Life's A Cappella by Yessi Smith Page B

trust. She knew I didn’t want anyone to know, but no, she took it upon herself and told Brianna and Tonya anyway.
    “The fuck?” I shouted at them, barely able to hear my own voice over the ringing in my ears.
    “We tried to call you,” Brianna explained. “But you didn’t answer.”
    “No shit?” I retorted. “Could I have turned my phone off because I didn’t wanna talk to anyone?”
    “You know?” Tonya asked me, her eyes wide, questioning. She was probably curious about my sanity. Which I was on the verge of losing.
    “Of course I know,” I said angrily. “I just wanna know why the hell Camilla told you. It’s not your concern.”
    “What? No?” Brianna shook her head at me.
    “I appreciate the concern,” I told them, “but you need to leave.”
    “Wait, stop!” Tonya shouted at me. “You don’t understand.”
    “Oh, I understand,” I said evenly.
    “She’s gone, Erin!” Tonya shouted at me, stopping me mid-thought. “She’s gone,” she repeated, causing Brianna to start crying.
    Confused, I looked at my friends and finally noticed that something was wrong. Their eyes shone red with tears not yet shed brimming over. Something was very wrong.
    “Who’s gone?” I asked, not wanting to hear the answer.
    “Cam.”
    Cam? Gone? Where? I couldn’t remember asking any questions or who responded, but I remembered the answer. Cam left my apartment last night but never made it home.
    She was gone. Dead.
    The remainder of the day passed me by in a blur. No, days. Days seemed to come and go in a haze, none of them making any sense. People, my friends, visited me and left. I had conversations I couldn’t recall and nights that didn’t end. I didn’t go to work and only half hoped I had called in sick.
    Somebody had left me a bottle of Xanax, which I eagerly combined with a couple of shots of Patron, only making the nights and days blur together as one. I wasn’t sure how much time had passed, or how time could pass at all, when the day of her funeral, Camilla’s funeral, finally arrived.
    Trent woke me up early that morning, refusing to let me take any pills or alcohol. It didn’t matter. Nothing could ease the pain I felt. It was embedded in me, a permanent limb I could neither live with nor without.
    I didn’t speak to him as I got ready, nor did I think about the fact that Trent, the man I was sure hated me, was in my apartment. I couldn’t remember if I had spoken to him or seen him since our fight. I guess it didn’t really matter. He was there, but he might as well have been a galaxy away.
    I sat on my couch, feeling my chest constrict with every beat my heart took, and Camilla’s didn’t. We had drunk too much because of my stupid life. If I hadn’t been so damn stubborn, those were her words, right? Stubborn. If I hadn’t been so stubborn and let her stay, let her help me like she wanted to, this wouldn’t have happened.
    I grabbed my stomach, rocking back and forth on the couch. This was my fault. Me and my stupid useless pathetic life.
    Trent sat down next to me but, I quickly got up and ran to the bathroom where I dispensed my anxiety into the toilet. And started to moan, an uncontrollable moan that made my shoulders shake and my stomach hurt worse. I felt Trent put his arms around me and I leaned into him, seeking comfort that didn’t exist.
    Trent eased me back into the couch and left me to bring me a glass of water and my little white, bitter pill. I swallowed the pill greedily and hoped for calm, knowing one pill wouldn’t do much, but knowing Trent wouldn’t give me another.
    As we were leaving, I made an excuse to go back to the apartment and dashed away from his car so I could take another pill. I then hid an extra in-case-shit-got-really-bad pill in my purse.
    I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t ready for any of it. To see my dead friend, our friends, her family. I wasn’t ready to make it any more real than it already was.
    I twisted my hands and worried my skirt