When You Were Young

"To make you feel the same pain as me. To make you suffer like I did." A smile crosses Veronica's face. "You only prolonged it by running away. Now it's time to end it."

"No, don't-" Jackie's plea is cut off by a scream as Veronica plunges the knife into Jackie's abdomen. She lifts the knife, the blade slick with blood and poises it over Jackie's heart. Jackie looks back to the tent, where Andre lies. Soon we'll be together she thinks.

White light blinds her and for a minute she thinks she must be dead. Then she sees a man in a cowboy hat kneeling over her. "Can you hear me?" he says. She nods. "We'll get you out of here. Everything will be all right."

She tries to ask about Andre, but she can't. Her world dims from white to black.

"That's what happened," Jackie says.

Sergeant Reddy puts a hand on Jackie's shoulder. "We'll find her, Jackie. I promise we'll find her."

For the next two days, Jackie lies in bed without saying a word. She nods to the doctors telling her how well she's progressing and how lucky she is the knife didn't damage any major organs. She grunts at Sergeant Reddy's reassurances that any day now they'll find Veronica Pryde.

Alone, she stares at the wall and thinks of Andre, their baby, and the life they'll never have. The curse has struck again, this time in the guise of her former best friend. Her parents are dead. Her aunt is dead. Her fiancée is dead. Her unborn child is dead. Everyone she loves, gone. She has nothing left. She is nothing.

Her future is as blank as the wall. Judy had sent a telegram, promising to come down and visit her until Jackie could go home. Home? She has no home. She has nothing. She is nothing. A pathetic weakling as Veronica had said. She had slept while Andre died. She had lain there, sobbing and begging while Veronica killed the child within her. Everyone she loved died while she did nothing.

Never again, she tells herself. She unhooks the tubes from her arms and swings her legs off the bed. She bites down on her lip to hold back a scream as she stands up. Pain burns in her stomach as she creeps out of the room and down the hall to the stairs. No one sees her as she crosses the hospital grounds and disappears into the night.

She raids a church donation box for clothes and keeps walking until she reaches a truck stop in the morning. She waves at a truck pulling out of the parking lot until it stops. The climb up into the cab is as tiring as climbing the mountain with Andre. Sweat runs into her bruised eyes and her head feels as though it were filled with helium.