Chapter One

  I freeze at his words, the silence leading after them being slowly eroded by the ticking of the good luck cat clock on his desk, the hand hitting the side of his computer monitor. It threatens my sanity, my urges to rip it off and throw it at the wall growing. “Jane… I’m sorry to say this, but we are going to have to let you go…” My eyes flicker in suprised like a light turning on after years of unuse. Thinking this was just a normal visit to see how I was going, something we did quarterly as the norm.

  “L-let me go… b-but I’ve had nothing but praise and my work-log is always cleared away every week unlike Gary’s an-“ He puts his hand out to stop my rambling, one of the only things about me that I would confess to being off putting to others, at least it must be.

  “There have been some compints… and it has come to the point that we have to take administrative action, it won’t be going on your permanent record and yes your work has been good here… but when it comes down to it, with these compints you have become a liability…”

  I can only stare in shock, my lips twitching, trying to think of the perfect thing to say, who would be making compints? In the two years I’ve worked here I’ve had nothing but praise, and although I don’t have ‘friends’ here people don’t seem to hate me… do they just all hate me?

  I nod slowly, my eyes gzing over as I feel empty, vacant inside, my lips moving on my own. “When do I finish up?”

  “I have been authorized to give you two months of pay for our condolences and for your good work, as long as you sign this form here, and then you will be allowed to finish up work now, get any affairs in order etcetera…” He opens the drawer, the wood sliding smoothly against wood as he pulls something from it, a paper that he pces in front of me, along with his precious felt pen.

  I gnce down and scan the words on the page, letting it flow over me like a salty freezing cold ocean wave.

  ‘To Jane Monroe, please be aware that this is in an act of good faith for your service with us at Dranton City Police force as acting mortician. Bh bh bh they don’t have to give me the money but they are so kind and generous and it’s a scary world out there, please sign to show I am resigning, if I sign I cant sue them for letting me go…’

  “What… are the compints about?” He raises an eyebrow at my words before shaking his head.

  “I am… not at liberty to discuss them with you unfortunately… In fact, I… just don’t know… I was the one that pushed for pay redundancy, they accepted immediately… which is surprising in itself with the recent pay cuts, although it was upon the condition that you leave immediately… Jane, all I can say is that it’s… above my pay grade.”

  I mull over the words, they hurt… maybe a little less now knowing it wasn’t my own boss that pulled the trigger but it still hurts… I don’t even get to know what the compints against me are? Although knowing the police it could be anything, I could have not fucking said hello properly to a higher up without realising it… it sometimes cant be much of a world for a woman, and maybe less so for one not interested in fttering and cozying up to someone higher to get anywhere. Preferring my males to have a fe in front of them.

  I quickly write above the dotted line, before pausing and taking a picture of it, my boss nods as I do so, he always said that accountability was important… but maybe in this case accountability doesn’t mean anything. Feeling the heat rush to my face I feel the tears coming on, they are usually sudden and unbidden when they do come, but I push it down as I do the rest of my feelings, instead coming off as flushed as my face reddens.

  “Jane, I am sorry, please take care of yourself…”

  I nod and get out of my chair, trying desperately to not look him in the eye as I leave his office. The sounds of the general room seem to quell as I walk through it, looking at the ground as I walk to the elevator, whispers around me confirming that everyone already seemed to know before I did. I did wonder why the atmosphere was weird when I entered earlier, now it was more than clear.

  I press the button and take a ride down to the bottom floor, I send the picture to my partner, the one that convinced me to move out here with her, with three years together it seemed appropriate to tell her the bad news first… not that I have any other people to tell it to. I hold back the urge to scream, knowing how the walls of the precinct liked to reflect any loud noises to the whole building.

  I step out onto my floor, the same cold and dark atmosphere as usual, but now it felt more for what it really was, dead. Just a pce to store dead bodies and tell the world how dead they really were. Yup this guy is so dead that he died choking on a knife, or so dead that his lungs took a dip in the ocean, along with a cinder-block and three bullet wounds to the chest. I open my office, thankful that my keycard still worked, not wishing to have the embarrassment of going back upstairs to get it reinstated, even if it was just to get my shit and get out of here.

