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He dialed the numbers. His motions were slow and ached as he forced every tap of his frozen fingertips against the button pad.
*Call*
The line connected. Then, there was silence before finally, he heard the ringing. More ringing. At last: nothing.
David waited again before sighing out. How many times had he tried this? Struggling to move his cold hands, the man squeezed at the device. It was another failed attempt.
“Tch. Figures.” What else was he expecting? David scowled. He dropped his palm into his lap, defeated. “No. Of course not… Why would you answer?”
Snow scattered delicately around the open park. He sat there on the far end bench feeling helpless, all beside himself, and angry. Icy patterns from the wooden boards stung through the seat of his jeans and numbed his thighs. Unforgiving was this weather. Its chill zapped every hot breath that exhaled betwixt his lips. There, David watched the flakes drop from the clouds as though the sky too were freezing over - stopped in time.
“David?”
The delicate call suddenly jolted him from his frustrated trance. David’s gaze shot left until he found the source of the voice. The voice belonged to a young woman approaching him. Without much time to reproach her, the girl took a seat on the bench next to him. David had little time to react. Suddenly, he forced himself to readjust his posture. Sit politely. Make room for the unexpected stranger
“That’s really you under there isn’t it?” the girl went on to ask.
David glared anxiously at them under the shelter of his hood. Her mere presence put him on edge, regardless that her innocent tone was almost enough to prove she was trustworthy. He was still far too self-conscious about a question like that. David always assumed the worst in people – especially those that walked casually to him, knowing his name, and granted themselves immediate proximity. It was a learned fear he’d never quite overcome which was unfortunate because this person appeared to be kind. It was her expression. Her slight apprehensiveness. But words as well as looks were plenty deceiving. He couldn’t be sure. Therefore, he couldn’t trust her. Just to be safe.
There would always be reasons to doubt people. For the time being, he at least entertained the concept of engaging some kind of conversation. She’d gone through the trouble, afterall.
David sank his hands deep into the pockets of his coat where he made the conscious effort to drop his phone in its depths.
“…You know me?”
The lady wasn’t offput by his growl in the slightest. Odd. It’s especially unnerving when a woman boldly confronts him in the middle of day. There were hardly any people treading the trails of the nearby area, and she wasn’t discouraged by merely knowing him? How could that be?
“Well,” she folded her hands around her knees and tapped them together. “I suppose that look of yours reminded me of someone else I know. You look a lot like him with your face covered.”
David sent his pupils skeptically darting. No one else seemed interested in eavesdropping their conversation. The girl went on staring at him. Now David was staring back.
“Sorry. It’s just that… he too visited places like this. Sitting alone, enjoying the quiet. At least I hope that’s what he was doing.”
“Who are you talking about?” David asked. He realized in that instant that it wasn’t necessary to inquire. The answer became clear when his visitant lowered her lashes, deep in private recollection. But he wanted her to clarify. Eventually she did, and it struck him like a spear straight through the center of his chest.
“Simon,” she said. “You’re someone he’s mentioned.”
“Hah.” David couldn’t help rolling his eyes. He scoffed too at the implication, unintentionally albeit.
Of course they were associated with each other, though not with the name “David,” which struck him as peculiar. To the perspective of most, he and Simon were a pair of basket cases hand in hand with insanity. They weren’t exactly people-friendly under social standards. What the hell would this girl be after regarding the both of them? She mentioned the youth who hid in hoods and sulked in seclusion. Simon. Back then, that boy knew him by a different name. Was there some elucidation for that? Was she here to tell him? Deliver a message from him maybe? David clenched the phone in his pocket at the thought. A word from Simon…
“You care about him a lot,” she emphasized. A bold claim.
David frowned. “…Who are you?”
“My name is Sophie. I went to school with Simon. We were classmates.”
Ah. So that explained it. David’s lips parted. He tried to nod without exaggerating and his reaction came jaded. It was stale and unexpressive on purpose. It’s her, he thought apathetically. The girl Simon Henriksson wanted to keep – or kill (whichever came first) according to the trial.
“You said I ‘care about him,’ huh? Yeah. I guess so. But, probably too much. It’s complicated.”
Sophie hesitated. “Things always get complicated when Simon’s name comes up. I don’t think it’s his fault though.”
