I Should Be Going
She watched his face as he absorbed her words. She had expected this reaction; she had seen it many times. He stood up, the chair squeaking as it flew backwards. He was waving his hands around his head, his mouth moving quickly. She wasn’t listening; she had heard it all before. He gasped for breath; oh god, was he about to cry? She had only had two other criers; they made her uncomfortable. She experienced emotions deeper than most and preferred to avoid them until it was inevitable.
“I should be going,” she said, standing slowly. He spun on his heel, face red and blotchy. “I am so sorry, Steven.”
“Sorry?! You’re sorry that you’re leaving me, just out of the blue, no reason at all? You’re SORRY?!” Now he was getting hysterical. Like Jonah in Ohio, she thought. She tried not to roll her eyes. The truth was she had liked Steven, more than the rest of them. He was funny, patient, and told adorable stories about his nephew’s baseball team he coached. She loved to listen to him prattle on about the boys on the team, his strategies, and the game in general. It was endearing. She could zone out and listen to his steady voice, the screams subsiding enough she thought she may actually be able to rest. But they always came back.
He was on his knees in front of her now. Oh, god, this was bad. Steven may be edging into first place now. “Please, please, don’t leave me. I love you. I was going to ask you to marry me. What did I do? Please, tell me. I can fix it!” She sighed heavily, looking down at his blue eyes filled with tears. Wow, she thought. He’s taken first place from Arthur, that’s for sure.
“Stand up, Steven,” she murmured, coaxing him to standing. “It is nothing you did! You’re wonderful. It’s me. It’s all me.” She shaped her face to look soft and sincere, a mask of sadness settling into place. Steven relaxed after a moment, his breath steadying. The defeat was coming and she could feel it. Her bags were at the door to the apartment, waiting for her to grab and go as she had before. This one she had taken too far by moving in. The others she had kept a distance, stayed in her own place. Steven she thought would be different. Perhaps she wouldn’t hear the screams and he would be safe. But they came to her late one night three weeks ago and she knew she had to start making her exit.
Her memory flashed to Evie briefly. Evie had taken it well but their affair had been brief. When she told her she couldn’t see her any more, Evie steeled herself and wiped her face of all emotion. Like a statue, she had nodded, dropped a few crisp dollars on the cafe table and walked out silently. She had been almost thrilled that there hadn’t been a large public fight as there had been with Henry. Henry had been extremely embarrassing. She had had to pay for the two cups he broke as he wiped the table clean when she told him this was their last date.
It hadn’t always been this way. She hadn’t always been this way. Before the screams, it was only visions she had experienced. Vivid dreams of death that came to her at night, so clear and crisp she felt Death itself breathing on her neck. As she grew older, when she would awake from one of these dreams, a name and a face would be throbbing in her skull. The person was a stranger most of the time and it wouldn’t be until she passed them on the street or perhaps at the theater that the screams would come. They would erupt from her and spill out into the air; guttural wailing that she could not stop. The person would hear her and freeze, not understanding why. Their obituary would appear shortly after in the paper of whatever town she found herself in.
Now the screams in her head followed the visions and she could hear them further out which gave her the warning she needed to flee. The names and faces had started to become less strange and more familiar. They were her friends and the person sleeping next to her in her bed. She still saw strangers. In fact, with Steven, she had seen mostly strangers and had become comfortable and content. Perhaps that was why she had said yes to moving in with him. His face had yet to appear in her dreams.
Steven, sweet Steven, was now trying to reason with her. She stayed still, patient, her expression remaining open and sweet as he offered her space, time, whatever she needed. It was never about that. At least it wasn’t as bad as Arthur who was hanging loosely to the top spot. Arthur had pulled out the largest diamond she had ever seen and gotten down on his knee on a walk one day. Arthur who was hard to say no to.
Arthur had been lovely, attentive, and a little bit wild. She had loved the adventure. She had even said yes in the moment. The screams were getting louder but she still said yes. It was the next day that the screams were deafening and she had given back the rock and Arthur had shouted and broken several glasses in his kitchen, shattering them on the floor as she tried to explain why she was going as vaguely as she could. He had run out into the streets, cursing her name, telling the neighborhood what a complete psycho she was. People hung out their windows, watching the madman scream about the woman who had betrayed him. The screams were blocking out every sound in her head as she heard the squeal of the brakes and knew she had been off by about a week.
