By: Sarah Carvajal
Blood trickled down the plastic yellow slide, originating from the back of William’s head, or what used to be his head. It didn’t drip too fast or too slow. I thought it would spew out more like water from a faucet, but it didn’t seem to have the same consistency as water at all. Mary’s scream rang through my ears, as she stood under the worn down playset we used to play on as kids. Blood had seeped through the circular holes above her, coating her purple blouse and matting her once blonde hair.
Charles rushed up the plastic stairs to William’s body, lifting him off the jagged edges of the broken piece of the green railing, a chunk of his head sticking to the metal pole. Charles shook him twice as if he was just sleeping and he could wake up any minute. I thought people only did that in the movies, but I guess it was a reasonable reaction to watching your best friend being impaled on the top of a play set in the middle of your favorite childhood playground.
“You know I went home, back to my mom’s house last weekend,” I say, finally facing towards Dr. Kinsale, staring back into her eager grey eyes. “She made her famous tomato bisque, William, Charles, and I used to eat every Thursday after school as kids. I haven’t had it since before William died, and I couldn’t get myself to take a single bite. All I could think of when I saw it was William’s blood sliding down the park slide. They were the same consistency and both had that red hue. Although they were different shades, the texture was the same.”
“You went to see your mother. That’s really good Nina,” she exclaims, completely ignoring the fact that I can’t even eat soup without thinking of death as she scribbles something down in her shiny periwinkle journal. “Have you gone to see Carl yet, since the incident?”
“No,” I reply, looking away from her. I don’t even bother to correct Charles’s name as I become suddenly fascinated by the dark spill stain on the burnt orange chair I’m sitting on. I’m surprised I’ve never noticed it before, as it looks like an old stain, but it does kind of blend into the vomit colored floral pattern that covers the entire chair. I’m honestly not surprised. Dr. Kinsale’s office is a little gross. Every piece of furniture seems to be something she took off the side of the road after some family decided to upgrade their hand-me-down furniture from their great aunt. Everything in the office seems to have a strange scent as well, like a mixture of the middle school girls’ locker room and the flamingo exhibit at the zoo. The real stench is from the office’s bathrooms. I vowed never to use them here again, as the permanent bright pink and yellow ring around the toilet and strange grayish mold by the sink make me too disgusted to use them. I can’t seem to breathe normally in there, with the pungent scent of piss and shit burning my nostrils from the moment I open the door.
“It’s been almost seven months since the incident,” Dr. Kinsale says, bringing my attention back to her. “Maybe seeing people who were friends with William too will help you get through some of these issues you are having.”
“The incident,” I repeat back to her, letting out a small chuckle, irritated at this whole situation. “Just call it what it is: the death of my best friend. No need to tiptoe around the word death, like it’s gonna hurt me or something.”
This is so stupid. I can not believe that I have to sit in this ugly ass chair, and talk to this new-bee therapist about “all my issues.” It’s ridiculous, and I have other things I need to be doing, like go grocery shopping or get an extra hour of studying for my final exams next week. I’ve been seeing Dr. Kinsale for about six months, and nothing has changed. I don’t understand why my mother is making me go to this crappy excuse for a therapist and sit in her shithole for an office anyway. I’m fine.
“Okay well then we’ll just call it the death then,” she concludes, taking a sip of tea from her coral mug that says good morning beautiful written in gold cursive on the side.
“You know it’s not morning right?” I ask, nodding my head towards her mug.
“Oh yeah, I know,” she laughs, setting the mug down on her glass coffee table. “Now Nina, let us talk more about this visit to your mother’s house. How did it go?”
“We talked, ate the bisque, and talked some more. Mostly about trivial things like school and my exams coming up,” I reply, not wanting to talk about my mom anymore.
“Are you ready for them, your exams,” she asks, trying to get me to talk more, as she gets paid no matter what we talk about.
“Yeah pretty much. I just study nowadays,” I say flatly, playing with a loose string from the floral armchair. “It helps me to not think of William. But even then I still seem to only be able to focus on him.”
“Why do you think that is? What is keeping him stuck in your mind all the time,” she asks, sitting up straighter in her chair, notebook and blue inked pen ready to record anything I say. Why does she want to know everything I’m thinking so badly? I mean I’m the reason he’s dead, so I guess that would be interesting to hear about. I pause for a while, debating on whether or not I should actually tell her what’s going on in my mind or not. She may still be a rookie, but she is a therapist.
“William is dead because of me,” I say, leaning on the palm of my hand, propping myself up against the ugly chair’s armrest. “I dared him to do do a backflip off of the railing on the playground. I said that if he did then I’d let him take a body shot off me in Vegas over fall break.”
