By a Thread (3 page)

Stella walked with Cooper down the stairs into the room she and Jamie shared for only one night. She slid down the wall, sat on the floor and glared at all his things... all the unlabelled boxes she would have to go through, all of his things. She sobbed again, even though she thought she was out of tears.
Could she please just run out of fucking tears!
She opened a box of Jamie’s. Stella pulled out his old college baseball jersey. Inhaling deeply, she smelled him.
Clementines.
Tearing off her clothes, she slipped it over her head and crawled into their bed. Sometime later she felt Cooper climb up on the platform bed and lay next to her.

Stella only got out of her bed to use the bathroom, which wasn’t often since she didn’t drink anything all day. She heard footsteps coming down the stairs, but she didn’t look up.

“Okay, I’m going to give you two more days of this shit before I take things into my own hands.” She felt something hit the pillow next to her bed. Patrick had thrown a protein bar and a bottle of water on her bed.

Stella didn’t respond.

Two days later, true to his promise, Patrick returned downstairs after work. Throwing the covers off Stella, he picked her up, legs flailing. In two steps he was in the bathroom, where he threw her in the bathtub. He turned on the water, full blast, soaking her, and finally forcing a reaction out of Stella.

“Holy shit, Patrick,” she yelled as she put her hands up, attempting to block the water from her face. In less than thirty seconds she was soaked from head to toe, including Jamie’s baseball jersey.

“You stink and you haven’t eaten in days. If you don’t get your ass upstairs right now and eat what I cooked for dinner I will call your fucking daddy. Is that how you want to be treated? Like a child who can’t take care of herself?” With that, Patrick turned and walked up the stairs.

Stella was stunned, then pissed. She stomped up the stairs after him, soaking wet in nothing but Jamie’s white baseball jersey. When she got to the kitchen, she glared at Patrick and stomped over to the table, sitting down next to a guy she had never seen.

“Well hello there, hot stuff,” the stranger said, looking over at Patrick. “I’m guessing this is our new roommate?”

“Yep,” Patrick said, grabbing a towel and mopping up the water rolling off Stella’s body.

“Hopefully you will attend all group dinners in a wet, white T-shirt.” The guy took in her appearance and raked his hand through his shaggy, dirty-blond hair that reached just past his ears. He pushed his tortoise-shell glasses up the bridge of his nose. Dressed in what appeared to be a white undershirt shirt and suit pants, it was clear he had just gotten home from work. His eyes were a warm chocolate brown and full of humor.

“You know my fiancé just died, right?” Stella spouted at the stranger.

“Um,” Billy Stevens looked down at his plate. “Yeah, sorry to hear about that.”

“Whatever.”

“What made you finally get out of your bed? It looks like Patrick threw you in the shower...”

“And threatened to call my daddy,” she made air quotes to emphasize the word daddy.

“Wow, Patrick, that’s pretty dirty.” Billy still looked amused.

“Well, she can’t stay in her bed forever. She is supposed to start law school in a week.”

“How the fuck do you know when I’m suppose to start law school?” she yelled at him belligerently.

Patrick put a plate of stir-fry and a beer in front of her on the table.

“Just to warn you both, now that I’m out of my bed, you may want to run and get more alcohol. I plan to drink until I pass out. Ready... go.” Stella took the beer and swallowed it in two gulps.

“Holy shit, I’m in love,” Billy exclaimed, eyes going wide.

Stella ignored him and motioned for Patrick to get her another beer, which he did.

“I guess functioning, even while drunk, is better than not functioning at all,” Billy said shrugging his shoulders.

Patrick took in Stella, everything about her. She looked at him, “What are you looking at?”

“Well, you are basically nude at the table with two dudes. What do you think I’m looking at?”

“You’re the one who forced me out of my bed.” She threw a piece of chicken to Cooper.

“So what’s your plan, you’ve been laying in your bed for four days. Certainly you have formulated a plan by now.”

“A plan?” she asked with her mouth full of stir-fry.

“A plan to get through this mourning and missing Jamie shit.” Patrick looked away and lowered his voice, “I mean… I understand this is hard for you and you loved him and all, but you have got to start getting back to life.”

“My fiancé DIED LESS THAN A WEEK AGO, YOU ASSHOLE!” She got up and threw her plate at the sink, breaking it, food flying everywhere.