“No?” David pushed her to keep talking. He was interested in what she had to say. David was far from relaxed, but he detected his guard slipping further and further until he let her in, and listened closely.
“He’s a good guy. I wish I’d told him that more often. It’s still something that haunts me to this day.”
After that, Sophie began telling brief stories about the Simon she knew when they were teenagers. She mentioned his habits of wandering the city, getting caught smoking or loitering by police, lingering on sidewalks and looming at closed restaurants near empty parking lots on weekend nights. Her language regarding him was fond. Gentle. Sophie sounded emotional at times. David noticed how lost she became with everything more she mentioned of him. It simulated a tender warmth within him even in the cold and his shoulders eased from their tension into something gradually tamer. The mental images of Simon painted clearly through her depictions. He could picture that boy pasted in grey shades, bandaged wrists, dangling earbuds and puffy eyes…
Before sobering up, hearing anyone avow to know Simon on an intimate level would have gotten under his skin. He’d only been infatuated for years. Knowing Simon was David’s lifeline. It kept him going. Held him on solid ground when the world was caving in and kept him above water when reality tried to drown him. Curiously he wondered, what did Sophie truly know about the phantoms of his mind? Someone like her couldn’t possibly be as plagued by substance or mental illness as either of them. Surely not. But that led to even more curiosities. She said Simon mentioned him.
Sophie was definitely sympathetic toward Simon. It took David mere seconds to reach that conclusion. Wasn’t hard to tell. What did Simon know about David Leatherhoff?
“I think I became kind of jealous.”
David’s sight snapped back to her. “Huh? Jealous of what?”
“Simon holds something special with you that can’t amount with anyone else in his entire life. Not even his own mother.”
His confusion grew. He’d already met Ms. Henriksson prior to seeking Beckomberga – the woman was utterly distraught about the status of her son who took the lives of two officers before a lifetime’s sentence to commitment in an institution. Sophie had unknowingly struck one of his nerves by suggesting that David obtained any much importance to a man like that. The last time David saw him… those horrific conditions… David barely realized it himself before he turned sullen. That couldn’t be possible. Nothing about their past ties could be special. Sophie had to be wrong.
“And what the hell would that be?” he snarled. “What’s special between us? Why would you know about it?”
He hadn’t meant to show such hostility so quickly. His snap caused Sophie to tighten her jaw lightning fast. When her eyes hit the ground, David saw her visibly flinch and for a time, she withdrew in fear from having agitated him. Fragile thing. David started to regret scaring her.
Eventually, she tried to speak. “He… needed someone who understood him. For a long time, since as long ago as I remember, he’s always been so misunderstood. I didn’t even know how to help him. But… somehow, you managed to. He told me so. My last hope now is that… our time together heals his wounds too. Both of ours, if it’s still possible to do. I’m sorry.”
Shared wounds? David squinted before softening his attitude dramatically. “…Has Simon hurt you?” His question bordered an apology.
Sophie calmed down thanks to the adjustment. She recognized his efforts to rectify his temper. “I wanted to be his friend. No one was like him. Simon just… felt stronger than I did. I was the one who broke his heart and hurt him… I didn’t mean to. Making things okay is what matters most to me now.” The two made passive eye contact. “You two were also strange friends, weren’t you?”
“Hmph. Girly, you don’t even know the half of it.”
David chewed on the inside of his cheek momentarily. Sophie had opened up to him. It was brave of her despite the sensitive topic and even when she wasn’t required to do it. In fact, he’d aggressively challenged her. Here was this remorseful girl laying her heart bare beside him in the snowy evening and he could only contemplate how to hide the devil he used to be, hiding in human clothes. Just maybe it was worth the while to do the same. They shared something in common if nothing else. Simon wasn’t here, but he was the reason David came so far into the city. Now, Simon was bringing them together.
“Did he tell you I was a junkie?”
The question startled her. He laughed.
“It’s alright,” David dismissed the response. “You get used to reactions like that.”
“I’m sorry, ah… He may have said some things, l-like that.”
“It’s okay. You can be honest. If he said I was scum, it’s not a fib. Easy to consider yourself garbage once you’ve consumed so much of it. I chased that lifestyle. Didn’t stop it from happening. I… couldn’t. Not while I was hooked. I don’t blame anyone else for it anymore. I know better, and I’ve decided that those days are done.”
