Chapter 3: Solitude

For the first time since his first trip to Brazen, Ethan regretted not taking his car. He usually walked, content to relish in the details from the night before. Lingering on the woman he'd touched and lost his memories to worked as an anesthetic. Sasha's red hair, Rose's green eyes, Lauren's tall stature, Michelle's short hair, Allison's strong nose… they were all different enough to pull his memory away for just a few hours longer.

But today was different.

Today he lingered on Seven. Rachel. His memories weren't of red hair, green eyes, strong facial features. Instead, he could only focus on her shoulder-length dark hair, her dark eyes, her petite frame, her warm smile. They were all too familiar.

They were all too much like Theresa—the chink in his armor.

Rachel's dark hair—like Theresa's.

Rachel's brown eyes—like Theresa's.

Rachel came to his shoulder—like Theresa.

She was too much like her.

Even when he was pulled into darkness and collapsed on the other side of the curtain, she went to him. Rachel kneeled in front of him, concern in her eyes. She reached out to him, reassured him. Even her compassion made her like Theresa. It was almost as if some supreme being, after learning of his numbing agent, cursed him and forced him to feel what he tried so desperately to forget.

Straining himself, Ethan walked faster and harder against the sidewalk. He could feel the pain beginning to build in his tibias, but he continued to push through it. The pain, if nothing else, was diversion enough to distract him even minutely from what was plaguing him.

Only minutes away from his house, she started breaking through the walls that were weakening by the minute.

Please… Ethan… Listen to me…

Ethan could swear that he felt something brush against his ear. Instead, he forced himself to only think of it as wind. Only wind. Nothing else.

He caught view of his front door only a few yards away. For some reason, he felt that if he was able to just reach the door, he'd be safe. Tucked inside, away from anything elemental, in his sanctuary, he would find some sort of peace. Maybe.

His legs burned, the arches in his feet starting to pulse with the force that he pressed down with. Still, he walked quickly through it. Almost breaking into a run, he could vaguely hear the fading of the voice in his ears. The door was within reach and he quickly turned his key in the lock before stepping in. Slamming the door behind him, he finally exhaled.

She was gone. No voices.

Opening his eyes, he almost felt relieved. He was able to escape with something resembling his sanity. But when he opened his eyes fully, he realized just how wrong he was. In trying to escape her outside, he didn't think about the fact that his house—Theresa's house—was a place that he also needed to avoid. Outside was dangerous. His house was a minefield of memory explosions. No place was safe.

The couch in the living room was a simple maroon sofa—her color choice. There was nothing special about it. A simple white afghan was thrown over the arm. But even something so simple was like a burn against him. Flashes of memory spurned inside of him again.

Once, another lifetime for Ethan, they had made love on that couch. She wore a lily in her hair that night to accentuate the soft white and lilac of her dress. And somehow, the lily survived until the next morning when she awoke on top of him, his arms securely holding her against his body.

Make love to me…

Ethan wanted to scream. He wanted to break something. He wanted to cry.

Not knowing what else to do, he ran through his house until he found the bedroom. Not knowing why, he closed the door behind him. He was wrong again about escaping her; as if a door made of wood and metal could keep her away from him.

It was becoming too much for him to handle at once. He continued to tell himself to focus on Rachel. The one difference he could summon was her kiss. Her lips moved differently than Theresa's. Pushing his pain further down, he recalled Rachel's mouth against his. For a brief second, he was cured. He felt a sudden relief when it felt like Theresa faded away in anger. Smiling to himself, he breathed easy. Feeling lighter, not as pained, Ethan sat on the edge of his bed and rolled his shoulders back. But his safety was quickly taken away with a flash.

Over on the dresser, only a few feet away from him, was the picture that he couldn't bring himself to get rid of.

Upon returning from Mexico, he'd cleansed the house of all her belongings, all her clothes and pictures. That day, he'd grabbed the picture on his dresser, but couldn't bring himself to discard it. It was his favorite picture of her. It always warmed his heart to see how happy she'd been the day they thought they were finally married after everything they'd been through. It was the happiest day of his life as well. But now, he wished that he'd thrown it out. Most days, he forced himself to ignore it, pretend it wasn't there. But now, it was almost as if he couldn't hide from it no matter how hard he tried.

