Love-Obsessed

5. A DEATH

Chapter three

A DEATH

Three days later, Gabriella and her friend Joy made their way across the grey living room rug, between the blue three-seater couch and the coffee table. They admired the dust motes dancing in the sunlight, coming through the large window and dappling the stone fireplace as they headed out the glass sliding doors to the roofed decking in the backyard.

“Let’s sit here,” said Gabriella, pulling out one of the steel-backed chairs tucked underneath the round table.

Joy joined her at the table. Her blue eyes glowed in the sunlight and her blonde hair shone. Her slim and toned body was completely different from Gabriella’s, and men usually stared at Joy due to her natural beauty. “It’s a nice evening. How are you doing, girl?”

Gabriella looked at her strangely. “The same. Why do you ask?” She looked out over the freshly mown grass, recently cut by her stepfather, and the small vegetable garden. This place was Gabriella’s safe haven whenever she had anxious thoughts.

“I ask because Jesse’s still struggling with Erica’s death a year ago. He still seems to think she didn’t commit suicide, but there was no evidence to suggest that.”

She nodded. “Your brother probably knew her better than either of us. But in those last couple of months before her death, she was acting strangely. She was down and agitated. It’s sometimes hard to know what someone else is thinking.”

“She was our friend. Why didn’t we see it, Gabi? We could’ve helped if only she had come to us. Christ! I hate seeing him obsessed with this. He refuses to let her go, and I don’t blame him. Suicide. Everyone feels guilty and wonders if they could’ve done anything differently.”

When she’d first heard the news about Erica’s death, Gabriella had been out for dinner with friends. She got the call from Joy’s mother, who couldn’t reach Joy at the time. It was heart-breaking to hear that Erica had died in a bathtub, an overdose of medications in her system. She’d also cut herself on her legs and arm and left a suicide note. All it mentioned was, “I can’t cope with life anymore.” She signed it at the bottom and forensics had proved that it was her own writing. How could she kill herself knowing those who loved her would suffer afterwards? “We have to accept that whatever was going on with her, it was probably bigger than what we could’ve handled. She needed professional help.”

Joy’s phone buzzed on the table. She answered the call. “Hey, Jesse. We were just talking about you, bro. What’s up?” She waited. “Okay. I’ll check it out now.” She ended the call and scrolled through her phone, skimming through an article. Her face froze and she looked away while shaking her head.

“What’s wrong?”

Joy handed her the phone. “A news story about a young girl who died last night. Tragic, but tell me what it reminds you of.”

Gabriella swallowed and took the phone. She read through the article and gasped. “Oh my God!” The tightness in her chest. The palpitations as if her heart was about to explode. Her head spun as if she was about to faint, and her hands shook. She struggled to breathe as she put down the phone and bowed her head. Joy reached out to her and caressed her hand. She knew when to talk and when to remain quiet, and Gabriella was thankful to have such an understanding friend who understood anxiety. Once she recovered, Gabriella turned to her friend. “Joy, this can’t be happening. It sounds exactly like Erica. This can’t be a coincidence, can it?”

Joy flinched. “This is going to set Jesse back.” Gabriella nodded in agreement. “She died in the bathtub, had medications in her system with cuts around her legs and arms, just like Erica. Not similar, Gabi, exactly the same.”

Gabriella shrugged. “This can’t be true. It cannot be true.” A chill permeated her spine. “Do you think this girl’s death…Erica’s…I mean it didn’t make sense that Erica would die by suicide. We both thought that and just accepted her death as the coroner called it. Jesse still doesn’t think it was suicide. Could their deaths be related? Could he be right?”

Joy tucked her phone into her pocket. “I don’t know, Gabi. Right now, I’m worried about how Jesse is handling this. Hold on.” Joy walked inside the house and returned with a glass of water. “Here, drink this. It looks like you need it.”

Gabriella picked up the glass and drank it down quickly. It soothed her parched throat, but dizziness hit her like a ton of bricks, and she didn’t know what to do next.

“There are coincidences in this world, and it is possible that this girl’s death is just that. I’ll stay with you for a bit, and then I need to go check on my brother.”

***Jesse Warrier read the news article again, shaking his head. This poor girl had died in the bathtub and they ruled it suicide. He didn’t believe in coincidences, and he wondered why it had similarities to the death of his late girlfriend, Erica. He never believed she had killed herself, but law enforcement thought otherwise. Here was the proof he needed. There had to be a connection.

He sat back against his brown chequered cotton sofa and peered through closed sliding doors. The view of the turf yard offered little solace, but Jesse appreciated the low maintenance of it. As the sunlight filtered through the glass, shadows danced on his shiny white living room flooring. Hoppers Crossing had been his home for the past year. The single-front home was modern with a simple landscape garden in the front and a decorative paved driveway that still looked new.

Jesse got up, needing a distraction from the news article. He was letting his imagination get away with him. This poor girl probably did die by suicide, and he was comparing it to Erica’s death out of grief. What would he gain by doing that? The police had already ruled Erica’s death as a suicide. It was a closed case. Only he continued to struggle to move forward over the past year. Neither his work as a physiotherapist nor his social activities with his friends could deter him from thinking about her death. He suffered from nightmares and was lucky if he got three hours of sleep every night.

Erica’s death wasn’t the only one he was grieving. Though his sister Mia’s passing was thirteen years ago, Jesse remembered her death like it was yesterday, too.

Inside his garage, Jesse distracted himself, tinkering away with an old car, sanding down the body to restore it. He enjoyed buying old cars and restoring them to make them shiny and brand new. Restoration was a distraction from his troubles, and it could make a pretty penny once he sold them to interested buyers. His friend, Derek, had given him the idea.

Jesse’s hands became sore after an hour, and he moved his shoulders up and back, rotating them to get the kinks out. No, he refused to think this girl had any link to Erica’s death. They hadn’t even known each other. He had to get on with his life and find some way to get over the tragedy. It was a closed case and he had to learn to accept it.