Room 412

CONTENT WARNING: Mentions of self harm; mentions of sexual assault.

The fluorescent lights hum, casting a sick yellow wash over rows of cubicles. Each a stifled kingdom of suppressed sighs and tapping keyboards. My own kingdom is piled with files and a phone ringing without end.

It’s a cage.

Five years.

Five years since the Bon.

Five years since the sound of clinking bottles was my alarm clock.

Five years since I’d wake up with the sun a raw wound in my eyes, and a new bruise added to the collection on my hip from tripping on a curb and falling on my way home from the bars.

Now, I drink black coffee. Cafe Bustelo, as recommended by Tim.

Tim is my friend. He was my lover. A man who put a match to kindling I never even knew was stacked inside me. He once compared me to Dean Moriarity.

Dawn was my lover, too. My GF. Tim was sort of a third.

I wear sensible shoes. The spike-heeled boots or Doc Martens that once clicked defiance on the boulevard now sit in the back of my closet, monuments to a past self. Where I once sold ladies unmentionables for a living and brought bacon home, I now answer phones, route calls, smile professionally, and make enough money to say afloat and maybe have enough left over to go to Dick’s Drive-In once a month.

I love Dick’s. The hot, greasy, and unhealthy goodness it serves satisfied my hangover jones every time. It would hit that sweet spot in my belly and satisfy my craving. Follow that with a shot of whiskey and it completed the experience.

I’d always get the Deluxe.

I’d say “I’ll have a Deluxe Dick, please.” The poor guy taking my order feigned laughter like it was an original joke. Dawn and Tim would cringe.

“Very good Susie,” Tim would say. “I’ll bet you dollars to donuts he’s never heard that one.”

We’d all laugh.

Laughter. A sudden spark. Caught fire. Inside. All three of us. A raw joy. Never touched before. Like little flowers sprouting in the sidewalk cracks.

“Sooner or later, we all make the little flowers grow,” as Lee Hazelwood once sang.

Today, however, the professional smile hurts my cheeks.

The phone rings again. By rote, my professional smile rears it’s ugliness.

“Susie,” the voice says, flatlining.

“Tim.”

I knew it was him. His voice was distinctive. Raw. Like a DJ who chain-smokes Lucky Strikes.

“How are ya?”

“Shitty, but better for hearing your voice,” I tell him.

He hesitates.

“What?”

“I’m calling about Kelly,” he says.

“Kelly?”

“Kelly Toth,” he says. “Remember her?”

The name hits me like a gong.

Kelly Toth. The woman Tim invited to the party Dawn and I decided would be at his apartment.

I was so drunk I could hardly stand up. I got into a heated debate with Jamie the film student about porn. I insisted it was art and played an old porno I watched with Tim one night to prove my point.

There was also Ian teasing Matt about when he worked as a "jizz mopper" at the Lusty Lady, along with Dawn flashing the gathering after stepping on my foot while dancing.

All of that triggered Kelly.

Little did I know she had been a victim of sexual assault, and had told no one about it - not her family, friends, or even her boyfriend, until she told Tim.

Little did I know how my stunt would be received, because I only cared about what I thought was funny. Everyone else be damned.

Kelly freaked out. Stormed out of the party.

Tim had reached out to her. Sensed she was struggling. She’d just gotten a new job. He invited her over to celebrate. I ruined everything.

My gut clenches.

“Kelly Toth,” he says again.

“What about her?” I ask, my voice thin and reedy.

He takes a long pause.

“She’s in the hospital. She tried to kill herself.”

The cubicle walls press in. The air is thick and heavy with shock. Breathing is impossible.

The fluorescent lights flicker and cast long, dancing shadows. My hand grips the phone so tight my knuckles are white. The murmur of the office, the monotonous hum of the copy machine, the chirpy sound of ringing phones, all fade to a dull roar.

Tim’s unyielding voice fills my ears.

“When?” I ask.

“Last night. She OD’d. Pills of some sort.”

I close my eyes.

Her visage burns on the inside of my eyelids.

“Is she okay?” I ask, as tentative as one could get.

“Critical, but stable,” he says. “A plumber found her. Apparently soon after she did it.”

I’m relieved she’s alive, but nauseous that it happened.

“How do you know this?”

“Her boyfriend called me. Guy named Trevor. He lives in LA, but was in town visiting. He found my number…well, he found it,” he says.

“Why did he call you? You and Kelly aren’t on speaking terms.”

“No, we aren’t,” he says. “But Trevor said she told him I was the only one who seemed to understand her. Kinda weird he said that, but understandable given the circumstances, I guess.”

My mind is an Indy 500 time trial.

“He asked if I knew anything about why she’d do this,” he continues.

“What did you tell him?”

“Nothing. Just that she was a friend from an temp job we worked at a few years back,” he says.

“He knows,” I reply with an almost inaudible voice. “He knows…what happened.”

“That’s the vibe I got,” he says. “He said something about her telling me things she hadn’t told anyone.”

The silence has teeth that gnaw on unspoken words.

Kelly's face that night was pale and rigid. Digusted. Her rapid retreat, the door slamming. Her warning to Tim.

“DON’T TALK TO ME!!! DON’T CALL ME!!! DON’T LOOK AT ME!!!”

That night is one of several blank chapters, but Kelly’s come-apart remains vivid.

She blew up on Tim. He said she’d told him some choice things about me. Dawn too. Awful things. It was the kind of rage you feel when you think you have zero control.

