Audible Cracks.

She was just hanging there like some kind of angel that was hung from off of a Christmas tree, singing “hallelujah” and her eyes shut tight in song. And her feet were raised up from off the ground in that way that made you think that it just couldn’t be real, suspended and dangling with all her hair in her face; I just knew it was her, and this angel and that life that she would exude when I used to see her. It was like life was impossible right then.

I swear to God that I didn’t believe it when I saw her.

Her nightgown was droopy and it swung with her feet. Her hands weren’t reaching out at me, and her face wasn’t glowing like it always did when she’d seen me before. Instead, she let her head drop down to her chest and hang there.

She was still beautiful, though. She was always beautiful, no matter how she acted or what she did. And I really just had refused to tell her that sometimes, refusing to tell her how much I loved her and how great I thought she was whenever I saw her. Because she really was great, and I really did have this part of my heart that was all hers. I just never told her because almost all of the time I felt sick and lonely and drugged and higher than fuck. And so I’d just try and forget about her because forgetting is easier than telling her out loud.

Fuck, was all I said.

I dropped the cigarette I had in my hand and just let it fall. It hit my shoe, but I didn’t end up kicking it off until I backed myself up into the wall in our living room. I felt like sliding down it, I really did, just so I could make everything seem like a movie I’d seen a million times before, and that none of this was real.

In that world, I could pretend it wasn’t Christmas eve, and I could pretend like this was a horror movie that I’d seen in nightmares when I was little, back when I still had dreams and a mind that I made up on my own. It was either that, I told myself, or it was the drugs hitting my system again and turning everything upside down again.

I must have been standing there for at least ten minutes before I shook my head and closed my eyes and ran for the door. And she really couldn’t have been hanging there. And she couldn’t be so hopeless, because she always seemed like she was strong, and that she was holding everything up for me. She was the anchor, not me. She was my anchor. I was just some kid that was messed up worse than anyone else and needed a wakeup call.

Outside, there was snow. I’d call it white, except for the fact that it seemed invisible. There was this film covering up my vision and I couldn’t see a damn foot in front of me. I don’t know what it was. Maybe I was about to cry. I didn’t usually cry, that just wasn’t me. I was Bill, and no one ever saw me so depressed and lonely and shitty and fucked-up and awful. That just wasn’t me. I only acted that way when I was alone.

But I was really alone, right then. I didn’t even have Anne Louise to save me anymore.

There was this snow, you know. It kept hitting my face and running down my cheeks and I swear it was the snow. And that film kept a cover over my eyes and I wished to God I could just get in the car and hit up.

So that’s what I did. I just shook it out in the front seat as soon as I shut the door. My hands roamed everywhere, trying to find a needle or something that could make me forget about everything. Maybe it could make me remember everything, or take away my pride and leave me in the front seat as just a boy who knew he was screwed up.

Even my mind wasn’t making sense.

She was pregnant with my baby, I remember thinking. That needle went straight into my vein and I closed my eyes to face the ceiling. She was pregnant with my on baby, that one that we had made together. And I knew I’d be a bad father, fuck, I just wished I could have seen him. She was pretty goddamn selfish, you know. She was pretty selfish for taking everything away from me all at once, I think. She was pregnant and she was just hanging there.

God, I thought. I just need to get out of here. I need to drive to somewhere that isn’t here. I need to just either check into a hotel or get myself off.

And I don’t ever really remember choosing either option, but in the back of my mind, I knew it was the latter. Because I had just had enough, and I wanted to walk off the battlefield with blazing dignity and selflessness. I wanted to be with them. God, I needed them.

I threw the needle in the back and pulled my keys out of my pocket. I didn’t want to feel anymore. I just wanted to leave.

Do you feel alright? I asked no one in particular. Maybe I asked myself. I don’t really know. It was just hard to concentrate on anything in between Anne Louise and the steering wheel.

It was all melting. God, I needed help.

The car pulled out of the driveway on its own; I don’t remember switching gears or putting it into drive, or reversing or steering or rolling down the window. It was so cold, and I felt absolutely empty.

That snow kept hitting my face, cold and icy and wet as soon as it melted on my hot cheeks. And I was fucking sick of driving already, I just wanted to close my eyes and be somewhere already. It was too much to have to drive with a vein or two in check. And I know that I shouldn’t have been doing anything. I shouldn’t have been out on the road when I was like that, but I couldn’t help myself. I didn’t want to sit in the driveway while I knew she was in the house just the same as she’d be until the day I died. She’d be just like that-- dangling with her feet up off the ground and her eyes all lightless and horrible.

Man, I must have been driving for a few miles. Maybe a hundred. Maybe a thousand. I kept thinking about how she was pregnant and absolutely dead. I didn’t want to think about it, but I had to. My mind kept running back to visions of her from across the room, back when I was sober and she was young and our hearts were innocent and devoted. And then I’d think about how I was such a stupid lying fuck, when I told her I was through with the drugs and she said that she believed me.