Ethan…

He immediately thought about Rachel and what it felt like to kiss her again. But it didn't work like it used to. His pain was escalating and a kiss was no longer enough to cover it up. It felt like something was ripping its way up from his chest and into his throat. He had no choice but to succumb to the pain.

A sudden scream retched from his chest as he fell to the floor. The tears that flowed from his eyes had been uncried for far too long. For the first time since he held Theresa's lifeless body after pulling her from the ocean, he allowed himself to feel the anguish. But it was too much. He felt like he was dying. Screaming alone into his empty house, he rolled himself up into a fetal position at the foot of the bed.

"Oh god," he moaned.

He could feel it all descending on him now. Everything he'd been avoiding until that moment came crashing down on him. The sound of her laugh, the sparkle in her eyes, the warmth and electric current of her skin, the humming noise she accidentally let slip through her lips when he made love to her, the way she closed her eyes when she ate something she loved, the flush of her cheeks after a shower, or even the tension he felt in her kiss when they made up after an argument.

As if he were caught between two enclosing walls, he felt like he was being crushed alive. The memories were too much, too fast. For months, they were unmentionable, unthinkable. Now, they were inescapable.

"I—I can't," he sobbed into the empty room. "I just—I just can't take this. Please," he begged to no one in particular.

Perhaps he was pleading for god to spare him the pain. Perhaps he was asking Theresa to leave him alone. Perhaps he was asking his brain to simply stop working. Perhaps he was wishing for his own death. Perhaps he was asking for the recent months' events to rewind themselves.

And perhaps he was asking for it all with one word.

Suddenly he began asking himself how he'd managed to survive the days without her for so long. He wasn't sure that he'd last another minute, let alone an hour in such pain. He couldn't focus, could barely breathe. Everything inside of him was screaming for Theresa. But she was gone. Forever.

Death was coming, Ethan knew it. He couldn't imagine any worse pain that what he was feeling. If death didn't take him soon to end the pain, he knew that his sanity would leave him—if there was much left to leave in the first place. His hands went to his temples, squeezing down and mentally pleading with himself to think of anything that might neutralize the waves of crushing pain. Nothing worked. Death was sure to come for him.

"Ethan…"

His heart stopped and his eyes snapped open. No. It couldn't have been. He didn't hear that. It was all in his mind, just like before.

Focusing on nothing else, Ethan listened hard into the silence. The pulsing in the room echoed his rapid heartbeat and the quick rhythm of the breath escaping his lips. His ears perked up, almost scanning the room for any unexpected sound.

He felt like he was losing his mind. Ever since he saw Theresa's casket go into the ground at St. Mary's Cemetery, he had begun hearing her voice. Most of the time, it was only a whisper of his name. At first, he wasn't quite sure that he was hearing anything at all. Someone was playing a cruel joke at his expense, he thought. But as the days went on, at all hours, whenever her memory was sharpest in his mind, he would hear her voice clear in his head.

But this was different. This was a sound surrounding him completely; no whisper brushing past his ear, no second guesses as to what he was hearing, if anything at all.

She was speaking to him.

"Theresa…?" he asked out hesitantly.

But nothing answered. There was only silence.

Minutes went by and Ethan sat still, the tears on his face drying. He was too shocked to cry, to shocked to feel anything but anxiety and fear. He wasn't quite sure what he was afraid. Perhaps he was afraid that he had finally gone insane and was beginning to not only hear things, but that he was having full on auditory hallucinations that he couldn't differentiate between what was reality and what wasn't.

Ethan weighed the different options in his head of what he thought could have happened as the minutes of silence ticked by. He considered the option of having finally died. Maybe the pain he felt was so great that it caused his heart to burst, to break physically.

But silence continued to surround him. There were no voices, real or otherwise.

Minutes turned into more minutes and finally an hour went by. Ethan was still sitting at the foot of his bed. He was straining his ears to focus on any sound. He began thinking that he'd gone deaf when he finally caught the sound of a siren in the far distance.

She was gone.

Suddenly, a rogue idea occurred. For reasons that Ethan couldn't explain, he felt as if he'd lost something. If she had truly spoken to him, what if it had been the last time? What if she was speaking to him? And now she wasn't. He toyed with the idea and bounced it around in the silence of his bedroom. And finally, he took action.

