Breakdown (Crash into Me)

by Amanda Lance

  In the unlikely event that he had lost his phone somehow, I showered quickly when I got home and went straight to his place. Even though his car wasn’t parked anywhere that I could see, I didn’t hesitate to step up to his door anyway.

  “William?” My voice cracked and was way too soft to be heard over the ruckus of the restaurant, but I tried again anyway. “William? Are you home?”

  I knocked several times before stepping back and trying again. I had never wished more that William had windows—real windows, anyway. And though I considered walking over to the other side of the building and kneeling on the sidewalk to try and catch a glimpse inside, I settled instead for resting my ear against his front door and listening for signs of life. Concentrating as hard as I could, I could hear the sound of water pipes from the restaurant above, but nothing else. I waited a minute more before stepping back and knocking again. At my last twinge of desperation, I dialed his number and hit the send button.

  Sure enough, there was nothing but silence.

  From there, I called Tabby, more than distressed at this point but not knowing what to do about it. I even thought about the excuse of wanting to return her dress if the topic came up. But once again there was no response, and the phone rang for what felt like forever. When I couldn’t remember the name of the place where she worked, I even tried calling a couple of the gentlemen’s clubs in the area, and the only ones I found a phone number didn’t have anyone named Frenchie or Tabby who worked there.

  Admittedly, by then, my worry evolved back into disappointment, and I relinquished myself to the possibilities that seemed endless in my imagination and consistently negative in my head. Eventually, after a few more hours of letting my imagination run wild, I decided to go ahead and see if my fears we at all accurate. Unfortunately, it didn’t take long to find out that they were.

  Police Release Description of Carjacking Suspect

  RIVERCITY, Calif. -

  Rivercity police are investigating a carjacking that took place at the Mission Inn Hotel & Spa last Saturday. It happened around 9:40 p.m. on the north side of the parking lot.

  Police say twelve vehicles whose worth ranged from $100,700 to $403,400 were stolen while security officials and other hotel officials were being distracted by two unidentified females. It is unknown if their presence was intentional.

  Officials say a male suspect was seen near a commercial car carrier trailer before taking off in a white Chevrolet Chevelle off north Blossom Street.

  The suspect has been identified as a white male with blond hair between the age of twenty and thirty. Several colorful tattoos on his arms were also identified.

  Police ask if anyone has information regarding this incident to call 911.

  That was it then, William had almost definitely left town. But why didn’t that make me feel much better than the alternative of him getting arrested? I ventured to guess it was because he hadn’t asked me to go with him—if not for my own freedom than for the company. What hurt worse than that was the fact that he hadn’t even bothered to tell me that he was leaving, hadn’t even bothered to say good-bye.

  I put my hurt aside and considered the other possibilities. What if William had been arrested and the article was just a decoy to turn his accomplices against him? Worse yet, what if he had been on his way out of town somewhere and gotten hurt? Had he crashed Bloody Mary and didn’t even have his phone to call for help?

  A day passed and then another with no word from William, Tabby, or even the police. And like the stalker in training I was, I passed by his apartment and the chop shop at least once a day in search of him. Sure enough, both places showed no signs of life. Other than that, I did my best to go about my routines, keeping my ears open for sirens and revving engines, and my eyes wide for pink hair and white muscle cars. By Friday night I gave in and started driving around looking for races. I spent three hours driving around southern California, even stopping outside a strip club and looking for Tabby’s car before I ended up turning around and heading back home. If Mom hadn’t been in town and my eyes hadn’t been so blurry I might have continued. Hell, if my stomach hadn’t hurt so bad from missing William I might just have chugged a few energy drinks and driven straight through the night.

  I was at work on Saturday when Dad came back. I hadn’t expected to see him until later in the day, so I was especially surprised to see him walk right into the bakery—an effort he hadn’t made since I first started working there.

  “Hey, Kiddo.” He nodded at me awkwardly before going to loosen his tie. “You got a minute?”

  Though it was technically still morning, the warmer winter weather kept people out of the shop. I finished boxing up a batch of cookies and handed them to the waiting customer before stepping out from behind the counter.

  “Hi, Dad.” I waved with only half my hand in the air. “You want anything?”

  “No thanks, Kiddo. Why don’t you take a load off though?” He pointed to one of the bistro sets and smiled sadly. “You look beat. Have you been sleeping lately?”

  I avoided the question entirely and took the seat offered to me. The truth was that I hadn’t been sleeping. I hadn’t been sleeping at all.

  For a solid three minutes we sat in silence, looking away from each other every time we nearly made eye contact. I was certain about the minutes, because I counted the seconds to keep my eyes from getting droopy.

  “Dad, you know I really should get back—”

  “Your mom says you two have been fighting all week.” His voice was meek, frightened even. Had she been calling him with daily updates? Informing him about every eye roll and slamming door?

  I picked at a piece of paint on the storefront window. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure you have to verbally communicate to fight, or throw punches.”

  I wasn’t trying to be funny, but Dad still smiled. “Don’t tempt me.”

  “Don’t take this the wrong way, Dad, but I’d put my money on Mom.”

