Spina bifida is a congenital defect of the spine in which part of the spinal cord and its meninges are exposed through a gap in the backbone. To Meredith Andrews spina bifida was simply the reason she'd been stuck in a wheelchair since the third grade. Then, as if that weren't enough for any nine-year-old child to deal with, life happened.
The very next year Meredith had advanced to the fourth grade. She was extremely intelligent, and a beacon of light and joy despite her circumstances. She loved life. She loved people, and most of all they loved her. Nurse White, her in-home care physician was no different. Meredith soon found out he loved her a little too much.
Nurse White had been with the Andrews family since Meredith had started school, but it wasn’t until she was confined to a wheelchair that she began to feel uncomfortable around him. It began innocently enough. She needed assistance when she would go to the bathroom, or when dressing and undressing. He was her nurse. It was his job. She had mentioned to her parents how uneasy the situation was making her. They understood, but things were different now. She needed more help performing daily activities. She just had to accept it.
Two weeks after she had started fourth grade her parents went out for the evening. They hadn’t had a night out in ten years, since Meredith was born, and their marriage was heading for the rocks. They had started going to counseling on Saturdays with their pastor who worked as a marriage counselor. His recommendation was that they make time for themselves to help close the distance that had grown between them, so they scheduled a night when Nurse White could stay home with Meredith.
That night everything changed for Meredith. While assisting Meredith with her bath Nurse White had violated Meredith’s virginity. She pleaded with him to stop, but he insisted that cleanliness was of utmost importance and though most people overlooked being so thorough it was necessary for a girl her age to ensure good health. Given her condition she was unable put up any further resistance and Nurse White completed her thorough bathing, releasing a few unnerving, barely audible groans.
Nurse White’s treatment of Meredith continued for several years after this incident, and the treatment he was paid to provide to her became more invasively intimate every year. Meredith never failed to contest his continued employment, using her coming of age, discomfort, and need for female attention as her primary objections, but her mom would not budge; Nurse White had been in their employ for years, and her mother trusted him and his discretion.
The years rolled by and soon it was 1997. Now seventeen, Meredith and her best friend Jason were hanging out in Meredith’s room listening to music. Nurse White barged in just as Jason was leaning in to kiss Meredith. It would have been the first kiss experienced with her consent.
“What the hell are you doing?” Nurse White yelled. “Get out!” Jason turned to say something to Meredith, but before he could Nurse White yanked him off the bed by the collar of his shirt, hauled him through the house, and tossed him outside. “Don’t let me catch you here again!” Nurse White raged.
“You’re such a jerk.” Meredith had wheeled her chair up behind Nurse White as he launched Jason out the front door.
Nurse White turned in a fury to Meredith. He snatched her out of her chair. She screamed and hit him, but he thundered through the house with her in his arms undeterred by her venomous efforts. He busted into her room and threw her flying through the air onto her bed.
While he was removing her pants, she pulled herself up and tried to roll off the bed. He was too fast and too strong. He tied her hands to her headboard with her pant legs. After removing his pants, he secured her feet to the footboard with them. He knew he’d finally gone too far. After raping Meredith Nurse White resigned. It didn’t matter to her; the damage had been done.
Meredith’s parents were in shock after Nurse White’s resignation. They asked her repeatedly if she knew why; was she responsible? Did she ask or demand that he resign in order to get her way? Every time the subject came up she would shrug and deny having any responsibility for his abrupt exit. The truth, as devastating as it would be for her parents to hear, would fall on deaf ears. They’d never believe the nurse they’d grown to think of as part of the family would be capable of acting in such a barbaric manner. They’d question Meredith’s motives for accusing such a wonderful man of such horrendous behavior. Was she complacent? Did she signal in some way that she wanted him to take her? She felt embarrassed and confused. Her body had resisted initially, but even as she cried desperate for relief, she found herself in erotic pleasure until she gushed in a burst of ecstasy. She couldn’t tell them. Even if they did believe her, she’d be forced to confront and relive the experience, and she didn’t want to remember the orgasm that Nurse White had forced upon her.
The decade following Nurse White’s abuse was just as difficult as her adolescence. Meredith went from abusive, demeaning relationship to abusive, demeaning relationship, experimenting with cocaine nine of those ten years. She was known to be promiscuous outside of her relationships, especially when the sexual acts were repaid with drugs. Man or woman, it didn’t matter. If you fed her addiction, you were certain to find yourself sharing an intimate moment with Meredith.