For months, Ethan had tried to anesthetize himself. He refused to feel. After Theresa's funeral, he tried it all. From sleeping pills, to prescription-drug highs, to street-drug highs, to alcohol, to intense exercise, new hobbies, he'd tried it all to distract himself. None of it worked.

The sleeping pills knocked him out, yes. However, they also induced vivid dreams that were more fantasy-skewed memories than completely fictional. He once dreamt that Theresa's death hadn't been real at all. Instead, it was some kind of governmental scheme concocted to bring a hardened Mexican mafia queen out of hiding. In the dream, Theresa had shown up at his door step and explained the entire thing. She explained how it was against her will and how much she hated not being able to get to him. But in the end, she was home and she was alive. Needless to say, Ethan never took the sleeping pills again.

Then afraid to sleep for fear of confronting dreams and more memories of Theresa, Ethan began a self-induced insomnia routine. He'd keep himself awake by taking caffeine pills, drinking countless Redbulls and Monsters, and cold showers. One day, however, he ended up in the emergency room after he collapsed on his way out to retrieve the mail. His neighbor called an ambulance immediately and he was rushed to the hospital. It turned out that Ethan had successfully managed to keep himself awake for an unhealthy 137 hours. After nearly six days without sleep, his brain was beginning to shut down and he was severely damaging his entire body in the process.

The doctors were afraid that Ethan was going to continue in his downward spiral in his depression, or rather, lack thereof. He was depressed and rather than coping by extreme measures as other patients did, Ethan was simply trying to push it away by whatever means necessary. He was prescribed lithium so that his depression wouldn't get the better of him and, the doctors thought, it might even help him accept the death of his beloved Theresa.

Ethan quickly realized, however, that lithium, if taken in greater dosages than prescribed, turned him into a drooling lump. He took double the amount allotted one night. The next morning, after his system recovered, he woke to find that he'd vomited on himself and his ears were making a distant ringing noise. The sound, however, seemed to be coming from inside his head. When he tried to stand to wipe the vomit from his shirt, he almost fell face flat against the floor. He could barely control his body movements. Though, he realized, that the lithium did wipe out hours of his life and reduced him to a vegetable, he knew he would severely hurt himself if he did it again.

The bottle came next. It was easy. All Ethan had to do was stop at his nearest grocery or liquor store and pick a nice big and cheap bottle of alcohol. His preference was for brandy, scotch, and wine, but for the sole purpose of wiping his mind clear for a few hours, he didn't care what it tasted like. He forwent the expensive bottles that he'd grown accustomed to and chose the cheapest and biggest bottle of vodka he could find. Not willing to suffer completely through the ordeal, Ethan stuck the bottle in the freezer for a while. And then he began drinking.

He drank quickly, the liquid burning his throat despite being properly chilled. He used no chaser, no lime, nothing to wipe the terrible fire that poured down the back of his throat. He used the dreadful sensation as a gauge. He decided that when he could no longer feel the burn, he had consumed just about the right amount. But drinking as fast as he was, Ethan had finished about 20 oz of vodka before the burning subsided. And by that point, there was nothing he could do to prevent the impending pain.

The alcohol made certain memories play in his mind more than he'd wished. But it also made everything around him blurry. By the time his liver had caught up to the alcohol he'd consumed, his brainstem was quite numb. The hangover that followed, however, he was not numb to.

He had basically drunk himself into oblivion. So inebriated, Ethan began hallucinating and talking to himself with a slurred tongue. He didn't remember the next morning, of course. Then again, with the abuse he'd put his body through, the hangover left him in pain just blinking.

For three days, Ethan's body was in recovery. He couldn't move, he couldn't talk, couldn't think, could barely breathe. He'd managed to lift himself from the couch to lay in his bed. The few feet he walked felt like he was walking through all seven circles of hell right alongside Dante himself. He collapsed in bed and didn't move unless it was absolutely necessary. And for three days, he couldn't distract himself and his memories came back with a vengeance. He laid in physical and emotional agony for days. And he never drank that much again.

