The Song Remains the Same (56 page)

“So consumed with grief and rage, it turned her head, turned her head, turned her head. She had so much promise. She was going to heal the world! And in an instant, she snapped, letting her obsession take over so that she wouldn’t have to face real life.”

Is
this
my real life?

“What? You can’t tell? Are you regressing, Miss MacGregor?”

I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.

“Where is Little Zephyr? Did it not exist?”

I felt it, heard it. It was within me.

But as I search for it now, I’m empty of the swish, swish-swish, swish.

“We had to take it from you. You weren’t taking care of it like you should have been.”

Ah-ha!

Little Zephyr is half Phil! If Little Zephyr had to be taken away, then that meant that my life with him was real, too!

“Same argument as before. She’s regressing. She needs a dose of shock therapy.”

Something creaks, slowly yawning into a full-blown screech of hinges and rust.

Screeeeeeeee!

Before my eyes, a white padded door opens, and from the depths of darkness, dressed head to toe in flowing black, emerges the Dark God of the Universe.

“Phil!” I gasp, trying to reach out for him to have him take me in his arms but the straitjacket…

Filling my vision, I happily devour the sight of him. It’s
my
Phil, the Phil before the accident. He’s whole, healthy, larger than life, full of power and raw energy, so beautiful and strong.

“You have to stop this, Miss MacGregor,” he says sharply. His voice is rich, smooth, and wonderful, but his words slice at me like knives.

Miss MacGregor?

“You’ve been livin’ in a world where you and I have some sort of connection.” He bends down, shoving his face in mine. “You have spent
years
stalkin’ me, showin’ up at our shows and tellin’ everyone you’re my fiancée. You are
insane,
Miss MacGregor, to ever think a god like myself would ever look twice at a piece of bayou-backwater trash such as yourself. You are not the love of my life. You are not my other half. I married my other half years ago in Switzerland. When you attacked Brigid in Miami, that was the last straw for all of us. I had you arrested, and you were admitted to this fuckin’ loony bin.”

I’m dying.

This is the most hellish, brutal, horrific pain I have ever felt. The deaths of my mother, my grandmother, Rita, Lucy, and Charlotte along with the agony of being blown up, of losing my hearing…all the pain I’ve ever experienced rolled up into a neat package can’t compare to this.

“What gave you the idea that you meant anythin’ to me?”

“Th-that ni-night,” I stammer, terrified and breathless. “At Bo-Bo-Bougainvillea. When we kissed.”

“The night I gang-banged a bunch of groupies in the back of the van?
That
night? When I saw you, I had never seen a weirder, more gawky-lookin’ teenage hippie. I wasn’t even sure you were a girl the first time I saw you! I thought you were a dude with long-ass hair. You headbanged like a dude, that’s for sure.”

In shame, I lower my eyes to his feet. Burning tears pour silently down my face.

“You have been a pain in my ass,” he spit at me. “You’re a danger to everyone around you, and I won’t have you out in society where you could harm my wife and child.”

Wife and child…

“You are a stain upon my life. If you don’t stop this madness, you will never get out of this white chamber—and personally, I hope you never do. I hope you sit in here and rot for all eternity for the crap you’ve put me through, put my
wife
through.”

“I’m sorry,” I whisper.

“I don’t ever want to have to come back here and set you straight again, Miss MacGregor. I have a wonderful life, far, far away from you.”

He straightens, looking down at me with disgust and loathing, with the wrath of a Dark God of the Universe. Even now, he’s the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever seen, and another part of my soul blackens with self-hatred. I want to hate him, too. Maybe one day, I will.

With a sneer, he turns and exits the white padded room, and the door swiftly flies shut. I hear a dead bolt slide, and six clicks of extra locks follows.

One for each year I’ve waited for him.

Walls, ceiling, floor—they are all bright white, blindingly white…

My eyes opened, finding myself in bed in the living room on our side of the Plantation House, my face soaked with tears, the rest of my body slicked with an oily sweat.

Phil wasn’t in bed.

A sick quivering stole its way through me, and I stood up, only to have the world tilt and sway beneath my feet. My belly ached, and my throat was sandpaper rough. My bearings came upon me, and I walked to the kitchen and got a cold glass of water.

Opaque dawn light filtered through the blinds and the kitchen window.

Slowly, I made my way through the sliding panel door to the living room on the other side. For a few minutes, I stared at the sight of Alys wrapped in Phil’s arms, splayed across his chest like a gaping wound. At the other end of the couch sat Jason, snoring lightly.

Well, at least they have their clothes on.

The sight of my best friend snuggled into Phil’s chest was enough to make my belly cramp with fury and loathing. Jealousy over the fact that another woman was sleeping in Phil’s arms, innocent or otherwise, burned its way through every vein and capillary, poisoning me, turning me rotten from within. I could taste the hatred like a slime slick on my tongue.

Spinning on my heel, I went back to Phil’s half, found my phone, and called Gavin.

“Kenna?” he answered after the fifth or sixth ring.

“Hey, Gavin. Sorry to wake you.”

“No, no. It’s cool. Are you okay?”

“No, I think I’m getting sick. Do you think you could take over the therapy for Phil and Flipper for a few days? I, uh…I’m really feeling ill.”

