by Laurèn Lee
I approached the bench before the casket. Unsure of what to do, I followed in the footsteps of the older woman before me. I kneeled, only inches away from Callie's dead body. A rush of exhilaration tickled inside me. Was it all just a game? Would Callie would pop out and say, “Surprise!”
Or maybe I wasn't quite ready to come to terms with a loss so close to my heart. Another loss so soon. I hadn't finished grieving the last one. Too many funerals this year. Would they ever stop? While I wished they would, I knew deep down, they would only continue. Death would always be a part of life.
My quivering hand reached out to touch the casket, as though I were reaching out for Callie's hand. I startled when my fingers graced the smooth surface, unsure exactly what would happen.
Nothing happened. Callie didn't come out of hiding. I didn't feel her spirit beside me. Absolutely nothing felt out of the norm. I was just a sad person saying farewell to a dead girl.
Out of the corner of my eye, Noah watched me intently me as I said goodbye to the little girl I bonded with so many years ago. Exhaling, I looked back once more.
"I'm sorry, Callie. I'm so sorry this happened to you," I whispered. "I'll find out who did this. I swear it.”
Pulling myself up, I cleared my throat and willed away the tears that threatened to break through. I had to get some fresh air before I lost my shit in front of half the town.
I found my parents fraternizing with a few other neighbors. I nodded to the neon exit sign, and my mom nodded back. I strode out of the funeral home and into the crisp, moist air of a spring dusk. The fresh air kissed my cheeks while the scent of rain tickled my nose. It was one of my favorite smells in the entire world, one that many people never experienced. Living in Keygate most of my life, though, I spent many winters pining for the distinct smell of spring. And now, here I was, in the middle of it.
Noah leaned on his car; he must have exited the funeral home using a different route than me. My heart thudded as I recalled our last meeting together. It wasn't my finest moment, but then again, I wasn't having many of those on this trip home, to be quite honest.
Ignoring the blaring warning sirens in my mind, I approached him with my chest jutted out. "Can I bum one of those?”
He looked up, and his silky smile tugged at my heartstrings the very same as the day we met almost a decade ago. With just one look, I melted into a puddle at his feet. I suppose it was because we only have one first love, and in a way, we were a slave to their memory.
He pulled a cigarette out of his pack and placed it between his lips. Noah lit the cigarette, inhaling the nicotine with ease before handing it to me.
I inhaled until the smoke burned my lungs. I needed to feel the pain to remind me that, despite the loss surrounding me, I was still alive. I was still here.
"How did you know Callie?" I asked after a minute filled with pregnant silence.
Noah tilted his face up to the sky and blew smoke into the air like a 1950s Hollywood model.
"She was friends with Angela," he said.
The sound of her name sent tingles down my spine. Noah's wife was friends with Callie? Did that mean she was here too? Somewhere in the crowd?
He watched me as I turned around to study the guests inside the funeral home. "She couldn't get off work. At the hospital. She's a nurse," he mumbled. "So, she asked that I come. To pay her respects.”
I nodded, wishing Noah hadn't come at all and wondering if he knew about Peter being a client of Callie's on her website. Half of me wanted to scream out, to ask what he knew. But the other part of me begged myself to stay quiet. It wasn't the time or the place for such a line of questioning.
Then again, I wasn't in the right mind to carry out niceties with my ex-boyfriend. "Did you know Callie had an online website, for, you know, certain services she offered?"
Noah didn't flinch. "I did, actually.”
I swallowed hard, wishing I had liquor to accompany the cigarette. Visitors loitered outside the funeral home, chatting amongst themselves, not wanting to stay inside with all the death and grief, but not quite ready to go home yet either.
"Did Angela tell you?" I probed.
Noah rolled his eyes. "Always digging. Seems like times haven't changed one bit since high school.”
"Yup. Some people never grew up," I sneered.
