Story 3.0
Lost Souls
She lied down on the bed and tried to remain in a comfortable yet natural position for when she was found. She could feel herself starting to let go of everything pilling on top of her. For the first time in a year she felt no anxiety, no fear, no feeling like a failure and not a disappointment. It did not last long as she began to think what will happen when he finds her. He’ll have to call her parents; it won’t be just some contained secret that she simply disappeared. Everyone will know.
Her hand released the bottle, it rolled off the bed onto the carpeted floor.
It was over.
He was jogging up all nine stories to their apartment while trying desperately not to spill the precious double double and mochas he had in the paper tray. He had some good news to share with her. It finally came in and he had an answer worth sharing to her. Share with everyone who would listen. Including the very patient counter girl as she poured him his large double double. After years of waiting, he succeeded.
He fumbled trying to reach his keys while making a mental note to put things he is carrying in his right hand as he always puts his keys in his left pocket. He unlocks the door and walks through; as he does his smile quickly fades. The apartment is quiet; normally she is puttering about, making some tasty dish or playing music while dancing in the living room. He always managed to startle her when she was lost in the music. He enjoyed that.
He put the coffee on the kitchen counter and called out her name. Maybe she stepped out for something. It’s not like her to have the apartment so quiet, when she was there it was always alive with energy. She gave the apartment life.
Oh God.
He sprinted to the room to find her body lying in bed. His heart started to beat faster and faster, as if to tell him the truth, that she simply was not asleep. His hand quivered as he tried to find the pulse that was not there.
‘Oh baby, please, baby. No baby.’
He kept repeating to himself this mantra for a while burying his face in her blouse until he mustered up the courage to dial 9-1-1. Unfortunately the courage on lasted until the first ‘1’ and then he dropped the phone and fell to his knees. He afforded one more look upon his love before he tried to dial again.
‘9-1-1 state your emergency.’
‘
My, my girlfriend- I think, she. She killed herself.I- I got home and she’s just lying here. I need help.’
‘Of course sir, I’m dispatching an ambulance right now. They shall arrive shortly.’
He walked back into the living room and collapsed on the couch. He began to sob which then quickly rose to loud wails.
‘It sounds like you can use a friend son.’
He spun around to see a man standing at his doorstop, the man was dressed very smartly as if he was on his way to a grand gala or an important fundraiser
He wiped his tears away, he was sure he locked the door. Didn’t he? Things were starting to blur into each other. She could not escape his mind. Nothing else mattered.
‘Who-who are you?’
The man smiled warmly. ‘Just a councilor who specializes in grief. As I was saying, it sounds like you can use a friend son. May I join you?’
He had no idea who this man was. The man was not one of his neighbours. Not that he knew them well, but he could recognize them on a street and enjoy a bit of small talk.
He began to feel confused. As if this small amount of new information of an unknown standing in his doorway was overloading his thoughts. He could only muster out a simple. ‘ya, sure. Come in.’
‘Thank you son. Would you mind telling me why you’re so upset? I could easily hear you from down the hall.’
‘Down the hall?’
‘Yes, I was counseling Mr. Zio and as I was leaving I could hear you. I grew concerned and hoped I can offer some help.’
It felt weird that he offered an explanation to why he was in the apartment. It also felt weird of the coincidence that a grief councilor heard him. Still at least he wasn’t alone.
He felt weak and could only whisper out. ‘My girlfriend is dead.’
The councilor looked genuinely shocked.
‘Oh my, I am so so sorry to hear that. Was she sick?’
Tears began to stream down his face.
‘No.’
The councilor lowered his head in understanding what happened. After all it is something the
councilor is quite used to. The councilor sat down beside him and put his hand on his shoulder. It felt comforting in a very odd way.
‘The ambulance should be here shortly, along with some cops I’m sure.’
The councilor nodded.
‘I’m sure they will be coming, twenty minutes is the average in this town . Do you know what you’re going to tell them?’
He nodded.
‘what else can I say? I came home, found her dead. Bottle of pills on the floor.’
‘hm, did you touch the body.’
‘Of course, I checked for a pulse to see if she was alive.’
‘That’s too bad.’
He looked very puzzled at this point.
‘Excuse me?’
‘Well, it could lead to some rather, uncomfortable questions in regards to what exactly happened to your girlfriend.’
‘What they may think I killed her? No. No way that will happen. It’s clear it’s a suicide.’
‘To you maybe, but soon they will interview you, the news will get wind of what happened, spin a story that sells. Something to suggest foul play, those always get great headlines.’