“Oh. Well, that was not your fault, Nina. There was no way you would know that he would get hurt, let alone do the dare,” Dr. Kinsale tries to justify, but I know it’s a lie. He wouldn’t have gotten hurt if I didn’t dare him to jump.
“William never backs down to a dare, especially one with a prize,” I laugh remembering when the three of us played William and Charles’s version of Truth or Dare back in our second year of high school, but only with dare questions. We probably took it too far with the superglue on the toilet in the teacher’s bathroom, but it was so fun. Charles always came up with the best dares, and William wouldn’t even blink before completing whatever we threw at him.
“You still couldn’t hav–” she starts but I cut her off.
“What does it even matter why or how? He’s dead, okay,” I yell, rubbing my hand along my hairline, letting out a long dragged out-breath. “Can I just go home? I really don’t want to talk today, and I need to study.”
“Your mom wants you here, and is paying me to talk to you until I see that you are progressing,” She replies, gently switching her crossed legs so that the left was now on top of her right leg. I slump down farther in my chair and look back at the stain on the chair. Dr. Kinsale and I fall into a short silence before she decides to ask another question.
“Let us talk about what happened just after the death,” she starts, taking another sip of her tea. “Who did you go to for support?”
“Charles was the first person I turned too, I guess. But we kind of stopped talking after the police got to the scene,” I reply. “They came after Mary finally stopped screaming and called nine-one-one.”
“So did you talk to Mary at all about any of this?”
“God no,” I reply, nipping that idea in the bud. “Charles and I hated Mary. We could never understand why William liked her so much. It used to just be the three of us before the two of them started dating.”
Mary was such a mom, always telling William what he could or couldn’t do. She never let him go out for drinks unless she was there, and she tried to get him to not hang out with me because she didn’t like him hanging out with other girls. William used to be the most adventurous of us all before she came around.
“Charles and I always had this bet going to see if he’d ever break up with her or if she’d break up with him. Guess we’ll never know now.” It grows silent again, and Dr. Kinsale jots something else down in her notebook.
“What about your relationship with Charles,” she asks, changing the topic.
“What about it,” I ask, looking back up at her confused.
“You keep mentioning him as one of your close friends, but you say you have not spoken with him since the death,” she says, taking her eyes off the notebook to look at me again.
“Charles probably doesn’t want to talk to me. I mean, he knows it’s my fault that William’s dead,” I start. “I mean I wouldn’t be surprised if he never talked to me again.”
“I doubt that, Nina. From your description of him, you two seemed close. Why don’t you give him a call and hang out,” she suggests but doesn’t realize that I can’t. Not after William died. I can’t lose another person I love, not Charles.
“Charles is different,” I say, trying to figure out how to explain my relationship with Charles. He is like my older brother, always looking after me and making fun of me. But so was William. Charles however, has this vibe to him that makes you feel safe and was something that I needed the day William died.
I think back to that day, remembering the blood covering Charles’s arms and chest when he finally stopped shaking William. He looked over to me, his eyes filled with panic then a sudden shift to worry. He rushed to my frozen state, wrapping me in his arms, holding me so that I wouldn’t collapse onto the ground and start sobbing. We stood like that until the cops arrived. He held onto me even while he talked to them on the phone, probably knowing I wouldn’t be able to stand otherwise. I tuned out everything. Mary’s screams, the police asking for my statement, and even Charles after awhile.
“Why have you not gone to see him or talk to him? It may help you feel better and move on,” she says, bringing me back to the present.
“What if I don’t want to move on,” I ask, irritated that she would suggest I forget about William’s death at all.
“I’m not saying you need to forget about what happened. I’m saying move on and live your life; remember his life in a good way, and think of him with happy memories. Talk about his great life with his friend,” she says, gesturing to my cellphone wedged between my thigh and the armrest. “Why don’t you text him and see what he’s up too?”
I look down at my phone, picking it up and scrolling to Charles’s name in my contacts. I laugh at the stupid emojis he put next to his name in my contacts: the baby bottle and the middle finger flashing up at me from the screen make me laugh. He’s so stupid. I click on his name and anxiously type “hey” on the screen.
Send.
Will he reply? What will he say? Will he even want to hang out anymore or be friends? I mean we haven’t talked since William’s funeral seven months ago.
“There, I texted him,” I say, turning my phone so she can see the screen. “Can I go now?”
“Yes,” she says, and I do a double-take.
“Wait what,” I ask, very confused.
“Your session for today is over. It’s been an hour. I’ll see you next week, same time,” she asks as if I have an option.
“Yeah yeah, same time,” I reply grudgingly getting out of my seat.
