Heartkiller

Friday, March 18, 2013

Birthdays are a time to celebrate the end of another year of life. It’s a positive time to recount all the happiness that has filled your life. Cake, streamers, presents… that’s what people usually do. Ville and Avery were accustomed to a comparatively leisurely ceremony by getting dinner at a nice restaurant. Some years they opted to give presents, but it wasn’t often. Simply the company of the love was enough for them, especially when they spent so little time together as it was. Birthdays were a time when they worked to be with each other so they could celebrate with the people who mattered.

But what do you do when you have nothing left to celebrate?

Avery was turning thirty-five today, and she had still gone into work in an attempt to maintain some sense of normalcy. The cases, the clients, the depositions… she needed all that to distract her from the fact that today marked another year of her life. Avery had been successful in keeping her mind preoccupied so far, but the day was still young. She had gone to a meeting to debrief the progress of one of her cases and had conducted a deposition in preparation for a trial.

Ville had cancelled his trip to Finland, opting to stay with her until they were stronger. Within a few days, he had convinced her that she needed to return to the firm.

“You can’t let this rule your senses forever,” he had said.

He was right. It would have been much worse if she were left isolated from the rest of the world. At least now, she was interacting with other people, and sometimes, if only momentarily, she would lose herself in her work long enough to forget the emptiness in the pit of her stomach. Although it had been almost two months since the news of the miscarriage, the pain was still as strong as ever.

Though Avery had been going into work, she still didn’t explain to anybody what happened or why she had requested so many days off. At first, it was difficult to dress herself and stride down the hallways of the firm, but things slowly got better. Things became bearable, and she could contribute to a meeting without feeling like her insides were burning. Ville stayed home so that she wouldn’t come home to an empty apartment because no matter how strong she had been able to feign at work, she would always return home feeling worthless. Some days, she would bawl her eyes out in his arms, and other days she would be silent and still. Her eyes would be transfixed on the wall while she lay with him.

Ville had seen how depressed she had been, and he tried his best to comfort her these past weeks. His efforts were futile since her pain was justified by the loss of their baby. He had been hurt, obviously, but he couldn’t imagine how low Avery felt. She was someone who measured her value by her achievements, and the miscarriage was perceived as a failure. It didn’t matter how many times he tried to reassure her that this wasn’t her fault because she would never believe him. Even when the doctor had confirmed that this could have been an unfortunate case of luck--especially when ten to twenty-five percent of all pregnancies ended in a miscarriage--and that there wasn’t anything Avery could have done differently, she didn’t believe it. Although Ville did all kinds of research trying to understand the mechanisms of a miscarriage, trying to use reason to appeal to her, it didn’t make a difference. After some point, he accepted that there was nothing he could do or say to change how she felt. Short of bringing the baby back to life, Ville was out of options. All he could do was be there for her emotional support.

At the moment, she was alone in her office. Avery sat at her desk and stared at the bouquet of roses that had just been delivered. Her quivering hand reached for the card that was tied to a stem. She opened the small piece of cardstock and read the message:

Happy Birthday, Avery Valo. Hope you had an amazing year, and here’s to many more.
Best wishes,
Sterling, Ellis, and the partners

She had to hold back a pained scoff. She murmured, “Had an amazing year… Yeah.”

She knew they meant well. Of course they did. The partners didn’t know what had happened to her; no one but Ville knew what she was going through and what she was hiding. She couldn’t blame them for the way she was feeling. Her gaze focused on the card once again, concentrating on those five taunting words: “you had an amazing year.” Avery rolled her eyes and angrily dropped the card on her desk. It was most certainly not an amazing year. Far from it. It should have been great, it should have been the happiest year of her life so far… but it was the most painful thing she’d ever experienced. She couldn’t hold it together anymore. Avery could feel the tears threatening to spill out, and she couldn’t risk doing that here. She needed Ville.

