When It Rains: The Umbrella Collection (10 page)

Still, I couldn’t answer.
  There seemed to be molasses in my throat and the words were stuck in it by its stickiness.  John gave me one final look then took the lead once he knew I wasn’t going to say anything. He walked back to his chair to begin eating his dinner for the second time.  Once his behind hit the seat and he was comfortable, he said, “She decided to throw a few rocks at my buddy’s car.”  Before he could finish his sentence, everyone’s head zoomed up in my direction,  Their eyes all looked the same as they looked at me like I was crazy. 

“You did WHAT?” Mike screamed and pounded his fists on the table making forks, spoons, knives and plates clank together.

“How old are you?” Alex yelled.

“Guys, relax. There has to be an explanation,” Brian chimed in.
 

Pops just sat there and stared at me.
  He has a tendency to never jump to conclusions before he knows the whole story.  He always listens and lets the information sink in for a bit and then will ask questions or give opinions.  Most of the time, a reaction is seldom given until an hour or two later.

“Yeah, relax.
  There’s a reason,” John said as he shoveled a pile of mashed potatoes into his mouth.  Then promptly spit it back out into his napkin due to the lack of heat throughout.  He went into the kitchen to warm his food up while I tried to work up enough nerve to tell them.  I’m not really sure what was holding me back at this point.  Perhaps, it was embarrassment.

“So?”
  Mike said annoyingly.

I took a seat at the dining table, in front of Pops and Mike with Alex and Brian on both sides of me, and told them the whole story.
  They stared at me, each with the same expressions on their faces.  First it was, anger, then shock and followed up by understanding.  They said they understood how I reacted and the anger that flowed through me, but was stern in the fact that I couldn’t walk around throwing rocks through windows whenever I felt like it.  Darren lives around here and I’m just going to have to deal with it or move.  I knew what they were saying but I couldn’t find a way to come to grips with the fact that I could walk into any place around here and there is a huge chance of walking into him.  I didn’t want to see him.  I didn’t want to talk to him.  I didn’t want to see him living his life.   

I bent my head low and nodded without looking at him.
  I was embarrassed by my actions and still fuming inside because of my hesitation in reacting to him directly.

“Way to go, you loser. Couldn’t work up enough guts to yell at the guy that killed your mommy and daddy?
  Great daughter, you are,” the voice echoed in my head.  My head stayed bowed until I shook the
voice
away.  I concentrated on the frayed edge of the navy blue rug that lay beneath the long dining table, but it was only silenced slightly.

Having returned from the kitchen during my telling of the story, John shoveled his food into his mouth crushingly and stated that he was late for work with a mouthful of food and stood up from the table.

“Are you working at the bar tonight?” Brian questioned.

“Yeah, I’m closing.”

“Its date night, so Sue and I might be stopping in.” Bran and Sue got married when they were only 18 years old.  They have the ideal marriage and it makes me want to gag sometimes.  They are lovely dovey and he hangs onto her every word.  I guess that is want it’s supposed to be like, but I’m surrounded by a bunch of testosterone filled whores that run for the hills at the instant too much estrogen enters the house.  Colin is half his parents and half the rest of the men in the family.  One month he couldn’t care less about a girl and will hop to the next without a second thought and the next month he is deeply in love.  Of course, until the first of the next month comes.

“Cool.
  See everyone later and Nora, it was a so much fun hanging out with you tonight,” he sarcastically said and ruffled my hair as he walked by.  I softly laughed for his amusement.

“Yeah, I got to go, too,” Pops added.

“Who is it this tonight?” I asked

“Tonight is
Florence.”

“Oooh, I like her.
  She reminds me of Ginger from ‘Gilligan’s Island. So, no Molly?” I asked hoping that his response would be something indicating that she was erased from his little black book.

“No, not tonight.”

 “I have to go, too.” Alex declared.

“You have a hot date, too?”
  Mike asked shockingly.

“Yes, I do.
  Don’t act so surprised.”

“With who?” we all asked at the same time.

“Don’t worry about it!” he hollered and got up and carried his plate, along with Pops, into the kitchen.

Mike and I were left alone at the table.
  “I’m really disappointed in you, Nora,” he said.

“I know.” And our eyes locked for a second and he got up from the table. I sat there at the table and the thoughts of the last two days floated around my head.
  The loss of a friendship and boyfriend, Mr. Garrison’s talk, and seeing the man that took the lives of two people that meant the world to me ping-ponged around and made my head feel heavy with sadness.  I got up and ran upstairs barely with enough strength within my body to make it up the steps.  I wanted to crumble apart so I didn’t have to feel this way.  Once I made it up to my room, I slammed the door shut and began pacing my floor. 

The
voice
began again, “Do something about it.  Hurt him.”

“I can’t.
  I can’t hurt him.  He did his time and I just have to deal with it,” I said aloud as my hands squeezed my head at the temple area in anger.

“You are just going to let Darren walk around scot-free, without you doing anything about it?”

“No, leave me alone.” I spoke as my hands reached for my hair and pulled it upward, even though it hurt, as my feet continued to walk back and forth to the same spots on my floor.

I ran over to my top draw next to my bed and desperately searched for a pill to take
me away and escape from reality. I pushed aside my notebooks and pens as my fingers feverishly searched.  But I couldn’t find one and panic streamed through me.  I hurled myself up into my bed and tried with all my might to erase the sound that was reverberating in my thoughts.  I threw the pillow over my head hoping to shut out the
voice. 
My arms were wrapped around my knees tightly and squeezed deep into my stomach as I moaned with sadness.  By the muffled sound of a door being shut multiple times coming though my pillow, I knew everyone had left and I was home alone.  The contrast between the silence of an empty house and the noise-filled hell that was in my head frightened me. 