Billy blew out the breath he’d been holding and Patrick pushed his chair out away from the table. “You’re acting like a child and you are not a child. Clean this shit up.”

“No.” She said and walked back downstairs. She was almost back to her bed when Patrick grabbed her, threw her over his shoulder, and carried her back upstairs. As he put her down, she attempted to shove him. He didn’t move.

“Clean it up now. We’re not your fucking maids. We weren’t put here on Earth to clean up after you. I know you are sad, mad, whatever...” Billy walked over and started sweeping up the pieces of plate that had fallen to the floor.

“I’ll get it,” she sneered as she ripped the broom out of his hand.

Patrick sat on the counter while she cleaned. “You need a plan, El. A plan will help.”

She looked at him. “How do you know what the fuck will help me? My name is Stella.”

“Everyone I know has a nickname,” Patrick shrugged.

“What’s Billy’s?”

“Billy.” Patrick looked at Billy. “His real name is William.”

“My name is only two syllables. I really don’t need a nickname.” Stella was wiping the dustpan off into the trashcan. Billy handed her another beer.

“I like El. Short and sweet.” Billy commented.

“Just opposite of me...” Stella said.

“I like you already, El, you are one feisty bitch.”

“Watch it asshole, you don’t know me,” Stella fired back.

Patrick jumped down off the counter and sat back down in his seat at the kitchen table. “Here’s the plan. First, we’re going to go through all his things. You keep what you want, we give the rest to his family. Second, we’ll drink with you until you don’t want to drink anymore. Third, you go to law school and immerse yourself in all things law and get through it until you can act normal. Fourth, you’ll do what I tell you to do.”

Stella was staring at Patrick with her mouth open. “The only one of those I agree to is number two. We will drink. A LOT!”

Stella had been drinking since she got out of bed, which was around noon. It was five. She booted up her computer and went back to reading the comments people had left on Jamie’s website.
All these motherfuckers,
she thought
.
She knew Jamie was well liked and widely known in college, but since he died people had been coming out of the woodwork wanting to share how broken up they were over his death.
No fucking shit.
After guzzling another beer she threw the empty can near the trashcan, not even attempting to make it in the basket. The clang of the can hitting the tile made Cooper jump up and bark at the door.

“You’re full of shit, Coop, that sound wasn’t even near the door.” Laughing, she clicked on one of the entries on the comment section of Jamie’s wall where some douchebag had written a story about him and Jamie that occurred over ten years ago. She typed a comment:
hey d-bag, Jamie probly doesn’t even remmdher your name.

Clearly intoxicated, Stella clicked submit before thinking or checking her spelling. She scrolled down to see a post left by a cheerleader from college about how much she missed him.

Really, you miss him? Did you live with him? Were u negaged to jim. Cause I was bitch and I thinkn I miss him a little more

Again, she clicked submit. This continued for another thirty minutes. By the time Stella had finished another beer she had commented on over thirty different posts on Jamie’s webpage.

Rage consumed her, all these people making it seem like Jamie was their person to miss, their friend. None his real friends had commented on his webpage. His real friends were still reeling from the news of his death. They were still attempting to process the loss. The last thing they would be doing is posting bullshit on a website.

The door slamming pulled her out of her manic attack on the webpage. Patrick walked up behind her, happy she was not in bed. His smile froze on his face when he realized what she had been up to for the past hour. Stella started to slam her laptop screen down but Patrick grabbed it, stopping her.

“El, what’re you doing?” he asked, staring at the screen.

“Nothing,” she said. Getting up, she went to the fridge and grabbed another beer.

“You posted all these comments?” She could hear pity in his voice.

Stella didn’t answer him, but turned up the beer. Patrick sat at the table and started deleting all of Stella’s rage-filled, grammatically challenged posts. He wasn’t quick enough deleting some of the posts, people were already responding in kind to Stella’s drunken rants. Closing his eyes for a few seconds, he took a breath and deleted the remaining posts, and then deleted Stella’s entire Facebook account.

“Why would you get online and make drunken comments to all these people?” Patrick rubbed his head with his hand.

“Why not? Those motherfuckers don’t even know him. That one bitch saw him, like, one time and now all of a sudden she is going to
miss him so much
. People are fucking lunatics.”

