Happy Endings

The last words. The very last words.

Aimee read over the sentence again, making absolutely certain she had it down just right. That was it. The end. ‘She smiled, and kissed him again. Some people did get their happy endings after all.’

“Halle-fucking-LUJAH!” she screeched, jumping out of her chair. Oscar, her long-suffering Siamese who was lying in the corner raised his head to stare laconically at her for a second, then returned to his sunbathing. Three years and seventy thousand words later and she was finally finished. She leaned back over the laptop and tapped out ‘THE END!!!!!!!!’, her body thrilling with the sudden rush of glee. No more staring through the ancient sash window, no more cups of coffee left to go cold at her elbow, no more days slumped in her desk chair wondering if it was all worth it. She was free!

The thrumming guitar of Green Day purred quietly from the miniature speakers next to her Discman and Aimee flipped a finger out to turn the volume up as loud as it would go, dancing across the room to the tinny sound. Oscar opened his eyes and gave her a look that translated unequivocally to “What on earth do you think you are doing?”

But Aimee couldn’t care less. She sang off-key, hurling her voice out to the city that lay just beyond her open window, bouncing her body around the room in a nihilistic fervour. Oscar watched her for a moment and then stalked out, haughtily sidestepping her attempt to sweep him up into her arms to join the dance. Aimee incorporated a little shuffle and twist into her dance and skipped over to the desk to look at the final page one more time. She was done!

“This is the dawning of the rest of our lives!” Oh how apt those words were to her now. With those final words on the computer, she knew that her life had changed. It wasn’t a question of whether she could get published, from now on it was all when. These pages of words were her ticket away, her ticket out of the ordinary life into Fame and Fortune as a bestselling author. She could just imagine the book reviews now and how she would cheerfully flirt with Letterman when she accepted his requests for an interview. She could do book signing tours and sit in Borders, talking to aspiring authors. And she would tell every single one of them that they could make it, they too could be a star, that they should never give up.

Her gaze caught the ancient answering machine and the smile across her face broadened just a little more. Yes. She would listen to the message once again. One more time, then she could delete it forever.

Aimee danced over to the machine and flicked the play button. The tape was cued up in just the right position, as it always was, just when she needed that little motivation boost.

“Aimee, you stupid cunt. You want to open up this door right now. Aimee! I know you’re fucking in there.” The harsh grating of his British accent battled with Green Day and Aimee felt her smile broaden as her lips moved in synch with his words, knowing every inflection and intonation by heart.

“You think you can live without me? You stupid fucking cunt. You can’t do anything without me. You’re nothing without me!”

Maybe she’d send him a copy of her book. Hot from the printers and freshly signed. No, she’d send him a copy of the manuscript. No note, no handwriting at all, just ‘Fresh Feeling – by Aimee Carter’ typed neatly across the top. Fuck you spelt out in seventy thousand words.

She sashayed across to her computer and clicked the ‘Print’ button, watching as the little icon drew paper into its pixellated maw. A whirr and a clunk from the little laserjet on the coffee table signalled its imitation of the icon.

“You’ll never write that novel. You know why – cause you’re fucking useless.  No good for anything. You are lucky that I’ll have you, because fuck knows nobody else would put up with a whiny, whinging little pisser like you.”

Aimee threw herself about the room to the beat of Billie-Joe Armstrong’s guitar, revelling in every second of Steve’s horrible British accent, picturing him for the last time, hearing the words that had cut so deep that they’d become a part of her. They were nothing now. He couldn’t touch her ever again. Because coming out of the printer was her novel. The thing that made her bulletproof.

The beer bottles sitting on the desk began to chink together and Aimee turned to look at the sound. A rumbling was building outside and it grew louder with every second. Suddenly the floor disappeared from under her and Aimee stumbled across the room, her footing thrown as the room shook around her. Books clattered from shelves and pots and pans tumbled from cupboards, the cacophony of noise building around her. The CD player jumped off the desk and Green Day disappeared as it shattered into hundreds of pieces of plastic. The thundering was deafening and Aimee suddenly realised she was screaming, her body out of control in the pure primal panic that gripped her.

