After Reed Read online

  Written by Blythe M. Stone & Emma Chamberlain

  Author’s Note

  There have been many stories written and put to film where a gay character is put to premature death only to have their memory fade and burn out like forgotten embers. In this story we’d like to add a happy possible twist to such circumstances. With that in mind, we start with an unfortunate death and end with the realization that death might not exactly be permanent in a world with such hope and such possible magic in play.

  A fairytale of sorts, for the women who are very sick of losing their lovely representation day-in-and-day-out.

  After Reed follows the character Leanne as she comes back into the reality she’s been trying to shut out. The death of her girlfriend comes as such a shock that she completely shuts down. Her best friend, and former lover, Natalie, becomes her caretaker and watcher, taking her to a secluded safe space to try and nurse her back into the realm of the living but her young lover Reed may not exactly be gone and Leah will have a long angst-filled journey in figuring that out for the betterment of her future and the triumphant return of her happiness once more.

  If you do so happen to like what you read we have an ongoing series up called Paper Dolls and it’s also available to read on Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited. Please let us know what you think! Reviews and ratings are always helpful!

  <3

  B & E

  Chapter One

  Leah

  After Reed I haven’t been much of anything…

  I’ve heard both Mom and Nat say I broke down when I found out. I don’t remember much of anything from that time. Just pain. I kind of liken it now to losing a limb. Obviously, it should hurt more than anything else but for some reason a cut like that doesn’t register right within the brain because it’s too much all at once. The brain just can’t translate such abrupt and absurd information. That’s what happened to me, that’s what I went through and it’s nowhere near done.

  Apparently, I screamed a lot and broke things and hurt people. I can’t attest to it. I can’t remember. I immediately tried to die, I guess. Makes sense to me now. I don’t recall...

  They put me in a mental ward and knocked me out so I couldn’t harm myself or others.

  Like not even registering the night of her death, I don’t even remember how long I was in that sterile bright prison alone.

  The only thoughts I had, then, pertained to karmic justice but I didn’t think much. I didn’t do much of anything. I’d wake up when I was told to. I’d let someone wash me. I’d sit in a space where I was supposed to eat food. They’d inject me with something. They’d end up feeding me through tubes and I’d sleep again. Every night I’d dream of Reed. Sleep was the only place that felt real. In the day I couldn’t think straight; it was all flashes and frozen time.

  Ever the hero of my life, my ex-girlfriend Nat came and got me, she took me home. Right away she asked me what I needed; she said she was taking me somewhere. She said she knew I couldn’t stand to be in my old space, not with all of our things...

  At the time I was still pretty dead inside. I heard words but I couldn’t register most of them. She was often saying my name, trying to find my eyes, touching my face to get me to see her. I felt like a dog. English wasn’t in my vocabulary anymore but on occasion I could notice and see. She packed a lot of my clothes in front of me. The only thing I felt grateful for was the one hoodie of Reed’s that Nat packed too in her rush.

  Before we left for this surreal cabin/house in the woods, my mother told me to call her if I needed anything and I remember her soft hands on my skin, how they shook.

  I haven’t touched my phone in months.

  I haven’t used my voice... Maybe once to hollowly cry.

  She’s been to visit but this is the most present I’ve felt since before Reed drifted away.

  Chapter Two

  Nat

  I’d never seen Leah do any of these things. When she was with Reed, I remember feeling grateful. Now I don’t know how to feel. It’s just not fair. Nothing is fair.

  When Reed dove into that pool, and her body came up lifeless, only her good friend Jamie was there with her at the qualifiers. The paramedics came and took Reed away. It was broadcast live, I don’t think Leandra ever saw it. A freak accident in the background of the actual events. It made all the news. Non-regulation warm-up pool. Head hitting pavement in shallow water. A candidate so primed and so ready to meet her eventual Olympic destiny. It wasn’t anything any of us could predict, not even Reed.

  When Jamie told Leandra though, Leandra didn’t believe it. For Leandra, it took seeing Reed’s body. But that woke a sleeping beast in Leah’s cage.

  I always thought if Leah was ever going to break on anyone, it’d be that psycho Daniel, that freakish stalker who spied on her and wiggled his way inside her safe spaces and head from the time she was thirteen.

  It wasn’t Daniel though, that caused that psychotic break. Losing Reed cut into Leah so severely that she couldn’t be reached.

  One second she was my girl, and the next? The girl I knew and loved was stabbing some random medical assistant with a freshly cleaned scalpel. I was her witness. I’d taken her to the morgue. Her mom had already gone first and she tried to warn Leah but Leah was insistent that Reed just couldn’t, she just couldn’t be dead. It was denial in its truest form.

