The Downward Spiral of Adam Keir | Chapter 12

It was Tuesday, and Adam was taking yet another day off. Ever since Evangeline left Waller’s Pawn Shop the day prior, he’d been feeling out of it. Not only had he seen multiple pansies over the course of the day, but he’d also seen other things much stranger. For example, the customer that came in to pawn something who was eating shards of glass out of his own palm. Because Jesse had seemed to notice none of the unusual things that Adam saw, they were even more unsettling.
            He had slept restlessly, plagued by nightmares of house fires, stalkers, and being buried alive in a graveyard full of blossoming pansies and dead honey flowers. When he woke up at 4:15 in the morning, he saw that he had unread messages from Evangeline. He read them all in the dark, while sitting up in bed.
            “I’m so sorry! I messed up. Please don’t hate me. I only wanted to be closer with you . . .
            “I still love you. I’ll always love you. I know you love me too, whether you can’t see it yet or just don’t want to. But if you’re happy with her, you can have us both?
            “God, I’m sorry for my last message. That was insensitive of me. The more I try to fix this, the more I screw it up. Can you ever forgive me?
            “Adam, please talk to me!”
            It was half past noon now, and Adam sat at the dining room table with his hands on his head. He’d stayed home from work not because of the messages that Evangeline had sent (and kept sending, once or twice an hour), but because he had a splitting headache. Not only that, but his mind felt disordered. For the whole day so far, things just hadn’t seemed right. He kept finding household objects in strange places (his coffee mug on top of the microwave, for example). And though she made no comment on it, Larisa had left for work at 7:30 with her hair done up in a messy bun. The coffee sitting in front of him, though he kept drinking it, seemed non-depletable.
            He’d taken two acetaminophen tablets to no avail, and he coped by zoning out. Instead of seeing reality, he imagined himself walking down a winding city street. It was quiet, but in the distance he could hear the faint sounds of cars driving and people walking, talking. The road he walked on started to slant downward, but his sense of gravity didn’t react. He was able to walk on the road normally, without having to be careful of tipping forward. There was a yield sign about halfway down the street, but he didn’t spend any time puzzling over its strange placement.
            He didn’t look up after passing the sign until he reached the bottom of the slant. When he finally did, he saw that he was now on a wider, less claustrophobic street. There were houses on either side of him. But to his left, he saw one that caught his eye, and he approached it.
            The house had its windows covered up, and looked like it had been lit ablaze some time ago. As he stood in front of it, he looked over his left shoulder. On the other side of the street, there was a lone lamppost. He half expected to see a man in a suit leaning against it while lighting a cigar. Then, he looked back at the scorched building in front of him.
            This is Sanity’s house, he realized.
            Being both slow and cautious, he walked up the steps to the landing, and he reached for the doorknob. With a twist of the knob, the door drifted open. Adam stepped inside.
            The interior of the house was almost as he’d drawn it. He didn’t remember closing the door behind himself, but it was shut anyway. Something about the house filled him with a deep-rooted sense of dread. But at the same time, it also captivated him. He saw the mirror, beside a fireplace. Unlike how he’d drawn it, the fireplace was lit. On the floor in front of it, he saw something, so he stepped closer and knelt down to pick it up. It was a crushed pansy; a real flower, not a pin. He held it in his hand and felt the softness of the crumpled petals; smelled the aroma from the plant over the smell of burning wood.
            There was a faint knocking sound off to his right, and he looked toward it. He saw, from left to right, the kitchen, a wall, and the front door. Curious, he stood up, and still holding the pansy he approached the kitchen to investigate.
            The kitchen didn’t look too different from his own if he ignored the effects that the house fire had had on it. The sink was empty and dripping. As he walked across the floor, he was thankful that he had his boots on, since every step created a splash. He had to assume that the sink’s pipes had burst somehow during the fire.
            He heard the knocking again, off to his right and still as distant as before, and it made him pivot. Where was it coming from? He’d approached where it had seemed to come from before, but now it seemed to be coming from where he’d been when he heard it the first time.
            Regardless of the trivial nature of it, he headed back over to the fireplace and gave the area another once-over. Finally, he noticed the mirror. Curiosity overcame him. He stepped toward the reflective surface. What he’d expected to see, he wasn’t sure. But it definitely hadn’t been Evangeline, staring back at him, matching his expression of growing shock for each detail.
            It was the sound of a window opening that finally snapped him out of his daydream. He sat up straight at the table as his eyes flicked around the room before falling on the doorway into the kitchen.
            That was the kitchen window.
            Trying not to let his anxiety get the better of him, he stood up from his chair and stepped closer to the kitchen. His heart was racing, but he managed to keep his breathing quiet. He’d planned to approach and peak in, but this wound up being unneeded, as he heard light footsteps beginning to approach the dining room. Each step filled him with further suspense. He wanted to run, but found himself frozen beside the table. All of a sudden, he felt something in his right hand, and he looked down at it. There, he found the pansy that he’d picked up in Sanity’s house, and he squinted his eyes at it.
