“I didn’t. You hate her, and tonight is all about you, babe,” said Cray, draping his arm around Reilly’s shoulders and giving her a squeeze. “I just noticed that she’s with my friend Drew. Drew’s someone I’ve wanted to introduce you to for ages. I asked her to come to the party, but I didn’t think she would. I never would have guessed she’d be with Parker.”
“Why’s that?” Reilly could guess, but she wanted to hear it from someone else.
“When you meet her, you’ll know why.”
Reilly didn’t feel like explaining to Cray that she had already met Drew, but she was glad to hear Cray’s assessment.
“I don’t hate Parker. She just annoys me. If you didn’t invite her, why is she here?”
Reilly thought it would be just like Parker to crash a party thrown for her.
“I invited her,” said Sylvie, sounding irritated. “Jesus, what’s the big fucking deal? You two made up. I’m going to get a drink.”
Reilly watched Sylvie walk toward the bar and order another drink. She hated the confusion that filled her. She and Parker had allegedly made up, but it didn’t feel like it. And Sylvie was so hot and cold all of a sudden that she couldn’t keep track of the shifts. Reilly decided to let it go until after the award show the next day, and then she was going to have it out with her. Maybe it was time to move on.
Santa Monica Pier - Take 2
“HEY, LADY! WAKE UP!”
The voice came from a million miles away. Reilly recoiled from whatever, whoever it was that was grabbing at her, shaking her. She needed to protect herself, but she was trapped in a swamp and couldn’t rise to the surface.
“Get off!” she moaned, struggling to breathe through the haze of pain threading through her brain. She wondered if she had even said it out loud. Or was it still queued up in the back of her throat, an echo of an idea that never left her head?
The groping hands shook her again. She reached out to slap at them, but her arms were too tired and leaden to obey her, and they fell back to her sides. She struggled to tear through the gauze of sleep, to chase the angry intruder away.
“Wake up!” The voice was louder and the hands were rougher.
“What?”
She managed to open her eyes, though her lids threatened to close with every long blink. It was dark. She was outside. And it was cold. Lights cut through the darkness. Busy people moved all around. She tried to sit up, failed, and then tried again. The man who had roused her pushed her into a seated position. She struggled with her legs, which were tangled in a sheath of fabric. Someone helped her to swing her legs down over the edge of the seat.
“I know. I know. Can’t sleep here,” she said through thick lips, grabbing the bench on either side of her legs to keep from tilting off.
The familiar sound of the ocean acted as a backdrop to her awakening and muted the noise of the people moving around her. An overwhelming sense of déjà vu enshrouded her. Was it a nightmare? She groaned and her teeth chattered in the frigid sea air. She was at the pier on the bench. Again. She closed her eyes.
The hands, warm against the night air, grabbed her again, jostled her shoulders.
“Ow! Leggo!” she tried to yell, but even through the fog of confusion, she could hear that the words were garbled and not very loud. Movement hurt her head. Her brain felt bruised in the tight confines of her skull. The fatigue that held her was like a rope net pulling her down. A terror over not being able to move tried to claim her, but it was chased away by the overwhelming need for sleep. She willed the nightmare fueled by bad memories to end. She reached for blankets but her arms were too tired.
“Lady! Open your damn eyes!”
It wasn’t a dream. The hands were real.
She was able to get her eyes open, and this time, a police officer crouched in front of her, holding her shoulders, shaking her. She was sure that he’d start slapping her if she closed her eyes again, so she worked to keep them open.
“Stay right there,” he said, and stood up to assess the activities behind him. He kept a hand on her shoulder to keep her from moving, but her body wouldn’t have obeyed her if she tried to go anywhere.
A woman in a light blue uniform shirt and dark blue pants came over and draped a blanket over Reilly’s bare shoulders. Shivering and scared, Reilly pulled it around herself, hoping to shrink away.
She tried to peer around the officer. There were several cars parked nearby and people milling about. The lights and movement around her reminded her of a night shoot on location.
