51. Noah #2
“For Christ's sake, what the hell happened?” I ask. He winces, and starts to move, slowly and stiffly. The pain radiates all over me as I know every muscle and bone must be screaming inside him. He opens his mouth to talk, but it’s just sounds and muffled syllables that I can’t make out.
“I...I... can’t... shit.”
I think he’s having a stroke. “Can you move both of your arms?” His eyes just blankly stare at me. “Okay, I’m gonna move you.” I wrap my arms around him. I’m shaking all over the place, not because he’s heavy, but because I’m going to have to accept this fate and that this is going to hurt.
I help him into a standing position and get him to sit in his recliner. He rasps out as I climb over the clutter searching for the oxygen tank he likes to shove in the corner. I fight with the oxygen tubes and get them inside his nose.
I pull out my cellphone, unlocking the screen, and my finger hovers over the dial pad to call an ambulance, the police.
Someone. My mouth goes dry, and my lips stick to each other.
I can’t even register my own heartbeat anymore.
All I have in my chest is a jagged knife cutting open my sternum.
I crumble to the floor, my ass falling into the clutter tossed around.
I stare at my cell phone, typing in 911 and pressing the green calling button.
My vision tunnels as the emergency operator answers.
“911, what’s your emergency?” And the words are stuck in my throat.
“I need an ambulance and an officer. I had a break in...” I say as I sit on the floor. My lungs burn, my head spins. “I think... I think my grandfather is having a stroke.”
Everything’s too white here and it's way too quiet in this hospital. The only sound is the steady beep of the heart monitor beside the bed. The Grim Reaper is right there again, this time he’s tapping on his wrist as if time is up.
Gramps lies there, tucked under the thin blanket, wires running from his arms, tubes taped to his skin.
His chest rises and falls at such a slow rate that I believe each one is his last.
“So run me through this again,” the cop says, clicking on his pen, glancing at his notepad. “You were playing at a concert.”
“Yeah, I got home around two this morning.”
“And the door was just wide open.”
“Yeah.”
“Do you know if anything was stolen?” he asks.
I shrug. That was the least of my concerns. “I don’t know. I didn’t have time to look.”
“Do you have any security cameras we can review?”
“They haven’t worked in years, sorry.” I run a hand through my hair. I haven’t slept, and I’m starting to become delirious.
“Can you think of anyone who might want to hurt you or your grandfather?” Him no, me yes. But he was at the concert, unless he bombarded my apartment before the concert even started. That thought – of Gramps laying on the floor for hours – makes me even sicker.
“The cameras aren’t working, so I'm not sure what good accusing someone is going to do.”
“Do you have any names, any leads?”
Yes, Brody Thomas and his band of merry assholes. I pause for a second, swallowing hard because I can’t accuse him without evidence. I think Charlie mentioned his dad is some hotshot lawyer or something. I shake my head, crestfallen.
“Well if anything comes to mind, let us know.”
“Thanks.”
The officer walks out with heavy steps. I decide to sit in the chair beside Gramps, hunched forward, elbows on my knees.
My leg won’t stop bouncing. At some point a nurse came in and noticed my knuckles, offering me an ice pack and a wrap to cover it.
I took the kind gesture, but at this point the pain in my head is worse than crushed bones in my hands.
Eventually I was able to speak to a doctor.
It took them long enough to finally come in and run tests, but the second they say he indeed had a stroke my ears start to ring and the doctor's voice fades into nothing. I can’t hear a damn thing.
He had a stroke before arriving, and another on the way here.
It’s gnawing at my insides that if I was with him maybe I would've been able to get him help sooner.
That I would've been home to stop someone from invading my house and hurting him.
My phone buzzes in my pocket, the vibration cutting through the soft hiss of oxygen. I almost ignored it, but the name on the screen made me answer.
“Hey Omen,” I say.
“Hey, man. I didn’t wanna bother you, but this dude, Ryder, uhh he just stopped by the house… He’s looking for Charlie. Said she’s been missing since last night, doesn’t know where she's at.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “I don’t know where she is.”
“You haven’t heard from her?”