He wasn’t here with her now. Usually she would be able to hold herself together until she got home. Not today. Not on her birthday. She grabbed her cellphone and rushed out of the office, making a beeline for the elevators. She couldn’t break down in the middle of the office and locking herself in the bathroom stall was too much of a risk. What if someone came in and heard her sobs? Once she exited the elevator, she dashed for the glass doors and closed her eyes when she felt the cool New York air hit her skin. She became obscured in the crowd of people that hustled past her. She dialed the number for the apartment. She needed Ville.

“Hello, darling.” he said with a concerned voice. “You don’t usually call in the middle of the day. What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

“Ville…” she said, her voice cracking. “I can’t do this anymore.”

Ville’s heart raced as he panicked. He didn’t know what she meant. “What?”

“I can’t pretend… I just got a bouquet of flowers for my birthday from my boss, and it was… it had an otherwise mundane message. I would never have thought anything of it, but today… but today and after what’s happened, my God, Ville, it just tears at every part of me. We were supposed to be happy. This year was supposed to be amazing and it’s not.” she said with grit teeth and tears falling down her cheeks.

“I’m sorry, Ave. I really am." Ville confessed. "I wish there was something I could do to change things.”

She bit her lip. “I know you do. I wish I could change it, too. I wish I could have done it right.”

“Do you wanna come home early? I know you said you needed to go into work today, but I don’t want you to be alone when you feel like this. It… I can’t stand to hear you like this, Ave.”

She sniffled. Now that she was calmer, her tears were starting to dry. “No, no, it’s okay. I just needed a minute of fresh air. I hate that every little fucking thing makes me think about what happened, but I can’t… I can’t just shy away forever. I need to deal with it. Thank you, baby. I needed to hear your voice. You make it all better.”

“I don’t--I don’t really feel like I made a difference." he cocked an eyebrow. "Are you sure you’re better?”

Avery smiled genuinely. “Of course I am. You don’t know how much power you wield over me with just your voice… I love you, Ville. I love you.”

“Love you.”

“I’ll see you tonight, okay?”

“Yeah. See you. Bye.”

“Bye.”

Ville didn’t know what to do or say. She had been this way for so many weeks now, and he would provide comfort any way he knew how, but today, he was speechless. He couldn’t bear to see his love in such despair even on her birthday. He knew she found it difficult to celebrate, but he wanted her to have something. Ville didn’t want her to be sobbing and doubting her existence.

The pain came in waves. Today, she was drowning.

When she got home, Avery was ready to give up. She wanted to go to sleep and never wake up again. Her birthday was a harsh reminder of the recent events, and it was tormenting her. She closed the door behind her and found the apartment empty.

“Ville?” she called out weakly.

There was no response. She frowned. He was usually home. Dropping her messenger bag on the living room floor, Avery trudged her way to the bedroom and crawled underneath the covers. She was hopeless and desperate. She had never felt so pathetic in her life as she had these past few months.

She thought of Ville and how he was trying to make her feel whole again. He had been able to deal with the miscarriage much better than she had; he had come to accept what had happened and was willing to move on. She wasn’t. The first few days, he had been pretty reckless and shut her out completely. They were in the apartment together, yes, but it was as though they were on different planets. Ville remained locked up in the bedroom strumming his guitar. It was torturous. Meanwhile, Avery spent her days in the living room or in the bathtub, but still rather disengaged from the world. For a few days, the two hardly ever interacted.

And then, they finally sat in the same room together. They had cried their wells of tears dry and sat in silence on the bed. Their dialogue was slow at first, then all at once, even resorting to uttering some pretty nasty words. They calmed down, though. And once they did, Ville started to recuperate and move on while she fell deeper into the depths of her emotional abyss.

She rolled over in the bed and buried her face in the pillow. Avery screamed as loud as she could to try and release the frustration and anger built within her throughout the day. Her hand curled into a fist and she punched the soft pillow, but it didn’t help relieve the tension. In a rage, she stood and slammed her hands into the table in the side of the room. Her hands stung with pain, but she didn’t care. She pulled the drawer and smashed it back in, creating a thunderclap that echoed throughout the room. She pulled and pushed the drawer repeatedly, allowing the aggression to get the anger out. She pulled the drawer completely out and threw it to the floor with all the force she could muster. The contents scattered all over the floor.

