Breakdown (Crash into Me) (29 page)

The day was practically over, but I tried calling William again, my disappointment growing slightly when it went straight to voicemail. Still, when I remembered the success of the heist from the prior day I didn’t let it get to me. After all, I was the woman he had spent the night with, and he was probably twice as busy with work than usual. There was no need for me to start getting pushy and possessive.

The real disappointment didn’t begin until the next day, slowly seeping into me like poison from a snake bite. I felt it creep into my veins, clenching and cramping my muscles until it gradually became harder to breathe. Regardless, I made excuses for why William hadn’t called me back. I told myself that he was somehow still so preoccupied with work he couldn’t take sixty seconds to call me back, that maybe he had gotten a sudden bout of sickness, or was hungover from a night out with the guys… I made up exactly twenty-two excuses to avoid thinking about the most obvious one.

Still, as I sat in class all throughout Monday, images of jail cells and interrogation rooms flashed through my head. I was certain the only reason I wasn’t in any of them now was because the guys didn’t know my last name (or my first one for that matter) and if William had gotten into any sort of serious trouble there was no way he would ever give me up to save himself.

Though if it would spare him any time behind bars I would gladly wish he would.

Thoughts like these pestered me throughout the day, getting so bad, that I went ahead and made an additional appointment with my counselor for as soon as possible. Even if she couldn’t help me with my love life—or my slight criminal undertakings—then maybe she could keep me calm on my lack of culinary school responses. 

Me
:
Hey, I’m sorry about the other morning. Can we talk
?

When night came, I laid in bed and waited for my phone to light up or chirp with some kind or response. Because I didn’t get what I wanted, however, I started hoping childishly that William had lost or—ironically—had his phone stolen. I wasn’t sure at what point I started to cry, only that when I did, the tears tasted sour and stuck to my throat long after I fell asleep.

The sticky feeling was still there when I left for work Wednesday morning. Luckily, Mom left for the home office just before I did—a fight avoided for a few more hours. The bakery itself was a blessing in disguise, because although we weren’t terribly busy, I had enough to do within that first hour or so to keep William distant in my thoughts, sparse until his image starting reappearing again.

I hadn’t heard from him in three days, and was admittedly growing more agitated with each passing minute. Granted, this would be nothing to most girls. But considering he checked up on me every day, I worried intensely. What if my lack of response at his confession of love had offended him? I seriously doubly William was the kind of man whose wounded pride couldn’t be repaired. But what if it was worse than that? What if during the time to think he had realized he had just gotten caught up in the moment and he didn’t really love me at all? I was almost sure I couldn’t handle that, especially when I had
just
come to the conclusion that I loved him. Then again, how could I be sure of anything other than my love for him?

I worked slowly throughout the day, keeping myself busy with the mediocre tasks that I usually reserved for the end of the month. With the help of one of the illegals, I emptied out the storeroom and cleaned up all the shelves, mopped the floor, and evacuated all the cobwebs from the high corners before putting everything away. My manager even gave me a compliment and thanks for the hard work but I was hardly aware of it, because once I was out of things to do my brain was rattled by William again.

In the unlikely event that he had lost his phone somehow, I showered quickly when I got home and went straight to his place. Even though his car wasn’t parked anywhere that I could see, I didn’t hesitate to step up to his door anyway.

“William?” My voice cracked and was way too soft to be heard over the ruckus of the restaurant, but I tried again anyway. “William? Are you home?”

I knocked several times before stepping back and trying again. I had never wished more that William had windows—real windows, anyway. And though I considered walking over to the other side of the building and kneeling on the sidewalk to try and catch a glimpse inside, I settled instead for resting my ear against his front door and listening for signs of life. Concentrating as hard as I could, I could hear the sound of water pipes from the restaurant above, but nothing else. I waited a minute more before stepping back and knocking again. At my last twinge of desperation, I dialed his number and hit the send button.

Sure enough, there was nothing but silence.

From there, I called Tabby, more than distressed at this point but not knowing what to do about it. I even thought about the excuse of wanting to return her dress if the topic came up. But once again there was no response, and the phone rang for what felt like forever. When I couldn’t remember the name of the place where she worked, I even tried calling a couple of the gentlemen’s clubs in the area, and the only ones I found a phone number didn’t have anyone named Frenchie or Tabby who worked there.

Admittedly, by then, my worry evolved back into disappointment, and I relinquished myself to the possibilities that seemed endless in my imagination and consistently negative in my head. Eventually, after a few more hours of letting my imagination run wild, I decided to go ahead and see if my fears we at all accurate. Unfortunately, it didn’t take long to find out that they were.

Police Release Description of Carjacking Suspect

RIVERCITY, Calif. -

Rivercity police are investigating a carjacking that took place at the Mission Inn Hotel & Spa last Saturday. It happened around 9:40 p.m. on the north side of the parking lot.

Police say twelve vehicles whose worth ranged from $100,700 to $403,400 were stolen while security officials and other hotel officials were being distracted by two unidentified females. It is unknown if their presence was intentional.

Officials say a male suspect was seen near a commercial car carrier trailer before taking off in a white Chevrolet Chevelle off north Blossom Street.

The suspect has been identified as a white male with blond hair between the age of twenty and thirty. Several colorful tattoos on his arms were also identified.

Police ask if anyone has information regarding this incident to call 911.

That was it then, William had almost definitely left town. But why didn’t that make me feel much better than the alternative of him getting arrested? I ventured to guess it was because he hadn’t asked me to go with him—if not for my own freedom than for the company. What hurt worse than that was the fact that he hadn’t even bothered to tell me that he was leaving, hadn’t even bothered to say good-bye.

