Seeking Nirvana (3 page)

“Stop it…stop it, please,” I shouted my strangled plea, warm salted tears streaming down my face as my hands found their way into my hair, which felt greasy as Hell.

At that point, Susan, my dark-haired nurse barged into the room like she was on a mission from God. “What’s happening in here?” she scowled.

The room
fell into silence. Everyone hung their heads, looking guilty as sin as the nurse spoke again. “I respect that this is a sensitive time for all of you, but it’s especially sensitive for, Kady. None of you are helping her with this over-stimulation. I think some of you had better go, and maybe come back tomorrow when things are calmer.”

Under duress, Liam reared
out of the green seat and stood by my side, towering over me. He weaved his fingers soothingly through my oily tresses, and gazed deep into my eyes as I tipped my head back to meet his stare. His eyes were magnificent, they always were. They were one of the things that drew me to him in the first place. And I knew just by the severity of his intent look, that he was silently apologizing. The corner of his mouth twitched before he spoke.

“Who do you want to go, Kady, baby? I can leave if you want. I’l
l come back tomorrow; let your mom and dad stay with you tonight.” The little V appeared between his eyebrows as he strained his words, making it sound like he was doing a favor, for me or them, I have no idea. What I knew with concrete certainty was I didn’t want that. It was far from what I wanted.

Inside, h
is words alone had cracked and splintered the sense of security which I felt around him. I’m not saying I didn’t feel that for my parents, of course I did. But Liam was what I needed. I hated that I was being made to choose between them.

Adrift in his eyes, I searched blindly for his hand and clutched it with everything I had. I shook my head as another tear slipped from my eye. “Don’t leave me, Liam. Please don’t leave me.”

He lowered his magnificent body, slanting his mouth over mine. He was smiling when he pulled back, and shot my parents a look of triumph with an arched brow. “Sorry, Marcus, Judy, Brittany, looks like Kady wants me to stay. So you will have to come back tomorrow.”

The
expression on my parent’s faces is one that I will carry with me to my grave. I have never felt as responsible for their hurt, and their rejection as what I felt then. I could only imagine the gravity of what they must have felt; knowing that they could have lost their daughter, and then have her politely tell them that she doesn’t want them there. But then again, I had been in a coma for four days, and only now did they fly out to see me.

That reflection made it easier to dismiss the guilt that was gushing around my body and constricting my heart and throat.

“Visiting hours are 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m., and 6:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.,” Susan confirmed, holding the door open for my immediate family to depart.

Without so much as a kiss on the head or a goodbye, they strolled from the room.

They never did visit again.

A pressing pain in my bladder pulled me from a dancing competition with Kermit the Frog, and Miss Piggy was the Simon Cowell of judges. I was giggling as I opened my eyes.
Crazy dreams.

For some reason, my room door was open, allowing the corridor light to shine through
the crack and along the glittery surface of the floor. Liam wasn’t anywhere to be seen. I felt a little disorientated waking up on my own. God, when I came to, I wasn’t even on my own. Walker was right here with me.

Walker…t
he Irish construction worker, who––I’d be lying if I said, wasn’t attractive. I recalled the way he said my name in his Irish brogue, he made it sound like Katy. I smiled, wondering if he would come and visit me again. He said that he would be close by.

Walker and Liam…

The unwelcomed reminder of Indian Oceans turning muddy, and Hell ablaze in the other’s eyes, the scowls, tension and hostility that charged and clashed between them like an earthquake which leads into a Tsunami, invaded my mind and made me question once again, what exactly was it all about? Why did they deem that behavior appropriate? What the fuck had happened between those two? Unpaid wages packets maybe?

I
bade to push my disobedient thought aside, and concentrate on hauling my ass out of the bed, and make my own damn way to the restroom at the end of my room.

The off-putting sensation
of a child taking their first steps made me grit my teeth and boiled my blood. With each step I took, the ringing in my ears gained, my ribs throbbed. I felt my legs tremble and everything in the room began to look like it was resting at an angle. But I was determined to do this for myself.

At least if I was moving around, then surely the doctors would let me go home soon, in Liam’s care obviously.