Though Avery didn’t realize it, there were tears streaming down her face. Avery smirked at how pathetic she seemed. She was a wreck of a human being, an anchor dragging him down. Ville deserved better, she convinced herself. He needed to move on and be happy again, but she… she was done. They didn’t belong together, at least that’s what she told herself. She loved him. She always would, but she could no longer bear to see him so lonely. She did that. It was her fault. He deserved to move on from the miscarriage. He deserved to move on from her. Ville deserved to be happy.

The solution was clear in her mind. Once the thought came to her, she didn’t waste any more time pondering the ramifications; Avery turned on the light in the bedroom. The fluorescence of the light was blinding, and she shielded her eyes with her palm. Ville wasn’t home right now. He couldn’t stop her. If she was going to do this, it had to be now. Avery started opening the drawers of the dressers in search for something she wasn’t even sure was there. She went through her drawers completely and turned up empty-handed. Groaning as she got up, Avery moved to Ville’s dresser and lifted up the neatly folded boxers. It wasn’t until she reached the sock drawer at the bottom of the dresser that she spotted the silver piece wedged into the side of the drawer. A razorblade. Avery tenderly took it out of the gap and held it in her hand. She hesitated, debating if she had the guts to do this.

Avery turned in her position and rested on the floor against the wall. As she turned the razorblade between her fingers, her eyes darted throughout the bedroom… There was a lump in her throat that she couldn’t swallow. While chewing the bottom of her lip, she stared at the platinum winning Love Metal award that hung above the headboard. She smiled. Oh, his music. It was the first thing that she spotted and one of the things she would miss the most. She walked to the stereo in the bedroom and turned it on, letting whichever CD inside play. When she heard Ville’s baritone voice ring throughout the bedroom walls, her smile grew wider. She kept the volume low to provide a backdrop without overpowering her senses.

She took a few steps further and saw the portrait of the blended family on the couple’s wedding day: Avery and Ville were in the center and their respective families were on either side of them. Next to the frame was another picture from the wedding, but it was only of Ville and Avery. It was a spontaneous capture of the happy couple in a private moment, laughing at something he had said, and Avery had found it to be too endearing a moment not to have posted on their wall. Her fingers ran over the glass pane of the picture as she revelled in the moment. it was a beautiful wedding and an even more wonderful marriage with the man she loved with all her heart. Avery turned and retreated to the foot of the bed. She looked down at the floor. Her husband, her family, her friends, her career… there were so many things she would be saying goodbye to. Could she do this?

She let out an exasperated sigh and spotted a black bag out of the corner of her eye. Once it was in her line of vision, she couldn’t help but look further. When she walked over to it, she pulled out the small pair of black baby shoes that she had bought. The baby. The baby she was supposed to have. Avery let out a noise of utter disgust at herself. She picked up the bag of shoes and stuffed into the bag the various other things the couple had bought for their child including the numerous parenting books they had gotten. Once she had stuffed everything related to the baby inside the bag, she walked into the study and stashed away the bag into a bookshelf out of sight.

The answer was clear as day.

She could do this. Avery clutched the razorblade in her palm and returned to the bedroom. She sat on the bed and turned the razor over between her fingers, playing with it. It was something so small, but it carried so much power. Without a second thought, she gripped the blade and sliced a thin line into her wrist. The cut wasn’t very deep, and she watched droplets of blood bubble at the surface of the cut. Using her index finger, she wiped it away and was mesmerized by the trail. The corner of her lips pulled into a smile. She cut once more, deeper this time, and watched the blood trickle from the wound.

Ville entered the apartment and closed the door behind him, oblivious to what she was doing in the bedroom. He held a box with a single cupcake, a vanilla cake topped with a buttercream frosting from her favorite bakery. It wasn’t much of a present, but the situation didn’t really allow for him to be creative. It wasn't much, only a small gesture to show that she still mattered. He hoped it would be enough to prove to Avery that she would always matter to him, despite this stumble. After tossing his keys onto the dining table, he pulled out his lighter from his pocket, lifted the top of the box to uncover the treat, and lit a candle on top of the cupcake. He smiled, eager to surprise Avery. He looked up and couldn’t see his wife anywhere.

