Watch Over You (21 page)

“Eric?” she screamed into the night. Her head spun and her legs threatened to give out on her. She brought shaky hands up to her head, and her fingers came away wet with blood. Her blood. It trickled down her face. “Devan?” she yelled, unsure whose name she should be shouting. There was no answer.

She stumbled towards the wreckage of her car on the other side of the barrier. It was damaged beyond
repair, just as it had been three years ago. The silver metal was bent and crushed. The bonnet deformed. Everything was exactly the same. Every moment. Even down to Eric slumped forwards in the passenger seat.

Dead.

Tara stood there, knees weak and bile rising swiftly to her throat. Her eyes were pinned onto Eric’s lifeless form.
No, not again
. He had been given back to her for a few precious seconds, only to be cruelly snatched away from her once more. What kind of sick joke was this?

She was too terrified to approach him. She knew the outcome. Three years ago, she had run to him, screaming his name, trying desperately to revive him. It wasn’t until the emergency services arrived that she let go of him. They had pulled him out, oblivious to her cries and pleas for them to help him. Uncaring, they had placed him onto a stretcher, covered his face and taken him away. Her Eric. They had just taken the love of her life away - that simply. She had been left standing there, empty and barren and alone.

It had all felt so unreal. He couldn’t be dead. What if they were wrong? What if they had made a mistake? She had asked herself that so many times. Even when they had buried him. What if he was still alive in there and crying for her? Every time she had left him in that cemetery, she’d had such a pull to go back. What if he wasn’t dead?

It wasn’t at all like last time, though. Devan was standing by the car. He had his hand stretched out to her. She stood there, undecided whether she should take it or not. Maybe she could yell or scream instead. Anything that could take away what she was feeling. Her heart had been broken into a million pieces all over again, and she wondered how it was that Devan could have done this to her. The shadows surrounded her, their vulture-like hunger pressing heavily against her consciousness.

She backed away from them; from Devan too. The girl shadow came to stand just behind him but Tara shook her head. She couldn’t help but see Eric lying there, a victim of what she had done again. His lifeless face haunted her thoughts. “Why?” she shouted at Devan.

He took a step forward. “It has to be this way,” he said quietly.

“I could have stopped it this time,” she cried out.

“There’s no way to stop it.”

She kept backing up until her legs hit the metal barrier over which she had climbed to get to Eric. She stopped there, tearful eyes on Devan as he slowly approached her. There was no purpose to anything anymore. Without Eric, she was lost and alone, her life meaningless. All she could hope for was a quick death that would come soon to take away her pain. She sometimes thought about doing it herself, and even though she didn’t believe in god, she worried what would happen if she were wrong and her suicide put her soul somewhere else.

Devan took hold of her hand and she had no choice but to follow him as he climbed over onto the other side of the motorway. He led her back to where
she had picked herself up. “You never questioned why you were so far away from the car?” he asked softly.

On the ground in front of them lay another body in a heap - crumpled and broken, and as lifeless as Eric’s. Blood had stolen most of the colour from her long auburn hair. A wedding band glinted from where it sat on the woman’s finger. “No,” she choked out. “No. No.”

She shook her head slowly, unwilling to believe what was in front of her. Yanking her hand out of Devan’s, she turned and ran back to the car, back to Eric. She vaguely registered that both his hand and hers  were bleeding again.

“No.” She ignored what was behind her. She ignored the shattered windscreen of her car, where something or someone had clearly gone through it. She even ignored the fact that she knew she hadn’t been wearing her seatbelt. She ignored everything until she saw Eric in the passenger seat again. Only it wasn’t Eric in the car - it was Devan.

“I’m sorry,” a voice said from behind her. “I’m sorry you had to go through all of this.”