A few feet away, through the space between the officer’s legs, Reilly saw a pile of sheets. There were several people standing around them. She realized the rhythmic strobe lights were from emergency vehicles, and that most of the people around her were officers and firemen. The flash of cameras pierced her brain as a man with a professional-looking camera circled a concrete parking pylon and snapped pictures, not of her, but something behind the officer in front of her.
Something very wrong was going on. She tried to stand.
“What happened?” she asked.
“Sit down, ma’am,” said the officer, who was still standing in front of her. His hand remained on her shoulder, and it was enough to keep her seated.
“Tell me what’s going on. Is Sylvie okay?” she asked. Her tongue was thick, but as if a switch had been flipped, she was hyper-aware of everything around her.
She watched two paramedics lift the sheet onto a gurney and realized that there was a person under it. A tennis shoe lay on its side where the sheet had been. A dark puddle flowed from the concrete structure and shimmered next to it.
“Where’s Sylvie?” she screamed.
“Sylvie, Sylvie, Sylvie…” muttered a voice in a sing-song cadence behind her.
The officer in front of her shifted his attention to over Reilly’s head and stepped to the side, with his hand on his weapon.
“This is a police scene, sir. You need to leave the area.” The police officer signaled to his partner to deal with the interruption, and Reilly watched a cop that had been standing next to the gurney move around the bench to escort a homeless man with a sleeping bag draped over his shoulders away from the scene. The officer was not gentle with his guidance and the vagrant fought to juggle the small array of possessions that he carried in his arms.
“Sylvie, Sylvie, Sylvie…” muttered the man as he shuffled away.
“Who’s Sylvie?” asked the police officer, and he crouched down in front of her. She focused on his eyes. It did nothing to ease her fear, but it helped her to concentrate.
“My girlfriend. Where is she? Is she—is she all right?”
“Is she supposed to be with you?” asked the officer, and Reilly began to cry. He would have told her if the person on the stretcher was Sylvie. Wouldn’t he?
“Was—was that her?” asked Reilly, when the officer returned her stare but didn’t say anything.
“No, ma’am. Was she here at one time?”
“I don’t know,” said Reilly, relief that it wasn’t Sylvie falling on her like a heavy wrap. She slumped into the blanket, the edges of which she held to her chest, twisting the corners. Someone was under that sheet, though. The last thing she remembered was doing another round of shots and going back into the bedroom at the party with Sylvie and Parker to do more coke. She shut her eyes and tried to think beyond that, but nothing more came to her.
“You’ll have to come with us,” said the officer.
“I’m okay. I don’t think I’m hurt,” said Reilly. She needed to find her phone and call Sylvie. She needed to know that Sylvie was okay.
“That’s good. But you’ll have to come down to the station with us and answer some questions.”
“But I didn’t see anything,” said Reilly as she got up.
That was when she saw her car parked on the sidewalk. The front fender was just a couple of feet from where the sheet had been.
“Oh, god—” she said, and the world went dark.
&nbs
p; Keep on Breathing
REILLY OPENED HER EYES AS the paramedic wrapped his fingers around her wrist. She was half-sitting, half-lying in the back seat of a squad car, and the paramedic was sitting in the seat next to her, the doors to the car open wide. He stared at his watch while he took her pulse.
“I need to check her pressure, but she seems fine,” he said, placing her hand in her lap and reaching for the stethoscope that was draped around his neck. “If you think we need to take her to the hospital, the other unit will be here in a few minutes. You should keep an eye on her, make sure she doesn’t—”
Reilly leaned away from him before she vomited out the opposite door. All over someone’s shoes. Embarrassed, but too exhausted to care, Reilly lifted her head to see the startled face of the police officer that had been with her on the bench. Great.
“—get sick,” finished the paramedic who held her by the elbow so she wouldn’t fall out of the car.