As soon as he was able, Ethan was walking around with a residual migraine from the left over sugars in his bloodstream. Food repulsed him still, but he was able to move. He used his mobility to his advantage and took to his gym shoes. Ethan stepped on the treadmill ready to rid his body of toxins and stress. And as he ran, he could only think about Theresa watching from the door way with an ice cold glass of water waiting for him. So he pressed the incline higher and increased the speed.

After not having eaten much for three days, with sugars and toxins still pumping in his body at abnormal levels, with the way he was pushing his body, Ethan couldn't understand just what he was doing to his muscles.

Memory after memory invaded his mind as his body worked faster and faster. His heart pumped quicker, his blood moved harder, and his mind was working faster. Memories came and went and he kept increasing speed and incline. Soon his calves and thighs were burning. It was as if he were running up a steep set of stairs at double his normal running speed. His diaphragm could barely keep up with the amount of oxygen needed in his body. And just like every other distraction had failed him, Ethan's strength eventually gave out and he fell. His legs twisted against the moving treadmill until he fell against the floor behind him. His only rewards of his new distraction were the burns and cuts caused by the treadmill all over his hands and legs.

Cooking class was next. Everyone that showed up seemed to be in a pair, though. And when Ethan showed up alone, Theresa's absence was even more pronounced.

Eventually, Ethan had one final and last resort. He thought that if he could distract himself with another woman, perhaps the memory of Theresa would fade just enough to not seem so incredibly painful. Ethan asked an attractive woman he saw at a local bookstore out for dinner. She agreed and they shared a pleasant and productive evening. For a while, Ethan even really allowed himself to enjoy the woman's company. It was halfway through dessert when he realized it; there was no Theresa.

Her memory was gone when he was with the other woman. But as he thought about her, a gaping wound in his defense mechanisms showed clear. Theresa let herself back in with a stronger force than before. As if her memory was jealous, Theresa's voice would get stronger and louder in his ears. At that point, not only was her memory haunting him, but her voice was as well.

Sometimes he could swear that he heard her whisper his name as if she were standing next to him. That night, Ethan was shaken by the new voice in his head. He wasn't sure if going out with another woman was indeed such a good idea. But then he remembered how he had been free of his usual sorrow while at dinner. So he invited the woman out for a second date later that week. In between the dates, Ethan was alone with his mind. He hated being alone. It was when he was most vulnerable.

Finally when the date came along, again, as if by magic, Theresa disappeared for a short while. He did not think about her and did is best to escape any topic that might bring her to the forefront of his mind.

That night, when he dropped his date off at her door, she took initiative and kissed him. There was a raw response in Ethan's mind immediately. He'd been without physical contact with a woman for far too long. But at the same time, he'd always been afraid that it would only remind him of Theresa. But as he kissed the woman, the voice in his head was nowhere to be seen or heard. So he kissed her back. The kiss turned into enough that it deemed going inside.

That night, as he moved against the woman, pressing himself into her, he was able to completely forget everything. Not only was he happy that Theresa's voice was not in his head, but it seemed for a brief moment that she didn't really exist. He was free. Finally.

And that is how it began.

At first, Ethan began seeking out woman wherever he went. But the ritual of dating and dinner was getting tedious. Theresa was growing stronger and she was taunting him with her words and images whenever possible. Being in another woman's company was no longer enough. He needed physical contact.

After Ethan made it through the first few dates with a new woman, sex—his goal—was finally had. And he found bliss in a way. It was about more than just physical gratification. Ethan was another person when he was with another woman. He was able to feel like himself again. There was still a hole in his heart that was created the day Theresa died, and it would never be filled, but when his naked skin was pressed against another woman, it felt as if it were almost covered.

A few of the woman considered Ethan to be their new boyfriend, possibly a man of their future. But Ethan couldn't do that. After the second or third time of spending the night with them, the Theresa wounds were coming back up to the surface. So Ethan moved on to a new woman as a hermit crab changes its shell.

He'd never done it before, but Ethan found himself at Brazen one afternoon. He'd heard the rumors around town that it was discreetly a brothel. He couldn't be sure, though. It was a strip club and he wasn't quite sure who to ask or even what to say to get what he wanted. He sat at the bar, glancing up at the dancing women a few times. He was careful with how much alcohol he ordered and his eyes wandered around looking for any signs of underground prostitution as if there would be a FOR SALE sign somewhere.

