Survival of the Unfit

Chapter 45

"What? Oh, yeah, this is Levi Wolfe. Sorry I couldn't get to your call, leave a message and I'll return it when I can. Thanks. ...Am I done? Hello?"

I clicked end call mindlessly, staring up at the sky, and then clicked call again. I waited. I hadn't ever listened to his voicemail before today, but now I had it memorized word for word.

"What? Oh, yeah, this is Levi Wolfe. Sorry I couldn't get to your call, leave a message and I'll return it when I can. Thanks. ...Am I done? Hello?"

End call. Sniff. Call.

"What? Oh, yeah, this is Levi Wolfe. Sorry I couldn't get to your call, leave a message and I'll return it when I can. Thanks. ...Am I done? Hello?"

I looked over at his gravestone, ground still fresh, flowers still surrounding it. End call, Call. There was a pause though, and I already knew what was coming. I had been doing this for two hours. And it was more than a week after his death.

"The number you are trying to reach is no longer in service. Please try a different number or contact your service provider for more information."

A tear rolled my cheek as I clicked end call with a shaking thumb, dropping my arm at my side. I wiped my tear away and sat up, telling him, "Guess I'll have to do the talking now, huh?"

There was no sound from anything in response, sure as hell not him. I put my phone in my back pocket and adjusted myself in front of his grave, cross legged, sitting on my jacket. I clutched the hem of his Joy Division shirt, sniffing once or twice. And I started to talk.

"Things are okay. There's no more deaths, everyone knows the entire thing's busted now. When you died, it flashed through everyone's mind that it no longer works like some distress call. Some people said they heard a voice tell them, but I thought it was more of a feel. I mean, I heard 'over', but I don't know."

I looked up at his name, partially covered by flowers, and pushed them aside. Levi Matthew Wolfe. Levi Wolfe. Levi.

"Did you know?" I asked, whispering. "Did you know you'd, you'd end this entire thing?" More tears started to form the longer I stared at his name. I abruptly stared at my hands again. "Did you have a choice?"

Again, the cemetery was silent.

I shook my head and wiped my running nose. "I don't care if you did or not. You're fucking dead and that's all I know." I hiccupped and closed my eyes. "Goddammit, you're sitting in a coffin six feet under and leaving me on the surface to stare at your name engraved into stone. Fuck this. Fuck it all, Levi. Fuck you. I should've gave you another goodbye kiss. Made another CD or another minute longer in your presence and it's all fucked. It's all bullshit." I glanced up as the wind came through, rustling the leaves like ocean waves again. I closed my eyes and tried to calm down a touch, thinking back to that one afternoon on the cliff. "I can't stop swearing, and I can't stop thinking about drinking either, but I haven't done anything stupid." I paused and felt the wind pick up, blowing my hair around. "Not yet."

There was a brief spell of silence on my part before I could continue. I just didn't imagine how important the afternoon on the cliff would be to me, the night at his house, every minute spent with him should've been doubled. If I had known it would end up like this, maybe I could've fought harder of just stuck it out. Course my wrist was fractured and my nose broken, jaw was dislocated, not to mention there were bruises all over my face still fading very slowly. No blood though. I didn't have any blood on my hands anymore, and I wouldn't have to ever again.

I messed with the wrap around my wrist. "You know your family's crushed, Lev. Julia's a wreck most especially. I told them you loved them endlessly, and they said to tell you they loved you too. Everyone misses you. Everyone wants to call you their friend, and they give me such pitiful looks in the hall. I hate it." I closed my eyes and tried to think of the ocean again, tried not to smell the flowers by his grave as tears welled up in my eyes and my voice went weak. "I just want you back. I want you to hold me and tell me everything is going to be okay, because it's all so hard with you gone." A little sob escaped and tears fell onto his shirt, and I closed them and tried to calm down again, shaking my head. "Existence is such a burden."