by Pamela Crane
My interlocking fingers wriggled around one another, as if scurrying to find safety within my damp palm. Suddenly aware of my fidgeting, I wiped them on my ripped skinny jeans and pocketed them. With my thoughts adrift, I fought to reel them in.
“You don’t have to share anything you’re not comfortable with, but I’ve had enough secrets in my life, so it’s full disclosure for me. Anything you wanna know, I’m an open book.”
Not that there was much to tell about me, the life of Ari Wilburn. The perpetually-single, apartment-dwelling, retail girl. Folding, hanging, hanging, folding. My life consisted of break room bitching over crumpled shirts fusty with old lady stink and heaps of fitting room clothes left behind by lazy shoppers who couldn’t give two shits about the boring work they created for me. And then the registers. Don’t get me started on registers.
Checking out line upon line of customers with coupons—I referred to them as Coupon Queens—then customers without coupons who wanted coupons, expired coupons, coupons from other stores. I even had one customer try to pass off a handwritten coupon, I shit you not. Then there’s customers who swear the price was marked differently than what rang up. And the damn lookyloos who bring one of everything in the store to the register to price check, hoping they’d ring up cheaper than marked. Of course they’d leave their heaping piles of stuff on the register for me to return—God forbid they clean up after their damn selves. And the barterers—do they really think I have a say over the price of an item? This is a friggin’ store, not a bazaar in Chiang Mai … And on and on it went, day after day, an endlessly bland existence. My sole purpose in life was to fold clothes and clean up after slobs. I wondered if mothers felt the same way.
They say idle hands are the devil’s workshop. It was only a matter of time before I’d join a cult just to get out of retail.
A cough like a duck getting sucked into an airplane turbine brought me back to the room. The same gorgon-faced woman smiled encouragingly at me.
“How about we take time to introduce ourselves?” I belatedly added, scanning the group.
To my right, a woman with Friends-era Jennifer Aniston hair turned to glance up at me with doe-wide hazel eyes like tarnished bronze.
“Share your name, why you’re here … whatever you feel compelled to say. And take whatever time you need,” I said with a self-conscious simper. I had no clue if I was doing this right, but did it really matter? I was here to help others like me, etiquette be damned. Then I sat—the universal thank-God-go-ahead-I’m-done signal.
The woman stood, said “Hi” in a theatre voice, too loud for the occasion, then recalibrated to a lower volume. “Uh, hi. I’m Mia Germaine. I recently lost someone I cared about to suicide, which is why I’m here. Lately death seems like it’s been following me. It feels like—I’m sure you all heard about the Triangle Terror?”
A murmur of acknowledgment ran through the audience. The only serial killer that had made it into our local news during my adult life. A horrifying tale of woe, and too many young lives lost—not much younger than me. Apparently he targeted girls—“set them free,” according to his twisted logic. Mia Germaine, I remembered reading somewhere, caught the killer that no one else could. One more reason to hate cops for letting him slip through their fingers for too damn long. I didn’t follow the news much, but that story was unavoidable if you were living and breathing in Durham. I was sure Mia’s story was a book by now.
“Well,” Mia continued, “I knew some of the victims and needed a place to unleash the pent-up emotions and thoughts after everything. To find healing, I guess is what I’m here for. And to connect with others who may be going through the same pain I’m going through, and learn from others how to work through those dark nights of remembering. Thanks.” She plopped heavily into her chair, squeakily skidding a few inches back.
Dark nights—those I was familiar with.
“Thanks, Mia, for joining us. I hope you find what you need here. Next?”
My eyes shifted to Mia’s right, inviting a lanky hipster to rise. A fedora leaned jauntily on a thick swath of hair swept stiffly across his brow, and despite the eighty-degree temperatures that Mother Nature visited upon North Carolina in April, a patterned scarf snaked around his neck. The requisite beard, fastidiously trimmed, traced his rugged jaw. He took his time standing up because hipsters—being, well, hipper than thou—take their sweet time about everything.
