The Other Side(65)

Her boots are crossed at the ankle and her arms are wrapped loosely around her knees. She looks casual, relaxed. Until I see her face. It’s a portrait in tears, layers of fresh streaks over those hours’ old. Each layer a record of swells—anger, sadness, disappointment—that have muddled together to create a watercolor of emotional catastrophe painted by the haphazard hand of fate.

I stop on the landing and consider turning around and leaving, but I know she’s already heard me, so what’s the point.

“What are you doing, Toby?” she whispers.

Repentance, I answer in my head, but the honesty doesn’t find its way out. I say nothing.

“Listen, I know you warned me that you’re no good at friendship. I know you got caught shoplifting and that’s why you missed our show. And I know you well enough to know that you’re punishing yourself for that because you haven’t talked to me since. I know you’re pushing me away because you think I deserve a better friend than you. But guess what? I’m stubborn, and you don’t get to call our friendship off. You’re still my best friend and I care about you.”

Everything inside me has tightened up; muscles, tendons, and bundles of nerves are all retracting and balling up and settling inside my chest, squeezing until pain radiates and pricks tears in my eyes.

Her voice grows. “I knocked on your door earlier but you weren’t home, so I’ve been sitting here waiting for hours. Taber came home a while ago and said he saw you leaving a bar with a woman when he was walking home from the QuikMart. I know you’re not mine, Toby. I know that.” She sniffs. “But does the thought of you with someone else still break my heart? Yes, because selfishly, I wish it would’ve been me whose hand you were holding instead. There are a few things I’ve experienced in my life that make my heart soar: music, laughter, and being near you. Talking, listening, kissing—no one kisses like you do, Toby. I can still feel each and every one like your lips are still on mine. And to know that someone else got them tonight hurts. Because, like I said, I’m selfish. I want your lips all to myself. But more than that,” she pauses and wipes the tears from her cheeks, “I want more for you. Even if that doesn’t include me. You graduate today. You graduate. I want you to have a life that’s filled with pursuing dreams that are so mind-numbingly radiant you don’t even know they’re possible yet.”

You are the mind-numbingly radiant dream that isn’t possible! I want to cry out but I can’t.

“I want you to not only watch your son grow up but to be the role model I know you can be,” she pleads.

My stomach knots at the mention of Joey, and guilt takes another stab at me and leaves the knife buried to the hilt in my side. Where it will remain for the hours I have left. The tears are running down my face now, eyes pinched closed because I can’t look at her while she spills her truth.

“Johnny, Cliff, Chantal, Joey, me—we need you.” She sighs and it’s exasperation and defiance. “Will you please say something so I don’t feel like I’m just talking to myself?”

I wipe my running nose with the sleeve of my sweatshirt. I don’t want to sniff back the snot or she’ll know I’m crying. I’m holding my breath. I can’t say anything, or I know a sob will escape.

“Are you drunk?” she whispers.

No, I answer in my head, but my vocal cords don’t cooperate.

She rises to her feet. She towers three steps above me, wild blonde hair glowing under the single exposed light bulb in the ceiling directly above her and unseeing eyes vaguely focus on nothing and everything all at once. I’m not a religious person, but the sight is tragically angelic and eerily prophetic, like she’s peering into my soul looking for a flicker of light amongst all the dark and decay.

“Some people aren’t worth fighting for, Toby. You’re not one of them. There are people we meet in this life who anchor us. They reassure us with their presence. They bring us comfort simply by being. They love by osmosis, radiating it out and diffusing it in effortlessly. Quietly, they walk among us, treading lightly but providing stability and influence because it’s second nature. The thing that’s so special about these people is that they don’t even know they’re doing it.”

Tears are streaming again as I involuntarily gasp for the air my body is demanding to feed the torrent. I immediately bury my face in the forearms of my sweatshirt to muffle my breakdown.

“That’s you, Toby. That’s you. You’re worth fighting for.” Her voice cracks before she adds, “You have no fucking idea how much I wish you realized it and started fighting for yourself.”

With that, I hear her turn and ascend the stairs and walk down the hall to her apartment.

I don’t know how long I stand on the stairs soaking my sleeves with her hope and my hopelessness, trying like hell to hold on to her words. You’re worth fighting for, repeats in my head over and over in Alice’s tearstained, warbly voice. Deep down there’s a part of me that desperately wants to entertain that fighting is even a possibility.

Until it goes to war with the darkness.

You’re worth fighting for.

No, you’re not worth fighting for.

You’re worth fighting for.

You were never worth fighting for.

You’re worth fighting for.

Alice doesn’t really care about you.