Checked Again (Checked Series)

by Jennifer Jamelli

  This isn’t going to work.

  I’ll just end up bolting from the office…leaving me upset, him somehow more upset (I’m sure, because I always manage to worsen his mood), and me still with no license.

  Erase text. Try again.

  I know. Don’t worry about it. I can just go to the DMV and get another one.

  It doesn’t even take a full count of three for me to realize how ridiculous this sounds, so I once again erase my message. Gonna have to try again later.

  Right now, the house is quiet, so I put my phone in my pocket and get to work…trying to put everything else out of my mind.

  {And the soundtrack for tonight’s routine is…Damien Rice with “The Blower’s Daughter.” Over and over and over and over and over and over and…}

  Chapter 4

  back home

  WELL, I GOT CAUGHT LAST night at the end of my routine. Abby woke up when I bumped into the couch as I tried to straighten the pictures in the living room. When she asked me what I was doing up by myself, I quickly mumbled something about having left my phone downstairs. Then I asked her not to say anything to anyone, and I told her to just go back to sleep. I did eventually finish my downstairs routine, but not until after I heard her heavy sleep breathing resume.

  Thank God it’s confession day. Lying to an innocent child. Hoping that said child lies for me and doesn’t tell anyone that I was up by myself in the middle of the night (a withholding of the truth—a lie of omission, but a lie all the same). I’m kind of torn about what I want to happen. I don’t want Mom and Melanie and Mandy to find out that I was up checking when I was supposed to be resting. Dr. Lennox will probably be back to see me in no time then. However, I don’t want Abby to have to keep a secret or to lie for me. I don’t want to put her little soul in jeopardy.

  Hmm…if she doesn’t tell on me, I think I’ll just confess her lie of omission for her…just to be safe.

  For now, I need to make sure that no one else catches me as I do my downstairs morning routine. If Mandy or Melanie wakes up, I’m pretty sure either one of them would tell Mom. Just like when I was a kid and they told on me for taking off my lotiony sock gloves to wash my hands…

  SOMEHOW, I MAKE IT THROUGH my entire downstairs routine without waking anyone. I’m not sure that I got all of the crumbs and pieces of fuzz off of the living room carpet…but it was just too risky considering last night’s flub up. I couldn’t afford to be caught again…I couldn’t…can’t…stomach seeing Dr. Lennox again today…

  Trying to just accept the fact that there might still be a few pieces of fuzz on the living room floor, I head upstairs to finish my routine. I fall back into bed around 7:30 a.m. Before I fall asleep, I think a bit more about my unanswered text message. The fact that I still haven’t sent him a response hasn’t slipped my mind…for even a second…but I don’t know what to write.

  And I’m exhausted. Too exhausted to come up with a response right now.

  SLEEP.

  LIKE A BREATH LATER, I hear Mom as she shuffles in to check on me. She tells me that she’s going to take a shower and then go make breakfast. I just nod and move my mouth into a little smile before she steps out of the room. As I close my eyes again, I hear a masculine voice on the television discussing various breakfast breads. Makes me hungry.

  But tired far outweighs hungry.

  Back to sleep. For a few minutes at least.

  “AUNT CALLIE?”

  Eyes open again. I open my arms so Abby can crawl in beside me on the bed. She rests her little head on my shoulder.

  “Did you find your phone?”

  “I did.” I run my fingers through her hair and hope that this conversation is over.

  It’s not. “Why did you need it in the middle of the night? Did you have an important call to make or something?”

  Yeah…something like that.

  Fortunately, before Abby can ask me anything else, Melanie shows up.

  And even more fortunately, Abby stops talking about my phone.

  Thank you, Abby. And God.

  Melanie tells us that it’s time for breakfast, and she helps both of us out of bed (even though I roll my eyes and tell her that I am just fine doing it by myself). Then we head downstairs.