A creaking sound caused all heads to crane around toward the back of the room, where a petite little thing crept through one of the swinging doors, peering hesitantly around its thick edge.
A blast of silence. Then her tiny voice pushed a speedy sentence out:
“Is this the support group for … uh … suicide?” Her cheeks flushed blotchy pink.
“Yep, sure is. Come on in and take a seat.” I pointed toward an empty chair.
“Sorry I’m late,” she said without further excuse. As she neared, I noticed her red-rimmed eyes, wet like chocolate pudding. The poor girl had been crying.
Her olive skin was as smooth and shiny as a Red Delicious. I guessed she was in her late teens, early twenties. Spikes rose in sharp towers from her scalp, the tips a platinum blond contrast her to black roots. Her lips were a shade of villainous red I only wished I could pull off. Trendy armbands clinked as she made her way into the circle, finally settling the tap of her high-heeled ankle boots as she sat.
“Should I go?” The question tugged my attention back to the hipster-in-waiting. I watched as he looked around him, his eyes a penetrating topaz, then he settled his sights on me. Either his lashes were incredibly thick and dark, or he was sporting guyliner. Either way, it worked for him. Tight leather pants hugged every curve, and a deep v-neck T-shirt crawling with dragons previewed his smooth chest. Despite the neatly studded eyebrow—I hated needles and everything that went with them—I was oddly attracted … in a Gavin Rossdale circa Bush kind of way. Those rock god pants left little to the imagination about his impressive package. I couldn’t stop my gaze from going there and staring just a little too long. Bad girl, Ari, bad girl.
“Oh, yes, I’m sorry. Go ahead.”
His hand came up in a genteel wave, a red bandana cuffing his wrist. “’Sup. I’m Tristan Cox. I’ve been struggling with depression and suicidal thoughts for a long time. Since I was a teen, at least. I can’t say I’ve tangled with any serial killers or survived anything horrific”—he nodded in Mia’s direction—“so there’s not much to say other than I guess I’m here to try to learn to battle my personal demons—tamer ones than most of you guys are used to. Uh, I guess that’s it. Thanks.” Another wave, then he poured himself back into his seat with a wan smile.
Brief. Succinct. And I wanted to know so much more.
The simplicity of his plea—and that boyish grin!—snatched my breath away. Until I felt a roomful of focus on me, an unspoken request to move things along.
Several more names, several more heartbreaking stories.
Destiny Childs, who recently found—then lost—a daughter she’d given up years ago. The aftermath sucked her into a depressive vortex. Her striking blue eyes moistened as she relived the tale.
Gypsy, she called herself, who found her husband of thirty years dead, swinging from a backyard tree.
Ryder, whose mystery lingered after a cursory nod and vague introduction.
All in due time I’d hear their stories and hoped to relieve a portion of their burden.
Over the hour it became a how-to manual of survival, a list of suicide do’s and don’ts. Those who had attempted suicide shared what had driven them to that brink, and what made death so morbidly appealing. Those who lost loved ones advocated for those left behind here on Earth. It was a babel of voices, all suffering but all still standing. We were heroes in my book. We faced death and told it to back the hell up off us.
We won.
The last to stand was the late arrival—Crying Girl. By now her tears had dried up, and the red shame of her tard
iness faded into her naturally bronzed skin. She stood in a jangle of metal as her jewelry chimed with each movement, first a nervous scratching of her neck, then the wringing of hands.
The horror that brought such a young girl here prickled my skin.
“Hi, everyone.” She lifted her chin, trying to be brave. “I’m Tina Alvarez. I’m here because I found out …” Her voice shook, then stilled. Her eyes watered, and a hand swiped too late as tears trickled down her face. “I’m sorry. It’s been a difficult couple days. I just lost the only family I had here and I have nowhere to turn. I’m sorry,” she said through emerging sobs, shoulders shuddering.
In sorrowful heaves and raspy breaths, Tina wordlessly laid bare her pain for the roomful of strangers to watch, like a gruesome accident we couldn’t pull our eyes away from.
