Leonor

LEONOR

TWO AND A HALF YEARS AGO

L iving in New Orleans, I should be used to ghosts.

They’re everywhere; they’re in everything.

Every crack of broken cement, every crumbling brick and rotting plank of wood.

The spirits whisper in your ear as they watch your every move, they run icy fingers down your spine to make sure they will never be forgotten.

The ghosts who haunt every inch of this city, who roam between life and death, they are everywhere.

And they can’t be stopped.

Cemeteries might house the dead, but they can’t contain whatever it is they leave behind.

Broken spirits and shattered souls, bleeding hearts left to wither. Those things leave a mark—a stain on the mortal realm, and with it comes a haunting so tragic it will surely leave those involved wandering aimlessly for the rest of time.

Unless you join them.

A crack of lightning outside my window has me flinching, and I’m curling into a tiny little ball in the middle of my living room floor. My knees are tight to my chest, my trembling hands gripping them until my knuckles turn white.

The room is spinning, the lightning flashing like a strobe well after it stops, ricocheting off the ghosts who haunt me, the ones begging me to return to them once again.

Each corner glows, illuminated by the fires of my own personal hell, the demons and devils snickering amongst their tools of torture while the spirits call to me.

The spirits sing to me.

Sweet promises, gentle pleas.

They hold out their frozen hands, opening cold arms to me, their soothing words ringing in my ears.

But it’s all lies.

They can’t save me, they never could.

I wouldn’t be here if they could have saved me.

I’d be at peace; I’d be with the music.

Another blast of lightning pierces the sky, my entire apartment lighting up, and putting my demons on full display.

I just want it to stop. I want all of it to go away.

I want him to go away.

He’s all I see when I close my eyes, he’s all I can smell, all I can feel .

His hands on my body, his breath in my face.

My stomach rolls at the thought, at the memory trying to break free from the vault where it’s locked away.

Where it needs to stay.

They said I might never get those memories back, that I might never remember that night clearly. Not the show, not my… I probably won’t remember anything after what happened, but they were wrong.

I remember enough.

I remember too much.

And no matter what I do, I can’t make those glimpses of my hell go away.

It follows me everywhere, just like the ghosts.

They won’t leave me alone.

I squeeze my eyes shut tighter as the storm rages outside my window, desperately trying to make me see.

“See me, ! See me!”

With a wretch, I roll to my hands and knees, heaving as I crawl away from his words. Words that live inside my head, words that live on every inch of my body.

“You will see me, !”

The room tilts as I drag myself along the floor, grasping and clawing at the wood so I don’t fall off the edge. The edge I’ve been teetering on for months. The edge I can’t jump off of fast enough.

Tears stream down my face as bile rises in my throat, his voice so clear as it echoes in my head.

See me.

See me.

See me.

“Please stop,” I whisper while I fumble through my living room. “Please…”

You will see me.

You will see me.

A scream tears from my throat as I bump into something, the sound of cymbals and metal resounding throughout the entire space. And that one action, that one misstep is enough to set a chain of horrible events in motion.

I flip onto my back then go upright, scooting on my ass as I watch the high-hat crash into the snare, the drum banging into the guitar stand before it bounces off the floor. It rolls toward me then, slowly taunting as it comes for me, the vintage electric wobbling back and forth before it becomes a casualty too. The neck breaks as it hits the piano bench, splitting into two pieces held together by its strings and when the lid slams on the baby grand, the keys cry out in pain.

See me.

I cover my ears at the sound, the bellowing instruments, the booming thunder. His voice that’s still screaming in my head.

“Stop,” I say to no one as I scramble backward, covering my ears, my eyes shut tight as the tears keep coming. “Stop, please.”

But it doesn’t.

Nothing stops except the destruction of their tools, the tools I once used and loved, the tools that will forever haunt me.

They belong to the devil now, and if I ever want to find peace, I have to join them.

I force my hands away from my head, force my eyes open as I plant them firmly on the floor. Pushing myself to my feet, I blink away the tears, but with every flash of lightning, I falter. In every flash of lightning, I see his eyes.

See me, .

Staggering toward the island in my kitchen, my stomach pitches and bottoms out, twisting in pain and fear as those eyes get closer.

You will see me!

“Stop!” I cry out as I fall back onto the counter, my head hitting the marble hard enough for spots to dance across my vision.

And that’s when I feel it, feel them .

His hands on my body.

Sliding down my neck and across my chest.

His palm on my breast then my stomach.

His fingers trail over my sides and my hips before I feel them along the top of my jeans, and no matter how hard I cry, no matter how loud I scream… I feel him inside me.

“No!” I pull myself over the edge of the island, knocking my backpack on the floor as I land next to it on my back with a thud.

Everything is spinning now, spiraling out of control.

The ghosts are so much louder, and my head lolls toward them as I silently beg them to take me away.

But instead of the dimming light or the cold, black void, I see him. I see his eyes staring back at me, shining in malice, glimmering in rage-filled glee.

You will see me.

See me.

I reach out to touch his face, to find it in the cloaked darkness I can never escape. I’m ready to accept my fate and allow him and the demons to take me away, but my hand goes through his eyes and land on something small and round.

A pill.

Tearing my gaze from his, I look to my right and see that there are pills everywhere, my prescriptions we just picked up spread all over the kitchen floor, and I know this is what the ghosts were saying.

The spirits want me to join them, and this is how.

Rolling to my side, I begin scooping up the dozens of pills off the wooden planks. Mood stabilizers and antidepressants, opiates and benzodiazepines. All life changing, life saving, but not tonight. There are at least ten prescriptions dumped out and within my reach, and I know exactly what I need to do.

Handful after handful, I eat my way to freedom, swallowing the circles and ovals dry, forcing them down my throat even when I gag.

My muscles work hard against the coating, but they do what they’re supposed to and within seconds, I’ve taken everything that was within my reach.

I start to go numb as I flop to my back, my breaths quick and shallow as I stare up at the ceiling while my pulse slows like a broken metronome. My vision blurs around the edges, growing dimmer by the second as I realize…

His voice, his touch, his eyes, they’re all gone.

A faint smile pulls at my lips as my lids grow heavy, as my body grows cold and I think, I won't be seeing him ever again.

I will see him, nevermore.