Claudia

Week One

I realize I’ve been sitting on the edge of my couch staring at the fire escape for at least an hour when Liz comes through my apartment door. I know I look like shit. My head, my hand, and my foot are still bandaged up. My eye is less swollen, but it's still bruised as hell. My bosses at Kleinman’s have given me an extended leave. Purchasing women’s apparel for a major chain requires a lot of travel and a lot of face to face. They don't want me to scare away potential vendors with my mangled skin and broken body, but none of that matters. I can't bring myself to leave my small loft.

Liz is busy with her own life, but she is the first person I have the hospital contact. Hers is the only number I save in the stupid burner phone the Feds gave me a few days after they casually mention that everything from our campsite is to be used as evidence. Including my phone. And my brother.

Liz is all I have left.

I'm grateful, but I hope nothing makes it so I have to pay her back. Not like this.

“Hey pretty girl,” she says in her usual bright cheery way. I blink a few times, focus on her face. “I have your favorite. Jerk chicken from Miss Rica.”

“Thank you,” I manage to say. My throat is perpetually raw these days.

“And I have your mail. This was outside.” She holds up a small brown box from Amazon.

“That should be my phone.”

“Oh good.” She sets the food on the coffee table and hands me the box before she starts to peel off her trench coat.

“Thank you.”

“No problem. There are drinks in the fridge from last night. I'll grab us those,” she says. “What else can I get you?”

“A time machine.” I had no idea tears can just leak out of your eyes like this, but since I got home I've almost stopped wiping my face. There’s no point. I can’t stop crying.

“Oh honey.” I realize Liz is looking at me. I'm staring at the gold heart necklace hanging on her chest, the one I got her from work. She turns and heads for the kitchen. I turn back toward the TV. It's still off. I can't remember what I was planning to watch.

“Here.” Liz hands me a paper towel, just barely dampened with water.

“Thank you.” I wipe my eyes and my raw cheeks. I try to breathe normally. I can’t, but the coolness of the paper towel makes my face feel better.

“I'm going to stay for a while,” she says as she sits and starts distributing the chicken and rice.

“You don't have to.” Liz has a real job, corporate litigation. I know her free time is precious.

“But I want to,” she says. “Plus, we have at least two seasons of the Great French Baking Competition to watch.”

I don’t argue because I don’t really want to be alone. I grab my blanket out of the corner of the couch. I wrap myself up while she finishes with the food and grabs the drinks. My hand throbs like crazy, but I manage to grip the remotes and find Liz’s favorite baking competition show.

“Ooh, it’s Tarts and Pies week. This is gonna be good.” She flashes me a bright smile. I try to smile back, but mostly I just slow blink and think about how tired my eyes are.

I force some food down, listen to Liz’s comments on whose crusts look the best in her opinion. She gets a text.

“It’s Brooklyn.”

“How is she?” I ask. I have a soft spot for her little sister.

“Still wild,” she says with a smirk.

“You’re still jealous.”

“Of course I am,” she laughs. “I should be worried that her flighty ass isn’t going to pass the bar, but of course she is.”

“The kid’s just smart. She can’t help it.”

“She’s like the anti-Elle Woods. No effort, all results. She says ‘tell Claudia I say feel better and I love her.’”

My chest tightens and another huge tear comes. My blanket works just fine as a tissue this time. “Tell her the same,” I say around the lump in my throat.

Liz puts down her phone and picks up the brown box on the table. “You want me to open this?”

I stare for a moment. “Yeah. It’s been nice not having a phone for a while though.”

“I’m sure.”

I watch this poor woman burn the fuck out of a pie crust as Liz asks me the appropriate questions so she can activate my phone. By the time everything is finished backing up, we’ve moved on to the bread portion of the competition.

“Yikes,” Liz says under her breath.

“What?”

“Just a lot of alerts. I’m guessing you haven’t been checking your computer either.”

“No. I told Lara to call me on the burner if it was important,” I say. “And I can't really say anything until the Feds complete their investigation.” I might be making that up. Maybe not. It's a good enough excuse.

