The Other Side(29)

You’re nothing.

You’re nothing.

You’re nothing.

As if on cue, everything climaxes behind the thin, pine bedroom door coated in layers of peeling paint in contrasting colors. Their bliss in perfect time with my hate. Hate directed solely at me. Their bliss directed solely at each other.

I need to leave.

By the time I reach the stairs, I only make it halfway up before I stop and sit down. I can’t go back into the apartment because Cliff is home. I’m a disaster and I don’t want him to see me like this. I don’t want anyone to see me like this. I’m shaking, my heart is racing, and when I drop my face into my hands to hide my malfunction and inability to cope from the world, I realize my cheeks are wet. I’m crying and I didn’t know it. That happens a lot. Sometimes the tears are there long before I’m aware of them. Pain has an inexplicable way of making that possible, a remarkable way of making sure you don’t forget it and give it recognition even when you don’t want to.

The sound of a door opening brings me out of my thoughts and forces me to surface and acknowledge the land of the living. The panic of being caught in the middle of a meltdown will do that. Wiping the tears away with a swipe of the collar of my T-shirt, I want to sniff and rein in the snot that’s running free but that would make me known and I’m trying to hide. So I wipe my nose with my T-shirt too.

Voices drift down the hall and up the stairs to me, undisturbed and clear. “I’m sorry we couldn’t spend more time together, but I have to pick up Alice from her appointment and then we need to get to band practice.” It’s Taber. The bastard doesn’t even sound ashamed. His voice is soft and loving, what a fucking imposter. I was actually starting to like the guy.

“I’ll take any spare minute I can get, you know that.” She sounds so different than Alice. Her voice is higher and she has an obscure accent.

“God, I can’t wait until you graduate and we can be together, Inga. Fort Collins is too far away, this whole distance thing is killing me.” He sounds sincere and it makes me want to punch him in the goddamn face. This whole thing is killing him? What’s it going to do to Alice when she finds out? It will kill her. Bastard.

A pause punctuated by the faint sound of three staccato kisses and finally a sigh. “I know. Me too. We knew when we started this it was going to be hard, but I promise it will all be worth it. I love you.” Bitch.

They’re a united front joined to destroy Alice’s world.

“I love you, too. So much. Drive safe, I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” Declarations and promises that should belong to Alice.

Her footsteps gain volume before they ghost away down the stairs and out the front door.

I’m not a violent person, but I want to pummel Taber. I thought there was only enough room for two varieties of hate within me: the hate for my mom and the hate for myself. They fill me to capacity. It seems I was wrong. There’s room for Taber too.

I listen to his door open and shut again, followed by hurried footsteps to pick up Alice.

Maybe hate isn’t a strong enough word for what I’m feeling.

I need to get out of here. Thank God it’s Friday. Dan’s. Escape.

There’s only one message on the answering machine when I return to apartment 3A. It’s Mrs. Bennett. There was a raccoon in the dumpster outside when Chantal took the trash out today. I weigh the call for a second and decide to ignore it. It’s likely untrue since raccoons are nocturnal. Even if it did happen, there’s nothing I can do about it now.

I pull the T-shirt I wore yesterday out of my laundry bag and swap it out for the one I’m wearing now—a ketchup stain is better than snot—and zip up my sweatshirt over the top of it to hide the red splotch. The stain is over my heart, which seems appropriate since it feels like I’ve been stabbed there.

Locking up both doors behind me, I’m out of the house and on pace for a record arrival at Dan’s, the adrenaline still coursing, driving me into a frenzy.

Johnny is sitting on his stool surrounded by cigarette smoke, a cranky Joe Cocker tune, and the touchstone degeneration that only Dan’s Tavern can provide and somehow bask in. His eyes look haunted and hollow, dark and sunken, like rest has been evasive. His entire life.

Normally, I would ask for my money so I can sink into inebriation like the sea of lost and forgotten humanity around me, but I wait him out and we wallow in our shitty moods in unison.

Johnny slides the bills across the bar in front of me without prompting. “You should go home, Toby,” accompanies it. When he calls me Toby instead of Asshole, I know he’s serious.

Stunned, my reply is paused, but when I find my bearings, it’s an inquiry more than a challenge. “Why?”

He shakes his head, his intense gaze drifting out across the bar but choosing not to zero in on anything in particular because the thoughts filling his mind won’t allow it. “You shouldn’t be here. I told Dan you’re only seventeen and asked him not to serve you anymore.” He doesn’t sound happy to say it, but he does sound resolved. Like he’s sad, sorry, and resolute all at once. He slides his pack of cigarettes and Zippo in my direction and adds, “You can have one. When it’s done, you go home.”

A cigarette between my lips, I ask, “Why would you do that?” while I bring the flame to life and inhale.

“You should go home, Toby,” he repeats like it’s the only explanation I need. Like he has the authority to make the command.