Gray Matter

I awake in pieces.

First it’s a tingling in my toes that slowly washes over the rest of my body. Wherever I am, the seat is plush and warm. A couch, maybe. The breeze of a fan sweeps over me, causing my hair to tickle my neck. I want to push it away but I can’t move yet. My muscles ache. One arm is is tucked against my chest, wrapped in a heavy tenser that prevents it from moving. The other is limp at my side. My diaphragm feels like it’s locking when I attempt to inhale, my ribs thud with a dull, constant pain. Pressure is building inside of me, fuelled by anxiety and anger and every terrible feeling that’s possible to experience, but I can’t do anything about it. Just having a physical existence is painful.

Next, it’s my hearing. It begins with a shrill ringing that embeds itself deep in my skull. Eventually, it shifts into a dull, bearable whirr before finally hitting normalcy. Two low voices sit near my still figure, muttering indecipherable plans about something that I could assume involves a hostage. One voice is male, the other female. Both are different but familiar. And not in a they broke into my house sort of way. My memory of them goes beyond that, I just can’t place when.

I wince when I open my eyes, then blink furiously. It’s dark out, the only light being that given off by the small lamp tucked into the corner of my living room. A car pulls in front of the house, its headlights beaming through the cracks of the blinds hanging closed in the window. How can someone be driving by, completely oblivious to what has happened? I may be dead soon, and Adam already is. The thought wedges itself in deep within my skin.

Adam is dead. Adam is dead. Adam is dead

“You killed him,” I whisper hoarsely.

I think of his eyes. Dull brown and sad and moody but never unkind. And the way his shoulders bounced when he laughed. He was the closest thing I had to family and now I’ll never see him again.

My sob is like a tsunami tugging me out to see and dragging me back to shore. And once I catch
my breath it repeats itself. My stomach clenches. My throat feels like its caving in. And suddenly I’m consumed by the desire - no, the obligation - to get back at these people. I’m not sad. I’m angry. Irate. Livid. Seething.

“What have you done?,” I manage to grunt as I wrestle against the bandages on my limbs. It’s enough to get the attention of those watching me. The girl, whose been peeking between the curtains of the window, startles. She glances at me with a nervous expression then scurries into the hallway to the left, her blonde ponytail swaying. The other stays put. Brown hair falls in scraggly tendrils past the slope of his shoulders. Despite the seemingly neutral expression gracing his narrow, stubbled face, his gaze is sharp and aware. And on me.

When I attempt to stand a sharp pain shoots up my spine and ricochets between my ribs. My arms nearly give out when I prop myself onto my elbows, but I force them to stay steady. “I am not afraid of you,” My throat is raw, my voice scratchy.

I want to laugh at the banality of the line. Of course I’m scared. I’m fucking terrified. That’s why I haven’t done anything yet.

The man doesn’t respond right away. He doesn’t seem too much older than me - a few years, maybe - but there’s an air of control that wafts around him, making his narrow shoulders seem broader, his slender legs sturdy. He regards me for a few moments, then turns his head toward the doorway that heads into the hallway.

A pair of footsteps are approaching. The girl is returning. Before her figure emerges, though, the man nods and utters an assured, “Good.”

Craning my neck, I watch the doorway. Obvious concern is riddles the woman’s round face. It’s in the crinkle of her thick brows, the whiteness of her lips as she presses them together. When she notices me observing her, she contorts them into a tight smile

In an unexpected twist of events, she begin to approach me. Her stride is confident at first, but grows uncertain as she closes the space between us. And then she’s one meter, two feet, three inches away from me as she kneels at my side, laying a smooth hand on the couch next to my arm. Every hair on my body straightens, my heart pounds, my muscles painfully tense. Her breath warms my face. I refuse to look at her. I don’t want to know what colour her eyes are or where her freckles are located.

“Harper,” My name is a breath on her lips. Light and kind-sounding. Perhaps even laced with pity. “This will make sense soon. I promise.”

Unable to move, I’m a statue. She’s so close and I’m too scared to move because in crime shows those who survive are those who follow the order of their captor. But being obedient seems just as much as an injustice as not fighting back for Adam’s sake. I’d relive the embarrassment of Lindsay’s party a million times over again to escape this. I clench my eyelids shut, willing her to go away. Determined the wake up from this messed up nightmare where strangers know who I am and Adam has been murdered. When I open them again, she has silently retreated to the window.

And my mind is screaming because thoughts that aren’t mine are beginning to scroll across the backs of my eyelids. They are read to me in a robotic voice, like they’ve been typed into the pronunciation function of Google Translate.

Stay strong, Harper.

The tone of the words stir something inside of me. It is familiar. Every person I’m seeing and every voice I’m hearing is familiar but at the same time I don’t recognize them. My chest rises and falls. It’s a slow, subtle movement at first, but then grows to something motivated by panic. My central nervous system is forcing me to pick between fight or flight. Like I have some sort of choice.

That bastard at least owed you an explanation.

My thoughts are seized again. It’s funny, because I’m used to other people’s voices in my head. But this one is so much different. I’m up in an instant. For the second time I’m flailing my limbs and I’m screaming for everyone to get away from me but they just won’t. My torso howls as I twist it, bringing my elbows up and jabbing them toward the perpetrators. The shadowed walls are a blur surrounding me, the furniture morphing into blobs behind the tears welling up my in eyes.

I’ve gone crazy. Manic. Psychopathic. I want to claw at my face just as much as everyone else’s but I can’t because the male’s fingers are encircling my wrists and forcing me to a halt. And then a weird rush of calm falls over my body, waring against the storm in my head. Under his touch, my limbs becomes sluggish and heavy. Tired. My muscles are twitching, telling me to continue fighting, but I physically can’t. Panic is seeping into my nerves but my body doesn’t register the emotion. My heart maintains a normal, steady rhythm

“Stop,” I growl, my lip curling upward.

His black-brown eyes watch mine, but mine stare at the purple arches beneath his, and the bruise blooming across his cheekbone, and the scabbing cut drawn from his chin to his dimple. I hope those were my fault.

Without releasing his grasp, he glances fleetingly over his shoulder at the woman behind him.

The blonde steps forward, her hands clasped together beneath her pointy chin. “Harper, you need to cooperate with us. We’re here to help you.” Her voice is soft, full of unmerited sympathy and understanding.

“What do you know about Adam?” The boy interjects, folding his slender arms across his chest so that the sleeves of his hoodie slightly ride up. Inked skin peeks out from beneath them.

I speak over his shoulder. “I know he’s dead.”

They collectively wince.

And then, the more I begin to turn over my thoughts I realize that besides that I don’t know anything about Adam. Who have I been living with these past eighteen years?

No. My mind races backward, wishing to erase that thought. It’s these people. They’re planting seeds of doubt in my mind. He’d adopted me when I was a baby. Raised me. He liked pudding and taking up our small dining table with one thousand piece puzzles and house hunting television shows.

“More importantly,” The apple on the man’s throat bobs as he swallows, takes a breath and cracks his knuckles. His movements drag me out of my thoughts, reminding me to focus my bleary vision because despite what these people are saying, I’m probably not safe. “What do you know about yourself?”