Easy as One Two Three (Emma Frost) (3 page)

Everything remained inside his head. There were times when he wondered if this was hell. If he had really died and this was his punishment for all the bad things he had done in his life.

But then he heard voices from the outside breaking through his darkness and filling him with hope.

No. No. This is real. They are real. I'm real. I'm alive. I can think. I can hear. I even believe I could see if only I could open my eyelids. I can see the light, can't I? I can see shadows outside and light coming through my eyelids, can't I? Or am I imagining it? No, it's real. Everything is real. My nightmare is real.

He could hear his sister's voice next to him. She was speaking to him, telling him how much she loved him and how she knew their dad would tell him the same if he had been there, if he hadn't been stuck in Dubai on that business trip. Now she was grabbing his hand and holding it in hers. He could feel her. He could feel the warmth of her hand. She was crying.

"You always were a spoiled brat," she said with a half-choked chuckle. "My God, how we could fight over things, Mads. But I still loved you. I always did. I even miss fighting with you already."

And I love you, sis. But I'm not dead. It doesn't have to end here. We can still fight. I would love to fight with you again. Let's do it right now. Right here and right now. I can come up with something to annoy you with. I know I can. Please don't give up on me, please don't.

Mads felt his sister touch his face. He heard her sob. "I can't believe he’s really gone, Mom. It's so unfair. My baby brother shouldn't go before me. At least not now. Not this early. We just started our grown-up lives. We were supposed to have children at the same time. Our children should have grown up together."

"I know, darling. But I'm afraid we have to face that he’s gone," Mads heard his mother say. "There is nothing we can do. At least his organs will end up helping others go on with their lives. Some other family will have their son and brother back."

"It's not fair," his sister said, sobbing.

"I know."

"Shouldn't we at least wait for dad?" his sister asked.

Mads' mother sighed. "I don't think that's very fair to the families waiting for the organs."

"But…?" Mads' sister said. 

"Let it rest, Thilde," his mother hissed. "Your brother is dead. Nothing is going to change that."

But I'm not dead. Can't you see that?
Mads was yelling inside of his mind. He was screaming in panic.
I'm alive. I'm right here!
Oh, my God. What do I do? How can I let them know that I'm here before it's too late? My hand. Yes, my hand. I have to give them a sign somehow. Squeeze her hand. Just squeeze it! It can't be that hard, can it?

Mads focused all of his strength on squeezing his sister's hand, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't. Nothing happened. His hand simply refused to obey.

Try something else. Do something simpler. Move a finger. Just one finger.

Mads focused once again and this time it felt like something was different. It felt like he was moving it.

I'm doing it. I'm moving the tip of my pinky. Did you see that?

Mads waited with great anticipation to hear his sister say something.

Come on. Tell me you saw it. Tell me you saw me move my pinky?

Mads listened when his mother suddenly spoke up. "I think we should just do it. There is no reason to drag it out any longer. Someone needs new organs. You heard the doctor. Mads is never going to wake up again."

Noooo! I'm here. I was moving the tip of my finger. Didn't you see it? Couldn't you see me moving? Please, just look at my finger. Just look at it!

"I'm not ready yet," his sister said. "I can't do it. I’m still waiting for him to open those eyes and say something annoying. God, I wish I’d been nicer to him."

"Don't beat yourself up like that," his mother said.

"I know. It's stupid. It doesn't change anything. It's just hard not to, you know? I know I have to let him go. Let them run the tests, then."

"I think that’s the right thing to do. Somewhere, someone is waiting to get new organs and we owe it to them not to delay it further. We owe it to Mads. He was, after all, the one who signed up to be an organ donor."

No. No. I didn't. I didn't mean it. I take it back. I regret it. I don't want them to take my organs. Pleeease don't let them cut me open while I am still alive. Oh my God. Am I going to feel it? Am I going to feel everything when they cut me open? Am I going to feel the fire eating through my body while they cremate me? Oh God!

