Three Years Beside Their Bed

They always called me the crazy one. The afternoon I caught Cynthia cheating, I dragged her with me over the railing of our fifth-floor balcony. Gravity didn’t kill her. It only turned me into a ghost behind my own eyelids, locked inside a coma for three agonizing years. During those years, she brought that man straight to my bedside, taking him into her arms night after night, letting the rhythm of their skin become the only pulse in my silent room. In the first year, her voice would break with a jagged, bitter rage whenever she spoke of me. Dying together, she’d hiss against his neck, would have let me off far too easy. In the second year, she bit down on his shoulder in the dark, feverish and unraveling, whispering that one day she’d set the whole house on fire so the three of us could burn together in the same bed. By the third year, my name rarely crossed their lips. Their quiet moments were swallowed up by doctor visits, ovulation schedules, and florists’ brochures for a wedding. And on the morning of that wedding, I woke up. Under a blinding, white-hot sun, Cynthia was kissing her foster brother, Scott, her hand resting over the small, distinct swell of his stomach. I lifted my wasted, trembling hands and joined the applause of our old friends. The ragged, hollow clap broke the ceremony instantly. My sister, Megan, was the first to cut me off, her face twisting into sharp fury. "Lucas, don't you dare start this psychotic shit again. Cynthia and Scott filed the paperwork years ago. The only reason this wedding got dragged out until today is because of you." My father, who had never once looked at me without finding something to correct, stepped protectively in front of Scott. He looked at me with an exhaustion bordering on pleading. "Lucas, pretend she died three years ago when you jumped. Just... let them have their peace. Please." My eyes drifted past them, finding Cynthia’s face—taut, pale, pulled apart by some deep, subterranean terror. Slowly, I nodded. Then Scott opened his mouth to speak, and my hollow, starving stomach spasmed in violent revulsion. Without thinking, my hand dropped to the table beside me, fingers closing around the silver handle of the cake knife. Three years of chewing on ashes had left me hollow. I only wanted something sweet. None of them believed me. They thought I was still the monster they’d made me out to be. They didn't realize that this time, I was truly letting go. … Cynthia stepped down from the altar, one measured pace at a time. I watched the sharp panic in her eyes slowly curdle into something guarded and grim. "Lucas," she said, her voice low, measured, the way you talk to an animal you think might bite. "Put the knife down." My vocal cords, frozen in disuse for over a thousand days, failed to produce anything but a dry, rasping breath. I made a soft, broken sound and tried to smile at her, but the glare of the noon sun was piercing, pulling hot tears down my cheeks. Scott came hurrying down behind her, only for Cynthia to throw out an arm, keeping him firmly a yard back. He was more terrified of my madness than anyone else there, his tone softening into a desperate whine. "Luke, please, listen to me. I made Cynthia marry me. If someone has to pay for this, let it be me!" The world was blurring behind a thick film of moisture. I raised the hand holding the knife, intending only to wipe the salt from my lashes with my forearm. "Lucas, no!" My father and sister screamed in unison. The patio erupted. Before I could breathe, Megan and two groomsmen slammed me into the manicured grass, their collective weight pressing down on my brittle, paper-thin frame. A sickening snap echoed inside my chest—a rib yielding under the blunt force, the jagged edge threatening to puncture my lung. I dragged my chin up through the dirt. A few feet away, Cynthia was shielding Scott against her chest, her knuckles white, her gaze locked on me with a mixture of raw agony and bone-deep fear. "You can try to kill me again if you want, Lucas," she choked out, her voice shivering with feral certainty. "But you will not lay a finger on Scott." She was ready to lay down her life. Just not for me. The hot, metallic tang of blood welled up in my throat, coating my tongue until words finally broke through. "Cynthia... I tried to end you once. But you... you kept me alive just to kill me every single day for three years." A broken laugh rattled in my chest. The tip of the blade was pressing into the meat of my palm, but I felt nothing. Megan’s voice exploded above me. "Three years in a coma and you haven't learned a damn thing! You should have just stayed asleep forever!" My father began to weep, dry and theatrical. "It wasn't meant to be, Lucas. You can’t force someone to love you. Listen to your old man. Just drop it." "He just woke up. Don't hurt him," Cynthia said, kneeling down slowly. She peeled my fingers back from the handle, one by one. The blade sliced shallowly across her own thumb, beads of crimson welling up. Only then did my grip slacken completely. She lifted me easily—I was barely heavier