“Oh my God…Caroline! Caroline!” I run over to the bed. I shake her, trying to rouse her. I turn her head and see that there’s vomit around her mouth and on the bedspread.
“Caroline, Caroline, please!” I yell. My whole body starts to shake as I pull her down to the floor and start doing CPR. “Please wake up, please wake up.”
I press down on her chest three times in quick succession. I wipe her mouth with the back of my hand, cover her nose, and breathe into her mouth. I don’t know if this is the right way of doing it. Something in the back of my head says that they no longer advise to breathe into the mouth to revive people, but I have no idea if I’m remembering that right. I continue to press down on her chest and breathe into her mouth because that’s what I’ve seen people do in movies and right now I’m at a total loss as to what else to do. Without stopping CPR, I dial 911.
“Please help. I came home and my roommate is unresponsive on the floor. It looks like she passed out and threw up and now I can’t wake her.”
My voice is rushed and frantic, but the older woman’s soothing voice on the other line puts me somewhat at ease. She asks for my address and dispatches officers and an ambulance. Then she asks me to do CPR. I tell her that I have been without much response.
“Just keep doing that until someone gets there. They aren’t far away.”
I hear their sirens in the distance. A minute later, they burst through the door, which I luckily forgot to lock behind me. I hang up the phone as soon as our apartment fills with people. A police officer helps me up as the paramedics start to work on her and leads me to the living room.
She starts asking me questions, which I answer completely in a daze. All of my thoughts keep focusing on Caroline. Please be okay, I chant over and over. Please, be okay. You have to be okay.
Tears are welling up in the back of my eyes and I try to keep them at bay. The police officer puts her arm around me, but it only makes me feel more alone.
More and more people stream into her bedroom and come out with grave expressions on their faces.
“What’s going on?” I ask. The cop keeps asking me questions, but I no longer answer them. I’ve told her enough and now I need some answers myself. Just as I’m about to go back into Caroline’s room, the paramedics come out with the gurney. But instead of seeing Caroline’s sweet face, all I see is her body in a bag.
“What’s going on?” I ask. “Caroline? Why do you have this bag zipped up? She can’t breathe!”
I become hysterical. Whatever tears I managed to keep at bay thus far, break free and stream down my face. I try to push my way to her. I need to unzip that bag. I need to help her breathe. But they’re not letting me. They’re blocking me.
“You’re killing her!” I scream. “You’re killing her. She can’t breathe like that.”
“I’m so sorry, honey,” someone says to me in a low voice. “She’s dead. She’s dead.”
Everything turns black. Nothing makes sense anymore. I see people moving all around me, but they’re no longer real. They are just copies of people. Actors maybe. Maybe none of this is real after all. How can it be? How can the world go on without Caroline in it? My sweet, funny, kind Caroline?
They take Caroline’s body from our apartment and it’s as if she has gone to her parents. Her clothes are still hanging in her closet and her room is just as she has left it. It feels like she just stepped out, or maybe went away on a short trip. It definitely doesn’t feel like she’s dead. And yet, that’s what she is. At least, that’s what they say.
Aiden is in the kitchen making me tea. Someone called him using my phone. He came over after they wheeled Caroline away. There are no more police or paramedics in my apartment. They did their jobs and went on their way to some other emergency. They did what they were supposed to do and now I’m left here picking up the pieces. All alone. Well, not all alone, but it surely does feel that way. Aiden isn’t Caroline and he never will be. No matter what he says or doesn’t say, she’s not coming back.
He offers me a cup of tea, but I no longer want it. It doesn’t feel right to have tea when she’s gone. It doesn’t feel right to do anything when she’s no longer here. I go to my room and climb into bed.
Chapter 14 - Ellie
When everything turns to black…
When I wake up, it’s morning again. As soon as I open my eyes, I can’t breathe again. The world just chokes me up. Tears start flowing and nothing makes sense. How can I continue living without Caroline? How can the world continue spinning without her in it? No, I can’t deal with it. I close my eyes again.
