The Other Side(60)
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Present, May 1987
Toby
Two days later Chantal knocks on apartment 3A’s door and tells Johnny and me that Mrs. Bennett is moving into a nursing home in Lakewood that specializes in Alzheimer’s patients.
That same afternoon she’s gone. To the nursing home, not from existence. I didn’t get to say goodbye; that was intentional. I’ve never said goodbye to anyone that I knew I would never see again. I don’t want to start now. And yes, I know how shitty that sounds.
Chapter Thirty
Present, May 1987
Toby
Chantal’s coworker at the diner who trades babysitting with her, and her kids, are moving into Mrs. Bennett’s old bedroom today. She’s only been gone two days, and though I know Chantal needs the roommate, it feels like Mrs. Bennett is being replaced and I don’t like it. I know that’s illogical, but it’s how I feel.
I’m walking down the stairs to Chantal’s apartment because she called thirty minutes ago and asked if I could help put her roommate’s kids’ bunk bed together.
The walk there is numb.
The introduction to them is numb.
Putting the bunk bed together is numb.
I’m just going through the motions, counting down the days that are so few they could technically be measured in hours. And I’m missing Alice. So much it hurts. She left a message on the answering machine this morning to tell me she got The Cure’s new cassette and to ask if I wanted to come down and listen to it.
I wanted to so badly.
But I didn’t.
I couldn’t.
And now I’m just missing her instead.
Gathering up my tools, I ignore the roommate’s thanks. I can’t even remember her name and she told it to me ten minutes ago.
Chantal catches me at the door. She looks rested for the first time in months. “Toby, I changed my schedule at work because I’m going to take some classes this summer. So, I won’t need you to watch Joey on Tuesday nights anymore.” The words that I would’ve taken at face value before, plunge in and twist the knife today. I have been dismissed.
No more Joey.
No more Mrs. Bennett.
There’s absolutely no point in Tuesdays anymore.
Chapter Thirty-One
Present, May 1987
Toby
I knock on Chantal’s door Tuesday night, not because I’m on autopilot and forgot that our arrangements have changed, but because I just want to see Joey one last time.
They aren’t home.
So, I hang the plastic bag with the diapers and a bib I bought on the way home from school on the doorknob. He’ll be eating real food soon and he’ll need it.
When I walk away, I know I won’t have the strength to knock again.
Because like I said before, I’ve never said goodbye to anyone that I knew I would never see again.
And I will never see them again.
I only have a little over a week left.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Present, June 1987
Toby
The following week is dark.
Darker than normal.
When I’m not at school, I’m in my room.
Alone.
Light off.
No drawing.
No comics.
And when I am at school, I watch Alice.
From afar.
I ache to be near her.
But I avoid her.
Even when she comes to apartment 3A and knocks on the door, I don’t answer.
Which is hard.
So hard.
Because I’m the moth.
And she’s the flame.
Everything about her is ethereal.
She is light.
And hope.
And beauty.
Fearlessness embodied.
I am none of those.
I am her corruptive antidote.
I am light-less.
And hope-less.
And beauty-less.
Fear embodied.
I am the moth the flame should burn.
Out of existence.
Because confident and catastrophic, the living and the dead, don’t,
shouldn’t,
coexist.
I taint.
I am nothing.
I am nothing.
I.
Am.
Nothing.
Chapter Thirty-Three
The final siege
Past, June 1985
Nina’s Protector
Nina is different.
Today is different.
She told Ken she would have a surprise waiting for him tonight when he left this morning. The way she said it, he thinks it will be something good.
I know it won’t.
Which is the reason my pleas have reached a fevered pitch and have been relentless all day. I’m used to living in stress management mode—I’m Nina’s subconscious, it’s what I do. But this is different. She isn’t listening, she’s tuning me out. I know she’s been planning this since long before Toby gave her the gun yesterday, but I thought I could talk her out of it.