than an empty coat—and turned toward Scott, whose face had gone bloodless. "I’m taking him inside. We’ll finish the vows when I get back." She carried me up to the master bedroom. The moment my eyes landed on the sprawling mattress, every nerve ending in my skin screamed. The room reeked of their stale, familiar sweat, an invisible film coating every surface. So I did the one thing I had dreamed of doing every night behind my closed eyes: I brought my hand across Cynthia’s cheek with everything I had left. The crack echoed sharply. She didn't flinch. She just raised the back of her hand, wiped the smear of blood from her lip, and stared down at me. "Whatever it takes to make you feel whole, Lucas. Go ahead." I looked around the room—this velvet-lined cage. On the wall opposite the bed, our engagement portrait still hung in an ornate frame. I pointed a trembling, skeletal finger at it, my voice scraping out like gravel. "Take it down." She crossed the room without a word, unhooked the heavy frame, and set it face-down against the baseboard, every muscle in her back rigid with suspicion. But when she turned and saw the red blooming through my fresh hospital bandages, the tension in her jaw gave way to a dull, flat exhaustion. "You used to hate pain," she murmured. I shook my head. Over the last three years, they had carved my chest open and fed on the pieces. There was nothing left to hurt. "I want to leave, Cynthia. Just let me go." Her brow knitted. She had prepared for screaming, for broken glass, for blood. She hadn't prepared for an exit. "What kind of game are you playing now?" Before I could answer, my father pushed the door open, herding Cynthia toward the hallway. "Scott’s out there with morning sickness, dealing with two hundred guests alone. Go finish what you started." Cynthia hesitated, her eyes darting between me and the door. "Go," my father urged softly. "I'll sit with him." She lingered for a fraction of a second, then vanished down the hall, the silver-gray silk of her blazer catching the light. For a cruel, split second, my mind slipped back five years—the morning of our engagement party, the way she had burst through the front door breathless and radiant, grinning like a kid, shouting, "Lucas, I’m here to take you home." "Stop staring," my father muttered, shutting the door. He looked at me with open distaste. "She belongs to Scott now. You have nothing to do with her anymore. A woman's heart goes where it goes, Lucas. Throwing yourself off a building won't change that. Besides..." He paused, the heavy bags beneath his eyes sagging. "Scott has a mass in his brain. The doctors don't know how long he has. Let him have some happiness while he's still here." I stared at him through the dim light. "How long?" "Four years ago, around Thanksgiving. They signed the papers quietly. We didn't throw a reception back then because we didn't want you losing your mind." He looked away, focusing on the carpet. "You brought this on yourself, you know. If you hadn't gone digging, if you’d just kept your head down, life would have gone on just fine." My sluggish brain slowly pieced the timeline together. Four Thanksgivings ago. That was the night my father had been detained in the back room of an underground card parlor, accused of marking the deck. I had ridden my beat-up motorcycle through a sleet storm, kicked open the rusted metal door, and handed over five thousand dollars of my own savings to pull him out before they broke his hands. While I was doing that, Cynthia had been on the phone, telling me to sit tight, that she was on her way to help—all while driving Scott to the courthouse downtown. And my father knew. He had known every second of it. He hated me enough to smile to my face while helping them build a life on my grave. Downstairs, the wedding music swelled again, followed by a chorus of drunk, cheering voices demanding a kiss. I pulled the heavy duvet over my head. A profound, bone-deep weariness settled into my marrow. I had no fight left. No jealousy. Just an overwhelming urge to be empty. In the darkness beneath the blanket, an old memory drifted to the surface unbidden. Our second year together. I had an emergency appendectomy. When the anesthesia wore off, I turned my head to find Cynthia lying in the hospital bed right next to mine, clutching her side and grinning like an idiot while the surgeon berated her for faking acute abdominal pain just to have a healthy organ removed. "My boy is terrified of needles," she had whispered through her teeth back then, her eyes bright with tears. "I had to know how bad it hurt so I’d know how to hold him." Everyone had thought she was insane with love for me. So insane she would bleed on purpose. And yet, that same woman had held another man against her bare skin in the very bed where I lay comatose, whispering in the dark that all three of us deserved to drown together. When the house went quiet, I dragged myself out of bed, gathered a small wooden keepsake box from the bottom of the closet, and slipped out toward the stairs. When Scott finally found me, I was sitting on the