I’d see her on Broadway. She’d give me a death stare when I’d see her and walk past in silence. Dawn got similar treatment. Tim as well. Not being alone in this was a slight comfort, but the cause of it was a sixteen ton weight.

The Bon fired me soon after. They had warned me about my increasing tardiness. No doubt they knew I was skunk drunk while I was on the floor, sneaking sips of whiskey out of my flask in the ladies room. Peppermint Lifesavers weren’t as effective a mask as I thought.

Then Dawn broke up with me.

I don’t blame her, but I never cried harder.

Tim gave it to me straight. Dawn did too.

They took me to a rehab up in Northgate.

Thus began my on-again/off-again journey with sobriety.

Meetings.

I hated those stupid meetings.

Fucking religious bullshit.

My shrink said they’d be good for me. So I dragged myself there kicking and screaming and sit there in defiance.

Then I’d stop going.

Then I’d grab a sixer from Maelstrom’s, and start all over again.

When I got tired of starting all over again, I started taking this thing seriously, realizing I could die if I didn’t, and I didn’t want to die.

“Susie?” Tim’s voice breaks my thoughts.

“I’m here,” I tell him, as I try to steady my breath..

“She’s at Harborview. Room 412.”

“Okay,” I say.

He didn’t need to say I should go see her, because I knew I should.

He hung up.

The Eighth Step is making a list of the people you’ve harmed, then taking good faith steps to make amends when possible.

The length of my list is staggering, but Kelly’s name is at the top right now.

"She's in Room 412." Tim’s voice saying the number is a siren song in my head.

It’s 11:45. Almost lunchtime.

Harborview is a short walk from the Columbia Center, where I work.

I stand up, and my chair scrapes against the worn nylon carpeting.

I grab my purse, and coat, and walk to Steve’s desk.

“Hey Steve. Is it okay if I take lunch a little early?” I ask him.

“Sure, go ahead,” he says.

He makes nary a slight engagement with my eyes as he clicks a button to activate the printer.

“Thanks,” I tell him after a beat.

I walk out of the office to the elevator lobby and press a button. The elevator behind me dings, opens, and I get in.

It stops five times as I ride down to the lobby. The door opens, I turn left, walk through the the main lobby, and out into Seattle dampness.

The walk to Harborview is fast. I hit zero red lights. Wind gets caught in my umbrella a couple of times, almost blowing it out of my hands.

My mind replays fragments of that night: the blaring porn, Matt’s loud laugh, Dawn flashing her boobs. Kelly’s escalating horror.

Tim told me after that Kelly had been raped in Texas a couple of years earlier. She hadn’t told anyone about it. I was raped in high school. I told anyone who would listen about it. It was one of the first things I told Tim about myself.

Harborview is antiseptic, metallic and sterile. It reeks of pain.

The door for Room 412 is ajar. I push it open a crack and peer inside.

Kelly lays in the bed, a stark white polycotton sheet pulled up to her chin. Her face is pale and translucent. An IV drips into her arm. Her eyes are closed, dark smudges beneath them.

All My Children is on the TV.

A man sits in a chair next to her, reading a magazine. This must be Trevor.

My hand is still on the doorknob as I step in.

What right do I have to be here?

What could I possibly say?

Trevor looks up when he sees me. His eyes are red and swollen.

“Can I help you?” he asks.

“I’m… Susie. A friend of Kelly’s. Tim told me.”

His eyes narrow.

“She’s talked about you,” he says in a faux neutral voice.

I step in, closing the door behind me. My throat is dry. I cough a couple of times.

“How is she?” I ask.

“She’ll live,” he says.

I walk to the foot of the bed, looking down at her.

“I… I’m so sorry,” I stammer in hollow words.

Trevor looks at me, his gaze an accusation.

My face burns.

“I… I was wrong,” I sat. “I had no idea.”

He stands and walks to the window, gazing at the Columbia Center.

“She told me everything,” he says in a muffled voice. “About… what happened to her. She’d never told anyone. Not her family. Not her friends. Only some guy named Tim. And then that night. That party. That video. You laughed. Everyone laughed. You all thought it was so funny.”

He stops for a moment, and then turns around.

“So….GODDAMN FUNNY!”

His eyes cut me to ribbons.

“Tim facilitated the whole thing, so this is ultimately on him, but you laughing about it? That was a lake full of salt in her wounds.”

“Tim didn’t do anything,” I reply. “He tried to stop me, but I pushed him away. Knocked him over, even. I was out of control.”

Trevor glowers at me.

“He told me about it a few days later,” I continue. “He was pissed. He said he tried to call her and explain everything, but she was so angry she wouldn’t take the calls. But it wasn’t him. It was me. All me. If I wasn’t at that party, none of this would have happened. I am so sorry.”

My words taste like ash.

“Sorry doesn’t fix anything,” he says.

“I know, but I have to say it. I owe it to her, and to you.”

“She’s so fragile,” he whispers.

“I know. I’ve walked a mile in her shoes.”

This catches his attention.

“It’s a mind fuck,” I tell him before taking a deep breath.

“This is my responsibility. I will make it up to her any way I can. If she wants nothing more to do with me, that’s fine. But I want her and I want you to know that I am responsible, and that I’m sorry."

The words hang in the air. Trevor ponders them, nods, and turns back to the window.

I look at Kelly’s still face.

Then I leave.