Bright spots danced across my eyes as I flipped on the light switch on the left hand wall, lighting the smallish bathroom. I took care of my business, and on shaky legs, stood myself up, the world spinning and sloping once again. Thankfully the washbasin wasn’t too far away, so I clutched onto it for dear life before my legs buckled under my weight.

I may had
been out cold for four days, and conscious for about thirty-six hours, but considering the last recollection I had was celebrating my twenty-fourth birthday, when I gazed into that mirror above the basin, I hadn’t seen myself in three years, and I was met with a complete stranger.

I screwed my eyes
shut as tight as I could, pleading that when I opened them, the person staring back at me would be one that I remembered. But there must not have been any shooting stars as I made my wish that night, because when I opened them again…the stranger was still staring back.

My thick, blond, shoulder-length hair was dark and dreary,
virtually wire looking. That, I could pass off as just needing washing. My eyes weren’t as bright as what I once saw. My skin wasn’t as flawless as it had been the last time I studied my reflection, and I’m not just talking about the black eye, swollen cheekbone, split lip and scrapes that had white tape suck on each side of my brow, that stared back at me from the accident. Panicked and alarmed, I watched as my lip trembled and my wrinkles grew deeper.

Freeing
my hand from the basin, I leaned in closer to the mirror. My fingers gingerly found their way to my face, and I wished more than anything that my fingertips could erase the creases which spread from the corners of my eyes, when they grazed across them.

That was another wish that failed to come true.

The only thing that remained the same was my nose…still straight and narrow.

There’
s no such thing as a minuscule change when you’ve lost years. Everything is just…there, right in front of your face, goading you. Every single change, even down to the change of my hair parting, the span of my brow because my hairline seemed to be a millimeter further back than it was when I was twenty-four, is all too clear, too distinct.

Each
variant of my face had a story behind it: when did I notice my first wrinkle and what was I doing at the time? How did I react when my laugh lines refused to stay dormant until I actually laughed? When did my eyes become dimmer with knowledge that I no longer possessed? It made me realize that it’s not only monumental factors of the last three years that have escaped my memory-bank; it’s the miniscule things, too.

The bitter taste of bile and disgust rose to
greet the back of my tongue. I couldn’t stand and look at this person any longer. I was too scared to continue looking at that person. It wasn’t me. It wasn’t Kady Jenson, confident, beautiful, well-spoken…God, even sexy.

In three minutes, I cri
ed three years’ worth of tears.

Avoiding the mirror, I
created a hollow with my hands and splashed freezing water on my face, before slowly backing out of the lavatory.

Liam was strolling into my room when I flipped the light switch off and rested my shoulder against the doorway of the restroom.
His shirtsleeves were rolled up displaying his forearms, yet they were still hidden by the blackness of the room.

“Hey, Kady, baby, what are you doing up?”
he murmured.

I hoped that the darkness I was obscured by had masked my scowl. “I had needs that needed tending to. Where were you?”

He unrolled his shirtsleeves and fastened the button on his cuffs. “I needed to get a little fresh air. I couldn’t sleep.”

I merely nodded.

He fisted his hands through his dark hair. It was at that length where it would stay back on its own. I don’t know why, but I wondered if it would be long enough to tie back. He cocked his head as he sluggishly skulked towards me. “What’s wrong, baby?” he probed with concern.

“What’s happened to me, Liam?” His pursed lips, deep frown and narrowed eyes told me he didn’t understand my question. I bowed my head, feeling awfully shy and out of my depth
. Two simple words journeyed on a whisper as I lifted my head. “I’m ugly…”

As soon as my words were hanging in the air between us, I
studied his eyes as they hardened for a moment, but in that moment, I swear I saw fire and brimstone. He cupped my face in both his hands. They were freezing.

“You’re not ugly, Kady. You’re gorgeous. I told you that the first day I met you, but I never told you often enough.”

My lip curled, and I could feel those damn creases on my brow deepen. “I have wrinkles; my hair is…and my skin…” I couldn’t string my sentence together even if I tried, and trust me, I tried. “…And that’s just my face, Liam. I dread to see my body.”

