Falling Capricorn (5 page)

“I know, babe. I know.” She ran a hand through his hair once her nails were dry, combing it with her fingers. She frowned softly, as much as she wanted some free time with Eric, she still felt for him. Joey was his best friend since they were kids. She could only imagine what that felt like.

They stayed there for what felt like hours until Eric regained his composure. He looked at her, eyes back to their sharp and intense stare. “You can let me go now," he tells her. “I am feeling much better now,” he added to ensure her that he was, indeed, fine. Roxie looked at him carefully. She didn’t want him to push her away, but she knew it would happen now, just like it always did. She never minded him leaning on her; that was what she was here for, after all. She let him go and he got up fixing his clothes before heading to leave.

“Where are you going?” she asked as her eyes followed him.

“Chris still doesn’t know,” he simply explained to her before leaving out the door. Roxie sat there, letting the news sit now. She absorbed what she needed to know and keep in her mind.

Christen was sitting on her couch, flipping through channels with her remote. Why hadn’t he written back yet? She couldn’t help but have her mind jump to conclusions. What if he was kidnapped and being tortured as she was perfectly fine, sitting in her house thinking she had it bad. What if he was stranded under a car because of an explosion and was being crushed to death. What if he was burned alive and she wasn’t there to save him. Her mind was running wild with these thoughts and ideas. It wasn’t healthy for her to think like this, but she couldn’t help it. She was beyond worried. She jumped as a knock on her door pulled her out of her reverie.

“Coming!” she called, checking herself in mirror on the wall before walking to the door. She fixed her hair as she opened the door, seeing Eric. Her eyes brightened up a bit. “Eric! Has Joey written us back finally? Have you heard from him? Do come in!” She moved out of the way to let Eric in, but he just stood outside the doorway for a while. “Are you okay?” she waited but he did not reply at first. “Earth to Eric, hello?” Christen blinked since she didn’t get a smart comment in return, just a rather spaced-out look.

“Christen… we need to talk,” Eric sighed, walking in. Christen's mind began to swirl with horrible thoughts again. She brushed them away and attempted to look calm.

“Alrighty then," she called after him, closing the door shut with ease. “Well, what is it?” She sat down on the couch next to him. Eric lowered his gaze. He still never came up with how to word it; how to make it sound not as bad as it actually was. The more he thought the more blank his mind became. He couldn’t think of any way of saying it that would spare her, so he decided to come right out with it.

“Christen, Joey is dead.” Eric didn’t dare look up at Christen, but just continued staring at the floor. Christen sat there, in a moment of shock. After a good few minutes, she shook her head no.

“Eric, that’s not funny.” She hoped that he would apologize for making an awful joke, but when Eric looked up at her with his sad and pained eyes, she knew he wasn’t lying to her.

“It’s not a joke Christen.” It was silent after that, as the news sunk into her skull. She reached for the pillow next to her. She pressed her face to it and suddenly screamed as loud as she could into the pillow. The shrill sound was muffled, but still pretty loud. Eric winced at the sounds as he sat there watching her. She screamed a few more times before looking up at Eric.

“Now what happens?” she questioned him. She was never a pretty crier; her face looked like a mess with her smudged up makeup and snot. Tears roared like rapids. She honestly didn’t know what to do. What was she supposed to say or do in this situation? Never seeing Joey again; she couldn’t picture it, but that didn’t stop her heart from feeling like it was being ripped apart. How could this happen to them? He had promised to come back, but he wasn't. “Oh Joey!” she cried.

“Christen,” he said softly as she threw herself into his arms. She wailed loudly, it all started to click together for her. She kept taking short and fast breathes, sobbing extremely hard. “Christen, take deep breaths or you’re going to hyperventilate,” he warned her. She tried to take deep breaths but most of them were swallowed. Eric's head felt like it was splitting apart with the loud wailing echoing about the room.

“He lied Eric,” she said through one gasp of air. “He said he’d be back home,” she exhaled. “He said I had nothing to worry about!” Her breaths picked up in speed and Eric forcefully grabbed her chin, making her stare up at him.

