The Downward Spiral of Adam Keir | Chapter 15

“What do you mean, a bouquet of flowers?” Adam asked Jesse, while pacing back and forth.
            “What do you think I mean, dumbass?” Jesse hissed back, a tinge of humor in his voice. “When I got here, it was sitting in front of the door.”
            Saturday morning was already off to an interesting start. Adam hadn’t slept well, again, and when he arrived at the pawn shop, Jesse told him that there had been a bouquet on the doorstep of the pawn shop. A part of Adam hoped that it was for Jesse, but he knew immediately upon hearing about it that he was its intended recipient. But still, there could be a chance that he was wrong . . .
            “You must have a secret admirer, Jesse,” he joked anxiously.
            “I’d hope not,” Jesse replied, “seeing as your name is on it.” From behind the counter, the taller man pulled out the gift in question, and Adam stopped in his tracks to stare at it.
            In a wrap of light blue papier-mâché, the bouquet contained the two flowers that Adam had seen a lot of lately: pansies and honey flowers. There was a purple string tied around the base that looped through a small card. Jesse held up said card for him to see it closer.
            “To: Adam” was written on the top line. The bottom read, “From: Eve”.
            “Guess you were right about her liking you,” Jesse quipped.
            Adam stepped forward and took the bouquet from Jesse with care. He was tempted to throw it out, but something was stopping him from doing so. Picking up the tiny card in his fingers, Adam opened it to see if anything was inside. There, he found this message:
            “If I’m a pansy, then you’re a honey flower. I still believe in us. ~ Eve”.
            He didn’t know what it meant, but knew that the combination had to have some significance. It occurred to him how pansies had wound up important to him again, after all these years. The last time he’d seen a pansy, it had been the one in Dr. Frost’s office 23 years ago. Now, all of a sudden, he was seeing the flower everywhere he looked. He’d even seen honey flowers in strange places. And now Evangeline had given him a bouquet with the two plants haunting him.
            This isn’t a coincidence. It can’t be. What the hell is going on?
            “Adam? You still with me?”
            Adam snapped out of his trance and looked at Jesse. “What?”
            “Quit fawning over your new girlfriend. You’re with me right now, not her. We’ve got a business to run!”
            “She’s not my girlfriend.”
            “Sure, sure.” Jesse gave him an over-exaggerated wink. “Whatever gets you to sleep at night, Romeo.”
            Nothing gets me to sleep anymore, Jess, he wanted to say, but didn’t. Instead, he forced himself to let out a small chuckle at his friend’s remark. Then, with the bouquet still in his hands, he sat down on his stool.
            Their first customer for the day was a middle-aged woman who sold them some jewelry. At one point, she tried to speak to Adam, but he ignored her. After she left, Jesse nudged him with his elbow.
            “Dude, what was that? Did you know her or something?”
            Adam raised a brow. “Know her? No, I have no idea who she was.”
            “Then why’d you give her the silent treatment like that?” There was genuine concern in Jesse’s eyes. “You’ve never been passive-aggressive to a customer before.”
            He opened his mouth to speak, but then realized that he didn’t have an answer.
            Why did I ignore her? It wasn’t because she rubbed off on me the wrong way or anything. I don’t understand why I . . .
            When he looked down at the jewelry she’d given them, he saw something that answered him. At the top of the pile sat a silver ring with a large garnet gem. His eyes widened when he saw it.
            He recognized that ring.