“…It must take courage to face your demons, David. It isn’t easy. Even I can tell that. You’re not just …a piece of trash.”
“Don’t sweet-talk me, doll face. The truth is so much less poetic.”
“W-What do you mean?” she queried timidly.
David scoffed. “To escape one addiction… I just dropped the dope and got hooked on him.”
Through an uninterrupted hush, white noise of falling snow coated them in silence. Sophie’s brown irises pinned him – he could sense it – from the corners of her eyelids.
“…You shouldn’t say you’re sorry for caring,” he continued. “It’s me who loathes what happened to him most... I can’t change the past. I can only go forward. That’s why I’ve… tried to leave it behind. Especially when it comes to me, everyone would rather forget. I bet he wanted to forget me, too.”
“What did you want to leave behind, David?”
The man’s face ducked underneath the rim of his hood. “Everything.”
Blinking the snowy crystals from her lashes, the warmly dressed woman daringly resurrected David’s accusation and gave them back to him. “Can you say you hated Simon’s situation more than anyone? Purnell, Ms. Henriksson, me…” Sophie. Her mouth spoke with a tremble. “Simon is…”
David held his breath until she finished.
“…Simon overcame his own self-hatred. There should be no more of it.”
“He hated himself most? Is that what you wanted to say? It’s what he’s in an asylum for. Being dishonest with yourself might have been what got your relationship with Simon all messed up. Then again,” David shut his eyes. “If I’d thought twice about showing some modesty… you and I might have met under prettier circumstances, Sophie.”
She debated the vast complexities swirling storms within her mind. About her shortcomings with Simon. About the hospital and David’s relations to her childhood obsessor. The subject weighed heavy and she could see at last why David was sitting here dusted by the snowfall. She developed a connection with the man from Simon’s past at that exact moment.
What came next baffled him. Sophie smiled. It was the sugary grin. As innocent as it was accepting of him.
And she asked David, “Did you decide somewhere along the way that you need him more than the drugs?”
David grew still as stone. Those years… felt endless. Loss of brain cells from the front seat of a car identified him. Backstage, alleyways, empty parking lots – anywhere shady that permitted his presence. It didn’t matter. He traversed that world seeking sick kicks and vile pleasures to pass the days. Days that slipped away from him, unable to regain. Irredeemable months went wasted on destroying himself.
It was what came after the defining car wreck that sent him spiraling. David was bad before crushing Simon’s legs. He didn’t get clean. Rather, “Daniel” ruined himself in every way imaginable as subliminal punishment. No matter how many times he ‘learned’ his lessons, he was right back at it again on repeat. Abhorrently.
“Simon said you tried to change. He said you went to a hospital for help.”
“Help? At the hospitals? Tch. Going there was a mistake. I turned myself in practically like a fucking criminal and they slapped a prescription on my record to cure the erratic behaviours. Can you believe that? That shit was a whole ‘nother prison. Those bastards in coats… They all looked down on me. Like a pitiful rat in their holding cells.” Sinking inward, David leant his elbows against his kneecaps and framed his palms on the backside of his neck. Stomaching the memory ailed him gravely. “Help… I thought taking their experimental medication was gonna help me. What a joke. Just made me worse. And worse…”
Torment is what it was. He thought he’d killed someone during the period he was committed. “For his own safety, and for the safety as others.” What he should have sought was rehab. They would have understood. Life didn’t care about ‘would-haves’ though. Oh well.
Hospitals led David to the foulest addiction he’d endured. It was the medication that sparked withdrawals, and in waking from his delusional dreams, he fell completely apart. David craved more of those drugs. Needing it. Suffering migraines whilst yearning habits he’d tried to abandon. Fighting strangers for a fix. Vomiting. Starving. Stealing. By then, hatred ran rampant in David’s veins.
And fear. It was his constantly supply. The true addiction. Hallucinations came next. They drew the line. Did David need Simon more than any of that heaven and hell?
“Sophie. How did Simon learn about me? I’m not the same as I was. I’m different now. I have changed.” How shameful. He sounded like an ex, praying his dearest companion might believe he was a good man now. As if Simon could escape what was done. Neither of them could, but there was hope in the company of this girl. She possessed this unique power, only here, only today, to alleviate him of his burdens. “I want to see him. I’m not sure how to do anything else until I have. I’d like to know how he’s doing. What’s going on in his life now. Whether he… despises me.”