A few hours later, I wake up and this time I can’t make it go away. No matter how much I try to push the whole world away, I can’t. I can’t sleep anymore. And I can’t cry anymore either. No, the only thing I can do is just lose myself in the numbness. I hate it and I hate myself and yet nothing changes despite all of this hate.
“Hi,” I say quietly. Aiden is in the kitchen with his head stuck in his phone.
“Oh my God, you’re up. How are you?”
I look at the clock above the stove. It’s two in the afternoon.
“Wow, I slept late.”
“Yes, but that’s ok. You needed the rest.”
“It doesn’t seem right.”
“What do you mean?”
“To sleep, after your best friend dies.”
“Oh, honey,” Aiden says, putting his arm around me and giving me a squeeze. Even though I feel his touch and his warm body next to mine, it doesn’t seem real. It’s as if I’m watching someone else getting a hug, someone on television. I feel the warmth emanating from him, but it doesn’t reach me, because he’s not real. Or is it me who’s not real? I don’t really know.
“Did I make that statement to the police yesterday?” I ask.
“Yes, last night.”
“Did you go this morning?”
“No,” Aiden says, looking away. “I rescheduled.”
“Why?”
“I wanted to stay here with you. I didn’t want you to wake up to an empty apartment all by yourself.”
I shrug. More tears will start flowing eventually, but for now I don’t have any more left.
“Do you want me to make you some breakfast? Eggs? Or maybe pancakes?”
I shake my head no. My mouth is completely dry, parched. And there’s not one thing that I can do about it.
“Then have this at least,” Aiden says, handing me a granola bar. “I want you to eat something to keep up your strength.”
I stare at him. A minute later, I open the wrapper and take a bite. It tastes so dry that I choke on it. He hands me a glass of water and I let the cold liquid run down my throat. Suddenly, I am keenly aware of every last sensation around me. I take another bite of the granola bar, but much to my surprise, I can’t taste it. It tastes like cardboard. It is completely devoid of flavor.
“I’m going back to bed,” I say. I know that I have to engage more with him. I need to ask him what happened to Caroline, whether anyone told her parents. I need to start making plans or helping her mother and her family make plans for the funeral, but I can’t deal with any of that now. In fact, I kind of doubt that I will ever be able to deal with it.
The next few days after Caroline’s death proceed pretty much like the other one. I’m in a daze. I get up just to go to the bathroom, drink some water, eat a granola bar, and go back to bed. I’m so tired that I can’t seem to do anything else. I sleep, and I sleep, and I sleep some more. Every time I get up, I find Aiden in the living room. Sometimes, he’s eating. Other times, he’s just watching television. Most of the time, he’s either on his phone or on his laptop, furiously typing away.
And then, one day, I wake up and I’m no longer that tired. Instead of heading straight out to the living room, I decide to take a shower. I climb in and let the warm water run over my body. I squeeze some shampoo into my palm and lather it into my hair. Then I wash it out and repeat the same thing with the conditioner. When
I get out, I wrap myself in a towel and look in the mirror. The girl whose reflection looks back at me seems like a stranger. Is this the same person who only a few days ago walked barefoot on a sandy beach and imagined moving to that island with the love of her life? No, she’s not. That girl was happy. That girl didn’t abandon her best friend in the whole world to run away with her boyfriend.
I walk back to my room and put on a fresh shirt and a pair of pajama pants. I toss the ones that I’ve been living in for days on end into the laundry hamper and go out into the living room. Aiden is sitting at the dining room table with papers strewn all around him. His head is buried in his laptop and he doesn’t even notice me until I walk past him and put on the kettle for some tea.
“Oh, hey!”
“Hey,” I say. I walk over to him and give him a peck on the cheek. “I’m going to make some breakfast. You want some?”
“No, I’m good,” he says. “I actually ordered some pizza for dinner.”