“Christen, you will calm down. I don’t need you dying on me from a panic attack. Now listen to me; deep breaths Christen,” Eric told her, taking a deep breath in with her. “In,” he held it for a little, before exhaling. He followed with, “Out.” He repeated this, “In and out. In and out. In and out.” Christen eventually got to deep breathing with him. The breaths were shaky, but she started to calm down.

“Deep breaths,” she whispered to Eric, looking up at him with her devastated glassy eyes.

“Yes Christen… deep breaths.”

Chapter 3

It took a while, but Joey’s body eventually returned to his proper home. The days seemed to all run together for Christen. She quit college and just sat there painting all day. She swore the other day she saw Joey, walking down the street. Her eyes must have been playing tricks on her.

The strange things that happen when you lose one, she thought. You mistake them for being everywhere. You find their stuff just laying around, waiting for you to see it. She just didn’t know how to function now. "Function just like before," was what Kat had told her, gently. Eric said she just needed to rely on him. He would take care of everything. She found it nearly impossible to live by what Eric said though. All the practical stuff he wanted to discuss about her future sounded like senseless words bouncing off the walls of her mind.

“He only had a few more months.” Christen laid on the couch with her arm over her head. She believed Joey to be her soul mate, and now everything seemed pointless.

There was a fierce knocking on the door. Christen didn’t even check who it was. “The door is open,” she called to whoever was behind the door. It swung wide open. It was Eric, yet again.

“Christen. You quit school!?” He walked straight in front of her, glowering at the woman feeling sorry for herself.

“Yes. I want to be a painter. I don’t need to learn that pointless crap,” she replied with a scowl. Maybe that was an excuse, or maybe she honestly believed she didn’t need to go to school. Joey always wanted Christen to paint or draw for him. They would be at the park, the beach, the zoo...or even just sitting at home watching TV. Anything that caught Joey's eye, he would point to it and exclaim, "Do that one! Do that one!" Then he would find her watercolor book or sketch pad and thrust it into her hands with a beaming smile. With a few flourishes, she always finished quickly and presented it to Joey's utter delight. He held each slice of life Christen reproduced with pencil or brush like a treasure. Eric wasn't sure how to respond to Christen's nasty demeanor but eased up on her a little, remembering her and Joey’s childish nature.

“Okay, Christen. Look, a college degree is something you should get. You're much smarter then you give yourself credit for… and now you made a really stupid decision,” he scolded her. “You lost your scholarships though, and that’s way too much money for you to pay. So Christen, instead of sitting here in your misery, come paint for my gallery,” he told her. His last statement made her ears tingle. The words floated in her forebrain like a dream.  Christen brought herself down from the funk she was in to process what he was saying.

“Are you serious right now?” she looked at him bewildered.

"You have a talent Christen. You need to heal from all that you have lost, I understand. But as long as you are painting, whether to heal or deal, you still have a talent the world should see. Besides, Joey would have wanted this for you." A smile curved at the corners of Eric's mouth. He thought of Joey's buffoonery if he were here to see Christen's first showing.

“I can… I can make Joey proud,” Christen mused. She could see him jumping up and down in her head. She smiled wistfully then looked at Eric, "Yes. Yes I will do it." She paused, “I have a painting to do for Joey’s funeral.” Her smile faded for a moment before she shook it off. “But after that I will focus on a painting for you,” she smiled again. “Now get out! You can’t see it!” She pushed him to the door and looked at him with a confident look.

“Okay, I’ll let you do your magic then,” he tells her as she closed the door.

Christen leaned her head against the door with a sad smile and whispered, "...for Joey."

Roxie waited outside, leaning against the car, looking at the apartments that stretched around her. Her sunglasses gave everything an amber tint. She sighed at how gross the buildings look. “Am I in the ghetto?” she asked no one. “So this is where Chris lives.” She had a strange tug in her stomach. She was starting to wonder if she was jealous of this 'Chris' guy. She knew that Eric was not gay…or was he? She scoffed at her ridiculous thoughts. “Ridiculous, absolutely not possible!” she exclaimed.

“What is ridiculous? What isn’t possible?” Eric questioned, almost next to Roxie.

“Ridiculous that you…” she stopped in the middle of her sentence, nervously laughing. “Oh nothing, nothing at all. So what did Chris have to say?”

