Page 158 of My Lovely Tragedy
My phone slips in my grip, slick with perspiration, but I pull up the number and hit call with bated breath. Then, I force myself to inhale. It rings endlessly. An echoing wire strung tight enough to snap.
There’s a long lull, then the crackle of static before it’s replaced with a weak, raspy voice.
“Hello?” The word is dawn out in a confused whisper.
My thumbnail digs into the side of my index finger. “Hello. Is this Brooklyn Crow?”
“Uh, yeah?” Another rustle, followed by a thump.
“This is Charles Weaver. I’m Tobias Rike’s attorney.”
CHAPTERTHIRTY-NINE
BROOKLYN
An ear-piercing ringyanks me into consciousness, and my head slams against the window with a loud crack. “Fuck,” I hiss as I drop my head into my hand to probe at the throbbing spot. The shrill sound rises in decibels, drawing my bleary gaze as I strain to see through the first brushes of twilight.
I reach over the center console, and when my fingers clamp around the phone, now vibrating in my hand, I sit up straighter, heart now thrashing. I swipe across the screen to answer, hand trembling as I bring it to my ear.
“Hello?”
A small pause. Long enough for my breath to catch in my throat.Tobias?I want to say. It nearly slips off my tongue, but Ican’t.
“Hello,” a voice I don’t recognize rasps through the phone. “Is this Brooklyn Crow?”
I feel my eyebrows graze my hairline as they furrow. “Uh, yeah?” I shift in the seat and crank the heat against the chill lingering across the windows and seeping in through Tobias’s coat lying over me. I tug it closer as I stare out through the windshield.Where the fuck am I?
“This is Charles Weaver. I’m Tobias Rike’s attorney.”
“What?” I blurt, heart lurching at the mention of his name. Of hearing it come from someone else’s mouth. I shoot up in my seat, dislodging the coat. My knees slam into the steering wheel, and I bite out a curse, swiping my hand over my damp forehead.
“Fuck,” I heave, watching white dots blot across my vision like I’m staring through a mirror.
“I’m calling in regard to Mr. Rike’s last w—” The voice on the other end fades as the phone slips from between my fingers. I barely register the crack of it hitting the door panel as I start the car and peel away from the shoulder.
My left side slams into the door as the car fishtails, but I barely register the throbbing pressure, eyes wide but narrowed on the road in front of me.
TobiasTobiasTobias.
His name is all I hear, all I see, as I stare down the long, endless stretch of gray, only separated by white, striped lines. My fingers are clamped tightly around the wheel in an attempt to keep the car steady, even as my limbs throb and ache from overuse and lack of sleep.
I remember driving. For so long, just gazing out at the dark road, illuminated by the bright headlights. Watching the occasional car pass by and then nothing all over as my insides boiled over with disquiet.
Then things got hazy… I must’ve fallen asleep.
“Fuck!” I shout, slamming my palm down against the wheel. It vibrates under my hold, and I curse. I fuckingfell asleep.Exhausted to my core and unable to keep my eyes open, but… I grit my teeth as tears prick my eyes, following the path to my nose. I sniffle against the onslaught. At my inability to justpush through.
Tobias could’ve done it for me. I should have held on.
I’m just so tired.
My chin quivers through the inevitable rise of the sun over the horizon, casting the sky in a hue of blood-orange. I blink through the spots dotting my vision as I push down the sun visor, forcing myself to sit straight to block the mass of glaring light.
A soft guitar intro sounds softly through the speakers, so I twist the nob—and immediately regret it. The tears I’d been blinking away come back with a vengeance, cruelly opaque and blistering as I drown in the lyrics of “Iris” by The Goo Goo Dolls. A song I’ve heard a thousand times over the course of my life, but for the first time…I know.
I fucking know.
I let them fall, let them wash out my face, stain my skin, and soak my clothes because there is no other choice.
