“Oh, now that’s sexy,” Chloe remarked, “I was starting to miss you George. Where’ve you been?”
No answer, but a strange feeling none-the-less. The feeling that something was there, something that would breath if it could draw air. Some presence. It made the room feel even smaller, stuffier.
“Well there’s a shock,” Chloe continued. “You’re here, but you don’t feel much like talking, huh? Well, that’s okay, you can keep me company anyway.”
She put the glass down and poured another.
“Right now George, you’re probably the best friend I have, or the only one at least.” She raised the shot glass to him and then tossed it back.
Chloe blew out a hot breath and shook her head a bit, she could already feel the lightness creeping up her spine from the alcohol in her stomach.
“You know George, one thing I really don’t understand. Why don’t you dead people ever just come out and say exactly what you want, exactly what you’re still doing here? It’s always, ‘Help!’ or ‘Trapped!’ or ‘Hit that guy with a vase!’ What are you still doing here?” Chloe demanded.
Nothing happened, no voice, no flying objects. For an instant, Chloe felt as though something light as air brushed past her, but it could have been her imagination, or the vodka.
“Maybe you need something to write with, is that it?” Chloe asked. “Where’d that lipstick go George, you hanging on to that for later?” She glanced around, and seeing nothing laying out, reached into her draw and grabbed a black marker. She took the cap off.
“Here,” she said, holding it out to the middle of the empty room. “Here you go. Go on, take it! You getting shy all of a sudden? Take it! Why don’t you take it and start by telling me, why you decided to come back now. We don’t hear a peep out of you for months and then, of all times, right now. Why?”
The room hummed with a strange sort of energy, and yet, nothing happened. No noise, no tapping, nothing.
“Oh George, you disappoint me,” Chloe complained.
She made to toss the marker back in her desk drawer, but her hand clamped around it in a tight fist instead.
“What the-” Chloe gasped.
Holding it in her fist, she struggled to open her fingers, but some unseen force kept them clamped firmly around the marker. And then…it pulled. Yanked her forward, actually. Chloe stumbled after her hand, being dragged by the force. She didn’t talk, didn’t even bother to struggle.
As she watched, the force bent her arm, forcing her fist up, the marker tip against the wall. Whatever held her hand began to write. Large angry slashes, making letters that didn’t quite connect. T…H…E…Y… she watched dumbfounded. A few more letters and her hand was released, her arm flapped to her side, the marker hit the floor.
“They’re watching,” she read aloud. “Who, George? Who’s watching? I don’t understand. You want me to understand, don’t you? Why don’t you just tell me? Why does everything have to be so cryptic with you?”
A feeling so strong, so overpowering filled the room, that it almost seemed to shake to Chloe. It flooded into her. It wasn’t anger, outrage, it was frustration. Frustration at not being able to communicate. Horrible frustration and maybe exhaustion. She wasn’t sure if it were hers or his.
“You know what?” she asked raising her voice. “You know what I don’t get? You terrorize my room. Leave messages all over my walls, write my name…and then you possess Melanie? What the hell, George? You remind me of another guy I know. You want me to know, you want me to understand? Why don’t you possess me? What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with my body? Come on in, George. It’s crazy in here, it’ll feel just like home.”
The heavy feeling of someone else’s frustration vanished instantly. The stuffiness, the closeness of the room receded, like it grew larger. It was gone, he was gone. She felt alone.
“Okay,” she whispered.
Turning towards the desk, she picked up the bottle and poured another shot. She lifted it to eye level and stared through the clear liquid for a moment.
“Apparently no one wants me,” she told the glass. With a surprisingly steady hand, she threw the drink back.
Tink…tink…tink…
The tapping sound had resumed. Chloe’s back was to the mirror. She set the glass down on the desk, and slowly, ever so slowly, she turned to face it.
Tink…tink…tink…
Chloe locked eyes with the faint image of a man in the mirror.
Tink…tink…tink…
He tapped one finger impatiently against his side of the glass.