She knew the voice. It reached inside her and wrapped its fingers around her heart. She didn’t dare to turn around, sure that her mind was playing another cruel trick on her. A hand tenderly reached for her own from behind her. Long, warm fingers grasped for hers and tried to gently pull her around. She shook her head. “I can't. I can't see you and then you have to leave again.” Her fingers slipped from his and she dropped to her knees. She slumped forward and started to rock back and forth, shaking her head as the tears fell in a steady stream.

Warm, familiar hands rested on her shoulders, making her entire body tremble uncontrollably. A finger under her chin tilted her head back up until she was looking into the eyes of someone she knew couldn’t be real. “I’m sorry,” Eric said to her. He was just the same. Nothing had changed. Same clothes. Same hair. Same face. Except, all his injuries had gone and he wasn’t dead.

“I don’t understand.” She dared to lift her hand to his face but hesitated before she touched him. What if he vanished? What if her hand fell through nothing? He grabbed her hand, though, and pressed it against his face. He was real. He was solid. He was Eric

With a shuddering sob, she crawled into his arms and wrapped her arms tightly around his neck. She wasn’t ever going to let him go again. Great, big sobs shook her body. Eric held her tightly, his face in her neck as she clutched at his shirt. She dug her fingers into his back, trying to bring him closer to her. “I’m afraid if I let go, you won’t be real.”

“I am real,” he whispered.

“How?”

“You know how,” he said. “How did you get out of the car?”

“I didn’t die?” She was so confused. This was all too much. Yet she knew what she had seen. She knew who lay broken and crumpled on the road. She had killed them all. Eric, their unborn baby - and herself. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I ruined everything, didn’t I?”

He loosened his grip from around her and held out his hand. “Take my hand?” The swallow in his palm breathed with life. “I came back for you, Tara. To lead you home. To walk by your side until you were safe. Come with me. Take my hand and kiss me.”

The shadows moved closer. The girl behind Eric smiled and nodded. For the first time in three years, Tara felt a sense of peace inside. Eric had come back for her. He was really here. He had never truly left her. She was the one who had been lost. Her heart lifted and she thought she would burst from joy. With a smile, she lifted her lips to his and embraced eternity.

She kissed him.

Epilogue

Eric watched Tara. She loved the seat by the window the most – the one in her favourite coffee shop. He knew that making her change her routine and go to a different café would be upsetting for her. It was the only way, though - the only way she would truly understand that she was no longer alive.

Tara had died three years ago; she just didn’t know it. She hadn’t been able to let herself move on, or even see that she needed to. She was lost in a world inside her head, one where she was still alive, living a tormented existence filled with guilt and remorse. She only saw what she wanted to see. Nothing around her was real, simply figments of her imagination - the coffee shop, people around her, her home, everything.

It was up to Eric to save her, to show her the truth before she was lost forever, her soul condemned to that of an endless limbo. The shadows lurked, waiting for any chance they could get to take her. Eric knew that in bringing her into his own fabricated world, he opened the door for them to get closer to her. She was more within their grasp now, but there was no other way. With each passing day, Tara sunk deeper and deeper into her own mind, and there would be no return from there if the shadows got her. Eric had made a deal with them, and he was going to keep it. He had until the anniversary of her death. If he couldn’t make her see by then, then she’d be lost to him forever.

The shadow walkers were getting closer each time. They were hungry and impatient. They wanted her so that they might clean up. They did not permit wandering souls, and it had already been three years for Tara. This was his last chance; and the only way Eric figured he would get through to her. If she was in his world, where he could control the illusions around them, then maybe he could lead her to understand the truth about herself. He had tried to cross into her world, but she never paid him any attention. And it had to be her who approached him; it couldn’t be him. Anything coerced could shock her mind and then again she would
be lost forever. The clock was ticking. Time was running out. 

When she had finally gone to the new coffee shop -
his
coffee shop in
his
version of the world - he had sagged in relief. It was a difficult task to try to replicate real things in the world of limbo. People tended to see only what they needed to see. Maybe it was their connection that enabled it - he wasn’t sure. Whatever it was, he was thankful.