I stood and moved slowly to her, unsure if I should make contact. Should I soothe her? Let her be? Comfort seemed appropriate for a crying girl—for she was merely a girl, wasn’t she?—but years of incarceration had calcified my heart to such emotional nakedness. So I found the middle ground and rested my palm on her back, delivering tight circles of reassurance that everything would be okay.
But would it? I had no idea.
The round face of the wall clock ticked away the last couple of minutes, so I adjourned the meeting, inviting everyone to return to learn some coping skills for those days when dark thoughts catch up to us.
Still Tina stood in the center of a stage of pallid linoleum and gray aluminum chairs, weeping into her hands, me awkwardly by her side, as the swinging door whooshed behind the last of the trailing group. Eventually the minutes did what they always did—took the sorrow and tossed it behind, leaving the apex of the pain in the past. It was only then that Tina looked up at me.
“You okay?” I asked, my voice soft like talking to a child.
“Yeah, I’m sorry I lost it,” she replied, rubbing her fingertips under her eyes to catch the running mascara, and only succeeding in turning them into Rorschach inkblots.
“It’s okay. You wanna talk about it?” I offered.
“I guess I probably should.”
I cupped her elbow and guided her to two chairs, since I had no idea how long we would be standing. If she was a talker like Chelsea from my former group home, we could be here all day. We sat in clumsy silence for several beats, then she spoke, her gaze fixated on her knees, mine on a black skid mark along the floor from the sole of a shoe. My fingers toyed with loose strands of blond hair that had escaped my ponytail—a nervous tic, my coping mechanism. Somehow the stimulation collected my racing thoughts.
“Yesterday I found out my father killed himself.”
And that was it—all she said. So matter-of-fact. The blow of her loss—only yesterday—caught me off-guard, and I looked at her, examined her. How could she possibly be holding up so well, so soon after?
“Oh my God. Yesterday? I’m so sorry, Tina. I don’t even know what to say …”
Followed by a lull. I hadn’t been prepared for this … not this.
Then she chuckled softly, an inside joke with herself. “Yeah, I’m kinda in shock too. Not that my father didn’t deserve to die, but still … I never got a chance to confront him before he died. To tell him how he hurt me.”
“He hurt you?” I asked. I was tentative about probing for more, unsure I wanted to loosen her burden and heft it on my own shoulders. But after years of friendships—if one could call delinquent housemates friends—based solely on shared resentment, it became habit.
“I don’t wanna go into a bunch of detail, but yeah, he basically kicked me out when I was a kid and I never looked back. I hate him, y’know? But he’s the only family I had left, as crappy as he was. And now he’s gone … by his own hand. How is that even fair?”
“I’m so sorry, Tina. I understand … shitty parents seem to grow on trees around here. I’m here for you, whatever you need.” It was all the comfort I could muster with a girl I just met, though I sensed she wanted more. Maybe in time I could scratch open my wounds and let Tina watch them bleed, but right now wasn’t that time.
“You know, I just can’t accept it,” she said irritably, drastically shifting her mood with a hurricane’s force.
“What do you mean?” I probed.
“It’s not like him—suicide. He’s not the selfless type. Killing himself would be too noble for him.”
“You think suicide is noble?” I asked gently, not wanting to start a debate, but I couldn’t help but wonder how anyone could see dignity behind it. “Most people call it selfish—to end things without consideration for others. Leaving all the pain behind you for others to deal with while you get to escape.”
She glared at me, eyes burrowing, searching.
“I’m not judging, Tina,” I blustered. “I attempted it more than once, so I’m talking from experience. I’m just saying it’s not exactly selfless.”
She shrugged noncommittally. “I guess so … Regardless, I don’t think my father would’ve had the guts to carry it out. He cared too much about his boozing and gambling and whoring to off himself.”
“Are you suggesting that he didn’t kill himself?”
“That’s exactly what I think. I think someone murdered him.”
