Escape

CW: Mild violence/gore

After turning 27, I noticed that I’d been forgetting more and more things. Small things. Not the ones that would get me fired from my day job at the Kohl’s in downtown, but not so small that I could ignore them, like if I locked my car or started the laundry. So I started relying on feeling instead of memory. If I couldn’t remember if I had locked my car, for example, I might remember pressing the top button on my key fob and the slight imprint on my finger. Or for laundry, I might remember the tiny ridges of the dial to set the washing mode, or a drop of detergent left on my hand that I’d need to wash off.

It might have been stress. Nat was worried it was some sort of disorder, like some really early onset dementia, but I thought she was being paranoid. I always thought my mother had dementia, but she was never properly diagnosed. She died in a car accident on my 25th birthday, so I’d never know.

It had to have been stress. We lived in Newland’s downtown for the cheaper rent, but it ended up putting us closer to the robberies and shoot outs. As those became more commonplace, I started waking up in the middle of the night more often.

I do remember one night I couldn’t get any of it out of my head. My coworkers talked about a crime scene just a block down from the Kohl’s, or maybe it was that they heard a shootout while they were on their lunch break. I tried to go to sleep early, but I woke up suddenly, nearly jumping out of bed, panting. Nat was scared shitless.

“What? What is it?” she asked.

“Sorry. Nightmare.”

She yawned and laid back down. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” I stayed awake for a bit longer. I heard her gentle snoring after some time. She always fell asleep fast, something I envied.

When I woke up after that night, she’d already gone out to work. It was early for her, but I didn’t think much about it. One of her books was left on the couch. She liked to read–sometimes historical fiction, but mostly mystery novels. The one on the couch had a title that didn’t seem like a mystery title, and I wasn’t familiar with the author. I wasn’t much of a reader, anyway. It reminded me of one conversation we had regarding books, some 4 years prior or so, right before we moved to Newland. We were at a bookstore to celebrate her graduation from university. I asked if there was a specific author or series she liked, like Sherlock Holmes, and she laughed. She said there were hundreds, thousands of other mystery stories beyond the Holmes novels. I think it was the last time I remember her laughing.

I didn’t have work that day, so it was my turn to take care of the apartment. We had a list of chores on the fridge that needed to be done. It helped to keep me focused. Doing laundry was something to keep me busy–getting dirty clothes into the washer, folding dry clothes on the bed. Always doing something, never idling by. The sound of the vacuum cleaner helped to drown out the shootout that happened that day, just a couple blocks away from our apartment complex.

I couldn’t drown it out completely. Each gunshot was loud, like a firework or an explosion. The windows shook several times. Maybe there actually were explosions. All I remembered was the shaking.

I must have laid down on the couch at some point. I drifted off, or maybe I just zoned out, hoping that the sounds outside would stop. Eventually, I woke up to the sound of Nat walking in.

“Hey,” she said, setting down the take-out she brought in for dinner. Chow mein, I think.

“Welcome home.”

“Was everything fine today?” she asked. “Did you take care of all the chores?”

Sometime during the day, I forgot about the list. “Yeah, I think so.”

She chuckled to that. We ate together. She turned on the television just for noise–a football game, or maybe a basketball game. Neither of us watched sports, or television at all for that matter, but it was nice. The chow mein was nice.

“I forgot to do the dishes. Sorry.”

Nat glanced towards the kitchen. She was quiet for a moment. Then, she turned back to me and said, “Don’t worry about it. We didn’t need many dishes tonight. I’ll just run the dishwasher.” We’d eaten out of the take out boxes and used the restaurant’s chopsticks. I never learned how to use chopsticks as a kid. Nat taught me back when we were in university, and even though I never mastered it, I could manage for dinner with the two of us.

I looked up the news for today to see if anything came up about the shooting. I didn’t want to know, really, but I also really wanted to know. So, I started scrolling through the news articles. One article said it was a robbery, where a passerby tried to stop the robbers, but all of them ended up getting shot by the cops, including the passerby. Another said it was a group of gang members who got into an argument, or some sort of failed drug deal or something. I remember one specific article, because there was a picture of the intersection where it happened. The person who took the photo probably didn’t notice, or the person who put it up on the website, but I could see the bodies. Two of them were on the asphalt, another against the window of whatever place they robbed. I couldn’t find an article that even mentioned the shaking.

Nat liked to rinse off the dishes thoroughly before putting them in the dishwasher. She never used the apron she bought a few years ago, just the same black tank top that she always wore around the apartment. I wasn’t sure why, but I never questioned it. I don’t think I did. The sound of the running water put me at ease a little. The image of her doing it, relaxed, quiet, was also comforting.

“Hey, Nat?” I said.

“Yeah?”

“I want to leave this city.”

She placed the last dishes into the dishwasher and turned off the water.

I continued, “When can we leave this city?”

“Well, I’d have to quit my job. You’d have to quit yours, too.”

“I can quit anytime. What about you?”

Nat grinned, then sat back down at the table across from me. “Was there another shooting today?”

I showed her one of the articles. “Yeah. Close this time.”

She looked over my phone screen, then said softly, “Oh, yeah. That is close.”

“I want to leave this city,” I said again. I stared straight into her gentle blue eyes, the same eyes that initially struck me about her. As we dated, I found it difficult to tear my gaze away from them. Eyes that could calm me down no matter what was happening in the world in the past, but had lost that ability somewhere along the way. I didn’t know if it was because of my stress, or if there was a change in her. I was sure she was stressed about it in her own way–she just was better at hiding it, I thought. Maybe that was it. She appeared calm on the outside, like usual, but her eyes had lost the stoic confidence I knew her for.

Nat looked back into my eyes, then put her hand on mine. They were warm from cleaning the dishes.

“Yes, let’s leave the city,” she whispered.

“Are you going to quit your job?” I asked.

“Yes.” She hugged me. “It’s okay. We can just leave. No one will remember us.”

Her words comforted me. “Thank you, Nat.”

“Where do you want to go?” she asked.

“Anywhere.”

We didn’t have many possessions. That night, we packed most of the clothes I washed earlier, all the money we had, and a pistol that I kept for safety. I’d never used it, but I always feared the moment I would. We woke up just before dawn, before most others were awake, before we’d attract too much attention.

I truly didn’t care where we went, as long as it was away from Newland, the city that stole my sleep, the city that stole my mother, the city that stole my memory. As long as I was with Nat, I would have been happy. I didn’t care about anything else. She was the only thing I had left to cherish.

I remember how the sunrise felt that morning. It was warm, dry, still. The handle on my luggage was cool, smooth. The sweat on my forehead slowly dripped down my nose.

I remember hearing Nat unzip one of our suitcases. I remember turning around, and her kissing me. I remember her cool, chapped lips against mine, her uneasy breath. I remember her saying, “I love you” very quietly. I remember something cold pressing against my chest, then hearing the gunshot. It was much louder than the ones I heard from outside the apartment. I remember the burning pain devouring my entire body, then falling to the ground as my strength failed. I remember the feeling of Nat reaching into my pocket and taking the keys. I remember the shaking of the engine starting, then it fading into the distance. I remember the rough and weathered sidewalk, and my blood pooling around me as I laid there.

I don’t remember anything else. What we said that morning, if we ate breakfast, if she packed her mystery novels, anything. I don’t remember why we didn’t leave the city earlier. I don’t remember why I wanted to leave the city in the first place. I don’t even remember Nat’s face.

I only remember her eyes.