The desperation she was presented with rendered Sophie speechless. The girl, clad in her beige jacket and woolen scarf, meekly glanced away.
“Sophie,” he begged her. “I… I need to know.”
Her demeanor sustained. “Wouldn’t you rather ask him yourself?” she pleaded. “I promise. Simon is interested in the same thing: to let out the truth and be happier.”
Oh what a sugary offering. Happiness… God, if he could take a dose of that from a plastic cup, he’d be set. Obtaining joy alongside his victim sounded too pure to ever happen. A lump caught in David’s throat and it clogged his airways. After the distance, the separation, the betrayal and every ounce of pain, could he finally ask those questions face to face with Simon? Was he delaying the inevitable? Afraid of his judgement? Why – when he felt he deserved it? David shook his head and stammered.
“But… But h-he’s bound to outcast me.”
“Why would he do that, David? You’re not the only one who’s made mistakes… Don’t you want to move forward?”
“We might not be able to. Because, I… I’m the one who-”
When he finally murmured his darkest sins in her direction, David witnessed the last colour drain from Sophie’s paled face. At last, she wore the expression of dismay he expected since introduction. It should have been disappointing to him. The thought of being recognized as someone important was all he could ever really ask for.
He told a tale to her of a stalking monster. Of following a troubled boy to his home, using persuasion and a so-called commonality to stay close to him. And there he stayed. So close. The monster took his leave the morning thereafter with a calculated, unsolicited grudge budding inside, until he was overgrown with thorns of spite and rooted deep in vehemence – like a toxin poisoning a garden of newly blooming friendship.
David had fertilized a plan. And it came true. To punish a minor for his lack of value regarding life.
He'd never admitted this atrocious fact to anyone prior to now. Even very little to himself did the full reality manifest. Sophie just went mute. She listened to his revelation all the while, and didn’t get up to walk away. The poor girl must have been in shock at what he was saying. It made David sick to continue regaling this story, yet by a miracle, he found relief in the acknowledgment. David revealed it all to her. He’d been cowardly, twisted. But… he was lonely, too. He made a bad choice. In fact, he’d made tons of bad choices he had no clue how to repair – preying on like-loneliness to save himself, and he struggled to believe those errors could ever be fixed no matter how much he claims to have changed. He chose to show his darkest confessions, unraveling his desire for salvation. All and only to Sophie.
“A lot of good it did either of us for me to injure him. He just had such… a god damn shine in his eyes. He didn’t know it was there. He didn’t cherish the life he had. But I saw it… I know what I saw in him.” David exhaled sadly. A puff of hot fog whirled out between his teeth. He wished he had a smoke. “He must believe his generosity was misplaced in me… I wouldn’t blame anyone for thinking that way. But if I… If I could just convince him that’s not true… If I could find a way to tell him I’m sorry, Simon might forgive me. And… I might know some peace. Maybe we really could both move on together. Live for the future instead of our screwed up pasts.”
The man’s lip started to quiver, and it had nothing to do with the frigid breezes. David had to bite on his mouth to make it stop. True, ever since leaving Simon that day, he’d felt as though his resolve was going down the gutter. Existence itself devolved into a fucking chore. Everything hurt. Nothing was good enough.
And at every corner, Simon’s face was there to remind him.
“I used to feel good about no one knowing what happened before the crash. He kept quiet and I didn’t even have to threaten him. Most relationships like ours don’t occur without a little bit of violence. That’s pretty corrupt, isn’t it? I figured this would all be black and white. But there’s so much grey area… I don’t really know what to think of it. I’m just… tired, Sophie. I think he and I are both too tired and… too empty to have the right answers. Can’t guess where it all began anymore or what the hell it’s supposed to mean. Probably doesn’t matter either.”
David sniffled once and determined that he should stop talking. He’d said enough. Eventually, David glanced to his left to soak in the shape of Sophie’s face as he remained hidden beneath his hood. He’d smashed the positive perception she’d built of him, and the courage that previously occupied her eyes was leaving her. The grey that surrounded them both quickly overcame them, and she adopted an expression devoid of composure. David’s chin dropped low. How cruel. He stopped Sophie from trying to inspire him. She bore potential to lift his spirits. Cheer him on. Steer him toward a path leading to compassion. There was nothing she could do to validate David now. No way she’d see any good left in him. Not after this.
