Page 109 of Play Nice

“You could try. But you may not be able to sell the house. Not if it doesn’t want you to leave.”

—

I turn to the next page, and there’s a word scribbled in giant letters, in red Sharpie, rendering the text beneath it unreadable.

HOME

My phone rings somewhere in the house, throwing me for a second.

I look up to see that it’s right in front of me. It’s on the coffee table. I set the book aside and reach for it. Veronica’s calling me.

I hit ignore.

So many missed calls. Messages. Notifications.

Pressing my thumb down, unlocking, opening Instagram; I do it all with this calm detachment. When I watch my stories, one with the photo of the cigarettes and vodka and sketchpads on the dining table, a dozen others with the pictures I took of my childhood house drawings, I don’t panic. Why panic when it’s already too late? People have already seen them.

The last two stories feature photos I must have taken by accident. One of the closet, more specifically, the opening to the attic inside my closet. And finally, a blurry selfie of me smiling, my eyes bloodshot, mascara streaming down my dirty face, hair a mess, snake charm dangling toward the camera.

It takes so much to build an image. It takes next to nothing to destroy one.

There’s a thud. The sound tears through my body like an electrocution.

Heat surges, sweat pours, and then I’m empty. I’m freezing.

It’s terror and it’s relief. And it’s here. It’s here. It’s home.

“Hello,” I say, keeping my gaze straight ahead.

Another thud.

A moment of quiet. And then the dragging. The floorboards squealing underneath a creeping, ambiguous weight.

There’s a faint clink—contact with glass, followed by the abrupt arrival of pain.

Something just hit the back of my head.

The hot pink lighter. It’s landed on my shoulder, slid down to my lap. It rests now at the heel of my right hand.

“Hello,” says a voice. A disorienting, incomprehensibly foul voice.

My thoughts go sticky with fear, cling together, scream over each other. What do I do? Turn around. Look. Don’t look. Don’t move. No. Run. I’m cold. I’m so cold. I’m sweating. I’m ruining this beautiful dress. It’s ruined. You’re ruining your beautiful life. It’s ruined. It’s been ruined. You ruined it. You want to feel something. You feel too much. You. You hate everything you feel. You need to feel something different. Something louder.

You should light yourself on fire.

The lighter is already in my hand. The flame is yellow with a dark core. It drifts. Dances. I watch it. All the different shapes it makes.

Mom in my head. It hurts right now, but by the time we get home, you won’t feel it.

I am home. And I don’t feel it.

That foul voice at my back. It will feel like nothing.

The flame meets my skin, my scar, my old burn. And I feel nothing.

But the smell.

The smell.