Blurred Lines (16 page)
Authors: M. Lynne Cunning
That said, I do hope you can forgive me, not only for everything I did that caused your death, but also for the fact that I cannot allow my punishment of residing with Sarah to go on any longer. If it were meant to be my punishment and my punishment alone, that would be a different story.
However, Dean is the only one able to hopefully walk away from this and lead a full life, but Sarah has no intentions of permitting such a thing. Michael, she is going to ruin him, destroy him from the inside out. Please, if you can, please forgive me for my last attempt to do something good, to save Dean from the emotional and mental catastrophe that is Sarah. I do hope that you can, Michael. I will see you soon, my love.
Finally, to Sarah. You deserve no words dedicated to you in this letter, and if I succeed, you shall never read them anyway. Therefore, I will leave you with only one thought, the one thing that allows me to smile in even the faintest manner as I write the words:
You did not win.
Goodbye,
Lauren Carrington
The nurse stared at the page, convinced she could hear the emptiness and despair in Lauren’s voice. In the end, all that mattered to Lauren was that Dean lived the life he deserved. She wanted her husband’s forgiveness, and she didn’t want Sarah to have the last word.
A life full of ups and downs, happiness and heartache, mistakes and battles, all summed up in a few tiny paragraphs on a page of a book that had been hidden away in the back of a nightstand in a psychiatric facility.
A flood of sadness overwhelmed the nurse at the thought of it. So much unhappiness and tragedy in one story, she could hardly take it. Even if she had believed what little Lauren had told the staff and the media, the nurse never would have expected such a formidable tale of fear and deceit.
With nothing left to do but leave, she closed the book.
That can’t be all there is to it.
There had to be something else, anything else that would somehow make all the deception and sadness worth the pain. It could not possibly just be over, just like that.
Maybe it was intuition, but the nurse knew there was something she was missing, and it was crucial. With nothing else to go on, she thumbed through the remaining blank pages of the journal. She saw it almost immediately, and it was as if she had known where it was all along.
A small picture was drawn in pencil in the corner of one of the last few pages, shaded so lightly that it could have easily been overlooked had she not felt the pull of it inside her. She stared at the image, her forehead crinkling as she tried to comprehend why Lauren would draw a picture of a bed.
No headboard, just folded down sheets with a square pillow at the head of it. There was nothing special about it except for the area near the head of it where she had pressed harder on the pencil as she drew it. A solid line was all it was.
It meant everything to the nurse, however.
She let the journal fall from her hands as she threw herself to her knees and began to rip the fitted sheet away from the mattress. When she lifted the mattress and shoved her hands under it, she found the cardboard cover of a three-ringed notebook. It had been placed in the exact location of the darkly-shaded area on the illustration. She could feel it in her bones. This was what she had been looking for when she had walked into the room earlier.
There was nothing written on the front cover to explain what the contents might be. When she opened the cover, everything she needed to know was there in that familiar artsy writing.
It seemed everything Lauren had done yesterday, her last day on earth, the last day she would need to share her innermost feelings and regrets with Sarah, had been of its own significance to her. The notebook contained the second novel Lauren had been working on so tirelessly. It was the novel that created the mess she had come to live in, and it was now the novel that would be the ending of that mess as well.
Inside the front cover was the inscription that explained everything.
She had to admit, she had been shocked to find out that morning that Lauren had committed suicide using an overdose of the anxiety medications that she had been administered each day. She had hoarded them in the drawer of her nightstand, using the all-too-common trick of sticking it under her tongue when the West Heights staff were of the belief that she had, in fact, swallowed the pill.
Her care worker had found her when she entered the room earlier that morning to make sure Lauren was getting ready for her talk therapy group session. There was still hushed chatter amongst the staff about it, though. It was not the fact that she had chosen to kill herself that got to everyone the way it had. It was that she had laid there on top of the covers on her bed, the drawer of her nightstand still open, with a look that could have been mistaken for a peaceful sleep had it not been for the grateful smile on her lips.
The staff who had seen her said they were not likely to forget the sight. Now, the nurse knew the reasoning behind that smile. She read the inscription again, and knew Lauren had finally gotten the ending she wanted.
For my Michael, forever in my heart. The days we shared together brought us here, and the final day we now share shall hopefully bring us back to where we ought to be. Together. This is for you, the love I lost on February 27, 2014.
Their deaths were one year apart to the day.
She chose that day in remembrance of Michael
. Tears stung the nurse’s eyes again.
What that kind of love must be like. She wondered then if Lauren had found Michael, wherever she was now. She wondered if she’d finally escaped the grip of Sarah’s brutality. Would Dean be okay, and did he know what Lauren had done?
The nurse wondered if she would ever stop contemplating this.
She didn’t think she would. Maybe she couldn’t.
Either way, Lauren’s love would live on in her written words and the impact she had made on the nurse. There were two things she was sure of now. Firstly, she would do all she could to do right by Lauren and the written legacy she’d left behind. Lastly, February twenty-seventh would never be just another day on the calendar, meaningless and uneventful. Instead, the date would remain etched in her mind as the day love conquered hate, good defeated evil, and strength overpowered weakness.
You won,
the nurse vowed silently, the bittersweet finality of her thoughts bringing her to tears.
You won.
Acknowledgments
To my Mom and Dad: Once again, you’ve been so supportive. There’s no way I could do this without you. I hope you know how much you guys mean to me!
To Dennis: Thank you for putting up with this rollercoaster of a journey we’re on! You’ve let me drag you along for the ride. For that, I love you.
To my Grandma: Thank you so much for the enthusiasm and optimism you’ve shown during this endeavor. Our telephone chats, no matter what the topic, are moments I will cherish forever. I love you, Gramma!
So many people have gone above and beyond to get the word out about my books. I know I’m going to forget someone, but I’m going to try to thank a few of you anyway. Thank you to Kelly R., Rita, Hally, Jody, Maryse, Tracy, Erica, Rosa, everyone who has sent emails and messages asking about my books, and everyone who has spent their hard-earned dollars to buy the books I’ve written. There are no words to express how grateful I am.
About the Author
M. Lynne Cunning has always wanted to be an author, but it wasn’t until she discovered National Novel Writing Month and all the insanity that goes along with it that she began to truly realize her love for writing stories. While she doesn’t limit herself to writing only specific genres, her first published novel is a New Adult/Romance. She also doesn’t believe that the traditional typical “happily ever after” is always the way to go. You’ve been forewarned.
She is almost always reading or writing, but also enjoys spending time and traveling with her husband/best friend, Dennis, and is the proud dog-mom of a brindle boxer. She’s also a too-far-gone coffee addict and a lifelong country music fan.