“Ave?” he called. There was no reply, but Ville could see her messenger bag at the foot of the couch. She was home. “Avery, darling?”

Without a response to guide him, he walked down the hallway in search. He could hear the faint sound of “Sleepwalking Past Hope” coming from the bedroom. With a grin on his lips, he started singing Happy Birthday in Finnish, her favorite version, as he walked towards the bedroom door.

“Paljon onnea vaan,” he sang. “Paljon onnea vaan…”

When he reached the doorway, he saw Avery sitting on the bed with her left elbow resting on her knee. She was focused on her wrist, a grin gracing her lips, and Ville narrowed his eyes. What was she looking at? He stopped singing when his eyes widened in realization. Blood. His veins coursed with adrenaline, and his green eyes were shadowed by panic. He hurriedly blew out the candle and, in his rush, dropped the cupcake to the floor as he went to her side.

“What are you doing, Avery?” he pleaded and she only looked at him with a mesmerized smile.

She was gone; he didn’t know if she was medicated or drunk, but when Ville looked into those baby blues, he didn’t see his wife. Ville didn’t wait for an answer from her. He yanked the razorblade from her hand and threw it behind him. He grabbed her by her left wrist, applying pressure to help stop the bleeding, and led her towards the bathroom. Her lips were stretched in a sardonic grin as she followed behind him. They reached the bathroom sink, and Ville ran warm water over the wound while they watched the blood wash away.

While he still held her wrist, using his fingers as a tourniquet of sorts, he opened the medicine cabinet looking for the first aid kit. It wasn’t there, though, and he groaned in frustration, throwing open all the cabinet doors. Tears blurred his vision, making it harder for him to remain stable; he knew that the situation called for him to be level-headed if he had any chance at fixing this. Ville finally found the white box of supplies in the cabinet under the sink and he took it out. Placing the kit on top of the counter, he held Avery with his left hand while he pulled out a few cotton balls and some gauze with his right hand. He attended to her wounds and made sure her bleeding had stopped. Using the cotton balls to dry the area, Ville then wrapped the gauze around her wrist tightly to protect the skin while it healed.

It wasn’t until Ville looked up at her that Avery saw the tears in his eyes. Her smile faded. This wasn’t a good thing, she realized. Once he taped the gauze tightly to her skin, he dropped her hand, and she watched him put away the supplies. Avery sat down on the tile floor waiting for him to finish. The false elation that she had felt for the past few minutes dissipated and was replaced by sorrow. She didn’t mean for this to happen. It was too late to go back now. She’d hurt him. She’d hurt him even more, and that’s the last thing she wanted to do.

Ville, having put away the first aid kit and cleaned up the mess, hesitated at the sink. He wasn’t sure if he should sit down next to her; he didn’t know if she would push him away. He looked down at her. She sat with her knees pulled up and her hands resting on her thighs. With her brown-blonde locks falling in her face, Avery stared at her wrists. He didn’t know what to make of it. He knew she was upset and depressed, but he couldn’t have imagined it to be so severe that she had considered taking her own life. He swallowed the lump in his throat, but he couldn’t quell the sickness at the pit of his stomach.

Finally, he sat down beside her with his legs crossed. He sized her up at first, trying to gauge her senses. Avery was boring her eyes through her wrists, and he took her left hand in his, tenderly holding her palm. As soon as his skin came in contact with the cotton of the gauze, he started tearing up. Ville then tightened his grip to reassure her before he wrapped his arms around her shoulders to pull her into a hug. He held her close and pressed his lips to her temple. He kissed her cheek several times.

“You can’t do that to m-me.” he said, his voice breaking. “I-I need you with me, my kultaseni. Why would you do that?”

Avery looked up at him and saw the love with which he stared back at her. Despite everything that happened, despite her failure, he still loved her. She didn’t understand that. Without answering his question, she looked at him with tear-filled eyes and asked in a grave tone, “I gave up on myself a long time ago; why haven’t you done the same?”

