like her frantic movements before. “Nancy is gone.”
“No,” I gasp, as a violent shudder goes through me. I feel like my heart is being shredded into pieces with those three words. “No.”
“She’s gone, Mia,” Nicky repeats, her voice hoarse, weird and grating at my nerves with the raw emotion in it.
No! No! She’s not gone.
But she is. I saw it in her eyes. I was looking into her eyes when the light was snuffed out. I saw it happen and I did nothing.
“It’s my fault,” I croak. “She needed me and I just… I killed her.”