gravel roof of the garage, feeding photographs into a metal fire pit. The orange flames licked through the glossy paper, consuming our intertwined hands on a beach in Maine. Consuming Cynthia leaning in to steal a kiss outside a diner. Consuming the three of us tossing our graduation caps into an overcast sky. "Lucas," Scott's voice trembled behind me. "Get away from the fire. Please." I pressed my tongue against the gap in my lower jaw. A molar was missing. When Scott was being harassed by his department chair three years ago, I had waited outside the building and cornered the man in the parking garage. I took two blows to the face and lost a tooth making sure Scott walked away clean. "Scott," I said, not looking back. "Three years ago, when I found the fertility clinic appointment on Cynthia's tablet and went to confront her, you called me saying you were in a hit-and-run." The fire crackled softly. "You two had already filed the marriage certificate by then, hadn't you? You were planning the IVF transfer." His breath hitched. "She knew how badly I wanted a family... she was afraid I wouldn't live long enough to see it. I didn't think you'd go completely unhinged. I didn't think you’d pull the security footage from every convenience store on the block and force me to limp out of the clinic to stop you." A dry laugh slipped from my throat. "I went unhinged because I thought of you as my little brother." I shrugged, letting another photo drop into the embers. "Not anymore." A sudden gust caught the pit, throwing a sheet of heat toward him. Scott flinched, stepping closer just as Cynthia burst onto the roof. She lunged, snatching him back by the arm, immediately inspecting the hem of his knit sweater for scorch marks. "I told you to stay inside," she snapped, her voice frayed. "Why do you keep pushing him?" She passed him carefully behind her into my father’s waiting hands, then turned on me, her eyes bloodshot, manic with fury. "Lucas, burn whatever you want! Throw yourself off another ledge! Take it out on me, do you hear me? Leave Scott out of this. I am begging you." I couldn't help it; the laugh tore right through me. "Cynthia, I don't want to die with you anymore. I’m letting you have him. Why is that so hard for you to understand?" I held up my right hand. The blister that had formed when I shielded Scott from the stray embers had burst, weeping clear fluid down my wrist. She saw it. Her jaw tightened, but she didn't take a single step forward. Megan pushed her way onto the roof, her mouth curling into a familiar, venomous sneer. "Save the theatrics, Lucas. You’re a stubborn dog. You won't let go of Cynthia until the dirt is over your face." Without a word, I swung my legs over the safety railing, balancing on the narrow ledge over the driveway below. Screams cut through the afternoon air. "Lucas! What the hell are you doing?!" Cynthia shrieked, her hands reaching out into empty air. I offered her the faintest shadow of a smile. "Maybe if I jump one more time, you’ll finally believe I’m done." My father scrambled forward, grabbing frantically at the fabric of my trousers, weeping into the wind. "Lucas, please! You’re a grown man! Can't you just stop making me worry about you for once in your life?" "Stop making me worry." It was the only sentence he had ever perfected. When I was sixteen, standing in the freezing dawn to run his fruit stand while he slept off a hangover, he had grumbled, "Out of all three kids, you're the one that gives me gray hair," even as he rubbed warmth back into my frostbitten fingers. When I started college, he had shoved me toward the dorm gates, saying, "Don't worry about the tuition, just don't give me any trouble and call it even." And yet, while I lay in that coma, his voice had floated down to me through the dark: "If you’re going to die, just get it over with. Don't wake up just to ruin things for Scott." In the end, Cynthia broke. She handed over the keys to an old sedan, desperate to get me off the ledge. Scott threw himself in front of the hood, tears streaming down his round cheeks. "Lucas, when this baby is born, he's supposed to call you his uncle! Please don't go. Cynthia's carrying a lot right now. Just wait until the delivery... I'll convince her to let you leave then, I swear!" "Move," I said, leaning on the horn. He spread his arms wide, daring me. They all thought they had me mapped out—the noble, self-sacrificing fool who would let himself be flayed alive before hurting family. I put my foot down. The engine roared. Through the glare of the windshield, Scott’s pale, terrified face flickered against the memory of the scrawny twelve-year-old boy my father had brought home years ago. At the very last fraction of a second, my hands betrayed me. I jerked the steering wheel hard to the left. The sedan skidded wildly across the gravel, clipping the heavy wrought-iron gate before slamming into the security pillar. The airbag didn't deploy. Cynthia was there in seconds, ripping the crumpled door open and dragging me out by my collar. "You're completely unhinged," she breathed, her face inches from