He knew that her usual coffee shop gave the illusion that it wasn’t in the city centre. One window overlooked the busy high street, and the other, where Tara always chose to sit, gave a view to the park. He smiled at the memory of how she liked to fool herself that they were out in the country, where it was peaceful and quiet and life slowed down to a nice, easy pace.

His mind wandered to their drives on Saturday mornings. They’d sit in the coffee shop, which doubled as a bookshop, eat breakfast and chat about anything and everything. It was their time together, away from work and the endless renovations on their house. Not that Eric cared where it was. To him, it was time with Tara - his Tara - and if she was happy, that was enough for him. Her happiness was everything to him.
She
was everything to him. There were few people in the world that were lucky enough to find their soulmates. Tara was his, and there was no way his soul could pass over to the other side without her. She was his life, even in death.

She didn’t notice him on the other side of the glass. She was sitting alone, hands wrapped around her coffee mug. She held it there a while before lifting it to her lips. He couldn’t believe that she was there. Just in front of him. It felt like a dream. He didn’t want to move in case he lost sight of her and she vanished.

The darkness around him was moving ever closer, shadow walkers ready to swoop in and take her away. They were waiting, devourers of the past, ready to snatch up the souls stuck between worlds. Souls like Tara. This was her last chance to understand. This was his last chance to reach her.

It took him a while before he could enter the coffee shop. He reached for the handle and saw the
shadows lurking behind him. He hesitated, heart beating wildly. What if they rushed in as soon as he opened the door? He held his breath, pushed the door and entered. The shadows remained outside. He let out a relieved breath and sent up a silent thank you. The coffee shop was almost perfect. He’d frequented it so much when he was alive that he could pretty much manifest a perfect rendition. Every little detail was seared into his memory - even down to Sasha, the girl behind the counter, serving.

When he was alive, he had used this café as a base for operations when helping the homeless. He’d buy them a coffee and help fill in their forms so that they could get into the system; into housing and claiming the right benefits to get them started. He’d started the parked coffees idea here. Prepaid coffees for the homeless. It was a project close to his own heart. He hadn’t ever told Tara about it. He hadn’t wanted her to know the Eric who had existed before she met him. The man who was homeless. The boy who had lost his sister to that world, too, and been unable to save her. He didn’t want Tara to know any of that. He had looked upon his reflection with shame in his eyes more times
than he could count. He didn’t think he would have been able to bear Tara looking at him in the same way. Helping others like him and like Sam had eased his guilt a little, but it was a never-ending plight.

Tara was there. Just there. He was mere feet from her. His mind inside screamed at him to look away but he couldn’t keep his eyes off her. She glanced up just then and caught his eye and, for a moment, he couldn’t help but stare back. His heart soared as, for the first time in three years, her eyes were finally on him again. He couldn’t contain the feeling of joy that threatened to overflow and overwhelm his senses.

She didn’t recognise him. He was the opposite of what he had been in life. She would never be able to handle the emotional charge of seeing her Eric – not yet. He projected to her a man who was blonde, scruffy and homeless. It was the first image that had come to mind. He forced himself to break eye contact with her and head to the counter. As he stood there waiting for Sasha to greet him, he caught sight of himself in the mirror at the back. He tried not to stare. If he lost focus, then he would become the Eric Tara knew and that would never work.

It was as Sasha came towards him, another manifestation of this pretend world, that he realised he didn’t have a name other than Eric, which meant that was the name she would say. Desperately, he searched his thoughts for something else, but his mind was crowded and filled with Tara. She was behind him. She was reachable. And she was distracting him. He flipped through memories and words, like pages of a photo album, but his mind kept coming back to Tara. He hadn’t been able to believe his good fortune the day she had walked into his life. Devon, he thought, That’s where they had met and where his life had really begun. No sooner had the word flipped through his tired mind than he heard Sasha’s cheerful voice. “Hey, Devan,” she said brightly with a grin as big as he remembered.