Suicide Hotline Butterfly [ch5]

Chapter 5


Candice woke up confused and terrified in the night, searching the bed beside her frantically for something that was familiar. She found her stuffed black bunny from home. She pulled it by the ear across the bed to her. She was against the wall, looking out into the darkness of the room; she didn't ask for a nightlight like she should have nor did she turn her bathroom light on. Candice crawled out of the bed and held her arms out at her side as she tried to not only not run into anything or fall, but be quiet. She made it to the dim light coming from beneath the door and found the knob.
It was quiet other than the rain falling outside. She could feel the cold coming from the floor. Pacing in front of the sliding back door, she wanted to shake her nightmares and go back to bed before Toby were to hear her or get up and find out she was up being a pansy. Putting her hand against the glass of the door startled her even as she was expecting the cold. Something moved outside – something was walking. Probably an animal, thought Candice. Her heart sped up anyway. She heard it again and she felt herself running down the hallway before she gave herself permission to do so. If her heart didn't fly out of her chest from the fear, it was going to from this.
“D. Thibodaux,” Candice whispered loudly from outside the other bedroom door. She didn't want to knock. She was wringing her hands and holding her floppy rabbit close, feeling the monster getting closer. Knock knock. After a few moments the door creaked open a bit and she nudged her way into the room. It was pitch black.
“Candice?” she heard Toby's quiet voice from very nearby. She took a few short steps towards it. “Did you have nightmares?” She felt a warm hand on her lower back and realized Toby was standing behind her.
“I had nightmares,” she replied, finally guided into the bed by Toby. He carefully crawled over her. “And then I heard something outside.”
“I get a lot of raccoons and possums out here,” he said. “I hear them every night.”
“It doesn't make you think you're crazy?”
“Not but sometimes they drive me crazy.” Toby grabbed Candice's wrist as though he could see perfectly in the darkness. He pulled her further onto the bed, closer to him and wrapped the large, thick blanket around both of them. She shivered and wasn’t sure what from.
While relaying what she remembered of the nightmare to Toby, Candice fell asleep and was breathing quietly into the blanket. She hadn't been in the bed long at all. Toby pulled her over so that his pillow was beneath her head and rolled over to go back to sleep as well. I’m glad she came to me. She had had enough for one day, he knew, and that this new environment may be a little alarming. She will sleep fine here with me.
Toby had been up for several hours when Candice wondered into the kitchen, hair dripping from the shower she used in her bathroom and she smelled like strawberries. She was wearing a maroon mini-skirt, black tighs and a gray cardigan with the hood pulled around her face and over her wet hair. It was buttoned only far enough to cover most of her bra. She had been happy to finally be able to use her own makeup.
“Good morning,” Toby said from the breakfast table where he was reading something.
“Morning,” Candice replied. “Almost afternoon...”
“They don't let you sleep enough in the hospital. I think you have catching up to do.” He smiled at her and she felt less ridiculous for waking up late. “Did you have any more bad dreams?”
“No...No more,” Candice realized. “Not yet.” The rest of the night and morning had been peaceful; no nightmares scaring her out of her sleep.
“Good. I wonder why.” Candice looked at Toby for an uncomfortable moment and made eye-contact before she lowered her head. “Come sit down.” Candice did so.
“Sorry I woke you up last night,” she said. “I got freaked out.”
“It's fine,” he replied, standing up. “I always want you to come to me if you get scared. Since I started cooking for tonight already, and I open wine when I cook all day, do you want some?”
“Okay.” Toby poured red liquid from a bottle into a clear wine glass and set it in front of Candice. “And you’re a psychologist,” she smiled.
“Yep. Never mind that you just got up and it's not after noon yet. And never mind that drinking during the daytime isn’t exactly a social norm.”
“Ha, oh well. Societal rules.” Candice sipped from the glass. “Fuck them.”
“You are correct.”
Toby inquired about Candice's research while she was drinking the wine. He poured himself some and chopped something, maybe onions, while Candice spoke.
“This guy takes the victims almost exactly one month apart each time,” she said. “He's on a clock.”
