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It has been almost three-hundred-and-forty-five hours since Lucy Chen took the life of Martin Carpio, brother of Joan Carpio and beloved of many. She is wide awake, staring at the ceiling of the bedroom she shares with Tim Bradford, her boyfriend.
She has spent every breath of the one million, two-hundred-and-forty-one thousand, seven-hundred-and-twenty-three seconds since it happened hearing the squelching sound his corpse made as it collapsed against the side of the tunnel, remembering the movement of her wrists as the linoleum knife slid into his stomach, and feeling the rush of blood through her temples as he’d lunged at her.
When it is particularly dark and quiet, usually late at night, she recalls the terrible urge she’d felt at the beginning of the fight; an intense desire to close her eyes and allow the experience to occur.
It’s the same reason why she hasn’t let Tim touch her beyond the occasional hug or kiss on her forehead since it happened. That feeling, the need to close her eyes and simply feel, is the same feeling she used to have whenever they were… close. She’s tried many times to forget the look on Tim’s face when he realized she gets nauseous from his touch, but she’s not sure she ever will. In these moments, the quickly-masked hurt on his face and his subtle, repressed flinch occupy the space behind her eyelids. It’s why she hates sleeping.
It’s currently two-fourteen in the morning on the twenty-fourth day of March, which is a notably different date. That is because it is Lucy’s birthday. She sighs and turns over in bed, putting her back to her boyfriend.
Tim had asked her at some point last week if she wanted to do anything special. She’s pretty sure she had responded by pressing her lips together and shaking her head. He’d tried to stay home, but Lucy had vehemently disagreed and begged him not to take the day off. What she sees now, in the back of her mind, is his pained expression as he retreats from her, rubbing his right wrist with his left hand as if to soothe a sting. The sting of rejection, Lucy muses. She doesn’t even know what he’s asked her.
Her routine changes very little each day: she stirs when he wakes up at five in the morning to get ready for work and pretends he doesn’t know she’s not asleep, just like he pretends he doesn’t know that she sneaks off every night at two o’clock on the dot to vomit. On the rare occasion she allows herself to meet his eyes, she can see the barely-contained need blazing there. It isn’t sexual, which does not surprise her because Tim loves her to the point of self-denial; but rather the pain of being unable to help her. He’s actually perfectly able, but Lucy refuses to be incapable which has resulted in her pushing him away with every chance she gets. Every morning without fail, he places a warm bowl on her bedside table and tells her it’s breakfast. She doesn’t know what the bowl contains, because she never eats it. He says words and she agrees; anything to get him to go.
Later on, once Tim has left and the sun is casting its soft glow through the windows, she rises from their bed. She takes care of her basic needs, exchanges her pajamas for a pair of sweatpants and some kind of top, and then heads into the garage with a bottle of tequila.
When she gets drunk, she leaves behind the memories associated with Martin’s death. She forgets what it feels like to watch life leave a person’s eyes, knowing you’re responsible for its absence. She spends a few hours taking the odd sip as her gaze wanders around the garage, contemplating the evidence left there of her life with Tim. Three unopened bottles of hand soap by the door to the rest of the house—abandoned when Lucy had moved in—because her preferred kind is infused with aloe vera and she’s prone to dry skin. Tim had scoffed at first, but Lucy knew he didn’t mind. He didn’t mind at all.
On the far wall is a Copcake poster. Lucy had insisted on putting up the copy she’d kept, but her and Tim had agreed that it wouldn’t be appropriate to display in the main portion of their home because they frequently hosted his sister and nephews. They’d compromised by putting it in the garage.
To Lucy’s immediate right is a small pile of unfolded cardboard boxes left over from her move. She remembers how happy she’d been to finally, officially reunite with her boyfriend; the love she’d felt when he followed her through their front door for the second first time as a couple. She typically tries to avoid this train of thought, since it always leads to her thinking about Martin and the life he’d never get to live.
Had he been someone’s partner? Spouse? She hadn’t gotten that impression from talking to Nolan and Internal Affairs, but she had not yet looked at his file. She preferred to make up details about him in her head rather than memorize facts about his life. That way, she could make him out to be whoever she wanted. Most often, he occupied space in her mind as some kind of magnanimous philanthropist who never spoke ill of anyone and was loved and respected by all.
At her lowest, most shameful points, her cognition distorted and he appeared to her as a monster: a hateful man who inflicted pain upon everyone he encountered. For half a second, before clarity and reason would win, Lucy would believe that she had done humanity a favour by subtracting him from the populus. She knew it was her brain’s way of soothing her, of trying to help her recover, but she couldn’t forget. She wouldn’t forget.
Around noon, Tim would call or text her to check in. The method of communication depended on what he was tied up in at the moment, but he’d usually try to call her so that he could hear her voice. A million years ago, on his first day back to work after his girlfriend became a murderer, Lucy missed his calls and was woken by the sound of James pounding frantically on the front door. Apparently, Tim couldn’t go himself, so he’d asked Angela, who was stuck interrogating a suspect and passed the request on to Nyla, who had called her husband because she had to give her statement on her experience at Westview. Once he could see for himself that she was awake and relatively alright, James had updated Tim and gone to the kitchen to make Lucy something to eat. He hadn’t asked her a single question about Westview, about what she’d done to Martin Carpio. She was grateful for that.
