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When she closes her eyes, unassuming ghosts and demons are lurking permanently around the corner.
She sees catastrophes unfold in the form of dying women, emaciated children and men choking on pixelated screens. In a desperate political world where death hides in plain sight, ready to claim the next unwilling soul - she compartmentalises each loss until it no longer hits her at random. Nadine won’t pretend it doesn’t affect her, because it hits the morale of the senior staff hard and she finds it harder to bite back her witheringly sharp remarks.
There’s always the last soul left to linger in the aftermaths of failed operations. The children who have no home to return to, orphans with no parents, sons and daughters without mothers. Her, in the meeting room where her heart is still thumping violently in her chest and she has to swallow down the bile that threatens to rise because otherwise, she’ll throw up from the sheer depth of loss. She understands the process of having only hours to mourn because they have to tackle the next international crisis and accept the failure. It sits uncomfortably on her tongue, but she holds it in because they do the best they can.
It sits like a reminder of all the times she’s failed even though she knows it’s completely out of her control. People die, life goes on. Rinse and repeat. It’s what their job is, to protect people. It’s hers to break the news and offer condolences to grieving mothers, to take in their words and attend memorials for people who - in an ideal world - would have still been alive.
For a night after the case of Lara Cramer, she learns that keeping herself together from unravelling is one of the hardest things on earth to do alone. Nadine cuts her losses and leaks vulnerability when she has to, but guilt always swims worryingly still at her feet. She is helpless when she brushes shoulders with death but wishes to link hands with someone alive and breathing - not like her dreams.
God, her dreams. They’re an uncanny bunch, and she won’t wish her keen avoidance of déjà rêvé on anyone. When they become so real that she thinks the term delusional might enter her mental vocabulary, but it’s the lack of sleep to blame and not herself. They work endlessly to make things come to life; ideas, plans, concepts, plan b’s for people who can’t afford any other way out. Last resorts for the critically injured, the helpless.
When they die, pushed aside by the growing majority: no one cares except for them and hope flickers like a tiny flame on a candle. It’s exhausting, because the highs are inconceivably high and the lows are tragic and stick to her. To them.
It is still incredibly unfair.
She’ll see the bodies of the girls who suffocated to death in the truck in odd recurring nightmares even now, and she’ll see them during the day when she blinks for a second too long. Nadine understands how the job works, because she’s lived and basked in it for decades, knows the process like the back of her hand. She can think it’s unjust as much as she wants, but it won’t ever bring those girls back..
When she stares into the abyss of her nightmares, it’s there. There’s always something to address, to question - whether it’s her mortality or her sanity or lack thereof. With her issues, however, she can’t even begin to fathom how to piece them together. Nadine can’t let them fester or they’ll grow, and shoving them into a box and sitting on it is pointless because it comes back years later and tenfold like a twisted game of hide and seek.
She is tired of thinking, rationalising and schooling her thoughts. Nadine assesses things with careful logic and smooths out the errant folds of political work and foreign policy, answers questions and settles emotional dilemmas with ease, she is a machine and more. When people’s schedules are cleared, she picks up the grains in the sand and balances three people’s workload on top of hers like it's normal - normal to be working herself to the bone for some slither of instant satisfaction.
Nadine never thinks much about it. The work she does and her slow, inevitable decline to burnout. It’s for the greater good, sure - but what happens after? They move onto the next crisis, one after another, and for a week it's enough to ignore the darkness for another week.
She has it easy compared to everyone else. Nadine only remembers things in shreds and fragments, like a jigsaw - but it doesn’t mean it hurts less overall. She has survived her encounters alive and only minutely shaken. There’s nothing to bring to light when there were so many other women who had gone through worse, who had died in otherwise horrific ways and endured abuse when she was sitting at home, safe and protected with job security and a good income.
Nadine is alive and stable and fine. She brushes her short episodes under the rug because they’re unimportant really, and it’s only anxiety. Mike checks in on her every now and then, concerned - and stays with her for a day or two. They aren’t dating, she tells herself - but his presence is stabilising and consistent. When he’s around, she can smile genuinely.
She knows there’s something he wants to say, even though he never does. When his hand is on her back, she can fall apart nicely in his arms and she’s something again. He holds her like the person she needs, and never says anything with it. Nadine never speaks - never needs to - she just looks up into those blue eyes and sees god. Mike is no saint, but he’s the only one to have her at 1am with his fingers in her mouth and she feels no pain, only pleasure.