Pulling me into his body, m
y sobs were halted as he surrounded my fragile frame with strong, protective arms, arms that kept me safe, arms that loved me. One cradled the back of my head, holding me against his thumping heart, letting me listen and drown out all worldly sounds as it bounced under my ear. I knew he wouldn’t intentionally let any harm come to me, so I can only imagine the guilt which he must be storing at this moment, knowing that he wasn’t with me when the accident happened.

“Three ye
ars, Liam, three Goddamn years.” I unpeeled the side of my face from his shirt, and tipped my head back. He gazed down upon me like a God. “What have I missed?”

He took his time with a simple blink, but when his lids opened again, they displayed warm, loving and contrite, green and blue eyes.
Hands freed my face of stray tendrils and salty residue. His mouth quirked, “Nothing important, Kady, baby. Nothing important.”

It was like surfacing from an underground bunker after years, not knowing and unsuspecting of what lay ahead, when the day came for me to go home. And a part of me resented my boyfriend for prompting that feeling, aware that he could have at least set a safety net in place…

It was the following Tuesday when Doctor Leviton gave me the okay to be discharged from Massachusetts General, under Liam’s care. A part of me was thrilled to be free from those God forsaken hospital walls, yet my trepidation was gradually overriding any degrees of contentment which I had strived to muster.

Questions I asked the day my parents came to visit
continued floating around in the air, still unanswered and continually playing on my mind. I badgered Liam constantly in the days which followed. ‘Why did we move? Where did we move to? What’s the other business? How come I don’t work at Red Velvet anymore? What happened?’ But each question was brushed off his shoulder in the most infuriating way, like the questions and knowledge I was seeking, weren’t important. It was as if he didn’t want me to know, did want me to be prepared to take this big step into a life that I couldn’t remember creating.

Liam knew damn well that I needed him
at that juncture of my life––that I needed his support. But as the days past, and the interval between my voiced queries and actual non-vague answers stretched, I couldn’t quash the notion that Liam may have wanted me to be dependent on him even more. With the approach he was upholding, he was coming across as though he wanted me to be this delicate, helpless person, to have me thrown into the deep end with only him as my life raft.

I said my thanks and farewells
to the staff who aided me in my recovery as I was wheeled down the corridor, stuffing my routine follow-up appointment with Leviton into the bag resting on my lap while we waited for the elevator. Focusing on my feet, Leviton’s instructions revolved around my head at light speed, as did the expression on Liam’s face as he advised me to avoid driving for the time being, that my behavior may seem a little erratic in comparison to my usual behavior, and to make notes of anything which may had transpired during the three week interval between now and my appointment. I couldn’t shift the feeling that I was being seen as a burden, like I was some suicidal patient at an asylum, and needed constant supervision.

Lost in my musing, I didn’t notice the elevator even arrived. Liam whispered my name
, asking once again if I was ready to be taken home. As I warily nodded my answer, I was rolled over the threshold, my ribs smarting as the wheels of the chair bumped over the uneven lip between the corridor and the elevator. He pressed the button for the lot, and we were shortly traveling down in utter silence.

My
straining eyes started to ache, my vision blurring as I searched and searched the rows of cars in the lot for a black BMW. I was met, and stuffed into a silver Mercedes instead without so much as a word.

As I buckled my seatbelt,
the familiar buildup of agitation festering in my gut made itself known. The hostile growl I desperately wanted to free was contained, and replaced with an immense pressure in my jaw as it clamped down and teeth began to grind. Six days I’d been conscious, yet Liam couldn’t even find the decency during that time, to drop the, ‘we have a new car’, detail into the mix. Each detail he kept from me, whether it was accidental or deliberate, was doing nothing but provoking an ineffable conflict, and pushing me away from him. My bitterness began to manifest and grew to be more noticeable in my attitude towards him. Even so, I couldn’t dislodge the fist in my stomach which had me contemplating that he may pass my feelings off as, ‘a little erratic in comparison to my usual behavior’.

We headed west from the hospital. I was staring out of the car window fretting about everything and anything, when Liam set his hand above my denim-clad knee, effectively pulling my attention from the buildings and bystanders passing-by at speed. “What’s wrong, Kady, baby?”