“Sorry,” said Reilly, sitting back up and wiping her mouth with the edge of the blanket that was still draped over her shoulders. Her head was spinning and her stomach threatened to revolt again. The last thing on her mind should have been whether there were reporters around to have seen her retch up her guts, but that’s exactly what she thought about.
Then she remembered the sheet and the tennis shoe. The concrete barrier. And her car parked on the sidewalk.
“Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod—” She squeezed her eyes shut and rocked. All she saw behind her eyelids was the white sheet lying on the gray cement sidewalk. And the tennis shoe.
Her eyes flew open and she grabbed the police officer. With an irritated grunt, he brushed her off and stepped away, trying to kick off the mess that she had spewed on his feet.
“What happened? Oh my god. What happened? Please tell me. Did I…?”
She couldn’t say it. It was too horrible.
“Ma’am, just sit back in the car. You need to calm down.”
The officer looked disgusted as he blocked her from exiting the vehicle, pulling his soiled pant leg away from his skin.
Reilly tried to sit back, but her head was a swirling mess, and she needed to get up and move. The paramedic tried to wrap the blood pressure cuff around her arm and she shook him off.
“I can’t handle that. Please… please don’t touch me.”
“Ma’am, try to be calm,” said the paramedic, attempting to capture her arm to take her blood pressure.
“Get off!” she yelled, pulling away.
“I’ll have to cuff you or he’ll have to sedate you if you don’t let him do his job,” said the officer, ducking his head inside of the vehicle. Reilly saw the paramedic shake his head.
“Um. I don’t think we need to do that. Maybe Lisa can help,” suggested the paramedic. He swung his legs out of the car door. “Lisa! Come here. Can you…?”
The paramedic slid out of the car, and all Reilly felt was relief that she had more space to breathe. Her relief was short-lived when another light-blue uniformed paramedic moved in beside her. It was the woman who had given her the blanket earlier. Reilly tried to breathe but couldn’t seem to take a deep enough breath.
“Hey, hey. You’re going to be okay,” said the paramedic. Her voice was low and soothing.
“I just can’t catch my breath. I need a little space. If I get up and walk—”
“You have to stay in the car. But try to lean your head back. Take a deep breath.”
“I c-can’t. I can’t breathe,” said Reilly, as tension built in her head. Her peripheral vision narrowed. All she could see was the paramedic’s serious face, her dark hair pulled back in a severe ponytail
“Yes, you can. You can breathe. It’s natural. Shut your mouth and take a deep breath. In through your nose.”
“I can’t—”
Reilly’s vision filled with dark spots and the edges started creeping in. She needed to get out of there.
The steady voice beside her helped to anchor her, but she felt like she was sinking.
“You can do this.” Reilly heard the voice at the end of a tunnel, and a hand clasped her own. “Can you feel that? Think about me squeezing your fingers. Good. Now lean your head back.” Someone cupped the back of her head as Reilly tried to loosen up enough to lean back. “Keep your eyes shut. Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth. See? You‘re doing it.”
Reilly’s head cleared a little as she concentrated on doing what the paramedic told her to do—in through her nose, out through her mouth. There was still the sensation of weight on her chest, but she was able to fill her lungs with air.
“Not too much. Okay? Slow, easy breaths. In… now out… good. Feeling a little better?”
Reilly let go of the hand. The sinking feeling was starting to go away, but her head was beginning to spin.
“Yes. Thanks. I’m just a little dizzy.”
“Keep on breathing. In. Now out. Lower your shoulders.” Reilly felt a hand on her stomach. The touch calmed her. “Relax your chest and stomach. Feel that? My hand on your middle? Breathe into that. You have it. Good.”
Reilly felt the oxygen filling her lungs, and her vision began to clear. Her limbs felt heavy and thick. She concentrated on the warm hand resting on her stomach.
“Okay,” said the paramedic. “I’m going to take your pulse. That’s better. Now I’m going to put the blood pressure cuff back on. Chances are, you’ve had that done a few times.”
Reilly nodded her head. She was so sleepy.
The cuff went on and she didn’t fight, even when it tightened around her arm.
