Chapter 11 - Grief and Grave-robbing.

                                    

                                          

I woke up with tears on my cheeks. She had been dead this whole fucking time and I knew it; I'd always known on some level. Hank noticed my stirring and immediately approached. I held up my hand for him to stay put.
"You can't cross the line; I need you to go to my truck and grab my knife from the glove box."
My voice was monotonous and dry, and he looked like he wanted to ask what I saw. Instead, he turned round and traipsed through the thick snow to do as I asked. As soon as his broad back disappeared into the treeline, I bolted off in the opposite direction. The tears and sobs started bubbling to the surface.
This was the forest of my childhood and nothing could change that; I could feel every tree, knew every footpath, every gnarled root that would catch your foot if you didn't know where to look. I'd learned its every secret through scraped palms and grazed knees. Ambling around as a little kid with nothing better to do – same as Abby.
Abby, who had been lying in a ditch for the last six years I'd spend building a new life with our money. I'd waited for hours by the truck, in the cold. I was half frozen before it struck me to check my phone. I'd spent all this time thinking she didn't want me. honestly believing that her not wanting me was the worst thing I could experience.
Years of undealt with grief hit me like a ton of bricks as I skidded down through the powdery snow, not knowing where I could go. Some things were better of left alone. The cold stab of the cold was a welcome distraction. Finding out like this was worse than keeping my memories, now it was like she died all over again.
Curling up into a ball and squeezing my arms around my chest, I did my best to breathe. In through the nose and out through the mouth. No matter how hard I tried to concentrate on the simple mechanisms of respiration, anxiety began to fray the edges of my mind until my steady breathing turned to ragged gasps of air – then full-blown hyperventilation. There was no running from the images inside my mind and at some point, I gave up. Instead, I just sobbed hysterically as I cycled through the same thoughts, I couldn't get past.
Abby was dead.
I would never see her again.
I was scorching hot, snow started falling.
She didn't want to leave me.
I was still hyperventilating as dark patches spotted their way across my vision.
Abby was dead.
I would never see her again.
She didn't want to leave me.
The darkness battled with the sharp despair that kept me conscious. I couldn't breathe.
Abby was dead.
I would never see her again.
She didn't want to leave me. she never would have left me, and I never should have left her.
Eventually – thanks to a lack of oxygen – the darkness won. At some point everything went blank, unfeeling.
I woke up cold, disoriented and covered in a thin layer of snow. It was hard remembering where I was or how I got there. I couldn't feel my fingers at all, I sat up trying to flex them. They moved slowly as the blood-flow in them restored a fraction. I had just enough mobility to get up and start staggering forward. Getting my bearings was second nature as I zeroed in on the direction of the highway, it was quite a hike, but the piercing cold felt nice.
My rubber limbs moved slowly; it was with great effort to lift one foot in front of another. I kept up the monotonous pace for as long as I needed to. A parting in the trees was the first signifier that I was close. The damp pavement looked pitch black under the patchy snow. I sifted my way through the waist-high drifts that framed either side, stepping out onto the deserted road. Heading in the direction of town, I continued my hike. Every so often I would flex my fingers to make sure they still worked, pinched my nose to make sure it was still there. I like to think I made a lot of progress before a pair of familiar headlights graced the horizon, but at the rate I was moving I'd be surprised if I made it more than a-hundred metres. I considered ducking back into the treeline but from the way my truck picked up speed and started barrelling its way towards me I'd definitely been spotted.