Like an old-time photograph, like a faded black and white relic of the previous century, he stared out from the room on the other side of the mirror. High starched collar, thick bushy sideburns, a razor straight moustache covering his upper lip. George Townsend watched her with unreadable dark eyes.
Chloe took a step forward. George stopped tapping. He pressed his hand against the glass. He looked down at his own hand and back up towards Chloe and then down at his hand again.
The meaning was unmistakable to Chloe. She took another step forward. He was watching her again. Where his hand flattened against the glass it looked, whiter… brighter, maybe glowing.
One last step. She was only inches away from him. She raised her hand to the mirror, holding it palm outward, almost touching the glass. For a moment, she stood that way.
Seth, a quiet voice reminded her, choose to be healthy, choose to be happy.
Seth and Sam! The other voice reminded her. Go ahead, listen. You’ll be choosing pain.
Chloe gritted her teeth. She slammed her hand forward, into the glass, smashing into the spot where his hand was still pressed. She thought it would shatter. She thought she would feel the cold clammy flesh of a dead hand, or the pain of dozens of tiny glass shards splintering into her palm. She felt nothing. She felt absolutely nothing. No barrier to even stop her movement. Her hand seemed to go right through the wall.
And then she was falling forward, and there was no ground, and she was falling down and down and down. She closed her eyes.
There was no end to the fall. There was nothing to hit, no bottom. There was only a time when she no longer felt like she was falling. It was more like floating.
When she opened her eyes, all she could see was black, but from the smell she knew. Somewhere, something was burning.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
As a rule, Samantha Klingeman did not believe in apologizing. If she really thought about it, she could probably count the number of apologies made over the last ten years of her life on one hand. If she were being honest, she couldn’t actually remember meaning any of them. Her mother, angry and tired of fighting had once demanded to know why? Why couldn’t she just say ‘sorry’?
Sam had told her that if her mother had really known her, and loved her for who she was, she’d understand that it was just how she was. It did not go over well.
Still, Chloe did deserve an apology. Seth might have deserved an apology as well, but two in one day was two over her personal limit. He really had behaved admirably though. She was sure most guys would have pushed her roughly away, called her a skank or a whore and began swearing to the girlfriend that it was all her fault, that they had nothing to do with it.
At the very least, a normal guy would have demanded she leave afterwards, or screamed at her and shoved her out. Seth just sat there, in his arm chair, leaning his face on his hand, massaging his forehead. He hadn’t said a word to her. She half-expected that it was just shock. That at any moment he would leap up and scream insults at her, tell her to get out. She watched him patiently, still standing in the same spot she had been in when Chloe shut the door.
“I’ll tell her it was my fault,” Sam offered.
Seth might have nodded, or he might just be rocking his head back and forth, she couldn’t tell as he hadn’t yet stopped. Sam frowned. Watching him was making it worse for her. She didn’t like the feeling of being wrong.
Not t
hat I MEANT to do anything wrong, she reminded herself.
And really she hadn’t…mostly. She had run into Seth at the Eat. He was there with his hockey friends, cute hockey friends at that. Sam had gone to his table partly to dish about Chloe, a topic she knew he would be interested in, and partly to flirt with the other cute hockey guys.
Seth had been drinking beer like breathing air, and she was pretty sure that he and his friends had pre-partied before getting there. He had fired off question after question about Chloe, and she had done her best to be vague and coy. But after assuring Seth that Chloe was basically doing okay, and that she was pretty sure she missed him, she had given him Chloe’s cell phone number, and he had departed abruptly. Most of the cute guys took off soon after, and Sam was left with a group of annoyingly drunk freshmen girls.
When she got home and found Chloe still at the library, she made the fateful decision to see if Seth was still awake. She told herself it was just to have someone to drink with, but at the same time…she wondered. Seth and Chloe were technically broken up, so maybe…
But before she left the room, he was knocking on the door, looking for Chloe, of course. She had done the friendly thing and walked him back to his room, and then stayed. Sat through his last phone call to Chloe’s answering machine (she had told him already that Chloe was the only person alive who didn’t actually use their cell phone.), listened to him ramble on about fixing things, about having pushed Chloe too hard. She nodded at appropriate intervals and made encouraging noises in her throat.
