The chrysanthemums are dying. The yellow flowers face downward, stems wilting at the neck. Their petals curl and brown at the edges like burning paper. You lift one of the ragged blossoms up, as if to try and help it support its own weight. You keep the flowerpot on the kitchen countertop right by the apartment window where it can get the most sunlight, but it doesn’t seem to be enough.
I sit on the countertop beside the flowers. My mangled legs dangle in the air, one shoe on, one foot bare. Blood drips from my toes, still oozing from where my splintered shin bone punctures through the side of my calf. Each drop fades into nothing before it can reach the linoleum floor below.
I watch you water the chrysanthemums. You keep your eyes on the soil, your head bowed.
Shaun laughs bitterly from the living room behind you.
“I’m late just a couple times and now you’ve got it out for me?” he sneers at his phone.
He paces in front of the wall where his guitar collection is displayed in three rows of wall mounts. His half-laced boots make his footsteps heavy and forceful on the hardwood floor—he’d been just about to head out when he’d gotten the call from his workplace.
“Whatever. Bet you’re doing this over the phone because you knew I’d fucking deck you in person. You’re lucky I—” Shaun stops, staring at his phone in disbelief. “This is such bullshit,” he snarls at the “call ended” screen.
You keep very still as he stalks past you to the fridge for a beer. He wrenches the can tab open so violently I half-expect him to rip it clean off.
“Do you want to talk about it?” you ask as he gulps down half the can.
He wipes his mouth and gives you a withering look. “Why? It’s not like you can do anything about it.”
“I’m sorry,” you say.
Shaun exhales through his nose and sets his beer down on the countertop.
“I thought I told you to throw these away,” he says, reaching over and grabbing the flowerpot. “They’re a fucking eyesore.” Shards of terra cotta and dirt explode around your bare feet as he smashes it on the floor.
He looms over you, his fists clenching and unclenching. You stay rooted in place. You’re so still, I can’t tell if it’s because you’re breathing very shallowly, or you’re not breathing at all.
Have you ever thought about how whenever Shaun “loses control,” he only breaks your things? Somehow in his “blind” rage he’s never accidentally smashed any of his own belongings. It’s awfully convenient, isn’t it?
“I’m sorry,” you say again.
Shaun rakes his hands through his hair, yanking strands of it loose from his ponytail in the process. Then he smiles, his demeanor switching back to good-natured. “You know what? This is good. I’m better than some shitty tech job anyway.”
Your mouth curves into a smile to match his. The rest of you remains perfectly still. “Yeah, you’re right,” you say.
“I should be spending my time on music and the band. That’s the career that actually matters,” he says.
The two of you are barely getting by as it is, and Shaun has too much credit card debt to be relying solely on a career he hasn’t even started—he and his old college friends haven’t even decided on a name for their band. Maybe you’re aware of this, and your silence is out of a feeling of helplessness. Or maybe you’re not even allowing yourself to think about it, keeping your mind just as still as your body.
Some of the shards of pottery have cut into your feet. I watch the blood pool around your toes, but you don’t seem to notice. Shaun hasn’t noticed either.
Blood trickles down my face.
Shaun goes over to his guitar collection and retrieves the Gibson you bought him for his birthday, just after you’d started living together. It’s a Les Paul Standard and Shaun’s favorite. Even now, he lovingly strokes its bourbon burst finish before he starts packing it into his padded gig bag.
“I’m going to get the guys together for a practice session today,” he says as he hefts the strap of his amp case onto one shoulder.
“Okay,” you say.
The apartment door closes behind him. Only then do you move again.
You kneel, gently collecting the chrysanthemums from the remains of the flowerpot. You scoop up what dirt you can salvage from the floor, collecting it in a small pile. You’re not throwing them away, even though Shaun told you to. I’m glad. I don’t think you should give up on them either.
There is a knock on the door.
You flinch, scrambling to your feet. Even if Shaun has his own apartment key, he hates having to stop to unlock it when his hands are full.
But when you go to answer it, it’s your neighbor from the floor below. You’ve passed her on the stairwell on your way down to the laundry room on more than one occasion. She’s wearing a university hoodie that’s two sizes too large, and what look like blue-light glasses, judging by the yellowish tinge of the lenses.