Not a Monster
SHE LEANED AGAINST THE BATHROOM counter. The smooth marble was cold even through her pajama bottoms. The small plastic bottle felt hard and foreign in her palm. She tried to think back to the last time she had taken any of the medication that it held. The days had all blended together since she had been released on bail. She had no idea what time it was, or even what day. The clock next to her bed was broken. She remembered throwing it after waking from a nightmare, but it seemed so long ago. All she’d done was sleep. Nothing had fractured her numbness since she’d retreated so far into herself that she wasn’t sure she’d find her way out. Her sense of disconnection was complete. With the blinds closed, all she could tell was that it was daylight by the lines of sunlight that bordered the darkened windows. Or maybe it was the landscaping lights.
Reilly squinted at the label on the bottle but couldn’t focus enough to read it. She was tired, yet she had done nothing but sleep for over a week—or had it been two?—seeking relief through nothingness. It didn’t work. Even in sleep she saw the sheet and the orphaned shoe. She wondered if anyone had picked the shoe up, or if it had remained on the sidewalk for tourists to walk around. She spent hours thinking about that shoe.
She opened the bottle and poured the contents into her hand. She tried to count the small blue pills, but lost track after starting over several times. She lifted her hand and then lowered it, lifted it again. She thought about tossing the pills into her mouth like a handful of popcorn. Her hand shook. She closed her fist around the pills and turned on the water. She opened her trembling hand and examined the pills sitting on her damp palm. She rotated her wrist and watched them fall. A straggler, caught in the crease between her fingers, had to be shaken loose. The water swept the pills down the drain. She let the water flow to make sure they were rinsed far, far away. She did the same thing with the Lithium and the Valium. They were too tempting to keep taking.
Too tempting to take too many.
She reached over and switched on the light over the vanity.
The woman that contemplated her from the mirror was a surprise.
Dark circles under vacant eyes and greasy hair made her appear haggard. She leaned forward to see beyond that, to find the signs of the monster that she had become. But there were no horns, no scales, no weeping sores. Her expression was flat, but her eyes were clear. She had no new lines to mark the day when she had b
ecome a murderer. Where was the sign that told the universe that she was someone to hate?
Greasy hair aside, the woman in the mirror was still beautiful, but Reilly didn’t feel beautiful. She didn’t deserve to be. She didn’t deserve anything, except to be punished. That she understood, that she deserved. She felt like an empty husk. It wasn’t fair. She shouldn’t be standing there, gorging on the gift of self-pity, when a man was dead because of her. She wrapped her arms around herself and tried to see through her reflection.
“Reilly?”
She heard her mother’s voice in the bedroom behind her, from the room in which she had spent her childhood. She didn’t respond. She realized the water was still on. She made no move to shut it off.
She stood in the bathroom and released the hold that she had on her own arms. Angry red prints marked where her fingers had tried to dig into her flesh. There would be bruises there eventually. She rested her hands on the marble countertop and saw the raw tips where her nails were bitten down to the quick. If she hadn’t chewed them down, she knew that the red marks on her arms would be accompanied by bleeding crescents.
She didn’t feel any of it.
A shadow moved behind her and she saw her mother’s reflection over her shoulder.
“There you are. You’re out of bed. Sylvie’s here to see you. Do you want me to send her away again?”
Reilly tried to reply but her unused voice came out in a croak. She cleared her throat and tried again.
“Can you ask her to wait a few minutes?” asked Reilly around the lump that seemed to have lodged permanently in her throat.
“Are you sure? I can tell her to come back tomorrow,” said Melissa. Reilly had never seen the expression of concern that had been on her mother’s face the last several days.
“No. I’ll see her. I just want to take a quick shower.”
“Well, that’s one thing I’m glad to hear, honey. I’ll have her wait downstairs.”
Reilly wanted to scream that the person under the sheet would never be able to shower again. Instead she turned off the water running in the sink and hoped that the pills were far, far away.
Life in High Def Page 9