Fall into the Break

Chapter Eight

After their date ended, Chase dropped Ruby off at her place. He watched from his truck as she walked up her steps and shut her front door.

He exhaled sharply. He could still smell her perfume as it lingered in the air, and it made him smile. He stared at her apartment building another moment before he turned his attention to his phone.

It was still powered down from earlier, when he turned it off after it interrupted their dance. Now, he held the button until the screen turned white and jingled to life. He set it beside him as he threw the truck into reverse.

It beeped. It beeped again. Chase looked down.

Missed call after missed call popped up as his phone rebooted. Ten calls in total. He put the truck back into park and picked up his phone, a weed of anxiety growing in his stomach.

Two missed calls from the same unknown number.

Eight from Celeste.

Deep down he knew.

He looked back up at Ruby’s apartment and wondered how it would look if he ran up and banged on her door. Begged her to let him in. He wondered how it would look if he left his truck running – left it down here in the black parking lot, to be dealt with by someone stronger. He swallowed hard and looked back down at his phone screen.

He tapped Celeste’s name as a ragged breath escaped his lips. He waited as it rang – every ring sending a wave of nausea through him. He didn’t want to hear her voice. Didn’t want to hear it. Didn’t want to know.

“Chase,” Celeste said. Her voice was low. It was guttural. It was drawn out and heavy. It was a whine – a plea. Chase felt himself sink into whatever was to come. Celeste said nothing for a long time. He could hear her struggle. “Gran passed away tonight. It was her heart.”

Chase shut his eyes. He’d been shot. He saw Gran’s face, smiling and silly, as she handed him an over-filled ice cream cone. He saw her crying over her Bible and holding his grandfather’s hand. He felt her hand pressed against his forehead, and the comfort of her bed on those sick days.

A primal, almost feral part of him surfaced, then. With savage desperation it clawed at his mind, trying to find a reality where this wasn’t happening. Inside he raged against himself – outside he froze. Hand in lap, phone against his ear. He couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t speak.

“Chase? Are you there?” Celeste’s voice was small, like it had been the day they were abandoned.

He tried to speak, but his mouth was sewn shut with steel wire. His jaw tightened as blood drained from his face.

“She went fast,” Celeste said through sharp inhales. “They called me the minute she went into cardiac arrest. We had just left.” Celeste broke down again. Through sobs she continued. “and by the time we got back she was gone.”

“Where is she?” His voice was frail. His heart picked up speed. His body shook as if he’d been left outside on a snowy day.

“Someone from the funeral home came. They told me they’d take care of everything.”

Chase remembered seeing paperwork from Davidson Funeral Home. He remembered the conversations he tried to avoid. A small part of him foolishly thought he’d never see this day, but that day had come and now he wished he could go back. Couldn’t they just go back? Press rewind. This was a mistake. An error in the space-time continuum. He still couldn’t breathe.

“Chase, where are you? Are you home?”

“I should have come with you,” Chase managed to say. His eyes began to fill with hot tears. Barbed wire coiled around his throat and pulled tight with each breath.

“Chase, where are you?” Celeste’s voice changed. She sounded nervous. “We will come get you. Bring you back here to our place.”

Chase was silent.

“I need my brother,” Celeste softly. She inhaled shakily.

“I’ll drive there. I’m not far.” It was all Chase could manage. He ended the call. As he put his phone down, his eyes fell on the glove box. He felt a pull stronger than he’d ever felt. He knew if he drank what was in his flask, the pain in his body would dull. He could delay the grief. He could postpone the ache.

He opened the glove box and rooted around for the cold metal container. Memories of his childhood threatened to take center stage as he pulled out papers and manuals, notepads and pens. Frantic, he searched for his lifeline, but it wasn’t there. His flask was gone.

In his anger he slammed the hatch and yelled. The tears finally fell.
He let out a guttural groan as he leaned his head into the steering wheel. The pain had become an excruciating fire. Voices in his head chided and scolded and mocked him for not seeing her one last time. How cruel -- how selfish to choose a girl over his mother.

Mother? Chase had never let himself think of Gran that way, but it was always there, in the darkest places of his being.

Without another thought Chase slammed the truck into reverse and pressed into the gas pedal. He needed Celeste.

He sped down the highway. Few cars were on the road, but it made no difference. All he saw was Gran getting into Celeste’s car and driving away. His face contorted into a sob as the tears poured down his face. He was almost to his sister’s apartment. That was all he knew. But he couldn’t remember which exit to take and he couldn’t see the road signs through his tears.

He brought an arm up to wipe them away when he suddenly hit a divot in the road and lost grip on the wheel.

His speed was well above the legal limit and this caused him to careen uncontrollably into the oncoming lane.

He saw the headlights before he felt the impact. Chase threw up his hands before he crashed head-on into the sedan.

The world went black.