As Ethan turned back to face the bar, he noticed that the bartender was nodding at him while looking at a woman across the club. She walked over quickly. Ethan immediately noticed that she was easily the oldest in the entire place. Her body, though aged and most likely beginning to loosen in some areas, was clearly one used to spinning around poles.

"Hey," she greeted Ethan. "What you doing here?"

Ethan took a sip of his T&T and looked at her questioningly. "Sorry?"

"Who are you and what are you doing here?" she asked, a tension popping into her voice.

Ethan motioned to the drink in his hand. "Having a drink," he admitted innocently.

The woman stared at him with squinted eyes. "Let me see your ID." She snapped her fingers and bended her hand at the knuckles in summons.

"You can't be serious." Ethan hadn't been carded since he was 24 and he was definitely past looking younger than 21.

The woman snapped again and Ethan produced the card from his wallet. She stared at the ID and looked back up to Ethan again and again, double checking the face. Finally, she looked behind him to the bartender. He shrugged and Ethan was beginning to get worried.

"I'll be right back, Mr. Winthrop," the woman said.

She disappeared behind a curtained doorway on the other side of the club.

Ethan was on edge and wasn't able to finish the rest of his drink as he waited for the return of his ID. Minutes later, the older woman reemerged and came at him, this time slower than before. She handed him his card back with a smile.

"Sorry 'bout that," she said sincerely. "Just always suspicious of new customers. It's hard to tell who's a cop these days, you know?" She smiled a sweet smile. "I'm Sandy, owner and manager."

Ethan nodded to himself as he realized that she was the Madame. So the rumors were true…

"Listen, I don't like to run around bushes. So I'm just going to ask. Are you here for a drink and a peek? Or did you come for some other kind of entertainment?"

Ethan's eyes did a dance. He wasn't quite sure how to answer. For all he knew, the woman could have been cop trying to ensnare a felon for engaging in prostitution.

"Uh…," he stuttered. "I… don't really drink anymore."

Sandy smiled the sweet smile again. Clearly she had years of experience of smiling at customers just the way they liked. She took a step back and bent her hand at the knuckles again to beckon him follow her. Ethan did as he was beckoned.

That night, Sandy opened up Ethan's world to Allison. Without pretense of dinner and dating rituals, Ethan lost himself quicker and found that when he woke in the morning, the voices and memories had left him. From then on, Ethan needed Brazen like nothing else before. He needed the mental clarity and the moments without wanting to scream in agony. And so the regular visits to Brazen began.

But now he found himself at the foot of his bed without the voices in his head. For the first time since Theresa's death, he was alone and not being pelted with memories for his lack of distraction. The shock at the realization struck him deeply.

Theresa was gone.

After a few seconds of confusion passed, panic began to set in.

Theresa was gone.

Ethan couldn't take it.

Purposefully, Ethan began conjuring up memories. He forced himself to remember what it was like to watch Theresa walk down the aisle to him. The texture of the lilies in her hands, the way her smile seemed to cast rainbows into the light. Their first date, proposing marriage to her, teddy bears, laughing, kissing, touching, the wharf, tears, joy, happiness… And she was still gone.

With nothing else left, afraid that he was sincerely alone, Ethan tried something he couldn't even believe. The night after they finally thought they were married flooded into his memory slowly. He pulled each second into his brain carefully, waiting for the fall, for the destruction it would cause.

Their honeymoon night was something he never brought up with himself. He couldn't stand the pain. He lingered on the details of the way she looked in the flowing lingerie he'd bought her. She had sipped her champagne with a knowing smile of what was to come. Ethan remembered how her mouth puckered around a ripe strawberry covered in chocolate. His fingers had lightly unbuttoned the nightgown and he'd slid it off her shoulders to reveal her perfectly toned back. And when they made love that night, it was as if they never had before. It was the most intense, most affectionate, most real and emotional it had ever been.

Ethan opened his eyes, one eye and then the other. He was waiting for the crushing sensation to take hold upon his chest. He was waiting for that moment when he thought he would die. He wanted it back. And though crazy, he wanted to hear Theresa's voice.