Another voice filled the room and made him stop screaming. It was a voice Mads had never heard before. It was the voice of a woman.

"Hello, my name is Rebekka Franck. Journalist at
Zeeland Times
. This is Sune Johansen, my photographer."

6

April 2014

I
HAD BEEN TO
the hospital in Naestved every day to see how the guy Maya hit was doing. Every day, I was hoping for improvement, but there had been none so far. He had been in a coma ever since they brought him in and every day that passed, the family slowly lost more hope. I was devastated knowing my daughter had caused this and had talked a lot with the sister and mother who had stayed at the hospital waiting for their son and brother to wake up. Today, I brought Mads fresh flowers that the mother took with a labored smile when I entered the room and handed them to her.

"Thank you," she said politely, but emotionless, before she found a vase and poured in water.

I hated the way the mother and sister looked at me. They tried hard not to show it, but they resented me for what had happened to Mads Schou. I couldn't blame them. Maya wasn't here, so who else could they blame? I was, after all, Maya's mother. I had raised her and, even if they didn't say it out loud, I could tell by their looks that they didn't think I had done a very good job.

Someone else was in the hospital room with them today, someone I had never seen before. She was with a tall guy wearing a camera around his neck. He had a Mohawk and wore all black clothes and big boots. The woman was speaking with the sister, Thilde Rahbek. Thilde looked upset as she spoke. The woman was writing on her notepad, taking notes of what Thilde was telling her.

"What's going on here?" I asked the mother.

"It's a journalist from
Zeeland Times
. Thilde is just telling her the story of what happened. They're doing a story on the hit-and-run for tomorrow's paper," Mrs. Schou said.

I felt a pinch in my heart, knowing Maya's name would end up in the paper. It didn't feel good. Everyone would think she was a criminal.

"Any news about Mads?" I asked.

Mrs. Schou sniffled. "No. The doctor told us today that he probably won't wake up. He's an organ donor. They need to run some tests to see who he will be a fit for. I…It's all really just a little too…"

"I'm so sorry," I said, seeing the old woman's eyes tear up. She tried to hide it. "I really am."

She looked at me like she didn't really believe me. I knew she was secretly blaming me. It was brutal. The following silence was painful.

"So the girl who was driving the car ran off immediately afterwards?" I heard the journalist-woman say.

"Yes," Thilde answered. "Apparently, she had stolen the car from her parents. I don't know why they didn't know or at least know what was going on with her. But, as far as I know, the girl ran off from home, stole her parent's car and ran into my brother as he was crossing the road."

"So, you blame the parents?" The journalist woman asked.

She was starting to annoy me. It wasn't her job to make that kind of assumption.

"Of course I do. She was driving without a driver's license. She is fifteen. There’s no reason she should be able to get ahold of car keys and take off. If her parents had kept a decent eye on her, this would never have happened. But apparently, the parents weren't even at the house when she took the car."

"Excuse me," I said.

Thilde and the journalist-woman both turned to look at me. "Yes?" the woman said.

"This is the girl's mother," Thilde said. "Emma Frost, this is Rebekka Franck. She's a journalist doing a story on the accident."

"Emma Frost? The author?" Rebekka Franck asked. "I love your books."

"Well yes, thank you, but there’s no need to put my name in your little paper," I said.

Rebekka Franck put a hand in the air. "No, no. Of course not. I won't. This is Sune. He is my photographer."

The tall guy lifted a long arm and waved at me. "He will take some pictures of Mads, if that is alright with the family," Rebekka said.

"It is," Thilde said.

Rebekka Franck turned to look at me. "So you're the parent of Maya Frost. What do you say to the accusations from Thilde Rahbek just now?"

"Well, first of all, Maya was supposed to be with her father," I said. "We're divorced and I was on vacation in Italy when all this happened. Her dad was at his office across town. There was one adult in the house, her stepmother, but she didn't see Maya take the keys, since she was taking care of her newborn baby. Maya has had a hard time lately and recently moved to Copenhagen to live with her father. I’ve said this over and over again to the relatives, but I don't mind repeating it. I do not, for one second, believe my daughter would do anything like this. She called me right after it happened and she told me the man jumped out in front of her car. We agreed that she would call for an ambulance right away. She would never run away from her actions like this."