* * *

“How was your Christmas, Adam?”
            Buried in a new sweater, Adam glanced up at Dr. Frost with a typical, though meaningless, sadness in his eyes. “It was all right,” he answered, “I guess.”
            “That’s good.” The doctor couldn’t mask his boredom. He looked down at his notebook, tapping his pen against it idly. The fact that he didn’t seem to know what to ask anymore offended some part of Adam, and he couldn’t stop himself from inquiring,
            “Do I need to come here anymore, Dr. Frost?”
            “Of course you do, Adam.”
            “Seems like you don’t have much else to say to me, though. Am I wasting your time?”
            Dr. Frost shook his head. Through his teeth, he groaned, “It’s not that. What’s stopping me is you, Adam.”
            The boy narrowed his hazel eyes, which looked brown in the office. “Me?”
            “We’ve been seeing each other for a month, and you still won’t”�"he stopped himself, started again with different phrasing. “I still can’t get you to open up to me.” The doctor leaned forward in his seat. “Try to remember, Adam. What happened on your birthday? What happened on Halloween?”
            Adam hesitated for a beat before shaking his head. The only thing that came to mind when he thought about his birthday was . . . was . . .
            . . . Overwhelming heat.
            “There . . . There was a fire,” he stammered. “Somewhere . . .”
            Dr. Frost finally looked interested, if not grimly serious. After a few seconds of stillness, he gave a small nod, and then leaned back in his chair. He wrote something down, but also furiously crossed something at the top of the page out.
            “What did you cross out?” Adam asked.
            “Do you remember anything else?”
            Adam squinted his eyes and tried to remember. When he couldn’t do that, he let his imagination try to fill in the blanks in the hope that it would bring something back to him. And bring something back it did. Or rather, it brought someone back.
            “A girl. I . . . was with a girl.”
            “What was her name, Adam?”
            He tried to remember, but all he could see of her was a silhouette. “She . . . reached out to me . . . in the fire.”
            “Her name, Adam. Who was she?”
            Before he could think about it further, something about Dr. Frost’s phrasing made Adam’s blood run cold. “Wait . . . Why are you saying ‘was’?”
            Dr. Frost averted his eyes, but didn’t answer.
            “Why are you saying that in past tense? Why aren’t you asking me what her name ‘is’? Why ‘what was her name’? She’s okay, isn’t she? Isn’t she?”
            “Is she?”
            The way the doctor turned the tables on him was simple but effective, and it made Adam’s gaze fall to the floor.
            Oh, God. Oh, God, she’s dead. Am I here because she’s dead?
            “Adam?”
            “It should’ve been me . . .” The words escaped Adam’s throat, despite not being a conscious thought to him. He said them more from instinct, from the memories he’d buried.
            Dr. Frost was quiet for a beat. Then, with a huff, he sat up and clicked a button on the phone on his desk. “Dana, bring a bottle of water for Adam.”
            A few seconds later, the woman at the front desk entered the office. As she approached, holding an unopened plastic water bottle, she noticed their silence, or maybe the way Adam’s face contorted in horror. “Is everything all right?” She asked the doctor.
            “Yes,” Dr. Frost answered. “We’re making progress, that’s all.”
            “I see . . .” Dana stepped closer to Adam and knelt in front of him. “Hey. Are you okay?”
            Adam looked down at her and found that she was rather pretty, with her wide, expressive brown eyes and short black bob. She smiled at him with something that wasn’t pity, and then cracked the seal of the water bottle. On the middle finger of the hand she did so with was an extravagant silver ring with a large garnet gem in the center. It caught Adam’s eye, and he stared at it as she offered the bottle to him.
            Noticing, she asked, “Do you like it?” She tilted her head back, gesturing at Dr. Frost. “He got it for me as a Christmas present.”
            “Dana,” warned Dr. Frost. “You’re cutting in on Adam’s hour now. Let me talk to my patient alone.”
            The pretty secretary rolled her eyes. Looking at Adam, she asked, “Psychologists, am I right?”
            Adam got a small chuckle out of it. Somehow, in under two minutes, he’d grown to like the secretary more than his doctor. If he had to choose between them, he’d choose to talk to her for the rest of his visits. But then again, he didn’t want to be a burden to her.
            The moment Dana left the room, she took all warmth with her, leaving him and Dr. Frost to continue their conversation in what could’ve been ice. It was from then on that the doctor’s surname started to take on a much more literal meaning to Adam.

* * *

“Ground Control to Adam Keir,” Jesse sung in a crude mockery of the David Bowie song “Space Oddity”. “Your circuit’s dead, there’s something wrong. Can you hear me, Adam Keir? Can you�"Heeeeere . . .”
            Adam stood up and set the bouquet in his hands down on the counter. “I do know her,” he said. Then, without another word, he dashed for the exit.
            “Adam? Hey!”
            He ripped the door open and stepped outside. “Dana!” he called. Looking right, then left, he realized that she wasn’t there. So, he ran toward the parking lot. “Dana, wait!”
            But he was too late; as he was running, she drove out of the parking lot, then turned right and continued down the road. Though he considered chasing her car to the next stoplight, hoping she’d notice him in her rearview mirror, he decided against it and instead slowed to a stop.
            Jesse caught up to him only a few seconds later. “She’s gone, dude,” he said. “No sense chasing her.”
            “I know.” He sighed.
            “Who is she?”
            “No one important.”
            “Well, she must be important to you, at least. Why else would you run after her like that?”
            Adam looked at him. “Because she just sold us the ring her husband gave her before they got married.”