She felt worthless and dirty, but she didn’t know how to change. She’d been hurt so deeply by someone she should have been able to trust, yet no one noticed - ever. Certainly, her mood had changed... or her temperament. Something had to be different, but no one paid attention. They seemed to write it off to a side effect of her handicap.
Was being in a wheelchair viewed so poorly that it was assumed that you were supposed to hate the world and the people in it? She’d never seen it that way. Growing up in children’s hospitals had shown her the exact opposite. She’d seen kids wearing halos because they couldn’t hold their heads up. There were others with colostomy bags by the age of three because they’d never be able to control their bowels. She had always considered herself lucky for being high functioning and having use of most of her appendages. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe it was a legitimate excuse. These thoughts just compounded with Meredith’s feelings of worthlessness and depression. Maybe she would be better off dead.
The blade cut deep into her flesh, severing the veins in her wrist. The cut was so deep in fact, she was unable to grip the razor blade in her hand to slice the other veins. ‘I must have caught a tendon,’ she thought. It would have to do. She watched as the blood drained from her. It slid gloriously warm down her palm, around her fingers, and puddled on the floor beneath her chair. Her head became woozy, and her vision dimmed. This was it. The pain was about to be over.
“Meredith,” Kathy, Meredith’s mom, called as she entered Meredith’s cozy one-bedroom apartment. “Meredith, are you here?” They always met for lunch on Wednesday. Today was Thursday. Meredith had skipped their lunch the day before, which was unlike her. Kathy had noticed Meredith getting a little more cryptic and short-tempered lately. She was beginning to worry so had decided to stop by Meredith’s apartment to make sure she was alright.
She knocked on the door, sure that Meredith was home because her car was parked outside. When there was no answer, she let herself in with the key Meredith had given her upon moving in. There was a mid-afternoon soap opera on the television. The volume was turned up extremely loud. This also struck her as odd because Meredith hated television, and she especially hated sappy midday soap operas.
In Meredith’s room, where Kathy thought she might find her napping, everything seemed to be in order. Her bed was freshly made, the soft smell of Febreze was in the air, her curtains were pulled back, allowing the crisp sunlight to shine in, and her clock radio was playing a 70’s rock song lightly. She slowly cracked the door to the bathroom where Meredith may have been listening to her headphones while bathing as she was known to do when in one of her leave-me-alone moods.
“Meredith,” she sang like only a mother could. “Meredith, are you in…” She stopped suddenly as the door swung fully open, and the scene was revealed to her. In the bathroom, naked in her chair, was Meredith slumped over unconscious, blood pooling beneath her.
~
Meredith swam in darkness. She felt light and carefree. ‘This is what life should be,’ she thought. ‘Why did I have to die to find this?’ Her mind arched and faded in and out through memories and regrets, shattering them like mirrors of terror and remorse and leaving only bliss and hope. Her chair rolled out from under her, and she stood in the dark world of new life.
A speck of light fluttered in the distance. She maneuvered towards it with a childlike curiosity. She moved slowly, her hands extended into the darkness to ward off anything that might have struck her, but then she lost all inhibition and bound forward, almost at a trot, towards the light of hope that was before her. Closer she bound and the greater the light grew until she was traveling with a steady skip in her step. A world opened around her, scenic and moonlit.
~
The ambulance took two minutes shy of forever to get to Meredith’s apartment, in which time Kathy had bloodied three plum towels to sopping wet, the crimson liquid flowing freely from Meredith’s gaping wrist. She didn’t complain when the paramedics finally arrived. The two young men that entered the apartment in pristine white EMS uniforms performed their duties professionally. They swiftly scooped Meredith from her chair, covered her with a robe and blanket, and departed the apartment covered in blood with Kathy in close proximity – not an air of complaint about them. They were good looking too, and Kathy found herself subconsciously hoping one of them would take interest in Meredith, becoming a frequent visitor of hers in the hospital and sweeping her off her feet. Subsequently, that’s exactly what happened.
~
Meredith stood at the cliff's edge in the soft moonlight, her vibrant, silken, wavy hair blown by the harsh wind. She stared at the stars of the sky that shimmered dimly in the grey midst of thin foggy clouds and wondered what happened to the hope she once saw in those sparkling lights. The moon glowed soft on her delicate face, enhancing her features. Though her expression was gentle and solemn, her lucid blue eyes were sharp and cunning. Her lips soft, plush, and sensual also appeared slightly crimson and malicious. Her flesh, silvery white satin, welcomed the touch but warned the weary. Beautiful yet strong, she now searched desperately for the hopes and dreams of the little girl she once was; the little girl she knew was still trapped inside her soul, anxious to explore and experience without a care in the world.