“Sorry, I was just studying in my room, and I heard a pretty loud crashing sound? I was wondering if something might have happened.” She is looking at you very carefully.
“Everything’s fine,” you say. “I just dropped something.”
“You’re bleeding,” she says.
You glance down and realize you’ve left a trail of bloodied footprints across the floor.
“I’m fine,” you tell her.
She doesn’t seem like she believes you. I wouldn’t. I don’t even know if you believe what you’re saying.
“I’m sorry about the noise,” you say. “Good luck with studying.”
You shut the door.
You return to the kitchen and pull an old takeout container from the recycling bin, cutting some slits in the bottom. You place the chrysanthemums inside, along with the dirt you managed to collect.
Even when you have everything settled though, the flowers still look mangled. You place the makeshift planter back on the kitchen countertop, in the spot with the most sunlight.
I watch you retrace your steps with a wet cloth to clean up your own blood. You crawl on your hands and knees to avoid making any more of a mess with your still bleeding feet.
You brought the potted chrysanthemums with you from your old place when you moved in with Shaun. I stood in the doorway as you brought your boxes of things and I said, Get out. Don’t let him do this to you too. But you didn’t hear me.
• • • •
When I was alive, I used to go up to the roof of our old apartment building with my lighter and a box of tissues. I’d pull a tissue out and light it at the corner, gazing at the glowing orange tongues as they consumed the feather-soft paper. Just before the flames could lick at my fingers, I’d let go. The burning paper would float down and disintegrate. Then I’d pull out another tissue.
For each one I burned, I made a wish. It was easier than waiting for the stars to fall out of the sky.
And it was easier than trying to leave him.
• • • •
Your supervisor embodies a unique harmony of workaholic efficiency with a very laidback demeanor. They have a tiny button pin with the words “they/them” attached to their lanyard, along with an employee recognition pin of a smiley face with vacant eyes and the words “Above & Beyond.”
You acted timid around them at first, but then came that truck day where it was just the two of you—the rest of the truck team called out—and you had to unload almost 15,000 units of freight together. At the end of the night, they gave you a fist bump.
Now, your face lights up when you arrive at work and see your supervisor is still in the store. Their shift should have ended two hours ago, according to the schedule, but I’m not surprised they stayed later.
“Hey,” they nod at you. “Just got done putting those shelves up again in housewares. Fingers crossed these brackets hold better than the last ones did.”
You wince. That last endeavor ended in a very dramatic structural collapse. It was so loud it startled even me.
“I’m closing tonight, so I can keep an eye on things and make sure no one tries to put any merchandise on them yet,” you offer.
“Thanks, that’d be great.” They stop and squint at you for a moment. “Aren’t you also scheduled to do price changes tomorrow morning?”
“I am,” you laugh. Closing the store will have you out by 11:30 p.m. at the earliest. Then you’ll have to be back here by 4:00 a.m. “Maybe I can hide in the backroom and just sleep here.”
“Yeah, at that point why even bother going home? Just live here,” they say.
Your supervisor’s tone of voice is dry by default, everything they say sounds a touch sarcastic, but I wonder if they’re also being partially serious. Sometimes they look at you like your downstairs neighbor does, carefully and assessing. Whenever you’re working an overnight shift together and you have to stop to send Shaun a selfie to prove that you’re where you say you are, they always look like they want to say something.
“I could use the overtime,” you say. “Shaun just got fired. And I heard from a manager that we have payroll to burn.”
Your supervisor hums thoughtfully. “You could bring him here,” they suggest. “Fourth quarter’s coming up. The store will take literally anyone they can get.”
“Maybe.” You smile. “I don’t mind the extra hours though.”
I think you’re happy working fifteen-hour days because some part of you would rather be here than at home. I think, deep down, something in you realizes everything isn’t fine.
• • • •
You get home from work to find a brand-new white ceramic flowerpot sitting on the kitchen countertop.
Your face lights up when you see it. You look so happy and overwhelmingly grateful—even though it was Shaun who destroyed your last flowerpot in the first place.
“Welcome back,” Shaun yells from the living room couch, his guitar cradled in his arms. “Check this out. We started putting together this new song today at practice. Come here and listen.” His eyes are bright with excitement as he meets your eyes, quirking his eyebrow playfully.
