by Sabre, Mason
In the garden, his mother’s tulips held cups of water, bowing only when overburdened by the weight of it and then spilling over.
The notes of the night song played through the darkness, and soothed William’s skin. He raised his arm, staring at it with the moonlight that came in through the window. He traced his fingertips along each cut, some new, some old—all of them holding the invitation to play in mother nature’s band. He could bring the painful edge to the music, the part of the song that made you cry.
He slid his phone off the nightstand. 3:30 a.m. … again. Always this time.
Before he knew what he was doing, he swiped his finger across the screen, opening the world to him with a smear of blood from his fresh wounds. He flicked to the keypad and pressed dial.
Rosie answered before the first ring ended. She’d been waiting? Waiting to join in with the beautiful song. To take her place.
“Mental Health Helpline. How can I help?”
William rolled onto his side and let out a breath, clenching his eyes shut. Her voice was the new music he wanted to hear. She ignited a spark inside his heart just by speaking.
“It’s okay if you don’t want to talk,” she soothed just as always. “We can just sit together a while, but I’m here if you want to.”
William closed his eyes. He wanted to. God, he did.
Chapter Eight
Rosie
Rosie silenced the voices in her head by filling her paperwork and speaking aloud as she did. Her mom always said you couldn’t think of more than one thing when you were talking, and she had a lot she didn’t want to think about—Ms. Mandy being dead, bills being due, money being gone, and being wrong about Josh, to the man who never called because he was dead—because she couldn’t save him. She couldn’t save him, or Ms. Mandy, or countless other people that called in and ended it all.
So, filing. She had to do something that didn’t allow her brain to think about any of it. She had to go on. There was no veering off the path, no turning back, and no giving in or giving up.
An hour later, and there was nothing left to do. She could go organize everybody else’s files maybe. Only, that would put her away from the switchboard. Not a single call all night yet, and with her luck, they’d call the second she was away; it would be the call that could’ve made a difference, and she’d be to blame.
Besides, it was nearing the witching hour. Maybe she’d write her mother a nice, long letter.
She pulled out some paper, clicked on a pen and got to writing. She wrote everything she felt, and boy did she feel a lot. She nearly missed the blinking light in her furious pen pushing, and grabbed the headset.
“Mental Health Helpline, I’m here to help you.” Rosie, she added in her mind.
The breathing on the other end made her heart lurch in her chest. “Hello?”
She jerked off the headset and stared at it when they hung up. She shook her head, steadying her breaths. Just stop it. Stop your damn panicking over everything. Stop your looking too far into everything, reaching too high, too low. You are a professional—she searched for the proper term and her shoulders sagged. What was she? A professional volunteer?
A little girl playing doctor on the poor patients.
She jerked the pen back and got to finishing off her mother’s letter—really letting her have it the way she needed to get it, holding nothing back. Page after page flowed from her hand like blood from a festering wound that got deeper as she let it out.
A novel later, she ordered all her papers into a neat stack. She licked her index finger and began counting the pages in her letter book. Wow. Twenty-three pages long. A sense of pride filled her. The number was impressive. Maybe she could be a writer in her spare time. She was pretty creative.
The red light blinked again, and she could only stare at it for the first few seconds. Her eyes darted to the clock, and for the first time in her job, she contemplated not answering the phone.
Don’t be stupid. She shot her arm across the desk for the headset. “Mental Health Hotline, I’m here to help you.” Rosie’s here.
The silence on the other end gripped her like hands around her throat. “Hello?” she barely managed before closing her eyes.
“Rosie.”
Rosie’s eyes popped open and she sprang up from her chair with a huge gasp.
“Are you okay?” the voice whispered.
Rosie paced, fighting to catch her breath, fanning her face. “It’s you?”
“I’m sorry I didn’t call, Rosie.”
“Oh my God, it’s you,” she shrilled, sitting down then standing. “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it,” she muttered, putting her trembling hand over her brow and fighting the surge of tears.
“Are you okay, Rosie?”
She held her lips together tightly and clenched her eyes.
“Rosie?”
“I’m here,” she managed before stifling a couple of sobs in her arm.
“You’re crying again,” he said in that same awe-filled voice, like he had thought he’d dreamed the phenomenon.
“I am pissed,” she finally managed to squeak out. She got up and paced, letting her anger give her strength. “You shit,” she hissed before yanking the anger valve shut. It wasn’t nice or healthy to aim that at him. He called, Rosie. Better late than never. Sit your ass down.
She sat back down and cleared her throat. “I’ll have that name now; I think you owe me at least that much?”
“Why are you crying, Rosie?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Not until you tell me your name.”
“William,” he said after a moment of silence. “Why are you crying?”
“William.” She wrote it down for lack of knowing what else to do as she wiped the tears from her eyes. “Well, William, I’m crying because …” She was about to make all sorts of excuses that amounted to clever insults, and then tapped her pen on the desk. Soon, her anger returned and took hold of her tongue. “I’m crying because I thought you were dead. You said you’d call and you didn’t. What was I supposed to think? I’ll tell you what I thought. I thought you offed yourself, but I wasn’t really sure. I waited. I waited for days, William.”