The world: evil, cruel, self-serving world it had become! Her fears too evident to seek the pleasures and joys she had once believed in. The innocent approach to a life that had become suspecting and discontent with afflictions her wildest childhood nightmares never revealed to her – the boogeyman she’d feared.
The boogeyman? Yes, he was real, alright, but he was not hideous or frightening in appearance. No, he was quite the opposite. He was handsome, charming, funny, and quick witted... He was every man she had encountered! Yes, he was real, hateful, insecure, abusive, and weak in mind and spirit! He was a child in a man's body, preying on those that sought something more but were unsure how to find it, those that had a cavernous void in their life but were unsure how to fill It. He was everywhere in every form.
Again, she leveled her gaze to the horizon. The ocean was vast and viciously fluid. She listened to the violence of the waves crashing on the jagged rocks below. She leaned forward a bit to see the mayhem below. All she saw was pitch. She strained her eyes trying to judge distance and danger. She leaned forward slightly farther. She lost her balance! Her footing began to fail her. She tipped forward sure she would soon know the danger that waited below all too well, all too soon. The wind seemed to stiffen and catch her before her fatal plummet. She turned back in the direction from which she had come. The darkness awaited her between this world and the last. It was all the same out there, the people, manipulative and cold, and the disappointments endless. There was no one to count on. She had seen it! She had lived it! She was sure of it!
Facing the ocean again, only now further from the edge, she searched for a shoreline that allowed easier access to the calm beyond the horizon. There was nothing, not one patch of beach, just miles upon miles of jagged coast catching unforgiving waves beneath towering cliffs.
“There's got to be a way!” she heard herself scream.
She again turned to examine the path from which she had come. Something grabbed her attention from the corner of her eye… No, someone. She scanned back to the area and there he was, calmly sitting on a patch of grass, a stone’s throw away staring into the horizon. She took a step in his direction and his grey-blue eyes darted in her direction. She felt his gaze pass through her. Who was he? Where did he come from? How long had he been there without her noticing? How long had he been aware of her?
He made his way to his feet deliberately. A haze seemed to cling to his person like a soft aura of fog. His eyes steadied upon her, and he moved methodically in her direction. She was frozen, afraid, exhilarated, angry, fascinated, and happy all at once. For the first time she didn't feel alone. Why? Who was he? What was he? The warm tingle of life pulsed in her. There was excitement here, but why? She'd yet to meet him. He continued to move quietly and deliberately towards her. His eyes no longer grey-blue but bright peacock blue lined with ice. There was something in those eyes. Something she had seen on occasion when examining her own beryllium blue gems in the mirror at home. Something cozy, warming, and safe, yet hot, burning, and savage; a stirring, an unknown destination lay beyond those eyes.
She felt strangely drawn to him. Despite this feeling, instinctively she cowered back from his advance, but did not flee. He was different, he was safe, secure, and he was a rock for her to lean. His approach halted just out of reach. She was startled. She looked around, expecting her past to cling its ugly face to his eyes as a reflection of what was beneath his surface but nothing, calm. The wind had stopped, the waves were silent, and the grey cover of clouds disintegrated, leaving the bright platinum moonlight reflecting off the stars above. She hesitated still.
Again, she scanned the horizon, then the path from which she had come. The stillness of the night moved her. Tears welled in her eyes, blinding her. Frantically she cleared her eyes to see. When she was blinded, that's when he would strike. Of course. How could she be such a fool? Her vision returned, blurry at first, then clear as crystal. He was still standing there, hand outstretched to her. His expression was no longer stoic – it was filled with grief. A single tear streamed down his cheek as he watched her with kindness in his eyes. A gentle smile crossed his face as another tear dropped slowly from his eyes. She moved toward him, past his hand, and clung to him in a loving embrace. He let his arms drape around her soothingly as she realized the hope of a little girl once again, innocent, and clean. No preconceptions or expectations, just a loving embrace and a limitless future. She had to go back. He was waiting.
~
Meredith lay in a coma for three days, her mom and dad by her side the entire time, and Curtis, one of the ambulance drivers, stopping in to check on her a couple times a day. Surgery was performed to repair the tendons and veins in her wrist. After only a week she was released to go home with her parents. It was advised she be under constant supervision and made to attend counseling, but she didn’t need them. She had Curtis, the blue-eyed angel from her vision.