Aimee stumbled, her arms flailing as she fell headlong. She crashed into the desk sending it crashing against the windowsill. A flare of pain shot through her shoulder and she stayed down, just praying, begging out loud for the rumbling to stop, for the tremor to leave her alone.

It subsided, the rumbling slowly dying away and an eerie quiet descended on the room, interrupted only by Aimee’s rasping breathing as she struggling to get her panic under control. Every primal animal instinct was telling her to flee, to run from this place that had nearly consumed her.

“Everything you do you’ll fuck up. I know you Aimee. You’ll end up back with me, I fucking guarantee it. I might take you back if you’re fucking lucky.”

Steve’s voice broke the spell and Aimee shuddered. The CD player broke, yet her bastard ex just kept talking. She laughed, a little hysterically. Why not; it was what he was good at.

Aimee gingerly picked herself up from the floor. Red hot stings lacerated her left shoulder every time she tried to move it. She looked around at her flat. Everything that had been on top of something else had fallen to the floor, except for the answering machine, which was still blurting out British-accented vitriol. Aimee limped over to it, wincing from her ankle and pressed the stop button with her right hand. She wasn’t in the mood anymore. All she wanted to do was finish printing her story.

She turned to see how far the little laserjet had got into the story.

“Oh fuck.” Her eyes widened and she stood gaping at the empty space on her desk, unable to make any movement at all.  She couldn’t tear her gaze from where the laptop should have been. Or from the window that sat directly behind it. “Oh Jesus fuck no.”

She ran to the desk, careless of her injuries now. A wire trailed from underneath her desk out of the window and she grabbed at it with her right hand, praying to God. The world was spinning and a sting above her right eye was starting to burn. Aimee looked over the edge of the windowsill to see her laptop dangling by a single wire. The wire that lead to the printer. The wire in her hand.

She pulled, hauling it up so gently, her gaze fixed on the plug that connected her to her future. Everything she’d imagined, everything she’d dreamed of, every chance of proving Steve wrong was hanging by a few pins of a computer plug. She couldn’t do it again, she just couldn’t.

The cable coiled underneath her and Aimee suddenly realised that she was going to have to use her other hand to change her grip. She lifted her arm, squeezing her eyes tight shut as wave after wave of scorching red heat rippled through her body. Every millimetre was an agony and a cry escaped her mouth as she tried to manoeuvre the limp, useless limb over the windowsill.

Another burst of pain flooded her body and Aimee squeezed her eyes shut, tears seeping from them as her hand closed loosely around the wire. No matter how much she tried to force them, her fingers wouldn’t work as her brain was telling them to. Her whole left hand was sensationless, incapable of anything but the weakest movement. She had to hold that wire, she had to pull it towards her, she had to get that story back. In her mind she could hear Steve’s voice as clearly as if the ancient tape had kept rolling.

“Everything you do you’ll fuck up.”

The laptop shifted at the end of its tether as a couple of pins dislodged from the connection.

“You can’t do anything without me.”

Her hand just wouldn’t move. She couldn’t let it go. This was her chance, this was what she’d worked so hard to get, to prove. Her independence was hanging by a couple of pins on a computer connection.

“You’ll end up back with me.”

Another pin pulled from its socket and Aimee yanked on the wire, desperately stretching for the laptop as the last bit of the connection went. It hit her left hand and she could feel the dull thud as it connected with the dumb flesh. Her whole being was screaming for her fingers to close around it.

“You’ll end up back with me. I fucking guarantee it.”

The laptop fell.

Aimee slumped down to the floor of her apartment. For a second it seemed as though the numbness of her treacherous hand had spread to her whole body. She was in a cocoon where nothing penetrated and time could stand still, somewhere that the awful reality couldn’t manifest itself. Then every molecule of oxygen left her body and she wept without ceasing.

In the corner of the room, the laserjet burred, clunking as it moved the printer head to the centre of the paper. Temporary memory tried to make sense of the mishmash of data that had transferred from the incomplete connection. After a few seconds more clunking it printed out ‘THE END!!!!!!!!’ and dropped the last page on top of the stack.

Then it was quiet.

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