text: Jerome never really liked his name. Jerry was too casual and Jerome just sounded too much like someone he wasn’t. That being said, he had no other name to go by so he went by it nonetheless. So it was that he heard his name over and over this Saturday morning when he woke. “Jerome. Jerome. Jerome!” He woke with a start. “Mmmmph. Huh? WHAT? What is it?” Your phone is blowing up, silly, she said. She. Oh yes. He almost forgot. He had company last night. Liz. They knew each other from another past they both shared but no longer lived. For years they never knew what became of each other but grabbing a drink at the right bar at the right time weaved their stories together once more. High heels. Short skirt. Red wine. And things go as they always go. Two likeminded people attracted to each other inoculate their brains with booze, and then move on to shady corners and wet slow kisses and then on to messy sheets and awkward mornings. What? Your phone. It’s been blowing up for half an hour at least. Oh. Jerome fumbled around his night stand for his glasses, found them with his fingers, put them on and started looking for his phone-but it was not where he usually put it. Your pants, she said while giggling. The phone is in your pants. That’s where the sounds are coming from. They are on the floor by the door-along with the rest of our clothes. She giggled some more. They had barely made it through the door before everything came off, he remembered now. She was laying on her stomach clutching the pillow. Her red hair laying across her cheek and green eye blinking at him when he awoke. Her back was bare and the sheet was laying across her rump. She was wearing nothing but the expressions on her face. I forgot how much fun we have together, she said. It’s been too long. He smirked and made a comment as he rose - that was your decision, if I remember right. You abandoned me. I didn’t abandon you. Hmph. You’re an ass. -she said as she pulled the sheet over her head. Jerome wiped his face with his hands, rubbed his temples and walked over to his clothes. The smell of sex was all over the room. A warm almost salty smell of bodies and stale alcohol. The clothes were indeed in two neat piles. He thought to himself these could be filed as his and hers regrets. His pants were inside out, one leg pulled almost all the way through and socks still in his pants legs. His shoes lay below. Her heels and skirt were directly in front of it. Nearly perfectly stacked. The shirts? Where were the shirts? He panned across the room. Nothing. Her bra was on the bed though. God she looked good in that bra. Everything about it complimented her breasts. Slight lift gave her a bolted on bombshell look with small but perky curves and delicate round perfection. He opened his door to the hallway of his apartment complex and there they were. The shirts were 10-15 feet down the hall laying against the wall. I guess we got started a little early-he thought. His feet padded quickly down the hall - hands grabbing the shirts and back to his apartment he went. He latched the door as he came back inside, threw the shirts on the chair and dove back into bed. Hey, our shirts were in the hall. HAHA. I guess we got a little hot and heavy before making it inside. Are you going to get that phone or not - she yelled into the pillow. oh. Yea. I forgot that’s why I got up. What’s the matter with you all of a sudden? Nothing. Okay, then. I’m getting a shower. Will you shut the phone off first? Or answer it? I’m trying to sleep here. Hey. Queen bipolar. You were laughing a bit ago-now you are all mad and pissy-what’s the problem? I didn’t abandon you. Liz, I came home. All your stuff was gone. I had an email a few days later that said you couldn’t do it, that you loved me but you had to go because you were afraid you’d hurt me and that was it. Not a note. A word. A slap on the ass. Nothing. You hurt me. That was 5 years ago. How did you NOT abandon me? It wasn’t like that! - she screamed. Will you answer the fucking phone, already?! Liz, my phone isn’t even ringing. What the fuck are you talking about? Oh God. Not again. Not again?? What do you mean. That’s why I’m in town. Sigh. I had to see my doctor. The phone. I hear the sounds of phones sometimes when they aren’t really ringing. It hasn’t happened for a long time though but it started again. I thought I was getting better. Ive been on medication for the voices and the ringing stopped with them. The voices? He slipped back into bed next to her, put his arm over her - they on their sides facing each other. What voices? She sighed. A long pause. That’s why I had to leave. Because of the voices? Well, no. Because of the ringing? No. Then why?! What are you trying to say? Because. Because why, Liz?! Because they weren’t being kind. Who wasn’t? the voices on the phone, Jerome! This makes no sense. These voices are in your head-is it your conscious talking to you or what? You aren’t like schizo are you? She closed her eyes and tears ran into the pillow. Wait, what? You aren’t schizo are you?! All my life, I thought schizophrenia was like that movie we watched called Sybil. Remember watching that when we were kids? But its not. It’s not at all. I hear telephones I answer them, Jerome, and I change. I dont choose it. What do you mean you change? I mean I change. I’m not myself. I make decisions I wouldn’t normally make and I become who I am not normally presenting to the world as me. Why didn’t you tell me this? Because no one knows. No one can know. I came into town because I needed to take care of some things with my doctor. I wanted to see you. To feel you. That much is true. I didn’t know it would be the last time. As she stood from the bed, the covers dropped revealing a naked shaking woman holding a gun. Jerome screamed, LIZ, NO! Oh honey, Ive not been Liz since the phone rang. BANG. The smell of gunfire was all that remained of the evening in Jeromes apartment when state detectives began combing through his things and questioning why there was a dead woman in his bed with only a pistol in one hand and a cellphone in the other. Jerome sat and stared at the detectives shaking his head. He could only whisper the words, “I should never have called her.