She sat, realizing she’d gotten up again to storm around in circles. She let out a shaky sigh.
“Say it again, Rosie,” he whispered.
“Say what?”
“All of it. Every word of it. It’s so good to hear you, Rosie.” He had that last-leg tone, that miserable one, and she didn’t like it.
Her heart melted, and she sagged in her chair at hearing the desperate need to be cared for. Loved.
“You know, when I called you that first night …” there was a long pause and Rosie strained to hear, needing to know that very thing, “it was to have somebody to say goodbye to.”
Pain speared her chest until she couldn’t breathe. She covered her mouth and turned her head from the mic, gasping quietly before getting back on. “Well,” she finally said, in a rattily voice. “I’m still here, right? Same as before. I’m not going anywhere if you’re not.”
“And if I do go?”
“Don’t.”
He gave a light chuckle that sent a thrill, a joy, through her. She needed many more of those, and she needed them pretty quickly. “I really like you, Rosie,” he said like a boy longing for that bicycle he knew he’d never get but didn’t mind dreaming out loud about it.
Rosie hurried to prove him wrong, and in the process, crossed major lines. “And I like you, William. Very much.” She covered her mouth to stifle a sob that snuck up out of nowhere. How was he pulling these out of her? What was it with him?
“Can I call you again, Rosie?”
“Yes,” she nodded, a sniffle escaping.
“You’re doing it again,” he said in fascination.
“I’m pretty good at that, yep.”
He was quiet for a little bit before asking, “Do you … do this a lot, Rosie?”
She heard it in his
tone; was he special, or did she cry for others like him? Honestly, she didn’t. “Never, William,” she said, crossing line number eighty-three. The weight of all her failures pushed in again and focused on him. “So, I’m glad you’re on the right side of the dirt. Would be a little hard giving me lasagna recipes from the grave.”
He gave her another laugh, and the sheer energy in it made her laugh too.
“God, your laugh is so beautiful, Rosie.”
Ah shit. She cleared her throat with the sudden hammering in her heart. “Thank you, is the proper response.”
“But you don’t want to really say that?”
“Well, it’s not my strong suit … taking compliments.”
“I understand.” Like it was one of his as well.
“So, how have you been?” she hurried on, ready to move on to brighter, less Rosie things.
“I’ve been …” he let out a light sound, maybe a dry chuckle “getting my shit together.”
Rosie didn’t stop her gasp of joy. “Oh, William,” she said. “I cannot tell you how happy that makes me.”
“Rosie …” This time his tone jerked her stomach; it was different than ever before “It’s probably very unhealthy to love hearing that more than I care about breathing.”
Oh shit. Definitely not healthy. “Don’t be silly, William.” But her voice shook a little as she doodled with her pen for a proper response.
“Too much honesty,” he said, like it was always the thing that shot down his attempts to live.
“Not at all. That’s just a hefty compliment. And I’m not so good at those, remember?”
He was quiet then. “I do remember. And I wonder why.” Before she could formulate a response, he let out a sigh, and it sounded like he turned over. “So, can I call you again, Rosie?”
Her mind saw him lying in a bed. That was better than being on some ledge. “You can call me anytime, William.” She made sure to keep her voice to the motherly side of gentle.
“I mean … not there.”
Her stomach began to roil with butterflies and fears. “Th-that’s …”
“Against protocol, I know.”
The softness in his voice again said he was definitely somewhere … private … and her mind decided to create pictures. It started with needing a face to go with his voice which was … like deep silk. The vision of a broad mouth with semi-full lips formed in her head. Neglected facial hair. Green eyes. No, brown. Hm. William. Maybe they were blue. Before she could stop, his face insisted on a body, turning her harmless Mr. Potato head game into tangled sheets, zero clothes, and muscles that matched the rough, yet gentle voice.
“That’s right, protocol,” she said with flaming cheeks. God, who was she kidding? She was so far gone with protocol with him. “There are rules in this world, William. They’re there to keep us safe.”
“I don’t make you feel unsafe, do I?”
His tone said he’d be very hurt and disappointed if he did. “Not yet,” she said, replacing that professional barrier she’d stupidly removed.
“Good,” he said, in grateful relief. “I feel so relaxed when I hear your voice, Rosie.” Again, it sounded like he turned over. “I don’t sleep well.”
“Do you take any medication?”
“No,” he mumbled. “What about you, how are you doing?”
The unexpected concern threw her a moment, causing her to stutter.
“You don’t have to answer,” he said, sounding a little sad but understanding.
“No, it’s fine,” she said. “I’m good. My cat is good.”
“You have a cat?”
“Yes, Mr. Buckles.”
“Mr. Buckles.” His voice seemed to smile. “I have a cat, too. Stiches.”
“Stiches,” Rosie said, smiling.
“He thinks he’s a ninja and tries to take my life when I’m using the stairs.”
Rosie laughed. “Does he cause a lot of stitches?”
“Wow,” he whispered.
“What?”
“Your laugh,” he said amazed. “It’s like … liquid sunshine, and I just want to drink it up and never stop.”