            Out of the corner of his eye, he saw someone appear in the doorway to the kitchen. When they saw him, they jolted before stopping dead in their tracks with a familiar gasp. He took his time in turning his head to take in the sight of them.
            As he’d guessed by the sound of her voice, there stood Evangeline. She was wearing her scarf, as usual, and was again wearing her two purple shirts, but no purse. Judging by her face, she was as surprised to see him standing there as he was to see her in his house.
            “Adam . . . I thought you’d be upstairs,” she confessed.
            “What are you doing here?” he asked, stunned.
            “I came to apologize.”
            “You broke in!”
            “Well, I tried knocking, but you didn’t answer . . .”
            Not knowing what else to do, he shook his head and took a step closer to her. “You can’t be here, Evangeline.”
            “Wait, please!” She moved closer to him and grabbed his upper arms just above the elbows. “Don’t make me leave yet,” she pleaded. “Hear me out!”
            He sighed, but decided to allow her to speak rather than push her away. “Go ahead.”
            “I know,” she began, “that you’re too old for me. I know that you’re already married, and that you’re probably more than content with your life without me in it. But when I saw you in person for the first time, I . . .” She bit her lip. “I felt like I was seeing an angel. And you spoke to me the same way you spoke to me online. Then we went to the coffee shop together, and I’d never been so happy to kill time with someone. I’ve dated people before, and I know what it’s like to have a crush. I know you think that I’m too young to know what real love feels like, but I’d beg to differ!”
            She looked up at him, and her eyes met his, pleading for him to understand. But he was still uncertain, so she continued, “Adam Keir, I love you. And I’ll admit that I would let you go, I would let you be happy with your wife, if I didn’t know that you loved me back. But I do! I wasn’t sure at first, but then you put me in your video . . . You changed your art style just to make me beautiful.” She was beginning to tear up, and her voice cracked as she kept trying to convince him. “You even gave her a�"a pansy pin, because you thought that I looked prettier than the pansy at the coffee shop . . . You’ve never drawn a character that looked like your wife, but you drew me . . . You wouldn’t have done that if you didn’t love me, admit it!”
            Adam, staring down at her, didn’t know what to say. She had a point: though Sanity was meant to be the first and only character modelled after Larisa, he’d changed his mind and turned her into Evangeline.
            But that doesn’t mean that I love her . . . does it?
            “So, I can’t . . . I can’t sit back and let you deny it! I can’t let you give away your life to someone you don’t love!”
            Adam wasn’t the type of guy to shout. But when he heard Evangeline say that, he grabbed her arms the same way she held his, and in a burst of passion, he argued, “Now you listen here, Eve: I do love Larisa! I wouldn’t have married her if I didn’t!”
            Though he shook her as he yelled, there was no fear on her face this time. Instead, in a low, certain voice, she countered, “But you love me more.”
            His anger disappeared, and he gazed at Evangeline with a guilty look written across his face. There were a few beats of silence, during which neither of them moved. Then, Evangeline let go of Adam’s arms. She wrapped her arms around his neck and, making use of the way he’d hunched over to yell at her, she moved her face closer to his. Then, she kissed him.
            The moment her frosty pink lips met his, Adam’s turmoil vanished. She broke the kiss and looked at him, and he couldn’t stop himself from wrapping his arms around her and pulling her in for another. Her small body fit against his perfectly, as if she’d been made for him, and her lips tasted like sweet caramel. As he tilted his head to kiss her deeper, he found out that she was a great kisser, too. He felt her hands around his neck, one of them reaching up and digging into his hair so that he could feel her nails against his scalp.
            Before he knew it, he was lifting her up onto his waist and turning around. Looking down into his eyes, she giggled in utmost glee before kissing him again. He laid her down onto the table, knocking his coffee mug to the floor in the process. She stared up at him with a demure smile, and, laying over her, he stared back.
            “I love you,” she said on a breath.
            Under her spell, he closed his eyes, leaned in, and
            “Adam?”
            He opened his eyes, and suddenly he was somewhere else. Disoriented, he looked straight ahead; Larisa was there, sitting across from him. They were in a booth at a restaurant that Adam vaguely recognized.
            “Hellooo?” She snapped her fingers at him. “Earth to Mr. Keir?”
            “What . . . ?” He started turning his head, desperately trying to figure out what was going on.
            Why am I here? What happened? Why am I with Larisa right now? Where’s Evangeline??
            “You’ve been out of it all day. What’s up with you?” his wife asked.
            He looked at her, dismayed. “What day is it?”
            She raised a brow. “Wednesday,” she answered. “The 25^th.”
            “But . . . But isn’t it Tuesday? Wasn’t it just Tuesday?”
