There was more static and then, “Phillips Mortuary, may I help you?”
Brynna felt the phone as it left her fingers. The gentle sound of it thudding on carpet seemed to reverberate through her skull as if it was the loudest sound on earth. She wanted to scream—but she was paralyzed, the cloying scent of thousands of white lilies stinging her nostrils.
“Hello? Phillips Mortuary?”
There were flowers everywhere. White lilies, which Erica hated, and piped-in classical music, which Erica hated even more. Would have hated, Brynna corrected herself. Erica was dead—that’s what they kept telling her. Erica—caught in a black-and-white toothy grin from the cover of the Phillips Mortuary Memorial program—glared up at Brynna, her dark eyes smoldering, accusing.
“It should have been you…”
It was Erica’s voice, barely a whisper, but Brynna would almost swear she felt her best friend’s breath tickling her ear.
People started to file in then, uncomfortably silent, holding their breaths as they took their seats in front of an empty casket that was supposed to represent Erica. Brynna couldn’t stand it any longer, sure that if she stayed one more second, the overwhelming smell of dying flowers would strangle her.
Brynna was terrified. She was confused.
How could the call have come from the mortuary?
She was crazy, she was guilty, she wanted not to feel. She spun around the room, her eyes darting toward all of her old stash points: in the box spring, in her jewelry box, a bottle stuffed in her boot. It may have been illegal and unhealthy, but she didn’t care—having her heart beat through the roof and her skin pricking with fear couldn’t be healthy either. Her lips felt dry and sticky, and she was tearing through her things now in case something had been forgotten, been carelessly tossed into a box: a lone pill, a fat green tablet of leftover Oxy to obliterate the facts, make her float away from memory. Maybe she had left one of the mini vodka bottles she used to stash in her purse. They were barely a taste, but it was something, something to quell the aching in her chest, the way her every cell seemed to fold in on itself with want.
“Brynna?”
Her mother’s voice floated up the stairs, and all at once, Brynna remembered that she was in her new house, in her new room, in her new life, and she was supposed to be better. She was supposed to deal with problems with deep breathing and talking to “peers she could trust.” Brynna looked around at the detritus of an almost-binge. Her head started to pound, and there was a lump in her throat.
“Pizza will be here in fifteen minutes.”
Brynna swallowed hard and pushed herself off the floor, pressing the mess back into her closet.
“Okay, Mom.”
Fifteen minutes was all she needed.
Brynna fished her phone from the mess and redialed the number, breathing deeply as she paced. This was a mistake. A misunderstanding. She couldn’t have heard—
“Phillips Mortuary.”
It was the same female voice that answered the time before, but this time, it was fraught with annoyance.
“Hello, is anyone there?”
“Hi.” Brynna forced the word out. “Hi, I’m sorry. I—I just received a call from this number.”
“That’s impossible, miss. There are no outgoing calls on this number.”
Brynna blinked, straightened. “No, but I just did. I just redialed it and now I’m talking to you.”
The woman let out a sharp sigh. “You can call me, but I can’t call you. This number doesn’t make calls. That’s from the office line—”
“No,” Brynna said, sweat heating up the back of her neck. “No, someone just called me.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but—”
“Erica. Do you know Erica?” She knew she sounded desperate—crazy, even. And as tears pricked at the back of her eyes, that’s how she felt.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. I can’t help you.”
The dial tone droned in Brynna’s ear as everything came crashing down around her.
“No.” She dropped the phone and pressed her palms against her ears, terrified that she would hear something, that the phone would ring again, and this time, it would be Erica. Still alive, or back from the dead?
A tiny voice in her head tried to reason with her: it was a weird ping from the cell phone tower. It was a snag in the service. But all of that was stomped out by the sickening terror that wracked her. She wasn’t sure when she started crying, was even more surprised when her parents rushed through her bedroom door and gaped down at the mess on the floor. Brynna was pressed so hard against her bed that the iron bar of the frame was digging into her flesh. It hurt, but it was real and tangible and it was better than the pain of memory, of disembodied voices and mysterious phone calls.
“Brynna, Brynna, honey, what happened? Are you okay?”