And then he ran out of words. He stood there looking tired and hurt and…desperate. She really did feel bad for him. So she stood, and put an arm on his shoulder and told him that she was sure everything was going to turn out alright, and then he took a step back. Away from her. It was almost accusatory. She was angry, but she knew not to show it. She made her voice soft, low. She sweetly told him that he misunderstood her, that she felt bad for him. Her hand on his shoulder again. Sliding upwards she began rubbing the back of his neck. He took another step back and she came with him. He didn’t shrug her off. It was bad. She did do something bad. It was on her, wasn’t it?
And then what happened? She said something, some small thing and moved closer, and he didn’t move that time. And then…and then…Chloe, in the doorway. Chloe’s face going blank, like she was examining a wall, reading an instruction manual. Chloe telling them calmly that she didn’t care to look at either of them. She felt sick just remembering it.
“I’ll tell her it was me,” Sam repeated.
“You can stay here,” Seth said as though he hadn’t heard. “You can stay here, I’ll leave. I’ll go somewhere. Do you think…do you think that if I go down there-”
“No,” Sam said. “No, I don’t think that’s going to do any good right now, and I think me staying here is going to make things worse no matter what she said. You stay. I’m going down there. It’s my room too. I have a key, she can’t keep me out. I’ll talk to her. She’ll listen to me. She knows how I am, she’ll know it wasn’t anything.”
Seth shook his head again, but he didn’t say anything.
“I’ll tell her it was my fault,” she repeated and closed the door.
Yet out in the hallway she wasn’t so sure. The thought hit with her first step that she could still get out of this. She could say it was him. She would be the first one to talk to Chloe. She could say that she was super drunk and he had tried to come on to her. That she was sorry, but maybe Chloe was better off without him.
“No, no, no,” she whispered out loud. “You’re such an ass!”
But the thought was enough to stop her. It wasn’t that far to their door. Her brain was working furiously to rationalize what had happened, to crawl out from under any sort of blame. It was like a survival instinct to her. It made her feel disgusted. Chloe was her best friend. Chloe was her real friend. She hadn’t lied when she’d told Chloe that much. Chloe didn’t try to compete with her. She didn’t secretly feel happy every time Sam messed up or failed at something. She wasn’t the sort of girl that talked shit behind your back. Chloe wanted her to do well, lectured her about doing her homework, helped her. Chloe said things like, “I wish I could talk to people the way you do. You’re so smart Sam, I wish you would try harder. You look so pretty when you do your hair that way, you should wear it that way more often.” And she meant it!
She wouldn’t blame Seth though. She wouldn’t. Somehow she could make Chloe understand that it was nothing, stupid. Maybe she wouldn’t shoulder all the blame, but she would be careful not to blame him.
Sam began walking again.
Outside the door she squared her shoulders and cleared her throat. It was always best to have an opening line. She would let it flow from there, but she had to have a practiced start.
“Chloe, we need to talk,” she whispered under her breath.
No good. She would just say ‘no’. She could go into a rant from there, it gave her too much of an option. Sam would have to start stronger, more forcefully.
“Chloe, you’re being irrational-”
Too accusatory, she decided quickly. Something strong, but not offensive.
“Clo, I’m going to talk, and you’re going to give me five minutes. You’re my best friend, you have to give me at least five minutes.” she whispered, drawing her eyebrows together, practicing her determined face.
Good enough. Sam snatched her keys out of her purse, and unlocked the door. She tried opening it, but couldn’t. The knob turned, but the door only opened a crack. Was Chloe in there holding the door closed? Was she really that mad?
“Chloe!” she yelled, pushing as hard as she could against the door, “Clo, stop! This is ridiculous!”
The door inched forward, Sam was able to wedge her hand between the door and the frame, wincing in expectation of Chloe slamming it as forcefully as she could. It didn’t happen.
“Clo?” she asked through the crack in the door.
