Nalaniangel24
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Stained Carpets and Suicide
Stained Carpets and Suicide
by Nalaniangel
rated PG13 for mature themes
Summary: Brennan's roommate tries to help Brennan before it's too late.
I wake up, quietly, so I don't disturb him. Over all the years I've known him, I've seen him look bad, but this one beats all. He's sitting in the corner with his eyes open, staring at nothing. He might be thinking about his life, his newly ex-girlfriend, drugs, or even macaroni and cheese. I don't know what goes on in his mind, but its a lot, according to what he was shouting last night in his sleep. I heard everything from "Shalimar" "Emma" and "Maggie" to "stop it" "I'll kill you" and "GSA", what ever that means.
I leave the bedroom, four walls with chipped paint and mold around the cracks, and no furniture besides the beanbag chair Brennan is sitting in. Caitlin is sitting at the kitchen table, seemingly in the same state as Brennan, but I know her better than that. A few seconds later, she gets up and starts making coffee. Our coffee pot is the only appliance that we have in the kitchen besides the all-important microwave. The microwave has cooked everything we've ever eaten in the house. The stove is only used to light cigarettes and sometimes for macaroni and cheese. It's Brennan's favorite, although he's only ever told me. And he never quite mastered the microwave. But I do most of the cooking anyways and I can cook chicken in the microwave. I'm very good.
Coffee takes a while, the maker isn't what it was 8 years ago when we found it in the dumpster. Caitlin returns to the table and resumes her catatonic state. I wasn't hoping to make any conversation with her, I know better, but usually Brennan is up and around. I'm used to boredom at our house, that's normal. The stage past boredom, insanity, is what bored is to me. I guess I would have to be insane to stay here.
I wander aimlessly around the house, looking at its condition. The walls are being supported by the termites living inside, the wallpaper is so faded that its not noticeable, and the carpets are so stained that they've gone from beige to black, red in some places by blood, and green in some places from vomit. Did I mention that I'm insane for living here?
No… Brennan is the one who's crazy. He used to live in a sanctuary- that’s what they actually called it- build inside of a mountain. He used to fly a jet plane and sleep in a bed with satin sheets. He came back to this. I don't know what happened, but it must have been bad for him to think he deserved this. It's almost an insult, but I'm not going to take it like one. Brennan is my friend and I'm glad to have him back.
Somehow, I get back to the kitchen, not that our house is very complicated, and take a cup of coffee from the coffee pot. I don't know how I was supposed to know she didn't have any, but Caitlin immediately starts yelling at me for taking all the coffee. So I leave my cup on the counter next to her, but she picks it up and throws it at me, along with every cuss word she can think of and a few new ones I think she made up. The cup flies past my face and smashes against the wall, adding a black coffee stain onto the carpet. Like I care. I know Caitlin doesn't.
And Brennan is still looking straight ahead, catatonic like I left him. I would think he was on something if I didn't know him better. But I'd never seen him stay this way for so long. It’s a little scary, so adventurously I go up to him.
"Brennan?" I whisper, looking into his blank eyes.
"Tell Shalimar I'm sorry," he whispers back. "And that I miss her. I miss you too."
"What are you talking about?" I ask.
"I saw my life last night in a dream," he answers, the expression on his face never changing, the life in his eyes never coming back. "Like a movie- I saw it all. I've done so many bad things. It's better not to live."
"What?" I ask, my eyes widening. Suddenly panicked, I look around the room for anything he might be able to kill himself with. There's nothing. But it's hardly a relief. "Brennan, you can't kill yourself."
"But I deserve it," he told me. "I killed, I should be killed. That's how things work."
"You killed someone?" I asked. I tried to think back to our childhoods, growing up on the streets. We all did things we wished now we could have taken back, but something from so long ago shouldn't have been bothering Brennan. Brennan is too strong for that.
"Tell Shalimar I'm sorry," he repeats.
"Shalimar… was she someone you lived with?" I ask, desperately trying to connect the dots, the random pieces of information I had managed to gather from him.
"My life," he whispers. "She was my life at the end. But she has no life now, so how can I have mine?"
Brennan pulls out a pocketknife from his pocket and I try to grab it, but he flicks it open and cuts my hand.
"See? I shouldn't be alive. I keep hurting the people I love."
"It's a cut!" I shout at him. Maybe raising my voice will make him listen better. I really doubt it, but I don't know what else to do. "It'll heal!"
"Shalimar can't heal," he says. His eyes still haven't changed. "Tell her I'm sorry."
"If she's dead, how can I?" I ask, as gently as possible. I'm dealing with insanity now.