I know she didn’t, now. I know she’d never believed a word of it.

The highway is a quiet place when you’re lonely. It’s almost like you can hear yourself thinking, or even breathing. And it’s funny how I can tell anyone about this now, but right then, I didn’t have an explanation for anything. I know I don’t make sense. I know. It’s just how I am.

And I can’t even remember why I kept staring into the bright lights of the oncoming traffic, or why my hands were gripping the wheel like I was going to fall right out of my seat.

This leather’s called a seatbelt, Anne Louise.

I’m trying to remember why I wasn’t wearing mine, but it would have helped with the windshield and the impact when I didn’t give a damn anymore and swerved out of the lights.

Man, what it feels like when you’re free like that. You’re flying through the air, but you’re not. You’re just thinking you’re flying and you’re thinking you’re safe and high and amazing. But that’s not really how it is. It’s a false freedom when you know, deep down in your heart of hearts, that you’re going to end up dead.

I didn’t even feel the initial hit. I sure did feel it when I got my arm hit against the windshield, and I heard it when it cracked, and I tasted that blood that gushed out my nose when I broke it. And it was because I got flung from the car, flung right out that open window that I don’t even remember opening. Not even in the slightest. I must have done it, though, otherwise I couldn’t tell this story. I’d just be hanging blindly somewhere. Hopefully I’d be with Anne Louise. But I can’t tell.

The ground was freezing. It was the slush and ice and winter air, and the fact that all I had on was a t-shirt and some broken bones.

I could feel that force, that one that rushed those tears straight out of my eyes. And I knew they were tears this time, I wasn’t even going to deny the fact that they were there. They were fluidity and they were hot and they were the only thing keeping me alive.

My chest hurt.

I think I was sobbing.

My eyes were open, but that silvery film captured my eyes again and caught me off-guard. I wanted out I wanted out I wanted out. There was night that covered everything in black, and there was a highway and a car crash and a guy who was stoned out on any kind of drugs he could get a hold of with his eyes wide open. And there was bleeding and crying on the pavement with not a trace of sympathy in my throat.

I think I’d lost a few teeth.

I couldn’t think straight.

My ears went numb. I want out so bad I could feel my heartbeat racing and slowing in intervals I couldn’t even count. Goddamn, don’t you die on me, Anne Louise. But she already was. And so was my baby.

Racing and racing. There was stop and go and stop and go and stop. And when I closed my eyes, it was only because I saw the brightness everywhere. I didn’t want it. I just wanted black. I wanted to hold my wife and my baby and I wanted us all to be happy without any drugs I couldn’t quit or the money I couldn’t give. And I wanted to be perfect, just like she was.

God, she was perfect.

My eyes squinted and I saw that light again. Angels. I was leaving and I wasn’t ever coming back, I swore it then and there that I’d be changed forever if they brought me to the ones I loved.

Take my life, I whispered, and I’ll take it all back. I prayed so desperately for those angels to take me up into heaven and be with that beautiful Anne Louise.

But they weren’t angels.

They were ambulances.

And so I laid there and closed my eyes back up again, and I let my hearing return right along with everything else. I didn’t care anymore. They weren’t gonna let me out, I just knew it.

“Hey buddy,” some guy said to me.

I didn’t want to look at him. I just groaned and pretended like he heard me.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “Everything’s going to be okay.” And he paused. “Guys, help me get him into the back.”

I don’t want to go, I said. I don’t want to be here at all.

“Shh,” he said. “You’re going to be alright.”

But I didn’t want to be alright. I wanted to be home, and I was getting pretty fucking angry that nobody was listening to me.

They shoved me in the back of the ambulance and some other guy I didn’t take the time to care about shot a needle into my arm. Same old routine, different situation. I didn’t care that he was trying to help me, all it did was make me feel like shit. My mind was supposed to be numb, but it wasn’t. It was just making things worse.

“We’ll get you helped as soon as possible,” he told me.

I didn’t care about the help. I really didn’t.

Until I had that dream.

In that dream, there was calmness. That anger that I had all pent up and held in tight was gone, and I just breathed and breathed and breathed. And I had my eyes closed, so I couldn’t see anything, but I could feel them there. I could feel my Anne Louise, and I could feel how she was standing right beside me with her hands on her stomach and loving me like crazy. She’d never loved me like that before.

I was so calm, I remember.

I hope I don’t make sense. I hope that this always stays with me and only me forever. I need this.

The baby was there, too. And it was a girl. And she was crying inside that Anne Louise’s stomach and I wanted to reach out and hold the both of them in that silence I heard so soft and serene and calm inside my dreams.

It had been so long since I’d had a dream.

It had been so long since I had loved Anne Louise.