  True love isn’t meant to be broken only years after its begun. Leah got the rawest of raw deals.

  The body changed everything though.

  With the sight of her one true love cold and lifeless on a sterile cart, Leah lost herself entirely. She became a monster; feral. A woman I still somehow loved, but I’d never met her before.

  I got her under control. Someone pulled an alarm and eventually Leah was taken from me. I’d gotten the scalpel out of her hand and held her while she raged and just cried. But they gave her something to sedate her and took her away from me.

  Because of the episode, I wasn’t allowed to visit her. She was a mental health risk. I had to wait several days.

  “It’s too soon,” her mother would say.

  I was the nuisance, like always. I couldn’t stop calling, couldn’t stop coming by.

  “September 3rd,” her mother decided.

  “I wanna be with her,” I said. “I should be with her.”

  I remember just telling her like that and her mom simply saying: okay…

  I had a lot of money saved up. Enough. Before everything happened I thought I’d start going around the world, between shoots, I had nothing to lose. I was getting paid so fucking much. Now I had everything to lose, in Leah. Leah wouldn’t be okay alone and no one else could watch her like I could. I wasn’t about to let her end up in that hospital place again, she shouldn’t have been there at all. Those were crucial hours and they’d taken her away.

  When I got her back I couldn’t stop myself wondering how different she might be if I had been with her for those first few days. She needed to see Reed’s body. There was no grieving before then.

  And now she’s broken. She doesn’t speak. I can’t even tell if she thinks for half of the day.

  We’ve been here for months and I’m only now beginning to see familiar expressions when I speak: the way she blinks sometimes, the way her eyes move, the way she breathes.

  I’d been feeding her and washing her. I’d read to her. I’d move her arms and her legs and take her for walks in her wheelchair.

  For months she had no familiar reactions. For months, I was sure, she was gone, even though she was here.

  But now things are starting to change. It’s like she’s waking up but she doesn’t speak.

  Chapter Three

  Leah

  “Nora’s coming today, she w
anted to see you.”

  Nora…

  Had I seen her yet, since?

  I didn’t know…

  I touched my hand to my throat and fingered the cross on my chain until I was holding it and sliding it lightly, back and then forth.

  “Are you hearing me?” Natalie asked. My forehead had been scrunched and I noticed it. I blinked.

  Natalie’s fingers touched down under my chin and I felt my face move up.

  “Leandra?”

  My eyes slowly followed her arm up her shoulder and then her neck to see her mouth and her nose and then her eyes. I exhaled.

  “Whoa,” Nat said, noticing.

  She sat up on her knees and took my face in her hands. I felt her lips on my skin long after they had been there. She’d been kissing my cheeks. She’d been smiling. But I was too slow to register until after her touch left.

  I felt my own smile appear on my lips. The doorbell rang and she’d momentarily left me alone.

  “What…”

  The word seemed to be pushed from my throat. I’d no control over it.

  Nat didn’t hear.

  There were voices. They weren’t Reed’s.

  Reed...

  The pain came back and it swallowed me ruthlessly.

  Chapter Four

  Nat

  I helped Nora get all the groceries out of her car. She’d agreed to come out and stay. We hadn’t talked much about anything. Occasionally, she’d call and ask me how Leah was. I’d always tell her the truth. That was it really. We hadn’t reconnected in a long time. When she offered to come stay for a while. I was kind of shocked but I told her I could use the help and I trusted her unlike some.

  “Where is she?” Nora asked. I’d been putting the vegetables in the fridge.

  “Living room,” I said. “Go ahead.”

  I didn’t often leave Leah alone, lately though she’d shown signs of life and I found hope in those small actions.

  I stopped, standing in the kitchen, I wanted to see.

  I followed on soft feet and listened.

  Nora put her hand on Leah’s shoulder. It took a few seconds but Leah’s head turned eventually.

  “Hey you,” Nora said, moving in front of her and squatting to hold at her hands.

  “Been awhile huh?”

  Nora was waiting for an answer, one I knew wouldn’t come.

  “She hasn’t spoken,” I said, leaning onto the doorframe and refusing to move.

  I noticed Leah’s head fall a little. “There’s been new movement though,” I said. “I think she might be starting to hear.”

  “That’s not uncommon,” Nora smiled. Her eyes were seeing mine but then she looked to Leah again and tried to get to her in ways I’d been trying. It hurt to see.

  “Look, I’m gonna take a shower.”

  “It’s okay,” Nora said. “I’ll stay with her.”