The sun is setting in the living room when Lucy’s phone starts to ring. She answers the call quickly, assuming it’s Tim about to tell her he needs to stay late. Her blood runs cold when she hears a nervous young man on the other end.
“Ma’am, I’m so sorry to say this…”
He continues to ramble on, but pain erupts in Lucy’s chest and squeezes her heart. Sweat drips along her browline, seeps into her eyes. She doesn’t hear a single sound except for the familiar roar of rushing blood in her ears.
She’s not clear as to the next half-hour’s order of events, but she seemingly blinks and she’s walking alone through the hospital doors. The waiting room is a sea of indigo, a mosaic of people, a mural of stricken faces all turning to her as she approaches a familiar person. The group parts for her, and then a hand is on her shoulder. Comforting or guiding, she doesn’t know. Lucy hears voices, but they all blend together and she can’t figure out which words to attach to which sentences to attribute to which people. The hand tugs her gently forward, and the people behind her follow. She can hardly feel her legs move as she walks, and then she’s standing in a doorway, staring at an obscenity of a human being. A human being she loves.
“That’s him. That’s Tim.” Lucy chokes out, voice hoarse from disuse. She turns to a woman in a white coat for confirmation.
The only word Lucy hears is yes, and her heart shatters; soul combusting into legions of tiny pieces. The air leaves her lungs, and try as she might, she can’t seem to get any more. The last thing she feels before her vision flickers and disappears is the shock sent up her spine from her knees colliding with sheet vinyl as her forehead kisses the doorframe.
Lucy sits up abruptly and her legs move without direction, propelling her off the bed and onto the floor. She can’t breathe. She cannot breathe. She’s struggling to inhale when bile climbs up her throat and she vomits onto the wool beneath her clenched fists. Once the awful abdominal contractions pass, her lungs are mercifully forced to expand.
“Lucy?” An alarmed voice calls.
Lucy knows that cadence.
She lifts her head from where she’s bent over her knees and makes eye contact with… Tim. Sergeant Tim Bradford— no, the sergeant is not present. It’s just Tim. Tim, who is shoving the covers off his body and rounding the foot of the bed to kneel in front of her, uncaring of the stomach acid painting the rug.
“Lucy, are you okay?” He’s gripping her shoulders with all the force of a child. There’s panic on his face, panic contorting his beautiful features.
She tries to speak, but chokes on the words. Tim is quick to press her water bottle into her palms, fingers trembling as he unscrews the cap. He waits patiently for her to take several large sips and clear her tender throat, gently rubbing her upper arms. She massages her sore neck with her free hand as she forces words out.
“You’re here.” Lucy rasps.
“Of course I am.” Tim responds, shaking his head as his hands migrate to hers. “How are you feeling, Luce? Can I get you anything to help, maybe some ginger tea for your stomach?” He rubs soothing circles along her wrists and lifts them to kiss each one of her knuckles. She shakes her head, a dazed expression on her face. She must be dreaming, and the place she was before was reality. She pulls her hands from his and draws them into her lap. He tenses at the motion.
“Why are you here?” The question is posed so honestly, so innocently that it causes Tim’s eyebrows to furrow.
He tilts his head up slightly as his lips form inaudible sounds, pausing for a heartbeat before looking down at Lucy again.
“What do you mean?”
He appears to be just as confused as Lucy. She bites the inside of her cheek and lifts a hand to scratch her neck.
“I… I received, um,” she clicks her tongue. “a call. Someone called me from Shaw’s. The…. the hospital.”
Tim’s eyes widen and he looks around for her phone. “When? Did you get some test results? Is everything okay?” He fiddles with the fabric of his sweatpants, a nervous habit he does not display often.
“No, I…” Lucy hesitates. Then she pinches the skin between her thumb and pointer finger on her left hand. She’s rewarded with a sharp burst of pain. Lucy makes a mental note to clip her nails later.
“The fuck?” Tim mutters, pulling each of her hands into one of his own, fingers closing over hers. “Don’t hurt yourself. Please tell me what’s going on, are you okay?”
“Depends on your definition of the word,” Lucy quips, but the joke falls flat in the midst of their tense interaction. Tim is not amused. She looks him in the eye, clears her throat, and shakes her head. “I think I had a dream. I thought, when I saw you, that this was the dream, which is why I pinched myself. It hurt, so I must not be dreaming. I must still be in shock, though, ‘cause I’d probably be crying or something.”
Tim’s expression softens and he squeezes her hands. “What kind of dream? You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”
“You died.” Lucy says simply, breaking eye contact.
Tim tightens his grip on her hands. “Oh,” comes his eloquent response.
“Yeah,” is her equally complex reply. “but you’re not dead.” She lets out a harsh laugh. “So at least we’ve got that going for us. Now I know how you felt.” Her lips twitch.
Tim stares at her incredulously as she tries and fails to hold in her raucous cackle.
“I’m sorry,” she gasps in between fits of laughter.
“Oh, you’re sorry?” The corners of his mouth turn upwards. It’s not long before he’s joining her inane giggling.
At some point, Lucy is pulled into Tim’s arms. She doesn’t flinch. They continue as they are, but Lucy knows they’ve both catalogued the moment.
Now, for the first time in the one million, two-hundred-and-forty-two thousand and eight seconds since the death of Martin Carpio, Lucy Chen’s heart feels full.