Near Touch

Chapter 22: Girls Gone Wild

A suffocating vignette fell around Amy as the worst of her doubts regarding Caleb were confirmed. She clawed at her throat, fighting the bile that was rising rapidly, as all thoughts concentrated towards self-preservation. Run, her subconscious echoed.

Amy staggered away from the bed, her feet getting entangled in the blue sheets. A crinkle shattered the silence; something had broken under the weight of her left ankle. Like a game with a bad frame rate job, the world around her seemed to materialize with a second's delay. Amy felt a sharp jab of pain.

Caleb's voice rang hollow as he reached out. "You're bleeding —"

Looking down, Amy realized she had stepped on the glass vial in which she had tried to put a strand of Caleb's hair, all those nights ago. The largest piece had nicked her heel. Wounded on several fronts now, Amy squeezed her eyes shut and reached for the bathroom door, barricading herself inside.

For the longest time, there was blessed, cold silence. With her back against the door, Amy slid to the white tiles peppered with an angry copper from her blood. The roof of her mouth was dry as she nursed the injured limb in her lap.

Before he spoke, Amy offered a silent prayer to the gods that Caleb couldn't just reach across the door and hurt her further. She felt him breach the distance as close as he could though.

"Please don't do this, Amy... we can talk this through," Caleb said in an unsteady voice. "I need — I need you to understand..."

Fighting the urge to never speak in her life and to blast the spectre into oblivion with the nastiest words in history at the same time, Amy choked out an otherworldly sound. All this time, she had been searching for a sign and finally, the universe had provided it. Caleb was a selfish, hurtful, and malevolent creature that did not deserve her or anybody else's sympathy. Fear and pain like she had never felt in her life, now reigned supreme in the recesses of her mind.

"I would never hurt you like that," continued Caleb. "All that I said before... it was just a stray thought. A split-second mistake. I knew it was terrible and wrong and pathetic the moment you came to the roof last night. Just open the door so I can make this right..."

No! Amy thought. Caleb didn't care about her; he never had.

Caleb's pleas devolved into a mantra. "Just open the door, Amy... please... just open the door..." But just like an obstinate god, Amy did not answer.

To have come so far and have it all crash and burn before her eyes was exactly what she deserved. You destroyed your sister and now he'll destroy you. A queer sensation crawled under her skin. Amy heard it clearly – that voice in her head was not hers. But it wasn't Caleb's either. Who are you?

"You're not coming out," Caleb said in a low voice. He took a shaky breath. Amy believed his final words weren't meant for her.

Flattening her ears shut until she could hear nothing but the rush of her own blood, Amy curled into a ball, feeling as if her bones were collapsing inwards. Her body shook with tremors.

Bruised and battered, she finally gave in to exhaustion. A trial by fire for Caleb's soul ravaged her dreams for the remnants of the night — all the evidence she had ever gathered before and after the spectre had ruined the predictability of her life staked for the jury and the executioner. Weirdly, they all had Amy's face. The prosecutor, the defense, and even the stenographer looked exactly like her. He is good, he is bad, he is good, he is bad... they argued relentlessly.