Hell Followed with Us(64)

—The Acheson LGBTQ+ Center official website



Nick takes me back to the bank. I remember that much.

He gives me a bottle of water and makes me drink as much as I can. He wipes my face, puts a new mask over my mouth, and gets me a change of clothes. I’m too tired to register the embarrassment of just being in my sports bra and boxers, open wounds creeping across my stomach and thighs. Nick doesn’t linger on my body. I am reminded of Jesus and the leper, and Nick helps by not turning away in disgust.

When I’m finally presentable, my crumbling body hidden under bandages and clean clothes, Nick boosts me through the bank window and sits me on the floor of the copy room. I’m so lightheaded, I’m going to pass out. I need to say something, but how do I even start? I made a bunch of really, really bad decisions and this is all my fault, please don’t be mad? I am divine retribution, but I’m also just a scared little kid, and God, why would you call me your friend? I grind my jaw and try to breathe past my massive tongue. I’m not getting enough air. Or maybe I’m hyperventilating.

Nick crouches beside me and says, “What happened,” and it’s not a question because it doesn’t need to be.

I open my mouth to speak but can’t.

Nick watches for a moment, then scratches that little spot under his eye. “It’s okay,” he says. “I have trouble talking sometimes too.” He takes off his jacket and wraps it around my shoulders. “I’ll be right back.”

I don’t want him to go. I reach for him, but he pushes my hand away.

“It won’t take long,” he says, and leaves.

His coat smells like him. It smells like all of us, like sweat, musty closets, and smoke, but it smells like him. Like he’s spent too much time with mothballs and old paper. I bury my face in the sleeve.

Nick comes back with a plastic grocery bag that rattles when he moves.

“I know it’s immature of me,” he says, sitting across from me and unpacking the bag. It’s full of beads. Bright plastic pony beads, all the colors of the rainbow and then some. He sets one large container between us and clicks it open. “But when I have a meltdown, I make these. It helps.” Out comes a handful of string. “I’m glad it survived the fire.”

He takes the bead lizard out of his pocket. The one with the gaudy yellow and blue beads and with bite marks on the toes.

“I can show you,” he says. “If you want.”

He doesn’t have to. He doesn’t have to do anything for me, not after what I brought down on us. We lost the Vanguard, we lost so many people, we’re fucked. But Nick just pulls out a length of string and cuts it with his teeth.

“Pick out some beads.”

I half-heartedly pick a few random ones—green, red, whatever—but eventually I find ones that look like the trans flag.

Nick shakes his head. “Other colors,” he says.

I narrow my eyes at him. He pulls a half-finished lizard from the bag with the same pastel pinks, blues, and whites.

“Already working on it,” he says.

I pick out a rainbow instead. He holds out his work to show me what he’s doing.

“You put on one of these,” he says, stringing a red bead, “and then double thread it. Like this.” He hands me the awkward mess of beads and string. “You do the next two. And don’t forget the eyes.”

My hands shake, but after a try or two, I get the next row. When I reach the toes, though, I get frustrated trying to make them look right. Nick tells me to stop pulling the string so taut. I can’t. There’s anger curling up in my hollow chest, but it isn’t Seraph’s anger; it isn’t the white-hot violent thing that made me tear out those throats and slam Nick into the bodies. It’s—it’s helpless. I never asked for this. I never wanted to be an Angel, and I never wanted to be their martyr. I’m a kid, and all I ever do is ruin things.

The ALC would be better off if they’d never brought me in.

I yank the string so hard, it snaps. The beads tumble to the floor. Nick sucks in a breath. I can’t look at him. I focus on the rough carpet speckled with all kinds of colors, dizzy from the heat, exhaustion, and dehydration, desperate to think of anything but him and what I’ve done.

After a moment, Nick takes the broken string out of my hand and gives me another.

“Do you want me to start it again?” he asks.

I shake my head and pick the beads up off the floor.

It doesn’t matter what I asked for. There’s nothing we can do about what’s already happened. I was raised by Angels. The world ended. They got into my head and turned me into this. That may not be my fault, but it is my responsibility. I’ll take the blame for what I’ve done and do everything I can to fix what I didn’t. If I can fix this, I have to. If I can find a way to keep my friends safe, I will.

That’s what it means to be good.

This time, when I get to the lizard’s toes, I’ve gotten the hang of it. Nick finishes his trans lizard and ties off the end.

“Here,” he says, holding it out to me. “You can have it if you tell me where you were going.”

“You drive a hard bargain.” My words are wet and raspy but still recognizable as words. Just like I have a particularly bad sore throat or lost my voice screaming.

“Where were you going?”