  I try to log into my computer and find that my credentials are already gone… years of work locked away in an instant, probably as soon as I left my desk to go upstairs. I sigh and flop down into my chair, thankful that I didn’t bring much from home, just a few pictures from my childhood that Denise didn’t like me keeping around… and outright hating one in particur, wanting me to throw it away… although I never could, instead just bringing it to work with me instead.

  I gather my things in a box, gd that I kept at least one cardboard box from the st cleanup, maybe I felt the end here coming? Or maybe I just really like to have a box around, to remind me that one day I will get a cat, and fill it with them. Not that Denise would ever let me get one, being a dog person and being allergic to cats was a bummer, but love overcomes such things…

  Bzzz

  I check the screen, hopeful for any support that she can give me, instead I stare down at the message in fear of my life, in fear of what it could mean, instead of even caring to look at my image, she just replies with her own. “We should talk…”

  I drop my phone with a ctter to the ground, barely realising what I had just done, just staring at the empty space that is my desk. We should talk… and she… doesn’t care that I lost my job?… I know things haven’t been amazing… but things haven’t been bad… right? O-or is that just my thinking and everything has been terrible for her? All the times she yelled at me for apparently doing things wrong, or not to her liking.

  I pick my phone off the ground and message her back, hoping to get some kind of answer, the feeling in my gut painful to the point of tears. ‘Are you breaking up with me?’ I type and delete three times before I press send, then wait, tears at the side of my eyes as I shudder from the painful cold, threatening to break through.

  ‘… yes’ She replies back, the dam breaking as I feel my heart breaking, the tears pouring from my eyes as I cough and splutter at what I’m going to even do now, with no support or love or anybody by my side to get me through this, then another messages comes through, ‘I’m seeing someone else, im sorry Jane…’

  I wipe my eyes in disbelief before screaming out in anguish, “YOUR FUCKING SORRY?!” Pain and tears turning into rage and heat, I pick up my phone high in the air before getting ready to throw it at the wall, wanting it to shatter like how my mind and body are shattering, wanting to end any contact with such a person who would do this to me, who would think that it’s okay to do it to another person.

  Breathing heavily I clutch the phone to my chest instead, trying to hold all my feelings down, like I always have had to, trying my best for everyone but myself, always letting myself be second. And for fucking what, a job that fires me just because and a woman that brought me here just to fucking dump me when I needed her the most?!

  A call comes through from an unknown number, I stare at it bnkly before rushing to pick it up and scream through the receiver. “WHAT?! Why could someone be possibly calling me at such a fucking shit time?!”

  The line on the other end is dead quiet, instead the breathing is stinted and anxious, then stutters as the words come out. “A-a… -Umm… I-Im sorry t-to be calling at such a time, I-I am Richard jr from Richard and sons Litigation, I am calling for uhh J-jane Monroe… I-is that who I am speaking with?”

  “Richard, after just loosing my job and my girlfriend fucking someone else while we live together are you about to tell me that someone is fucking suing me too?!” I feel my rage boiling over as I await his next words, wondering if the world is sending me a sign to finally end it, to just, let go, after so many years of being fucked over it was finally time to just pull that gun out of my night stand and let the world know that I was done.

  “U-uhh fuck… n-no we are not suing you… we uhh represent your mothers estate, we were only able to find your number today and uhh… my condolences Miss Monroe, your uhh mother passed away a few weeks ago, and we will need to go over the dece-… I-im sorry Miss Monroe are you ughing?”

