Chapter 4

NOAH

3 days later

Glitter particles glistened on the dark fabric; the pattern was interrupted by a white glimmering sphere; its beams kissed the lake's water into the deepest grey. The scent from Wisterias, running my fingers through the velvety green hair of the land, and Ella’s giggles soothed my soul. 

Since we got married, Ella and I haven’t left the lake house. We don’t meet people. We only go to the grocery store and nearby places to get the stuff we need. That too together. She doesn’t let me slip out of her sight.

“You never tell me about your family,” I said to her.

“You are my family.”

“Not me. Your parents. And sister,” I insisted. 

The more she refused to talk about them, the more curious I get. All I know is that she had a sister, who doesn’t talk to her anymore. Doesn’t even live in the same city. And her parents died when she was young. She doesn’t talk about the great times she had with them. Everybody has a good time with their parents. 

“There’s nothing to talk about them, Noah.”

I set my eyes into hers squinting them in suspicion and tardily moved my face towards her.

“I want to have our own little family.”

She beamed at me. I smiled back. And drowned in her eyes.

“You, me, and our two little kids. Or eleven.” 

She chuckled and pushed my face away with a gentle force of her hand. Ella either wanted to have only one or two children or a lot. Like eleven, twelve. Nothing in between.

2 days later

“Play it.” Ella was bursting with joy.

The laptop screen showed Ella and me sitting beside each other in a white tent embellished by a series of yellow lights connected through a thin wire. Her head rested on my shoulder. She was clothed in an off-white wedding gown, neckline laced, and sleeves puffed at the shoulders. She had a delicate gold chain around her neck, with a heart pendant. That was my gift to her. For our wedding. I perched in a black suit with a white shirt inside and a black silk tie that dangled from my neck.

“We didn’t have a regular wedding. None of our relatives attended the event. For some reason. But we had people over to the lake house,” Ella in the video said.

“Anyone that we could find nearby. Who was willing to attend the function,” I joined.

“We had a lot of fun. I don’t remember anything that made me happier than that day,” she spoke.

I could feel Ella’s eyes on me, just when we looked into each other’s eyes in the video.

The ringing of the phone tore through the air and interrupted the flow of the moment. Ella got up and took it into the hallway. When she returned her eyes seemed wide, frowned her forehead making a visible effort to look normal. She climbed back into the bed and hit the play button.

“Who was it?”

“Wrong number.”

The wrong number doesn’t give you worries. Possible that I read her expressions wrong. Was she lying to me? I ceased every thought and went back to watching our wedding day video. Abruptly, Ella’s eyes shrunk her iris turned a brilliant blue, hair grew to her elbows while light brown color swiftly rose to the top of her head. Her shoulders narrowed down, her face slimmed, skin on her lips cracked turning greyish, nasal bone straightened up, dress changed into a skin-colored tent dress crowded with patches of blood and mud. She playfully wrapped a strand of her hair around her ring finger. Jenny. She was younger than when I saw her in the lake.

“Come to me, Noah. Our family is incomplete without you, mom mourns for you Noah.”

My muscles jammed; my heart started pumping blood rapidly. eyeballs stuck to the screen refusing to roll. She was enlarging.

“Mom doesn’t know about her. I haven’t told her that you knew all along. Come back I will cover for you like I used to.”

“I want to see mom and dad,” I uttered.

Mites began to swarm up her hair, eyeballs leaked blood, and sheets of skin on her face rolled down revealing mites over her flesh mounted on top of each other. Her crooked collar bones played a pattern of cracking sounds.

“Are you ready Noah?” 

Her voice got deeper and rageful. 

Tears welled up in my eyes refusing to fall. She grew closer to me rippling the screen. Her ring finger traced down from my neck to stomach, eyebrows arched, and she stuck her finger through my skin into the flesh. Burning sensation unrolled in my body, briskly, agony inferior to what should be experienced however gut-wrenching. She continued to screw her finger in my stomach flesh.

A muffled voice made its way into my ear.

“And this is how I met your father. The love of my life.”

The video ended.

Ella was clasping my wrist rigorously; anguish still didn’t disappear. Her upper eyelids pulled up while lower ones tensed and drawn up, vertical wrinkles appeared between her eyebrows, jaw gone slack, mouth hung open loosely. 

My sight fell on the hand that she was clutching, nails held bits of my skin sheathed in blood, and my stomach was scratched.

“I don’t know anything, first thing in the morning I’m taking you to a psychiatrist,” Ella said. 

I jumped off the bed and walked towards the window. It was dark outside. Ella placed her chin on my shoulder from the back.  

“Baby, I worry about you. It’s just getting worse.”

I turned towards her. She held my face with her hands. Her eyes had love. And compassion. 

“If I ever try to leave you, just look me in my eyes. And make me remember, what I would be without you,” I said.

Lost. Is what I would be without her.