It’s blissful. He coaxes her nerves back into place, turns her into the woman she’s supposed to be. Nadine will comply with sex and hedonistic pleasures, but she keeps him afar and with a finger in the lapel of his suit jacket.
She never wants to hurt him, never means to.
And she does.
Anger blooms out of her mouth in snippets, in streams. She doesn’t think she’s simmered so viciously at anyone like that before in her recent life. Talks about blindsiding, about loyalty - and he talks so much shit that the tail almost drags between his legs, but his pride is unbeatable. Nadine knows better words, stronger accusations - and by the time she is finished, her anger is already smothered into the ground. She is left staring at him, at the hurt blooming on his face, and challenges him to say more. He won’t because she knows him, and laughs at the epiphany.
“ Go fuck yourself, Mike.”
“You really want me gone that bad?”
“Get out.”
Nadine sends him away before she breaks into tears. Maybe she expects his arms to envelop her - his guilt and anger to suffocate her whole. But he walks away completely, away from them. For all the snark he brings to the table, he suddenly becomes silent and it terrifies her.
She’s left staring at his departed silhouette in the door, nearly chokes on the scent of his still lingering cologne. Her fingertips rub along her own arm, to self-soothe.
It still doesn’t get easier after.
When she’s caught out of the loop, it’s at the expense of the hatchetman. Mike comes and goes, waltzes in and out of their domain like a wolf, and this time she lets him. Nadine doesn’t want to be the first to apologise because she knows she’s right in her eyes.
So she deletes his number off her personal phone and returns quietly back to her life. Holding down the fort is simple, and demands little of her attention.
Days pass.
She waits for the knock on the door that won’t come. The call that’ll fly in at midnight, though she knows Mike is as equally as stubborn as she is. He’ll come to her in her worst hour.
She swears he has to.
When she returns to her condo on a Thursday night, truly depleted, she calls out his name in a gesture of habit.
After a lengthy day of menial appointments and meetings, along with the casual absence of the secretary - she notices how the men are increasingly daring and … handsy. Nadine knows to keep a distance, curt and respectful, but at the very least Maggie knows to sit in on her appointments to keep the peace. She won’t admit the egregious manner of the foreign ministers when they aren’t being held in line by the secretary, but lends her own hand in dealing with them - along with a much-needed formal reprimand that she isn’t to be touched.
Nadine also doesn’t miss the simmering anger in Maggie as she nearly sprouts to action with clenched fists. At the end of the day, they’re all protective of her. There’s another day or two of this, and then it’s all back to normal, ministers be damned.
The dark, stretching hours of the evening had long since surpassed her, and it casts an eerie silence over the place. Only her voice breaks the thin barrier, and she feels something dark and muddled present in her humble abode. Night has fallen and casts shadows at peculiar angles, but there’s nothing specific about the stillness that is draped around everything. The counters are clean, her living space is empty, but she’s still here.
Turning left to the mirror in the hallway, she can see her reflection, faintly illuminated by the dim light seeping across the room. A bed of curly hair sits on top of her head, and her curious eyes are wide and naturally wrinkled.
Of course, the statement rings true that there’s no one else here.
And yet, yet - the unshaking doubt in her gut twists and shakes, making nausea descend on her in waves. It’s the onset of a debilitating migraine maybe - though she has little patience.
Nadine blinks, once and then twice. She’s not hungry and hasn't felt the effects of it since lunch. Food was somewhat undesirable, but there’s nothing else that sits on her mind - nothing she wants to do except sleep. She wants to block out her awful week and the sequence of tragedies unfolding in her waking mind.
Maybe she’ll never say it out loud, but the weeks and months they’ve spent chasing each other around, Mike and forever persistent calls… Nadine has never met a man so willing to give his all before, so eager to please. Even before they’d ended up together on election night, she caught his willing stares and side-long glances. Mike has a very punchable face, but he’s good in bed. The sex is great. If she knows her words better, she’ll face the fact that maybe there is some love for him growing in her chest.
Nadine speaks out again into the expanse of the apartment she knows is empty, and the walls echo back its dim greeting. The pictures are still on the wall, abstract masterpieces from old years and people long since dead. The floor hums in unison as she walks, slowly creaking to life. Every single item speaks wonders about her intrinsic fondness for travelling, and she likes to collect things. Parted gifts from people exiled from her life, achievements, although it had taken everything in her to examine the dancing - a haunting reminder of her own mortality and delusion.
She’d been on it for years.
The trunk held secrets better than her mind ever did, and she’s grateful for its sense of closure, even when she’d thrown it all away at the suggestion of Jay once she’d confided in him about her sense and loss of control. Her recklessness, paired with her errant panic attacks and seemingly out-of-character behaviour, had meant that she had to be checked over by a psychiatrist - and was given stronger meds to ease her anxiety.
