The Man I Love (The Fish Tales, #1)(86)

“I don’t want to talk to her,” he said. “If anyone from Lancaster calls for me you can tell them—“

“I’m not your goddamn secretary,” Christine said. “And I don’t lie for you. Answer the phone and tell them yourself.”

They each slammed down their ends of the line. They rarely argued and it made Erik feel sick. Later he called back and apologized but the malaise didn’t go away. He wasn’t feeling well. He seemed to be spiraling down into a funk. He wasn’t hungry, he couldn’t sleep. The piano wouldn’t talk to him, his guitar was sulking. Work felt empty, he couldn’t find his three-point shot. Sex was as appealing as a stomach flu. Time turned back into the enemy. Some days it was a chore to get out of bed. Some days it was an ordeal just to breathe through his mantras.

You will feel nothing. There is nothing more to feel. They died. What happened after was a dream. They are gone. You are left. It’s time to go.

One evening the playhouse was rehearsing You Can’t Take It With You and a thunderstorm rolled through Geneseo. It was biblical outside, with multi-branched lightning illuminating the skies and thunder rattling the windows. A tree came down in the park across the street, falling slowly and majestically onto the power lines where it teetered for a moment.

Inside the playhouse, the entire circuit panel shorted out. A Fresnel over the stage exploded. The sound system let out a horrid shriek of feedback, followed by two short bursts of static. A beat of silence. Then a third angry buzz.

The tree finished its descent, taking the power lines with it. And then the transformer blew.

At the epic boom, everyone jumped in their shoes or out of their seats. More than a few people screamed. The company stumbled around the dark theater, clutching their chests, groping for hands, finding each other, gasping with both fright and the laughter of a near-miss.

In the chaos, nobody noticed Erik Fiskare had run away.

He had been in the lighting booth, of course. The explosion and the piercing feedback had him immediately on his feet. Those rapid bursts of crackling static—two quick, a pause, then a third—and then that final apocalyptic detonation. It all came back to him. He ran. Not toward the stage this time, but away, far away in the farthest direction he could find. He hid in a corner of the dark, empty green room, shaking, trying to pull himself together, to come back to the here and now.

Miles Kelly finally found him. “Well, here you are.”

The beam of a flashlight played around Erik’s body, hunched over in a chair. His hands were tucked tight under his legs because it was the only way to keep them from shaking.

Here I am, he thought.

“Are you all right?”

“Yeah,” Erik said. His voice was an adolescent squeak. He cleared his throat. “Just… I wasn’t feeling well. Just need a minute.”

Miles took a step closer, peered at him in the milky beam of light. Erik gave him a weak smile, then immediately looked away for the smile was too weak a dam for the flood of hysterical weeping behind it.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m fine, I just need a minute.”

“Do you want me to get you some water?”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

“I’ll be back. I’d leave you the flashlight but it’s pitch black in the halls.”

“I’m fine, you take it.”

Once Miles was gone, Erik pulled his hands free and let the shaking overcome him. In the dark, his teeth chattered. He was going to be sick. He couldn’t be sick here. He couldn’t move, either. He put his head down on his knees, counted his breaths, prayed to disappear.

Please stop. Make it stop. Make this stop.

You will feel nothing.

The door to the green room opened and shut. Footsteps approached. With a great effort, Erik arranged his face and picked up his head, squinted toward the beam of the flashlight. “That you?”

“It’s Janey.”

She held out the bottle of water to him, watched as he fumbled the cap off and spilled most of it down his shirt trying to drink.

“What’s the matter, Erik?” she said. She sat down next to him, put a light hand on his back. She was kind, one of the kindest women Erik knew. He liked her. He thought maybe he could trust her.

“What frightened you?” she asked.

“The sounds,” he whispered.

“In the theater just now?”

“Yes.” He took another, more controlled sip of water.

“Drink slow,” she said.

He exhaled roughly. Pulled more air in. Beside him, Janey sat patiently, neither pressing him to explain, nor dismissing him.

“I lied to you about something,” he finally said. “I didn’t transfer from Buffalo. I was at Lancaster University.”

Janey inhaled sharply through her nose, then made a small noise in her throat. “You were there during the shootings?”

Teeth clenched tight, he nodded.

Her hand pressed against his back, and her other hand crept around his fingers. “Were you in the theater when it happened?”

“Yeah.” He held tight to her.

“I see,” she said. “The static and feedback and the explosion. All of it must have reminded you.”

“I think so. I think that’s what happened. What’s happening.”

“You’re having a flashback.” Her arm was fully around him then, pulling him close. “It’s perfectly understandable.”