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Before: Go Away


Ashley

On July the 16th at approximately 3:30 AM, police responded to a domestic abuse call at 24 W. Opal Drive. Upon arriving at the scene, responding officer Jim Carroll discovered evidence of violence. Further investigation led to the discovery of the body of Monica Jackson. Suspect Henry Jackson was arrested at the scene and transported to Tampa City Police Department for questioning. An hour after FLPD responded to the call, an investigating officer discovered an infant in the upstairs bedroom...

It didn't matter how fast Nick slammed that folder shut, I'd already seen the keywords that I needed to see to know too much.

I ran from the room. Nick came after me, but I managed to slam and lock the bathroom door before he got in. He banged on the door, "Ashley!" he called, his voice panicked. I tried not to listen to him as I flung myself over the porcelin bowl and threw up until there was nothing left in me to throw up and my stomach was just clenching for no reason. I felt dizzy and empty and hurt.

"Ashley!" Nick begged, "Please, open the door."

"Go away," I cried.

"Ashley, c'mon, this doesn't mean shit."

I choked on my own heaves.

"Ashley, you okay?" Nick's voice was lower, more careful.

"I said go away," I croaked.

I heard him sit down, leaning against the door in the hallway. I could see his ass blocking the light the filtered under the door.

"That's the opposite of going away," I wailed.

"Since when do I ever listen to a damn thing you tell me?" he asked.

I swiped my hand over my mouth and laid down on the tile. "Fine, sit there, then, I don't care." I curled my knees to my chest and laid there, staring at the dust that was collecting in the corner under my sink. The tile floor was cool under my cheek. The room smelled like sick.

He'd killed her. I didn't have a mother because my father had killed her. I rocked myself.

I heard Nick get up in the hallway, heard his feet go down the hallway.

I closed my eyes and I didn't wake up until I heard the door of the apartment slam.




Nick

I called Jason.

Jason was a lawyer in Nashville who sometimes doubled as my manager on solo projects. He wasn't great at being a manager, but he was great at being a lawyer. So I picked up the folder on Ashley's table and called him.

She might not want it right now, but eventually she would want answers, and Jason had access to records and files that Ashley and I would have a lot more trouble getting to than he would.

"Jason Turner here," he anwered his cellphone with a hurried sort of tone to his voice.

"Heyyyy Jase, it's Nick," I said. I was leaning over the table, staring down at the open police report.

He sounded shocked, "Nick? Wow, it's been awhile. I heard about your uh --" he stopped.

"Plane crash? Scar? All of the above?" I laughed because, well, what else do you do?

"Yeah," he said. "How's it going?" I could hear it in his voice. The guilt tone. Anyone who hadn't really talked to me a lot since before the crash sounded like that. Guilty for having not talked to me since they heard about it. Brian had sounded like that for a long time because it'd taken him almost a month to call me. He'd been going through some stuff before the crash and we'd been in a lot of fights and he'd been really judgemental of me and we'd ended up not really speaking. Then after the crash, he'd taken forever to know how to say sorry and it'd resulted in a couple weeks of radio silence, followed by a couple weeks of awkward guilty tones.

"It's okay," I answered.

"Good, good..." Jason now sounded uncomfortable. Like he was a teenage boy trying to think of something besides baseball and the weather to talk about on his first date.

"Look," I said, "I confess I'm not just calling to shoot the shit with you. I actually have something important I was hoping you could help me out with?"

Relief was literally audible in his response, "Yeah? What's that? I'll do what I can."

"You remember Ashley."

"Who?" he sounded confused.

"Dogface?" I tried.

"Ohhh right, yeah, that girl you hang around with. I didn't know her actual name," he laughed. I felt bad. Too many people in my circle didn't know she had an actual name. "What about her?" he asked.

"Well I have a police report from 1980 here that I need some more information about the outcome of the situation for her," I replied, "And I was hoping you might have access to getting that faster than either of us?"

"Sure, you wanna fax it over and I'll check it out?"

I looked around. Ashley didn't own a fax machine. "I'll fax it later tonight," I replied.

At that moment, the door slammed open and Chris was standing there, balancing two pizzas on his hand. His face was kind of twisted or something and he stepped into the room, studying me, as he put the pizzas on the table.

"Anytime, Nick. You still got my fax number?" Jason was asking on the phone.

"Yeah, it's stored in my contacts," I replied. Chris and I were eyeballing each other. He slammed the apartment door and it echoed through the rooms of the apartment. He was frowning. "I'll send it by later tonight," I added, "Thanks Jase. See ya." I hung up.

Chris was standing a couple feet away, the corner of the table separated us.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" he asked.

"Peyton --"

"...was downstairs in the hallway and didn't have a fucking clue what I was talking about when I asked her how her date with you went," Chris finished my sentence.

I stood there awkwardly, caught in my own stupid ass web.

Chris' voice was low, "So what the hell are you doing here?" he asked. He looked around the room, "Where's Ashley?"

"Bathroom," I replied.

Chris stepped around the table and for the splittest of moments, I thought he was about to slug me. Instead, he paused, "Go away," he commanded under his breath. Then he continued around me, to the hallway and I heard him knock on the door and call her name. "Ashley?"

I looked down at the folder on the table.

I gnawed my lower lip, then picked it up and slid out the apartment door.