Nowadays, she doesn’t bother taking them unless she’s on her last legs, and she’s hardly suicidal. Evidently, she’s fine.
Nadine deposits her bag and coat on the arm of the couch and goes to pour herself a drink, a simple glass of single malt scotch. It soothes her, carries away the constant ache in her soul and weeps into her throat like salt into a wound. Was Mike going to call? She hasn’t seen a single sight of him since their argument, even though she realises that he has been in the state department before his departure with the secretary, but simply … takes his time to avoid her.
It makes sense, as it’s what she inevitably needs. Distance. Independence.
She’s not worried about him, heaven forbid. Nadine inevitably doesn’t care about a man as senseless and arrogant as him when she has her own moral compass to abide by - her own life to keep away from. He isn’t here, and it’s a relief. She won’t think about what she’d ever end up doing if he was - because she uses him to escape and forget and still the pain and bandages it as distant love. She misses the passion of being with Mike, the unknown, his endless pursuit of her and the love she’ll never return.
Tonight, she’ll drink to him and their failing bond.
The door shuts behind her with a resonating thud.
There’s nothing here.
Her fingers stretch out, unfurling before clenching back into fists. It’s just a nightmare, she tells herself. It always has been, right from the beginning when she entered her apartment because something had clicked and everything started to feel desperately wrong. This whole thing, this whole event that felt like a sick joke because she didn’t want it to be her.
She had been doing such a good job of keeping it together. So good that no one would ever suspect it. She’s not depressed. She’s not paranoid. She’s not ill.
But she had never felt like this before.
Helpless. Out of control. Numb.
The heaviness hits her like a sack of bricks. In fact, she should resign. Let someone else take the job. Jay’s good, she can trust him. She can ask Elizabeth to fire her, no problem - someone better can come in and replace her. The thoughts fester in her head like a swarm of flies. They want someone more capable, right? A woman who wasn’t tainted and impure, who hadn’t held six years of being with someone far out of her league.
No one really cares. They all know she’s terrible. It hurts, it does. All of it hurts, but it doesn’t matter. Nothing does. She keeps dousing her face in front of the bathroom mirror, splashing the water on her skin. It doesn’t work, doesn’t hit her as hard as it really should.
Why does she bother? It keeps on eating away at her brain, but there’s nothing to be worried about. No rightfully sane person would keep like this, thinking and thinking and thinking until there was nothing else to think about.
They’ll forget her.
They always do.
She’ll fade away again.
It never stops.
She wishes it would. The girls hurt. Roman hurts.
Her hands grip the basin until her knuckles turn white, the panic already beginning to set in. Nadine takes shallow breaths in an attempt to breathe. She’s had alcohol and it makes her warm to the touch. Three shots. More. Definitely more than three shots. A glass, two. She can hold her alcohol. Does it matter? No, of course not. Her head is already spinning around in circles, in heavy loops like a broken record.
Her skin is clammy and her brain is positively buzzing. Buzzing! No- not buzzing. It’s panic. Dead, dry panic.
It climbs up through her skin like silken worms.
She throws up into the toilet.
Mike is tired of her.
It’s the only reason why he’s left. She’s independent, she’s fine, she can hold another heartbreak and a half. It’s not even that she’s fallen in love with him or whatever, because she doesn’t have feelings. Doesn’t do them.
She’s not twenty-four anymore. Instead, she’s nearing sixty and puffy eyes from a bout of crying and a throbbing headache to boot. Nadine is not crying because of Mike, but because she can’t keep herself stable. Her skin is forever crawling, and no amount of cold water rinsing on her wrists was enough to scrub the guilt clean off.
It’s not like she cares about what he’s doing. Nadine is drowning in a sea of feelings, but she doesn’t need rescuing. Alone, she needs alone.
She doesn’t want to be alone.
It turns out that despite the history of the place in its lifespan, Mike has a significant place within it. People come and go, partners, lovers, old friends and ex-friends. Sometimes they leave without a trace. Men like Mike? They haunt the place like mould and mildew.
In fact, she is tired of falling in love with the wrong type of shitty men, who never seemed to give her as much as a slither of attention when it was all she was vying for.
Nadine strips quickly, not caring about where her clothes are strewn out and across the room. She needs this cold bath whether she likes it or not, with clammy skin and a seemingly hot flush that would not be chased away regardless of what she did. It makes her body ache, her fingers continuously brushing against the pale column of her wrist. There’s a mark there, faint - a scar.