Noah flicked his cigarette into the street and rubbed his temples. "I did know about it, but Angela didn't tell me. Peter did.”
Peter! There was another strike against him. But why was Noah so free to offer up this information? Unless he didn't think it was valuable?
"Peter knew about the site?" I asked with a faux sense of curiosity.
"I think he was a subscriber, or whatever," Noah said.
“How do you know?” I flicked ash away from my cigarette and wondered if I should buy a pack after this. What’s one bad habit without another?
“Well, I work at his company, if you didn’t already know. I’m the head of his IT department, so I can see the sites people visit within the company.”
I clicked my tongue. "Huh. Imagine that.”
"Listen," Noah said, running his hands through his receding hairline. "I gotta go. But stay out of trouble, will ya, Elle?”
I scoffed. "Yeah, uh huh. You too.”
Such an asshole.
In the opposite direction, my mom called my name and nodded toward the car. When I looked back at Noah, he was gone.
Twenty-Five
"Dinner will be ready soon. Why don't you go and wash up?" my mom asked.
The aroma of garlic, onion and roasting chicken filled the kitchen and snaked through to the rest of the house. My glands salivated at the thought of a home-cooked meal. Since I'd come home, my mom cooked for me almost every day, but before that? I stopped cooking after what happened to Zac. I couldn't bear to cook for one. To only put out a single place setting at the table. It wracked my heart with unspeakable pain to sit by myself with a glass of wine and no one to commiserate with regarding the difficulties of the day. At least now, I shared the table with my mom and Jack. For a little bit, I didn't feel so alone.
After Zac, a few friends from the force reached out to try and console me, to offer their sympathies and comforts. But I chose to push them away. Eventually, they grew weary of trying to break through to me. They realized it was an impossible task, and I was an impenetrable wall.
I wouldn't let anyone stop over at the apartment. I wouldn't see or speak to a soul from the department. What few friends I managed to make while on the job disappeared as quickly as the future I envisioned for myself. Even Bunny took the hint and stopped sending me letters or leaving me notes at our typical spot. My mom offered to stay with me after the funeral, but I refused.
In my bedroom, I leafed through all the notes I'd taken on Callie's case. I printed out each of the articles in the paper, along with sloppily written profiles of the small pool of suspects I'd managed to gather. As the days passed, Keygate grew more unruly about the state of the investigation. Without any leads, people feared for the safety and wellbeing of their families. Was there still a killer on the loose?
I used a grapefruit exfoliating napkin to wipe off the makeup on my face. It didn't take long for the toilette to be covered in a vast array of colors ranging from tan to black to red. I also changed out of my funeral outfit into something much more satisfactory: a faded department t-shirt, much too big for me, and a pair of running shorts. I tossed my hair up into a bun on the top of my head.
At the dinner table, my mom and Jack twittered about their plans for the upcoming week. I asked Jack about his new position at a restaurant just outside of town.
"It's going quite well," he said while he chewed a piece of savory chicken. "Although, we need to work on hiring better staff. Young kids just don't work as hard as they used to."
I nodded. "Nope. Bunch of punks these days.”
My mom reluctantly poured me another glass of wine after Jack urged me to finish the bottle. She eyed me sus
piciously as I drank from the glass. With each sip of alcohol, it was another step down the path of darkness. Another step closer down the well of despair. Was I digging an even deeper hole that I couldn't pull myself out of? But in this moment, I didn't care.
After dinner, I helped my mom wash and dry the dishes. An awkward silence hung in the air. My mind, fuzzy from drinking, wandered as I used a towel to make them sparkle.
"Everything okay, Elle?" my mom asked.
I nodded. "Yeah. Sure. Everything's fine.”
"Because, you know you can talk to me, right? If there's something you need to get off your chest. I know it's been a rough few—"
"Thanks, Mom. I appreciate it," I replied, cutting her short.
She patted my back after handing me the last plate to dry. I sensed she didn't want to let the subject go but did so anyway.
