Gods & Monsters(87)

“She loves me, huh?” Blu nods. “Then why isn’t she here talking to me? Why’d she leave me?”

“Maybe you should ask that of yourself.”





I haven’t seen her in forty-eight hours.

Haven’t seen her. Haven’t talked to her. I don’t know where she is. I don’t know if she’s okay. I don’t know if she’s lost, in trouble, if she needs me. I’ve called her about a hundred times but she hasn’t picked up once.

It reminds me of the night when my parents died. I was at Ethan’s and didn’t get back until the early hours of morning. When I stepped through the door, I knew something was wrong. The silence was too thick. My dad was a noisy sleeper. He’d toss and turn and yes, sometimes snore. My mom hated that. She always said that he needed to go see a doctor for his snoring problem or she wouldn’t sleep next to him anymore. He never went and she never slept apart from him.

My phone was dead so I had to hunt down my charger before I could make any calls. No easy feat, that. Pixie calls me a slob for a reason. At last, I found it buried under my dirty laundry, which was in turn, under my bed. As soon as I powered my phone on, it blew up with messages and voicemails. I was afraid to open any of them. Somehow, I knew it was going to be bad news. The worst fucking news.

I’ve looked everywhere for Pixie, all the places I could think of. The restaurant she used to work at. The coffee shop by the apartment that she says has the best chocolate chip cookies. Jury’s still out on that. The nearby subway stations, like she’d be hanging around those smelly places, just waiting for me to find her.

Like a maniac, I show her picture to random people, asking if anyone has seen her. Most of them look at me like I’m crazy and move along. Some take a good look at her smiling face, ponder a bit, say no, and then move along. Others don’t even spare me a glance.

I get into a fight with one such person. I shove him and he shoves me back. We curse at each other. He’s a drunk and I look like I might be the same. A crowd gathers around us, as if my life’s a show to be enjoyed.

Assholes.

I walk away from the fight. Finding Pixie is more important. But after running around for hours, my legs give up and I stumble on the sidewalk, outside a laundromat. I try standing but it’s as if my entire body has given up.

Your body’s like a kingdom or something.

That’s because I make smart choices about what I put inside it.

She laughed. Maybe I need to make smart choices too. You know, about what I put inside my body.

I sit propped against the brick wall, her picture in my hands and the air smelling of detergent, making me realize how dirty and sweaty I smell myself. I lose the last battle with my body and a thick tear snakes down my pulsing cheek.

My fingers curl and I crush her photo. I hate her for doing this to me. I hate her for leaving me like my parents did. I throw the crushed photograph and it hits the trashcan before falling to the ground.

A minute later, I crawl to it, pick it up and smooth the wrinkled paper, pressing it to my chest.

***

“Oh my God, you lost my best friend,” Sky screams in my ear. “You fucking asshole. What did you do?”

When my phone rang a minute ago, I leapt to it, thinking it was Pixie. It wasn’t. It’s her menace of a best friend.

“You talked to her?” I sit up on the mattress in our room.

I don’t remember collapsing on it though. I only remember Ethan coming to get me from in front of the laundromat and taking me home. I realize I don’t thank the guy often. He gave me a home, a job. He lied for me and I haven’t shown him my appreciation.

“Yes. She called me and she was crying. What did you do to her?”

A breath whooshes out of me. It’s huge. It’s a gust of wind. Jesus Christ, she’s fine. She isn’t… gone. Even now, I can’t think of the ugly word: death.

“Where is she? Is she okay?”

“Well, if you call sobbing like a baby okay then yeah, she’s doing fabulous. And I have no clue where she is. She wouldn’t tell me. She also told me not to call you but I’m still doing it because I’m so mad at you,” she snaps. “So, what the fuck did you do? Did you say something to her about the treehouse? Because if you did then I’m gonna come up there and kick your ass.”

I want to distance the phone a few inches and grimace at her loud voice, but I grip it tighter at her words. “What about the treehouse?”

She goes silent for a few seconds before continuing, “You don’t know?”

I’m completely awake now. My body’s hurting like a motherfucker but I’ll survive. “What don’t I know?”

Sighing, she tells me, “Her dad. He burnt down the treehouse. He found more pictures of you and her and the day you guys left, he torched everything. They had a wake for her, Abel, telling everyone that she was dead to them. I didn’t wanna tell her but Jesus fucking Christ, she’s stubborn and I thought you guys were happy over there and that you’d, I don’t know, fuck her silly or something. But now she’s gone. Oh my God. I never should’ve told her. I’m an idiot. I’m such a –”

“When’d you tell her?”

“Uh, I don’t know, a couple of days ago. Look, I –”

I hang up on her.