“Because I’m in love with you.” Ville replied matter-of-factly and without hesitation. Wasn’t it obvious?

“Why?” she countered with a weak, solemn voice.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, why are you with me? I… I can’t travel with you on tour, we’re never together for more than a few weeks at a time.” she took a breath, but she continued to grow flustered, “I’m overbearing, I’m demanding, I'm independent but sometimes unabashedly so. I rule your life… I can’t do anything right. I’m an anchor to you. What could possibly make you love me?” she asked, sniffling and wiping away her tears.

Ville cupped her face and wiped her cheeks with his thumbs. He met her eyes and spoke, “I love you because we don’t need to be together every second of the day to know that we care about each other. You’re free to have a life of your own, but when I am home and we are able to spend time with one another, you can always manage things so that it didn’t matter that we hadn’t seen each other in three months. You make all the waiting worth it. You make me feel like I matter, but you’re never afraid to put me in my place and ground me to Earth when my ego is carrying me away…

“And who told you that you can’t do anything right? There are very few things that you do wrong. You’re amazing. I love you because you’re so determined and because you never give up. Even when I’m on the edge and I’m about to let go and lose all hope, I can turn to you and you’ll be hanging on… things will test your patience and your persistence, but you’ll never let go. Things will be hard, and you’ll suffer through them, but you’ll always pull yourself out in the end.

“You, my dear darling, make my life exhilarating and I wouldn’t change a thing about you. Don’t think for a second that I love you in spite of the fact that you don’t travel and that you ask things of me. Those aren’t flaws. I love you… I love you because of those things. That’s what makes you the person you are, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Avery bit her lip and looked down. Although she thought herself a failure, Ville was able to point out all the great things about herself that she’d forgotten. “I love you, Ville.”

“Then, why--” his breath caught in his throat and he swallowed hard. He rested his forehead against hers and closed his eyes, though a few tears spilled onto his cheeks. “Why would you do this?”

“Because I thought you’d be better off without me.” Avery replied, nibbling her bottom lip. She looked away, and his head slipped off. “Because I thought that if I left, you would be free to… to move on with someone better. Someone you deserve. I… I can’t deal with this pain any longer… and it would kill me to--” she blinked away tears before continuing, “to watch you be happy with someone else. I couldn’t bear the idea, but I thought it necessary for you to be with someone else… someone who wasn’t carrying the baggage I was.”

“Sweetheart, I spend every day trying my damn near hardest to make sure that I deserve you. I hope that I deserve someone as great, loving, generous, and intelligent as you are.” Ville, already holding his wife in his arms, pulled her into his lap, forcing her to make eye contact with him. “Besides, what makes you think that I would be with someone else if I no longer had you?”

She leaned her head against his chest. “I don’t know, Ville. I don’t know. I just want it to stop hurting.” she said and began to whimper.

He held her tighter and kissed her hair repeatedly. With a finger at her chin, Ville tilted her head upwards, allowing him to place a few tender kisses on her lips. He kissed her once more and lingered at her mouth. Holding her head by the base of her neck, Ville placed more kisses on her cheeks as he made his way to her neck. Avery’s whimpers quieted, though tears continued to flow freely. He pressed his lips to her neck hesitantly and gently. Ville was trying to help her, but it was also to comfort himself. With every kiss, he was reassuring himself that his dear wife was still there with him. He pulled away and looked at Avery. With his eyes locked with hers, he took her wrists in his hands and placed a single kiss on each.

“Where else does it hurt, babe?” he asked.

Wordlessly, Avery pointed to her belly, and he had to hold back a sob. He pulled up the hem of her blouse to reveal the olive skin of her stomach. Bending down, he placed several kisses, ardent kisses, on her skin before he sat up straight again. She leaned her head against his shoulder and placed a kiss on his collarbone.

“I’m sorry for what I tried to do to myself, Ville.” she whispered and kissed his chest again. “It won’t happen again, I promise... I love you, honey.”

“I love you, too, Avery Louise.” He hugged her tightly and kissed her hair. “I love you, too.”