Curtis was an EMS driver and medical student, which took up most of his time, but he made time for Meredith. He made her feel beautiful, special, and like a priority. Things moved so fast that it was like a fairy-tale. After a month of staying with her parents, Meredith was ready to live alone again, but she didn’t. Instead, she and Curtis found a place together. She had found her true love.
Four years had passed, and now Meredith stared at the mirror replaying the events of her life in her head. How had things gone so far off track? The wonderful relationship she and Curtis had started had quickly passed and became a drunken haze of brutality and insults. Curtis dropped out of medical school. He was working as a bouncer at a sleazy little strip club while depending on Meredith’s income as a data entry clerk to pay the bills as well as for his partying and sleeping around. If he didn’t hit her and call her a good for nothing whore cripple she wondered if he even noticed her at all. Life was pain once again.
She rolled into the bathroom and stared at the straight razor she’d cut her wrist with years before. It sat idle in a drawer, only coming out when she felt hopeless and used. She remembered the feeling she had floating in the darkness and standing at the edge of the cliff. She remembered her lover that embraced her and cried for her. She thought back to the pain and suffering she’d overcome. Where did this new life wait?
Curtis rolled in, drunk as usual, with a girl under his arm. “Listen,” he whispered cheekily to his newest bimbo. “Honey, I’m home,” he announced in a boisterous slur. Both he and his friend found this hysterical.
“You sure she won’t mind?” the brilliant blonde asked as he nibbled on her neck.
“She’s a crippled whore,” Curtis shouted. “Plus, I told you, we’re swingers.” He winked, delivering the title in a suave voice. The blonde giggled as he nibbled on her a little more.
“Of course, I won’t mind,” Meredith spoke as she wheeled into the kitchen with a packed bag in her lap. “I’m leaving. He’s all yours.”
“Leaving?” Curtis shouted, pushing his nightly exploit away. “Where do you think you’re going?” he raged.
Meredith winced at his tone, but spoke up strongly, “I’m going to my parents’ Curtis. I don’t need this lifestyle anymore.”
“You little junky! You’re not going anywhere!”
“You know what Curtis, it’s getting a little old listening to you call me a cripple, whore, or junky all the time. I told you about my past because I trusted you and loved you, not so you could hold it over my head. I’m a different person now, in a different place, and you’re just a drunk, unfaithful ass that spends his spare time insulting his handicap fiancé to make his little pecker seem bigger. I’m tired of the insults, I’m tired of you hitting me, and I’m tired of YOU!”
Without even the slightest blink of an eye he lifted his foot and kicked forward. His heel made contact with Meredith’s nose. Blood splattered all over the front of her as she fell over backward. He stepped to her and slid her chair away. “Now look what you did,” he spat. “There’s blood all over the place. Get up! Clean this up!” He leaned over a grabbed a handful of her hair trying to pull her up to her feet. “Get up, you lazy cripple!”
“Curtis, she can’t,” the blonde girl pleaded.
“Shut up or you’re next,” he hissed, spinning on her and dropping Meredith to the floor. He glanced back at Meredith then continued, “Actually, you better leave.” His tone eased to a sinister focus. The blonde did just that without further hesitation. Curtis methodically turned back to Meredith who was now trying to get back in her chair.
“What are you doing, baby?”
“Curtis, please.” Meredith was desperate. He was surely going to kill her. “I didn’t mean it. I was just upset. You were later than normal. I didn’t mean it, I swear.”
“Later than normal? You’re leaving me?” Malice echoed around the kitchen. “Ha! You’re lucky I don’t leave you.” He snatched her by her hair again. They were nearly eye to eye. He punched her in the mouth. More blood spewed from her face. “Now you see what happens when you get mouthy,” he taunted, hitting her once again. “If you didn’t push me to this point, we’d be just fine.” Again, he struck her then dropped her to the floor in a heap.
“I’m sorry, honey,” she breathed through the thick flow of blood. “Let me get up and get you a beer.”
“You think a beer is gonna solve this? You’re sadly mistaken. You best treat me with respect and quit sleeping around,” he cried out and then kicked her in the stomach. A loud grunt exploded from her diaphragm. He dropped on top of her and began to wail on her with such great force and ferocity her head bounced off the tile floor multiple times, and she fell unconscious.