“You know this is a killer and not simply missing persons, but how do you know?”
“I just know,” she drank from her glass again. It looked a bit fuzzy to her now, on glass three. She giggled. “A dark haired male, age fifteen to twenty three, is going to go missing next week. Probably on February 28th or so.”
“Why haven't there been any bodies, do you think?” Candice cautiously looked at Toby holding the large knife for a moment. He was wearing a blue t-shirt and torn jeans. He so doesn’t look like he’s in his thirties.
“There have. The ones they find – the ones he lets them find – are being ruled as accidental deaths from the river way too quickly. He's not leaving noticeable marks, but they're not really drownings.” Candice lifted her head and looked at Toby. He smiled at her and put down the knife he had been using. He moved slowly back to the breakfast table and stood next to where Candice was sitting in top of the table, swinging her legs.
“How do you know what the victim will look like? Why do they look that way?”
“All of the missing guys look the same. He must have lost someone who looked like that…a son, or maybe he envies them. Maybe he’s gay.” Toby looked at her intensely.
“But he doesn’t hate them?”
“No. I don’t think so. He does so little damage to the bodies that have been found, being put into the water could be for washing away evidence of semen…I think the water is a burial ground.” She bit her lip for a few seconds, wondering if she had made herself sound crazy for not. Dr. Thibodaux smiled a bright-white smile at her.
“You're smart, which you know already, and that can't be wasted,” he said. “You're going to do great when you get back to college. But for now, I want you to come work at the hotline with me.” Candice widened her eyes. What.
“Work...like on the phones... when?”
“Maybe late next week or the week after, after you get used to things a little. You need to rest…going from one Hell to another, and now here…” He looked down at Candice, who was smiling beneath her hair. “Which I hope isn’t Hell. And it will look good on future job applications.”
“Thank you...” Candice said. Toby noticed her subtle hiding as she tried to recollected herself. “How long is training?”
“You just spent five days in the hospital for suicidal behavior. That was your training. All I have to do is sign some paperwork” Candice nodded. He doesn’t seem to mind cutting corners. Toby put his hand over hers, which was on her leg. “No more of that,” he said quietly in reference to her hidden scars.
“Suicidal people talking suicidal people out of suicide…” she smiled. Candice looked up absent-mindedly and as she did, Toby took his chance by putting his other hand beneath her chin to hold her steady and leaned in.
Candice was already light headed from the wine and now she was sure she would just faint. Toby's lips were soft and his tongue was warm as it slid across hers slowly. His hand wrapped into her hair where he held her still, unable to break free from his kiss. If she had wanted to.
Candice's hands left her own body and found Toby's shoulders, his neck, and hair as he kept kissing her. Harder. His own hand traveled gently down her neck to her waist.
Toby pulled back from Candice and she felt herself squeeze her knees together. She didn't want to stop. He stood back for a moment, looking at Candice. The room wavered a bit for the two of them.
“I... didn't think that through,” Toby said slowly, as if making sure to pronounce every word.
“No...it's um, not bad. That.” She didn't know what to say. She didn't want to talk. She wanted Toby to stop being hesitant all of a sudden. Do it again.
“You don't need to be under the impression that I brought you here for a particular… reason.” Candice moved her hands from beneath Toby's own to his wrists, pulling him back to her quickly. Does alcohol create bravery? “Do you trust me?” Toby whispered in Candice's ear from right above her. She shivered.
“Yes.” Candice wondered if she had ever answered yes to that question without lying before. Toby kissed her again. Why is this happening? Candice thought. Toby tightened his arms around her waist. Can we stay like this all day?

Sitting in a wooded picnic area - not far from Dr. Thibodeaux’s house - after going to the pharmacy for Candice's prescriptions from Dr. Rao, Toby watched Candice read each bottle of medication carefully as she sat across the picnic table, after he had handed three prescriptions to her and slipping one into his pocket. He had decided it wasn’t the best idea for her to know about the fourth at all. The sky was a pale blue but the area in which they sat was dark, shadowed by the leafless trees. The turkey that Toby had put in the oven early that morning needed a few hours to cook before they could bother with the rest of the meal, and he thought Candice may benefit from being outside for a while despite the cold.
