Haunted(11)

“Oh hell…she watched the Buffy musical again, and this time she has been drinking.” Phoebe turned to Eve.

“Screw you, Joss Whedon is bloody brilliant.” I held up my wine glass in a toast.

“How can you tell?” Eve asked Phoebe.

“She’s speaking with a British accent,” Phoebe stated as though it was the clearest answer in the world.

Eve had no f*cking idea. “What?” she asked.

“Eve, watch some f*cking TV. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, have you ever watched TV in your life?” Phoebe asked. “Anyway in the Buffy musical, Spike and Giles were both British, and she loves that stupid musical. So now you’re caught up with the program?”

“Program, like a TV program?”

“Eve, you do realize it’s the twenty-first century and there is this really cool little box you can buy that has people living in it. We call it a TV!”

Eve frowned. “Okay, bitch of mine, why don’t you pick up a book more than twice a year, yeah?”

“Damn it, you two stop fighting. I’m having a pity party, not some WWE smack down,” I yelled.

“I will be the bigger person.” Eve stuck out her tongue at Phoebe. “Beth, there was a package for you on your front door.”

“Put it on the table,” I mumbled.

“Open it. Maybe it will be something cool.” Phoebe handed it to me with a pair of scissors that she grabbed out of a cup in the kitchen.

I opened it and my mind went blank. How? Why?

“What is it?” Phoebe asked while I was pulling out the item.

“It’s a stuffed monkey.”

“Oh, that is so cute.” Eve reached for it, but I held it to my chest like a treasure.

Eve looked in the box and read the card out loud: “Everybody wants a monkey.”

“Who sent this?” Phoebe looked at the box.

“Roman,” I deadpanned.

“Why would he send you this? I thought you broke up with him.” Phoebe looked at me.

“I did.” I mumbled out.

Was he thinking of me? Did he see it on the road and it reminded him of our first connection? Oh my God, what did this mean?

***

I woke up the next day in the bed. I was so f*cking tired. Soon, I would start feeling like myself again. I thought I was starting to deal with the Jason thing a little at a time. That’s all I could deal with. A little at a time.

I dreamed last night about Roman. I dreamed he was screwing some girl backstage at a concert. I walked in on them, and he looked at me and said, “What did you expect?” So I walked out and went to buy doughnuts. Dreams... Why did Roman send me the monkey? I was doing fine. Well, fine with the break up until he sent it to me. What did it mean? Did he still want me?

I turned over in the bed and reached for the monkey.

Yep…I slept with it.

I reached and there was a porcelain doll with blue hair in my bed instead of the monkey. I screamed. I jumped out of the bed and fell on the floor. I scooted my back up against the wall. Oh f*ck! I started rocking back and forth. Jason was dead, right? Roman killed him. I crawled out of the room and went to the kitchen to get my cell phone.

Shit!

It was on my nightstand. Fuck! I crawled back to my room to get it. When I entered the bedroom, I looked toward my bed. The monkey was lying on the bed instead of a doll.

What the f*ck?

It was all in my mind. Was I going crazy? I knew the doctor at the hospital said that I would probably suffer from Post-traumatic stress disorder. Was it a nightmare? I stood on shaky legs and sat on the bed, feeling terrified. I looked under the covers. Nothing. I picked up the monkey and held it to me. Then I picked up my phone and dialed.

“Phoebe, I need you to come over and take this blue out of my hair. Can you do that?”

“Sure, sweetie, it’s Sunday, so I will need to wait until one p.m. for the beauty supply to open. Is that okay?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s going on? You seem more…antsy.”

“Nothing, I’m fine. I just think I need to get this blue out. We can cut it all off if it would be easier.”

“No. When people cut their hair short in a hasty rush, they usually regret it. I can get the blue out and make it really close to your natural color. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“I will be there around two p.m., and I’ll even swing by and grab us some burgers.”

“Thanks.” I hung up. I took my monkey and went into the living room.



Chapter 7 – Beth



Three more days had passed since Phoebe fixed my hair. I had started feeling a little bit better. I turned on the sound system in the den and found the song “The After You” by Miakoda. My eyes immediately teared up. It was about a woman singing about how she was living in the aftermath of her lover leaving her. I backed up against the wall and slid to the floor. I pushed the repeat button from the remote. I listen to the words. I hugged myself hard and tears rolled down my face. I released a loud sob that reminded me of when I received the call about Joe. I hadn’t cried this hard since that horrible phone call.

The music continued to play and a slide show played in my mind of my time with Roman. The first time he smiled at me, when we leg wrestled in the basement when we were bored out of our minds. How when he would kiss me, his hands would reach out to touch my face. I remembered how he would come up behind me and start kissing me on the back of my neck. Why did I let him go? I wished I could call him and tell him I’d made a terrible mistake. I cried harder. I let myself cry it out because crying was a way of healing, letting out all the pain, so I could start to heal. I sat there for forty-five minutes before the tears dried.