Page 118 of Dirty Chorus

“She left me a message at the church.” I tap on my phone, unlocking the screen and showing him the photo. “It was on the stall door. She said she was sorry and he wanted to hurt me.”

“Okay.” The officer writes, nods slowly.

“She was acting weird the past week and she broke up with me that night.”

“What do you mean she was acting weird?”

“Crying a lot, having issues with one of her friends. She was staying with me for a while.”

“I see...We’ll look into that. Brody Thomas is currently in the hospital.”

“My apartment was broken into that night as well, and there's a police report on it. I think the football team at GCU did it. They raided my store before the semester even started. Brody ambushed me there one evening over Charlie.”

The officer scratches his brow and huffs. “Why didn’t you report it?”

“I just didn’t see something like this happening. Just figured he was pissed off. We were seeing each other, and I figured he was trying to scare me.”

“This is tough. We’ll review possible connections with other players, but without footage or a witness, it’s difficult to pursue.” He sighs, checking his notes. “We’ll make a report, but... again, without evidence, there’s not much we can confirm.”

I grip the edge of the chair. “You can’t use the message she left me on the stall door?”

“It’s graffiti. Anyone could have written it and it may not hold up as proof.” His tone softens. “But we appreciate you coming forward. Anything at this point is helpful and I’ll relay all this information for you.”

Appreciate. Like that word fixes anything. “Thanks.” I shove my phone back in my pocket and stand. “Have a nice evening.” I dip my hands into my jeans and head outside into the parking lot. Crickets sing and streetlights flicker. I lean against the hood of my truck, fingers shaking, and bruises still healing on my knuckles from the wall I punched that night.

I take one breath. Then another.

But it doesn’t help. Because no matter how deep I breathe, I can still see those black words on that white wall, burned into my brain like scripture. How could they just dismiss me like that? But it looks like Charlie was right about the police – The Thomas family has money, and Brody’s dad is using it to keep the police wrapped around his little finger.

I flip the light on, and my chest caves in. My truck keys fall to the floor as I stare at the apartment’s wreckage, completely gutted. Drawers pulled out. Cabinets left open. My grandfather’s records, the old jazz vinyls he played on Sundays, shattered across the floor. I’ve avoided coming up here, putting this on the back burner in my head and crashing at Omen’s just so I wouldn’t have to face it.

Framed photos lay face down, some cracked, others smeared with dirt and footprints. A box of sheet music he’d handwritten sits overturned, the pages crumpled and bent.

I crouched down, picking up a broken picture frame. It’s one of Gramps smiling with my mom when she was a child. The glass cuts into my thumb, and I drop the picture to the floor, sticking my thumb into my mouth, sucking the bit of blood coming out.

My throat tightens until I can’t breathe. I’ve never felt so alone. I’m mentally exhausted, I can’t even think about cleaning up the mess. My feet just crunch underneath it. Walking over a hoard of memories just destroyed. I head to my bedroom, the second I step inside, I realize my room is untouched. It doesn’t make any sense. If you were going to rob a place, everything would be destroyed and flipped upside down, but it was untouched. And I spot the clothes I’d given Charlie. The ones she’d worn the night she stayed here, folded neatly on the corner of the bed.

I crumble down, pick up one of the shirts, and press it to my face. The smell hits me instantly. Vanilla and smoke, it’s faint, but there and it’s her.

My chest twists. I wish it didn’t smell like her. I wish it smelled like detergent – like clean cotton or like nothing at all – because then maybe I wouldn’t remember the way she laughed into my shoulder, or the way she clung to me like I was the only thing keeping her from drowning.

And now I know what Brody did to her. The truth sits like acid in my stomach. He drugged her. He touched her. He broke her. And I wasn’t there. I should've been there. I should've stopped it. I should've seen what was happening and jumped off that damn stage.

The shirt falls from my hand to the floor. My body blacks out into a pure, hot-white rage. I can’t even control it any longer. I grab my guitar off its stand. It's the one my grandpa helped me buy, the one I played my first real gig with.

“God! Fucking why!” My grip tightens around the neck until my knuckles ache. Then I swing. The first hit shatters the headstock against the floor. “Why do you fucking hate me so much!” Slamming it again and again. The entire time I’m yelling and screaming. “I’ve done nothing to you!” I leave dents in the wall throwing it against it. “You always do this! You always fucking take everything from me!” When I slam it around enough, it splits the body clean in two, and I chuck it across the room. When I finally stop, I’m on my knees, surrounded by broken wood and strings. My breath comes in short, sharp gasps. My hands are shaking as I cover my eyes with them. I press my palms into my eyes until all I see is red.

I don’t feel like a man. I’m a fucking coward. If I’d done what I should’ve that night, if I’d listened to my gut instead of letting my heart win the war, Charlie wouldn’t be missing. I punch the floor once, hard enough to make my wrist go numb. “Fuck you! You’ve taken my mom, you won’t even let me have a fucking father! Then you take her! Fuck you!”

Chapter 54

Charlie

Who am I? I don’t know my name. They keep asking, but every time I open my mouth, nothing comes out that sounds right. I throw out some random names, but nothing seems to fit me. Nothing meshes well in my skin or feels right. I have no idea who I am.

Why the hell would my name be Annette, Bertha, Gail, Hilda, Janice? What? Gross. Who the hell names their children these? I want to hurl in a toilet each time they go over a list of names.

But I know I’m in a hospital. I figured that out. I stopped screaming, but I wasn’t about to be put back to sleep for a third time. The nurses come in and out, and the monitor beeps. It’s non-stop beeping, they won’t even shut the damn thing off when I try to sleep. Non. Stop. I ask if they can turn off the sound. Do they listen? No, but hey the good news is I can count on my fingers and do some basic math. Yay to me. I feel like I’m in kindergarten with the way they're treating me. Recite the alphabet, read these words for me. They made me do all of this earlier, their voices soft and patient. Write the numbers, tell me what animal this is. I did all the exercises, but now I’m tired – wanting to remember something, anything that’s tangible.