Free Anathema by Maria Rachel Hooley

me. It tears at me,
trying to suck me into its nothingness, but I fight it, unwilling
to let it win again.
    The pain is excruciating. I can hardly
breathe. I roll into a tight ball and close my eyes, willing away
the pain. Anything to diminish the clawing inside my gut.
    It seems to take forever for my sight to
finally go from the darkness to being able to see the dead grass I
lie in, waiting for the world to make sense, yet some part of me
knows that in the darkness there is no guilt or shame. Now that I
can see, my vision focuses on Jayzee’s tennis shoe not far from my
head. Part of me wants her to jerk her foot or something—anything
but this stillness that belies the unthinkable. Part of me wants to
believe that at least now Griffin will be free, which has to be a
good thing.
    But that also means I’ve killed someone.
    I shudder and gasp before forcing myself to
sit upright and look over at her. Sure enough, she’s lying on her
side with both legs bent. Her face peers straight up at the heavens
with unblinking eyes, and her long, beautiful hair splayed around
her head in a wild wispy halo. The wings are visible, but are not
nearly as large as I thought they would be, and the feathers around
the edges have been charred.
    Her lips are parted. Only God knows the last
sound that came out of them, and I don’t even want to try to
imagine it. She’s so still, and right now I can’t bear it. I knew
this would happen. I keep shaking my head as I force myself to go
over there and check to see if she’s breathing, even though I
pretty much already know the answer. The stillness in her body
forces me to snatch my hand away, and I scurry backwards, ignoring
the rocks nestled in the grass that bruise my legs and steal my
breath. I’d keep backing up, but when I hit the wall of a crypt,
there’s nowhere else to go and all the time in the world to get
there.
    I start shaking and force myself to get up.
Unable to tear my gaze from her face, I retreat , my hand brushing
against the polished marble I walk, more for guidance than
support.
    How do things get so twisted that people or
angels become corpses? I don’t understand, and I’m tired. The
nausea hits suddenly, and I force myself to turn away when I vomit.
I don’t know why. It’s not as if she could actually see me do it.
It’s not as if it matters. But I can’t feel her eyes on me like
this. It hurts too much.
    When my stomach has emptied itself, I force
myself to straighten, closing my eyes as I turn away from Jayzee
this last time. Part of me wonders if Griffin felt her passing from
this world like I felt Lev’s the day Maguire shot him. Then again,
it’s not the same. Griffin didn’t willingly fall in love with her;
she forced his hand. I loved Lev with every fiber of my being, and
it almost killed me to lose him.
    As I grab the side of the crypt to get away
from Jayzee, pain erupts in my hand, and I jerk it away. Through my
blurred vision, I notice the stain on the palm is much worse, just
like the pain. Of course, I’m alive, which made one of us.
    I keep telling myself not to cry, but I can’t
help it. I should have run when Lev told me I would probably kill
Jayzee, that it would be the only way to free Griffin. I just
thought if I avoided her, it would somehow work out. Suddenly my
body starts shaking convulsively, and I know I have to get out of
here; I can’t take much more of this. As it is, all the days I wish
I could take back are gaining on all the days I’m glad I’m
alive.
    The heated flow of tears pour down my face,
and no matter how fast and hard I try to wipe them away, I can’t
stop them. They just keep coming. So I start to hurry my steps,
trying desperately to ignore the stones beneath my feet. It’s so
hard to know where I’m walking, and the night is just this crater
of blackness around me. There’s lots of space, but I still can’t
breathe. An image of Jayzee’s face fills my head and I suddenly
break into a run, not caring how