Where I End and You Begin (22 page)

When the last piece is ready to come down, she moves down the ladder and tries to pull it with her, but it slips and rolls out of her control. Straight into her head.

I remember the dread as she fell from the ladder, that big fucking branch chasing her to the ground.

I rush over to her. She is bleeding from her scalp, and crying and crying.

“It’ll be okay,” I tell her, my voice shaking, my fear a tangible thing. “It’ll be okay, it’s fine, it’s fine...”

But she isn’t listening. She doesn’t pay any attention to me.

She starts crying for my father instead.

Her sobs are huge, terrible. I think they will break her apart. “I can’t do this!” she cries, over and over. “I can’t do this. Why did you leave me, Billy? Billy, Billy... Billy,
why did you leave me?”

And then I am crying, too, and running over to our neighbor’s house, and when I get there Mr. Lake takes one look at me and panics.

“Are you all right, kiddo?” he says, his kind old face full of concern as he looks me over for broken bones. “Are you all right?”

But it isn’t me who needs help, it is my mother. My poor mother, bleeding on the ground, and I can’t stop sobbing long enough to tell him what is wrong.

It is then that I realize I can’t cry. I can’t show weakness, not when it isn’t me who needs the most help. My father hadn’t worried about me, so Mr. Lake doesn’t need to worry about me, and neither does my mother.

No one does.

In the present, I have to shake myself. The memory has left me with a sheen of tears in my eyes. “Everything’s fine, Mom,” I say. “Stop worrying about me.”

“Fine,” she snaps. “Goodbye.” And she hangs up.

There’s a lump in my throat, and I don’t know why.

I put the phone down on the desk and sink into my chair, suddenly exhausted, but my reprieve is short-lived because the phone rings again and it’s Daniel.

I’m fine,
I think.
Everything is fine.

I pick it up and answer. “Hello?”

“Oh, thank
God,”
Daniel says at the other end of the line. “Thank God you’re okay. Jesus. Where did you go? Why did you leave?”

Why did you leave me?

“I’m at the dorm,” I say. My chest feels hollow. “I’m fine.”

“God,” he says, even though he said he didn’t believe any more. “God. Don’t do that to me. Leave a note. Do you know how worried I was, Bianca?”

“You don’t need to worry about me,” I say. “I’m fine.”

He’s quiet. “But I didn’t know that, did I?”

I guess he didn’t.

But that’s not really what we need to talk about.

“Daniel?”

He’s still taking deep breaths, clearly relieved and recovering. “Yeah?” he says.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. Seriously, leave a note next time.”

“Not about that.”

His breath hitches. He’s only a few miles away, but it seems like he might as well be on the other side of the world. “What are you sorry about?”

Does he really need me to come out and say it? “I’m sorry I... that we...”

Why can’t I say it? I say it all the time with other boys.
We fucked.
But it wasn’t like that.

“That we slept together,” I finally finish, lamely.

He doesn’t say anything for a long moment. “You are?” he says, as though surprised.

I can hardly believe him. “You aren’t?”

“No,” he answers immediately. “Not at all.”

“I shouldn’t have kissed you,” I say.

“Why not?”

“Because you’re a priest.”

“Not yet.”

My heart hurts. “You will be,” I say.

“That’s not certain.”

“And you’re my friend. I shouldn’t have... I’m sorry. Now it’s weird.”

“It isn’t weird,” he says.

But he doesn’t get it. He doesn’t get it at all, and I can’t tell him. I can’t say,
I want to fall in love with you.
Those words are just desperate and pathetic. I can’t say,
I want to fall in love with you, but you’re supposed to be a priest and I’m afraid. In the end, I don’t know which you will choose.

But I can guess.

“It was a mistake.”

“A mistake,” he says, his voice flat.

I don’t know how to explain it to him. “You weren’t thinking clearly. I took advantage of that.”

“Bianca...”