"But she never did," Rebekka Franck said curiously. "She never called for an ambulance. According to the police, it was a man passing with his dog later on who called for help. He later told the police that the car was fleeing the scene just as he arrived. He managed to see the license plate before it disappeared. But you still claim that your daughter would never flee? How do you explain it then?"

I could have killed the skinny little girl in front of me. Who did she think she was, coming here asking questions like that? The truth was that it had been my first thought when I received the call. That she had run away from it. But I didn't think that anymore. At least I didn't want to.

7

April 2012

I
T WAS ON THE
honeymoon in Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt things started to go wrong for the young couple. They stayed in the honeymoon suite at a big resort outside of town and every day, after spending hours in the water snorkeling, looking at thousands of exotic and beautiful fish, they took a taxi downtown to go to dinner.

They liked the local food and the atmosphere in the streets and always ended up smoking water pipes in one of those small places where they put a Fez on your head and you sat comfortably on the ground on big velvet pillows.

It was all very perfect, they both agreed. Maybe a little too perfect. And it didn't take long before Signe started to get bored.

After a week in the small Egyptian town, she turned to look at Mads one night sitting on the red pillows. He was smoking a water pipe with a satisfied smile on his face.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

Signe tilted her head.

"You look like you just came up with a cunning plan or something," Mads continued. He laughed and smoked his pipe.

"I want to see other people," she said. She was as surprised by her outburst as he was.

Mads sounded like he was choking on the smoke and started coughing.

"What?" he asked when the worst of the coughing was over. "What did you say?"

"Nothing," she answered and drank her mint tea. It tasted the same as it had the day before and the day before that.

"Are you sure?" he asked.

"It was just a joke," she said.

Mads leaned back in his pillow. "Okay. Not a very good one, I must say."

"It was fun for me," she said. "Let's go."

Mads shrugged. "Why? Isn't it nice here?"

"No. I want to move on. I want to get drunk in a bar or something. Come on."

They paid and walked into the crowded street among the many western tourists. They were all so dull and boring, Signe thought. She saw an elderly couple walking towards them. Suddenly, everything inside of her screamed in despair.

That's us. That's us in like a hundred years from now. So this is it? Isn’t there more to life than this?

"Let's do something crazy," she suddenly said and grabbed Mads' arm. "Come."

She dragged him down an alley and into a small bar with nothing but locals. They ordered two beers and sat in the back of the room.

"Why did you want to come here?" Mads asked.

Signe sipped her beer while staring at the bartender. He was young, in his early twenties. He was well-built and dark as the night.

"Look at him," she said.

"What about him?" Mads asked.

Signe sensed he was getting a little anxious now. It aroused her slightly. The feeling of utter power that she possessed over him.

"I want him," she said. "I want to fuck him."

"Are you kidding me?" Mads asked, appalled.

"Watch me."

Signe got up. She undid the top button of her dress so you could see the top of her breasts. With her beer in her hand, she walked to the counter and sat on a stool. The bartender smiled gently. His teeth were white against his dark skin. He was very handsome, she thought. He stared at her breasts.

"You like what you see?" she asked.

The man smiled and nodded. "Very nice."

"You want to touch? You want to fuck me?"

"Yes. Yes I do."

8

April 2014

J
UST LIKE THE PREVIOUS
nights, I couldn't sleep. I was walking around in the hotel room biting my nails and eating chocolate from the minibar while Morten slept in the bed. I stared into the night outside our hotel room. I saw hundreds of lights outside, coming from streetlamps or the inside of houses from people like me who couldn't sleep as well. I couldn't help but wonder if Maya was inside any of those houses…If she was somewhere nearby wondering how to get ahold of me. But why hadn't she called? Why?