mine, white with rage. "You’re a walking bomb. I’m not letting you near him again." They took me to a private psychiatric clinic on the outskirts of the county. The doctor wrote a script for heavy mood stabilizers and antipsychotics without looking me in the eye. Cynthia paid the private rate, locked me in a corner suite, and placed two private attendants outside the door. Whenever Cynthia was at the hospital, Scott would come by. He’d sit in the armchair with a bowl of sweet almond soup, spooning it slowly into his mouth while studying my hollow face. "Lucas, do you think I look heavier?" he’d ask, tilting his head with a sweet, innocent pout. "Cynthia's belly is getting so big now, and Dad keeps feeding the two of us like prize hogs. I tell him I’m full, but he just keeps ladling more into my bowl." The sedatives turned my thoughts to molasses. I slowly reached out, my fingers brushing against the silver stud in his left earlobe. "That's mine," I rasped. Years ago, Cynthia and I had spent an afternoon walking along the rocky shores of Lake Superior. She had found two flat, gray river stones, spent a week sanding them smooth by hand, and set them into silver studs for our tenth anniversary. Scott pulled back slightly, his eyes wandering lazily around the sterile room. "Cynthia said anything in that house is mine if I want it." He reached into his coat, pulled out a tarnished silver chain, and dropped it into my lap. "Oh, and that old golden retriever of yours? I had him put down yesterday." My thoughts moved through deep water. I blinked at him, uncomprehending. "Barnaby was only ten. He was healthy." "He was an old dog, Lucas. He only listened to you. What's the point of keeping an animal that can't learn a new master?" He smiled, light and easy, like he was talking about an old sofa. When Cynthia and Megan walked through the door moments later, they found me on top of him, my fingers crushed around his throat. Megan didn't hesitate. Her heel caught me square in the sternum. The fractured rib cracked entirely this time, a white-hot spear driving deep into my chest. Cynthia swept Scott into her arms, checking his throat, her expression darkening into something pitiless. "Call the attending," she told Megan, her voice deadly quiet. "Double his dosage." As she turned toward the corridor, a raw, wheezing laugh tore out of my mouth. "Cynthia... I spent three years in a bed. My legs are gone. You double that dose... and I won't ever walk again." Blood bubbled at the corner of my lips. "I was wrong. I'm sorry. Just... let me walk out that door. Please." Her back went rigid for a single second. Then she glanced down at the purple fingermarks darkening Scott’s fair skin, and the air around her turned arctic. "If you spend the rest of your life in a bed, Lucas," she said, without turning around, "then I will spend the rest of my life taking care of you." In that quiet second, the last thread snapped. The moment Cynthia took Scott downstairs to the car, Megan walked back into the room. She stood over me, pulled a set of motorcycle keys from her pocket, and tossed them onto my chest. "You want to vanish? Go," she whispered, her eyes narrow with disgust. "Every day you're near him, Scott is terrified." I hauled myself off the linoleum, trailing dark spots across the floor, and looked at her. She flinched under my stare, raising a hand as if to strike me again. "Get the hell out of here, you jinx. You’ve been a parasite on Dad your whole life, and you ruined my engagement after you jumped. Just disappear." I took the old bike from behind the maintenance shed and rode north. I pushed through the vibration, the searing pain in my side, until the city skyline flattened into a dull gray smudge behind me on the interstate. At a gas station just past the state line, I pulled out the burner phone I had bought with my emergency cash and texted Cynthia: "I don't love you anymore. Just believe me this once." Twenty minutes later, while I was waiting for the tank to fill, Cynthia’s black SUV pulled across the pump lanes, blocking me in. I looked down at her screen on the passenger seat, the blue pulsing dot pinned directly over my coordinates. A tracker on the bike. Her eyes were bloodshot, wild with something between triumph and terror. "I know you, Lucas. You'd rather burn the whole world down than walk away quietly." I let out a ragged sigh. "If you don't trust me, ship me across the country. Put me somewhere you’ll never have to look at me again." "No," she said, stepping close, her hand gripping my wrist until the bone ached. "I’m not risking Scott and the baby on the off chance you finally grew a conscience." She brought me back to the city, to a small, windowless guest cottage at the edge of her estate. "You stay here," she commanded, locking the heavy deadbolt. "Think of it as recovery. Once Scott delivers, we’ll talk." The room had only one high, reinforced transom window that looked out onto the manicured central courtyard. Day after day bled into night. Through that small square of glass, I watched Scott’s belly swell. Every morning, Cynthia would help