“What did the police say?” I understood it intimately—the stage of denial. It was well-trodden territory for me. But there was a point where we could easily get ungrounded, and I hoped to help gently bring Tina back to Earth. “I’m sure they considered that but ruled it out.”
“They said it looked like suicide because of his blood alcohol levels and how he was holding the knife when they found him. Plus a note was left behind. But they have no idea how Josef Alvarez could hold his liquor. He didn’t get all weepy and self-loathing. He got angry. Angry people don’t kill themselves. They kill other people.”
“He killed other people?”
“Not that I know of, but he could’ve.”
We were swiftly heading into the realm of conspiracy theory here, and it was in Tina’s best interest that I reel that in. “Regardless of what happened, Tina, don’t you think you should let it go? Maybe he finally hit his breaking point.”
“And if he was murdered?” she challenged me.
“Then I’d stay as far away as possible from the mofo who did it.”
“Easy for you to say. But what if whoever killed him comes after me next?”
And cue paranoia.
Maybe she wasn’t following the standard grieving script—denial, bargaining, depression, anger, acceptance. We were going off-book here, adding suspicion to the list. But clearly she didn’t want to be reasoned out of it, so I’d have to work with what I got.
“Do you feel like you should look into it more? Maybe talk to the cops about your concerns?”
Tina exhaled, a breath weighted with burdens no daughter should bear. “Part of me wants to, but part of me is afraid to. Any chance you want to come with me?” She snorted a laugh, and I joined in, but when she grew silent and fixed a wondering look on me, I realized she was serious.
“Oh, you’re for real,” I declared, a little shocked at her ballsy request. But then again, Millennials were often blunt—and that included me. “Well, I guess it wouldn’t hurt to go to the station together and see what they say …” I regretted it the moment I spoke, but when her eyes misted in gratitude, I knew I had done the right thing.
She mumbled thanks, then dropped her guard and hugged me. My instinct was to push away, fall back, resist—the robotic methods I had conformed to for so long. But instead I drew her in, let my body do what bodies are meant to do: connect.
“Do you need help planning the funeral?” I offered, wishing at that moment I could retract it. Funerals were not my thing. Never would be … since Carli. Maybe since ever. I’d never been the best emotional crutch.
“Nope. Not doing one. Not my problem. Let the morgue figure out what to do with him.”
“Really? You don’t want closure?”
“He’s dead. What more closure could I get?”
I did the math: Her father was possibly murdered. Unworthy of a funeral. Apparently he was really unpopular.
I’d help her figure out who killed him—if he was in fact murdered—and not out of obligation. Not out of making amends for my own sins. But because my decayed muscle of a heart had survived my life, and for once I cared about something. Someone.
Maybe I needed Tina because she reminded me of the little sister I’d lost.
Maybe this was my chance at finding purpose.
Perhaps I was human after all.
Chapter 5
Ari
Dunn, North Carolina
Fourteen days until dead
One long car ride and two summaries of our lives later, we arrived in the town of Dunn—home of rock-n-roller Link Wray, whoever the hell that was.
We had been standing outside the red brick Dunn Police Station on East Broad Street for over five minutes—I attentively, or what Tina called impatiently, counted each minute away on my cell phone—while Tina, now three smokes in, paced the stamped concrete walkway. With the cigarette perched tensely between her lips, her steps formed an indecisive waltz.
“We gonna do this?” I prodded. But my biggest concern wasn’t making it home in time for a Netflix American Horror Story binge watch before bed. It was the fact that I hated cops. I’d spent enough time with them as a kid to fill two lifetimes, so seeking them out voluntarily went against my grain. All I knew was that I earned a friend of the year award for this, and I better damn well get it.
As Tina puffed obliviously to my question, my good graces were melting. I hadn’t anticipated it to be an all-day project on my only day off work this week. As luck would have it, Tina’s father was from Dunn, about an hour south of Durham. So the trek there and back was a long one, especially with the construction on I-95 and all the pricks on the road. I needed to watch my potty mouth. Put me behind the wheel and road rage made me swear like a sailor.