  I am, the rage in me morphing and combining like a pit in my stomach to become ughter instead, all the rage gone and intsead seeming to be repced with one big fucking joke. “Haha… hahaha fuck I am, Richard was it? Th-that is the best news I have heard in my life… knowing that that monster of a woman to ever call herself a mother is fucking dead… haha-ha…fuck… thank you richard, that… really made my day…”

  “Uhhh…” He pauses before trying to regain himself, ‘I-I am gd to have uhh helped with that… r-right, your mother has left all her possessions to you, although there were no funds after the costs for the funeral was covered she has left you her house in Night Rock city if yo-“

  “Y-yeah I grew up there… why the fuck did she leave me her stuff…”

  “Uhh I never met her unfortunately, her will was logged a few months ago through our company asking us to enact it… a-anyway… are you able to ta-“

  “Can you just… send me all the details by text or… or whatever, and if you need me to come down to the office to sign anything I can visit anytime… I don’t have a job here now after all…”

  “O-oh right, well… you now have a house… if needed, well once you sign all the papers… I-I will let you get on with your own things and send you all the details, please once you get them send me your email so that I can send the full documents, there is a lot to read through… Thank you miss Monroe, even if it seems like a blessing to you, you still have my condol-“

  Click. I hit the call end button, not wanting any more fucking condolences today.

  “Haha… ha… fuck… e-everything at once world huh…” lean forewards and put my phone onto the desk before putting my head in them instead. Tears unable to come out after everything just throwing me turn for turn, so many emotions that I feel like a ball of rubber bands, all of them wrapped around me, with me at the center of the whole fucking mess of it.I-I need an out before I explode… I can’t… f-fuck I need to make a list…

  I pick up my notepad and a pen and start writing, doing the best thing I can do right now, just… focus on the steps to take, if I keep a focus on what to do next I can keep going… just keep going Jane, you always seem to be able to even when life has nothing left.

  1. Go home.2. Tell your now ex that you’re leaving.3. Pack all your shit… or put it in storage…

  I cross out the third line with violent strokes.

  3. Use redundancy pay to hire someone to move all your shit into storage, tonight.

  I look at my phone and see that it’s still early, maybe early enough to call someone to get my furniture out… after all I paid for it all, she never seemed to want to contribute… was I just used this whole time while I thought I was in love… she had plenty of money, just… not for us…

  4. Figure out lease, Agatha deserves better.

  I only have a few months left before renewal… good thing you didn’t sign that one Jane…

  5. Pack essentials tonight and sleep in your car on the way back to Night Rock City.6. Sign papers… hopefully on the way.7. Go back to my hometown, at least while you get the shit in order…8. Sell house?9. Make a new life for yourself…10. Adopt a cat… maybe two.

  I look down at my notepad and sigh before picking up my phone and looking at those st messages again from her. “Y-you are better than her Jane… she doesn’t deserve your decency, only your venom.” I focus and put myself on track, making sure everything can fall into pce without any feelings involved.

  I look online and within minutes start the calls, within ten minutes I have someone booked and the deposit taken out of my account. Richard sends everything he has to my email after I send him it back. Along with it all is her signature of death from the Night City Rock Morgue.

  I wish I knew how she died… I can only hope it was painful… the amount of times I tried to get back in contact with her before realising it was never going to happen, her hate for who I was stronger than her ability to love her own daughter. And if running away from home when I turned eighteen wasn’t enough of a reason to swap her thinking… then I guess nothing ever could.

  Taking one st look at the signature I pause, knowing the name on it, a name from my childhood that seemed to always haunt me in my dreams, never getting her out from who I was. My first love, and the first woman to break my heart.

  Angelina Darkmyer, what… are you doing signing my mother’s death certificate… had she kept in contact with her all these years? While I heard nothing from her, not even a peep. Not apparently deserving even that much from my childhood friend. I sigh as I pull out the photos from the box. One of my dad and me as a kid at the park, one of my mother, father and me when I was a baby, before he…. Left.

  And the st, one I kept precious all these years despite the bad blood between us. Of me and Angel, a year before I left, holding each other in the dark, a goofy smile on my face and a smaller one on hers but… still there, behind the mask that her family made her hold. The fair photo booth had taken it for us as they passed through our town… when life was simpler… although bruise filled.

  When I didn’t have to get home to scream at my now ex for doing such things to me, but deep down… I felt it no longer mattered… because I have a pn, and Jane with a pn is someone that will see it through no matter what.