Meredith, motionless on the kitchen floor, lying among shards of glass from broken beer bottles. Curtis had apparently made a game of pegging her with empties as she lay on the floor unconscious. Her face was sore and swelling. The taste of blood flowed through her mouth from the split lip she suffered, her eyes were almost swollen shut, and she was having trouble breathing from a couple of broken ribs to go along with her broken nose. She pulled herself through the broken glass, opening wounds on her hands and arms. She made her way to her wheelchair. It took a while, but she eventually got her chair upright and climbed in it.
In her room Curtis was passed out in bed with a couple of empty and a half full beer bottles next to him. He’d pissed himself like he was prone to do when passing out in a drunken stupor. She rolled up next to him and stared briefly, disgusted at the sight. After a moment she pulled herself into bed next to him. She thought about how he had once had a habit of lifting her from her chair into bed next to him, and how brilliant that feeling of security was. Three short years ago now seemed a lifetime ago. They were on a reckless path of abandon and boozing. This was her chance to end this.
She removed the pants of her intoxicated Romeo careful not to wake him for fear that if he woke she’d get another beating. She lifted his arms over his head and tied his wrists to the headboard tightly. He twitched but his eyes remained closed. After removing his pants, she tied his feet to the footboard, so he lay nude and spread eagle facing the ceiling. She climbed on top of his stomach as she imagined she would mount a horse, and she removed the straight razor from her bra.
“Honey, wake up,” she whispered sweetly from behind her fat lip. He didn’t move. The straight razor gleamed in the moonlight that broke through the open curtains. Mesmerized, she thought about the first time she’d seen it in her grandpa’s bathroom and how the shiny metallic edge complimented the pearl handle’s finish. The edge’s gleam glinted madly in her sapphire eyes. She leaned close to Curtis and whispered next to his ear, “It’s about over.” She tongued his ear flirtatiously. Nothing was working. He was out. She lifted the razor to his brow and concentrated as she cut a thin line across the top of his eyelid.
“What the…,” Curtis screamed in shock from the intense pain as his lid dangled limply below his brow.
“Shhh shhh shhhhhhhh. It’s okay, my love. I’m here.”
“Meredith, what are you doing?” He cried as he struggled against the restraints.
“Don’t fight it, baby. This is the peak of our relationship. I have to show you the type of love you show me.” She lowered the bloody edge to his other brow.
“Don’t,” he said, jerking his head from her grip and causing her to split a bloody line across his forehead.
“Be still!” she shouted more aggressively than she even thought she could.
“Meredith, please,” he begged. He was squealing like a pig, and she nearly began laughing at him.
“I said shut up,” she whispered as she slid the blade down the corner of his mouth, through his cheek, and to his ear. “Now, see what you made me do,” she mimicked.
Tears burned his wounds. He knew begging was useless, that he’d pushed her to the point of no return. She raised the blade to his blood-stained brow again, and this time skillfully removed his eyelid, leaving his eyes wide and exposed.
“Now, you can watch me do to you what you’ve been doing to me,” she said calmly, calling his attention to the mirror he’d insisted they mounted on the ceiling above the bed so he could see them fucking.
“What… What are you doing?” He was sobbing like an infant. She spun on his stomach to face his feet. She leaned forward and gripped the little friend between his legs. “Meredith! Meredith, wait!” She sliced down his penis allowing the urethra to guide the blade from tip to base. He screamed mercilessly. His penis unfolded into two halves. She carefully spread the sausage, one over each thigh. Still laser focused she sliced again horizontally, the straight razor’s blade nicking his thighs as it split his Vienna into quarters. It fell open like a flower in bloom.
“There. That’s better.” She studied her artwork. Curtis cried in agony, but Meredith no longer had remorse for her former love. “I love flowers in bloom, don’t you?” She giggled with glee. “They smell so sweet.” She lowered her nose in the direction of her masterpiece and inhaled deeply.
“Oh God! Meredith, why are you doing this?”
Sirens wailed outside. Meredith glanced at the window in time to see them turning down the driveway. The blonde girl had called the police. “Took the skank long enough,” she mumbled, swiveling back around to face Curtis’ pale, agonized face. “Guess it’s time then,” she said more to herself then to Curtis. She leaned forward, pressed the blade into Curtis’ throat, and whispered, “I’m free.” She sliced deep and long across his neck, sending a dark red fountain airborne and across the room. She mused at how quickly the fountain drained her specimen. It was almost unsatisfying. She collapsed beside him and smiled. For the second time in her life she swam in the darkness. She felt light and carefree. “This is what life should be and I found it,” she said. Her lover wasn’t a man at all… It was death.