M Sellars - Miranda

Under the circumstances, I really didn’t want to start down that path. I was having enough trouble going along with this as it was. Dredging up the things that could go wrong certainly wouldn’t help.

I tried to circumvent the question while still reassuring her and at the same time myself. “It’s nothing that you would need to be concerned about.”

“But what about you?” she pressed.

I lied, not that I expected it to go unnoticed, but I gave it a shot anyway. “Not really.”

As expected, she looked at me with something akin to suspicion. “Are you absolutely certain about that?”

“I take it we’re coming back around to something you’ve heard?” I asked.

She acknowledged with a dip of her head. “Yes, I’ve been privy to a few stories.”

I shrugged. She obviously wasn’t going to let up, so I had no choice but to address her concern, like it or not. “Then maybe it would be easier for me to answer you if you share what you’ve heard,” I said. “Then I can tell you if it’s legitimate or unfounded.”

“All right then,” she said. “I’ve been told by an extremely reliable source that while doing this sort of thing you have experienced maladies ranging from violent seizures to an apparent cardiac arrest. Spontaneous hemorrhaging and the sudden appearance of stigmata-like wounds were also mentioned.”

I let out a heavy sigh in the wake of the comment. As the memories conjured by it began to overtake my brain, I muttered, “Well, unfortunately, I’m afraid I can’t deny any of that.”

“So then you can see my concern?” she pressed.

The question didn’t register. My attention had already taken a hard right turn and was now well off course, speeding headlong through a darkened tunnel of foreboding. I knew she had said something to me, but since the words didn’t connect, I simply grunted what I thought might be an appropriate response. “Yeah…”

“All of those things sound fairly serious to me. So for my own peace of mind, what I really need to know is if they are something that could possibly happen today if I were to allow you to go through with this?”

The question echoed past me as I stared through her at the wall. Again, the words were nothing more than noise rattling in my ears, with no meaning or reason.

The painful memories that were now assaulting me had already been in the back of my mind; they always were. However, I purposely kept them locked away. That tactic seemed to work for the most part, until someone would come along and manage to let them out, that is. Just like was happening right now.

With them now on the loose and running unchecked through the front of my brain, my anxiety received an unwanted boost that felt like it all but stopped my heart. I couldn’t keep myself from extrapolating the experiences and applying them to the current situation. Unfortunately, in each of these mental simulations, I was not the subject, Felicity was.

The hole in the pit of my stomach was growing. I could feel it expanding through my gut as the bile churned and gnawed around the edges.

I felt a thump against the back of my leg but ignored it. A moment later it came again, a bit harder. Through my self-imposed fog, I finally realized it was the toe of Felicity’s tennis shoe. She hadn’t assaulted me with a full-fledged kick, but the force of the second thud told me it wasn’t merely an accident either; it was definitely on purpose and meant to get my attention. I slowly glanced over at her and saw that she was staring at me with more than a little concern in her eyes.

“Rowan?” she said. “Are you okay then?”

Doctor Kingston was speaking almost simultaneously. “Mister Gant, is something wrong?”

“I’m… I’m sorry,” I stuttered in apology, turning back to her. “Sorry… Just… Ummm… What was the question again?”

She gave me a cautious stare and then paraphrased her earlier query, “Should I be concerned that you might experience some sort of life-threatening reaction if I let you go through with this?”

“Well…” I began with a heavy sigh. “I really don’t think it’s anything to worry about in this case…” I forced myself to say the words, even though I didn’t believe a single one of them myself.

“Are you certain?” she pressed. “No offense intended, but you don’t sound particularly convinced.”

I reached up and rubbed my forehead. The onslaught of images set loose by my unrestrained imagination was still ravaging my brain. And now, the endless loop of the vision depicting my battered and emaciated wife was playing over the top of them in vivid, contrasty hues. The acute distress they caused was consuming me in violent waves, and I could no longer maintain the calm charade.

“Mister Gant?”

“I’m sorry,” I told her, shaking my head. “I just… I just…”

“Is something wrong?” she asked.

“What?” I asked. I understood her words, but anything resembling a coherent response escaped me. I looked over at my wife then over to Ben. They were both staring at me with worried expressions.

“You okay, Kemosabe?” my friend asked. “Somethin’ change all of a sudden? You goin’ Twilight Zone?”

Panic set in.

I felt the room starting to close in around me, and my chest tightened as a low hum began pulsing against my eardrums. I glanced quickly between all their faces once again then said, “I’m…I’m sorry. I think…I…I just need to get some air.”

I pushed up from the chair and turned. Then I stumbled around the piece of furniture as I aimed myself at the door. I heard the hollow drone of both Ben and Felicity calling out my name behind me, but I was already putting distance between them and me at an increasingly rapid pace. Less than a half minute later, I was standing in the middle of the parking lot with my eyes closed and the heels of my palms pressed against them while I tried to recapture my breath.

It wasn’t very long before I heard a pair of voices engaged in a hesitant conversation. They were coming from a point that sounded to be several feet behind me, and both of them were just barely audible over the traffic on the nearby highway. However, they were still clear enough for me to recognize as Ben and Felicity.

I knew, of course, that my sudden rush out of the building couldn’t be ignored. So at the very least I’d fully expected my wife to follow after me. The fact that Ben joined her was no big surprise at all. He’d been down this road with me several times himself.

I had only just begun to find my breath, and my heart was still hammering against my ribcage as it threw its frenzied tantrum. The horror projecting inside my skull remained clear and inescapable; it didn’t matter whether my eyes were closed or open. I was honestly beginning to wonder if this was all just another part of Miranda’s plan to remove me as a threat. To torture me into submission by leaning on the weakness I had so blatantly displayed to her over and over again. It was just like something she would do, and she would enjoy every minute of it.

I sensed someone standing next to me and heard a quick series of shuffling noises, but I didn’t open my eyes. I had a good feeling I knew who it was without even looking, and when the light breeze shifted allowing me to catch a hint of familiar perfume, my suspicion was instantly confirmed.

I wasn’t actually ready to talk to anyone just yet, even my wife, but I suspected that soon I wasn’t going to have much choice in the matter. I suppose I could have simply turned and started walking away, but I realized that I wasn’t going to be able to put off the inevitable forever. And running down the road like a madman with a petite redhead in hot pursuit wasn’t going to solve anything for either of us.