The overheard phone call

She can hear the voice through the study room. Her ear is pressing against the brown wooden door. Mackenzie didn’t mean to listen to the conversation, but she can’t help herself. She had been walking down the hallway trying to get to her room before her roommate noticed. When she heard the voice echoing through the study room door. She fidgets in the doorway, her feet alternating from the floor to her tippy toes as she sways up and down. She bit her lip in nerves, she knew she should not be doing this, but the second she heard the “Mackenzie doesn’t know,” coming from the other side of the door, she found herself frozen in place. 

She cups her ear with her hand as she leans against the door to listen. 

“No, she doesn’t know!”

There is a pause on the line, before the voice, which she identified as her roommate, Abigail continues, “I promise, I didn’t tell her!”

She picks up the sound of footsteps pacing in a circle.

“They are coming tonight, hopefully, they will bring everything. Did he pick it up?”

Mackenzie huffs to herself as she strains her ears to hear the person on the other side of the line, but comes back empty. 

“Mackenzie is going to die tonight.”

Her eyes are white and fixated on the door she is leaning on. Her knees start to give out, making her start to crumble to the floor. Guiding herself down gently, she puts her arms out to hit the ground first and then lowers herself to the floor. 'What did Abigail mean by that?'

Abigail's talking pulls her back into reality and she once again puts her ear to the door. “I will make sure she doesn’t suspect anything. She will never see this coming.”

Feeling the bile creeping up her throat, she gets off the floor without making a sound and staggers to her bedroom. The second she gets into her room, she shuts the door and locks it. Her back slams against the door frame as she slides down to the ground, knees to her chest, arms wrapped around her knees and her head leans against the door. Her chest heaves, the air in her lungs struggling to take a deep breath in. The panic is building up in her as she coughs and grasps, trying to do anything she can to get a deep breath in. 

A million thoughts echo in her mind.

 ‘Why did Abigail say she will die tonight?’ 

‘What are they picking up?'

'Who are they?’

The words her roommate used earlier felt like a knife to the back, ‘She doesn’t suspect anything, she will never see this coming.’

All the statements that she heard only brought her to one conclusion, they are going to kill her tonight. She needs to prepare. 

Her eyes scan the bedroom desperately looking for anything that can help her fight them off, should it come to that. She isn’t going to back down, she isn’t going to be that scary little girl she once was. 

In her childhood, she was a hopeful people pleaser. She spent her childhood and well until young adulthood pleasing everyone around her. Never spoke up, never shared her real opinions, and only gave answers that made the people surrounding her happy. Mackenzie never did anything for herself, everything she had ever done had been for someone else. It didn’t matter if the someone was her best friend, a stranger, or her worst enemy, she wanted to make them happy. She never wanted to cause an argument or be the reason someone had a bad day. 

It all changed though, her perspective of life shifted rapidly the second she overheard those words through that door. The world around her shattered at the belief that the people she has been trying to make happy want her dead. When she met them she thought she had finally found the people in the entire world that connected with her. Now, she is not so sure. 

Her eyes finally land on the small knife on the bed stand. Last night, she ate dinner in her room and brought the knife to cut her food. Looking at the small object now though, it felt more like a weapon rather than a culinary utensil. She stands up, her feet slightly wobbling as she walks over to the bed stand, stares at the knife, and picks it up. Her hands run along the smooth part of the blade mindlessly. Swallowing harshly, she hid the knife behind her back, when the loud sound from the front door that seems to echo over the whole house rang out. 

Knock.

Knock..

Knock…

Listening intently she can hear the front door being opened and the hush sound of Abigail speaking to them. Mackenzie paces in her room, walking in a circle so much she is surprised she doesn’t fall through the floor. After what felt like a century, but with a quick glance at the clock on the wall discovers it has only been twenty minutes, she hears rapid footsteps approaching. 

“Mackenzie, come to the kitchen! I need to show you something,” shouts Abigail from the other side of the bedroom door. 

Shoving her nerves down her throat she calls back, “Be right there!” She feels on the brink of unconsciousness, at the idea of walking out to her death bed, but she is done being that small little girl anymore. That small little girl deserved so much better in her life and it is time to carve her an improved one. She walks out of her bedroom and down the hallway, all with the knife gripping in her hand behind her back.

 She can hear the taunting words coming from the kitchen as she approaches, “Is the knife out?” 

“Yeah, I got it out when we got here. I’ve been waiting for this all week.” 

Her fingers glide gently across the red-painted walls, would there be more color on these walls soon? She keeps her footsteps as light as possible, to hopefully surprise them with her entrance. As she approaches the kitchen, she can’t help but wonder if this is really happening to her right now. Is she really going to walk into her own death sentence? Attempting to take a deep breath, she puts her hand on the kitchen door and pushes it open, and walks in. 

The pitch black of the room shook her at the core, did they really not have the courage to kill her where they could stare into each other's eyes as she took her last breath? ‘No,’ she thought to herself, ‘this is not how it is going to go down.’ Her hand reaches up and feels the wall for the light switch. The second her hand feels it, she turns on the light and hears the screaming.

“Surprise!!!” 

Jumping back as she glances around the room rapidly, noticing the excitement on everyone’s faces. “W-what?” 

“Happy birthday,” Abigail comes over and embraces her with a hug, 

“I,” Mackenzie stutters, she notices that the wooden kitchen table has a cake with a cake knife next to it. The overwhelming feeling of embarrassment and relief floods through her veins. She can feel this cold feeling wash over her and the hairs on her neck fall back down. They were not here to kill her, they were here to celebrate her. “Wow, this is a surprise.”

“Come on, birthday girl, come cut the cake,” calls her friend Aaron, as he waves her over and gestures to the knife on the table. 

She can feel the red flush come over her cheeks, ashamed at what she thought and what she has behind her back. “I have one, a knife I mean, I have a knife from last night's dinner,” she says rapidly. 

“I told you all, she would die tonight of embarrassment, our girl can never focus on her own needs,” says Abigail chuckling. 

“We are not using a dirty knife to cut this cake, put that one in the sink and come use this clean knife,” says Aaron. 

She walks over quickly to the sink, drops the knife in, and goes back over to the kitchen table. She picks up the knife and cuts the cake as they all sing Happy Birthday to her. “Happy early birthday,” she corrected them quietly. She stands there surrounded by her friends, takes in this moment, and lets the feeling of her approaching death leave her body.