"Dead… I killed her," he whispers. "Do you know how?"
"How can I?" I ask.
"A knife- this knife," he said, holding out the pocketknife in his hand. "I was playing with it, throwing it at my door. She walked in."
I gasp. "I'm so sorry," I whisper.
"So am I," he answers.
Brennan takes the knife and holds in up to his chest. I'm assuming that's where Shalimar got stabbed too. I try to grab it again and I get my hands on it. Four hands, his much stronger than mine, plunge it into his chest. His blood spills over my fingers and runs down my arms. He takes his hands off the knife and takes my hands in his.
"Tell her I'm sorry," he whispers again, for the final time. Quickly, suddenly, he falls, stopped because I'm still holding onto his hands. I ease him all the way down and try to look at his wound. It was a small knife, but it must have gone into something important because his blood is gushing out. It puddles around my legs, kneeling on the ground over Brennan.
"I'll tell her," I tell him, but he can't hear me. He's already dead.
I can hardly get up, but I manage on trembling legs. Caitlin runs in and screams.
"You killed him!" she shouts.
"No," I say quickly. Caitlin runs toward me, but I manage to side step her and she runs into the wall. I slap her across the face, which will either knock some sense into her or knock her out.
"Brennan killed himself," I tell her and I think she believes me. Caitlin's not the brightest, note the broken coffee cup in the kitchen, but she knew Brennan was having problems.
"What should we do?" she asks me.
"Go hide your drugs then call the police," I tell her. "I don't know what else to do."
"They'll think we did it," she tells me. This I already know.
"It's Brennan," I say, I plead. "I don't want him to just disappear. He deserved more than that even if he didn't think it of himself."
Caitlin stumbles out of the room and into our kitchen where our only phone is.
There's only one thought on my mind though, and I rummage through Brennan's belongings to find somebody- anybody who might have known Shalimar. Last wishes are important to me. If it was the last thing Brennan wanted in life, I think I should help him do it.
Jesse Kilmartin. I think back. Jesse was the last person Brennan lived with and so was Shalimar, which meant they all have to have had lived together. I walk into the kitchen. Caitlin is done on the phone with the police and tells me they are on their way. I pick up the phone and dial Jesse's number, leaving a drop of blood on every key.
"Hello?" a man asks.
"This is… Brennan's friend," I say. "Do you know Shalimar?"
"I did," he says, grief obviously carried in his voice. It almost makes me cry. I should get this over with so that I can go cry over Brennan.
"Brennan has been living with me for the past few months, I guess after he left you guys," I say in a rush. "He got worse and worse, you know, went insane. I just found out it was because of this woman, Shalimar. I think loved her, but he accidentally killed her. But anyways, it destroyed him. Brennan's final wish was that she know he was sorry. Like I said, Brennan wasn't really there anymore before he died… but I thought I should honor his wish and try to tell someone who knew her. So you'll pass the message on?"
"Brennan is dead?" Jesse asks.
"Yeah," I say, the grief evident in my voice too. "Actually, just now. He killed himself. The police haven't even gotten here yet."
"Send them away when they get there," Jesse tells me to my surprise. "Brennan was like my brother. If it's okay with you, I would like to bury him."
"That's fine," I tell him. I loved Brennan too, but seeing his grave doesn't interest me. "I'll tell the cops my roommate was high, which she is. You can come get him anytime. We're at-"
"I'll trace the phone," he tells me quickly. "I'll be there as soon as I can."
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4/24/2004, 8:52 pm
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Nalaniangel24
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Re: Stained Carpets and Suicide
I hang up and walk back to Brennan. He's exactly like I left him, of course. But his eyes attract me. They are more alive then before he killed himself.
"I hope you and Shalimar find each other," I whisper to him. The doorbell rings; I know it's the cops. I lightly close his eyelids and linger at his ear. "I'll miss you, Brennan."
"They're here," Caitlin says at the door. I straiten up and leave Brennan in the room. Briefly, I tell Caitlin what I intend to do and she agrees. Like she really has a choice.
So I lie to the cops and send them away and a few hours later Jesse, another man, and a woman come and pick up Brennan. I can tell they've all been crying.
I know nobody will be crying over me when I die, and it's nice to know that Brennan had people who loved him. For a few years, at least, he made a difference in people's lives. I only knew him in the beginning and in the end, but these people, Jesse, Shalimar, and the two others, knew him as I wish I had known him. I knew Brennan's qualities, and I could imagine him putting them to good use.
And with those thoughts to keep me company in my room with the newly stained carpet, I go back inside to think about Brennan.
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4/24/2004, 8:53 pm
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