Steven was calm now. He was rationalizing that this relationship was stale and he knew it and he could fix it. She waited and watched him work it through in his head, trying to find a way to make her stay. She let him work as more memories rushed up to greet her and drowned out the screams momentarily.
She had gone to Ohio to find some quiet. After Arthur in New York City and the public display of anger, she thought if she went somewhere slower, the likely hood of this happening to someone she knew would be less. Now it seems foolish but it was worth a shot. She met Jonah at a the bookstore where he worked. Passionate Jonah who was always working on a screenplay or a novel that was going to ‘change everything.’ She should have known he would have been an emotional trainwreck. When the visions came and it was his face she woke up with in her head and beside her in bed, she tried to leave quietly and not disturb him. He woke up and cried for four hours, face blotchier than Steven’s currently was. He cried about her and his mother and his failures and how he would never recover from this heartbreak. He did, though. He married and lived longer than the others. She came across him over a year later at a flea market with his new wife and the scream exploded over both of them. She was labeled the crazy ex and it gave her a sick sense of pleasure until she saw his name in the paper alongside others in an actual trainwreck.
Steven was pacing now, asking where she would go. “My mother’s,” she lied. She had no plans to bother her mother and upset the lovely life she led in a quiet town without her daughter’s screams echoing in the night. She would go to another town, another city, another apartment. She never stopped moving. Part of her thought the screams and the visions would lose her along the way. One day they wouldn’t be able to find her and she would be able to stay hidden, the harbinger of Death cloaked in shadow somewhere in a suburb of Boston, perhaps.
The screams were louder now as Steven was fighting to accept his fate. She had moved slightly towards the door, apologizing profusely, hoping he wouldn’t follow. He did. She stood at the door, his face falling at the bags she had gathered there.
“So this is happening. This is real,” he said quietly. He’s finally accepting it, she thought. She felt selfish in the moment. She was leaving so she did not have to be there when it happened. It always felt like this and for a brief second she almost let go of the bag she was holding and stayed. She could stay and be there for Steven and his family once it happened. She liked his sister and she would need a friend. But then she would be entangled in this family forever and be a part of them. Their faces would appear in her visions and she wouldn’t be able to stop it. She didn’t want that. She held onto her bag and turned to go.
“Please,” Steven said, grabbing her arm gently. “Just tell me why.”
She hesitated. She had never told anyone why. Not sobbing Jonah, not still as stone Evie, not dramatic Arthur or raging Henry. All of them had questioned her in some way, waited briefly for an answer even in silence like Evie, and she had never replied. She had walked away, leaving them wondering until they could wonder no more as their hearts stopped.
She met Steven’s eyes. His kind eyes that had loved her and she was said to be leaving them. The scream was in her throat now and she swallowed hard in an attempt to keep it down. She knew she only had a moment before it broke through.
“Because I don’t want to watch you die,” she admitted. It was the truth and it hit him hard. Confusion washed over his face and he crinkled his brow. “I can’t be here for that,” she added, hoping that might explain further.
He scoffed and looked at her incredulously. “Okay, wow. Guess I’ll never know.” His words were cold and she knew he didn’t believe her. Her heart sank at bit knowing she had finally told the truth and it wasn’t heard. The weight she thought would be lifted still sat heavy on her shoulders. Oh well, she thought. “Good luck,” he snapped and let her walk through the door.
She walked briskly to her car in the driveway. Putting it in reverse, she rolled her window down, the scream in her mouth now. She saw Steven in the open doorway, watching her. She let the scream out. It filled the air with its piercing cry, her hands gripping the steering wheel, knuckles turning white. Steven heard it and froze as they all did, his eyes widening in fear. She gave him one last sorry look and sped off down the street. She was never sure how soon it would happen. Sometimes, like Jonah, it was years. But Steven wouldn’t avoid the thing that was growing inside him. She would read about his life as she did all the rest from a distance.
It was getting harder to tell if she was a harbinger of Death or Death itself. It was possible she would never know.