I glance at the clock. Oh, wow, it’s 7:30 in the evening. I shrug and take out the eggs from the refrigerator. I scramble the eggs in a bowl, add some coconut milk, and cut up a piece of provolone cheese. I add some butter to the pan, watch as it sizzles, and pour the eggs. While they cook, I wash the fork and bowl in the sink under cold water.
“What are you working on?” I ask, swirling the eggs with a spatula until they’re creamy.
“Just some work stuff.”
“Okay.”
When the eggs are done, I don’t bother with a plate. Instead, I place the pan on the placemat at the other end of the table across from Aiden and dig in.
“Caroline’s mom called,” Aiden says after a moment. “The funeral is tomorrow.”
“I’ll be there,” I say, nodding.
Chapter 15 - Aiden
When everyone wears black…
I want to be there for Ellie, but I don’t know how. I see her suffering. For the first few days, all she did was sleep. She slept so much that I had to come into the room and actually check that she was still breathing to make sure that she was okay. She was. She has always been a big sleeper, but I’ve never seen anything like this. And now, she seems better. She’s not sleeping anymore. She has showered. She washed her hair and changed her clothes. Even put on some makeup. But she’s still not better. Somewhere behind that facade, Ellie is lost. And I don’t know how to get her back.
I drive to the cemetery where they are going to have Caroline’s funeral. Her mom organized the whole thing and had her assistant call to invite Ellie. It’s about two hours away, near her parents’ summer house in the Hamptons. Neither of us says anything for close to an hour. Ellie, because she doesn’t want to, and me because I don’t even know where to begin. Some topics seem too stupid to even approach. Others are too painful.
“This was one of Caroline’s favorite places in the world,” Ellie says. “She even told me that she wished she grew up here.”
“The Hamptons?” I ask.
“Yep. She used to come here when she knew no one else would be here and just enjoy the place. Despite her big social life, she actually had a weakness for small town life. She often talked about how nice it would be to get a house and a small garden and chickens.”
I nod. I find this hard to believe, given the person that I met, but who the hell really knows anyone? Ellie would of course know her better than I ever could.
“I like the Hamptons, too,” I say, having nothing else to really add. I don’t know if I should ask her more about Caroline or just let her bring it up herself. Maybe all she wants to do right now is to forget. Not forget about Caroline, but forget that this horrible thing ever happened to her best friend.
The service is cordial and respectful. Since everyone there is pretty much white, Anglo-Saxon, and Protestant, very few people shed any tears or express their emotions out loud. Ellie is having a hard time keeping her feelings at bay, but she squeezes my hand really hard from time to time and I whisper that it’s all going to be okay.
“Thank you for coming, Ellie.” Caroline’s mom, Miriam, gives us both a quick hug. She’s an attractive woman in her early fifties with a slim waist and big black sunglasses that make her look a lot like Jackie Kennedy. We both give her our condolences and tell her what a wonderful service this was. There isn’t really much else to say in situations like these is there?
“What did the toxicology result say?” Ellie asks just as Miriam is about to walk away.
“Pardon me?”
Ellie repeats the question without batting an eye. I squeeze her arm, trying to convey that this might not be the most appropriate time for this conversation. But she doesn’t really pay attention.
Miriam takes a deep breath. “They said it was an accidental overdose,” she says. “She had a bunch of pills in her system. Oxy. Percocet. They said that she took a bit too much.”
Accidental overdoses are a dime a dozen, especially with our generation of people. They happen all the time. I know of at least three people from high school who died from them. But knowing this isn’t exactly going to make Ellie feel any better.
When Miriam walks away, Ellie walks away shaking her head.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, keenly aware of how odd this question sounds at a funeral.
“Something’s wrong. She didn’t die of an accidental overdose.”
“How do you know?”
Ellie shrugs and looks somewhere into the distance. “I don’t know. I just do. She was always very careful with any sort of medication. She knew of a few people who overdosed and she never even mixed aspirin with booze.”
