Page 7
Story: Tiller
I nod, taking in the sight of his pressed blue pants and shiny shoes. “You’re not my Uber driver delivering my Milo & Olive pizza, are you?”
The younger officer clears his throat, his shaking hand that’s holding his hat drops to his side. The older officer next to him nods, as if to offer his own support to the young man beside him. “No, ma’am. I’m not. I’m Officer Reyes with the Santa Monica Police Department. This is Officer Phillips.” It’s never good news when a police officer comes to your door at night. It’s even worse when he politely requests, “Can we come inside, ma’am?” I notice the soft-spoken words, my eyes drifting to his aquiline nose and straight forehead.
My heart squeezes, a heavy feeling weighing on my chest. “Why?” Kona’s nose roots at my knees, attempting to pry my legs apart. Reaching down, I take a firm hold of his collar and yank him back.
“Ms. Johnson, I’m very sorry, but I have some bad news,” he says, pulling my world apart. “Can I please come in?”
With my cheek pressed against the cool metal door, I watch the man with saddened eyes conveying sympathy and understand my heart doesn’t understand yet.
I don’t say anything. I wait, anticipation for his words gnawing a hole in my stomach.
He takes a deep breath. His compelling green eyes, firm features, the confident set of his shoulders, it tells me he’s done this before. Though he doesn’t look to be over thirty, he’s surely given someone bad news before.
He waits.
I nod, pulling back on Kona again. “Let me put him in the bathroom.”
Tears form in my eyes, my legs moving like heavy weights, dragging a growling Kona to the bathroom down the hall. With a deep breath of my own, I mentally prepare myself for the news this guy is going to tell me.
Do you see the way my cheeks redden and my pulse hammers? Can you see the dread creeping in? I know he’s going to tell me someone’s dead. My mom? Dad? Alexandra? Ava?
With each name, their face flashes in my head and then fades just as quickly.
Fear tightens my muscles, and I wipe my sweating palms on the front of my jeans, adjusting my cardigan before releasing the breath I’ve been holding.
In the foyer, the men stand stiff postured and speaking quietly to one another. Officer Reyes notices my return, clearing his throat and angling his head my direction. He doesn’t say anything. Do you see the way he tips his head to the side? The grimace and slight shake of his hands? Maybe he’s never delivered news like this.
There’s another knock on the door, followed by Kona’s howling to my right. This time it’s my Uber driver and the pizza I ordered.
The door’s still open. The young Uber driver wearing a baseball cap and ripped jeans smiles awkwardly. “I have your order from Milo & Olive.”
I take it from him, but don’t say anything. Suddenly the smell of the cheese and garlic makes my stomach knot and I feel like if I open my mouth, I might vomit.
The kid backs away, back to his car running in the driveway, and I push the door closed, resting my back against it. My eyes find Officer Reyes. “Why are you here?”
The lines of concentration deepen along his brows and under his eyes. He’s about to destroy my world. “I’m very sorry to tell you this, Ms. Johnson, but your sister Ava and her husband were involved in a car accident.” The line of his mouth tightens a fraction more before saying, “She died at the scene.”
My knees give out.
Do you see that girl on her knees? The one with her heart rate increasing, her air passages constricting?
That’s a girl who’s receiving the worst news of her entire life.
It’s different than how I imagined taking the news that my sister—the girl who taught me everything about who I am—is dead. I imagined we’d be old and gray, and I would have dementia so bad I wouldn’t understand the meaning let alone the devastation of losing her.
But it’s not that way. We’re not gray and old. She’s twenty-seven. She can’t be dead. This doesn’t happen to people like her. It happens to murders and child molesters. People who deserve to die young.
I breathe in, and then out. . . again and again, trying to fill my lungs with air I desperately need, but nothing works. The pain in my chest doesn’t ease up. If anything, it’s worse, an action I’m incapable of. It’s like I’m trying to fill a water bucket only to have it keep tipping the more I pour water into it. I’m certain I’m having a panic attack. Or can you have a heart attack at twenty-three?
It begins in the pit of my stomach. That feeling, that pain, that anxiety. . . it takes over from there like poison in my veins. All these sensations. . . they increase the blood flow and oxygen to my muscles to prepare me to run away from something life-threatening.
A voice fades in and out and I lean against the wall. Seated against it, I pull my knees up against my pounding chest.
No. No way. It’s not real. Can’t be.
A sharp pain hits my chest like a knife and I can’t breathe. Ava. Cullen. They’re gone? No, damn it. No!
My thoughts spin, accelerate, rage out of control like a storm in the night. I want to slow them so I can breathe, but nothing happens. The breaths, they come in gasps feeling like at any moment I might black out from either too much air, or not enough. I can’t tell the difference anymore. The room spins, my heart hammering in my chest. I feel sick, my stomach rolling, clenching, hurting.