He began to seethe.
‘What kind of counselor are you? You come into my apartment, question my motives in touching the woman I love, to hope to god that she may be alive. Now you’re trying to freak me out they may just haul me off on a murder charge.’
The counselor recanted as quickly as possible, looking extra sympathetic.
‘I do greatly apologize if I over stepped my boundaries. I just felt it would be appropriate to give you an idea of what comes next. The fact of the matter is you will have quite a bit of explaining to do. It could get very difficult to get through alone.’
As if that last part reminded him, he sprang for the phone.
‘Oh god, I need to call her parents.’
The counselor took the phone away from him and tried to reason with him.
‘I think that is a terrible mistake right now, you’re still in shock. They are going to require a much stronger support. Perhaps later when you yourself have digested the information.
He couldn’t believe how unfeeling this counselor was. He felt absolutely no support or relief whatsoever. In fact he was starting to feel worse. His happy news was lost in oblivion.
‘You know what? Fuck you. You have to be the worst counselor in the history of counselors.
Especially one who specializes in grief as you claim.’
He sat back down on the couch and buried his face in his hands and began to sob again.
‘She’s gone, everything we had, everything we strove for is gone. It doesn’t matter.’
The counselor stood in front of him.
‘Tell me about her.’
He looked up warmly as if he played the memory of her over and over before. His eyes began to
stare off far away. Away to a much happier time.
‘She was the kind of person who everyone would gravitate to at a party, she was always open with new people, never shy. She would make sure you were having a good time.’
His smile faded away and he looked down at his feet.
‘At least she used to be like that. Something happened a while back, she just began to drift away. I tried to talk to her whenever I could.’
The counselor looked rather confused.
‘Whenever you could?’
He turned his head away from the counselor to ensure what little eye contact was going on was completely gone.
‘It’s been, hectic for me lately, I’ve had a lot on my plate and I haven’t been home a whole lot. Trying to make our lives better. But, sacrifices needed to be made. I even encouraged her to go back to school last year.’ He gave pause as if things started to fall together before him.
‘It was a little after that she became moody. I figured she was just stressed for her midterms coming or something to that effect, I know what that is like. I figured just give her some space, let her concentrate on school. That’s what she did for me.’
He leaned back into the sofa and stared up to the ceiling, he was starting to blame himself, and he shouldn’t have pushed her to go back to school. The counsellor stood up at looked towards the bedroom.
‘Well, perhaps see simply wasn’t ready to go back to school. Could that have pushed her over the edge?’
He looked up at the counsellor with tears welling up in his eyes. The comment given during his thoughts was uncanny. He began to think of the odds of that happening are. He bowed his head and gave it a shake.’
‘No. No. She was happy when she got accepted; she really seemed to enjoy it for the first while.’
The counsellor wandered into the bedroom where she laid. He ran after him once he realized where the counsellor went too.
‘Hey! Hey! I do not WANT you in here. Do you hear me?’
‘Of course, I apologise.’
The counselor looked over her body, almost admiring what he was looking at.
‘She was a very pretty girl, you were a very lucky person.’
‘She IS a very pretty girl and you are right. I was.’
He began to think about an event that almost happened a month ago. They began to fight because he took an extra job to help pay for her tuition and the rent. I was only an extra fifteen hours a week for 3 days. Unfortunately things slowly built up between them with their own individual stresses reaching a boiling point. There was rather loud fight before he stormed out and got a hotel room for a couple days.
The counselor began to scan the apartment.
‘This is a very impressive apartment for such a young couple. I could only imagine with all your bills things must have been very very tight financially speaking. A very stressful burden to have.’
He began to think it was very freaky the way the counselor would speak close to what he was thinking.
‘Yeah, we uh, had a rather lengthy argument about it a while back. I got stupid and asked her if it was all worth it. If she was actually going to do something with her education, or if she was just doing it to prove a point. Around that time, she started to talk about school less and less; I really had to press her for her day.’
‘She didn’t want to talk about it?’
‘Not at all, at first I couldn’t get her to shut up about it. Now it’s like she didn’t even go to school.’
His eyes lit up at the revelation he had. He darted to the kitchen and sifted through the days letters, he found one for her school. His hands trembled at the already opened envelope.
He read the letter carefully absorbing every word. She was kicked out of school for insufficient grades. He closed his eyes and remembered their last conversation together.