"Be right back!" I called as I ventured outside. With the empty wine bottle and a few empty beer cans, I walked to the side of the house where the city-issued garbage and recycling cans stood.
I dumped everything from my arms into the can, which landed at the bottom with a harsh thud. I looked up in time to see a car driving slowly past the house. It was a black Lexus.
Inside, Peter stared at me with a sly grin splashed across his face. Revulsion filled my gut. I clenched my fists so tightly, my nails dug into the palms of my hands. This wasn’t over. It was just the beginning.
Twenty-Six
I've been dreading today for quite some time. I hoped it would never come, and yet, as time always does, it was here in a flash. Today is Zac's birthday. He would have been thirty years old.
I woke up to my heart aching as if someone sliced through it with a switchblade. Pain reverberated throughout my entire body. Part of me died the day he did. And I didn't think I would ever reclaim the missing piece again.
I planned for this day many weeks in advance. I was meant to take a handful of sleeping pills. Not enough to cause serious harm to myself, but enough to sleep through the entire day. I wanted to trick time and rip away two days off the calendar at once. If I didn't live throughout the day, then it would be as good as it never happening at all.
But my plan wouldn't turn out as I'd hoped. I left my sleeping pills at my apartment in Ashford. I didn’t plan to stay in Keygate so long, so I didn’t think to bring them with me. They were in a small orange vial on my dresser next to a picture of Zac from last year's Fourth of July carnival.
He surprised me by taking the day off. He knew I wasn't on the schedule and wouldn't have any plans. I didn't have any friends outside of the department, and they would all be working on the holiday.
That morning, I woke up to the sweet sight of sun flooding through our creamy sheer curtains. Zac's warm body pressed against me, I looked at the clock on my phone. Seeing the time, my heart throttled through my chest.
I turned and shook Zac emphatically. "Zac! Zac! Wake up! You're late for work!”
He moaned, then rubbed his eyes. "I took the day off," he whispered, “so I can spend it with you.”
Relief flooded my mind, but I playfully punched him too. "You scared me half to death! I didn't want you to be late.”
He rolled on top of me, his eyes glittering in the morning light. His soft waves were tousled perfectly. Somehow, he always managed to wake up looking like a model. I never quite understood how I'd gotten so lucky with him.
"Now we can do whatever we want to celebrate this fine American holiday," he said as he nibbled on his lip.
A rush of blood shot straight to my belly, flip-flopping it into oblivion. "Anything?"
He nodded.
I reached up to press my lips against his. Within seconds, his tongue meandered its way into my mouth and jousted with my own. He hardened against me and lust thrust itself between us, wanting—no—needing to be expunged.
I painfully shook away the memory, wishing more than anything I had my pills with me. I didn't want today to happen, or, rather, I didn't want to be awake for it. I wanted it to pass without notice, so I could continue to grieve without any additional reminders of whom I'd lost. At the same time, anger surged through my veins. I tried to push away the other memories, the ones too painful to dwell on.
The gunshots. The blood. Zac's eyes as we shared one last moment together.
I needed a drink more than any time before. I wanted to drown my sorrows in booze instead of reliving my tortured past over and over again. I leapt out of bed, grabbed my keys and left the house before my parents could see me. I drove to the nearest liquor store, my head spinning with cravings.
As I pulled into the parking lot of the corner store a few blocks away, the store clerk unlocked the doors.
Perfect timing.
I grabbed the cheapest liter of vodka on the shelf and dropped it a little too hard on the store counter. The clerk, a woman in her mid-forties, gazed at me quizzically as she rang up the bottle.
I could feel her judgy eyes burning into me, but I didn’t care. Fuck this day and everything about it. Soon I’d be too drunk to care what anyone thought of me. Inside my car, I peeled the wrapper off the top of the no-name vodka and turned it upside down. I chugged until I needed a breath, ignoring the hoots and hollers of the teenage boys loitering outside the store. Rain splattered against my windshield as tears sprang from my eyes and slithered down my cheeks.
