This Deafening Silence

I instinctively hissed at the bright light flickering over my eye, which the EMT had to physically hold open. I just wanted to keep my eyes shut. I didn’t want to see him anymore. But since when do I get what I want?

Cooper’s face hovered above me, his sinister smile blurring because of my watery eyes. “I knew you couldn’t resist. I knew you couldn’t hold out that long.”

“Fucking stop it,” I choked out, trying to push the EMT away, but another EMT was holding down my wrists, trying to wrap them up. I don’t know why they were even bothering. These were the kind of cuts that wouldn’t stop bleeding with pressure and time. These were the kind of cuts that opened up the arteries, the kind of cuts that wouldn’t stop without stitches.

“You’re just dying for another hit, aren’t you?” said Cooper with a serene sigh.

“What are you even doing here?” I demanded, trying to sit up. I did sit up, despite the EMTs’ protests, but I just collapsed again anyways. I was feeling faint from all the blood loss.

“I’ve always been here with you, Maddie,” Cooper told me with that eerily wide smile of his.

“You’re not real,” I sobbed, closing my eyes. I could still feel the EMTs rolling me into the ER. They worked quickly and efficiently. Soon my pale skin was laced with black stitches. They started to clean up the blood as best as they could.

Cooper grabbed my hand, leaning down so his face was inches from mine. “Oh, believe me, I’m real. It’s all this,” he said with a vague gesture to the operating room and hospital personnel bustling about, “that’s not real. You know where you really are right now, Madds? Passed out in your car from all that coke you did. That’s right, Madds, you had one hell of a relapse. ”

“No.” I tore my hand out of Cooper’s grip. I think it was actually the surgeon or something, though, because some of the stitches came out. I had to be sedated so they could finish stitching me up in peace.

I liked sleeping. I liked that nice feeling of just floating through fluffy darkness until you sank to the soft bottom. This sedation was nothing like that. I could feel the drugs forcefully tearing me from consciousness, could feel that darkness I found to be so comforting suddenly turn hostile and drag me down deeper into itself.

It wasn’t pleasant, but…at least Cooper wasn’t down there.

He was there when I woke up, though. He was the one that woke me up, and you know how? He was throwing cherry bombs at the foot of my bed. “Finally! Damn, Madds, it took me forever to wake you the fuck up!” Cooper laughed with that same shit-eating grin on his face. It was only six thirty in the morning. I’d only been asleep for…six hours or so, and that was not enough sleep for me.

I just sighed and pulled my pillow out from under my head to cover my face with it. Mistake. Cooper came over and held the pillow tightly over my face. I screamed and flailed under it helplessly, unable to breathe.

However, it was Alex who ripped the pillow off my face. “Maddie?”

Gasping, I looked around the dimly lit hospital room. Alex had been sitting in the recliner right beside my bed, but he sat up to tear the pillow out of…my own hands?

Cooper rolled his eyes. He was sitting on the counter by the sink, glaring at Alex. “You’re still with this fucker? Unbelievable, Madds. You can do so much better.”

“Shut up,” I told Cooper through gritted teeth.

Confused, Alex looked around. “Maddie, who are you talking to?” Alex asked as he handed me a glass of water. Water always tastes so good when you’re severely dehydrated.

“No one,” I muttered, rubbing my eyes with a sleepy yawn.

Cooper twitched. “I know what you’re thinking, Madds. And just because he can’t see me doesn’t mean I’m not real, you hear me? I am real. I am here. And I am never going to leave.”

I handed Alex the glass of water again, overwhelmed by a sickening feeling in my stomach. Even if Cooper wasn’t here physically, he was right – he would always lurk in my mind. Cooper was the embodiment of everything that was bad in my life, everything that I tried to bury when I finally had Alex. Looks like I didn’t bury it deep enough.

“Maddie?” Alex tried my name again, slowly reaching for my hand. I hugged the pillow to my chest before he could touch me, though, so he let his hand drop with a sigh of defeat. “Ok, I guess I deserved that one…Um…so…”

“I don’t want to talk to you right now,” I told Alex firmly, surprised at how weak and small my voice sounded. “I’m tired.”

Alex simply nodded and sat back down in the recliner. “Who are you seeing, Maddie?”

Cooper grinned so wide I wish his face would just break already. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I murmured, absentmindedly tracing my stitches. The anesthetic they used was starting to wear off, and this irritating burning sensation consumed my arms. Maybe I also woke up because of that.

Alex narrowed his eyes at me. “Then why do you keep looking over at the sink there?”

I had no response for that, but Cooper certainly did. “Go on, Madds, tell him. Tell him I’m not here. Let him know just how fucked up you are in the head. We’ll see if he still wants you then,” Cooper sneered.

My eyes watered. “It’s…Cooper.”

Alex straightened in his seat and his eyes hardened. “Maddie… Cooper’s in jail for life, remember? He’s not here. Whatever you’re seeing, he’s not real, Maddie.”

Cooper arched his eyebrow at Alex, folding his arms across his chest, and I could read the words he wanted to say from his very expression. “He…says the same about you,” I muttered, glaring at my stitches like the heat of my gaze could solder my skin back together.

“You don’t know what’s real?” Alex asked, his voice soft with incredulity.

“You know, maybe Cooper’s right,” I said rather angrily, insulted with the patronizing tone he was starting to take with me. “And maybe it would be better if he’s right. Maybe he’s just in my head, but at least he doesn’t cheat on me.”

Alex’s jaw tightened. “You know your argument makes no sense, right?”

I realized rather bitterly that he made sense. Why did I choose to believe Cooper’s nonsense over Alex?

Oh, yeah… I hated Alex too much.