“No.” My throat tightens. “After what she did last night, I want nothing to do with her. I’m done. Not after that. I’m one-hundred percent fucking done.”
The words taste like acid, but I force them out anyway.
Omen sighs softly. “Well… let’s just take it easy, and when you’re ready we can work on the demo.”
“Yeah,“ I trail off, glancing at Gramps. The machines beep quietly. There’s a long silence on the line.
“How’s he doing?” Omen asks quietly, breaking the silence.
“Not good. He won’t wake up.” I just want someone else to take over my body and live my life so my soul can take a damn break. I can’t do this.
Omen exhales. “Shit. I’m sorry, man.”
“Yeah.” I stare at Gramps’s face, the faint stubble on his jaw, the deep lines around his mouth that used to crease when he laughed. “Me too.”
“Can you do me one favor...” Omen says.
“What?”
“Just talk to her brother real quick and tell him you haven’t heard from her. He won’t leave.”
I stare out the window. The rain from earlier left streaks down the glass. I keep my eyes there because it’s easier than looking at the bed. “Yeah, that’s fine.”
The bell over the door jingles as the last customer leaves, and the store goes quiet.
It’s just me and the hum of the fluorescent lights.
The shop smells of dust and vinyl, like it always has.
I should feel comfort in that because it smells like my grandfather, but instead it just weighs on me.
I’ve been trying to keep busy restocking bins and cleaning shelves.
The OCD kicked in, and I was cleaning things three or four times, alphabetizing the same albums I'd already organized twice.
Anything to stop thinking. Anything to avoid the image of Charlie walking out of that greenroom.
I want to forget my grandfather is laying in a hospital bed and that my phone is going to go off any second now with the hospital calling me to tell me he's gone.
The second that thought creeps into my head my phone lights up on the counter.
Guess I should knock on wood before thinking too much.
I glance at it, and a notification comes in from the local news.
I get those notifications from time to time, but the title of it sends the coldest chill down the center of my spine.
My thumb hovers over the screen, and something whispers in my ear that I need to brace myself. I opened the article.
“Oh shit...Charlie...”
My stomach drops. The oxygen in the room is sucked out like a vacuum.
I can’t breathe. The phone slips from my hand and hits the floor with a sharp crack that echoes through the shop.
I lean against the wall, my knees giving out before I can stop myself, sliding down until I’m sitting on the musty carpet.
My hand fists in my hair as I try to breathe. “Please, God. Why are you fucking doing this to me?”
Missing. It repeats inside my head. The letters spell out the title of the article. Missing. She’s missing. No sound comes out. It’s just the heavy pressure in my chest that keeps building and building and I might just die right here because I can’t breathe.
I stare at the floor, at the faint reflection of the neon “Open” sign flickering in the window. Her face won’t leave my head. Her smile, the way she said my name, how she told me she loved me. Even by the leather couches I see the poster boards we crinkled as I made love to her against the wall.
My hands shake as I pick up the phone. I open Safari and type Charlie’s name and find her Instagram.
God, she follows way too many people. It’s a rabbit hole trying to find Payton.
When I do, her profile is flooded with men harassing her – leaving comments on her pictures about wanting to sleep with her and calling her names.
She’s tagged in videos with her phone number, telling everyone to call her for a good time.
What the fuck is going on?
I memorize her number and type out a message. I've gotta know if it’s even true. If I’m reading this headline correctly.
I’m leaning against my truck outside the store staring at the cracks in the pavement.
Payton plops down on the sidewalk waiting for her Uber to arrive.
She talked to me for a little while, and convinced me I needed to close the store and be with my grandfather.
Her arms wrap around herself like she’s trying to hold in whatever’s left of her.
I can barely hold myself together at this point too.
Her best friend is missing, and the one and only person I think I’ll ever say I fell in love with is gone.
Now all I have is a terrible memory of her.
It’s the last one. Our last words. I want to erase them entirely.
“You don’t have to wait with me, my ride will be here any second,” Payton says.
“I saw those messages on your instagram, I don’t mind waiting.”
“But you really should go to the hospital and be with your grandpa.”