The Last Time
As seen in Currents 2018, available for purchase on Amazon
Chapter 1: The Last Good Day
There’s a phenomenon often spoken about in reference to cancer patients called “the last good day” and it can be at any time, signaling an ultimate descent into despair. The tricky part about this is there is no indication which day is the last good day because at the time it seems like just another decent day. Today is Tyler Bantberry’s last good day.
Mikayla slowly runs her fingers through the clothing hanging in her closet, scrunching her face all the while, taking a mental record of what she’s already worn this week.
“I think you should go like that.” Tyler says, catching a glimpse of Mikayla’s half naked body half-hidden by the closet from her half-slumped position in bed.
“Oh yeah, this will go over great for my presentation this morning.” Mikayla says, smirking.
Tyler smiles, ear-to-ear, in the mere moments of the morning before the sinking feeling has time to creep in. Tyler slowly drags herself into a kneeling position on the bed.
“When you gonna be home tonight bb?” Mikayla asks.
“Um, not till morning. I have a test in my 3pm and really should go see Dr. K about an extension on my civil rights paper…” she trails off, hiding her eyes from her knowing roommate, “Bronto called me last night, I think I’m gonna go over there tonight before work.” Tyler says.
Mikayla shoots her a look drenched in angered worry. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Mikayla stops mid-dress and they stare at each other for what feels like forever,
“He’s my best friend Mika, I can’t just … I can’t. I love him.”
Mikayla tries to hide her jealousy of their closeness but it’s just too much to bear this morning. “Ty, you don’t need him, especially after what he’s done to you. Why can’t you just tell me? I’m here, I’m right here.” She pleads with Ty, grasping both of Ty’s hands in hers.
“It’s just, you don’t understand.” Tyler says, wrangling free from Mikayla’s grasp, darting her eyes to the ground.
Mikayla and Tyler spend the rest of the morning in silence, Mikayla managing a half-hearted glance at Tyler before closing the door on her best friend for the last time. Tyler lays her head back down, staring at the ceiling, waiting for the sinking feeling to take hold.
Chapter 2: The Straw That Broke the Camel’s Back
Tyler awakens dazed and confused, rubbing the haze of sleep from her eyes. What time is it? She wonders, surprised at her desire for sustenance as she hasn’t actually registered hunger in weeks. Her phone reads 14:23 in big white font, and she reluctantly rolls out of bed and onto the hard, carpeted floor. She hasn’t actually attended classes in about a month and a half, the morning discourse between her and her roommate a charade performed every morning at the benefit of neither, but rather to keep the roommate relationship intact. Tyler starts the painstaking process of readying herself for the day ahead, dreading her 6.5-hour work shift that evening. Finally, 20 minutes later, she's ready to brave the test she never found the motivation to study for, reassuring herself that at the very least she had gotten out of bed, more than she could say for herself a few days earlier.
Shooting her roommate an apology text, she heads out against the cold November air. 12:30 am rolls around too soon as Tyler finishes shoving things into a bag for the long night, her conversation with Bronto playing back through her head like a record.
“You want to talk about this Ricky business?” Bronto stands with his hands on his hips, blocking Tyler’s passageway to the door.
She recalls the night when her and Ricky shared an evening together while she was at her lowest and scrambled, searching her brain for how in the world Bronto could have found out about the shared forbidden kisses. Tyler locks eyes with Bronto, pleading him to not unlock that pandora’s box, but Bronto stands steadfast, his anger growing. Tyler takes a step back, sitting down on the single piece of furniture in the room, a double mattress placed haphazardly in the center of the scuffed hard-wood floor. Her roaming hands found the edge of the sheet as she spoke into the floor.
“I was in a dark place, you know that.” Her eyes rise up to meet his and his anger quells.
“You broke my trust, Ty. Of course I was mad at you.” Bronto says.
“But did you have to say all those awful things?! Ricky was there for me while you shouted indecencies at me and about me. Nothing happened! And even if it did you and I aren’t together so it’s none of your goddamn business anyway.” Tyler has tears in her eyes as her scrambled feelings take over.
“Well we would have been if you’d come here that night instead of slut-ing it up with some low-life. I wanted you.” Bronto’s words slipped off his tongue like acid burning holes in Tyler’s already battered heart.
“I already told you how sorry I am. It’s not my fault. Please don’t let this thing with Ricky affect our relationship. I still want this.” Tyler says.
Once at work, she begins frantically texting Bronto, accusing him of acting inappropriately, explaining her side, apologizing, and everything in between. These uncovered texts, all the feelings harbored in her jumbled heart proved to be the last straw.
Chapter 3: Drowning
Tyler begins crying uncontrollably at her post, and asks to be relieved early from her shift. Once relieved, she barely manages to drag her tear-stained, broken corpse to her bathroom where she takes out the bag of pills she’s been collecting for the past two months and shoves the cocktail down her gullet with such force she almost gags.
With the deed done, she stares at herself in the mirror, no longer recognizing the ghost staring back at her.
Chapter 4: The End?
She slides down the wall, the floor catching her as her vision begins to blur. Clammy and out of breath, time becomes hard to grasp. Immediate blackness overwhelms her senses and she doesn't even get the luxury of the relief in the finality of her demise before…
“You didn’t even leave a note” He stands towering over her, shrouded in a black cloak and weilding an iron staff.
“Wh-h-a-t?” Tyler sputters as she feels bile rising in her throat.
“You didn’t leave a note” he says again plainly.
“I - I didn’t know what to say.” she looks at the ground unsure what exactly it is that beholds her.
Before he has the chance to reply,
Mikayla bursts into the bathroom, her face turning in horror at the sight of Tyler's limp body splayed across the tiled floor. Mikayla falls to her knees and grabs hold of her best friend's cold, immobile corpse clutching it to her chest, rocking back and forth, sobbing into Tyler’s abdomen. Tyler reaches out to touch her, and wants so badly to extend an embrace, to say “No it’s ok, I’m here, I’m right here, I’m ok.”
Mikayla just sits there on the floor, saying her name over and over again, “Tyler, Tyler, Tyler”, in between sobs, her voice breaking with each syllable.
“You should have left a note” he extends a spindly arm with tendrils escaping down from the cape that envelops his black mass.
Tyler brushes past the shrouded figure, not lifting her eyes to meet his and slams the door closed behind her, before sliding down to a sitting position on the floor, sobbing. In her rushed suicide, she never considered that Mikayla would be the one to find her. A sudden rush of dread pulsed through her body as she remembered her parents. Who would tell them? How would they react? What would happen to them? Frantic and desperate to escape this nightmare, Tyler rushes back into her room and slides under the covers, convinced all she has to do is sleep this off. It has to be a dream. This can't be real. She squeezes her eyes shut with as much force as possible, clenching her fists and pointing her toes for good measure. Ten minutes later, Mikayla tears through the door, frantically scrambling for her phone.
Tyler, convinced the nightmare is over, sits straight up and yells Mikayla’s name, saying, “Look Mika! I’m alive.”
Mikayla doesn’t react, but simply dials Tyler’s home number and leaves a shaky message, “H-hi Mr. and Mrs. Bantberry, it’s Mikayla, Ty-Tyler’s roommate. I’m calling because … because I need to tell you something, I’m so sorry… Ty-Tyler’s dead. She took her own life last night. I’m so sorry. *sobbing* I-I’m sorry.”
Mikayla ends the call, looking longingly at the phone as if there’s a magic button that can bring Tyler back.
In this moment Tyler realizes this is her reality, forever. Her sentence for her rash selfish act. She lays back down, a singular tear disappearing down her face.