There hadn't been many more intense kissing incidences over the last few days, but it didn't seem like it was going to end. Candice was beginning to realize that the tension between herself and the doctor hadn’t been in her own lonely mind either on the phone or more so in the psych ward. He hadn’t expected her to be nearly as attractive as she was when she walked into his office, which made her even more interesting as he observed her strangeness and gently began digging into her thought process and her nightmares. And it was her nightmares in particular that he was finding himself increasingly attracted to even as he tried to cure them, although she did not need to know about this attraction.
“I am so sick,” said Candice, “of Rao wanting me to take anti-psychotics.” She tipped over the largest bottle – no doubt the perpetrator.
“I respect Dr. Rao professionally, sometimes,” Toby replied, “but you already know I don't feel like anti-psychotics are what you need at all.”
“What is?” Candice pulled her red sleeves further over her hands and pinched the cloth together to protect them from the weather. Toby reached across the small picnic table and took her hands in his. Candice shifted her eyes.
“Many in this field have forgotten about the importance of the patients’ environment, or they just ignore it. With so much emphasis on medication, there are many psychiatrists who would rather medicate your paranoia than to send you to a therapist to help you overcome it.”
“I overcame my environment,” Candice proclaimed. “Kind of.” I tried to leave every environment.
“But how far can you go in life spending all of your energy and emotion on being above your environment?” Candice thought about this for a moment. He was right. She did little more in the outer world than survive. “Environment never stays stable for long.”
“I don't have paranoia...” She gripped his index finger tightly. “I have awareness.”
“You may not have typical paranoia,” Toby responded quickly, “but I'm not in your head, I can't read your mind. But I can see how your destructive environment could make you so defensive that you boarder on the paranoid.”
“When you crush something…when you squeeze it, the inside come out. Whatever is inside…under that amount of pressure…that’s what’s going to spill out. The paranoia leaks….” She stammered. Toby watched her as she attempted to explain her behavior, knowing that he would understand. And if it’s empty, emptiness leaks out. “I can't take these anti-psychotics,” Candice bit her lip. “I literally refuse. They turn me into a zombie. A restless-legged, uncreative zombie. I can't function like that, I can't function if I can't do research, if my creativity is gone. I’ll never catch this guy on anti-psychotics.”
“You talk about the killer like you’re trying to get a boys attention,” Toby smiled, looking intensely at Candice. “And, I don't see why Dr. Rao has to know that you're not going to take them. I told you that you don’t need them.” Candice blushed, but she wasn’t sure why.
“Can’t I just stop getting it filled?”
“I still need to talk to Rao about taking you off of it. I feel that it would be a crime to make you into a zombie.” Candice grinned. This was an uncontrollable response to any praise from Toby – the only person in years to give her any while asking for nothing in return. No wonder my paranoia leaks out. She was also grinning because she knew how to make him very proud – that she could prove she wasn’t delusion - but she couldn't tell him as much as she wanted yet; he'd have to find out with the rest of the world.
“Dreadful medicine…”
Candice looked up and was caught in green on green; Toby was looking into her eyes. She had her usual alarmed reaction and her heart started speeding out of control. This is uncomfortable. Candice couldn't look away this time. If eyes are the window to the soul, she thought, what is he seeing? She tightened her hands around Toby's on impulse, reaching across the table to take hold. He tightened his in reaction. This is why eye contact is pointless, she thought, now gazing in too much curiosity to feel her fight-or-flight. I'm looking into his eyes, and I see absolutely nothing.
Candice felt warm and calm on the ride home. Toby played music off of his iPhone, mostly popular music, and Candice hummed. Toby looked much younger than he usually did, now with his hood pulled up, leaning back – he looked more like the guys at college who she watched but never talked to. Candice felt safer than she had in a long time, and felt her motivation coming back. He is going to be amazed when I capture the killer. By May.