  He hung his head in shame. “Yeah,” he sighed. “I can’t blame you.”

  I flicked the paint chip off my finger. “So did you come here to here to tell me to play nice or what?”

  “That’s what your mom thinks. I told her I would try to convince you to stay at USC.”

  I stared out the store front window and watched the clouds move across the sun. Was William watching shadows moving along the asphalt at this very same moment? Was he thinking about me too? Thinking about me at all?

  “I’ve already made up my mind, Dad.” Maybe it was thinking about William, but my voice didn’t sound nearly as decisive as I intended it to be.

  “I know that,” Dad said. “I knew that a few years ago when you first said you wanted to go to cooking school.”

  I’ll confess his response surprised me. “S-so you’re not going to try and talk me out of it?”

  He shook his head. “I wish you had a love for business, but you gave it a solid try and that’s all we can really ask of you.”

  If I hadn’t been so emotionally messed up I would have reached over the table and hugged him. As it was, I covered up my trembling lip and rocked my jaw back and forth to keep from crying.

  “Thanks, Dad.” I wanted to say more, but it was all my shaky voice could manage.

  “And I know what Mom said about the tuition situation. It was a bluff. You know we’ll help out wherever you get in.”

  “Dad I…” I sniffed and struggled to regain myself. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome, Kiddo.” He smiled like I hadn’t seen him do since I was a kid. “Now tell me about this boy you’re seeing.”

  Dad’s visit had been a pleasant surprise, and provided I got into any of the schools I had applied to it was something of a relief to know that I wouldn’t have to worry about money right away. Better yet, I wouldn’t have to go to war with both of my parents over my education, and ultimately my career choice.

  As the rest of the weekend went by, I wasn’t as relieved as
I should have been. In fact, as the realization that I might never hear from William again—let alone see him again—began to sink in, molecules of my depression started floating back into me. If it was from the lack of William, racing, my friends, or a combination of all them I didn’t know, and I didn’t bother exploring it. Instead, I let my insomnia do the thinking for me. Every night of the week I’d leave the house looking for any kind of adventure I could find. When that didn’t work or I was too exhausted to search, I’d lay in bed during my free time and relive our one and only night together, committing every second to memory like a recipe.

  In the months before I went to die, I had perfected the art of crying quietly, so I quickly rediscovered that this wasn’t an issue. But in the two weeks since I had left William standing in his underwear, it wasn’t so much that I wanted to cry, but more that I wanted to rage. I wanted to hurt and scorch everything in my path, set things on fire with my eyes and crash cars into every ugly thing. If I had more self-awareness, hadn’t been so stupid, then maybe I could have been with William right then and there, but because I was so afraid of everything I felt I lost him forever.

  Once again I hated myself, only this time it was for an entirely different reason.

  I watch while the remainder of my heart fell on the floor. And like a slug being salted by a curious child, it withered in agony, oozing a pus-like liquid as it tried to squirm away. Stinking, it bubbled and smoked while chunks of it disappeared. To my credit, though, I quickly realized that the new holes were the parts of my heart that had been eaten away. I watched it for a while, watched until it flopped to its side, the ends crusting over and withering away

  When all was said and done, the ooze long dried and forgotten, I picked up the remainder of my heart from the floor, feeling nothing when it dissolved to ash in my hands.

  This time, there would be no repair.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Soon, the acceptance letters started rolling in. With my transcripts, internship, and recommendation letters from my counselor and boss, I got into both The Scottsdale Culinary Institute and the San Diego Culinary Institute. I even got into Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Boston, but the idea of going anywhere even close to there without William made me sick to my stomach and I ripped up the acceptance letter before I even finished reading it.

  Three weeks. It had been exactly three weeks since I had seen William, heard his voice, or come anywhere close to those wonderfully stupid dimples of his. How could I have possibly gone so long without knowing where he was or if he was even safe? Sure I checked the papers every day, scoured the internet for more about the heist every chance I got. I even still continued to drive past the chop shop and his apartment without out any results. Regardless, none of it felt like enough.

  For all I knew, William could have been dead in a ditch somewhere.

  Hating my helplessness, I did my best to follow my counselor’s advice to stay productive and do things that made me happy. I thought about potential new resources for getting an adrenaline rush like skydiving and mountain climbing. I couldn’t get even mildly excited for these things, however. Like everything else in life, all I felt was a combination of anger and sadness, all stemming from missing William. Frankly, I was longing for my indifference too, that feeling from the pre-William days that had allowed me to simmer and feel nothing at all.

  On the fifteenth day, I had just gotten back from work to find a note on the table from Dad—something about Jersey City and the cable guy coming to fix the satellite the next afternoon. I sighed, fixed myself a glass of chocolate milk, and went upstairs.

  I was in the shower when the idea came to me. Really, it was sort of perfect. The same sort of perfect that I had planned out like the night I had met William O’Reilly.

  Only this time there wasn’t the slightest chance of anyone being around to stop me.