“I know you said you lost your faith, but I don’t want to... I don’t even know.” It’s so arrogant to think he would ever abandon his calling for someone as fucked up as me. I can’t even say it. I’m embarrassed that I even feel like I should apologize, because there’s probably nothing to apologize for, because it didn’t change anything for him, and it’s stupid to hope that it did.

It shouldn’t have changed anything for me, either. I fuck guys all the time.

But I don’t care about guys all the time. I want to fall in love with Daniel. But I don’t want to get hurt, and that’s what love means. It means getting hurt.

The end is inevitable. The only thing I can control is how and when it comes.

“I’m sorry,” I say again. “It was a mistake.”

He doesn’t say anything for a long moment. Finally, he says, “Okay. If that’s how you feel about it,” and his voice is brittle, breaking.

I’ve hurt him, and myself, but it’s my own fault, really, for wanting to be loved in the first place.

“I’m sorry.” It’s all I know how to say.

“Yeah. Well. Bye, Bianca,” he tells me.

“Goodbye, Daniel,” I reply.

He hangs up.

I bring the phone down from my ear and stare at it in my hand.
Goodbye.

And that’s that, isn’t it?

Another memory, more vivid, and this time I am fifteen and watching a show on drag queens. It is a documentary and I can’t remember what it was called, but it fascinates me. These men dressed as women, tigers in lipstick and high heels, wielding femininity as a weapon. They look far better than I do, caught awkwardly in my adolescent body, my pizza face, my queer desires that I don’t quite understand.

I remember, quite vividly, that I am watching as two queens get into a fight, their egos clashing, hands flying, long fingernails flashing like brilliant claws.

“Bitch, don’t you dare talk to me like that!” one of them says. “Who do you think you are? Huh?
Who the fuck do you think you are?”

And the other throws up her hands. “You are crazy. C-r-a-z-y! You are crazy, bitch!” Yet I can see in her eyes that she’s just not up to the challenge. She tries to play it off. She flings her palm out and tosses her fake hair over her shoulder. With a neat pivot that I could never replicate in a million years, especially not on four-inch heels, she turns around and walks away.

“Don’t you walk away from me!” the other one says. “You better not turn your back on me, you think I’m crazy now? See what I do when that back is turned!”

The other one turns back, and this time it is the first queen who flips her hair and sashays away.

“Oooh,” someone says. “That bitch is fierce. Crazy. But
fierce
.”

And right then, I decide I want to be like them. I want to be a bitch who won’t let the world just happen to her ever again. I want to be a bitch so fierce that no one would dare turn their back on me.

I want to do all the walking away.

I
n China there is a type of spirit called a hungry ghost. Like Tantalus in the lowest depths of the underworld, they hunger and thirst, but satisfaction eludes them. Their bellies are huge and distended, but their mouths are tiny, and their throats thin as a reed. Eating is painful, and there will never be enough to fill them, so hungry ghosts wander this earth, consumed by a desire that will never be fulfilled. They will always be hungry, because they will always desire.

I know what that is like. I want one more moment, one more word, one more touch, and I’m not the only one. Everywhere I look there are hungry ghosts, and I am one of them. Perhaps we have all fallen into
è
gu
ĭ
dào,
the realm of hungry ghosts, without even realizing it. So we wander, all our desires brimming and simmering, full of hopes that will never be fulfilled, covered in wounds that will never be healed, needs that can never be met, our mouths opening and closing, mute and starving as we reach for each other, clinging, begging,
wanting.

But we will never escape. We don’t even know we are dead.

T
ime passes, and I wander.

Classes start up again on Tuesday when the sun comes out, but I don’t feel the warmth on my face. I only feel the bitterness of the wet and icy wind, carrying evaporating snow straight to my skin. I’m cold, inside and out, except for a dark, painful churning in my stomach. My heart is a ball of spun glass, splintered in my chest. Every movement is painful as the pieces migrate through me, and I am bleeding out slowly on the inside.

