Before You Break

Chapter Seven Ella

I had my script ready to go at my desk. It was a slow night, which didn’t happen that often. Usually the weeks preceding a holiday like Easter were the worst. They triggered all kinds of expectations and memories for people. But on sunny days like today, the lines were slow. The weather made people feel better somehow. At least momentarily.

My thoughts were all over the place tonight.

I couldn’t stop thinking about seeing Quinn in the hallway at Zach’s. How he’d moved toward me like he wanted to be nearer. I wouldn’t have stopped him, either, even though my boyfriend had only been five hundred feet away. How messed up was that? There was just something about Quinn. Like being around him again had pulled me back into his orbit.

And that girl who’d showed up. Was she an ex? Did he still want her? The powerful way he’d stared me down and then looked at her—pain mapped all over his face.

And then the way he’d held her in the parking lot. I couldn’t turn away from that window. It was all tender and intimate, and it tied my stomach up in knots. But then he’d pushed her away and sped off, leaving her standing all alone.

Joel had done a fair amount of groveling after that night I spent in the bathroom with Quinn. I didn’t mention what Quinn had done, which felt wrong, like he and I shared a secret. I didn’t want Joel to get the wrong idea, because in truth, nothing had happened. Except that the atmosphere had somehow shifted between Quinn and me.

Joel wasn’t a jealous kind of guy, and at first, I liked that about him. But after what Quinn had told me, I was beginning to think differently of him. Like Joel didn’t quite care enough about me to be possessive. To make me feel like I was his and he was mine.

I imagined it felt amazing to have someone want you so much that they staked claim on you. Like Bennett and Avery. Maybe they hadn’t spoken it out loud, but it was obvious. They were all over each other all the time and no one would stand a chance getting between them.

I’d wondered on more than one occasion if Quinn was that impassioned with his girlfriends, and I had a pretty good idea that maybe he was. It seemed like he’d been holding himself back in the bathroom. He’d stopped himself from saying everything he had wanted to about Joel. Like his raw emotions had been right under the surface waiting to be unleashed.

He was so intense in the hallway at Zach’s. It had been like he was crawling beneath my skin, trying to get inside me. Unless I’d been imagining it and my crush was purely one-sided. I mean, the guy watched me dry heave, for fuck’s safe. How sexy could that have been?

I wasn’t sure why I kept thinking about that gorgeous boy. It was stupid and dangerous. Besides, he was never with any girls—at least not recently—and even if he was, I was pretty sure he wouldn’t choose someone like me. I was probably too tame, too straitlaced for him. I liked things orderly, tidy, with few surprises.

What I saw in Quinn—beneath the surface of his eyes—was something wholly uncultivated, despite his smooth exterior. Something passionate and undisciplined. And it made me want to be throw all my rules out the window and feel wild and untamed with him.

All of these fantasies about Quinn were keeping me from facing some hard truths about my own relationship. I always knew Joel had been a bit of a flirt, but based on his “hot girls” comment the other night, I wondered if he’d cheated on me, too. The problem was: We’d never truly had a conversation about not seeing other people. It was just assumed. He knew I was a loyal girlfriend and so maybe he’d never felt the need to tell me he wanted me and me alone.

And here I was six months later, not even sure where I stood. I knew he enjoyed our sex life, because he’d told me it was some of the best he’d ever had. He denied up and down that he was screwing around with other girls when I’d asked him, but there was something in his eyes that said different.

I thought about telling him that we should date other people to see if he would take the bait, but ultimately, I decided I didn’t want to play head games with him. Besides, if I was fantasizing about this other guy, did I really feel that deeply for Joel in the first place?

My phone line lit up and snapped me straight back to reality.

“Suicide prevention, this is Gabriella.”

“Hi, um . . . Gabby?” The low drawl of his tortured voice made my heart practically crash straight out of my chest.

It was him, the guy I’d been wondering about. The one who I’d hoped was still alive. “Daniel?”

I heard him let out a gasp. “You remembered my name?”

“Well, not too many people call me Gabby,” I said. I needed to continue talking to keep him on the phone this time. “I’m glad to hear your voice. Last time you called . . .”

“Yeah, I hung up, sorry about that,” he said. His words were a bit slurred, and I wondered how much he’d had to drink. “I just wasn’t ready to talk. And I’m still not sure if I am. But tonight I had . . .”

“Had what, Daniel?”

When he didn’t respond I tried filling in the words for him. “Suicidal thoughts?”

“Yeah, sorta,” he said. “I just figured . . . things would be so much easier if I weren’t around.”

I’d heard this same sentiment from many of my callers. They just wanted to know someone cared. Needed them. Would listen. “Easier for whom?”

“For the people I hurt. And for me,” he said. “But I’m also not sure what’s waiting for me. On the other side. Probably some form of hell. And I’m a chicken shit.”