“Okay. Let’s see. We’ll ignore the emails for now. Tons of text. Most of them are from Jason. Um yeah…He texted like ten minutes ago. Do you want me to respond to him?”

Liz and Jason aren't close. For the first time I'm grateful for that. She tolerates him for me, and just barely. When I left the hospital the nurse who checked me out told me only to take on as much as I can handle. Step one is stop crying. Step two will be facing people who will ask me an endless stream of questions. People like my boyfriend.

“Let me see.” I hold out my bandaged hand and take my new phone. Those red dots with numbers in the double and triple digits cover the screen. I’m not checking Facebook. Liz posted something for me and Miles’s best friend, Owen, is handling things with their medical school friends.

There are so many voicemails, but I can’t listen. I look at the texts. The previews are all the same, a hundred different versions of I just heard. OMG, Are you okay? So sorry to hear about Miles. I look at the texts from Jason. His are the most recent, and really, the most urgent.

Something in my stomach sinks. It feels like acceptance. I can't hide from everyone, even if I want to. Still my gut is telling me to lie. I can’t deal with any level of his shit right now.

I want to tell him to stay home. Or stay at the office. Or just tell him to go to one of his usual haunts with his buddies because I'm sure the Mets are playing. He doesn't need to see me like this. I don't need to answer his questions. He's never even met Miles. And I am fine. I'm here. I'm alive. There's nothing to talk about. Suddenly I'm nauseous and my chest hurts in a different way than it's been hurting for the last thirteen days.

I text okay.

I silence all my alerts and put my phone on the coffee table. I shove more chicken in my mouth. My throat’s so dry I have to drink something before I choke. Still, the food helps.

“You okay?” Liz asks. She's carefully looking at my face and then she looks at my hands. I feel like I'm shaking, but I’m not.

“Just hungry. I should have eaten earlier.”

She smiles and pats my knee. “Get those nutrients in, boo boo.”

I finish my dinner. I have more water. A sweet South Asian man with no hair and thick glasses wins the bread challenge. The youngest contestant, a mousy white girl who definitely had some skills is sent home. Next up is cakes. I wait.

My heart freezes when the buzzer goes off.

“You expecting anyone?” Liz asks, confused.

“I’m pretty sure that’s Jason.”

She stands and starts for the door. “I'll buzz him in...if you want.”

“Yeah. Of course.”

She makes her way over to the intercom and hits the button. “Hey, it's Liz. Come on up.”

“Thanks.” I can hear it in his voice. He’s pissed. Instantly I think of the man who saved me. I think of Shep Olsen. Every time I think of Jason, I think of Shep. I’m not sure why. But I count the seconds I know it’ll take Jason to ride the elevator up to my floor and I think of Shep sitting next to my bed. I think about his fingers touching mine.

Liz flicks the locks and starts cleaning up the remains of our dinner. She knows what comes next.

Jason opens the door. I turn around, but I don't get up. Liz is already sliding on her jacket.

“Claudia,” he says in a way that instantly makes me regret answering his text. I know what I look like. Step one: stop crying. Step two: heal so people stop looking at you the way Jason is currently looking at me.

Liz sighs. She's pissed. “I'm going to head home. Do you need anything else?”

“No, I’m fi—”

“I got it from here,” Jason interrupts. Lawyers, always with the pissing contests.

“I’m fine,” I say again. I stand and hobble a couple inches, ignoring the way Jason’s looking at my hands and my feet. Liz meets me more than halfway and hugs me.

“Just call me if you need me, okay? I'll come right back over.”

“I will.”

There's a terse “see you later” with Jason and then she's gone. Some of the tension drains out of the room. It's always like this. The molecules in the air can only handle so much posturing at once. Jason comes around the couch. His blue eyes are still hard on me. He's still pissed.

“Why didn't you call me?”

“I just got a phone. Today. The cops have my other one in an evidence bag somewhere.”

“Was your computer stolen too?” he snaps. Usually I'd tell him to fuck off. This time I'm quiet. I flinch.

He’s quiet for a moment before he sighs. “I’m sorry. I'm just stressed out from work. And I was worried about you. And Miles,” he tacks on.

