Inside, Peter stared at me with a sly grin splashed across his face. Revulsion filled my gut. I clenched my fists so tightly, my nails dug into the palms of my hands. This wasn’t over. It was just the beginning.
Twenty-Six
I've been dreading today for quite some time. I hoped it would never come, and yet, as time always does, it was here in a flash. Today is Zac's birthday. He would have been thirty years old.
I woke up to my heart aching as if someone sliced through it with a switchblade. Pain reverberated throughout my entire body. Part of me died the day he did. And I didn't think I would ever reclaim the missing piece again.
I planned for this day many weeks in advance. I was meant to take a handful of sleeping pills. Not enough to cause serious harm to myself, but enough to sleep through the entire day. I wanted to trick time and rip away two days off the calendar at once. If I didn't live throughout the day, then it would be as good as it never happening at all.
But my plan wouldn't turn out as I'd hoped. I left my sleeping pills at my apartment in Ashford. I didn’t plan to stay in Keygate so long, so I didn’t think to bring them with me. They were in a small orange vial on my dresser next to a picture of Zac from last year's Fourth of July carnival.
He surprised me by taking the day off. He knew I wasn't on the schedule and wouldn't have any plans. I didn't have any friends outside of the department, and they would all be working on the holiday.
That morning, I woke up to the sweet sight of sun flooding through our creamy sheer curtains. Zac's warm body pressed against me, I looked at the clock on my phone. Seeing the time, my heart throttled through my chest.
I turned and shook Zac emphatically. "Zac! Zac! Wake up! You're late for work!”
He moaned, then rubbed his eyes. "I took the day off," he whispered, “so I can spend it with you.”
Relief flooded my mind, but I playfully punched him too. "You scared me half to death! I didn't want you to be late.”
He rolled on top of me, his eyes glittering in the morning light. His soft waves were tousled perfectly. Somehow, he always managed to wake up looking like a model. I never quite understood how I'd gotten so lucky with him.
"Now we can do whatever we want to celebrate this fine American holiday," he said as he nibbled on his lip.
A rush of blood shot straight to my belly, flip-flopping it into oblivion. "Anything?"
He nodded.
I reached up to press my lips against his. Within seconds, his tongue meandered its way into my mouth and jousted with my own. He hardened against me and lust thrust itself between us, wanting—no—needing to be expunged.
I painfully shook away the memory, wishing more than anything I had my pills with me. I didn't want today to happen, or, rather, I didn't want to be awake for it. I wanted it to pass without notice, so I could continue to grieve without any additional reminders of whom I'd lost. At the same time, anger surged through my veins. I tried to push away the other memories, the ones too painful to dwell on.
The gunshots. The blood. Zac's eyes as we shared one last moment together.
I needed a drink more than any time before. I wanted to drown my sorrows in booze instead of reliving my tortured past over and over again. I leapt out of bed, grabbed my keys and left the house before my parents could see me. I drove to the nearest liquor store, my head spinning with cravings.
As I pulled into the parking lot of the corner store a few blocks away, the store clerk unlocked the doors.
Perfect timing.
I grabbed the cheapest liter of vodka on the shelf and dropped it a little too hard on the store counter. The clerk, a woman in her mid-forties, gazed at me quizzically as she rang up the bottle.
I could feel her judgy eyes burning into me, but I didn’t care. Fuck this day and everything about it. Soon I’d be too drunk to care what anyone thought of me. Inside my car, I peeled the wrapper off the top of the no-name vodka and turned it upside down. I chugged until I needed a breath, ignoring the hoots and hollers of the teenage boys loitering outside the store. Rain splattered against my windshield as tears sprang from my eyes and slithered down my cheeks.
I put the bottle on the floor of my car and screamed at the top of my lungs, punching my steering wheel. Rage burned inside me. I wanted Zac back. I needed him in my life. How could I survive without him?
Life wasn’t fucking fair.
I pulled out of the parking lot, already with a solid buzz numbing the pain. I wanted to break something. To hurt someone. Would I ever find the person who killed Zac? Would I find Callie’s killer? The pressure mounted in the depths of my heart.
I approached a traffic light a block away from the liquor store. As if in slow motion, the light turned from yellow to red before I could react. Instead of screeching to a halt, I pressed my foot against the gas. Cars appeared in my peripherals, but I didn’t care. In that moment, I didn’t give a fuck if I killed myself. At least then I wouldn’t have to live like this.
Narrowly missing a car before it T-boned me, I sped even faster away from the intersection as horns blared behind me. I couldn’t go home like this. I couldn’t let my mom see me. Instead, I drove across town, weaving in and out of traffic toward the cheapest motel I could think of, which also happened to be in walking distance of the Hens’ Den.
I’d hide out here for as long as I could and drink myself into oblivion.
Twenty-Seven
After I checked in, I tossed the overnight bag I had in my trunk for emergencies onto the bed with cheap 80s bedding. The room wouldn't make any five-star listings, but it'd serve its purpose today. All I needed was a safe and quiet place to lay my head without having to explain myself.
I texted my mom that I was out visiting friends and to not wait up. She called me immediately, but I hit “Ignore.” My vision blurred, and I could barely make out her name on my screen, let alone have a full conversation with her.
I lay in bed, sipping from the bottle of vodka with a picture of Zac pressed against my chest.
The first of Zac’s birthdays we spent together didn’t go as well as I’d hoped, but all these years later, it was one of my favorite memories of us.
As a college freshman, I didn’t have much money to spend on extracurricular activities. I worked a part-time job with the campus police answering phones and typing up reports. I made minimum wage and worked for about ten hours a week. My checks were laughable, but for a college student, anything was better than nothing.
Zac and I had been dating for about five months, and I wanted to do something special for his birthday. So I scraped up all the money I’d saved, down to the last penny, and bought us a weekend getaway a few towns over. I barely had enough leftover cash to have a friend buy beer for the weekend, but I was determined to make it work.
On the morning of his birthday, I picked him up outside his dorm, which was across campus from my own. Butterflies swirled in my stomach, hoping and praying he’d like his present.
He strolled up to my car, stroking his beard while his dark, tousled locks swayed in the breeze.
“Hey, beautiful.” He leaned across the center console and pressed his lips against mine.
My heart skipped a beat while I squealed with delight. “Are you ready for your present?”