I don’t eat, except a spoonful of peanut butter here and there coupled with a steady stream of orange soda. I don’t drink to numb the pain. I don’t deserve it.

I’m haunted, chased from class to class by the thought that I have done something irredeemable, a mortal sin spread across my soul like a stain.

I don’t believe in God, or perhaps I believe in him just enough to hate him, but it was never my place to get between Daniel and his faith. I wanted to be his friend, but I put him in a position where he will have to choose between me and his calling.

He would make an excellent priest,
I can’t help but think, and the thought is a dark thing, squatting in the back of my head, slowly poisoning each thought that passes it by.

It doesn’t matter that he was doubting his calling, that his faith was in question. I interfered, like the ravenous, hungry ghost I am, selfishly devouring the love freely given to me. And it wasn’t enough. It will never be enough.

I walked away so he couldn’t hurt me by leaving. And he would have left. There’s no question about that. I’m nothing to stick around for.

So why do I wish I could just curl up in the snow and go to sleep?

The heat comes back on in Marchand on Tuesday night, but for some reason I can’t bear the thought of sleeping in my room. There’s only Tanya there. I leave all my clothes on and sleep downstairs on one of the couches, waking in the middle of the night, tossing and turning, and when I wake up on Wednesday morning, the pillow under my face is wet with tears.

The world recedes, and I drift on.

People pass me, and I wonder why they can’t see how much pain I am in. This much pain has to leave a mark, manifest itself physically...but it doesn’t, and I know that. I learned that long ago.

I stay in the living room when I’m not at classes, watching everything pass me by. I know I must look pathetic because occasionally someone will ask me if I’m all right.

My heart is broken,
I want to say,
and I don’t know why.

But all I can say is, “I’m fine.”

I’m fine.

On Thursday, the snow is gone, and my grades for my TTh classes are in. With shaking hands I log onto my computer and look them up.

I’ve passed two midterms so far. I got an A in my Holocaust class, just like Daniel said I would, and an A minus in Myth and Life.

But I don’t feel any better. My chest still hurts. It’s still hard to breathe. My body aches, and I hate myself so much I can’t feel my brain.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Tanya asks me.

I’m dying,
I want to say

But all I can tell her is, “I’m fine.”

The world only comes back into focus for a brief moment when I get up on Friday and check my grades for my MWF classes.

The final grades of my midterms have come in.

I’ve passed my Vichy France and Enlightenment Thinkers classes. Even better, I’ve aced them. My GPA is a tantalizing 3.45, just a few hundredths of a point away from the 3.5 I’ll need by the end of the semester to keep my scholarships and stay here. Now all I have to do is not fuck up my finals and I’ll be golden.

I almost smile, though the hollowness inside precludes any sort of happiness I might feel. How did it happen? I can’t even begin to guess.

No. Wait. I can.

Daniel.

It wouldn’t have been possible if it weren’t for him.

The last minute call from the governor has come through, just as I was getting strapped into the chair, and now I can finally, finally relax.

Too bad that when I do, I just feel as though my body is collapsing in on itself, pulled in by the weight of my black-hole heart.

There are many kinds of love,
Daniel said to me, and he was right. I have so many friends, such wonderful people around me, that I should be happy, but it’s not enough for a person like me. I had to steal the love of a good person, too, the first person who made me feel as though I weren’t entirely helpless since...well, since
then.

I should call him and thank him,
I think, and that thought is so ridiculous that I
do
smile. Miracles happen, I guess.

I get ready for class, drift downstairs, eat a few spoonfuls of peanut butter, and head out.

The campus is back to its dreary self. Patches of snow remain here and there in places of shadow, but they’ll be washed away with the next rain. Like a wooden puppet, I let the strings of habit move me through the day. I go to my morning classes. Eat lunch on the quad while I study for my last class of the day, attend that one, too, and then head home. The wind blows at my back, and I let it carry me all the way to the house. I want it to lift me up off my feet and blow me away, but it doesn’t.

