Page 5 of What Happened Last Night

I finished my drink and went for another one on unsteady legs. I stumbled slightly as I reached the cabinet and put out a hand to steady myself. William came over to stand beside me, and for a brief second, he put his hand gently over mine and I dared to let myself believe we would be okay. That we would get past all of this mess and be able to start over again.

He pulled his hand away, and with it, my hope. He poured us both another drink, and I went back to the couch, scotch sloshing over the side of my glass. I watched William weave his way back to his seat, and when he looked at me, his eyes were glazed. His eyelids looked heavy, and I knew anything I said would be a waste of my breath. He was on the verge of passing out, and he wouldn’t remember any of this in the morning.

“Where do we go from here, Carlotta?” William said finally.

“I have no idea,” I replied. “Honestly, I don’t, but get that restraining order first thing tomorrow. That’s the first step.”

He nodded his head.

“I will. And tonight, we just drink and forget,” he said.

I raised my glass.

“Cheers to that,” I said in a voice devoid of any emotion.

Chapter Three

William

Iwoke up slowly, half opening my eyes and then instantly closing them again as the first light of the morning stung my eyes and sent a blast of pain through my head. I started to fall back into sleep when I realized what had woken me up in the first place. Carlotta was screaming.

I forced my eyes open, trying my best to ignore the way my head felt like it might explode at any second.

“What’s going on?” I asked thickly.

I just couldn’t make sense of what I was seeing or feeling. I mean, I was hungover, I knew that much, but I’d never had a hangover that was so bad that it left me hallucinating, and that’s what this had to be. It couldn’t really be possible that the glass in the large window beside the bed was broken, almost all gone except for a few ragged shards that lined the edges. The heat coming in and overpowering the air conditioning told me it could be possible, but my brain refused to accept it.

At least now Carlotta had stopped screaming, but I thought the way she stood at the missing window, looking out, her hands pressed to her mouth and her skin pasty white, was almost worse. She ignored my question, and I sat up and rubbed my eyes, trying to rub all of this away.

“I’m still asleep. This is all a dream,” I said to myself, triumphant that I’d worked it out.

“You’re not asleep,” Carlotta said, her voice shaking and shattering my moment of clarity.

I suppose I knew that already, but it was the only way to make sense of what I was seeing. I rubbed my eyes again, wishing I hadn’t drunk so much last night. If I had drunk a little less, then maybe I would be able to remember last night, and then maybe this would all somehow make sense to me.

“So, what the hell is going on? Why is the window broken? And what’s that noise?” I demanded.

The last part was an afterthought, brought on by the fact that I had noticed the hum of faraway conversation, like several people were standing in our garden, all talking at once. Where we hosting some sort of garden party we had forgotten about? Is that why Carlotta had looked so horrified because she had failed at her hostess duties?

No, I told myself, dismissing the idea as ridiculous. Whatever was going on here, it wasn’t that. Carlotta would never forget about a party she had organized. And she would have had a list of tasks for me to complete too, and she hadn’t so much as mentioned picking up some wine and beer. It was impossible that we both could have forgotten.

I knew on a rational level what I was doing. I didn’t know what had happened, but I knew by the heavy feeling of dread in my stomach that it was something terrible and so my mind was going off on a tangent, looking for an innocent explanation rather than have me face the truth of the matter. I couldn’t let that go on any longer, though. It sounded too much like starting out on the slippery slope to insanity.

“Carlotta, for fuck’s sake, will you answer me?” I snapped.

I knew she was in shock and most likely couldn’t find the words to explain what had scared her so much, but I could still feel myself getting angry with her for ignoring my questions.

When Carlotta still didn’t answer me, I sighed and pushed the sweaty sheet off me. I got up and walked to the window to join her, trying to ignore the pounding in my head and the cold, sick feeling in the base of my stomach. I needed coffee, painkillers, and a pee before I could even consider functioning.

Or so I thought until I looked out the window and saw the nightmarish scene unfolding before me. I still felt sick, but now it was a different sort of sick. The sort that overwhelmed me and made me take a step back from the window. My legs didn’t feel like my own anymore. It was like they were moving of their own accord, taking me away from a sight so horrible I didn’t want to see it, even though my mind insisted I needed to see it so that I could work out what the fuck was going on here.

I kept backing up on shaky legs until my calves hit the bed and I folded into a sitting position. Waves of nausea consumed me, and for a moment, all I could do was suck in big breaths of air through my nose and swallow hard over and over again, trying to keep my gorge from rising. Finally, the sick feeling started to pass, and I allowed myself to think about what I had seen when I looked out the broken window.

Below the window, several police officers and guys in white suits swarmed around. Some were talking to each other. Some were examining the ground. But the one who had caught my attention was the one who was bringing a white sheet closer to the house and draping it over the body that lay on the lawn out there right beneath our bedroom window. The body with the leg at a right angle to the torso. The body lying in a pool of blood. The body with staring but unseeing eyes. The body that belonged to Candy.

“What did you do, Carlotta?” I whispered when I finally trusted my voice to come out normal again.

I didn’t think I really needed to hear her answer the question. My mind was functioning enough now to show me what had happened. Candy coming into our bedroom. A drunk and pissed off Carlotta deciding she wasn’t willing to wait for the restraining order. That she was taking matters into her own hands. I could see her in my mind, shoving Candy hard enough for her to smash through the window and plunge down to the ground. To her death.

---