Letting Go
LETTING GO
by
Rachelle Williams
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PUBLISHED BY:
Letting Go
Copyright © 2011 by Rachelle Williams
Book Cover Graphics Courtesy of:
Evgeni Dinev & Gruar Codrin
*****
Letting Go
The blasts of frigid air engulfs me like the icy waters engulfs the beluga whale in the depths of the Arctic Ocean. My legs can barely lift my feet, and they grow heavier with each step. I must try to force my inebriated brain to think about something other than the biting cold as I trudge forward against the frozen gusts of air. As my legs continue to move me forward, I peer out into the thickened stands of trees that surround me, and I wonder how I ever got into this mess. My mind reached back into the past events of the evening, and I tried to piece it all together.
*****
I stared into the mirror and applied the black kohl makeup to the lining of my eyes. I heard the radio playing, and I can vividly recall blowing off the weather advisory for later in the evening. “Wow!” I thought, “We’re going to have a bad snowstorm in North Dakota in January, who would have ever imagined such a thing?” I can also remember thinking that I was not about to let a little snow spoil my evening. Tonight was the first night I was going to venture out since Caiden dumped me. I promised myself that I would have fun, and that was exactly what I planned to do. I really needed to get out and feel normal again.
*****
Just as I was starting to get lost in my recollection, the shrill sound of a distant howl resonated through the forest, and jerked me back into the present. The eerie sound cracked through the frozen air and shook my nerves straight to the core. The acrid taste of fear filled my mouth, and a gloriously warm trickle washed across the lower half of my freezing body and rushed down the insides of my thighs. Rum and cola came pouring out of me, I felt briefly ashamed, but I welcomed the tiny bit of warmth. The woods grew silent again, but my level of comfort began to plummet as the frigid wind assaulted my dampened lower body.
I continued to make my way through the densely wooded forest, but my nerves were jarred again - this time, there was an entire symphony of eerie and bewitching howls. It sounded like something straight out of The Howling, and I wasn’t altogether sure if it was natural lupine or Hollywood supernatural… either way, it scared the hell out of me, and it stopped me dead in my tracks. The ominous sound grew louder, almost as if it was becoming stronger in voices, but it was still at a distance. I said to myself, “Celina Gayheart, if you do not get it together and keep on moving, this will be your last night on Earth!” I summoned every inch of my courage, I put one foot in front of the other, and I carried on though the gripping fear and the bitter cold.
After a while, the scary sounds completely died down. The lower half of my wet body was chilled through to my bones, and I was unbelievably cold. My body shook violently, equally from both cold and fear, but I kept going. I figured if I walked far enough, I would eventually reach civilization - It never occurred to me that I could be walking deeper into the woods; my mind was too foggy for any kind of rational thought. I drifted back into my recollections in order to escape the present moment.
*****
I was sitting at the bar with Kendra and Julie. I already had more than a few drinks as I watched the people on the tiny dance floor. All at once, I felt a sadness wash over me as I noticed all of the happy couples in the room. My mind pushed away the unhappy thoughts, and I resumed my determination to have a good time. I turned to steer my mind toward Kendra and Julie’s lively conversation about which guy in Statistics class had the cutest rear-end, but just as I looked over at Kendra... I saw them off in the distance. In that moment, everything and everyone else in the room seemed to melt away, and time stood still.
Caiden and Kristen sat at the bar, playfully enjoying each other’s company. I felt compelled to leave immediately, but I could not pull my eyes away from their joyous little scene. My heart began to swell, my palms began to sweat, and I felt anxious, nauseous and confused. He told me that he did not break up with me for her, and I believed him. He had obviously played me for a complete fool and I was his willing accomplice. They looked so happy together, and they seemed to be oblivious to the world around them. He was playing with the scarf around her neck and they were laughing together, in the intimate way that couples laugh at private jokes. I could not stand it any longer, I mumbled something about having to go home, and I bolted out of the bar and ran toward my car. I slipped on the frozen ground and whacked my head against the icy pavement. Some guys who were standing outside rushed over to help me, but I got up quickly and took off before they could reach me. Now, on top of being thoroughly humiliated by Caiden and Kristen, I was completely mortified in front of total strangers.
*****
The searing pain of the awful incident was enough to bring me back to the reality of my current desperate situation. My fingers began to tingle and burn, and my face itched uncontrollably. “Where am I?” I wondered. “I must be somewhere near the Pembina Gorge,” I thought. Even though I consciously dared not think of it… my mind involuntarily conjured up the article I read a year ago about dangerous packs of wolves near Pembina… The past few winters near the Canadian/North Dakota border had been exceptionally harsh. There were scattered reports of wolf attacks on humans, but most people chalked it up to rumors and fear. I successfully pushed the possibility of wolves out of my mind, and I forced myself to drift back to the drive that brought me to my current circumstance.