  Breakfast goes okay. I manage to only consume a few hundred calories of fruit and toast by blatantly ignoring the faces Mom gives me as I decline servings of eggs, sausage, bacon, etc. Oh, and I also get a little unsolicited help from Jared’s brand new girlfriend (of, like, a week—don’t know what happened to the last girl), who has joined us for breakfast. She has some sort of concert to attend tonight and, I guess, some crazy tight dress to wear…so she announces that she is not eating all day today as she smiles and puts her hands on her grain of rice-sized belly.

  Mom’s face when she made this little announcement was hilarious…she was all red, and it looked like she had to clamp her mouth shut to keep from commenting. I clamped my mouth shut too. And I kept my eyes away from Melanie and Mandy, trying not to start laughing. I did risk a glance at Jared…and I swear there was some annoyance in his eyes.

  Maybe Miss Size Negative Zero isn’t a future Mrs. Royce…

  ANYWAY…I made it through breakfast…and through the packing of all of my stuff (I was forced to sit on my bed as Mom and my sisters fluttered around me and loaded my suitcase. They did not, thank the Lord, suggest that I take the flowers from the windowsill home with me. So Dr. Gabriel’s flowers are still diseasing up my old room. I have spent quite a bit of time praying that Mom does not catch any of his germs when she waters them…)…and through our goodbyes—and Abby never said a word about my middle of the night phone investigation. Phew.

  And now I’m home, sitting in my own bed. Mandy is already at some sorority event. Before she left, she asked me approximately three thousand times if I would be okay alone tonight.

  I assured her that I would be okay. And I am.

  Almost.

  There is a problem sitting on my hamper. Two problems are there, actually. Two different pairs of pajamas that I slept in during the two nights he was here. I haven’t touched them since I got back…but I also haven’t stopped thinking about them or looking at them.

  Well, that’s not quite true. I have stopped looking at them to look at my phone a few thousand times—as though looking at it might inspire me to come up with a sendable text message. With each passing minute that I don’t think of something to type, I get more and more annoyed.

  I have your license.

  How does he expect me to respond to that? I already know he has my license (even though I did forget up until I read his text, I would’ve eventually remembered). So instead of just telling me something that I already know, he should have suggested a way to deal with this problem, suggested an acceptable way to get the license back to me. Shouldn’t that be his job since he was the one who left? The one who left me in the hospital with no explanation at all (well, other than what I overheard from the nurses, but he doesn’t know that I heard any of that). Why would it be my job to write a text that decides if and when we’ll see each other again? Shouldn’t that be his decision?

  Yes, it should. I’m not giving him a solution.

  I hit reply yet again and then respond to that Unknown Number.

  I know.

  Ooonnneee.

  Tttwwwooo.

  Ttthhhrrreee.

  SEND.

  Before I even really begin to think about how he’ll respond, if he’ll resp—

  He writes back. I have one unopened message from Unknown Number.

  One. Two. Three. One. Two. Three. One. Two. Three. One. Two. Three. One. Two. Three. One. Two. Three.

  CALLIE!

  I clench my eyes shut and hit the button to open the message. Slowly, I peek out of the corner of my eye and read.

  I thought about mailing it to you, but I don’t want you to worry about it somehow getting lost. I could just leave it at the office, with Annie, for you to pick up when you get the chan
ce…but I don’t want you to have to run into other patients. So I’m not sure how to get it to you. It would be stupid for you to have to go get another driver’s license, though.

  My eyes are wide open now.

  DAMN IT.

  He’s still in my head. Right on top of my thoughts, as usual. No one should be able to do that…to know everything about my mind…well, almost everything.

  It’s ridiculous.

  {The All-American Rejects storm in with “It Ends Tonight.”}

  Quick decision. Click reply.

  Whatever is fine. Let me know.

  Send quickly…trying not to think about the fact that “whatever” is certainly not fine.

  I fling my legs over the side of my bed, toss my phone on my comforter, and head to my hamper.

  It’s time.

