PLAYTHING

There are some things in life you just don't get over, and it all is falls subjectively to those who experience it. Some people can't take the loss of a pet, others the division of family, a heartache, a lost child; emotions, because they aren't all the same within us, vary from each to each.

To say that I was broken wouldn't be too far from the truth. I wasn't ruined by any measure, but when a vase is shattered and then glued back together, it might be whole but it will never again be the same.

That's what I was; a broken vase, pieces held together with glue. I was still very much a person, still felt things, but it all was fuzzy, diluted.

The copter took me to a hospital in a far away city. I was hooked up to wires and machines, the continual beep-beep-beep infiltrating my nightmares but assuring me, all the while, that I was very much alive despite feeling completely dead. Once word got out that I, a simple young girl, had survived for a week 'on my own' within the infested city, I became some kind of hero. Cards, flowers, and gifts flooded my room for weeks, and strangers came to see me, came to hold my hand, and tell me the stories of how either they, too, had escaped, or how they were missing loved ones and that I was lucky to get out.

I didn't feel lucky. By all means, I should have been dead; without my hunter, without Tristan, I...

I couldn't bring myself to stop thinking of him the entire time I was in the hospital, which, and here's the really fucked up part, was completely awful; I couldn't tell anyone what had really happened. I'd be committed, quarantined, and God knows what else. I'd go from a hero to a deranged psychopath, not that I cared what people thought of me one way or another.

It was like my time with Tristan was my own- it was private, and no one else was welcome to it.

Bill, Louis, and even Francis came to see me, all surprised I'd made it out. I got apologies from all of them- if they known the fall hadn't killed me, they'd have gone back.

When people, doctors, psychiatrists started to ask me what happened, telling me that talking would help, I had to spew some bullshit lie for them: I holed up in a safe-room for a week. I sprained my ankle, so I couldn't go anywhere sooner. By the time I opened the doors a week later, most of the city's zombie count had been lowered and I was able to, just barely, make it to the roof. It was my last hope; I didn't know where else to go.

And who was going to argue with me? It sounded legit, and with all of the crying I did when I talked about it, everyone believed me.

I spent a lot of time in the hospital, mostly on the doctor's belief that it would be a good idea to monitor me – when he thought he was out of earshot he commented to a nurse that I might turn suicidal eventually – and try to help me get back to my old life.

I didn't want my old life. My old life was gone, and with it most of myself. The doctor was right to keep an eye on me, not because I was going to kill myself, but because he was a medical professional and anyone else in my position might try to off themselves first chance they got. I didn't blame him for his suspicions. And, well, what did they know? I hadn't told them anything but lies.

It took me two fucking months before I could walk down the halls of the hospital without having a panic attack. It should have made me proud, made me stronger, but it, like everything, just eventually faded into a dull fizzle at the back of my brain. Things that should have scared me didn't, and things that shouldn't have scared me did; for a while, I was a walking mass of neurosis. Nightmares the likes of which I didn't know were possible for people shook me from my sleep. But, I eventually learned that they were inevitable, that I couldn't stop or control them, and so I just let them happen. I always woke up, and so while the fear was there, it slowly began to dissipate.

Five months and I walked outside the hospital. I still refused to go out in the night; I still had problems turning off the lights in my room.

Seven months and I got my own apartment after being discharged from the mental health ward at the hospital. The landlord recognized me from the TV, and gave me a discount. He was nice, but mostly unwelcome.

Seven and a half months and I got a job at a bookstore, working the register and shelving books in the early morning. It paid decently enough, and, hey, I even managed to make a few friends, but I still felt alone.

Junk food became a big comfort for me; nacho cheese tortilla chips and powdered donuts, chocolate bars and potato crisps. I ate in moderation, mind; I didn't care about my body image or how much I weighed, but I'd lost weight over the months and junk food wasn't the best thing for my system.

I ate peaches a lot.

A year and nine months I grew a pair and went on a date. The dinner was good, the conversation light and I smiled and laughed for real, but the goodnight kiss at the end was lacking, and only served to make me miss what I couldn't have. I went on a few more dates, not willing myself to give up so easily, but I never really began to see anyone on a regular basis. It wasn't that I was dwelling, it was that I just wasn't interested.

Two years after they closed off the city, two years of has-mat teams disinfecting and removing bodies, they set in motion plans to rebuild. It was all over the news; volunteers were needed to help take back the desolate city.

A lot of people were skeptical about it, and I really didn't blame them. Who would want to go back into a city like that?

There was no government involvement in the project- it was all privately funded and run, which pointed to a few ideas, the first being that it was merely people wanting to take back their city, or it was some kind of scam to loot what might be left in the dead-zone.

Whatever the case, people practically shat themselves when I showed up at a rally to volunteer.

And that's how I found myself wearing a paint mask and rubber boots, trash bag in one hand and a garbage grabber in the other. The group I'd been assigned to was on light duty this week- last week we'd help tear down two houses, load the lumber in the back of a dump truck, so now we were doing the easier, if you could call it that; trash wasn't very heavy, but there was debris and garbage pretty much everywhere.

I'm not sure how anyone didn't see me leave. To be really honest, I wasn't sure when my feet started to walk away from the group, but my body seemed to recognize where I was, even when my mind didn't.

The ramshackle apartment building stood in mostly ruin. Weeds and vines had grown through the cracks in the pavement, covering most of the bottom floor in a tangle of green. It looked a little out of place on the dull concrete of the building, but it was a testament to how life could flourish just about anywhere.

I looked up, across the street, looking for some kind of sign, something to remember-

There. Six stories up, two windows in. A broken window with a beam hanging out. I recognized having looked at it when... Whatever. I knew where I needed to go. I turned back to the other building, climbing over the hood of a car that had smashed in the front doorway, and shuffled my way inside. It was dark in the lobby, and finding the stairs was a bitch and a half. Luckily, the staircase itself was littered with broken windows that let in the sunshine and I climbed the steps easily.

My pulse beat like mad in my head, the sound echoing inside my skull, threatening to bring to me to my knees it was so loud.

Sixth floor. Down at the end of the hall, one apartment in from the last. The only door that hadn't been smashed.

My hands shook, my face and neck covered in sweat.

Oh, God.

I turned the door and stepped back in time.

It was just as I remembered it; the broken furniture, the dust and chaos.

I didn't sob, but I could feel tears streaking down my face, wetting my shirt.

Had it really been two years? It felt as though it had hardly been hours, minutes, since I last set foot in this apartment, in this kitchen.

My feet bypassed most of the apartment and I walked into the bedroom. I couldn't breathe, couldn't think, but my body kept moving. I knelt on the bed, my knees pressing into the comforter.

I should have been scared out of my mind.

Instead, I felt safe. For the first time in a long while, a wave of pure emotion, raw and pressing, welled up in me and I broke down. I fell on the bed as though I'd been a puppet and my strings had been cut, my entire body falling limp.

Gone was the fuzzy, diluted curtain that had left me like a husk for too long. I sucked in air, crying and screaming, burying my face in the blankets of the bed.

I could finally let go.

I was finally free.

I wasn't whole, I wasn't fixed; I was still damaged, but no longer without, no longer useless.

Like in a dream, I heard the sliding door open and close. I laughed to myself- fuck you, mind, for playing tricks on me. Seriously, fuck you.

I needed release, not reminiscing.

But everything, my pulse, the turning of the earth, stopped when I heard footsteps grow closer.

A shadowed figure stood outside the bedroom door.

“Tristan?”