no faltering now




When I look out at the fields in front of me, I think that they will never grow to any shade of green ever again. Barren no matter the season, rolling hills stretch on forever in front of this house that is a prison. The grass grows yellow and dry, though each after each winter, I watch it emerge from the blanket of snow, hoping to see it bloom to a lush green to no avail. Year after year, the same dull color, matching the sky perfectly. The pollution and dust in the air glints in the small amount of sunlight that breaks through the clouds, perpetually hung over the city.

The dusty pink cushion beneath me has been worn out from years of overuse and now it lets my body sink into it onto the wood panel beneath. My dress flows around my knees, drawn up in front of me, resting on the cool glass of a window smudged with desperate lip prints. I breathe in, a deep sigh, and release my breath into the thick recycled air of my bedroom. It’s more of a prison now. No furniture save for a wrought iron bed frame on top of which there’s a mattress as comfortable as plywood. The walls are the same dark wood as the flooring, having been turned grey by the years. The cold makes the spider webs coating the corners of the room go stiff as well as making me wear the heaviest sweater I own, hiding the bandaged chilblains on my hands in the cuffs. Liam never has a problem with the cold in the house, and I never ask him about it. For all I know, he keeps a freezer or a fan outside my room just to make it like this.

I live in this penitentiary of a home with my older brother, Liam, who despises me. The minute I turn eighteen, he tells me, I’m out. I’d give anything to leave sooner, anything at all, but the will our parents left says otherwise. If this household is a prison, Liam is the guard at the gates, pistol in hand. Steely eyed and tall, he sees me as a nuisance to be dealt with, no better than a spider crawling across the breakfast table. He’s ten years my senior and firmly put himself in charge after the death of our parents. He studies for his tests taken at the university one city over where he’s a student, and he doesn’t do much else. We used to have another sister, but she got away. We don’t talk about her.

Brushing hair out of my eyes, I feel my spine throb uncomfortably, sore from making beds. I’m a low-level nurse at the hospital downtown day in and day out, going straight there and straight back. It’s hard work consisting of washing, cleaning, bathing and trafficking coffee and other things back and forth between doctors. I get only short breaks to eat during the day, during which I simply stare out one of the top floor’s windows, not having brought a lunch with me nor the money to buy one. I get paid a fraction of what I should. The other nurses my age know I won’t say a word to anyone if they tell me to do their share of the work, and they’re right. I get no praise, no thanks, but that’s how it is and always will be. Humans can get used to anything.

Liam only permits me to walk to the hospital and back during the day, no detours. He knows the hospital is an hour long walk from our home in the country, but he never offers to give me a ride in his car, and on most days he drives right by me on the road. He's a slave driver, no one recognizes me at work, my house is killing me as sure as age. I have no friends, no one that would miss me if I were to no longer be a part of this world. Days that are cold and wet make me think of ending it, but I never do.

Something keeps me going. The East keeps me going. Far over these depressing, faded hills, over the fields of nettles and thorns, over the dead oaks, is my true love. My knight in shining armor, as the storybooks would say. My four-leaf clover. My supernova. My respirator. My reason for life. My everything, summed up into two beautiful dark brown eyes, pale, glowing skin, hair that shines golden auburn in the sun. We met at the hospital last autumn over a broken thumb and fell in love at first sight. We stayed hidden, stolen kisses in deserted wards, whispered sweetness when no other nurses were around. It was the happiest, most fulfilled week of my life.

Then came that horrible day, forever etched into my memory through all these other dreadful days. I cried for the first time in years, hands grabbing at smooth shoulders, sobbing promises of visits. Then seconds later, the brief light in my life flickered off, leaving me standing in the dark. A taxi had never made me so sad.

Now, sitting at the window of my room, I wish for love again. I tug my sweater tighter around me, hugging myself in a thick, forlorn silence that's quickly broken by the sound of Liam's car roaring to life down below. I watch the sleek black roof of the car speed down the long dirt road that connects our house to the outskirts of the city. If he just left, he'll be gone for at least an hour, I decide, gathering the strength to stand up.

My socks are too big for my feet and I have to slide across the floor so they don't come off and leave my feet bare. Making my way across my room, I stay quiet and listen nervously for any sound coming from downstairs, in case Liam is somehow still here. I know it's impossible, but the consequences are too large for me to be reckless. I creak the door open and step lightly on socked feet down the hallway that holds memories of childhood, but nothing else. The stairs creak ominously beneath my weight.

I open the front door and step outside. Wind tosses my hair to the left and makes me stumble in shock as I take careful steps out onto the dead grass. I hold my arms out at my sides, facing into the wind, letting the fabric of my sweater mold against my body, letting my skirt fly around me. The wind is sweet and smells of the country and fresh-cut lawns. I step forwards once, then again, feeling earth beneath my feet, wet from yesterdays rain. This freedom is new to me and I can't do anything but start swirling and stepping around in the wind, letting it carry me. I can't help but wonder how far away this wind came from. I can't help but wonder if my love was dancing in the wind somewhere, staring up at the clouds that now sit over my head.



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