You didn't even know Miles, I almost say. I just swallow instead. “I’m glad you're here, but I don't really want to talk about it right now.”

“No, I get it. You've been through a lot. I mean, look at you. You look like you went toe to toe with a bear.”

“Close.” His voice flashes in my ears. That sick laugh. He's telling me to keep running. It's funny to him. It's a game. He's going to catch me.

“I know just what you need. Sit,” Jason says.

I sit. He grabs the remotes and finds the Mets game. Once he’s situated with a glass of whiskey from the bottle he keeps above my fridge, he pulls me into his arms and tugs the blanket over me. I try to breathe.

“I know baseball always knocks you out. Just let the sweet sounds of the third inning rock you to sleep.”

Typically this is where I laugh, where I sarcastically thank him for being so considerate, then leave him to the game while I catch up on work emails or playfully tease his cock through his pants until he's forced to momentarily abandon the game to get me off. Tonight I just swallow and settle against his chest. There are more silent tears. He absently asks me if I'm okay, but he's screaming at the second baseman before I can answer.

I stare at the fire escape. Eventually I fall asleep.

* * *

Month Four

They don’t tell you how long it can take to release a body. Or how long a federal prosecutor will take to tell you things you already know. Like how there won’t be a trial because your brother’s killer confessed and they need to extradite him to another state to stand trial for a triple murder he won’t cop to. The bureaucracy doesn’t give a shit about your feelings.

I get Miles back though. What’s left of him. It makes more sense to bury him on the West coast. He went to college and med school in California. All his friends are there. Liz and Owen are now fast friends. Between the two of them, they inform all the people who need to be informed. Help me settle things with Miles’s apartment and his car. They find a time and a place for his memorial service. Liz does her best, but eventually I have to talk to some of the people who miss Miles, who counted on him being around. They need me to assist with their closure.

There are awful conversations with a woman named Preeti. I have no idea who the fuck she is, but she gets my number from Liz on Facebook and she takes it personally that my brother never mentioned her to me. I’m a dick for telling her that, even though I don’t say it in such harsh terms. Preeti is his girlfriend. She thinks they were going to get married. I don’t refute that ’cause I realize that I have no way of knowing if that was true or not.

When she meets Liz and I at the Paluma County morgue, I tell her I’m sure he misses her, whatever the fuck that even means. He’s dead. I apologize for being short on the phone. I tell her I'm sorry that Miles wasn't the one to properly introduce us. I tell her I'm sorry in general. I am. She cries all over me in the parking lot, until Liz suggest we go inside. I throw up when I finally view Miles’s body. I don’t even try to contain myself. You’re not prepared for something like a pep talk from the county’s sweetest coroner. “This is going to be difficult” does not cover it. They know it’s going to be so difficult that they have a wastebasket at the ready.

My brother is gone. After weeks and weeks of being told to be patient. I can’t even do the weird things I’ve been dreaming of like squeezing his hand one more time or kissing his forehead and telling him I’m comforted by the fact that he’s with our parents again. I’m not looking at my brother. I’m looking at a slashed and gutted husk sutured back together again, a grotesque monster movie version of what my brother used to be. The pain rises in my chest again. The crashing is back in my ears. I can hear his screams, mixing with the sounds of the brush crunching under my feet. The sounds of that man chasing me. I’ve tried to cope without my brother these last few months, but when I see him, we are back in those woods again.

Shep pops into my mind. I fight the image of him back.

Preeti loses it, crumples on the floor in a sobbing heap. I find strange comfort in comforting her. Her shaking gives me something to focus on. Liz asks again what the cost of cremation will be. I don’t argue when Preeti tells me there’s this place in Santa Cruz where she’d like to spread Miles’s ashes. I want to keep part of him with me, but letting him go all together feels like the right thing to do.

We leave Preeti at the hotel. All of us are too raw to even to talk about what we’ve just seen. I can’t even form real sentences. I just keep thinking, my poor, sweet brother. He didn’t deserve this. Those words, over and over, he didn’t deserve this. And another simple phrase. I want Shep.

