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As the clock struck midnight, Emily watched the date change on the screen of her phone. Her vision was blurry, but she could still see it: March 7th.
How many years had it been? Seven? It was so long ago, so why was Emily sat on the floor of her apartment, shaking and dizzy, a bottle of wine clutched in her hand? Her death anniversary hadn’t hit her this hard since the first. She had been fine for years, so why was this year drawing such a reaction from her?
She had just had too much wine, she tried to convince herself. Too much wine. But while, yes, that may have been part of it, Emily knew, deep down, that wasn’t the only reason. It was also because, almost 6 months ago, she had nearly died. Again.
She truly thought she had, too. Lying across Peter Lewise’s makeshift hospital bed, rendered immobile by nothing more than her own mind. As he struck her with the defibrillator, she felt the current run through her. She felt the same sensation she had years ago, in the whining bed of the ambulance. The coldness that took over, a moment of feeling everything, followed by terrifying nothingness.
Now, she knew it was a hallucination, some sick joke he played on her to get her to confess. But still, it felt so real.
So yeah, maybe that was the reason for all of this.
Emily slid her phone across the carpet and brought the bottle to her lips again.
She needed to stop. Sip. She needed to stop. Another sip. She needed it to stop.
She needed to sleep, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to. She had tried earlier that night and was promptly met with a wave of terror that, still, had not let up. She remembered, hours earlier, opening the bottle of wine and pouring a glass, which had quickly turned into her sipping from the bottle. Now, the said bottle was empty.
Emily shakily stood and stumbled her way to the kitchen. All the lights in her apartment were off, casting the room in dark shadow. She tried to feel her way around, too inebriated to fully remember the layout. She yelped as her hand connected with the hard granite of the kitchen countertop, shattering the wine bottle she was holding.
Fucking hell.
Whatever, she’d clean that up later. Or, as soon as she found the light switch. Where was it? As she continued to feel across the walls, she steadily felt herself grow lightheaded. Too much wine. Next time this happened, she would have to lock the bottles up somehow.
Emily laughed at that thought, the shear patheticness of it. Unit chief of the BAU, and she had to lock up her alcohol to prevent herself from drinking it. Pathetic. She was pathetic.
Her fingers finally found the light switch, and the room was illuminated. Emily squinted, the sudden brightness blinding her. Blinking rapidly, she looked around her apartment, taking stock of the damage. The counter where she’d broken the bottle was covered with glass shards, the floor underneath it similarly littered and splattered with droplets of wine. It was a mess, and one Emily did not have the energy for right now. She went back to turn the light back off, preferring to ignore the crime scene in her kitchen, when she noticed something she hadn’t till then.
Her hand, the one that had held the bottle, was marked with deep gashes, bleeding thin red blood onto the tile. Glass lodged itself into her palm and arm, and blood dripped down her forearm. The lightheadedness hit Emily like a truck, and she lost her footing, crashing down onto the tile.
She needed to call someone, she decided as she lay on the kitchen floor, rendered immobile from the dizzy spell. Her phone was in the other room, though, and no one was coming to save her. There was no reason they would, she wasn’t in any trouble that they knew of. No, she had to save herself. Like she had six years ago, on the first anniversary of her death.
She sat up with an excruciating groan, her stomach flipping at the movement. She used her good hand to pull herself up over the sink. She ran the water until it was lukewarm and stuck her other hand under the faucet. She bit her tongue before pulling out the stubborn glass shards, the pain shooting up her arm and causing her to cry out. Once cleaned, she wrapped her wounds with gauze and tape, the pressure helping with the bleeding.
The injury had sobered her somewhat, and so she started to clean up the broken bottle, not wanting the tile to stain. She kneeled and picked up the glass, wiped the wine and blood away with a wet washcloth. She wobbled, still dizzy, but managed to finish her job. It was like it had never happened.
The time on the clock was 1:10. She had to go to work at 8. Satisfied with her cleaning, she shut the light off and trudged back to her bed. As her head hit the pillow, her mind started to go to sleep. Her body relaxed into the mattress, and her eyelids slowly closed. She knew she would still have a nightmare, she knew she was going to wake up in a cold sweat. But it was going to be okay. She could get through it.
Right?