I was sitting in that seat, gawping at the man to my left with a knot the size of Great Britain in my gut, his warm, large hand parked on my thigh. He fulfilled my request about shaving that gruff off his face; at least he
looked
more like the Liam I remembered.

Drawing his eyes from the road ahead, he flashed me a look, a look that indicated how peeved he was getting
. “Kady,” he shot back sternly, before peeking back on the road.

I don’t know why, by the vexation that punctured through
his tone had my contemplations scattered on the wind, shuddering in a corner. I knew that if I voiced my concerns and told him how he was making me feel, it would lead into an argument. And that was something that I wasn’t in my right mind for.

So
I decided to keep my mouth shut, and forced a smile. “Nothing, I’m just nervous.”

He smiled warmly, his eyes twinkling as the light bounced from the
windshield when he quickly peeked at me. “You’re with me, Kady, baby. There’s nothing to be nervous about.”

The first thing I noticed when Liam turned right at the next set of lights, and my first thought, were two entirely different things.
The first thing I noticed was a quaint little white church in the center of a squared enclave, its bell-tower soaring high with a clock beneath, and my jaw slacked. The surrounding buildings were a mixture of diners, barber shops, patisseries, a small movie theater and a few apartment buildings with bay-windows.

It was small, and
I intuited that it was an area where everyone knew everyone, and therefore everyone must have known each other’s business and private affairs.

My first thought when I saw the area was, ‘when the bell-tower sounds at 6:00 p.m., do the residents lose thei
r own mind and become possessed?’ I know I shouldn’t have, but the sphere in my gut lurched and told me that this place––although a nice, quiet town––was like a bloody ghost town.

“Welcome to
Bricksdale, baby.”

I took a m
oment to gaze out of the window and watch the establishments pass by, as he drove slowly around to the left side of the square, and pulled up outside a white building. I hung me head, focusing on my knitted fingers that rested in my lap.

“Kady…”

I wanted to sit in stillness and just concentrate on the way my fingers were locking, the length of my nails, and assess the state of my cuticles. Maybe get lost in what was left of my own thoughts. I already felt alone, he was making me feel it. But, after a few hushed moments, I reluctantly pulled my head up to look at his face. With his hair slicked back, his block jaw, familiar contented eyes, and an enormous grin on his clean-shaven face, he looked too…happy, too eager to throw me into the sea without my raft.

“We moved from Do
rchester, to here?” I muttered, my voice was broken, utterly shattered. I loved Dorchester, I remember being happy there. I remember the neighbors, my way around, and yes, even though I felt ashamed that I was a stripper, I loved being around the corner from Liv, Benny and the other workload at Red Velvet.

“To Bricksdale, Kady, you can say the name. It’s your home…our home.” My
blood ran cold as I watched his mouth curl and eyes deepen into a bottomless chasm of persistence and silent urging. That expression, I never want to see again, he looked manic. “Get out of the car; I want to show you something.”

He opened his door and unfolded himself from the leather seat. With a weighty sigh, I did as instructed.

Liam’s arm coiled around my waist, pulling me into the side of his body as we stood on the sidewalk, staring at the white building with an overly-large window, displaying an array of cakes.

“Ent-icing,”
I read the golden script on a pink background, overhead the window. “Ent-icing is a cake shop?” I look up at the tall man whose arm I was under with a skeptical arch of my brow.

I felt his shoulders bounce as he sniggered.
“Ent-icing is a cake makers and decorator, wedding cakes, birthday cakes, you name it. This is your business, Kady.”

The world crumbled around me
until I was left hanging on the precipice, and at that moment, I really wished I could have jumped into the lava below my feet and be done with everything. The new information was too much to absorb, and I didn’t feel I was strong enough to even experience these pieces of a new life, let alone recognize them. I didn’t want to learn anything new about the person that I had become, because it was too painful and exasperating as I forced my mind to remember something.

But it didn’t.
My memories were a lost dream, a dream that was bobbing on the sea and too far out of my reach to grasp onto and force a recollection.