You go sit beside him.
I stay by the door, standing on my shattered legs.
Shaun flies through an energetic sequence of chords on his guitar. The sound is rich, even though some of it comes out disjointed as he fumbles between some of the trickier hand positions. With a little more polish, it could be the start of a solid rock song. The problem is that Shaun doesn’t like to practice. He never has. He’s always about the next new thing, never sticking with any project long enough for it to go anywhere.
You applaud. His exuberance is infectious.
“That was awesome,” you cheer.
“I know! I’m thinking of calling it ‘Fire Me,’” he snickers.
“That’s perfect.” You hesitate for just a moment before you lean into him, bumping your shoulder against his. “Can you play that song?” you ask shyly.
Shaun feigns a long-suffering sigh. “I guess,” he teases, already strumming the first of the familiar chords. And just like that, I can see you forgetting all about how terrified you were this morning.
The day you gave him the Gibson, he improvised this song for you on the spot. He used to do that for me too. It’s hard not to love someone who makes you feel like he can play music from your heartstrings, singing softly in that warm voice of his all the while.
Blood seeps from the split skin of my face, rolling down my cheeks.
He hasn’t actually apologized. You don’t seem to realize, or maybe you don’t think it matters. You just want to bask in this moment. Suddenly the kind and playful person is back, as if he never went anywhere in the first place. All you want is to believe he’ll stay for good this time. I remember what that was like. I used to live with him too.
I used to tell myself, Maybe it really will be different this time.
And, This is the most I’ll ever get. I can’t leave, who else in the world would love someone like me?
I kept telling myself that, right up until the day he killed me.
• • • •
Sometimes, I think about those crime procedurals endlessly running on TV. Episode after episode, characters fight tooth and nail for justice and insist things like, “He can’t get away with this.”
But he already did.
He told everyone I committed suicide and they believed him, just like that.
• • • •
You get home from work to find Shaun on the living room couch with the bottle of whiskey.
You freeze in the doorway.
I whisper, Don’t go in. Just turn around and leave. But you’re already closing the door behind you, trying and failing to keep the door hinge from squeaking too loudly.
“You know, I thought we were in this together. Me and the guys,” Shaun says, in that familiar, slurred drawl. “Turns out none of them care about doing this seriously. It’s like everyone’s just moved on.” He forces a laugh. “But who needs them anyway?” His eyes are watery and red.
You go to him, your heart aching.
“I’ll buy my own equipment, do all the parts myself,” he says bitterly.
“And I’ll help,” you say. You sit beside him on the couch. “Anything you need.”
He snorts. “A keyboard or six-piece drumkit to start. Or hell, how about everything I’d need to set up a private recording studio here in the apartment?”
You smile shyly. “Well, fourth quarter’s coming up. If you came to work at my store, we could team up and go for the overtime and overnight holiday season bonuses. We could save all the money you’d need in time for Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales,” you say. “It could be fun.”
He stares at you. “You want me to work retail? Like you?”
Your eyes widen.
“I didn’t mean,” you stammer as you rush to explain. “It’d just be for the season. Equipment’s so expensive, but this way, we could get everything for you to get started right away—”
He grabs you and gives you a rough shake, like you’re a toy that’s making an annoying sound. “Shut up.”
“I’m sorry, I was just—”
“I said shut up,” he snarls.
“Shaun—”
His hands wrap around your throat and your voice cuts out. You grab at his fingers, tugging at his wrists. Your legs kick weakly against the floor.
No. He doesn’t get to kill you too.
I scream.
No one hears me, but this time, pressure builds in the room. I keep screaming and even though I don’t have a body anymore, I can feel my bones shift under the strain, all the broken pieces grinding together. The walls start to creak. Shaun doesn’t notice. He never does.
But then his Gibson topples over from where he left it leaning against the couch.
Shaun stops, staring at the guitar. He loosens his grip on your neck like an afterthought. You suck in a desperate breath, a sob ripping out of you before you clamp a hand over your mouth in terror to muffle the sound. Your body trembles beneath him.
He gets off you, going over to his fallen guitar. He mutters curses under his breath as he turns it over, examining it for any damage.
