Freedom

Last night I couldn’t sleep. I laid in bed next to Olivia and it stormed, but when I looked outside there was no rain, and the bed rocked from side to side and I saw Katie’s face surrounded by roses. At four AM I got out of bed with every intention of driving to the nearest overpass and leaping into the morning traffic when it came. Instead I got a glass of water and went back to bed. 

Today is Saturday. Olivia has the weekend off and no intention of going out. I make her eggs for breakfast and listen to the voicemail my mother left me last night. She says the same things as David did, only she doesn’t yell. Irritation penetrates her voice through the entire recording, though. “We’re your family and we only want to help you, James.”

I don’t hate my family. I understand why they all hate me. I just wish they would give up, stop pretending to care. I used to go months without hearing from any of them. I spent the last twenty years of my life being a minor annoyance in their peripheral vision, they should be thanking me for ending it, not trying to stop me.

At one o’clock I drive into town to buy ammo for my idiot brother’s gun. When I get back Olivia is asleep on the couch. I go back into the bedroom and load the gun with a single round and put the rest in my backpack. 

I stand in the doorway and watch her for a moment, wondering if I should write a note. I’m terrible with words but. . . no one has ever been so nice to me, maybe I owe her an explanation. I turn to go look for paper and a pencil, but Olivia stirs and calls my name, so instead I throw the gun under a pile of clothes.

“Jimmy?”

I step out of the bedroom, “Yes, I’m here.” I regret this as soon as I say it, it sounds too much like I expect her to want me here. 

But she smiles at me. “I must have dozed off, oopsie.” She pushes her hand up into the messy bun her hair is gathered in on top of her head. 

I sit down on the couch next to her and we watch cooking shows for the next hour. During one commercial break she gets up and leaves the room. Suddenly I feel the muzzle of a gun pressed against the side of my head. I freeze. 

“Give me all your money, sucker.” Olivia laughs playfully. 

“Careful,” I wince, reaching back to take the gun from her. 

“Relax,” She shows me the magazine which she holds in her other hand, and slides the pistol open to reveal the empty chamber. “I wouldn’t hold a loaded gun to your head.”

“Where did you learn so much about guns?”

She grins, “My dad was a cop.”

“Really?”

She giggles, “Yea, I know my way around a pair of handcuffs too.” She purs. “So what’s the gun for? You don’t seem like the type.”

“I, uh. . .” I fumble, feel myself start to sweat, “Mushroom hunting.” 

Her face darkens with realization and a single, pained “Oh” escapes her lips. I watch the gun and the magazine drop to the floor and she turns away, shaking, crosses her arms over her chest. She leaves the room and I put the magazine back in the gun and put it in my backpack. Part of me wants to find her and comfort her, and part of me is afraid of the part of me that wants that. She seemed really upset, but maybe I’m just overestimating how much I mean to people, like usual. Why should Olivia care about me at all? And why wouldn’t she say something if she did? 

I settle back onto the couch and after a while she returns, but she is silent and distant. I order takeout for dinner, since I have a little cash and while we are eating Olivia looks up from her food. 

“You should call Katie.”

I blink, “Call Katie?”

“I mean, if you’re going to shoot yourself anyway, what harm could it do? And don’t you want to see what she says?”

What harm could it do? I let my mind run rampant with the possibilities for a moment.  I had thought about it before, of course. But I never had called her, I was too scared that I wouldn’t be able to hold back when I heard her voice, I would cry or say something stupid, probably both. I was scared that I wouldn’t be able to deal with whatever she said to me, good or bad. After a while the jumble of memories of our time together twisted and blurred in my head so much that I started to think that I was part of the reason she left. If Katie loved me she would have stayed. If Katie loved me she would have called or emailed. But now there is nothing at stake; nothing matters. What’s one more embarrassing blunder heaped on top of a lifetime of them? 

“I should call Katie.” I look at my phone, it’s six o’clock. “I’ll do it after dinner.” 

Olivia smiles faintly, then continues eating in silence. 

When the two of us finish eating I shut myself in Olivia’s room with the phone book open on the bed. I call Katie’s mother, who still lives in town. 