  “Thanks,” I said, trying not to seem as depressed as I felt.

  I hated moving away from Leah for any reason. Even just getting the door now put me on edge. The first few weeks Leah’d tried some crazy things.

  It was weird though, it was almost like she didn’t know what she’d done. Sleepwalking. Acting strange. She’d tried to kill herself a couple of times. One time with a knife in the bath. Another time she just walked off of the dock in the dead of night but I heard and I found her… I even got splinters in my feet from running so fast on those old soft wooden boards. The dock hadn’t had much attention from human feet in the past decade.

  It’d been a while though. I was sure she had no recollection of these things. She would never put me through this if she knew what she was doing. This wasn’t Leah. Leah just hadn’t been home in her head but her body was alive.

  I took a long time in the shower, letting the hot water burn me a bit. I hadn’t completely realized how little room I’d been giving myself. People didn’t always come and sometimes when they did it was more difficult. I hoped things with Nora would work out okay.

  Reed’s family was hard. They couldn’t understand where Leah was. There was something in Reed’s mom though. She secretly knew… They’d lost both their children. Sammy to a car accident and Reed to a pool. That talk was so strange, after Reed, but they needed Leah and she wasn’t home.

  When they left that first time I felt so horrible but I couldn’t leave Leah alone. Reed’s dad had been back a few times but I didn’t like asking him for help.

  One time, out of desperation, I called Brook down. I just didn’t trust her to come get me when things were really wrong, and I needed to trust, otherwise I just couldn’t relax. I didn’t call her again.

  A knock came at the door and I shut the water off fast. I jumped out, dripping all over everything, just to open it up a small crack.

  “What is it?” I asked, worried.

  “She’s sleeping,” Nora said.

  “Oh,” I said, relaxing. “That’s good,” I nodded, feeling grateful.

  “Can I make you something?” Nora asked.

  “You don’t have to,” I said, wrapping my body up in a towel to try and become more presentable.

  “Well, I want to,” Nora said.

  “Okay,” I said, my face dropping as I turned away.

  I heard the door open more behind me though and I felt her hand at my back.

  When I turned to face her I felt her other hand on my face as her lips found mine and she softly kissed me. I slowed in the moment, feeling her warmth, letting her in.

  “What was that for?” I wondered, eyes slow to find hers once the deed had been done.

  “Just wanted to,” Nora said, watching me, carefully.

  I smiled for the first time in a while and took a deep breath in as I nodded my head.

  “Come on, get comfortable,” Nora said. “I’m gonna take care of things for a while.”

  I couldn't thank her. No one understood how serious this all was for me.

  She pulled me back out to my room and left me alone quietly. I scoffed out a small laugh.

  I wasn’t sure how but I already missed Leah. I was an idiot basically.

  I dressed in soft clothing and loaded my hamper up to go out to the garage and start a new load.

  Chapter Five

  Leah

  Sometimes there were sensory flashes but sometimes I was dreaming. It was hard to wake up.

  Sometimes Reed was kissing me but then I’d hear Nat and I’d know, that other place with Reed, it wasn’t real.

  A nice smell and a sizzling sound got my head up and my eyes open.

  I looked around the empty room.

  “Do you want me to help?” It was Eleanora’s voice.

  “It’s okay…” And that was Natalie.

  A whoosh of air and her body passed mine. I felt frozen, not cold, just stuck.

  Music. I think it was jazz.

  I squint my eyes and tried to follow the measures and the notes.

  My gaze found my fingers on the arm of the chair. One of them bounced lightly on every odd beat. Old habits reemerging: my music days, all that rhythm training with that metronome.

  “Want some wine?!” Eleanora was practically yelling.

  Wine…

  “Love some!”

  Whoosh.

  Nat had walked by me again. I could feel she’d been there but I’d missed the sight of her.

  It was quiet now. No music.

  I smelt clean clothes.

  The washing machine was no longer on.

  My eyes flickered open.

  Nora was reading across from me in that big comfy chair.

  I heard a crack, my head turned.

  She stirred.

  “Hey,” her voice called. I felt her hands.

  “Are you here with me?”

  I tried to speak. My eyes found hers instead.

  “Yes,” she nodded slowly. Her addicting smile woke something up inside me, maybe memories from before.

  She leaned down and kissed my forehead, breathed me in.
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  Something about her smell reminded me of Reed. I thought of Nora’s office, thought of Asia, that cat. Thought of us back then, Reed and I… Nora’s small gold cross dangled in front of my eyes as I felt my vision try and focus. I could feel she was leaving me.

  “Wh-a-water,” I thought.