The Other Side(61)

It’s obvious now that I can’t.

Subconsciouses don’t like to be silenced.

We fight.

Until the end.

Nina, think about what you’re doing. Please, think about what you’re doing. I know you think there’s no other way, but there is. There’s always another way. Please. I’ve never wanted to cry before, but I do right now.

Instead, she’s crying for both of us.

While she’s loading the gun.

With all six bullets.

For the most part her tears are silent, but every so often there’s an inhalation of air so deep it’s soul-splintering.

When the cylinders are loaded and it’s clicked back into place, I prompt her to check the time on the clock on the kitchen wall. It’s 4:15.

Call Toby. He’ll be home from school now. Please just do this one last thing for me before you change our life forever. You need to hear his voice. I need to hear his voice.

Surprisingly, she walks to the phone and picks up the receiver from the wall mount and dials her mom’s phone number with the hand that’s still holding the gun. Her breath is shallow and recedes to nothing while she holds it, waiting for him to answer. He doesn’t. After the fifth ring, the answering machine greeting of her mom comes on the line instead and fills her ear with the tinny voice of the woman who not only terrorized her but who kept her biggest secret. Holding the phone away from her until she hears the beep to prompt her to talk, she almost hangs up.

Say something. Say something to Toby.

“Goodbye, Toby.” And then she adds something that breaks me, because I know it’s all over. “I love you, too.”

Rather than return the receiver to its cradle on the wall, she drops it and watches it crash against the wall before it yo-yos up and down on its coiled cord. She watches it, completely engrossed and unblinking. The tears have dried up and the room is eerily quiet until the phone starts the modulated beep that indicates the answering machine stopped recording and the call’s been disconnected. And as if that was the signal she was waiting for, she raises the gun.

Rests the barrel against her right temple.

Don’t do it, Ni—

And pulls the trigger.





*



Toby

I caught the RTD bus from school and am headed to Nina’s. I sat in school all day worrying and can’t help but regret giving Nina that gun. She needs to protect herself against that asshole; I thought it was my only option since she refuses to leave. But I should be the one protecting her. I’m going to sit on her front step until Ken comes home and confront him myself, even if he beats the shit out of me. It’s what I should’ve done before.

My skateboard ride to her house is short from the bus stop.

My heart is pounding like I’m going into cardiac arrest when I walk up the front steps. Something doesn’t feel right.

The knock on the door goes unanswered, so I peek in the front window through the slit in the drawn curtains.

My heart drops into my shoes.

It stops beating.

And I know I will never be the same again…





Chapter Thirty-Four





Present, May 1987

Toby



“Toby, wake up!” The command is far away, muffled.

A split second later, it’s not. It’s loud and in my face. “Toby, wake up!”

It’s accompanied by shaking, hands rattling my shoulders, another pair jostling my feet.

My final breath of sleep merges violently into my first breath of wakefulness on an exhale—a seamless scream that begins unconscious and finishes, embarrassingly, conscious.

Johnny is in my room leaning over me, hands braced against my shoulders, eyes wide. Cliff is squatting in my bedroom doorway, hands gripping my feet through my sleeping bag, eyes wider.

My throat is hoarse, my cheeks are wet, my heart is galloping, my muscles are tight, and I can’t catch my breath. The nightmare is dissipating like smoke, fragmenting until all that’s left is my guilt, Nina’s pain, my failure, and Nina’s fulfillment. And the horrible realization that my nightmares now have the power to gain volume, purpose, and an audience.

Suffering should be a secret.

Shame should be a secret.

Guilt should be a secret.

I should be a secret.



No. You shouldn’t exist at all.





Chapter Thirty-Five





The fallout





Past, June 1985

Johnny



I spend my life hiding. It’s the reason I spend as much of my day as possible tucked away inside Dan’s Tavern. The windowless interior and dim lighting cocoon me from the outside world, and the steady flow of alcohol divides me from my thoughts—it’s how I cope. And yes, cope is a generous description. Hiding someplace even I can’t find me is my approach. Am I embarrassed I can’t function in society? Yes. Am I embarrassed I can’t get over what happened? No. I did unforgivable things in the name of war. Three tours of endless survival-induced adrenaline supplemented with drugs led to paranoia and fear. Tour one, I was a soldier. Tour two, I was a machine. Tour three, I was a monster. Over a decade later, when I close my eyes every night to sleep, I’m haunted by faces. Some I fought beside, some I fought against—but the thing all the faces have in common is death. A hellish death, the result of bullet, knife, explosive, or fire. Their screams all blend harmoniously, because if there’s one thing that’s universally human no matter your nationality, it’s pain and agony. Those screams all sound the same. The unyielding reminder of all I’ve done that’s wrong.