Summer’s birthday was a blur after the complimentary bottle of tequila. I remember fuck all. I’ve tried to remember, but it’s just no use. The bartender gave us tequila and after we started downing it, everything seemed to fade away, and the next thing I remember is waking up at home, dishevelled and delicate with a bomb going off in my head.
She wasn’t on her side of the bed, but she has always handled hangovers better than me, so I thought nothing of it.
After a while, I went looking for breakfast and painkillers, but the flat was empty. She wasn’t in the kitchen, or the bathroom. The living room was empty too. We had both booked the day off after her birthday from work to recover, so I knew she should have been at home… she just wasn’t.
I called her but her phone went straight to voicemail. I left it a little while and called it again. After a few tries, I began to panic. It wasn’t like her to just take off, especially when we had a whole day to spend together.
I couldn’t remember how I got home, and worse, I couldn’t remember if she was with me. Her shoes weren’t by the door. Her bag was nowhere to be seen, and as much as I didn’t want to consider it, I began to worry that she hadn’t actually come home.
I called her parents and all of our friends but nobody had seen her. It soon became a search, and with every second, the picture in my head got worse and worse. She was gone and it was my fault. I should have looked out for her. I shouldn’t have drank so much. I should have made sure that she got home safe.
I never really drank much, but she insisted. It was her birthday. She just kept telling me that it was her birthday. She wanted her stuffy, strict girlfriend to loosen up for once and, so… I did.
I regretted it more with every moment.
The police were no help. I went back to the bar to see if they could find out when she left on the CCTV, but I got nothing. I checked all the hospitals and asked in shops. It seemed like nobody cared that a woman had vanished.
I went home to the flat, in case she came home, exchanging panicked phone calls with her Mum every few hours to confirm that there was no sign of her.
It was hell. Every minute seemed to last a lifetime, and with every passing second, all I could think about was that she was all alone, with nobody to protect her.
I couldn’t face work the next day, but I had no choice. I got nothing done, because Summer was on my mind. I called and texted her over and over but there was never any response.
The day seemed to drag, but at last, I made it home, and I waited. Again and again. A call and a text. A text and a call. A voicemail full of whispers and weeping. The slow, mocking minutes, and no sign of her.
The next day turned into another, and another, until it had been a week.
Her parents came round to see me, and though it was tearing him apart, her Dad was trying to be rational, and accept that we were probably now waiting for the police to find a body.
He held me close to his chest as I cried, and soon, we all cried together, in a heap on the living room floor.
I still waited, as if she would come back, because I had to. I understood why her Dad had given up, but I couldn’t do it. I had to believe that she’d find her way back to me.
I was asleep when she found me.
There was a clatter in the kitchen, rustling and shuffling. I sat up, feeling around in the darkness for my phone, trying to dampen the excited flutters in my stomach at the thought that it might be her.
Slowly, I crept to the kitchen, my phone stuttering in my shaking hands as I approached the door and gasped at the shadow, leant over the counter, shovelling food towards its mouth.
“So fun…” It sounded almost like Summer, but something was different. Something was wrong. I waited, watching from the doorway, frozen, heart fluttering, but slowly beginning to pound. “Summer is just so fun.” Something was very wrong.
The kitchen was dim, save for the occasional flicker of the overhead light, casting shadows that danced a twisted performance across the walls. The clatter of a knife hitting the counter rang out, jarring me from my thoughts. There she was, but in a sense, there she was not.
I knew that I should get closer, but I was repulsed. Chilled to the bone, so sure that something was wrong that I couldn’t.
The thing turned to me, my lover’s eyes a blood curdling, bright red.
“Won’t you play with us, little thing?” It croaked, stealing her voice and shuffling towards me.
It looked so much like her, it was almost impossible to separate the woman I loved from what she had become.
Her shoulders hunched unnaturally, her movements were jerky and deliberate as she stepped toward me, with a sickening smirk, blood dancing down her lips and onto her chin. Her eyes were empty. Hollow and glassy, as if someone—or something—was peering out from behind her face.
My breath caught in my throat as she shuffled closer, extending her arms towards me. “Summer?” I whispered, but there was no flicker of recognition, no softness in her expression, and nothing of her left. Her hand slid across the counter, fingers splaying out and drumming slowly as she shuffled closer, rigid, with eyes that had begun to fill with rage.
“She’s having so much fun, my little thing.” She lunged towards me, and I stumbled back towards the bedroom, my heart pounding. “Won’t you join us?”
There was something inside of her. Something that had hollowed her out and made a home within her.
I couldn’t say how, or why, but as I watched her, watching me with a wicked grin, I just knew.
She kept coming, her eyes locked on mine. The sickening smile widened, a silent promise of something so dreadful, and suddenly, I realised—whatever I wanted to believe, she was my girl no longer.
I ran, not looking back, hearing the body bolt after me. I tried not to invision the mess it had made of my love’s face, blood, barrelling from her mouth, dead eyes and teasing words. The hallway seemed to last forever, but at last, I made it to the bathroom, falling against the door after I locked it and trying desperately to catch my breath.
It’s all been such a blur.
Summer is gone, perhaps. I don’t know. Maybe she’s still in there somewhere, watching me, and hoping that I don’t give up on her.
Her body is locked outside of the bathroom. Her mouth is full of laughter and words that belong to another. Her eyes are fixed on me as I peek through the keyhole, sometimes full of scorn, and sometimes full of sadness. There is a shell of the woman I love, that may have her, somewhere deep inside the bones, suffocating under the parasite that plays with her soul and torments me, morning, noon and night.
It controls her.
It has her, and it wants me too.
I don’t know what to do, except to watch the joyride continue, hoping that there is no crash, and waiting, with bated breath for an answer.
Sincerely, Jennifer x 