Whisper to Me(102)

You pointed to the far right corner, and I took a step—at the same time you set out in the opposite direction, so we bumped into each other; I lost my balance; my hand shot out and you grabbed my arm, put your other hand behind my back.

We stood there for a moment, our bodies touching, your hands on me, holding me.

The light shifted outside; a cloud moved away from the face of the sun, or something; and a shaft of light came down, illuminated us. We were in a glowing column, dust hanging suspended in it; I almost thought we might rise up off the ground, like people in those weird religious paintings.

You shifted forward; I shifted forward.

The electrons in our bodies reached out for each other, spinning. I felt the charge of it, you a positive and me a negative, making sparks that flew from our eyes and our fingertips to touch each other; invisible.

You lowered your face and after a moment that felt endless

your lips met mine and we kissed, very slowly. Time ended and has never really begun again, not for me. We sank down, we knew the beam of light would hold us and keep us safe; we lay on the softness of plush toys and our tongues touched and the circuit was completed; I lit up like a million-watt bulb.

I was shining. Light was blazing from my every pore. My eyes were closed, and the strip lights were turning the inside of my eyelids red, everything red. That’s your color, you know, the one I see and feel when I think of you. Emotions are always associated with colors, aren’t they? Green with envy. Well, when you are in my head you are always there with red: sunlight, warmth, heat.

People are green with envy. Yellow with cowardice. I am red with you.

Our arms were around each other, and we were cushioned by stuffed animals. I half opened my eyes, and I saw Elmo looking back at me. It was like he was smiling at me.

I want you to know something: I have never felt safer than in that moment. I felt like a fish, like a trout in the shade of a bank, enveloped by water, lifted up by it.

The promise of buoyancy. The impossibility of falling.

Then …

A buzzing.

An unmistakable crackling.

“714, where the hell are those bags? Get your ass to Pier One.”

My eyes snapped open. So did yours. “Unbelievable,” you said.

“Yeah,” I said.

You started to get up; put out your hand to catch mine and help me to my feet. “Oh well,” you said. “We have all the time in the world.”

I’m crying right now, just thinking about it.

There is no beam of light around me, keeping me protected.

There are only bugs, in their glowing tanks; stick insects and roaches and millipedes, crawling around with their stiff little bodies, their unloving ichor in place of blood, their clicking appendages and hard little shells.

They’re all around me, but they don’t give a ****. I don’t know why my dad likes them. They’re creatures of coldness; no heart in them at all. Primitive things like shards of stone that move, clacking and ticking. They have no voices. They will be here when we’re all dead.





I’m not proud of the next bit so I’m going to tell it quickly.

You dropped me at home and I was walking to the front door, already starting to sweat in the noonday sun, when the voice spoke.

“There is a way,” it said.

“Nice to hear from you,” I said without thinking. “But could you speak to me after—”

Then I stopped. I literally stopped moving, one foot up on the porch step. That hummingbird was still there; it was like it was frozen in time above those roses, except you could see its blurred wings beating. The sun was warm on my skin.

“Wait,” I said, suddenly hearing what the voice had said, hearing it properly. “What do you mean there is a way?”

“To get Dwight to talk.”

I sat down on the step. “Let me get this straight. You’re helping now?”

Silence.

“Hello?” I said.

“You don’t want me to help?” said the voice eventually. Its tone, its timbre, was less aggressive than usual. It sounded … like someone who knows they have behaved badly and is a little embarrassed, and—there’s no other word for it—apologetic.

“Um. Yes,” I said. “I guess.”

“Yes, you don’t want me to, or, yes, you want me to?”

“Yes, I want you to.”

“Okay,” said the voice. “Then listen.”





I rode the bus to the police station. I didn’t want to tell you what I was doing. Because I knew that you wouldn’t approve. Because I knew you would tell me not to.

You would have said it was mean, and you would have been right.

So … I lied to you again.

Basically.

For about the millionth time, I’m sorry.

Of course, it got an awful lot worse, later. The lying, that is. Not the sorriness. The sorriness is constant, and it could not get any worse.

When I arrived at the police station I asked for Dwight.

“Dwight what?” said the woman on reception, a brassy blonde with dark roots and even darker circles under her eyes. She looked like she needed to go home and get three hours more sleep before starting work again.

“Huh?” I said.

“His last name, honey,” said the woman.