edenjane
10-23-2011, 03:50 AM
This is my first attempt at writing in a long time. I'm not sure where I'm going with it, I just sort of wanted to practice building suspense. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
I paced back and forth across the living room, my mind too much of a mess to gauge how tightly I held my rosary beads. I was certainly no Catholic, the beads were a less-than-subtle gift from my mother, but I wasn’t going to kick any forms of luck in the teeth tonight. I pulled the curtains away from the window, as though I expected him to show up instead of calling. I wanted to take the receiver off the base to check my telephone connection but feared he would call at the exact same moment.
“What are you doing?”
I jumped at the unexpected voice and saw my boyfriend, John, standing in the entry way looking confused. I shook my head, the sudden need to split my thoughts into two very separate categories making my response stagger. He looked from side to side, considered repeating the question.
“Um,” I said eloquently, “My…” My sleep starved brain grasped for any sort of story that might explain my behavior. I thought about my surroundings, about the circumstances that would be obvious to him, and quietly cursed my situation for forcing me to start lying to John again. Once I remembered I was holding the rosary beads which were now making little round marks into my palms, the lies slid out easily.
“Your…?” he asked, one eyebrow raised.
“My mom left me this frantic message earlier, something about problems with her boyfriend I think. I called her back but her machine said she wouldn’t be home until eight, so I’m a little edgy waiting for her to call again. She sounded really upset.”
“Well is everything ok, do you think?” he asked, genuine concern in his dark eyes.
He didn’t get along at all with my mother, but his care for her well-being, and for how it affected me, grabbed hold of my heart and the guilt of lying to him pulled at me. It’s only for his own good I thought to myself. I certainly didn’t want to be involved in all of this, so there was no reason to involve him.
“I’ll have to wait and see until she calls,” I said. I grinned a little, the most reassurance I could manage considering my insides were all twisting around themselves. He seemed satisfied that I wasn’t going to have a mental break down and walked to the back of the house to change out of his work clothes. The biggest problem with lying to John was that he almost always believed me, which made it more and more difficult not to lie to him again.
When I was out of his sight I bit down on my lip hard and closed my eyes as I pressed the beads to my clammy forehead. God damn it, David. Where are you? Please, please, please be safe. My thoughts were so loud I was surprised John couldn’t hear them.
It was times like this that I felt the youngest and the oldest simultaneously. I felt old because youth never worried quite to this degree, and young because old age tried to ignore this kind of visceral fear. Either way, I did not feel anywhere near my actual age of twenty-three.
The phone rang and my quick rough movements to get to it somehow broke the chain of rosary beads. I answered before I even thought to pick them up.
“David? What happened?” I demanded. I heard a sigh and then Anne’s voice, which was much weaker than usual. Damn.
“You haven’t heard from him either, then?” she asked.
“No. He was supposed to have called me half an hour ago at the latest.” I said shaking my head, “I’m scared, Anne, he could really be hurt. He could really be…” I refused to finish the sentence as though speaking it aloud would make it all the more possible.
“Don’t you think we’d feel it if he was… well… in that much trouble?”
I considered this. The three of us were definitely connected and had always been able to sense when any one of us was hurt in the past, but until three days ago we hadn’t seen each other in years. Our connection certainly wasn’t conventional, and who knew if time apart had weakened it.
“But I guess we don’t really know for sure, do we.” She said, a mirror to my own thoughts.
“He didn’t even tell me where to look for him if he didn’t call.” I said as tears of frustration welled up behind my eyes. I couldn’t believe that I had been stupid enough not to ask for this pivotal piece of information.
Anne sighed again, and immediately I knew.
“Anne, you have to tell me where he is. You know how serious this could be. We can go get him together if you want.”
“He said not to go there or tell you unless he disappeared for at least a day,” she said tightly. Her inner struggle was almost tangible. “Let’s give him another hour, ok? I’m afraid if the timing is bad we could get him hurt. And maybe not just him.”
I knew she was right and hated it.
“Can I come and wait at your house, at least?” I asked, “I can’t stand worrying this much while trying to hold it together in front of John. I’ll have the house calls forwarded to my cell phone.”
We agreed and I hung up. I put on my jacket and a scarf and headed to the bedroom.
“My mom needs me to come over,” more lies. This wasn’t going well. “I’m not sure how late I’ll be, girl talk and what not.”
“Well tell her that I said hi, and that I’m sorry she’s upset. And call me if you’re going to be too late, ok?” He said.
I nodded and kissed him goodbye.
The seventy degree weather seemed unbearably cold. My shaking hands made it nearly impossible to get the key in to unlock my car door, but that had nothing to do with the temperature. I was about to put the car into drive when I felt something small and sharp hit my chest, just beneath my collar bone.
My hand pressed there immediately, ready to hold in the blood that had to be coming, and all I could think was how much it hurt and what the hell had hit me without making a mark in the windshield? I pressed my lips together and looked down at my hand, but nothing was there. I pulled my jacket and shirt aside to look at my skin, but there wasn’t so much as a red spot. I had no time to think the first pain through when the second one, sharper and bigger somehow, pounded into my side. Everything in me wanted to scream. My panicked heart threatened to jump out altogether if I didn’t do something, but before I could make a noise the pain had suddenly gone.
A sickening sensation began to pour over my bones. It was the distinct feeling I got whenever I saw someone else in pain. It hadn’t been brought on by worry but by proven fact. Someone was hurt, and badly.
