lower volume. The members of Metallica stared accusingly at me from Joe’s favorite poster above the speakers.
“Joe?”
I looked around the dark space. The rain clouds had moved in quickly, cutting out the setting sun. And the blackout curtains that Joe insisted on having closed at all times didn’t help. Also, the stupid rotating strobe light made it impossible to see anything further than a foot in front of me.
“Hello?” I wrinkled my nose, smelling something putrid.
I found him in the center of the room on the sectional couch, sleeping. He lay on his side, his face buried in the cushions. I navigated around empty beer bottles on the floor to get to him. The smell was stronger now.
I poked him in the side. “Joe. Come on. Wake up.” It would be like him to pretend to be passed out, then jump up and scare me. It wouldn’t be the first time. His jokes were immature, yet he insisted they were hilarious.
I poked him again, but he didn’t move.
Two can play at that game.
I flipped the flashlight on my phone and pointed it at his face. I expected him to pop up with a goofy grin, then go into a tirade on how he “got me.”
Instead, Joe didn’t move. At all. Surprisingly, he was a light sleeper, yet he insisted on listening to music and television to fall asleep. The change in volume should have woken him, and the flashlight definitely would have.
What had he taken to keep him in such a deep slumber?
I slid the beam over the room. On the side table, there were several more empty beer bottles and other paraphernalia from the party he apparently had going on since I’d last seen him. I didn’t have time to dwell on his habits when something else caught my attention. A folded piece of paper sat on the table. I wouldn’t have cared otherwise, except my name was scrawled across the front in bold black letters.
I picked it up and unfolded it. Maybe Joe had brought me here as another joke and had no intention of setting me free from the toxic relationship. My throat constricted at the thought.
There was one line of writing, and I read the three words over and over, unable to make sense of them.
“All for you,” the note read.
“All for me what?” I asked aloud.
I folded the note and shoved it in my pocket. “Joe, come on,” I said louder. “Wake up!” I shook his shoulder.
He still didn’t wake. I’d never had to try this hard before. I reached my shaking hand to him, slower this time. I shook his shoulder. “Joe?”
My voice sounded far away in my ears. I shook harder. Still nothing. I touched his neck, feeling for a pulse. My own pulse throbbed in my fingertips, though no blood rushed through his veins.
I had to make sure he hadn’t done something stupid. I gripped his shoulder and turned him. His unmoving glossy eyes stared blankly at the ceiling.
A shuddering breath escaped my lips. I screamed and clamped my hands over my mouth, backing away from him. I knocked over a couple of beer bottles; they clinked against the floor and rolled in different directions. I bolted from the pool house, escaping from the claustrophobic feeling welling in my chest. I leaned over and threw up my dinner all over the brick patio. I knelt on the ground next to my puke and took deep gulps of air. My hands trembled in my lap.
I looked at the door of the pool house, knowing Joe’s dead body was on the other side.
It took me a few seconds to snap out of it. I grabbed hold of my senses and stood up on shaky legs. I needed to call for help. I looked at my empty hands, and a feeling of dread swelled in my already sensitive stomach. In my terror of seeing Joe’s body, I must have dropped my phone.
Through the glass sliding doors, the beam of light from my phone’s flashlight acted like a beacon, taunting me from inside. My stomach lurched at the thought of going in there again. I didn’t have a key to the main house to call from the landline, so I had to go back in there.
As I stepped into the pool house, the scent of something unfamiliar burned my nose. Was that what a dead body smelled like? My stomach rolled, and I swallowed to keep whatever was left in it firmly in place.
A sob escaped my lips when I realized the phone was next to the couch. I would have to go near his body to get it.
I stepped closer to him, slowly as if the floor were made of cracked ice. I knelt down by the phone and clamped a hand over my mouth and nose, trying not to breathe in the stench of him. I avoided looking at Joe’s still body.
I whimpered as I grabbed the phone and bolted out of the pool house. Outside, I inhaled the sharp scent of chlorine coming from the pool. It was better than inside the confined space. My shaking fingers pressed 911.
“Chester Bay nine-one-one. What’s the address of the emergency?” a female voice said over the line.
I stumbled over Joe’s address, my voice shaking. The woman didn’t ask me to repeat myself, so I figured she understood through my sobbing. Or the GPS on my phone gave the location.
“I think he’s dead,” I said.
“Who’s dead?”
“My— Joe, Joseph Blair. Please hurry.”
“Don’t worry, miss. I’m sending someone now.”
I hung up the phone and closed my eyes, trying to forget the image of Joe’s dead face burned into my brain.
I turned and could see Joe’s body through the glass doors. My stomach shifted uneasily.
I took a breath and decided to wait for the police at the front of the house. It was better than staring at the place where my boyfriend had died. My chin trembled, and I dragged a breath through my chattering teeth before letting out a choked sob. Tears blurred my vision, and each step was harder than the next.
I took one last look behind me. I imagined Joe walking out of the pool house at any second, but he didn’t. He never would again. All of Joe’s drug and alcohol abuse had caught up with him. Why had I been the unlucky one to discover him?
The image of Joe’s blank face flashed in my eyes every time I blinked. The lights from the police cars painted the overlay of his face in red and blue. The police had been at the house for almost an hour already. Did they really need those lights on? I rubbed my temples with my fingertips. The nasty stench of death had settled in the back of my throat, making me want to gag again, though I doubted I had anything left in my stomach.
A pair of headlights pierced through the darkness further down the driveway. I stood up from the wide stairs at the entrance of the main house. I leaned my body against one of the large white columns, squinting to see who it was.
When I recognized the car, a breath whooshed out of me. I raced from the steps, weaving between the blue and white police cars to get to my dad’s Jeep.
A female officer stationed behind the other police cars waved for Dad to stop.
“That’s my dad,” I said breathlessly, fighting back another round of tears. I needed to get as far away from this nightmare as I could. I’d called Mom and Dad after the 911 call. They told me to wait for them. I had enough trouble controlling the violent trembling of my hands and the flashes of Joe’s face, so I knew I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to drive.
“This is still a crime scene,” the officer said, clasping her hands behind her back. “He can meet you on the other side of the tape.”
I lifted the yellow tape and stepped under. Raindrops peppered me in the face. Thankfully, the rain had let up until moments after the police arrived. Until my parents arrived, I’d huddled by the front entrance of the main house, not wanting to go inside any of the buildings on the