  I scoop up both sets of pajamas and head straight to the washer, holding my breath so I don’t accidentally breathe in a trace of him. I make it the whole way down the stairs and to the laundry closet without taking a breath. {The All-American Rejects get even louder.} Still not breathing, I get the water running in the washer, add detergent, and hastily throw one pair of pajamas inside. Then—

  Then I freeze, still holding the second set of pajamas. And…my body can probably handle more time without a fresh intake of oxygen…it can last long enough for me to at least get the second pair of pajamas into the water…

  But my mind can’t take it.

  This is it. This is what I have left. {“It All Ends Tonight” starts to fade.}

  Slowly, I bring the bundle of clothes up to my face and take in a slow breath of air…a breath of him…a breath of what it felt like to fall asleep in his arms…

  I inhale for a count of three.

  And then another.

  And another.

  {With each count of three, the song becomes more and more faint.}

  And I can’t help myself. I slam the washer shut, go back upstairs to my room, and neatly place the pajamas back on my hamper.

  {The All-American Rejects stop altogether. Lit with “My Own Worst Enemy” takes over.}

  I spend the rest of the afternoon with Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, and a notebook. I don’t get a lot of work done. I pick off all of my nail polish and reapply it three times. I look at my phone every few minutes. I check my email multiple times. No messages come for me (well, no important ones—my email filter has managed to allow a lot of garbage to slip into my inbox over the last week).

  At 3:00 p.m., I start my thirty-three checks. Then I’m off to confession to seek forgiveness for two whole weeks of sins—for lying to my family members about staying on bed rest last week, for asking Abby to lie for me, for Abby’s sin of omission, for despising Jared’s new stick girlfriend only moments after meeting her, for still despising Dr. Gabriel…and Dr. Lennox a little bit too…

  4:20 p.m. Confession over. Penance completed (One Hail Mary and one Act of Contrition assigned…nine of each completed).

  I head home and start to type my Wuthering Heights paper. I eat around five hundred calories of a frozen chicken meal (Mom made Mandy stock the fridge with food I can easily make…Mom also told me that she doesn’t want me to exhaust myself with attempts at gourmet cooking for the next couple of weeks…)

  I start my night routine around 7:30 p.m. It’s rather soothing to be back in my old routine…and soothing to be a little distracted from thinking about my phone and its lack of buzzing.

  That soothed feeling goes away, however, when I finally turn on the television and crawl into bed. Sleep doesn’t come. The TV chefs’ voices refuse to turn into white noise. My mind keeps taking me back to the nights when he was here with me—holding me to sleep.

  I can’t push the thoughts away…they go on for seconds and minutes and during show after show on the food station. The thoughts just keep coming. I guess it probably doesn’t help that I’m wearing my over-a-week-old hamper pajamas…

  SUNDAY MORNING. {DAMIEN RICE IS in my head before I even open my eyes.} His smell is on my sheets…my pillow…my skin.

  It’s torture.

  Quick decision.

  I escape—springing out of bed, changing my clothes, and throwing myself into my morning routine…making myself leave my quiet cell phone behind on my dresser.

  CHURCH IS OVER. AND I finished my Wuthering Heights paper. It took me a long time, because I’ve had a lot of interruptions. All of my siblings have called to check on me. My parents called too (I think Mom must have made a schedule—one where a different person was supposed to call me about every hour).

  No text messages, though. Or emails.

  And now it’s time for my dinner…a slightly larger dinner than usual. (When I weighed myself this morning, I was four pounds down…that means I eat dessert tonight.)

  I eat and work at the same time, typing my poems for my poetry portfolio while savoring each bite of the piece of ice cream cake I bought on the way home from church. (I found a drive-through ice cream place—and the girl at the window put on a fresh pair of gloves to fill my order. She did have to charge me for the entire cake to give me just a slice…but, eh…I’m sure she and her teeny tiny coworkers can each afford to eat a spoonful of the leftovers tonight.)

  I eat and type. Eat and type. Eat and type. All in all, my poems are pretty much shit. I knocked out a few stupid stanzas about rainbows and fruit this afternoon. Then I drove to an open field and just sat in my car, looking out and trying to get inspired.