She used her hand in the door as a lever, forcing it open wider. Letting go of the door completely, she realized that it stayed open. Chloe must have wedged something against the door. Sam felt a surge of anger.
She backed up a few steps and ran at the door, slamming it with her shoulder, it budged open another couple of inches. She heard something heavy and wooden squeal as it rubbed against the tile floor inside. She backed up again, and ran at the door, hitting it as hard as she could. The door opened a lot wider. She was able to turn sideways and squeeze herself in.
It was one of the desks. Sam had to climb over it. Chloe was crouched down in the corner by the window, her back to the door, little shards of glass scattered all around her. The mirror! What had she done, put her fist through it? She didn’t bother to turn around and face Sam.
“Well this is real mature!” Sam snapped, forgetting her opening line entirely. “Real nice, Clo! We’re going to have to pay for that now, and what the hell is up with the desk? And what the hell’s this?”
Sam grabbed her comforter by one corner and yanked it off the curtain rod, bringing the beads clattering down with it. Chloe didn’t move. Didn’t even turn around to acknowledge Sam.
“Alright, alright,” Sam said, calming down. “I know you’re mad. I get it. I’d be mad too. I fucked up, okay? That’s what people do though, they fuck up. Come on Clo, look at me…please?”
Chloe didn’t move, she stayed in her crouched position, rocking on the balls of her feet.
“Okay, fine. You know what? You should be flattered, you know that? You’re all mad at me now, I know, but put yourself in my shoes for a minute. What do you think it’s like being me, huh? I’m pretty too! I’m smart! I’m funny and fun to be around and…and sometimes I can even be really nice, but no one ever sees that! Why do I have to be the sidekick, huh? It’s always about you. The hot, all-star hockey R.A. guy falls in love with YOU, the professor wanted us to be TA’s because of the papers YOU wrote, the ghost writes YOUR name on the wall, even the fucking homel
ess guys, they kept talking to YOU, like I wasn’t even there. I’m just nothing. I’m just the piece of crap that winds up getting an intervention, because even my family thinks there’s something wrong with me! I didn’t even kiss him Clo, I swear to God I didn’t! I was going to, but it didn’t happen! I wanted to be the one that was wanted. Sometimes, I want to be the one that someone looks at because they think I’m special, that I’m something! Can’t you understand that? Damnit Chloe, say something!” Sam demanded.
Chloe made a low sort of moaning noise and covered her ears.
“Look at me, Clo! Look…I’m sorry! Do you even hear what I’m saying? I’m sorry! I’M SORRY!” Sam yelled.
Fed up with being ignored, Sam leapt at Chloe and grabbed her by the shoulders, determined to make her look. She gave Chloe a hard shake.
Chloe’s head flopped backwards, her neck not bothering to support the weight. Her glazed over eyes stared through Sam. Huge, dilated eyes that saw nothing…dead eyes. Her mouth hung slack.
Terrified, Sam shook her again.
“CHLOE!” she screamed.
Chloe’s eyes rolled to the back of her head. Her eyelashes fluttered manically over the whites. Under Sam’s tight fingers her body convulsed.
Dropping the shaking body to the floor Sam jumped up and scrambled over the desk.
“Hold on Chloe, I’m getting someone, hold on,” she called.
Down the hallway she ran, wildly trying to come up with an explanation. Seizures? Could Chloe be having a seizure? Stress…shock…what the hell was going on?
She burst into Seth’s room and surprised him still sitting in his stupid, dirty, old chair. One look at her face and he was on his feet.
“What happened?” he demanded.
“I don’t know! You have to come, I don’t know what’s happened to her. She’s having some kind of breakdown or seizure or something. She won’t answer, she’s on the floor shaking, oh my God, what do we do, what are we-”
She was talking to air.
Sam hurried to keep up, but he was running and he was faster. Seth tried to open the door, she heard the bang when it hit the desk. Without stopping, he threw his full weight against it, and the door flew open. She caught up to him just as he was shoving the desk out of the way.
Asylum Page 29
