The Other Side(16)

“They stopped fighting,” Alice whispers.

I nod, it’s habit, but then I whisper, “Yeah.” The quiet is suddenly intimate, like Alice can see through me, see my hopelessness, see that we’re polar opposites, so I stand abruptly. “I better go inside and warm up.”

The serenity slips but doesn’t vanish. “Okay, me too. Thanks, Toby. We should do this again.”

Because I don’t acknowledge thank yous, and because I’m the antidote to happiness, and because I don’t let people in because I taint them, and because she has a boyfriend, I leave and go back inside without saying a word.

Alice remains on her fire escape below for another minute, her face pointed toward her endless possibilities in the sky, eyes closed, smile in place, looking angelic in the moonlight again, before she turns and disappears through her door.

Yes, I watched.

And I almost smiled too.

Almost.





Chapter Six





Present, March 1987

Toby



It’s late, after two in the morning. I’ve been drawing in my room for several hours now, working on a pencil drawing of the Dark Knight battling the Joker. It’s dark, all of my art is. Blistered fingers make my grip unorthodox. It’s like drawing with a mitten on, but I refuse to stop until it’s done. Avoiding sleep means avoiding nightmares, obviously. It’s a nightly duel. My hope being that if I’m exhausted enough when I drift off, my body will put all of its energy into restoring itself and my mind will forget to torture me.

New Order is playing quietly from my boom box and I’m sitting against the wall with my sketchbook resting on my thighs. Bent legs provide an easel. The desk lamp is on the floor next to my sleeping bag, pointed like a spotlight directly on the stark white paper that’s being continually covered in shades of black, gray, fists, and fury. Eyelids heavy, concentration waning, and the details in decline, I give up. For tonight.

Stripping off my T-shirt, I give it the sniff test. No stink, it will go another day, so I fold it up and place it on top of a sweatshirt, a pair of jeans, and a T-shirt on my clothes shelf. Then I strip off my jeans and don’t need a sniff to know they need to meet the laundry bag. I’ve been wearing them for four days, it’s time. Jeans off, I take my wallet from my back pocket and set it on a shelf next to my backpack. Then I reach in the front pocket and pull out a piece of paper that’s been folded over so many times it’s as thick as it is wide. Unfolding it is a process, and I pry a pushpin from my art wall and stab it through the creased paper into the back of the door because that’s where I put reminders. It’s an order form for graduation announcements that was handed out in first period this morning. I only need one announcement, but the minimum quantity I can order is ten. I’ve already filled out the form, but I’ll have to wait until Friday when I get paid to turn it in.

Before I tuck away in my sleeping bag, I reach for my wallet because I haven’t crossed today off the calendar yet. Remember, I told you I’d tell you about The Count-Out calendar in my wallet when the time was right? I guess it’s time. You may as well know. Opening it, I slip out the paper that’s tucked between the lonely condom and a lonely dollar bill. This paper is sacred; it’s literally my life, what’s left of it anyway. The Count-Out. A calendar that ends on the fifth of June and a list of the things that need to happen between now and then because though I’m suicidal, I’m also somewhat selfish. The list isn’t long:

A kiss I feel in my soul Redemption Graduate with my mom watching





Blacking out March sixth with a pencil on my handwritten calendar, I don’t have to count to know how many days are left. Ninety-one. I’ve been doing this countdown for almost two years, it’s ingrained. When you’re counting down to the end of your life, it’s always blindingly and purposefully at the forefront of your mind.

Ninety-one days left to endure and survive.

Ninety-one days left to rewind and endlessly replay the nightmare, awake or asleep.

Ninety-one days left to try to make some things right.

Ninety-one days left to prove a point.

Another ninety-one days that I got…

And Nina didn’t.





Chapter Seven





The happy beginning of horror





Past, December 1984

Nina’s Protector



I watch Nina every day. I try to talk to her. I try to guide her. She rarely listens. I sound like a nag, overbearing, possibly even a creeper, right? I like to think of myself as stubborn. I’m not a quitter, I fight until the end. You’ll see.

Nina’s turning thirty-one today—a milestone. They’re all milestones because, in full disclosure, I didn’t think she would make it this far, though I’d hoped with everything in me that she would. Her thirty-one years have been a ragged patchwork of bad decisions and regrets held together loosely by fragile, weary threads. The past clings to her and clouds her mind so completely that it governs her present and foretells her future. She can’t escape it. Her mind and body are stone…her past a powerful river moving over them. You know the power of water over stone when you add in time as a factor—I don’t have to tell you which one wins out. She also lives with a mind that vacillates in and out of balance depending on whether or not she’s taking her medication. The medication is necessary. She sees it as optional. That makes every day a constant uphill battle. A battle that we fight together.