‘This morning I kept saying how proud I was that she kept up with school despite our previous difficulties and that all I sacrificed would make it all worth it to see her on stage getting her degree. Christ, she must have thought I would be angry at her thinking I wasted so much time working and she couldn’t get through it.’
The counselor put his hand on his shoulder.
‘Would you have?’
‘In all honesty, at first I would have been, I know myself enough to know I would be selfish and only thinking about my time, my efforts. But, at the end of the day, it wouldn’t have mattered. I love her, always have, always will.’
He turned his head towards the open window hearing the sirens blaring through. The ambulance was on its way. Another siren began to slowly rise above the ambulance. It was clearly the police. Could the counselor be right? Will they take him away? Will he have to endure reliving this as well as being silently accused the whole time? What will her parents think about him now? Will he be blamed? It was too much for him to process, he collapsed on the floor as if the weight of the world bore down on his shoulders. He wasn’t sure if he could face them all.
The counselor stuck his head out the window.
‘You know. There is a way you can be with her and avoid all this.’
He looked up at the counselor with amazement. Did the counselor really suggest what he thought?
‘You of all people really cannot be suggesting that. I mean I thought you were supposed to get people to avoid doing that.’
‘Well, I know pain, I know what these events do to people. But I am just being honest. You can be with her.’
‘No I won’t give up, that’s not what she would want.’
‘How can you be so sure what she would want? You have been oblivious about all this for a long time now. Maybe she is hoping you would join her.’
He looked completely dumbfounded at the counselor.
‘Who the fuck are you man? You have to be the sickest fuck I have ever encountered. You need to get out of here right now and leave me.’
The counselor chuckled a little
‘Who am I? Oh I have SO many names. But what’s important is that you can leave all this now and be with her, I know exactly where she is right now. She’s even calling for you. She needs you.’
If there was a way he could look more puzzled in front of the counselor he would have.
‘What? Okey, I have defiantly reached my limit with you. I want a straight answer. Who. The. Fuck. Are. You?’
The counselor began to chuckle.
‘Isn’t it obvious now?’
His eyes lit up in total fear.
‘No. No No fucking way.’
The counselor gave the most evil grin he experienced given to him. It sent chills down his body.
‘End your life, give it to me and spend eternity with her.’
If what the counselor was saying true, then that mean the counselor is actually, and she was in. Oh God. He threw up everything he had in his stomach right then and there.
‘This is impossible there is no way this is happening.’
‘Oh, but it is.’ The counselor helped him up. ‘You see I’m giving you a chance to be with her, right now.’
He started shaking and the counselor help keep him as steady as possible. He looked at the counselor with tears streaming down his face.
‘Why are you doing this? Why us?’
The counselor smiled.
‘My dear boy, I have not done a thing. Everything that has happened, everything you two thought and did. They were your actions and your actions alone.’
The counselor walked over and stood near the desk in the living room. It didn’t take much effect for him to figure out that the counselor knew what was in the desk, locked away and kept hidden and safe. He walked over beside the counselor and knelt down to unlock the door to remove the case inside. He unlocked the case and pulled out the handgun he purchased to used at the range for a fun hobby to ease tension whenever so often.
‘I don’t think I can do this.’
The counselor face grew dark and the gentle voice was slowly starting to fade away.
‘Can you really live knowing she was spiraling out of control, trying desperately to gain your approval? What will you do? Go on living, find someone else? Will they compare to her at all? Or just be a silver medal?’
The counselor began to walk out of the apartment and stopped to where he found the counselor when all this started. The counselor looked over his shoulder for one last bit of advice.
‘Go on and be a man for her. She’s waiting.’
He looked down at his gun and looked up to see the counselor was no longer there. It didn’t matter anymore. The sirens stopped; clearly they were at his apartment. They’ll be up to his floor shortly and come across a scene where a man is holding a gun in his hand and his love laying down on a bed.
He rose up and sat on the couch wrestling with the conflicting emotions. The barrel entered his mouth. The cops began to knock on the door attempting to make contact. At first they were respectful and gentle. After a pause and no response they grew more forceful.
He closed his eyes and released the safety from the trigger. He saw a wonderful vision. He saw her again. Dressed in a beautiful white gown, the light around her was pure and glorious.
She looked sad, no, disappointed. Her face wretched with emotion, if he was able to turn away he would, but she would not leave his sight. He slowly squeezed the trigger. She turned his back on him. He wanted to scream for her not to go; he would be with her shortly. She began to walk away from him. The hammer of the gun began to pull back. She faded away from his vision; he would never see her again.
He released his finger from the trigger.
It was over.