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Did I really miss my senior year? Or am I dreaming?
Warm under the blankets. Someone shaking me awake. Into the wheelchair. I don't like the halls here. I don't like the gray floors, gray walls. I remember—last time. I was here before. I wanted to die.
If nothing else, I guess I didn't die.
Mom says something. I'm so fucking high. It’s funny.
She says, "Christopher, we have to get up now and walk to the car."
Not we, my addled mind thinks. Only I do.
I get up. Why am I wearing real clothes? Was I not inpatient? I don't want to tell her I'm confused. She holds my hand to go down the stairs. Blue tile stairs. Like someone stole them from a plaza fountain.
My legs feel weird...like, shaky. I feel like I might pass out.
Don't pass out.
Mom's hand on my back. Into the van. And it’s weird to be in here. To smell the rubber-wax smell. Smells like childhood.
"You can lie down in the back seat if you want to. We can skip the buckle."
I get back there—barely. Lie down. I look at myself. Blue sweatpants and a T-shirt. Nike. Feeling dizzy. Empty-headed.
I rub the inside of my elbow. Stings a little. Always with the sore muscles.
I frown down at my bicep. What's that on it? My eyes are too blurry to read. I squint.
MILLER.
I stare at the word. I can't rip my eyes away from it.
MILLER.
My brain feels like someone's pulling it out through the back of my skull. Cold sweat prickles my skin. Then I'm getting sick. I shift onto my side to throw up—nothing but bile.
My mom swerves across lanes and then pulls over. I don't want her near me, but I can't sit up. I don't want to be her son. I don't want this.
I don't let her see the word. The name.
She stops at a gas station and gets a soda Icee for me.
“There now. Maybe that will settle your stomach.”
I drink some. I look down at the name again. And look at it. I look for so long that my eyes cross. Then I'm getting sick again, the Icee everywhere, my mother cursing in a soft hiss from the front of the van. Into the house, and she's holding my elbow.
I can barely walk up the stairs. My whole body feels weird—as if it's buzzing. My room. Mom says, "Get in bed, dear."
Into bed with no shirt. I'll take the pants off later.
"Remember, this is very normal. You'll feel better tomorrow. Here's your drink, there on the nightstand."
When she's gone, I get the Icee. Hold the cold cup to my cheek. I don't feel well. Something tugs at my mind. The name.
I look at the name. It's written on the lowest part of my bicep, inside my arm, above the bend in my elbow. MILLER.
All caps. Permanent marker.
I tip the Icee down and have a small sip of it. Then I start to cry.
Two
Josh
December 25, 2018
I sit up on the trestle bridge for almost an hour, but I don’t call. That’s a victory, at least.
Since he left a month ago, I’ve called dozens of times. I bet I’ve left at least fifteen or sixteen voice mails.
I don't do that anymore—the voicemails. I just can't.
I don't think I've called in...eight days?
It's not because I don't want to. I do. I want to call him every minute of the day, every day of the week. Not knowing what happened—not knowing where things went wrong—is like having an itch that I can never scratch.
When I think about it too long, my chest feels like it's being pried open, like something's ripping at me from the inside out.
I want him like a drug. I want him like nothing I've wanted before. In a way I didn't even know people could want things. I feel like I've lost a body part. That feeling in my chest—the painful, something's-breaking one—is with me almost all the time.
In the first few days, Mom and Carl treated me with kid gloves. I think Carl didn't quite believe that Ezra really left like that, so he talked to Ezra's mom and demanded to talk to Ezra. I was listening from the bottom of the staircase as Carl asked some questions. Just knowing Ez was around and capable of speaking, but not speaking to me, had me jogging up the stairs to my room.
Mom told me later that night that Ez told Carl he was feeling depressed and needed space, because that's what works best for him. That he was seeing an old therapist near his house in Richmond.
He was depressed. I can’t deny he never really seemed okay. But I thought I was helping him. That being with me made things easier. What a fucking idiot I was.
I thought we were in love. I did. I walk over the train tracks, back toward the Isabella mansion, where I parked.