            “Um . . . If by ‘just’ you mean ‘yesterday’, yeah. Are you feeling all right, honey?”
            His mind reeled. Oh, God. Don’t call me that. Not after what I did with Evangeline . . . ! Head in his hands, he let out a low, unsettled groan.
            “Adam?”
            “No, I’m not all right,” he moaned. “What happened yesterday?”
            “I’m not sure. You were asleep when I got back.”
            “Alone?”
            “What?”
            “Was I alone?”
            Larisa glanced off into the restaurant, uncertain and, perhaps, suspicious. “Uh, yeah. Why wouldn’t you be?”
            He sighed and laid his arms on the table. “No reason,” he muttered. She tried to meet his eyes, but he couldn’t bear to look at her.
            With a defeated huff, she put her purse down on her side of the table. “I have to use the restroom,” she told him. “I’ll be back.”
            Bobbing his knee under the table, he hummed at her. She stood up, and he watched her disappear into the hallway that the restrooms were in. He tried to calm down. But when he glanced at her purse, he saw a pansy sticking out of it, and the sight brought him ever closer to the edge.
            Oh, God. I’m about to snap. I’m losing my mind . . . !
            Desperate to find out what was going on, he reached for his back pocket. Thankfully, his phone was still there. He pulled it out and went straight to Twitter once it had connected to the restaurant’s free Wi-Fi. No messages from Evangeline. So, he wrote to her first.
            “What happened yesterday? �" Adam”.
            She didn’t respond, so he looked out of the window to his right. In the parking lot, he saw his car, but it wasn’t empty. He could barely make out the silhouette of someone in the driver’s seat.
            Is . . . Is that . . . me?
            He rubbed his eyes to make sure that he wasn’t seeing things. But when he opened them, he was again somewhere else. This time, the first thing he saw was his own reflection, in a full-length mirror. He was wearing a fancy suit, with a black waistcoat, bow-tie, and a white scarf draped over his shoulders.
            This is the suit that I drew Madness in . . .
            He was too afraid to move�"too afraid that something else unusual would happen, and that with it, he’d completely . . .
            . . . lose myself to madness. Now, the sight of himself in the suit possessed a new and terrifying connotation. He stood, petrified but trembling, staring at himself with eyes glossed over from fright.
            But have I, already?
            He heard someone in stilettos step into the room. Then, leaning in to kiss his cheek, she appeared in the mirror: Evangeline. Upon seeing her head in his reflection, he whipped around to look at her. She was wearing the same makeup that he’d put on Sanity: blue eye shadow, pink lipstick, dark eyeliner. Her dress was brown, like Sanity’s coat and skirt, and he recognized the dress to be one of Larisa’s. In her hair, a barrette, was a fresh pansy.
            “You look so handsome,” she gushed in her chipper, eager-sounding voice.
            He wanted to ask her what was going on, but couldn’t find his voice. So, instead, he stared at her, helpless, afraid, and horribly displaced.
            This doesn’t feel like a dream. None of this has felt like a dream. Where am I? When am I? For the love of God, someone help me!
            Evangeline wrapped her skinny arms around one of his, and nuzzled against his sleeve. “I’m so happy that we’re together now,” she told him. “We’ll never be apart again, will we?”
            “Adam?”
            The girl moved in closer to him, and he watched her in his reflection as she whispered in his ear: “Happy Birthday, Adam.”
            “Adam!”
            Then, he was staring at a ceiling. He felt pain on his forehead, but was too disoriented to care. Larisa appeared above him, looking down at him (kneeling beside him?) with a look of genuine concern on her face. One hand went to his shoulder, and the other to his cheek.
            “Honey? Talk to me,” she begged.
            “What happened?” he asked, his voice small and nervous. “Where are we?”
            “You fell over and hit your forehead on the corner of the table,” she told him, only answering half of his question. The other half of the answer he got by sitting up, when he saw the booth he’d been sitting in before. He heard other patrons whispering to each other about the scene that he had inevitably caused. Larisa had her purse now, and from it she pulled out a bag of tissues. She took one of said tissues and pressed it against his forehead, which stung more than he’d anticipated.
            “You’re bleeding,” she said in a worried voice.
            He grabbed her wrist without meaning to, and told her, “We should go.”
            “I’m taking you to a hospital.”
            “No, let’s go home.”
            “That gash looks pretty bad,” she argued.
            “Let’s go home,” he insisted.
            Reluctant as she was, Larisa only shook her head before agreeing. “Fine, but if you so much as slur a word, I’m turning the car around and driving straight to the nearest hospital.” As she stood up and collected herself, he noticed his phone on the floor and grabbed it. He didn’t look at it until he and Larisa were in the car. Holding the tissue against his head, he saw a new message from Evangeline, in reply to the message he’d sent her. He read them both.
            “What happened yesterday? �" Adam”.
            “Huh? What are you talking about? I haven’t seen you since Monday . . . ~ Eve”.