Green Case, Red Button

In the middle of the night, when all the candle lights were out, the room smelled of two competing scents. I should have stayed asleep, but I kept twisting and stretching my tired limbs.

A phone was in my hand. I pressed the red button. The warm green case felt familiar, as though I had been clenching it for hours. Standing among the clutter between two bicycles, my hair caught in the dry, rough fibers of a towel. Crisp. It was crisp. I pulled away from the officer, pressing my hand over the back of my knuckles.

It always felt like an act when I was the victim, pushed into a corner away from the mistake I made years ago. Minutes ago. They asked and probed. Her phone was not working, its screen glowing on top of a pink quilted blanket folded atop the dryer. The word POLICE was printed across her back, and my eyes followed it whenever she walked out and returned. One foot down on the sunroom floor, the other up on the kitchen tiles.

"He needs his bag. Said it’s back there."

"Do you know where his sweater is?"

"Should be inside the bag."

"There it is."

Disconnected responses slithered from my lips. His crime did not feel fleeting, yet I felt numb. This was my last call when I realized what I had done at 7:04 AM.

"How do you spell your name?"

I pushed him. Spaghetti scattered across the tiles, striking them like pins. I saw him fall against the door in those same shorts with the seat worn to a light grey, those same legs with dark hair curling against them, those same arms that held the door shut to keep me from leaving. To stop my hands from striking him as he threatened to buy escorts, I snatched a leftover party balloon and popped it between my palms. The bang echoed off the walls. Then, after the officers escorted him out, I sat at the table with his mother and father between eight and nine in the morning, trapped in that dense, dull quiet.

Disgust.

The door closed behind me. The bag dangled against my side as my hand gripped it tight. Time kept ticking. By 11:00 AM, I was on the street. I knew this pavement. The parked cars, the cold wind feeling like the only familiar thing after weeks inside. The last time I had called for help was weeks ago, sitting alone in a park while dry leaves fell around me. People said fall came too soon. Something pressed against the back of my head. I kept looking at my phone, watching the numbers count up while my feet moved and my body bent around the curve of the road.

Look inside the cars like a desperate pup. No one is coming.

I gave what I thought was my name over the counter.

"The pharmacist will be with you soon."

I sat in the chair furthest from the consultation room, as if sitting one seat over made me safer. I tasted stale saliva. My tongue was prickled with thirst, stained a deep coffee brown. One cup, that was all. Not the one he poured down the drain.

"For the pharmacist?"

The voice came from my right. The words sounded foreign, but our eyes were already locked, so I got up and walked in. I sat down, bleeding through my clothes, waiting for emergency contraception. I had slept with him without checking his bank accounts, without verifying every outgoing payment to see where he had been. Panic clawed at my throat. I said too much, and suddenly I was handed less than the amount I needed. Permission to kill before I was killed.

"I will be back in just a minute."

There were no clocks, only posters, and an empty slot where another poster should have hung. I thought about the blood, the calendar, the escorts, and why I was here. I stared too long, eyes burning into the barcode, hanging on the instructions. The room drifted. I inhaled, hearing a chirpy voice out in the main room. I had been waiting too long; a sigh crept from my lips.

"Sorry for keeping you waiting."

"That’s alright."

It was not.

I pushed through the glass doors and stepped back onto the pavement. I dialed the same number I always dialed: 116 123.

"Welcome to Samaritans. Calls to this number are free and won’t appear on your phone bill. Please hold while we connect your call."

"Samaritans, can I help you?"

"Hi, yes. Well, this isn’t the first time I’m calling this number. I just, well, where do I start. My-"

She listened. She responded, eager for what she might have taken as gossip. I was gossiping about a person I used to know.

The phone shuddered against my palm. The stairs moved under my feet, and someone was close behind me. I recognized those EarPods, that precise haircut.

"Mom, I can see him, hold on a minute. I just need to get down. There are so many steps."

"Watch where you’re stepping."

I watched him from a distance, long enough to imagine him turning, but he remained stiff. Had I imagined everything? The apartment details, where he had been, whether I had checked all the outgoings in his account? I walked past the brightly painted homes, the parked cars, the children playing. A car seemed to block the shortcut, but rounding the corner revealed it was clear. I breathed. I relaxed too soon.

On the phone, I laughed and acted out my words on the grass in the park, my mom listening on the other end.

Suddenly, a tall man appeared on a scooter. Moving too slowly. Grey hair. Grey and black clothes. Maintaining eye contact. Then he was gone. Then there he was again. My toes dug deep into my shoes as I saw him one last time on the grass beside me. I ran. I glanced back. The park cleared around me. Breath caught in my throat, and I coughed out:

"Mom, I’m heading home, someone-"