  With Mom in Nashville—or was it Charlotte? Atlanta?—and Dad gone now too, there was a good chance that the cable guy might find me before I started to smell. Or I could just leave the windows open and hope it wasn’t unseasonable warm, turn the AC way up… between an empty stomach, over the counter sleeping pills, and the leftover painkillers from Mom’s hysterectomy, I could go into respiratory distress easily. With enough chocolate milk to coat my stomach lining, maybe I could have even avoided the pain on my way out.

  I stepped out of the shower and put on my most comfortable pajamas. It was almost ridiculous how easy it was. To anyone who did notice me, it would only seem like I had skipped class. I wasn’t due to see my counselor until Tuesday afternoon, and although I had never missed a session, she only had my e-mail address anyway.

  I went back to the bathroom and brushed out my hair. It was just getting dark outside, but my room was high up enough that none of the neighbors would have seen anything anyway. The pills were easy enough to find in the medicine cabinet too, sitting next to some allergy spray and behind a jar of calamine lotion. I shook each of the bottles in my hands, feeling nothing at the rattle sound they made, but liking the clash of color when I poured a handful into my palm.

  I still had half a glass of chocolate milk. Before I really started feeling anything I could easily have refilled it, swallowing pill by pill until they were gone. I sniffed back the tears I hadn’t even noticed before.

  Yes, there wasn’t any doubt that this attempt would work. Yet despite my anger and sadness I felt no need to die, no desire to do so like when I had first stood on the overpass. Even if I truly never saw William again, he had given me cars and racing, shown me how lovemaking could and should be. And though I thought I couldn’t, I had been capable of making friends again, of being creative and standing up to my Mom. If I could find joy in all of those things, do all the things I never thought I could, then why wouldn’t I be able to do other things?

  Why wouldn’t I be able to heal my broken heart?

  I took all the pills and flushed them all down the toilet.

  I was still crying a little when I got back to my room. I had hoped to cry William all out by now, and though I was still sad, these tears didn’t have half the potency they did when he first left. It was difficult to believe the holes in my heart would ever really heal, but maybe I could patch them up—make some high quality band-aids or something. Sniffing hard, I reached for the box of tissues by my bed to see my phone blinking angrily at me. I sighed and collapsed face first on the bed. Just maybe I’d get lucky for once and my Monday morning econ class had been cancelled.

  Unknown: Outside.

  Thinking it was just a wrong number, I ignored the strange text and slammed my phone to the ground. It felt surprisingly good to embrace my anger. What I was angry about though I wasn’t sure. Before I could even begin to think about it though my phone when off again. I was looking forward to throwing my phone out the window, but what I read there took my breath away, nearly knocking me off my feet in the process.

  Unknown: Are you still with me, Jumper?

  I dropped my poor, abused phone and ran down the stairs so quickly I ended up stubbing a toe. Continuing to not care about my feet, I ran outside barefoot, leaving the front door open behind me and my heaving breath in front of me.

  “Hello?”

  Briefly, it did occur to me that it could have just as easy been Cosmo or Eggs, who had been given my number the night of the heist. Hell, though she called me Charlotte, it could have even been Tabby.

  Frankly, I would have been grateful for any of them.

  “Have you been crying, Jumper?”

  He emerged from behind the only tree in our backyard, standing on an overgrown root and puffing on the end of a cigarette. Wearing a black t-shirt that said Belfast and an oil stained pair of jeans, I barely confirmed it was him before I ran into his arms, wrapping myself around him and feeling the most overwhelming love when he didn’t hesitate to embrace me back. And for whatever reason, watching the cigarette fall from his mouth to the ground while he simultaneously held me tighter made me s
tart bawling. It was the second time I had ever seen him smoke, but knowing he only did it when emotionally stressed out made me stress out. So I downright sobbed, sobbed so hard I was positive the neighbors would hear and think I was being murdered. At this point I didn’t care what they or anyone else thought. I needed him. No, no I didn’t need William to save me. I just needed a little encouragement to save myself.

  “Don’t you know you’re too pretty to be so sad?”

  “I’m not sad, you idiot!” I wiggled out of his arms and smacked him upside the head as best I could. “You ass! You jerk! You rube! You-you-you—” Laughing, William grabbed my arms when I tried to hit him again. He pulled me close and closed his eyes, burying his face in my hair.

  “God, I missed you, Jumper. You always hurt me so good.”

  “Then why did you leave me?” When I tried to hit him again and failed, he chuckled softly and kissed my forehead.

  “I wouldn’t have if I didn’t have to. Don’t you read the newspapers, Jumper?” Chuckling still, I looked up to catch a glimpse of the dimples I had been missing. “Some waitress taking one too many smoke breaks caught a glimpse of me that night. The guys and I thought it would be a good idea to lay low for a little while.”

  “Yeah,” I sighed. “I did read about that.” The memory of my pain made me reach up to slap him again. “But you could have called! Sent an e-mail! Ever heard of the post office?”

  His dimples sent my stomach flipping. “I wanted to. God, you don’t even know how badly I wanted to.”

  I didn’t know? How could I not know? It was all I had thought about for weeks now.

  “Everything happened so quickly, and considering how we left things, I thought you wouldn’t want to hear from me, or maybe it would be better to give you space.”