It was a work-out room that contained a tread mill, an upright stationary bicycle and a rack of weights. Against one wall stood a rolled-up yoga mat. Above the mat hung a Tai-Chi sword and two fans. She took a class two nights a week at the University to learn to use the sword and fans. She’d gotten pretty good. The routines took up a lot of space, so for practice, she used the communal garage on her days off or late at night, when she was certain no cars would be coming and going.
And when her joints began to inflame and the pain threatened to end her work-out, she would turn up the music on her MP3 player and will her mind away from her body. It was one of the reasons she’d eventually converted one of her rooms to an at-home gym. She so badly needed to be alone in order to concentrate enough to force her thoughts away from her body, she’d decided that the only way to realistically go about it was to work out at home from now on.
And, of course, after each work out, she would limp to her bathroom, take a hot shower, drink half a gallon of water, and take a Vicodin. It was the only way she could continue to get the exercise her body and mind craved. She figured it was either hip pain or heart pain and one was definitely worse than the other, in her book. She chose to ignore the consequences to her liver, altogether. Some times it was just better not to know.
Now, as she used Jack’s tread mill and a borrowed iPod, she changed her routine for the first time in years. Instead of willing herself away from her pain, she concentrated on it. She allowed it to consume her. A part of her wanted her body to hurt as much as her mind. So, she ran as fast as she could, as hard as she could, for as long as she could and let classic rock blare into her ear drums.
She ran at level seven out of ten for an hour and twenty minutes before the pain in her legs overshadowed the ache in her heart. She slowed the tread mill and switched play lists on the iPod. Bob Dylan told her about a woman who would give her shelter from a storm. She listened for a while, walking for another half-mile and then she shut everything down.
When she wiped her face with one of the white towels folded against the wall, she realized it wasn’t only sweat she was wiping away form her cheeks. She’d been crying and hadn’t even realized it. How many tears had she shed?
Once she was off of the treadmill, the pain really took hold. By the time she’d made it half way down the hall, her legs were seizing up on her and she was barely able to stumble to the second spare bedroom of Jack’s apartment before they gave out on her completely. She hit the bed hard and closed her eyes.
“Fuck, damn, shit.” She ran her hands over her face and rolled over, opening her eyes again. Her riding jacket and backpack were against the wall by the door. She kept the back pack at Max’s office and rarely used it. But it held a bottle of Vicodin, among other things, and she was desperately glad that Jack had thought to grab it before he’d driven her away that afternoon.
She took a slow, shaky breath and steeled herself against the pain as she stood once more and limped to the wall. She unzipped the bag and pulled out the prescription bottle. It was still two-thirds full, as she rarely used pills from this container. It was her emergency stash.
This qualified as an emergency.
She popped the top off and shook a ten milligram pill into her mouth. Normally, she would bite them in half. But not today.
Once the pill was on her tongue, she scanned the room for her bottle of water. She found it on the floor by the bed, opened it, and drank down the remainder of the bottle. And then she laid back down on the bed and waited.
The throb in her legs had spread to her lower back and ebbed ever so slowly upward, a growing flow of agony like a tide of the damned, flooding her system. She was lost in it. It was so encompassing that she didn’t notice when she slid beneath it and slipped into the welcome, protective darkness of sleep.
In her mind, she was walking down a long hallway. Her stomach rumbled. She was hungry. Why? It was lunch time. She looked over her shoulder. Cassie waited at the other end, behind her, a million miles away, in the light at the end of a strange tunnel-like blackness. Cassie smiled.
“Go on,” she said, and her voice echoed against the walls. “Tell him we’re leaving. I’ll bet he’ll want some pie. He likes those white berries in it.”
Annabelle nodded, smiling. “I’ll ask,” she said. “But they charge too much for it. Costs an arm and a leg. She turned away from Cassie. Max’s door stood before her, the golden knob huge and gleaming in some unseen light source. She placed her hand on the knob, and it didn’t fit all the way around. She brought up her other hand, grasping the handle from both sides and turning it clockwise.
With great effort, she turned it enough that it finally clicked. She pulled the door open, and looked into the room. It was engulfed in flames. Her eyes widened as the flames rushed toward the door, threatening to take her with them. She tried to move back, but her fingers were stuck to the door knob. It grew hot beneath her touch. Her fingertips began to burn. She blinked, yanking with all of her might, but to no avail. They grew hotter and hotter and, finally, she screamed.
In a fit of painful terror, she yanked herself to the right, attempting to turn around and flee, even if it meant that her fingers would remain melted, glued to the door that she couldn’t seem to let go. But her feet were also glued to the spot.
She could not move, and the heat was rising through the floor into the soles of her shoes. The flames from the room drew closer, one of them reaching out to lick her cheek in a fiery kiss. Her toes grew warm, and then hot, the pain matching in intensity to the pain in her fingers.
She screamed and screamed, hoarse with the effort to release the agony within her through the roars she issued forth. She was no longer able to do anything but stand there and suffer. Behind her, somehow coming in louder than her own bellows, came Cassie’s casual words. “Sweetie, where’s the pie? White berry pie. Crap, Max ate it all.”
Annabelle awoke from the nightmare with a scream that hit the walls and was muffled by their sound-proof qualities. But she’d been heard, nonetheless.
Within seconds, the door to the second guest room crashed open and Jack came barging into the room, closely followed by Dylan, who’d stripped down to just his jeans. His hair was a mess and his eyes were red. He must have come directly from the bed of his own guest suite.
Jack, on the other hand, was dressed from head to toe in solid black, as usual, and didn’t appear to be the least bit tired.
He was at Annabelle’s side, fast as lightning. She lay there in the bed, looking up at him and breathing heavily, her chest hitching painfully. “Oh God, oh God, Jack –”
Jack said nothing, but pulled her into his arms for the second time that day. Annabelle buried herself in his chest and shut her eyes tight against the tears. Remnants of the dream lingered about her, touching her fingers and toes with a warning tingle. They felt warm, despite the fact that she shook terribly, as if chilled to the bone.
Eventually, Jack lessened his hold and pulled back slightly so that he could look down at her. Dylan remained where he was, watching from the foot of the bed, his expression a mixture of worry and emotional exhaustion.
Slowly and steadily, all uncomfortable sensation left Annabelle’s body. At the same time, a sense of well-being and strength stole over her, erasing the unease of her dream as if by magic.
Jack’s eyes flashed with keen intelligence, taking in the change in her expression with an expert’s recognition. “Bella, you need to eat something.” His tone was soft, his voice steady.
Annabelle looked from him to Dylan and then back again. The last of the tingling in her extremities faded into comfortable nothingness and, as she sat there, she began to feel very light. The bed seemed to shift beneath her. Whether she had stopped shaking or not, she couldn’t tell. It didn’t matter. At that very moment, nothing mattered. Gloriously, mercifully, forgivingly – nothing.