Alexa woke to the sound of the phone ringing. Startled, she opened her reddened eyes and looked at the clock on the wall.
11:23am
She scanned the yellow-painted room to recall where she was before quickly stretching and getting out of bed to search for her cell. She grabbed it from the dresser, not bothering to check the caller ID. She had to clear her throat before answering. Her voice was raspy from crying, and she sounded exhausted.
"Hello?"
"Alexa? Oh, thank God you answered."
She was still half-asleep when she answered the phone so it took her a moment to recognize the voice. But once she did, it made her worried. She hadn't heard it in quite a long time. The voice belonged to Scott Tibbs. She backed up from the dresser and sat on the edge of the bed.
"Scott, is that you? What's going on?"
"Have you heard from Adam?"
"I, uh—"
"I heard about you two."
"You did?"
"Yeah. Adam called me the other night. He was kind of a wreck."
Great. Another thing to make her feel terrible. She hung her head and blinked her eyes as a tear fell down her freckled cheek and dripped off of her nose. She wiped her face with her sleeve and cleared her throat again before she spoke.
"Oh. Well I—"
"It's okay, Alexa, we don't have to talk about it."
"Alright."
"So have you heard from him?"
"Well, no, I haven't. Not since the other night."
"Shit."
"Why? Scott, you're scaring me."
Scott paused before he answered. This only made Alexa more worried.
"Well I went over to his apartment this morning. I wanted to check on him 'cause I told him to come out to our gig last night and he never showed. The apartment door was open, but he wasn't inside. Today's Tuesday, so I know he doesn't have to be at the studio, unless his schedule's changed maybe?"
"No, it hasn't."
"That's what I was afraid of."
Alexa, terrified by what she was hearing, tried to rack her brain for a logical explanation. Whenever Adam wasn't working, he would have been at home, or until a few months ago, been out with Scott.
"Listen, let me call his cell. Maybe he's out doing free—"
"We both know he only ever does freelance at night," Scott interrupted. "Plus, I called his cell last night. No answer. Same thing this morning. He's always got that thing attached to his side, in case any work comes up."
Everything Scott was saying made sense, but Alexa was in denial about it. She didn't want to believe him.
"There's gotta be some reason for this, Scott. We can't jump to conclusions. Adam's not one to just pick up and leave like this." It hurt just to say his name.
"That's exactly what I mean, Alexa. He's not one to just take off. No warning, no nothing? I'm afraid something happened to him."
This was a lot to take in at once. Alexa leaned her body forward and rested her elbows on her knees, then ran the fingers of her free hand through her hair. She tried to ignore the knot twisting in her stomach. She had no more answers for Scott, no more bullshit explanations.
"Alexa?"
"Yeah, I'm right here, Scott." She let out a long sigh and looked up to face the ceiling with her eyes closed. "I'm worried, too. I just hope you're wrong about this."
"So do I."
But Scott was right. Something had happened to Adam. Something that neither of them would be able to comprehend. They ended up filing a Missing Persons Report at the police station, and after about 6 months, they called it quits and held a service in Adam's honor, even though not many people showed. They buried an empty casket for the purpose of "closure," something that Alexa never really got.
A few weeks after filing the report, Alexa moved back into the apartment when she knew, in her gut, that Adam wasn't coming back. She spent a countless number of weeks crying herself to sleep every night, refusing to take anyone's calls or accept any visitors. She sulked around the apartment, wearing Adam's clothes that fit too loosely on her petite frame. His assortment of t-shirts with various band logos, his Levis, everything. She even smoked an entire pack of his forgotten Marlboros one night, just to make the apartment smell like him again. It was her way of keeping him alive with her. But she knew he was gone. Alexa refused to forget about Adam. It was almost impossible to forget. She left his apartment exactly the way it always was: hardly any food around, CDs still in the stereo, developer in the trays of the darkroom, his scent still lingering on the clothes in his closet, pill bottles in the mirror cabinet in the bathroom. Everything was the same. It was as if time stood still in that apartment.
This isn't healthy, her friends would say. We're worried about you. She didn't realize it, but Alexa's behavior made her seem more and more like Adam's with every passing moment. She became reclusive, accepting help from no one. She remembered the talk they had on their last morning together and how hard she knew it must have been for him to seek out help and admit he was wrong. But now she was a hypocrite, the perfect embodiment of the same behavior she scolded him for.
His face was the first thing she saw when she woke up and the last thing she saw before she fell asleep. She often dreamt of him as well; Where have you been, Adam? That was what she'd ask when she saw him. Nowhere. I've been here the whole time. It was always the same dream. As if he'd never left her, he'd just gone away for a while. It was dreams like these that she'd wake up from with tears streaming down her cheeks. The pain of losing him was fresh after these dreams and she'd fall apart all over again, clutching the pillow he'd slept on beside her.
Little did Alexa know that her face was the last thing Adam would ever think about. Her perfect face, her freckles, her smile, her beautiful green eyes. It made him feel a strange sense of calm and gave him a small window of happiness and light in that dark hellhole. He dreamt of her as well, when he would drift in and out of consciousness, before that clear plastic bag made its way to his pale, blood-stained face to end his twenty-six years of life. The dank smell of death and decay would fade when he thought of her. The maddening silence would be broken by the sound of her laughter. The only thing able to make the guilt of hurting her stop washing over him again and again was his untimely death. No more guilt, no hate, no anger. He felt nothing anymore…