“Of course. No problem. What time should I be there?”

“I usually start with Phil around nine or ten.”

“Okay. Do you need me to bring you anything? Soup?”

Gavin’s loving concern over my welfare chipped at my frigid loathing for the universe.

“No…I’m making myself scarce for a while. Don’t need to spread this shit, you know?”

“Well, it’s probably already too late,” he joked.

“Yeah, probably,” I agreed, trying to sound humorous.

After we hung up, I went upstairs, grabbed my duffel bag, and started shoving everything I could find that I might need over the next few days into it. Then, I made my way back downstairs, into the other half, and rudely shook Alys awake.

“Sweet Pea?” she asked, groggily pushing herself up and rubbing her face.

“Really?”
I scoffed.

Looking at where she was, her face registered her shock. I got a swift stab of satisfaction, knowing she was horrified with herself.

“Oh God, Kenna!” she whispered. “You know—
you know!
—that this isn’t what it looks like!”

“What I know, Alys, is that you slept all over my fiancé last night. I just wanted
you
to know that I’m getting the hell out of here.”

“Kenna, wait—”

“I’m done waiting. I did years of it, all for it to be rubbed in my face as a waste of fucking time.”

“You don’t mean that!” she whispered loudly, jumping to her feet. “Phil loves you!
Only
you! And me crashing here was a complete accident. You know I would
never—
and neither would he!”

“I don’t care, Alys. Last night, he showed you more compassion than he’s shown me in
months
. It made me realize
that maybe I need to walk away from this. Now. Before I drown in both our misery. If he wants to make himself feel better by consoling his best friend’s widow, who am I to say no?”

“You are his Baby Girl!”
she hissed, hysterical.

“I don’t feel like much more than bayou-backwater trash,” I told her. “Gavin’s coming over to do their therapy today. Let them know, would you?”

With that, I walked out the front door, and I didn’t look back.

I totally puked in the bushes though.

An eerie calm came over me as I made my way through my backyard. The time had come. I had known it from the moment that disembodied voice in my white nightmare told me they had taken away my Little Zephyr.

The fetus was dead.

Already, I felt the cramping, the aching in my lower back. I knew what to expect, and it wouldn’t be necessary to go to the hospital. I was a little over nine weeks along, and once the bleeding started, it would just be a matter of waiting for the miscarriage to run its course.

Earlier in the week, I’d prepared for this. With Little Zephyr’s life nearly snuffed, I would have no guilt in smoking a shit-ton of weed for the pain, and I’d stashed a mad amount of mega pads under my bathroom sink. I was good to go.

What I hadn’t counted on was Lili meeting me in the kitchen so early. I was fixing myself a cup of tea when she groggily traipsed in.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, her voice rough with sleep but her intention sweet.

“I live here,” I replied, feeling irritated.

“Yeah, but you don’t
live here
, live here,” she stated, going about putting a pot of coffee on.

“I’m going to be here for a few days. I need—”

Deep inside me, there was a faint
pop
, and a rush of fluid flushed out of my vagina. Gasping, I pulled a full-body twitch. Lili’s eyes dropped to my crotch and widened, taking in the spreading stain through the denim of my shorts.

“Did you just piss yourself?” she whispered.

I was about to tell her off when a cramp so intense seized my abdomen and dropped me to my knees.

“Kenna!” she cried, throwing herself down on the floor and wrapping her arms around me.
“Help!”

This is not the way it’s supposed to go! I’m supposed to be alone, in my room, with no one the fucking wiser!

From the direction of Connor’s room came an almighty crash, and the bedroom door exploded open, my brother charging out, snorting and huffing like a bull. “What the fu—”

“Something’s wrong with her!” Lili screeched.

“No…” I tried to tell them it was fine.

“She fucking pissed herself and then dropped to the floor!”

“Shut up, Lili!” I growled through the cramps. “I’m…I didn’t
piss
myself.”

“Then, what?” she screamed.

Kneeling in front of me, Connor’s eyes met mine, and he
knew.
“You didn’t tell anyone?” he asked.

I shook my head. “There was something wrong with it. I didn’t want Phil to know.”

Lili sucked in a sharp breath. “You’re
pregnant
?”

Not anymore,
I thought. It hit me so hard that it had to be released by way of a wretched sob.

“How far along?” asked Connor.

“Little less than ten weeks. I don’t need to go to the hospital. They’ll just send me home again. I knew when I woke up this morning. That’s why I came home. Phil—” Another cramp tightened through my belly, and I breathed deeply and evenly to get through it. “I forgot my shot. I forgot it for four fucking weeks, and when I’d found out, I had the gyno at the hospital in Saskatoon check it, and the heart—” Another cramp, and a warm rush of blood flooded my underwear. The first wave of wetness had been amniotic fluid.

“Connor!” Lili barked sharply.

So much blood, a smear of it stained my inner thighs. Without a word, Connor scooped me up and carried me up to my room.

“Put her in the tub!” commanded Lili.

My brother set me on my feet, and with my best friend, they stripped the soiled shorts and underwear off me. Then, Connor helped me to kneel in the tub while Lili turned on the hot shower, letting the stream hit my lower back. Rivulets of brilliant crimson, bright against the white porcelain, swirled and mingled with the water.