I put my hurt aside and considered the other possibilities. What if William had been arrested and the article was just a decoy to turn his accomplices against him? Worse yet, what if he had been on his way out of town somewhere and gotten hurt? Had he crashed Bloody Mary and didn’t even have his phone to call for help?

A day passed and then another with no word from William, Tabby, or even the police. And like the stalker in training I was, I passed by his apartment and the chop shop at least once a day in search of him. Sure enough, both places showed no signs of life. Other than that, I did my best to go about my routines, keeping my ears open for sirens and revving engines, and my eyes wide for pink hair and white muscle cars. By Friday night I gave in and started driving around looking for races. I spent three hours driving around southern California, even stopping outside a strip club and looking for Tabby’s car before I ended up turning around and heading back home. If Mom hadn’t been in town and my eyes hadn’t been so blurry I might have continued. Hell, if my stomach hadn’t hurt so bad from missing William I might just have chugged a few energy drinks and driven straight through the night.

I was at work on Saturday when Dad came back. I hadn’t expected to see him until later in the day, so I was especially surprised to see him walk right into the bakery—an effort he hadn’t made since I first started working there.

“Hey, Kiddo.” He nodded at me awkwardly before going to loosen his tie. “You got a minute?”

Though it was technically still morning, the warmer winter weather kept people out of the shop. I finished boxing up a batch of cookies and handed them to the waiting customer before stepping out from behind the counter.

“Hi, Dad.” I waved with only half my hand in the air. “You want anything?”

“No thanks, Kiddo. Why don’t you take a load off though?” He pointed to one of the bistro sets and smiled sadly. “You look beat. Have you been sleeping lately?”

I avoided the question entirely and took the seat offered to me. The truth was that I hadn’t been sleeping. I hadn’t been sleeping at all.

For a solid three minutes we sat in silence, looking away from each other every time we nearly made eye contact. I was certain about the minutes, because I counted the seconds to keep my eyes from getting droopy.

“Dad, you know I really should get back—”

“Your mom says you two have been fighting all week.” His voice was meek, frightened even. Had she been calling him with daily updates? Informing him about every eye roll and slamming door?

I picked at a piece of paint on the storefront window. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure you have to verbally communicate to fight, or throw punches.”

I wasn’t trying to be funny, but Dad still smiled. “Don’t tempt me.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way, Dad, but I’d put my money on Mom.”

He hung his head in shame. “Yeah,” he sighed. “I can’t blame you.”

I flicked the paint chip off my finger. “So did you come here to here to tell me to play nice or what?”

“That’s what your mom thinks. I told her I would try to convince you to stay at USC.”

I stared out the store front window and watched the clouds move across the sun. Was William watching shadows moving along the asphalt at this very same moment? Was he thinking about me too? Thinking about me at all?

“I’ve already made up my mind, Dad.” Maybe it was thinking about William, but my voice didn’t sound nearly as decisive as I intended it to be.

“I know that,” Dad said. “I knew that a few years ago when you first said you wanted to go to cooking school.”

I’ll confess his response surprised me. “S-so you’re not going to try and talk me out of it?”

He shook his head. “I wish you had a love for business, but you gave it a solid try and that’s all we can really ask of you.”

If I hadn’t been so emotionally messed up I would have reached over the table and hugged him. As it was, I covered up my trembling lip and rocked my jaw back and forth to keep from crying.

“Thanks, Dad.” I wanted to say more, but it was all my shaky voice could manage.

“And I know what Mom said about the tuition situation. It was a bluff. You know we’ll help out wherever you get in.”

“Dad I…” I sniffed and struggled to regain myself. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Kiddo.” He smiled like I hadn’t seen him do since I was a kid. “Now tell me about this boy you’re seeing.”

Dad’s visit had been a pleasant surprise, and provided I got into any of the schools I had applied to it was something of a relief to know that I wouldn’t have to worry about money right away. Better yet, I wouldn’t have to go to war with both of my parents over my education, and ultimately my career choice.

As the rest of the weekend went by, I wasn’t as relieved as I should have been. In fact, as the realization that I might never hear from William again—let alone see him again—began to sink in, molecules of my depression started floating back into me. If it was from the lack of William, racing, my friends, or a combination of all them I didn’t know, and I didn’t bother exploring it. Instead, I let my insomnia do the thinking for me. Every night of the week I’d leave the house looking for any kind of adventure I could find. When that didn’t work or I was too exhausted to search, I’d lay in bed during my free time and relive our one and only night together, committing every second to memory like a recipe.

In the months before I went to die, I had perfected the art of crying quietly, so I quickly rediscovered that this wasn’t an issue. But in the two weeks since I had left William standing in his underwear, it wasn’t so much that I wanted to cry, but more that I wanted to rage. I wanted to hurt and scorch everything in my path, set things on fire with my eyes and crash cars into every ugly thing. If I had more self-awareness, hadn’t been so stupid, then maybe I could have been with William right then and there, but because I was so afraid of everything I felt I lost him forever.

Once again I hated myself, only this time it was for an entirely different reason.

I watch while the remainder of my heart fell on the floor. And like a slug being salted by a curious child, it withered in agony, oozing a pus-like liquid as it tried to squirm away. Stinking, it bubbled and smoked while chunks of it disappeared. To my credit, though, I quickly realized that the new holes were the parts of my heart that had been eaten away. I watched it for a while, watched until it flopped to its side, the ends crusting over and withering away