him into a wicker chaise lounge in the sun, leaning over him, pressing her forehead to his for long, quiet stretches. Every afternoon, my father would arrive with organic juices, sitting beside him for hours, reading baby books aloud. My hand drifted to my own flat, sunken stomach. Three years ago, I had told Cynthia we were expecting. She hadn't slept that night. She had paced the hardwood, begging me: "Lucas, can we wait? Just two more years. Please." I had screamed at her. I had demanded to know what was wrong with her. The next day, my father had stopped by our apartment, saying, "A kid with your temper will turn out ruined anyway. Do yourself a favor and let it go." That evening, Scott had handed me a glass of iced chamomile. The next morning, I woke up in a pool of dark, soaking red. Scott had dropped to his knees, swearing on his mother’s grave that the tea was clean. Megan had slapped me across the mouth for even suggesting foul play. And the pregnancy had simply vanished into the sterile trash of a clinic, unexplained and unmourned. I stared up at the blank ceiling. The weakness was spreading now, settling deep into my hips and thighs. Memories were beginning to lose their color, turning thin and papery. The heavy lock clicked. My father walked in, carrying a tray of leftovers—steamed greens and poached chicken from Scott’s prenatal menu. "Sit up, Lucas," he said, setting the plate on the nightstand without looking at me. "Eat something." I gave him a faint, hollow smile. "I can't lift my arms, Dad. You’ll have to feed me." He grumbled under his breath, picked up the fork, and shoved a mouthful between my lips. I swallowed. Within seconds, a familiar, cold numbness crept along the edges of my tongue. My heart went still. "There’s medication in this, isn't there?" His hands froze. He slowly set the plate down and turned his back to me, tidying the empty dressing table. "I wouldn't take the pills," I whispered, the words slurring slightly, "so you put them in the broth? You really want me paralyzed?" His voice came out muffled, defensive. "Don't be dramatic. Once Scott has the baby, the doctors will taper you off. You'll be fine." After he locked the door behind him, I pulled back the thin sheet. The loss of muscle tone was complete; my bladder had let go hours ago, and I hadn't even felt it. Two months later, my father returned, his eyes bright with tears of relief. Cynthia had delivered a healthy boy. Scott’s mass had remained stable throughout the term. Mother and child were resting well. By then, I could no longer roll onto my side. Scott was the first to enter my room, cradling the blue bundle in his arms. Cynthia stood in the doorway, her silhouette harsh against the afternoon glare. She glanced at the attendant by the wall, her voice sharp with sudden irritation. "Are you feeding him three meals a day? Why is he this thin?" Suddenly, Scott gasped, pulling the infant away from my bed. "Cynthia! The baby... he’s not breathing right!" My father rushed in, his face pale. "His airway's blocked! There's something in his mouth!" Scott turned on me, his frame trembling violently. "Lucas... what did you put in his mouth? What did you do to him?!" The postpartum nurse pushed past them, scooped the infant into her arms, and hooked a finger deep behind the tongue. A wet gasp cut the room. The baby heaved, coughing up a small, tightly wound knot of blue embroidery thread, followed by a rush of curdled milk, before bursting into a sharp, indignant wail. Scott collapsed against the dresser, sobbing hysterically. "Take my life instead, Lucas! The baby didn't do anything to you! You swore you wouldn't touch him!" Cynthia wrapped her arms around Scott, her face hardening into something granite and dead. She looked down at me from an impossible distance. "Why, Lucas? We were ready to end this. We were going to let you go." She drew a slow, shuddering breath. "Ten years for aggravated attempted manslaughter. Or a state psychiatric facility until the boy turns eighteen. Pick one. I will honor your choice." A tiny, breathless laugh escaped my lips. "Cynthia... did I ever really have a choice?" Her brow furrowed, a faint tremor running through her chin. "You brought every ounce of this on yourself." I watched her face for a long time, watching for the ghost of the girl who once asked a surgeon to cut her open just to share my pain. There was nothing left. I looked at the family who had spent thirty years convincing me I was a monster. Slowly, I let my chin drop. "The second one," I whispered. "Take me to the facility." Her throat worked, swallowing hard. She didn't look at me again as she ushered Scott out the door. When the heavy deadbolt turned for the final time, I gathered the very last reserve of strength in my spine. I leaned my weight to the right, sliding off the edge of the mattress, my heels catching the rim of the small space heater by the nightstand. The metal struck the floor with a hollow clang, the glowing red coils tumbling directly into the basket of dry towels beneath the sink.

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