Rosie’s panic returned in more laughter, only she was sure it wasn’t like sunshine. “Sorry, bad at compliments,” she reminded him. “You’ve got some real doozies.” He laughed and she cried out, “Aha. You have a special laugh too.”
“Special?” he wondered in eager curiosity. “How, Rosie? Does my laugh do something to you?”
Shit. “It … it makes me …” Hell, what words were okay? “Very happy to hear you happy.”
She waited in the silence with clenched eyes, wondering what team she’d scored for. Team Rosie, or Team William.
“Rosie.”
Wow. Another new tone. Or was she hearing things she shouldn’t? She could pretend she was making it all up, but was pretty sure she wasn’t. That was arousal she’d just heard in his voice. “It’s perfectly normal to feel happy when somebody is happy who … needs happiness,” she said, going in a fast reverse.
She doodled on her paper while the span of silence threatened to ruin their progress. “Ms. Mandy died,” she blurted out casually, needing something to change the subject. “Shit,” Rosie muttered, shaking her head at how crass that sounded. Did it matter? “She, uh … was just dead when I got back home from work today. She was old,” she assured. “Poor Mr. Buckles shot out of the house when I got back.” When he didn’t say a word, she felt compelled to go on and get things back on safer ground. Talking about random dead people you find seemed perfect.
At the same time, his silence was grounds to have a complex, which she promptly did.
“Of course, I came to work only because I couldn’t stand to go back there. I realize it must seem like I don’t care—coming to work the same day the old lady dies. Old lady … geeze,” she said, hearing how that sounded too. “She wasn’t a relative or anything. She lived there, and I lived with her. We room-mated, I guess you could say. She was like ninety-something … ungrateful and rude. But she was old. I always put it down to age, of course, and she milked that for all it was worth. She was like family. A mother, really. An old one,” she added, drawing graffiti all over her page in the heavy silence she could only interpret as condemning. “Definitely not the kind you bring a boyfriend home to.”
“Do you have a boyfriend, Rosie?”
Her pen froze with the sudden return to no-no zone.
“Sorry, Rosie. I’m probably getting you in trouble,” he said.
“I don’t,” she said, shaking her head. “Have a boyfriend.”
“So happy to hear that.”
She busted out laughing, unable to catch herself.
“I am.”
“And I don’t want to know why.”
“No, you don’t,” he said, making her stomach flip flop and jitter. “But I would tell you if you asked.”
The challenge was unspoken but clear, and Rosie found herself at a most unexpected crossroads that could ruin her sucky life and precarious career. It was one of those lucid moments where it seemed perfectly prudent to enter the junction and break all the rules in a single phone call. She managed to resist.
“William— “
“God, I love when you say my name.”
She closed her eyes. “William, I think this is getting out of hand. I’m here to be a friend, somebody to help you get back on track.” She stood up and paced faster as her heart hammered in a strange energy that wasn’t altogether unpleasant.
“Let me call you again, Rosie. Give me your phone number. Not your work.”
His eager, boyish tone made him seem … sincere. Genuine. Just somebody wanting to be a friend. She thought quickly as she circled the room. They frowned on connecting with people that called in. “Okay, no more calling me here,” she whispered.
“Thank you.”
His joy reached through the phone like he’d received a miracle, making it hard to regret or worry. But just for extra measure, she said in ligh
t warning, “You know, I will tell my friends about you.” She aimed the pen in the air at him. “So don’t go being a Mr. Psycho Pants, because they will know it was you.”
“Cross my heart, Rosie.”
His whisper made her spine tingle in … she wanted to say fear, but it wasn’t. There was a covetous conviction in his promise. And it made her feel safe.
Chapter Nine
Josh
Josh stood amidst the piles of trash and empty remnants of his life—his old life. William’s life. That was gone. He held his phone in his hand, screen open on the messages, waiting to type something … words. Could he do this? Would he do this?
He pressed the phone to his lips, breathing in deeply and letting his eyes close for a moment. The silence in the house was welcoming and strange. All this time, all these years. When he was a child … No … when William was a child, the silence used to scare him—a blank canvas on which monsters could suddenly speak and beckon him into unknown and dark places. His mother wouldn’t know—he’d still held onto that childish belief that she would actually save him from them, if she were there. Truth was, she wouldn’t. Years later, the silence had been replaced by sounds—noises that filtered into his room in the middle of the night—a room bare and tired, with nothing but a bed and a mattress, just a place where he could sleep. He’d hear his mother’s squeals; the breathless sounds of things he didn’t quite understand. Sometimes, he’d hear fabric ripping and the slapping of skin. All of those sounds came back to him, echoes of memories that had seared into his mind—William’s memories. He’d used blankets and pillows, anything that would block them out. But nothing had.
The grandfather clock in the hallway downstairs chimed at the hour, startling him out of his musings. He raised his eyes to the mirror in front of him, seeing the worn out face, tired eyes and messy blond hair, uneven from his prior butchering. He saw the reflections of the boy that had been there once. The boy she had taken sometimes, when that guy … He shook his head. He wouldn’t remember his name, wouldn’t even say it in his mind. He didn’t deserve it.
