In the Absence of You (27 page)

“No! I’m not fucking okay. And I want to be left the fuck alone so I can be fucking miserable alone!”

“Where’s Bo?”

“Sweden.”

“Elias?”

“Sweden.”

“Why the hell aren’t you in Sweden?”

“Because!” I shout as hard as I can.

She doesn’t respond. My chest heaves and heaves with all of the last oxygen I’ll ever need in this stupid place. I’m out of here.

“It’s Christmas Eve,” she tells me.

“Duh.”

“Christmas Eve is bigger than Christmas Day in Sweden. Don’t try to make stuff up, Emil, because I spent most of my childhood Christmases in Ostersund. You can’t fool me.”

“Fine.”

“What are you up to?”

“Shooting myself in the head,” I laugh out.

The silence on the other side tells me she gets that I’m not kidding.

“I’m kidding.”

“Right,” she murmurs. She’s seen me play with my sexy friend. I’ve told her how I’d play more with it once she wasn’t around. Aishe is not surprised. “You’ve got a real gun now, don’t you?”

Her question catches me off guard. I avoid it. “No seriously, that was a joke. I’m not shooting myself in the head.”

“Yeah.” From her voice, she believes me. Which makes sense when she continues, “You’re about to shoot yourself in the heart.”

Peace. Peace.
No more insistence from hyped-up females.

I always was the hyped-up one.

In my last hour, I can’t stomach Aishe’s questions about outpatient treatments. Meds. How I “like” my shrink. She’s postponing me. On purpose she’s postponing me, and—

You’re wrong, Aishe. Zoe
is
the end of the world.

I stare at my phone as I walk back to my bedroom. Zoe’s smell is still here, half a year later, and I don’t care if it’s real or just me.

Our pictures are scattered everywhere. Tipped over, messily arranged against the back wall of a TV. On the lower shelf of a coffee table. Everywhere, everywhere, because my love wanted us displayed wherever she could put us.

She
chose
my place.

A will
, you think as you cock the gun.
Point it around you. At the gamblers on the screen first. You don’t have a will. You hope that means everything goes to your family.

A song,
you think. One she will hear out.

You don’t know about lives, if you have one or a few. If our past ones bleed into future lives, ah you’d be more careful in your next.

Zoe, I’ll be good in our next lives.

You call her
for the last time in this existence. Push the speaker of your phone against your ear as if it’s her cheek. You close your eyes, feeling her warmth, smelling the soap she used, her perfume, the shampoo. Now you regret not asking what those scents were, because they were
her.

You hope death doesn’t take the sense of smell away. You’d hate to lose the last remnant of what she was.

You can’t think about it, just sing to her this last time. Let her know, let her know, again, a last again, that what happened was a blip, a molecule of air in the vast atmosphere that was your love for her.

Never doubt.

Never doubt.

The beauty that you are to me.

I love you.

Love you love you more than anyone and anything can define.

Never, my love. Never, my Zee.

Has a girl trapped a boy the way you have me.

Here’s my eulogy, have it, eat it.

I’ll see you next time, baby, next time.

I sing my words to her.

I do it as me. I’m not Jeffrey Osborne or Percy Sledge, Seal, no, it’s my voice she’ll hear, and as I hang up, before I shut my phone down all the way and forever, I realize that I didn’t star-sixty-seven her. I called her with my own number. My Zoe, she didn’t have me blocked.

It eases my departure that her hate for me has lessened.

Aishe calls.

Calls. Calls.

Shandor calls. Troy’s at my door.

“Leave me the fuck alone!”
I scream in my head, the revolver shaking in my hand.

“Open.” Troy’s voice is quiet.

My door is always open for people who knock. But when I set my lips to its panel today, it’s to state, “I’m busy. See you in a few hours.”

“BS. Open or I’m breaking down the door.”

“Hold on,” I say then. “Just let me get dressed, and I’ll open.”

He hesitates. Plays along next. “Or I’ll have to see your hairy balls?” The joke from ages ago registers, but I have no humor.

“Right. Four seconds.” It’s hard to sound like myself.

I hadn’t envisioned my end like this. I’d have time. It’d be peaceful. I’d get to relish the moment where I pulled the trigger to let it all go. I was going to give myself the chance for randomness too; I could be alive tomorrow, after a Russian roulette gone right instead of wrong.

The TV people drone, not as high-strung as I hoped. Troy’s on the other side. If only he could be on this side and support me when I go.

I remain by the door, wanting someone close. For a brief second, I think of how he’ll feel when he hears the
pow.

No, no, his pain is nothing like mine. He’ll survive.

Fuck. Why’s he here?

I don’t want him to hurt.

I stare at myself in the hallway mirror, feet away from the door that keeps Troy out.

“It’s been four seconds.”

You pull the trigger.
Your eyes are so wide in the mirror as your index finger presses down.

Jesus, is this how you look, you suicide people?

You shut your eyes. Press harder.

Click.

Shit?

“What. The
FUCK
, Emil?”
Troy roars from outside.

I’m shaking. Shaking so hard. I’m a wuss for not making it happen.
Have I made anything happen lately?

He slams his body against the door. “Open. The. Damn. Door!”