Whisper to Me(114)

ME: Maybe. But I don’t feel like I do.

GROUP: (faint laughter)

ME: I break everything.

DR. LEWIS: Now, that’s not true.

THE VOICE: No, that’s true.

Then at the end, I hung back. I hung back because I wanted to leave with Dwight—I wanted to ask him if he’d told on me to my dad.

So we came out onto the street together.

And that was when I saw you, in your truck, across the street. A little farther down, south toward Hudson; I registered you in my peripheral vision, kept my eyes rigidly forward, like I hadn’t seen you, like I had no idea.

It was as if the atmosphere got cold all of a sudden, like Dwight and I had stepped into a current of air, one of those weird eddies you get in the ocean, snaking barrels of iciness, boring through air, though, instead of water.

I shivered.

And I want you to know, I want you to know right now, that I wasn’t thinking clearly. I was back on the drugs, smaller doses, but still—I was still looking at the world through plate glass, separated from it; held at bay.

“Take Dwight’s hand,” said the voice.

“No,” I said. “Oh, and come back after six.”

“Okay, then tell the boy all about me,” said the voice. “About group.”

Only seconds had passed. You were still in your truck, still watching. I saw, from the corner of my eye, you moving, saw the truck door click open. You were coming over.

****.

“Do it now,” said the voice. “Trust me.”

“Trust you?”

“What?” said Dwight.

“Voice,” I said. “Give me a moment.”

Dwight nodded. We stood still on the sidewalk. In the cold air, under the merciless stars.

“Better hurt him than tell him the truth,” said the voice. “Tell him the truth and he’ll pity you. Hurt him and he’ll only hate you.”

You were stepping out of your truck. Looking left and right. Getting ready to cross the street. The light of the 7-Eleven sign was on your face; a sickly halo.

The voice sighed. “Bitch. Or crazy person. You decide.”

Huh.

A cog turned over in my mind; a ball bearing was released, rolled down a track, flipped a switch. I thought of the hospital. The way the cab drivers looked at me on the days when Dad paid for a cab to bring me home. The paramedics in the ambulance, the warmth that went out of them when I told them the drugs I was prescribed; radiators clicking off.

This is sick, I said, inside my head now.

At the same time I was thinking: This could work. He doesn’t know what Dwight looks like. He thinks the cop I spoke to was a friend of Dad’s.

“It’s necessary,” said the voice. “Or do you want to tell him you’ve been lying to him? Your dad’s right. You have to think of his protection. People close to you die. Think of your mom. Think of Paris.”

A dry click from my heart; sound of a revolver clicking to an empty chamber.

Me: don’t say that.

Voice: “It’s true and you know it.”

Me: (nothing. Just the roar of the ocean, when you put your head underwater, filling my eardrums, inside me.) So I did it. Because I was too … too selfish and horrible to risk telling you the truth, because I preferred to create a lie rather than to see the look in your eye when I told you I was a voice hearer, because I didn’t want you to be afraid of me, because I thought I might die if I saw fear in you; but if I saw pain, that would only be what I expected, because I expected to hurt people, it was in my nature, and because I AM A TERRIBLE PERSON.

You were halfway across the street. I know this all sounds slow, but it was fast; as fast as thought, as fast as film, tick tick tick, twenty-four frames a second.

The voice went silent. Maybe you were too close now, muting it, your force field doming over me, where I stood with Dwight, embracing me.

Not for long.

I grabbed Dwight’s hand. He turned to me, surprised.

I didn’t need the voice to tell me what to do next. I didn’t need the voice to say: kiss him.

I just kissed him.

I leaned up, grabbed the hair at the back of his head, kicked one heel up, like an old starlet. Kissed Dwight hard on the mouth. He was too shocked to pull away; he didn’t exactly kiss me back either, but I didn’t need him to; you were still twenty feet away, maybe more.

I pressed myself against him.

Finally pulled away.

“What was that, Cass?” Dwight asked.

“A thank-you,” I said. “For helping. With Paris.” I saw his face flicker; two images superimposed—guilt, I thought, for a flash, and then a strange smile. Probably it was him who called my dad. But that wasn’t what I was concentrating on.

What I was concentrating on was turning, turning to see you.

You had stopped in the middle of the street.

Cars were passing you, horns blaring, lights flashing. But you were motionless, a still point in a world of noise and brightness.

I let my mouth fall open. I let Dwight’s hand fall from mine.

You were in a trance, almost. You looked at me, like, “Why?”

I shrugged.

And it was like that broke the spell. You turned, and held up your hand, and an SUV stopped, a Cadillac, gleaming in the artificial light, and you walked back to your truck.

Which was what I wanted, of course.