“Well, she didn’t say that she had any alcohol in her system,” I say.
“I know. It just doesn’t seem right.”
“What are you saying, Ellie? That this wasn’t an accident?”
“No,” she says, shrugging. “I don’t know.”
On the drive home, I keep wondering what Ellie is thinking. If she doesn’t think that this was an accidental overdose, there are really only two possible explanations. One is that it was on-purpose. And an on-purpose overdose is a suicide. That word sends shivers through my body. I look over at Ellie. Is this what she’s thinking? That Caroline actually killed herself on purpose? I don’t know Caroline well. Actually, I don't really know her at all. Does she have a history of depression? Is this something that she thought about before? I have no idea. She definitely didn’t seem like a depressive. She was always excited and fun and ready to have a good time. But people are so much more complicated below the surface, aren’t they?
The other possible explanation is that someone else did this to her. Someone put those drugs in her system. And that’s what we would call murder. When Ellie found her, she was already cold. She did CPR, but she was dead for at least a few hours already. Whatever Ellie did for her was futile. Could someone else have been in their apartment before Ellie came home? Of course. Caroline had lots of friends. And she could’ve gone out and picked up some guy and brought him home. Perhaps it could’ve been a girl, but who the hell are we kidding? It’s almost always a guy. But who would do this to her and why? I don’t know Caroline well enough to even come close to coming up with some kind of motive. I want to ask Ellie about a million questions. When I look over, I see her leaning her head on the seat belt and aimlessly staring out of the window. Perhaps this isn’t the best time.
After saying hello to her doorman, we head toward the elevator.
“Excuse me? Ms. Rhodes?” he calls out. Ellie turns around.
“This came today by courier,” he says and hands her an envelope.
“Thank you,” she says.
She tosses the letter on the kitchen island and heads to her room. A few days ago, Miriam came by with three movers and packed up all of Caroline’s things. When Ellie saw what she was doing, she went to her room and stayed there until they left. Within a couple of hours, the whole room was stripped. They took everything. Down to the window treatments and the hooks that kept
the paintings up on the walls. The place was left entirely barren. Miriam told me to tell Ellie that if she wants to live here for the rest of the lease, she’s more than happy to pay for Caroline’s part of the rent. She was just trying to be nice, but Ellie started to cry when I told her this bit. She hasn’t been inside Caroline’s room since then and hasn’t even opened the door once.
My mind is spinning. I decide that the best thing for me to do at this junction is to just flip on the television and watch something stupid. The stupider the better. Grabbing a bag of chips from the pantry, I glance at the letter. Ellie usually gets all of her mail through the post office. Why was this one delivered by courier? Oh, shit, I hope it’s not Blake’s lawyers serving her with a lawsuit. That’s the last thing she needs right now.
I pick up the envelope. When I read the return name and address, my heart skips a beat and all the blood drains from my face. It’s from Caroline.
Chapter 16 - Ellie
When I read the letter…
Aiden bursts into my room without knocking and everything becomes a blur. He hands me a letter. He points to the name at the top. It’s from Caroline. But how can that be? No, this isn’t from my Caroline. This is all a terrible misunderstanding. A joke, even. A very unfunny and terrible joke.
“You have to read this. Please read this,” Aiden says. I shake my head.
“I can’t.”
“Please, please open it. Caroline wanted you to.”
I shake my head. I can’t. I can’t bear to know what it says.
“Can I open it?” he asks. I shrug. I guess. Why not?
“My dearest Ellie,” Aiden reads. “If you are reading this letter, then I am in fact dead. I’m so, so sorry. I hate to do this to you because you are my closest friend, but there’s no one else I trust. I’m sorry, Ellie, but I had to do it. My life was just not worth living anymore. Every night, I had nightmares over what Tom did to me. He haunted me all the time. He plagued me. No matter how many times I talked to the therapist about it, nothing made it better. But I know that this will. I know that this will put me out of my misery once and for all.”
Black Contract Page 6