My heart clenched for him. He thought he was worthless. Bad. Would go straight to hell. What had this guy done?

“Why do you think you’d go to hell? Everyone makes mistakes. We hurt people when we don’t mean to. Or sometimes, we even do.” I’d had to convince my parents of this fact, because suicide was a sin so ingrained in their religion. A religion I couldn’t stand behind any longer. Not when my brother would be condemned for taking his own life after having longstanding mental health issues. “It’s a part of being human, Daniel.”

“Not this kind of mistake. I don’t think I can ever be forgiven.” And then more quietly, he said, “Or even forgive myself.”

“I’m here to listen, Daniel. And I’m not going to judge you.” My fingers gripped the phone so hard my knuckles turned white. I was desperate to hear his story. For him. And for me, too. So I could help him heal. Or direct him to someone who could. “You can pour it all out and never worry about running into me. We don’t even know each other. We’re just on the phone. You’re safe to tell me.”

“Shit.” His voice came out gurgled, like he was on the verge of tears. And then with one big huff, the floodgates opened, and he let them flow. He was sobbing and panting, so I kept silent, my heart lodged in my throat.

“It’s okay,” I whispered after several long minutes. “It’s good to get those emotions out.”

When his breathing finally slowed and he pulled himself together, he said, “Thanks.”

“No problem,” I said, my words clogged with emotion. “I’d like to hear your story, Daniel. We all have one, you know.”

I heard him shifting and wondered where exactly he was. I figured inside somewhere because I hadn’t heard any car horns or other people in the background. I pictured him in his room, much like Christopher had been that fateful night. “If I tell you, you might not think I’m such a nice person after all.”

“What could you possibly have done to make you think that?”

“My best friend,” he choked on the word. “I betrayed him and then . . . I killed him.”

What the hell? Killed him? I was out of my league here.

Am I talking to a murderer? No, I couldn’t believe that. This was Daniel. The person who somehow evoked memories of Christopher. My sweet brother whose life ended too early.

He was calling the hotline because he was hurting. Desperate. In agony.

“Killed him how?” I tried to make my voice sound level. I gripped my pen cap and it left an indentation in my palm. “Was it an accident?”

“That’s what people think, yes,” he muttered. “But I should’ve been more careful, been paying better attention.”

My hand went to my eyes, rubbing them to keep my emotions at bay. I needed to stay strong. For him. “Oh, Daniel.”

“Don’t you dare say it.” His voice was like a soft growl. Like he’d been clenching his teeth. “All those things the therapist would say. That no one decides in a split second to take someone’s life. That I need to forgive myself, or my life will feel meaningless, too.”

So he’d been to therapy over this. He was carrying guilt around. Wearing it like a suit of armor. “Okay.” I was trying to remain neutral, to allow him the chance to talk.

“What the therapist didn’t know was that I didn’t give two shits about my own life,” he rumbled. “That I was already thinking of ways I could end it.”

But he hadn’t ended it. Which told me he needed to unload all of this. Unburden himself. That’s why he was calling the hotline. To talk to someone he felt safe and anonymous with. My instincts were usually right. But what kind of guilt was he lugging around? Survivor’s guilt or just self-loathing?

“What do you think of me now, Gabby?”

His voice was shaky, laced with fear. As if by knowing his truth I’d had the power to ruin him, take him down, or call him the filthiest names in the book. Like that would be any worse that what he was already putting himself through.

And that’s when I realized just how vulnerable Daniel was.

I felt a longing in my chest to hold him, comfort him. Like I might have done with Christopher that night.

“I wish I could see your face,” he said, never allowing me the chance to respond. His voice was fueled with anger. “I’d be able to tell what you thought of me just by looking in your eyes. Just like what I saw in everybody else’s eyes. Pity. Disgust.”

“No, Daniel. Not disgust. Not even close.”

“What, then?” His voice became soft and timid.

“The truth is,” I said, finally finding my voice, “I’d only have to look in your eyes to see a person filled with an overwhelming amount of guilt and pain. So much hurt that it’s coming out of your eyeballs.”

I heard him clear his throat like maybe it was jammed with grief.

“But there are layers to you, Daniel, that make you deep and complex and good. Under all that agony is an inherently good person,” I said. “That’s what I believe.”

“You don’t even fucking know me,” he spat out. “I’m not good.”

And then the line went dead. Again.

Damn it to hell!

Like last time, Daniel had called from a blocked number, so I had no way to get him back. Only in the case of an emergency did we involve the police or put a trace on a call.

Even still, I had trouble sleeping that night thinking about Daniel sobbing into the phone and hoped against hope that he believed there was good inside of him.

And maybe that’s what kept him going. Kept him alive.

I wondered what Christopher had said to himself in the still of the night. The night he took his own life. What truths did he tell himself? And what lies—as he downed that bottle of prescription pills and chased it with vodka.