I walk up the steps to the coffee shop Charles and I agreed to meet earlier this week. I can’t believe that I let my therapist talk me into texting him. I didn’t think I would actually be meeting up with him this week; maybe in a month or two I would be ready, but now? What if he doesn’t show up? What if I walk in and he starts yelling at me?
I open the doors and instantly spot Charles’s large frame sitting awkwardly in one of the tiny green chairs at a small table in the corner of the room. Well, he didn’t stand me up. As I get closer, I notice his hair is slightly longer and curlier than it used to be. It’s kind of nice, similar to how William used to do his hair.
“Hey Charles,” I say, getting his attention. He snaps his head up from his phone, smiling as his brain registers my face.
“Hey Nina,” he exclaims, popping up from his chair to give me a hug me, almost knocking over his iced chai tea latte. His grip is tight, almost too tight, as he seems stronger than he used to be, but it also feels nice. We eventually let go of each other, both of us falling into an awkward silence as we stare at each other.
“So uh, you grew your hair out,” I say, stating the obvious, not sure of what else to say.
“Yeah, so did you,” he states, gesturing to my own hair.
We fall back into silence. I shouldn’t have come or even have texted him. I’m such an idiot. He’ll never forgive me for William’s death. I mean how can I even forgive myself?
“I’m seeing a therapist,” I say, trying to start a real conversation.
“Oh, you are? How’s that going,” he asks.
“Honestly, terrible,” I say, leaning against the table. “I hate going to see her, and the only reason I’m going is because of my mom. She’s been really worried about me since William…” I impede my sentence, seeing Charles visibly tensed at the mention of his name as if he was wincing from my impending strike of the name.
It grows quiet again. Maybe this wasn’t a good idea. Maybe I should have waited a little longer before confronting what I have done. It’s my fault. He’ll never forgive me.
I try to think of some of the exercises Dr. Kinsale told me to do when I get worked up or depressed about William, but I can’t think of any. I honestly don’t know what I would do if Charles doesn’t forgive me or want to be my friend anymore. Well, I guess we would just do what we have been doing for the past six months.
“Have you heard from Mary,” he asks randomly, pulling me out of my spiraling thoughts. I pause for a minute, a little shocked by the sudden mention of William’s annoying girlfriend.
“Um, no. Have you?”
“Thank God, no,” he says, a hint of the old Charles peeping through the awkward silence. “I was just curious because that means that you owe me twenty bucks.”
“Wait, what,” I ask, very lost in following his train of thought.
“Remember the bet we made, when William and Macy had that big fight about the chalupas,” Charles starts, looking smug as he folds his arms, leaning towards me as if he is about to roast me. “You said that William wouldn’t break things off with Mary and I bet you twenty dollars that she’d be out of our hair within the next month.”
“That doesn’t count. He died; he didn’t end things with Mary,” I reply, denouncing his logic.
“Well, I did say that she’d be out of the friend group, not that he’d break up with her. But I mean, he literally died to get away from her,” Charles exclaims, throwing his arms in the air form emphasis, making me laugh.
“Yeah, I bet he’s watching us right now, thinking, God if they only knew,” I laugh, remembering my old friend.
“Yeah,” he chuckles. “He probably is laughing along with us, throwing mad shade at us for talking about our stupid long hair.”
“Well, he’s the one who had to die in order to get away from a woman. So he has no room to make fun of us,” I say, snapping my fingers, looking up at the sky as if I was directly sassing William up there.
“I mean how badly do you need to break up with a girl to throw yourself off a playground in order to get away. Am I right,” he yells, getting a few strange looks from the other customers in the coffee shop.
“Oh my gosh, Charles,” I laugh, not caring that people are staring at us. “But you are so right. She was that bad. I’d do the same thing if I was stuck in a relationship with that demon.”
“Whether or not he’s in heaven or hell right now, it honestly couldn’t have been worse than dating Mary,” Charles says, taking a sip of his iced latte.
“Yeah that laugh was like living in one of Hell’s torture chambers,” I add, shaking my head in laughter.
“See! That’s twenty bucks my-lady,” Charles says, holding out his hand for me to give him his money. I laugh, reaching in my oversized jacket pocket for a twenty-dollar bill.
“Okay, fine,” I say, rolling my eyes at his ridiculous antics. “But only because I hated her and the fact that William always kept his promises.”
“That’s right! William was the king of gambling, and the best at making terrible bets against me,” Charles says, as I put a crumpled twenty in his hand.
“Well, at least we learned two things from William,” I say, smirking up at my friend. “Don’t make bets against Charles and dating Death is better than dating Mary.”