Reaching forward, she turns the tap on in a rush and pushes her wrist into the rush of water emerging from the faucet. It’s not completely ice-cold, but just over the line of bearably chill. If she hesitates and rethinks this, she’ll step away completely. Nadine wraps her fingers around the right faucet and turns it repeatedly, creating a flow of ice-cold water that numbs her hand to the bone.
It hurts just the way it should.
The girls still won’t disappear from her mind. They sit there as if to taunt her, and she even believes Mike is tired of hearing about her worries and her unending guilt over it. Nadine won’t ever see from his realist perspective but knows quietly that he’s right - somehow. They’ll never get the job done anyways. It’s still wrong.
A spray of water hits her in the face and she gasps, trembling at the temperature.
It’s freezing.
She shudders as she steps into the bathtub, the water still running in hefty amounts around her and swallowing her whole. The temperature takes a little getting used to, but she drags her other foot inside and nearly trips, placing a hand on the wall to stabilise herself with the way her heart almost jumps out of her throat.
Nadine wraps her arms around her knees and holds them to her chest when she’s properly seated, relishing the cold and the way it shocks her nerves and mind back into responsiveness. The water offers a sanctuary of safety like nothing else, filling the hollowness of her frame with its sharp sting. The chilling zap, the gentle tickle down her spine. If she stills enough, her entire body feels like it's vibrating. In the end, there’s still nothing that’ll scrub away the lingering guilt she feels, the tiny bit of her that feels filthy for being unable to separate the thoughts.
“You old fool,” Nadine whispers to herself, her fingers tucked just gently under the necklace that she refuses to take off. A gift from a hand that is equally just as cold and six feet under. “Get a grip.”
As the temperature becomes comfortable - she contemplates behaviours and old rituals, feeling the rigidity of the small chain under her fingertips. Vincent had given her the gift, to begin with, in quiet exchanges when he wasn’t being unbearably temperamental - and now she has no clue how to get rid of it. It haunts her just like he does. He’s everywhere.
And she hates him for it.
Nadine presses her face into the water, blinking against the sting. Bubbles form when she tries to breathe, a futile attempt when at times she doesn’t want to. This is probably what the girls felt, staring into the eyes of death as she stared at them through the screen. Minutes pass. If she stills enough, waits long enough - the water will envelop her entirely.
Under the water, he’s not here. She screws her eyes shut. Vincent has always kept her warm, since it always comes back to him in the end. Nadine cannot stop thinking about him, and knows she’ll cry if she does.
It’s been three years, give or take - the memory is hazy at best. It doesn’t mean she doesn’t miss him with every single fibre of her being, because he shouldn’t matter. The helplessness falls on her in buckets, because she’s drowning in it. In him, the memory of him. Of Mike.
She’s loved both of them and has felt them fall through her fingers like dust.
Nadine resurfaces for a gulp of air, coughing and spluttering out the excess water as she chokes. Her vivid curls soak and cling to her face, creating a sort of halo as she looks at herself in the mirror across the room. Treks of water run down her face in rivulets. They look like tears.
Nadine rests her head back against the edge of the tub, exhausted. The only sound that occurs is the gushing of the water from the faucet, and in an ideal world she should turn it off, but the tap is too far and her toes don’t reach. So she leaves it and counts the seconds.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
It’s dangerous to fall asleep. Reckless, even.
She can’t.
Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten.
Nadine allows the feel of the water on her skin to carry her somewhere else for a fleeting minute, away from life, away from Mike, away from the State Department and all of its burden.
Her eyes rise up to the ceiling, where shadows dance and twist in the reflection of the water - and she imagines herself among them. She finally feels at home.
The dim light illuminates the glow of her skin, highlighting the paleness of her undertones. In some lights, she’s completely white as a ghost. Here, covered head to toe in water, she’s almost shining. If she dips her head, just so her ears are slightly under, she can hear the familiar dull thump of her heart echoing throughout her body.
In the midst of everything, it’s the only proof she needs that she’s still alive.
Still human.
It’s peaceful here, inviting even. Her eyes are heavy, and something drags at her skin - almost threatening to push her under. Nadine doesn’t fight it anymore when her eyes close, she just wants to sleep. Two minutes , and then she’ll turn off the tap and get out .
She can only distinctly hear the sound of running water - but something grows closer, clawing to the front of her mind. If she cranes her ears, the sound fades away into quiet droplets, and the water envelops her completely.
Nadine falls deeper into the abyss.