And that’s the problem, really. I
want.

I drift through the house to the living room, hoping someone is here.

Jibril and Carson are there, shit-talking a professor they both hate. I throw myself onto a couch and listen for a while. It’s distracting, at least, to listen to a litany of someone’s misery other than my own. I grab one of the throw pillows, put it at the end of the couch, then lie down, close my eyes, and hope for sleep.

“Helloooooo?”

I open my eyes and stare at Jibril, who is now standing over me. I must have drifted off for a second. It’s hard to get my mouth to work. I feel as though I haven’t spoken in years. “What?” I say. My voice comes out thin and reedy.

Jibril frowns. “Are you okay?” he asks.

I hope I starve to death.

“I’m fine.”

“Okay.” He doesn’t look as though he believes me, but he shakes himself and goes ahead. “Anyway, I was just wondering if you’re available on Sunday to drive Alice and me up to Nompton again?”

I don’t want to go to Nompton for as long as I live, but I nod because there’s no reason not to. I love Jibril. I love Alice. I’ll do anything for them. Maybe if I’m lucky I’ll stay in the car and die of carbon monoxide poisoning. “No problem,” I say. “Where are you guys going this time?”

He grins. “The church.”

This actually gets my attention. I raise my eyebrows. “Oh yeah?”

He nods. “I’m betting there’s a way inside.”

The first feeling I’ve had since Monday that is not an aching sadness slithers through me. I’d be glad for the respite, except that the feeling is worry.

I frown at him. “A way to get in and get your dumb ass killed, you mean?”

He laughs. “We’re not gonna die. God willing,” he adds, and grins. “The whole thing’s on a pier and beam foundation, so there’s probably a crawlspace under it, and a way inside from there.”

I shake my head. “That’s stupid,” I say. “You’re going to
go under
the rotting, falling down structure?”

“The whole thing isn’t going to come down on top of us,” he says. “At worst we’ll just explore the crawlspace. I bet there’s a ton of cool shit down there.”

“I don’t really know if I want to drive you guys to your doom.”

“You have to. Who will call 9-1-1 when we get crushed by falling timbers?”

My face drains. “I’d rather not call 9-1-1 at all.”

He sees the look on my face and immediately backs off. “Whoah,” he says. “If it’s going to bother you that much, we won’t go.”

I don’t know what to say. I don’t know why the numbers 9-1-1 have affected me so powerfully. They usually slip by me, unnoticed.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t... whatever. You guys can do what you want.”

“No, you’re probably right and it’s a stupid idea.”

“I didn’t say that.”

He shrugs. “It’s not a big deal. We’ll just wander around outside. You want to come with? You could invite Daniel.”

“Yeah,” I say, but my lips are numb and the very idea drags me down, leaving my heart aching.

“Are you okay? I mean,
really?
” Jibril is now frowning at me, clearly concerned.

I hope an asteroid hits me and blows me off the face of this planet.

“I’m fine,” I say.

He looks at me for a long moment. “Okay,” he says.

I close my eyes again and he wanders off.

I don’t sleep. Instead I let the sounds of the house ebb and flow around me, rushing over my head like water, and I listen to people argue, or laugh, tell jokes, discuss the rest of the day, what they’re doing this weekend, if they have time to shoot each other with Nerf darts before dinner. The sounds of lives well-lived, with friends and things to look forward to.

I let it all flow around me and keep my eyes closed. I don’t want to engage. I just want to listen and pretend that I am dead and everything is okay.

Tanya comes in. “Hey, losers,” she says to the room. “What are we doing for dinner?”

“Dunno,” someone else says, and then she notices me on the couch. I can tell because she goes quiet, and the next thing that happens is she hits me with a pillow.

“Wake up!” she says. “Time enough to sleep when you’re dead!”

