Suicide // Haylor AU

Prologue

Author's note:
Before reading this book, I would like to inform you that, this book contains things related to suicide , if you are uncomfortable with such things then you should not read this book. This book is a fictional story which is based on a novel. There will be no cutting scenes in this book so don't worry ! But yes there will be scenes where death will be mentioned. Read at your own risk ! And I suggest you all to read this book very carefully because it is full of surprises. Now , without further do, you can read it 😂

~CK

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Tuesday March 12

Music, especially classical music, especially Mozart's Requiem Mass in D Minor, has kinetic energy. If you listen hard enough, you can hear the violin's bow trembling above the strings, ready to ignite the notes. To set them in motion. And once the notes are in the air, they collide against one another. They spark. They burst. I spend a lot of time wondering what dying feels like. What dying sounds like. If I'll burst like those notes, let out my last cries of pain, and then go silent forever. maybe I'll turn into a shadowy static that's barely there, if you just listen hard dnough.
And if I wasn't already fantasizing about dying, working at the phone bank at Damor's Marketing Concepts would definitely do the trick. Lucky for them they're off the hook in terms of liability because I have a preexisting condition.
Damor's Marketing Concepts is a telemarketing firm located in the basement of a dingy strip mall and I'm their only employee who wasn't alive to witness the fall of Rome. Several gray plastic tables that were probably bought in bulk from Costco are arranged in rows, and everyone gets a phone and a computer. The whole place smells like mold mixed with burnt coffee.
Right now, we're conducting a survey for Paradise Vacations. They want to know what people value more on vacation  or quality of food and beverage or quality of hotel rooms. I dial the next number on my list: Mrs. Ellie George, who lives on Mulberry Street.
"Hello?" a scratchy voice answers the phone.
"Hello, Mrs. George. My name is Taylor and I'm calling from Damor's Marketing Concepts on behalf of Paradise Vacations. Do you have a moment to answer a few questions?" I lack the singsongy delivery of most of my fellow workers. I'm not exactly DMC's star employee.
"I told y'all to stop calling this number," Mrs. George says, and hangs up on me.
You can run, but you can't hide, Mrs. George. I make a note on my call log. Looks like she's not interested in a two-week vacation to Hawaii with a time-share opportunity. Sorry, Paradise Vacations.
Making more than one phone call without a break in between is too much for me, so I turn to face my computer. The only perk of my job is the free, unrestricted internet access. I double click on the browser and log back on to Smooth Passages, my favorite website at the moment.
"Taylor," Mr. Lendon, my supervisor, snaps, mispronouncing my name as always. It's Tay-lor, not Tay-lord but he doesn't care. "How many times do I have to tell you to stop playing around on your computer?" He gestures toward my call log. "You still have a lot of numbers left."
Mr. Lendon is the type of person who could change his whole life if he just once went to a different barber. He currently has a bowl cut, the type more typically found on gangly sixth-grade boys. I want to tell him that a crew cut could really bring out his jawline, but I guess he's pretty happy with Mrs. Lendon so he's in no rush to reinvent himself. Nope, no midlife crisis for Mr. Lendon.
I hate to admit it, but I'm a little jealous of Mr. Lendon. At least he can be fixed, if he wants to be fixed. A few scissor clips and he'll be brand-new. There's nothing that can fix me.
"What?" Mr. Lendon says when he catches me staring at him.
"You have nice hair." I swivel in my chair. I guess I lied, my job has two perks: free internet access and I get to sit in a spinning chair.
"Huh?" he grunts.
"You have nice hair," I repeat. "Have you ever considered wearing it in a different style?"
"You know, I took a risk, hiring you." He waves his wrinkled finger close to my face. "Everyone in this town told me you were trouble. Because of your . . ." He trails off and looks away.
'Because of your father', I complete his sentence in my head. The inside of my mouth fills with the sour, metallic taste I've come to know as humiliation. My life can be neatly divided into two sections: before my father made the nightly news and after. For a moment, I allow myself to imagine what this conversation would sound like if my father was not my father. Mr. Lendon probably wouldn't speak to me like I'm a stray mutt raiding his garbage can. I'd like to think he'd have more tact, but no one wastes their tact on me anymore. But then it hits me, the thought I try to squeeze out of my mind. You wouldn't feel any different inside.
I dip my chin to my chest in an attempt to shake that thought. "Sorry, Mr. Lendon. I'm on it."
Mr. Lendon doesn't say anything; he just looks up at the three giant shiny banners that were recently hung on the office's back wall. Each one of them features James Mckenzie striking some sort of pose—arms crossed over his chest, arms thrown above his head in victory, arms pressed at his side midsprint. He's been Photoshopped to have perfect skin, but there was no need to alter his ashy-blond hair or bright blue eyes. And I know from passing him in the halls at school that his calf muscles really are that large. At the bottom of each giant banner, the words HOMEGROWN IN LANGSTON, KENTUCKY, AND OLYMPIC BOUND are scrawled in red block text.
The banner doesn't say anything about the first boy from Langston who almost qualified for the Olympics. But it doesn't have to. As I watch Mr. Lendon study the banner, I know he's thinking about that boy—the first boy. Almost anyone who sees James Mckenzie's sweaty brow and muscular calves can't help but think of Dean Mckenzie, James' older brother.
Finally, Mr. Lendon peels his eyes away from the poster and turns back to me. He can't look me in the eye, though. He stares over the top of my head as he clears his throat. "Look, Taylor, Maybe it would be best if you didn't come in tomorrow. Why don't you take the day off?"
I press my elbows into the table, wishing I could melt into the gray plastic, into an unfeeling synthetic blend of polymers. I feel my skin starting to bruise under the weight of my body and I silently hum Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. My mind fills with dark and heavy organ notes and I imagine the organ's keys arranging themselves into the shape of a ladder that leads to an empty quiet place. A place away from DMC away from Mr. Lendon, away from everyone and everything.
Mr. Lendon seems to misinterpret my silence as confusion, not complete and utter mortification. He stretches his hands out in front of him, wringing them out like he just washed them. I inspire that feeling in most people—the desire to wash their hands clean. "As you may know, tomorrow we're going to be making calls on behalf of the city of Langston to try and increase attendance at Saturday's rally for James Mckenzie." Mr. Lendon's voice quivers a bit and he sneaks a quick glance back at the banner, as if James' focused athletic countenance may help him muster the courage to continue.
James' magic must rub off on Mr. Lendon because he finds his voice again. "James is coming home for the weekend from training camp and the city wants everyone to show him a warm welcome. And as much as I know you would like to help, I'm afraid some of our customers might feel uncomfortable with you inviting them to the rally because, well, because of your father and . . ." His voice lowers and he continues talking, but he's stumbling over his words and I can't really understand what he's saying. It's something of a mixture between an apology, an explanation, and an indictment.
I try not to laugh. Instead of focusing on the absurdity of how I am apparently too unappealing to even operate as a telemarketer, I choose to zero in on Mr. Lendon's word choice of "customer." I don't think the people we harass on the daily consider themselves to be customers, but rather victims. And thanks to my dad, I'm pretty good at making everyone feel like they could be a potential victim.
Red-faced and flustered, Mr. Lendon walks away from my desk and begins strolling the other rows. He asks Marie to stop chewing gum and he begs Tony to please refrain from smearing hamburger grease all over the keyboard.