I paced back and forth across the living room, my mind too much of a mess to gauge how tightly I held my rosary beads. I was certainly no Catholic, the beads were a less-than-subtle gift from my mother, but I wasn’t going to kick any forms of luck in the teeth tonight. I pulled the curtains away from the window, as though I expected him to show up instead of calling. I wanted to take the receiver off the base to check my telephone connection but feared he would call at the exact same moment.
“What are you doing?”
I jumped at the unexpected voice and saw my boyfriend, John, standing in the entry way looking confused. I shook my head, the sudden need to split my thoughts into two very separate categories making my response stagger. He looked from side to side, considered repeating the question.
“Um,” I said eloquently, “My…” My sleep starved brain grasped for any sort of story that might explain my behavior. I thought about my surroundings, about the circumstances that would be obvious to him, and quietly cursed my situation for forcing me to start lying to John again. Once I remembered I was holding the rosary beads which were now making little round marks into my palms, the lies slid out easily.
“Your…?” he asked, one eyebrow raised.
“My mom left me this frantic message earlier, something about problems with her boyfriend I think. I called her back but her machine said she wouldn’t be home until eight, so I’m a little edgy waiting for her to call again. She sounded really upset.”
“Well is everything ok, do you think?” he asked, genuine concern in his dark eyes.
He didn’t get along at all with my mother, but his care for her well-being, and for how it affected me, grabbed hold of my heart and the guilt of lying to him pulled at me. It’s only for his own good I thought to myself. I certainly didn’t want to be involved in all of this, so there was no reason to involve him.
“I’ll have to wait and see until she calls,” I said. I grinned a little, the most reassurance I could manage considering my insides were all twisting around themselves. He seemed satisfied that I wasn’t going to have a mental break down and walked to the back of the house to change out of his work clothes. The biggest problem with lying to John was that he almost always believed me, which made it more and more difficult not to lie to him again.
When I was out of his sight I bit down on my lip hard and closed my eyes as I pressed the beads to my clammy forehead. God damn it, David. Where are you? Please, please, please be safe. My thoughts were so loud I was surprised John couldn’t hear them.
It was times like this that I felt the youngest and the oldest simultaneously. I felt old because youth never worried quite to this degree, and young because old age tried to ignore this kind of visceral fear. Either way, I did not feel anywhere near my actual age of twenty-three.
The phone rang and my quick rough movements to get to it somehow broke the chain of rosary beads. I answered before I even thought to pick them up.
“David? What happened?” I demanded. I heard a sigh and then Anne’s voice, which was much weaker than usual. Damn.
“You haven’t heard from him either, then?” she asked.
“No. He was supposed to have called me half an hour ago at the latest.” I said shaking my head, “I’m scared, Anne, he could really be hurt. He could really be…” I refused to finish the sentence as though speaking it aloud would make it all the more possible.
“Don’t you think we’d feel it if he was… well… in that much trouble?”
I considered this. The three of us were definitely connected and had always been able to sense when any one of us was hurt in the past, but until three days ago we hadn’t seen each other in years. Our connection certainly wasn’t conventional, and who knew if time apart had weakened it.
“But I guess we don’t really know for sure, do we.” She said, a mirror to my own thoughts.
“He didn’t even tell me where to look for him if he didn’t call.” I said as tears of frustration welled up behind my eyes. I couldn’t believe that I had been stupid enough not to ask for this pivotal piece of information.
Anne sighed again, and immediately I knew.
“Anne, you have to tell me where he is. You know how serious this could be. We can go get him together if you want.”
“He said not to go there or tell you unless he disappeared for at least a day,” she said tightly. Her inner struggle was almost tangible. “Let’s give him another hour, ok? I’m afraid if the timing is bad we could get him hurt. And maybe not just him.”
I knew she was right and hated it.
“Can I come and wait at your house, at least?” I asked, “I can’t stand worrying this much while trying to hold it together in front of John. I’ll have the house calls forwarded to my cell phone.”
We agreed and I hung up. I put on my jacket and a scarf and headed to the bedroom.
“My mom needs me to come over,” more lies. This wasn’t going well. “I’m not sure how late I’ll be, girl talk and what not.”
“Well tell her that I said hi, and that I’m sorry she’s upset. And call me if you’re going to be too late, ok?” He said.
I nodded and kissed him goodbye.
The seventy degree weather seemed unbearably cold. My shaking hands made it nearly impossible to get the key in to unlock my car door, but that had nothing to do with the temperature. I was about to put the car into drive when I felt something small and sharp hit my chest, just beneath my collar bone.
My hand pressed there immediately, ready to hold in the blood that had to be coming, and all I could think was how much it hurt and what the hell had hit me without making a mark in the windshield? I pressed my lips together and looked down at my hand, but nothing was there. I pulled my jacket and shirt aside to look at my skin, but there wasn’t so much as a red spot. I had no time to think the first pain through when the second one, sharper and bigger somehow, pounded into my side. Everything in me wanted to scream. My panicked heart threatened to jump out altogether if I didn’t do something, but before I could make a noise the pain had suddenly gone.
A sickening sensation began to pour over my bones. It was the distinct feeling I got whenever I saw someone else in pain. It hadn’t been brought on by worry but by proven fact. Someone was hurt, and badly.