I wrench his Fender Stratocastor from its wall mount. It drops straight down, landing butt first, the neck swinging down as it clatters on the floor.
He stares.
The Telecastor falls next. Followed by the Ibanez, the Charvel, and the Starfire V. The J-45 is from the top row and the headstock snaps clean off the neck as it smashes into the floor. Shaun’s face drains of blood.
It’s his turn to have his belongings destroyed in a “blind rage.”
I slam my hand into the wall, and his last four guitars all slam into the floor in a synchronized cacophony.
The room goes quiet again. There is only the sound of your faint, strained breathing that you’re trying to muffle with your hands. Shaun still hasn’t moved.
There is a knock on the door.
Shaun stares blankly for a long moment before he shuffles over to answer it.
“Yes?” he says.
It’s the neighbor from downstairs. Her eyes widen when she sees it’s Shaun at the door and not you. Her eyes skate past him and rove around what she can see of the apartment’s interior over his shoulder. You are hidden from view, still lying on the floor behind the couch.
“Yeah sorry, I live in the apartment below, and—” She swallows. “I wanted to see if everything was all right?”
“Oh, yeah,” Shaun says dully. “We were just trying to set up some shelves. But the brackets didn’t hold.”
A smile quivers on your lips. That must remind you of your supervisor’s shelving struggles at work. Tears spill from the corners of your eyes, rolling down the sides of your face.
“Do you guys need any help?” the neighbor asks.
“Everything’s fine,” Shaun says. He shuts the door.
The neighbor lingers for a little while longer in the hallway, but eventually her footsteps echo down the hall, back toward the stairwell.
I move to stand directly behind Shaun and lean in close.
Get out, I hiss.
His shoulders tense. He doesn’t turn, doesn’t react like he heard me, but he stumbles over to the living room table to collect his phone, keys, and wallet. He shoves his feet into his boots, not bothering to lace them.
He glances one last time at the apartment, his eyes sliding right over me, instead gazing hauntedly at the wall of empty guitar mounts.
He closes the door behind him.
You don’t get up from the floor for a long time.
Maybe you think he could be back any second now, so you just lie there, too afraid to move, just in case he doesn’t want you to.
• • • •
You don’t go to work.
You crawled up onto the couch from the floor but haven’t moved since, staring listlessly at your phone. You can’t seem to make yourself dial the numbers to call the store.
Your supervisor sends you a text asking if you’re okay.
You try to draft a reply, but you only get as far as typing “I’m sorry,” before you stop, drawing a blank.
• • • •
The chrysanthemums are dead. They’ve been dead for a while now.
You stand in front of them, holding a measuring cup of water. It takes you a while to realize you’re looking at a shriveled pile of dead leaves.
I watch you crush the pot to your chest, holding it tight. The leaves crinkle like newspaper. Your breath shudders, your sobbing restrained, stifled into frail gasping sounds as if even now you are afraid of being heard.
Then, you go quiet.
You turn and go out the door, down the hall.
I follow you up the stairwell.
• • • •
Roof access is restricted, but the door lock is rusted and broken.
You walk to the roof’s edge. You set the flowerpot down first, balancing it on the ledge before swinging your legs over and sitting beside them. Your feet dangle in the empty air as you settle yourself, sitting comfortably. You look out at the sky.
Please, I say. Don’t do this. But you don’t hear me.
I was up on the roof too, when he killed me. We’d had a fight, so I wanted to get some air. He came up after me. He got more and more furious until he grabbed me by the front of my shirt and by my hair. Then he shoved me, and I went tumbling backwards over the edge.
I fell fifteen stories, but I landed feet-first, so I didn’t die right away.
I can’t even remember what the fight was about.
Don’t let him kill you too.
One of the dead chrysanthemums starts to glow, a seed of pale blue light growing from the flower head until the ghostly fire has engulfed it. I lean in close. Just like blowing the feathery seeds off a dandelion, I scatter the burning petals.
They disperse and float around you, catching your eye. You turn away from the skyline. There is a flicker of wonder on your face as you gaze at the glimmering wisps of blue flame.
I set another flower alight, and another, sending fiery petals drifting across the roof like a swarm of spectral fireflies.
You deserve better, I whisper.
Your eyes meet mine.
And you smile.