Liz continues to be a rockstar. She makes sure I’m hydrated and fed. We both know it’s a forgone conclusion that I won’t sleep well, but she climbs into the double bed on my side of the hotel room with me and she’s still there at two in the morning when my body forces me to stop crying and sleep.

In the morning, I almost tell her about Shep. She knows he saved me, but she doesn’t know the rest. That my brain is hopelessly grasping at the moments I spent with him in my hospital bed. Those were the last moments of normalcy I remember. The last time I remember laughing without feeling guilty. Those stupid clowns. Quinten isn’t too far from Stanford, not that far. Less than a half day's drive. I could see him. I’m contemplating how to plausibly show up in Shep’s town with no explanation when Jason texts me and tells me he’s boarding his flight.

That night Preeti cancels our dinner plans. She’s saving up her energy for the service. Liz begs off for dinner too. I don’t even ask if she’s sure. She’s exhausted and even though she didn’t know Miles well, I know she cares about me enough that this whole awful situation is weighing heavily on her. It's been clear the last few months that she can take care of me or pretend to tolerate Jason, but not both. I feel awful and thank her for the millionth time for being the amazing way she is.

After he checks in and moves my stuff to his room, I listen to Jason talk about his clients as he finishes off his third beer in the hotel restaurant. I want to choke him, but it helps distract me. I need to put my own feelings aside. If Jason can forget that he's in town for a funeral, surely I can too. The distraction works until we climb into bed and he tries to slide his hand between my legs. I tell him I’m not in the mood. He comments that I haven’t been in the mood for months.

He apologizes when he realizes that I am not against stabbing him with the blue hotel pen on the night stand. It just hasn't been months. That's a full blown lie. I fucked his brains out two days before I left the city. He apologizes again. He's just worried, he says. I haven't been myself. He hopes the funeral will give me what I need. I scream at him, tell him how he has no idea what this feels like. I tell him he's being selfish. When I calm down I'm so pissed at him that I don't have any nightmares.

The next morning, when we get to the church, I take on the role of silent mourner, and people seem to be completely okay with that. The service is for Miles and his friends. I’m still here. I survived. I’ll see my friends again, hold Jason, fuck him again. Preeti cries enough for the both of us.

As we walk to the reception, Jason slides his hand around my waist. I try to forget the fight we had the night before. I think of Shep’s fingers brushing mine.

* * *

Month Six

“I’m thinking about quitting my job,” I say to my therapist. It’s been suggested to me a few times that I see someone. My boss Lara insists upon it after I tell overrated modeling phenom Kaitey Taylor to shut the fuck up as we both head to the lobby of the Kleinman’s building. I’m not “handling” my grief and my temper seems to be “spiraling.”

“You seem to need a cleansing of sorts. You said that you separated from your boyfriend last week and now you want to leave your job,” my therapist says.

“I just don’t trust myself to keep my job right now.”

“And why do you think that is?”

I like Dr. Mao, but I hate talking to her. I have no idea how you’re expected to tell your therapist the truth. I barely tell myself the truth.

“I'm not happy.”

“Are you not happy with the job or are you not happy with your employer?”

“I'm not sure.” Another lie.

“How have you been sleeping?”

“About the same.”

“Not very much then.”

“Not consistently,” I say.

“Have you been keeping up with your sleep journal?”

“No, but either I can’t sleep or I want to sleep all the time. Or I’m waking up at weird hours.”

“Are you still having nightmares?”

My throat closes. “No.”

“There is nothing that dictates that you need to keep working there, but I would recommend contemplating next steps before making a hasty exit.”

I nod and turn my phone over in my lap. It's off, but fidgeting with it is better than looking at my hands when they're empty. Some of the scars will fade, but a lot of the deep cuts will leave their tracks in my skin forever.

“I don't want to go back,” I say.

“Can you tell me why?

“I just don't want to be there.” I'm not sure I want to be in the city, I almost add.

“Well you haven't had a real break since your brother’s funeral, from what you’ve told me. A break or a fresh start might be a good idea.”

“Yeah.”

“Have you needed to use the breathing exercises this week?”

Like seventeen times a day. “No. I tried to tune people out.”

She scribbles something down. I almost close my eyes and take a deep breath and count to ten. Almost.