The Death of Me by Yolanda Olson Page A

dryly.
    "What conspiracy?" he asked curiously.
    "Remember when I got knocked up and they wouldn't let me keep it?" I paused for a moment. I had always been really close with him, so I knew I wouldn't have to sugarcoat my feelings about this, regardless of the fact that Bill and Rose were his parents.
    "Yeah."
    "Turns out Grandpa and Grandma adopted him. It was a boy they named Scott and Bill and Rose raised him, and all signs point to suicide on his end," I explained with a shrug. Not that he would be able to see it.
    There was silence on the other end of the line. He had left when he was still a young man, so I knew that he couldn’t have possibly known about his parents and my child. But the silence was still unusual for him. Almost as if he were trying to think of what to say without triggering anything inside of me. One of these reasons we were both so close was because we were both prone to fits of blind rage if pushed too far.
    "Are you okay? Do you want me to come out there?" he asked quietly.
    "I'll be fine. Don't waste your time worrying about me; it'll all be okay soon enough," I replied with a small chuckle. "Anyway, I just wanted to say thanks for the flowers, Cowboy."
    "You're welcome, Zaydee," he replied warmly, before we said our good-byes and hung up.
    I let the phone drop onto the carpet next to me and draped an arm over my forehead. I was tired, but I didn’t want to take a nap because all I really did the past few days was sleep. I could’ve unpacked my stuff, but I hated that more than packing, so I decided to lounge around for a bit until I got some energy to do something; anything.
    I thought of my cowboy cousin and how much I missed him. Maybe I should have told him to come see me after all, but I knew better. Something about him had always been unstable so I believed that him being alone in rural Oklahoma was always best for him.
    I pushed the thoughts of him out of my mind. With as much as I loved him, and with as much as it was nice to have family I could still say that about besides Grandpa and Grandma, I knew that I had to figure this out on my own.
    Well, maybe not completely alone.
    I leaned down and scooped my cell phone off the carpet. When I checked the battery life, I saw that it was almost dead, so I went over to my carry-on bag and fished around until I found the power chord. Once I had everything I needed I went back to the couch and unplugged the small lamp on the table at the end of the couch and plugged in the phone. I figured I could wait until it was fully charged before I made my phone call.
    After all, there was only one person that would fully understand my internal torment right now and I didn’t think it was fair to suffer this alone.

Twenty
(Thursday)
    I t was 12:01 in the morning and I had decided to stop flip flopping with the phone call. The device had long since charged, but I didn’t know if what I was intending would breed the intentions that I wanted, so I spent the rest of the day and the night sitting on it.
    I had managed to make one phone call, but not the important one; not the one I needed that would help quell the pain. I took a deep breath and got up from the carpet of my bedroom floor that I had been sitting on and walked over to the other side of the bed, where my phone had been charging on the nightstand.
    With unsteady hands, I brought the screen to life and plopped down on the edge of the bed. I glanced back at the nightstand and grabbed the paper that held the phone number on it, then used the light of the phone screen to read it and punch the numbers in.
    After the fifth ring, I was ready to give up, but a froggy voice came onto the line.
    “Hello?” he asked.
    “Hey. Sorry I’m calling so late, but I can’t sleep,” I said softly.
    “What time is it?” he asked.
    “Past midnight. I’m sorry that I woke you up, but I needed to talk to you.”
    “Zaydee, there’s something you should know,” he said in a slightly clearer voice.
    “I