Page 2 of No, You Hang Up

I’m not dumb enough to invite death by walking into a rest stop frequented by traveling clowns.

Telling myself today is not my day to be murdered, I kick open my door and jog across the grass of the empty rest stop. It’s both comforting and not to be the only one here, and I quickly shove open the door to the main lobby and its bright fluorescent lights that threaten to blind me.

Somehow, they remind me of the funeral home lobby. Though this looks nothing like the Pensacola funeral home where my uncle’s body lay in repose, waiting for the procession of visitors to wish their final farewells in soft, hushed tones.

“Fuck,” I murmur, forcing myself to move when I realize I’m standing still. The bathroom is delightfully dirty, with no janitor in sight, so I try not to look at anything before quickly shoving my way into a stall and impatiently emptying my bladder.

The whole thing takes me maybe two minutes, tops, before I’m back in my car with the air blasting on me. It’s early spring, but in Kentucky, that can mean a lot of different things depending on the whims of Mother Nature. Tonight, the air is humid and hot—even though it’s still April—and my AC is a lifesaver, even at midnight.

“You can do this, Kai,” I sigh to myself, once more throwing my head back against the seat. “Somehow, you survived the funeral and being around your family. You can survive one more hour of muscle cramps and boring interstate.”

In less than a minute I’m back on the empty interstate, and fiddling again with the screen above my console. I don’t leave it to chance this time. Instead, I navigate to my audiobooks and throw on some collection of horror stories that will probably make this drive creepier than it needs to be, and haunt my dreams when I get home and crash out on my couch.

Maybe I’ll sleep for the rest of the night once I get there.

Hell, maybe I’ll sleep for twenty-four hours. I’m sure I could use it, after the week I’ve had.

two

Unfortunately, one hour becomes two, thanks to construction.

Then three,thanks to construction.

By the time I finally stumble through the front door of my small, two-bedroom ranch style house I inherited from my aunt, I’m ready to just fall down onto the floor and use my arm as a pillow. Hell, I probably don’t evenneeda pillow. Just my face on the fake hardwood.

“You’ll regret sleeping in the foyer, Kai,” I grumble. “And the neighbors will see you through the window. They’lljudge.” I remind myself that Patrice would definitely tell the HOA, and I’ll end up with some letter taped to my door about how floor-sleeping is against the code.

I’ll probably have to pay a fine, which I’m definitely not financially set up for at this time.

Kicking the door shut hard enough that it really might reach Patrice’s ears—bless the delicate peach—I groan and drop my duffel bag to the floor. Once more I gaze at it, considering how the clothes inside would make an excellent pillow and I’ve definitely slept somewhere worse.

Like in a puddle of my own vomit in a dorm room with the window open in the middle of a Michigan Winter.

“You aren’t eighteen anymore,” I mumble, carrying on a conversation with myself, just as I usually do. My friends are used to it, thankfully, but I can’t help the way my stomach twists at the memory of my Floridian family glancing my way in concern and disdain whenever they heard me muttering to myself about something stupid or unimportant. Like the weather.

With my feet dragging, I glance around the main living room and into the kitchen, making sure that nothing has changed in the past five days. I know Em has been here every day, just to check up on things and using her spare key, but still I…worry.

I always worry.

But everything is quiet, until the AC kicks on lightly to cool off the room. I let my shoulders fall as I remind myself that things really are the same here. They’re better here than they could ever be in Florida, which is why I’m halfway across the country from my family.

Ungluing my bare feet from the floor is a monumental task, but I manage to drag myself to the one bedroom with a bed in it, despite Em’s and Madalyn’s constant complaints that I’m not utilizing my space well enough. The second bedroom is an office, sort of. Though with only a desk and a few shelves on the walls, it’s barely even that. I just don’t have a use for it, given that I live alone and don’t regularly entertain.

Unless I count Patrice’s too-frequent visits as she regales me with stories on how bad of a neighbor my aunt was, and how I shouldn’t want to slip down the same path.

Honestly, my late Aunt Hortense is quickly becoming my idol for herneighborly conduct.Especially if it means making Patrice’s life just a little bit difficult.

I strip off my clothes on the way to my bedroom, leaving them on the hall floor until I’m left in just my underwear and a t-shirt I snagged from the clean laundry pile on my way by. There’s no way I’m actually doing laundry, not when I can barely remember how to walk. And atlastI face plant my bed with my best zombie-like groan.

God, I’m so tired.

Tired enough that within minutes, I’m falling asleep. Still wondering if I actually locked the door or if I’d accidentally left it open for Patrice to come in and slap fine notes all over my house with reckless abandon.

Too bad I don’t have a guard dog trained on her scent specifically, I think to myself as I drift off.

Idon’t know these people.

Sitting awkwardly in the front row of the benches in the funeral home, I fidget with my hands and pick at my nails until they sting and blood wells to the surface of my skin. Dressed in a simple black skirt, leggings, boots, and blouse, I feel as out of place as if I wore bright pink to the funeral.

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