*****
Just as the radio announcer predicted, a heavy snow had begun to fall while we were in the bar, and the roads were slickened with sheets of ice. It was a short drive from the bar to my dorm, but I could not face staring at the familiar four walls, and I did not want to be around anyone else. I hit up the liquor store for a bottle of Bacardi Torched Cherry Rum, and an icy-cold 2-liter of Coca-Cola. I poured out more than half of the cola onto the ground, I filled the empty space of the 2-liter with the sweet flavored rum, and then I drove off aimlessly into the night with my wickedly delicious, sense altering, concoction to keep me company.
*****
I do not recall exactly how I ended up out here in the wilderness. I know I left the liquor store at around a quarter past eleven, but my watch now read nearly three o’clock in the morning. I just know that I awoke cold, confused, and in pain. The hood of my car was wedged into a tree and the engine would not start. My head hurt something awful, and my face and shirt were streaked with blood. I knew that I would freeze to death if I stayed there, because no one knew where I was, so no one was coming to help me. I bundled up as best I could and I stumbled out into the frozen night. I was in the middle of a heavily forested area, I was completely disoriented by alcohol, fear, and cold, and it was nearly pitch-black. I remembered walking off toward the area that was least darkened by trees, and I began my descent towards civilization. I tried again to recall the drive up, or the details of the accident, but my memory of those events was lost. As I trudged along through the freezing wilderness, I forced my mind to go back to the events of the previous week.
*****
Kendra and Julie were worried about me, so they talked me into visiting the university counseling center. My exciting visit won me a trip to the pharmacy and a prescription for Zoloft. Big news…I was obsessed with Caiden, and clinically depressed over the breakup - this I knew, despite not yet having an M.D. or a PhD. I realized that I had been a mere distraction for Caiden during his six-month break with Kristen. When we first met, he told me he still loved her, but I knew I could make him change his mind. The truth attacked me with the force of a sledgehammer wh
en I saw them together earlier this evening. I had been carrying the weight of depression around with me since the day he broke up with me two months ago. I tried to get him to understand that I could love him better than she could, but he swore he did not break up with me for her - in the last two months of my private hell, this was the thing that brought me a modicum of comfort. I rationalized that as long as he was not with her, he would eventually return to me; he just needed a little time to realize that we belong together.
I knew that Caiden and I would reconcile in a matter of time, but as the weeks turned into months, I began to worry. I could not eat, I could not sleep, and I walked around campus in a complete fog. I spent most of my free time crying on my bed in my dorm room, or in the quiet spaces of the library, caught up in lengthy thousand-yard stares. I tried to throw myself into my studies, but I just could not concentrate. My weight was dwindling, my grades were suffering, and I was in constant emotional pain. My friends insisted that I come out with them and try to have fun, and frankly... I was tired of being depressed, so I told myself that I was going to have a good time, no matter what. Little did I know that fate was about to bring me face to face with the most horrible situation I could have ever imagined. After I remembered the awful incident in the bar, I realized what a total fool I had been. I knew that my past two months of hell would be a cakewalk compared to what I was about to face from now on. “Why would anyone want to go back to a world filled with such unrelenting pain?”
*****
For most of my bleak experience in the forest, I had been in a state of confusion, fear, and unbelievable cold. However, just now, I had a moment of complete clarity and a total lack of fear. I knew that Caiden and I would never be together, and Kristen was not the real issue (she will never last anyway). We would never be together because Caiden simply did not love me, and he never would. It was just like that old Bonnie Raitt song my mom used to listen to; you really can’t make someone love you if they don’t, no matter how hard you try, and no matter how badly you want it. It was then that I knew I could not bear the immense pain that would surely follow in the months ahead. I continued to walk through the forest, I did not have a specific aim, I became less bothered by the bitter cold, and I felt overcome by a strange, but welcomed, sense of calm.
What seemed like hours later, I began to feel an intense heat, almost as if my clothes had caught fire somehow? I vaguely remembered a strange phenomenon I had learned about years ago. It is called paradoxical undressing and it usually occurs to people who were near death from hypothermia. I am a first year medical student, and know full-well that my freezing body is causing my hypothalamus to play cruel tricks on my internal thermometer. Nonetheless, the heat has become intolerable, so I have peeled off my clothes, down to my underwear. All I want to do now is go to sleep in the blanket of soft snow beneath my feet, so I lay down. The snow feels cool against my burning flesh. As I drift off into the sweetest sleep I have ever known, the wolves began their unearthly song…this time, they are much closer… but I am no longer afraid, because I know that I will soon be out of harm’s reach, and I will feel no more cold, no more fear, and no more pain.
NOTE TO THE READER:
If you enjoyed LETTING GO, please stay tuned for the
continuing saga in, AFTER THE FALL, soon to
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
My name is Rachelle Williams, and I am a freelance web content producer
with a penchant for writing short stories and flash fiction with a macabre twist.
My other interests include photography, classic films, nutritional healing,
Generation X culture, and creating passive income on the Internet.
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Come and hang out with me online:
Twitter: @Rachellewms
Facebook: Rachellewms
Blogger: Web-Writing-Junkie
YouTube: Rachellewms