I am dead
. I open my eyes. “I wasn’t asleep,” I say.

“Then you should have an idea of what we should do for dinner.”

I think. “Drink until our hearts stop?”

She rolls her eyes. “You’re useless.”

“I know.”

With a huff she hits me with the pillow again. “Well, stop. Help me think of somewhere to go.”

“I’m not hungry,” I say, and I’m not. I can’t remember the last time I wanted something to eat. I dutifully shove a few morsels in my mouth every now and then, but my appetite has abandoned me.

“What about sushi? Will sushi tempt you?”

I shrug.

“Okay,” she says. “You aren’t actively opposed to sushi, and that’s good enough for me!” And she skips off, asking everyone if they want to have sushi tonight.

I get up and grab my bag. I should at least put my things in my room. I should try to act normal.

I climb the stairs. They groan like always, but instead of comforting me they make my heart clench harder. When I reach my room, I just want to climb into bed and go to sleep for days.

I dump my bag and shuck off my coat, putting it on my chair. Then I look around the room, feeling lost.

What now?

I know this feeling. It’s a familiar one. The feeling of knowing that everything has changed, and you have to keep going, but you don’t know what to do.

My eyes drift over to my closet, covered with a curtain. Tanya’s mother made those curtains for us the second week of the semester. “To make your room neater,” she said. I wander over and pull the curtain aside.

The box of wine stares back at me. The whiskey in my shoes pokes out. There’s beer in one of the drawers.

And I know I shouldn’t, but it doesn’t seem like it will do any harm right now. I mean, I’ve passed my midterms, right? I don’t
need
it, of course. But it will help.

Because people do die from pain. The trauma is too great, and they shut down. That’s why you have to get anesthetized during surgery. Too much pain will kill you.

But I know a way to make it all go away, even if only for a little while.

I crouch down and pull the bottle of whiskey out of my shoes. It will taste terrible, I know. Daniel would be disappointed. But Daniel isn’t here, and that’s my fault, and that’s why I’m going to put it in my mouth and drink it.

I unscrew the cap, put it to my lips.

I hope I drink myself to death,
I think.

Then I pause.

That’s too close,
I think.
Too close to dying like an asshole.

And who would blame themselves, after I am gone? No more pain for me, but I know as well as anyone that suicide is contagious. Experience it, and ever after you think, when things are just a little too much, just a little too heavy to bear, you think:
There’s always suicide, I suppose.

Die of the disease, give it to someone else.

I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.

I swallow hard, put the cap back on the bottle, and stand up. Then I close the curtain and move to my desk.

For a moment I look at myself in the little vanity mirror on my bookshelf, and I think that maybe I should put some more makeup on, or something. Anything so I don’t look so much like a corpse.

I put eyeliner on, and concealer. I cover up, until I don’t quite look like myself anymore. Almost as good as alcohol.

My heart numbs. I’ll be okay for another few hours, won’t do anything drastic. No need to panic. No need to cry.

Someone knocks on the door downstairs.

I think nothing of it. The door is always opening and closing, rattling our walls. Being directly above the foyer, we’ve grown used to it. I smooth my hair down and walk to the door with every intention of answering the summons, but then someone beats me to it.

The door opens.

“Oh, hey, Daniel,” Tanya says. “Come in.”

My heart freezes and I am stuck in place, one foot in my room, one foot out the door.
What is he doing here?

“No, no thanks,” Daniel says, and his voice is cool and detached, as though he doesn’t care at all. “I just came by to drop these prints off. Bianca wanted me to make some for her, so I did. Can you give them to her?”

There is a silence.

“Wait,” Tanya says. “Who?”

There’s a pause. “
Bianca
,” I hear him say.

I have to get out of here.

“Who?” Tanya says again.

“Your roommate?” he says as though she’s an idiot.

“Oh,” Tanya says. Then, “
Oh.
You mean
Annie.”