  I never really did.

  But I wrote anyway. A few poems about a field. I roll my eyes as I type in one of them. It looks even worse than it did when I wrote it a few hours ago.

  The Open Field

  What was Julie Andrews thinking exactly?

  Running through itchy, bug-infested hills

  Just to sing a song or two?

  Getting grass-stained and probably sweaty and sunburned all at once.

  Not for me.

  What if there is poison lurking out there somewhere?

  What if there is a storm…

  or some crazy criminal hiding out behind a tree?

  What if I get lost and stuck in the middle of nowhere?

  What if…

  What if I just stay inside instead?

  {Obviously, Julie Andrews starts to sing “The Sound of Music.”}

  And…typed. Printed. DONE.

  I take a few last bites of my now sort of melty ice cream cake, immediately begin to worry that I’ll somehow gain more than four pounds from it, and then begin my routine and hope to burn off some calories.

  9:05 A.M. MONDAY MORNING. BEFORE MY Literary Analysis II class, I make the phone call that’s been weighing on my mind for at least a week; I call Dr. Grove’s office (my hospital doctor’s office) to cancel my Wednesday appointment. I talk to a rather questiony receptionist. No—I can’t make it. Yes—something important came up. I’m feeling fine, yep. Oh, of course I’ll be calling back to reschedule…just as soon as I have my calendar for the next week ironed out.

  I hang up with that receptionist and then repeat the whole process with the lady who answers the phone in Dr. Kiser’s office. No, next Wednesday is just not going to work for me. I’ll call to reschedule soon. Sure thing.

  And…DONE.

  Thirty-three checks.

  On to class.

  And everything in class is rather normal. The students around me discuss Wuthering Heights, and I pick my nails and pray not to be called upon. I seem to be pretty safe today. Dr. Sumpter has given me a few closed-mouth, head tilted down, pitying smiles. I doubt she’s going to call on me today—she wants me to “relax and recover.” That’s what she said when she talked to me before class, anyway. She also asked me about the reason for my hospital stint—I told her simply that I had an allergy attack. No need to get into the whole belabored story.

  After class, I eat a few hundred calories worth of lunch and begin my next reading assignment. Tolstoy. Anna Karenina. One I haven’t read before.


  I don’t get many pages read before my phone begins to ring. And it’s an unknown number. Not Unknown Number.

  It only takes me a second after saying “hello” to regret answering the phone. It’s Dr. Gabriel. He’s checking on me…and checking to see if I’m really up for a work shift tonight. I assure him that I am. Nonetheless, he insists that he and a colleague (a Dr. Harris) will be there at the writing center tonight…just in case.

  Awesome. {The Pointer Sisters slide in with “I’m So Excited.”}

  We hang up. Then I read a little more, repaint my nails (I have a feeling I’m going to need them tonight), and begin my leaving-the-house checks.

  THE WRITING CENTER IS CRAZY. Absolutely unreal. It’s almost impossible to tell who’s here waiting to talk to Dr. Gabriel or Dr. Harris and who’s here for a quiet place to type (something, by the way, that won’t be available tonight).

  This is supposed to be helpful to me? Wow. I hope Dr. Gabriel won’t be too upset when I don’t send him a thank you note.

  I manage to make it to my spot without having to talk to anyone. I feel Dr. Gabriel glance my way, but, fortunately, he’s in the middle of a conversation with a girl I recognize from our Friday class.

  After logging on to my computer, I check for tickets. Somehow, I have none. Unbelievable. Almost every seat in the little lab is taken. But no one needs me.

  I pull out my Kindle to continue reading, but I don’t succeed in concentrating. Instead, my mind goes back two weeks. And, sure—I was sick…and itchy…and bluish…but, otherwise, my life was sort of coming together. And now—

  Now I am getting a ticket.

  Computer 7. Brittany. I click on her request.

  How are you, Miss Royce?

  Not a request at all. I respond.