“I want to just start over,” he cried. “I wish we could. We’ve lost so much time.” Yes. A clean slate. New beginnings. “To see Simon heal… That… I’d like to see.”
Sophie took some time then steadily rose onto her feet again. Where her shoes sank into blankets of mounded snow, David glimpsed an unexpected sight of petals near the girl’s ankles. No… He checked closer. They were wings. Something had died near the bench. David counted discernable details of the partially buried insect. It was a moth, stiff and dead, legs coiled and antenna broken. Sorrow welled at the corners of his blurring vision.
“You may already be closer to what you’re asking for than you think.” Simon’s childhood friend dragged David into focus again. Sophie caught David’s eyes aligning with her own, and the two peered at each other another moment longer. “I’d like to see him heal too. We have that in common, you and I.”
Sophie persisted. He didn’t understand it. She had ever reason to be appalled by him. It shocked David to receive an ounce more of her generosity. It reminded him of Simon in a way… How he used to be. He was stubborn of course and much less graceful than this caring girl, but there was goodness – noticeable, worthwhile goodness – and it reached him in spite of the shame. David drained of his bitterness. What was left was a simple man, scarred and dependent solely on Sophie.
“I don’t see you as a monster, Daniel. I hope you’ll take that to heart. It’s going to be okay. You’ll see.” David didn’t exactly appear convinced of her assurance. Regardless, she added, “Simon said he misses you. So… don’t give up on your mission. Go to the hospital. See him. Just try to talk.” Sophie placed a new smile on her lips as her delicate hands folded across the space of her lap. “Sad or not, the way I see it… you are both still alive, aren’t you?”
She gave him the chance to think about it. He could only gape helplessly.
“Then it’s not too late to heal together.”
Sophie took her leave without another word, and as David watched after the girl, he sat entirely still. It made little sense how Simon knew about Daniel’s changed name if he was isolated from civilization all this while. There were bound to be other things he knew, too. Simon must have an informer. Possibly some other form of insight. Sophie could be the one knowing more than she let on, and used that to her advantage to learn about the man haunting Simon’s past, being the good and cautious friend she clearly was. Whatever the answer, David failed to deny his curiosity. Just how much was Simon aware of?
David had acquired Ms. Henriksson’s direction. He had a location and the means to arrive there. Now, he’d gained incentive. Sophie’s motivation helped influenced David. Simon was still alive, somewhere behind the walls of the Beckomberga institution. He’d survived the car crash. He endured the teen years despondent with internal anguish. He was an author now. A patient. He was waiting… and it was too damn cold outside to keep hesitating about this.
Sophie said Simon missed him. It still sounded like a sugar-coated lie. To discredit her sincerity though, he was incapable. David believed her. He wanted to. The sound of being welcomed… It was downright impossible to resist.
David stood up and buried his hands back into his pockets. The man considered his place in the city, in the world, in life. He spotted the exit gates at the distant southside of the park then began to walk there. Along the way, a fluttering wind tickled his face. David paused and discovered a tiny moth had flown into his path. The harmless creature tapped its small feet over the rim of his nose, landing for a single second before hovering around the halo of David’s head. The waving velvety wings fanned graciously, showing both paled and rich patterns of blue. The moth’s cobalt shape fascinated David and he imagined that his chance encounter with the moth was unmistakably significant. Like his visit with Sophie, it was no coincidence.
A different moth of the very same kind had recently succumbed to the elements and died here. Beholding this one who had managed to thrive amidst the winter outbreak sparked hope somewhere inside David’s chest. If that moth could talk, he wondered, what would it say?
‘You told the truth,’ it may conceivably whisper. Or it might affirm him; “You did the right thing. It’s time to move on.’
David collected a layer of snowflakes along his jacket before his legs moved from place, and he descended the uncertain trail toward Simon and the hospital. They were intertwined… and this time, there was no regret, no addiction, hallucination or guilt strong enough to make him turn back.
The moth was gone. A set of footprints pocked the glittering blanket as dusk traded for nightfall. They would not be forgotten.