“Hello?”

“Hi, Mrs. Rayner, this is Jimmy Thurman.”

“Oh,” She says, “James Thurman, how have you been?”

“Good,” I fib. “Sorry to bother you so late in the evening. I was just wondering if you had a number where I could reach Katie. . .”

“Oh,” her voice drops and my heart drops along with it. “You didn’t hear? Sweetie, Katie died in a car accident last month.”

I lose all feeling in my limbs. I can hear my voice, outside of my body, “I’m so sorry to hear that, I had no idea. Yes, you have a goodnight too, Mrs. Rayner.” 

I let the phone drop from my hand and feel tears running down my face. I feel dizzy, I feel like the entire world has just collapsed around me. Outside of this small, dimly lit room the world has been pressed flat. I am an empty person stranded in an empty world. The only thing that has ever meant anything to me is gone. Not hopelessly out of reach: Gone.

The door opens, my body does not respond to the sound. 

“What happened? Jimmy? Are you okay?”

Olivia climbs onto the bed with me and I am transported back in time six years, to the first summer that Katie and I knew each other. On a hot day when she got into bed with me and I began silently rehearsing my retelling of the moment for my friends later. But those perfect red lips parted and dispelled my thoughts of anything else. She told me it was like this everyday in California, and her eyes were fixed on the cloudless scrap of blue sky floating outside my bedroom window. She told me she would go there, someday, and it would be summer all the time. 

“What’s in California?” I loved her voice when she told me about her future. I loved hearing her wrapped up in a thought, an idea. The world was open and endless when she spoke. 

She smiled at me, closed her eyes and said the word like it was a sacred prayer she had learned at birth, and had been repeating ever since. “Freedom.”

Olivia’s hand on my face pulls me back to reality, but I am numb to the pain in her big blue eyes. “It’s nice to have closure at least, isn’t it?”

“No,” My voice is thin and pathetic. “She’s dead.” The words are like ice. 

“Oh," She gasps, "Jimmy I’m so, so sorry.” She puts her arms around me, but I can’t move. The world is still empty outside. I cry for a long time. When I am aware of myself again the two of us are laying on our sides next to each other, and my forehead is pressed against her chest, as she hugs my head. I look up at her and she pushes the hair off my forehead and it feels good, but my body aches with fatigue and my eyes sting. 

I sit up, “I should go.” My voice is hoarse. Outside dusk has enveloped the world in its silky blue canopy. 

She clings to me and tears well in her eyes. 

My heart aches, “Olivia, don’t, don’t. This has nothing to do with you and, and it has to happen.”

“Why?” She pleads. The tears spill down her face and my heart tears in half. “Why does it have to be like this, Jimmy?”

“Because. . . Because my life is empty and stagnant and I can’t live like this anymore. I have nothing to offer the world and I am miserable. I struggle just to get out of bed every day. I am not ambitious, I am not smart, I am lazy and pathetic. I try, I used to try, but I failed, I failed at everything. I am in a cage, and I’m not oppressed or disadvantaged or handicapped, I’m just worthless and pathetic and the world is better off without me.” I can feel the heat in my face and suddenly I feel bad that I let all of this out like this. Olivia just wanted her lightbulb changed. After a moment I look up at her. “I’m sorry.”

She kisses me and I close my eyes and savor the moment like it’s the last bite of my last meal. “Jimmy, every life has the potential for infinite beauty. I’m sorry you don’t see that in yourself, but I do. And I, I need you to give yourself a chance.” 

I stop for a moment and look into her eyes. It’s not that simple. It’s not what she is saying that gives me pause, it’s how she says it. I cannot process what she is saying, but one thing is certain: Olivia likes me. Olivia is wonderful, she is beautiful, like a bundle of wildflowers tied with string. She is sweet and gentle. She is genuine and kind and she likes me, and maybe that proves that I really do belong here. Maybe that’s enough.

“I can’t go back.” I whisper to us both. 

“Of course you can.”

Author's Note

this chapter comes with special thanks for my boyfriend, who had to teach me handgun 101 so i could write this