Finally he understood something. He had been trying to escape memories of her, he tried to poison and wash her out of his system. But only half-heartedly. Because he knew that despite what he did, she would never be truly gone. And he took comfort in that. He lost himself against the bodies of strange women and did whatever he could to distract himself of the lingering memories. But a part of him knew that she would always be with him.

A part of him knew that even though he could temporarily numb the pain, he'd never be free of it. And he didn't want to be free of Theresa. He just wanted to be able to think about her without wanting to die in the process.

And it seemed that he'd finally been granted his wish.

He could think about her and not want to die from the pain it caused. But that meant that she was truly gone. And it hurt worse than even the best memories ever did.

Theresa was gone. She was really gone.

Then the pain came. It was the same pain that Ethan felt the day he held Theresa in his arms. When he knew that her eyes would never open again, that her skin would never be warm again, that her cheeks would never flush again, that her heart would never beat again. It was as if Theresa had died again.

Ethan couldn't take it.

When Theresa died in Mexico, Ethan had been granted a sort of grace. He was in a foreign country, surrounded by Theresa's family. He had pieces of her around him. Her suitcases still held her clothes and her personal items. He was given the opportunity to slowly learn to deal with her death. All of a sudden, Theresa had died again and he was alone. He was utterly alone and surrounded by her memories, by her belongings, by her hideous furniture choices, her picture.

The tears falling from Ethan's eyes went unnoticed as he stood up. He wrapped his hand around the picture on his dresser. The day she'd been so happy, the day they'd both been their happiest… She looked so alive in the picture, so fresh, so young, so full of promise. And she was completely gone now.

He didn't have her body to cry over, he didn't have her mother sitting behind him and telling him stories of her childhood, he didn't have the funeral to solidify the reality. All he had was loss and emptiness. It was as if she had just been standing in front of him completely alive and then suddenly snatched as Persephone had been stolen away by Hades.

"NO!" he screamed.

Ethan's veins were on fire suddenly. He threw the picture he was holding to the floor as hard as he could, the glass shattering instantly. Possessed by nothing less than the Furies, Ethan spun around and tore the blankets from the bed—Theresa's bed. He whipped the comforter across the room and punched the pillows as she flung them feet away at the windows. If he hadn't been so blinded by anger and panic, he might have thrown the mattress through the front door.

The tirade continued through the hallway as Ethan ripped pictures off the walls, trinkets and bobs that Theresa had purchased long ago. Every room he stepped into had some kind of remnant of Theresa's touch. Pictures, lamps, blinds, curtains, clocks, anything Ethan could grab was thrown off the walls and onto the floor, smashing with glass and plastic around his feet.

As he went through the kitchen and threw out the occupants of the refrigerator, he once again tried to conjure up Theresa's memory. It was no use. Every memory passed his brain as if it didn't mean as much as it did. Every memory was supposed to cut at his soul, slice at his heart. And yet, he was feeling nothing of the sort. Something was wrong.

"Theresa, please! Come back!"

For months, he had refused to say her name. He couldn't bear it. It was too much. Her name was tied to her memory and her memory was nothing but pain because she was gone. Now she was gone and there was no pain. Ethan felt ashamed. He had lost her.

Not even memories of their honeymoon was doing the trick. Nothing worked. Their first date, kisses on the wharf, making love in the grass under a sky lit with stars, looking into her eyes and realizing for the first time that he was in love with her… the emptiness echoed through him like a hollow.

Ethan knew there was one place where he could truly be close to her. If her memory didn't work, he would go to the source. He had to be as close to her as possible. And then he was positive that she would return. He realized that he needed her memory to live. Without it, he wouldn't survive. Without the reminder that he once possessed the greatest love, he would surely wither and die in the coming winds.

Without another thought, Ethan grabbed his keys and yanked the front door open. He was about to run to his car and attempt to fly to his destination in his haste. He stopped abruptly before he walked right into the body waiting for him to open the door.

"Ethan…," she said, a kind of relief washing into her voice.

Ethan could only stare at the petite brunette in confusion. Her eyes seemed to melt as she looked at him, a kindness flooding into them. They locked eyes and he waited for some kind of explanation, but it wouldn't come. She only stared back at him in a mirrored confusion.

"Rachel, what are you doing here?"

______