“You’re acting like an asshole,” Patrick said calmly. “You can’t get drunk and put that kind of shit online. You can’t get that back. It’s out there. Based on those posts, you are a miserable person who thinks she’s the only one who can mourn her dead fiancé. And you can’t even spell. Plus, your grammar is horrific.”

He powered down her laptop, wrapped the cord around it, and without another word, walked into his room and shut the door.

Stella felt someone sit on her bed. She glanced at the clock. “What?” she croaked.

“I wanted to catch you before you started drinking,” Patrick said softly.

Stella pulled the sheet over her body. “What?”

“You start school in a couple days and you missed orientation. You haven’t bought any books. You cannot possibly be throwing away law school.”

“Why do you care?” Stella was cantankerous on a constant basis since Jamie died.

“I just do.” Patrick looked around the room at the boxes still packed all over the room.

She turned over in her bed, facing the bathroom. “I’m deferring,” she said flatly.

“What?” Patrick didn’t hear her.

“I’m deferring, okay,” she yelled.

“You’re not going? For how long?”

“I deferred for a year. Now leave me alone.”

Patrick put his hand on her shoulder. She shrugged it off. “El, get dressed and come with me.”

“Patrick, please leave me alone. I want to stay in my bed today,” Stella begged.

“No can do. Today we are going to shoot things.” He rose and headed up the stairs.

“Shoot things?” She called after him, he’d gotten her attention. He didn’t answer.

She pulled on black yoga pants, a T-shirt, a hat, and flip-flops that she found in the first box she opened and walked upstairs. Patrick pointed at her feet. “Closed-toed shoes please.” She spun on her heel and stomped back down the stairs louder than necessary.

When she got back upstairs, she rolled her eyes at him from under her hat, “Better?”

“Yep.” Patrick grabbed his keys and patted Cooper on the head. “Be back later, man.”

Stella guessed she had been ignoring Cooper lately. “He’s a smart dog. Maybe he prefers you to me right now. Don’t get used to it.”

They walked out to Patrick’s car. “El, we gotta get through this.”

Stella opened the passenger door and sat down, silent. Arms crossed, she stared out the window and didn’t respond.

After a twenty-minute trip in silence, Patrick pulled into the parking lot of a cement brick block building with a flashing neon sign. Before she read the sign, she looked at Patrick and said, “Are we shooting strippers?”

Patrick laughed heartily, “No, but that would be pretty fun. Just targets today, killer.”

“Oh, it’s a gun range.” Stella got out of the car and watched Patrick pull a black duffel bag out of his trunk.

When they walked through the door, the man behind the counter smiled. “Hey, Patrick. Good to see you.”

“You too, Ben.” Patrick guided Stella between racks of paraphernalia past the glass cases lined with all sorts of guns. She looked at them all. “We want to hit the range for a bit.”

“You want to shoot any of mine?” Ben asked as he pulled out a set of ear phones.

“Nope, I got it. I may buy some ammo though.” Patrick pointed out up a couple of boxes of bullets and Ben set them on the counter. After he paid, he led Stella around the corner and through a heavy sound-proof door into the range. He handed her the ear phones and pulled his own out of his bag.

Patrick loaded the magazine of his Glock 37. He started to explain the gun’s features, but she wasn’t paying attention. He pushed her back a little and emptied the entire clip into the target at the end of the lane. He loaded the clip again.

He handed Stella the gun, “Don’t point this at me or anyone else. Also, be ready, it has a bit of a kick.”

Stella took the gun and walked to the center of the stall while Patrick pressed the button bringing the target back to them to be swapped for a new one. She raised the gun to shoulder height, steadying her aim with her left hand. She hesitated to pull the trigger and Patrick leaned into her. “Just pull the trigger.” She did and the gun exploded, recoiling so hard it almost hit her in the face. Adrenaline rushed through her body. She looked at Patrick.

“Shit,” she said with a smile.

“Look at that, I knew I could get a smile out of you somehow.” Patrick stood behind her while she fired the remaining rounds out of the gun. He smiled as he pulled the target off the clips. “Nice aim,” he shouted, showing her the holes in the target centered on what would be a person’s crotch.

“Ha.” Stella blew her bangs out of her face, put the gun on the counter, and grabbed the target. “I believe I’ll keep that,” she said.