The younger officer clears his throat, his shaking hand that’s holding his hat drops to his side. The older officer next to him nods, as if to offer his own support to the young man beside him. “No, ma’am. I’m not. I’m Officer Reyes with the Santa Monica Police Department. This is Officer Phillips.” It’s never good news when a police officer comes to your door at night. It’s even worse when he politely requests, “Can we come inside, ma’am?” I notice the soft-spoken words, my eyes drifting to his aquiline nose and straight forehead.
My heart squeezes, a heavy feeling weighing on my chest. “Why?” Kona’s nose roots at my knees, attempting to pry my legs apart. Reaching down, I take a firm hold of his collar and yank him back.
“Ms. Johnson, I’m very sorry, but I have some bad news,” he says, pulling my world apart. “Can I please come in?”
With my cheek pressed against the cool metal door, I watch the man with saddened eyes conveying sympathy and understand my heart doesn’t understand yet.
I don’t say anything. I wait, anticipation for his words gnawing a hole in my stomach.
He takes a deep breath. His compelling green eyes, firm features, the confident set of his shoulders, it tells me he’s done this before. Though he doesn’t look to be over thirty, he’s surely given someone bad news before.
He waits.
I nod, pulling back on Kona again. “Let me put him in the bathroom.”
Tears form in my eyes, my legs moving like heavy weights, dragging a growling Kona to the bathroom down the hall. With a deep breath of my own, I mentally prepare myself for the news this guy is going to tell me.
Do you see the way my cheeks redden and my pulse hammers? Can you see the dread creeping in? I know he’s going to tell me someone’s dead. My mom? Dad? Alexandra? Ava?
With each name, their face flashes in my head and then fades just as quickly.
Fear tightens my muscles, and I wipe my sweating palms on the front of my jeans, adjusting my cardigan before releasing the breath I’ve been holding.
In the foyer, the men stand stiff postured and speaking quietly to one another. Officer Reyes notices my return, clearing his throat and angling his head my direction. He doesn’t say anything. Do you see the way he tips his head to the side? The grimace and slight shake of his hands? Maybe he’s never delivered news like this.
There’s another knock on the door, followed by Kona’s howling to my right. This time it’s my Uber driver and the pizza I ordered.
The door’s still open. The young Uber driver wearing a baseball cap and ripped jeans smiles awkwardly. “I have your order from Milo & Olive.”
I take it from him, but don’t say anything. Suddenly the smell of the cheese and garlic makes my stomach knot and I feel like if I open my mouth, I might vomit.
The kid backs away, back to his car running in the driveway, and I push the door closed, resting my back against it. My eyes find Officer Reyes. “Why are you here?”
The lines of concentration deepen along his brows and under his eyes. He’s about to destroy my world. “I’m very sorry to tell you this, Ms. Johnson, but your sister Ava and her husband were involved in a car accident.” The line of his mouth tightens a fraction more before saying, “She died at the scene.”
My knees give out.
Do you see that girl on her knees? The one with her heart rate increasing, her air passages constricting?
That’s a girl who’s receiving the worst news of her entire life.
It’s different than how I imagined taking the news that my sister—the girl who taught me everything about who I am—is dead. I imagined we’d be old and gray, and I would have dementia so bad I wouldn’t understand the meaning let alone the devastation of losing her.
But it’s not that way. We’re not gray and old. She’s twenty-seven. She can’t be dead. This doesn’t happen to people like her. It happens to murders and child molesters. People who deserve to die young.
I breathe in, and then out. . . again and again, trying to fill my lungs with air I desperately need, but nothing works. The pain in my chest doesn’t ease up. If anything, it’s worse, an action I’m incapable of. It’s like I’m trying to fill a water bucket only to have it keep tipping the more I pour water into it. I’m certain I’m having a panic attack. Or can you have a heart attack at twenty-three?
It begins in the pit of my stomach. That feeling, that pain, that anxiety. . . it takes over from there like poison in my veins. All these sensations. . . they increase the blood flow and oxygen to my muscles to prepare me to run away from something life-threatening.
A voice fades in and out and I lean against the wall. Seated against it, I pull my knees up against my pounding chest.
No. No way. It’s not real. Can’t be.
A sharp pain hits my chest like a knife and I can’t breathe. Ava. Cullen. They’re gone? No, damn it. No!
My thoughts spin, accelerate, rage out of control like a storm in the night. I want to slow them so I can breathe, but nothing happens. The breaths, they come in gasps feeling like at any moment I might black out from either too much air, or not enough. I can’t tell the difference anymore. The room spins, my heart hammering in my chest. I feel sick, my stomach rolling, clenching, hurting.
Table of Contents
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