I put the bottle on the floor of my car and screamed at the top of my lungs, punching my steering wheel. Rage burned inside me. I wanted Zac back. I needed him in my life. How could I survive without him?
Life wasn’t fucking fair.
I pulled out of the parking lot, already with a solid buzz numbing the pain. I wanted to break something. To hurt someone. Would I ever find the person who killed Zac? Would I find Callie’s killer? The pressure mounted in the depths of my heart.
I approached a traffic light a block away from the liquor store. As if in slow motion, the light turned from yellow to red before I could react. Instead of screeching to a halt, I pressed my foot against the gas. Cars appeared in my peripherals, but I didn’t care. In that moment, I didn’t give a fuck if I killed myself. At least then I wouldn’t have to live like this.
Narrowly missing a car before it T-boned me, I sped even faster away from the intersection as horns blared behind me. I couldn’t go home like this. I couldn’t let my mom see me. Instead, I drove across town, weaving in and out of traffic toward the cheapest motel I could think of, which also happened to be in walking distance of the Hens’ Den.
I’d hide out here for as long as I could and drink myself into oblivion.
Twenty-Seven
After I checked in, I tossed the overnight bag I had in my trunk for emergencies onto the bed with cheap 80s bedding. The room wouldn't make any five-star listings, but it'd serve its purpose today. All I needed was a safe and quiet place to lay my head without having to explain myself.
I texted my mom that I was out visiting friends and to not wait up. She called me immediately, but I hit “Ignore.” My vision blurred, and I could barely make out her name on my screen, let alone have a full conversation with her.
I lay in bed, sipping from the bottle of vodka with a picture of Zac pressed against my chest.
The first of Zac’s birthdays we spent together didn’t go as well as I’d hoped, but all these years later, it was one of my favorite memories of us.
As a college freshman, I didn’t have much money to spend on extracurricular activities. I worked a part-time job with the campus police answering phones and typing up reports. I made minimum wage and worked for about ten hours a week. My checks were laughable, but for a college student, anything was better than nothing.
Zac and I had been dating for about five months, and I wanted to do something special for his birthday. So I scraped up all the money I’d saved, down to the last penny, and bought us a weekend getaway a few towns over. I barely had enough leftover cash to have a friend buy beer for the weekend, but I was determined to make it work.
On the morning of his birthday, I picked him up outside his dorm, which was across campus from my own. Butterflies swirled in my stomach, hoping and praying he’d like his present.
He strolled up to my car, stroking his beard while his dark, tousled locks swayed in the breeze.
“Hey, beautiful.” He leaned across the center console and pressed his lips against mine.
My heart skipped a beat while I squealed with delight. “Are you ready for your present?”
He massaged the top of my hand with his index finger and stared into my eyes. “I can’t wait!”
We drove an hour or so to the cute little bed and breakfast I booked, which sat against a man-made lake and a plethora of evergreen trees. He gazed around in disbelief as a sly smile stretched across his lips.
“Where are we?” he asked.
“I got us a weekend getaway here! Isn’t it cute?”
As we got out of the car, pride swelled in my chest seeing Zac’s look of pure happiness. I was so relieved, too, that he liked the gift. After all, I didn’t have the money to get him something else, and the B&B was non-refundable.
That night, we cozied up in bed with a fire roaring in the hearth. We drank Bud Lights while we chowed down a large cheese and mushroom pizza. Everything was working out perfectly—until the storm hit.
While we cuddled under the sheets, a massive thunderstorm ripped through our area. Trees were knocked down, and a few landed on the powerlines of our B&B. It didn’t take long for the power to go out.
At first, I froze in place. Was this really happening? Then we burst into laughter. We’d still make the best of it, no matter what.
“Hey, let’s go outside,” he said.