I turned my body to face him directly.
“Liam, I’m a dancer, not a businesswoman, or a cake decorator for that matter. My God, I can’t even fry a fucking egg.” He laughed, and for an ephemeral moment, all I wanted was to pull out the ice-shard in my heart and stab him in the eye. “Liam, why do you think this is funny? This isn’t funny…” I frowned; my voice couldn’t have been any smaller or deflated.

He wiped his finger under his eye to dry a straying tear. “Oh, come on, baby, you have to laugh, that comment with the egg was funny.”

I shook my head sheepishly. “Not for me, Liam. It’s far from funny to me. I don’t understand why you couldn’t have talked to me about the things that have changed, before setting me down in front of them.”

His laughter ceased, his face
became apologetic. He framed my face with his large hands and searched my eyes. “I’m sorry, Kady,” he whispered. “I thought if I showed you the changes, rather than talked about them, that they may trigger a memory, or something.”

“The only thing it’s triggering Liam is my confusi
on and anger. You’re hurting me. I’m feeling scared. I don’t want to resent you, and feel bitter towards you because of the way you’re trying to help. But Liam, please…doing it this way,”––I gestured to the shop along my right––“isn’t helping me.”

With a nod of his head, his mouth came down to settle over me. Taking me in his arms, he held me against the
stretch of his body, and we stood there for seconds? Minutes? I have no idea, but when he pulled away, the fist of negative feelings, which I directed towards him over the last few days with his uncommunicative ways, had dissipated, and understanding, and gratitude took its place.

“So, where’s this house then?” I questioned
while he studied the road ahead.

“It’s on the second right, a nice white one. The only white one on the street actually.”

“A white house? You’re going to tell me it has a picket-fence next,” I teased.

Risking a glance, he pulled his eyes from the road and wiggled his eyebrows at me with a conceited, yet roguish air.

“No, you got to be kidding me, Liam. Really…a picket-fence?”

He sniggered, “No, Kady, baby, no picket-fence.”

Thank God. I threw my head back against the cold rest. I hated those things. I pushed myself into the black leather seat, rolled my head over the rest to gaze out of the window, and watched as we ascended the tree-lined street.

Within moments, we pulled into an uphill
driveway next to a white, detached, old fashioned property. It had bay windows on both the upper and lower floors, and a circle window for the attic.

“Here we are, home sweet home.”
He put the car into park and shut off the ignition.

“This is our house?” I probed dubiously, my eyes practically bulging out of their sockets.
It was beautiful. Although, I wasn’t overly enthusiastic about the attic window, ever since I was a kid I hated attics.

Shifting in his seat
, the leather cracked and he grinned with self-satisfaction. “Did I, or did I not tell you that I would make sure you had everything you wanted, and that you never need to worry about anything, because I would handle it?”

As those words fell from his lips, I felt blessed, I felt hopeful, because they were words that I could remember him saying to me.

I was steered hand in hand to the front of the building. There were six steps we had to climb before we were level with the front door. As I set my foot on the bottom step, I was startled by an earsplitting voice calling, “Coo-ee.” The ‘coo’ was a lengthy note, whereas the ‘ee’ was short. I’m positive it could have shattered a glass flute.

I turned to be
greeted with a stubby, middle-aged woman with a mass of dyed, red hair that looked like a football helmet rushing towards us. She scooped me into her arms, her hefty chest pressing against me as I stood stock-still waiting for her embrace to slacken.

“Kady, I’m so glad that you’re back.” She released me from her grip, to which I was grateful.
Her hand parked on the tops of my arms. “We have all been worried about you at the cake and coffee club. Mr. Quinn has been praying for you––well, we all have––”

“Umm…” I scowled
, and glanced at Liam with a confused expression.

“Mrs. Steinbeck,” L
iam interjected. “Thank you so much for your kind words. But Kady needs her rest.”

“Oh, of course, Mr. DeLaney––I’m
so sorry, Kady. I have a cake cooling in my kitchen; I’ll pop it around later as a welcome home sweet.” She shifted her hand to my shoulder and grinned. “My cakes will never taste as good as your ones, Kady, but it’s the thought that counts,” she tossed her head back on an eerie cackle which prompted my eyes to widen in shock horror. Fuck, was this woman high?