The Other Side(32)

Present, March 1987

Toby



I didn’t sleep last night.

It’s eating at me from the inside out.

Alice. Making things right.

Taber. Bringing things to light.

My omission is a lie; it’s blatant elusion void of choice by the affected.

Protecting the innocent.

By protecting the guilty.

Blissfully unaware is a teetering breath away from being sucker punched with an alternate reality. I’d rather she hears it from me than hears it in motion like I did.

I’m sitting on my sleeping bag tying my shoes when Cliff stops in front of my open door, rubbing the sleep from his eyes in only a pair of sweatpants, his overweight physique pinched in the middle by tight elastic. His mohawk is flopped over from a night of sleep, rigid but spiritless. Like Cliff. “Where are you going so early?” he asks.

“It’s noon. And none of your business,” I snap. I can’t blame my quick temper on my lack of sleep; a night of sleeplessness is a drop in the bucket for an insomniac. It’s the heaviness of this secret I’m carrying. I’m full of secrets, I don’t need another one.

“I just asked a question, you don’t have to be an ass about it.” There’s a fine line between putting up with Cliff and lashing out at him. It’s subtle for me, but he heard it loud and clear and shuffles on toward the bathroom.

I put on my sweatshirt and take it off twice before I decide wearing it is a good idea in case this goes badly and I end up taking a long walk alone afterward.

I’m sweating by the time I click the padlock on my door into place.

And I’m grumbling under my breath, “This is a horrible idea,” as I descend the stairs.

But by the time I’m walking down the hall with the door of 2A in sight, a switch flips and the slow simmer of anger begins.

When I knock, louder than I intended, the anger is a steady, rolling boil.

Alice answers, draped in an oversized gray sweatshirt over the infamous blue and white striped boxers.

Before she can say anything, I barge in conversationally, “I lied, Alice.” It’s poorly executed and rushed, lacking in context and grace, because I’m seething as I watch Taber walk out of one of the bedrooms in his underwear with his sights set on the kitchen. He looks like he just woke up. So does Alice.

“Toby?” she asks sleepily.

“There was no freezer, I lied,” I divulge, more softly than I thought my anger would allow. But as I watch Taber pour himself a glass of orange juice through the kitchen doorway, I can’t contain the rage, and everything starts to blur and tilt on its axis. Etiquette, rules, right, wrong—it all flies out the goddamn window.

Alice asks, “Why?” She sounds hurt like she did last night.

I say, “Excuse me,” and squeeze past her into the apartment; my body in control and my mind unable to stop it, I head for Taber.

Who, conveniently, is heading for me.

Three things happen at once to stir this shitstorm up into a monumental clusterfuck.

Taber says, “Hey, Toby. How’s it going?” without a care in the world.

A surge of rage-fueled adrenaline drives my knuckles into his face.

And a white blonde head pokes out from Taber’s bedroom and asks, “Where are your clean towels, babe?”

The trio of simultaneous events feels like a concussive joke. That I’m the butt of.

The pause to process what just happened should be longer, more dramatic, but it’s not. There’s an immediate rapid-fire succession of questions, one followed up by another so quickly that answers have to wait until they’re all out in the open to sort through and prioritize.

Taber folds in half, holding his cheek in stunned surprise. “Son of a bitch. What the hell, man?” I’d expect to hear fury from him, but it sounds, oddly, like this has happened before.

“Are you okay?” The pale blonde runs to him, while tossing deadly daggers at me with her murderous eyes.

“Who are you?” I ask the blonde.

And somewhere behind us, in a voice that’s controlled and practiced in chaos, Alice demands, “Somebody tell me what’s going on.” She needs a play-by-play to catch up.

The answers flood in out of order. Or maybe they only sound out of order because I’ve lost my mind. I’ve never punched anyone in my life and my knuckles are throbbing.

“I punched Taber because he’s cheating on you.”

“I’m fine. Nothing’s broken.”

“I’m Taber’s girlfriend.”

Followed by a fresh speed round of questions:

“Cheating on who?”

“Your nose is bleeding, are you sure?”

“Taber’s girlfriend?”

Alice is still quiet, I’m sure this is a lot to process when you can’t see the debacle.

More tumbling answers to the previous questions:

“Alice.”

“I’m sure. I’ll probably have a black eye.”

“Yeah, I’m Inga. Taber’s girlfriend.”

Finally, there’s silence as we all look at each other, appraising, all of the puzzle pieces clicking into place.

I am an asshole.

And a fool.

Alice clears her throat. “Toby, Taber isn’t my boyfriend. He’s my brother.”