* * *

When he got home that evening, Adam emptied the vase in the dining room and put the bouquet from Evangeline in it. Already the petals of the pansies were beginning to shrivel, but he hoped the water he added to the vase would breathe life back into them. The honey flowers, on the other hand, were unaffected by the lack of sustenance, which surprised him.
            The first thing he did after sitting down at the dining table was pull Dana’s ring out of his pocket. He’d had to buy it from Jesse, but it was a small price to pay to make sure that the ring wasn’t sold to someone else.
            While he was indifferent to the fate of Dr. Frost himself, his wife had always lingered in the back of his mind. Often he’d wondered how she was doing, and comforted himself with the thought that she was fine.
            But I guess she isn’t, if she’s selling Dr. Frost’s ring.
            Had she tried to speak to him because she recognized him? No, he’d changed too much other the years. If he didn’t have a beard, it might’ve been a plausible thought. At least, he hoped she didn’t recognize him, because if she did then he would feel even worse about ignoring her.
            What troubled him was the question of why she had pawned the ring.
            Are they getting divorced? Did they get divorced? But why would they?
            Maybe because Dr. Frost is a pompous, unfeeling prick.
            But that never stopped her from showing love to him 23 years ago. What happened between then and now?
            A single, conclusive word popped into Adam’s head.
            Infidelity.
            Both Dana and Dr. Frost were attractive (the latter he admitted with contempt). It was hard to tell which of them was more likely to cheat, but he could only assume that it would be the doctor. Seeing as he acts like a psychopath most of the time, anyway.
            It was very likely that he was simply projecting his own experience onto them, and that they were breaking up for different reasons. But he couldn’t shake the idea from his head�"it made the most sense. Beyond that, it also gave Adam the motivation to do something he’d been hesitating about for too long now.
            I need to confront Larisa.
            By now, she had to know that he knew of her ongoing affair. He was a man, goddamn it�"her husband. If he sat back and let her cheat without comment, he was labelling himself as a coward in her eyes. Not to mention his indifference made it seem like he didn’t care either way. He used to think that he didn’t, but he did. He looked at the bouquet in front of him, and rather than worry about it, he drew strength from it.
            I’m going to do it, Evangeline.
            Pulling out his phone, he opened Twitter and looked at his conversation with Evangeline. Though he hesitated briefly before doing so, he wrote and sent her a new message.
            “I’m doing what you wanted me to do. �" Adam”.
            It took her two minutes to reply. Her response was only, “? ~ Eve”.
            “I’m going to ask Larisa if she’s cheating on me. �" Adam”.
            Her next response, though longer, came quicker. “She’ll deny it if you pose it as a question. Don’t ask her, accuse her. If she doesn’t answer or avoids the subject, she’s guilty. ~ Eve”.
            The cold, firm way she wrote her response made it clear to Adam how serious she was about this. Somehow, she was certain that his wife was cheating, even more so than he was. But while a part of him thought about how her seriousness should’ve worried him, he found himself liking it.
            She’s not acting like an excited little girl about this. All of a sudden, she’s got this mature air to her texts. Is it because I told her to grow up?
            He missed her giddy text style, but the new way she wrote to him sent a tingle down his spine. It wasn’t appropriate, especially not in the current context, but he couldn’t deny that he found it to be kind of . . . well, hot. But then, remembering again that he was talking to a 19-year-old girl, he shook his head clear of arousal and put his phone back into his pocket.
            While he could shake away the affection, though, he couldn’t do the same to the other feeling brought on by her instructions. Her newfound maturity triggered something in him. Gone were his worries and uncertainties. He didn’t care how the situation turned out, whether Larisa would stay with him or not, whether he was right or wrong. Leaning back in his chair, he put his foot up onto his opposite thigh and lounged in wait for Larisa’s arrival.
            What just happened? I don’t feel like myself right now . . . It was a peculiar feeling, one that he had difficulty explaining, as he was pretty sure he’d never experienced it before. I don’t feel like Adam Keir anymore . . . Unless Adam Keir is a cold-blooded hunter waiting for unsuspecting prey.
            Anger wasn’t the right word for the emotion he felt, nor was contempt. But whatever it was, it felt like it was some duller variant of the two. He sat still, staring at the bouquet but not seeing it, lost in his thoughts but not thinking about anything.
            Come home, Larisa.
            Before he knew it, his hands were holding his phone again. He watched his fingers tap on Larisa’s name in his contact list, calling her. Then, he brought the phone up to his ear. And though he did all of this, he felt disconnected from it.
            I’m not in control of any of this. My body’s acting on its own. This should scare me, but . . . I feel nothing right now.
            The phone rung four times before Larisa answered. She sounded vaguely annoyed. “Yup?”
            “Larisa,” the name flowed out of his throat, and the way he said it even scared him a little. His voice was low and drawn out, with a dark tone to it that he hadn’t known he could pull off.
            There was a pause before Larisa asked, “Who is this? . . . Adam, is that you?”
            No, it’s not. . . . Is it?
            “Larisa,” he repeated in the same way. “Come home.”
            “I’m, uh . . . I’m sorry? Honey, I’m . . . busy, here.”
            Though she tried to hide it, he could hear the fear in her voice as she replied, and its presence made him smile. He was sure that if he could see himself in a mirror right now, the sight would unnerve him, but that didn’t make him stop. “Come home.”
            “I can’t, I’m working. Are you all right?”
            He didn’t answer. Instead, he allowed a tense silence to fill the call.
            “Um . . . I’ll be home around nine.”
            I can wait. “Okay. Don’t be late.”
            “I won’t . . .”
            “Larisa?”
            “Yes?”
            “I love you.”
            There was another long pause.
            “I love you, Larisa.”
            “Okay . . .”
            Adam’s smile twisted into a frown. “Larisa. I love you.”
            “Yeah, love you too,” she mumbled quickly. “I’ll be home at nine.”
            “Larisa”�"she dropped the call, and he pulled the phone away from his head. “Goddamn you.” He hung up and put his phone back into his pocket.
            I’ll be waiting for you, Larisa . . . God help you if you don’t show up at nine.