 
“Get the fuck up and do something,” the
voice
ordered and the feelings inside intensified.  All I wanted to do was to get rid of the
voice
and eliminate these feelings.  I wanted silence.  I wanted it out.  I sat up on the side of my bed; my feet felt heavy as they landed on the floor and my hands instantly reached for my head and I rocked back and forth.  

I need to stop this.
  I can’t do it anymore.  I can’t breathe like this
, I thought to myself, “I hate him.  I have to do something.” I said out loud as the
voice
egged me on.

“Yes. Do it.”

Without clearly thinking and submersed in this pain, I rose from the bed and glanced out the window. The rain had stopped, so I grabbed my jacket along with an umbrella just in case it began again.  I exited my room, but before I went downstairs I headed to Pops room.  I walked into his closet and my head spun around looking for a black metal box.  There it is.  I found his safe.  The metal was cold against my heated skin as I took it off the high shelf and placed it on the floor.  I spun the dial to the right; 15.  Then left to 34 and to the right again until I reached the 6.  I knew the combination because Pops told me it when I started staying at home by myself to make sure I would be prepared if someone got in the house.  I reached inside to capture a shiny, black Glock handgun.  Enamored by its perfection, my eyes roamed its body.  I shoved it into my purse and ran downstairs, vaulting over Diablo. I stopped dead in my tracks because Mike’s blue backpack was still on the ground leaning up against the wall next to the front door.  As I screeched to a halt, I turned to my right and noticed him laying across the sofa in the family room.  A second later I heard a strong noise emit from that area.  He was asleep and snoring.   I bent down and unzipped his bag and saw his medication and his keys.  Mike made it easy for me with the meds; he wrote on each one in a black Sharpie exactly what they were for.  I picked up each and searched for the diagnoses and put the one with ‘Anxiety’ written on it in black marker into my purse and quickly left the home.  I grabbed his keys, also when I noticed that his car was blocking mine in the driveway.

I knew exactly what the destination was that I was driving to.
  I’ve been there on numerous occasions, sitting out in my car anticipating an exiting person, but never did I spy one.  I always felt disappointed then when I had to drive away with nothing accomplished.   I drove faster down the sleek roads, which were still wet from the earlier rain showers, than the speed limit told me to. All the while with my mind being consumed by a plethora of demands by the
voice
.

“Drive faster!”, “Hurt him.”, “Don’t stop at the red light, Go!”, “Don’t change your mind, do it.”

My foot pushed the gas pedal down and escalated the speed of the car as I weaved around the corners with precision.  I finally had my target in sight and I slowed down and parked across the street where I had the times before.  I sat there staring at the light blue house with dark blue shudders.  The outside of the house was lit up by the street lamps and a few exterior lights that hung on each side of the front door.  Planters hung under the windows on the lower level with purple flowers lying peacefully inside them.  There were beautiful blooming flowers of every color circling the porch that had a swing hanging from its roof.  It looked like a normal house, not one that housed a killer.  There was one light on that brightly shone through the curtains that hung in the window to the left of the porch.   

“Well, are you going to get out or what?
  You didn’t drive all this way to sit and look.” Those words were shouted through my head and they swept me up out of my seat and I exited the car.  I pulled the hood of my sweatshirt up over my head and grabbed the gun from my purse.  I hustled across the street and walked up to the lit up window, passing the mailbox with the “The Levington’s” written in yellow paint across it. Then, I peered in through the space that the curtains left between them. The window was open a few inches letting the evening air cool the house. 

The peach colored room was an ordinary living room with two cream and peach colored flower print sofas, a peach recliner, and a TV, making a square out the arrangement with a coffee table in the center.
  The same pattern as the sofa was imprinted on a rug in the middle of the room under the coffee table.  Random knick knacks sat on the book shelves that were against the wall and a picture of a young man with beady eyes wearing a graduation cap hung on the wall.  The older version of that man was spread out on the recliner with his head fallen to his left and a beer can within reach on a side table.  His fingers were intertwined across his chest and it seems like he fell asleep watching Sportscenter.  On the TV, they were talking about the Philadelphia Eagles and New York Giants game, Eagles won 21-3.  It was Darren.  He was wearing the same clothes he had on at Marty’s.

“I knew it! You weren’t going to do it,” the deep husky
voice
said.

“If you shut up I will do it,”
 I said under my breath back to it.  An intense feeling rushed through my body, as my grip around the handle of the gun tightened inside the pocket of my shirt
.  It's now or never,
I thought and I took it out and raised the gun, pointing it directly at my napping target.  I pressed the tip of the gun up to the screen that stopped bugs from entering the house.  My hand began to shake as I squinted one eye and tried to focus.

“What am I doing?”
 I said lowly, still not lowering my gun. 

“Don’t you dare!
  Don’t you dare back down now!” the
voice
shrieked

“I can’t!”

“Do it!” it yelled.  “Pull the trigger,” it then whispered and continued to repeat it over and over again while my hand shook faster and tears cascaded from my eyes, down my cheeks and onto the ground.

I had an intense 3-way match going on inside myself.
  The first opponent was the part of me that didn’t want to do this, that wanted to move on peacefully with her life and be free of the
voice. 
The second was the part of me that wanted to pull the trigger, make him pay for what he has done.  The third was the husky voice telling me what to do and his stance was to shut up and do it.  I didn’t want to anymore.  But, maybe this would get rid of the
voice
.  Maybe this is what it needed to leave me alone, feed it its food so it would move on.  But, once you feed it, will come back asking for more and angrier when it doesn’t get what it wants?