“I gave Chris a job as a painter for my gallery; we’ll see how that goes,” he tells her. Roxie raised an eye brow. She had to fight, claw, and crawl to just be a showgirl at the gallery’s entertainment stage, and she was his girlfriend the whole time. She stared at him, not believing that he would just give this Chris guy a pass out of college and straight into his art gallery.

“So, you gave into self-pity, felt sorry, and then just hand out a job!?” She had to make sure she heard him right. Eric looked at her blankly, unlocking the driver’s door.

“You did!” she exclaimed, before starting for the apartment. “Okay, since you completely failed at why we came here, I’ll go talk to Chris now.” She fumed, no way was that fair. No way was this guy going to get off so easy for just walking out on school. She stopped short as Eric grabbed her wrist.

“Get in the car,” he hissed dangerously. Roxie looked at him, eyes narrowing as she stared at him.

“How about you make me?” she hissed right on back. She took a few steps before Eric nearly ripped her arm off, pulling her to the passenger seat, and whipping her into the seat. She hit the seat hard. She went to get up, but the door was slammed shut. Eric was in the driver seat in the matter of a few seconds and they were driving down the road. “Abusive,” she snarled at him.

“Shut up. Don’t get yourself involved in things you know nothing about, Roxie,” he growled at her, speeding down the road.

“Dick.” She muttered under her breath. “You are being a reckless driver; does that mean anything to you Eric? I was ready to make a stand for you, and then you drive like a bat out of hell? You never tell me what’s going on in your life, prick. And lastly, you broke my heel.” She sighed, looking down at her high heeled boots. She leered at Eric and then stated, “You are so buying me a new pair.”

“Fine,” he sighed loudly. It was a close call. Eric knew if Roxie and Christen met, it would have just been a complete disaster. Roxie was always known for jumping to conclusions, even if it couldn’t be the furthest from the truth. Breaking her heels, that would have been the least of his problems. Eric glanced as his phone vibrated, but his eyes remained on the road. “Answer that for me Roxie.” Roxie looked at the phone, sighing loudly. She picked the up the phone and placed it against his ear.

“Joey’s funeral will be one week from today.” It was Joey’s little brother.

“I see. I will cancel all my plans that day then.” Eric replied. “And how’s your parents?” There was a long silence over the phone until he finally replied.

“They saw Joey’s body. They are not feeling too happy right now.” With that, the conversation ended.

 Joey’s parents finally got to see him. They placed their hands over their mouths when they saw how damaged his body was. There was not just a bullet to the temple, but his body was also mangled and destroyed by some sort of vehicle.

He was returned in a horrid condition. His mother sobbed to his father, shaking her head. To them Joey had returned, but little did they know his mind and his soul were somewhere else that was so close to them.

Joey woke up from a dripping that was crashing on his forehead. He opened his eyes to see random raindrops falling from the sky. He bolted up, letting out a long and dreadful scream. He stopped himself, breathing hard.

“I was dead. The man was behind me and…and…”  He swore the man had killed him. The gun was pressed right against his temple. He remembered hearing the shot, just as the world went black. Where was he?

Joey looked around. Every which way he looked, he saw black and purple trees. There no were branches, only black and purple trunks shooting from the black misty ground through a foggy, dark blue sky, up into the black clouds above. He sat there in the fog. It was such a strange place.  A light purple moon hung low in the sky. It was ridiculously dark.  Joey jumped up swearing that something was crawling over him.

He started walking since just standing there was giving him the creeps. He wandered in purple moon-light, searching for a way out, or at least someone to tell him what the hell was going on.

“Hello!?” he called into the endless trees. He saw mountains all across the distance, no matter which way he turned.

What the hell were you thinking idiot?” Joey turned around in one swift motion, frightened by the sudden voice.

“Who are you?!?” Joey demanded. Then he paused, staring at the man with dirty blonde hair and blue eyes. “Brother, but you are dead.”

“Moron. So are you,” his brother jeered, standing there in a black suit and white tie. “You had a beautiful girlfriend, a successful best friend, and still you went into the army for what? To avenge me? Well, how did that turn out for you?” he asked before sighing.