Gena/Finn

  Humber River. Please pass along my contact information

  to your friend Stephanie, along with this check for your incidentals while you are her guest. We understand you’ve taken a sabbatical from school. You’re welcome in our home, if you’d prefer that, until you’re ready to go back.

  Spike and Thomas miss you...

  xoxo

  Aunt Jane

  I think this is the last method I HAVEN’T tried to reach you. Can you just let me know if you’re okay? I promise I won’t bother you after that. I just...fuck, Gena.

  –J

  in Finn’s sketchbook

  someday I will write a perfect, epic poem

  my magnum opus

  and I will name it

  tylergirl93 is a cunt.

  I'll leave that my legacy, a huge goddamn middle finger to anyone who thinks that

  maybe this is for the best

  maybe it will be a stronger show now

  like anything could possibly be stronger now

  like someone dying is like taking a weight off

  like a little dot,

  a hundred and sixty pound TV-guide-magazine boy

  a hundred and thirty scrawny shivering mess in his

  brother-figure's arms

  a ninety pound man of the house,

  now it's gone and the load is a little lighter

  instead of

  there is one less person to pick up this fucking shithole

  of a world

  we need everybody

  every pair of hands and legs and fists on board to hold us up, bracing arms across arms like cheerleaders in a pyramid

  like goddamn warriors.

  we need everyone

  except maybe tylergirl93

  because she's a cunt.

  on a carefully folded sheet

  of notebook paper

  Steven has fingernails that are a little too long and he crushes

  Dixie cups

  When they're empty.

  I like your sneakers,” he says, at the end of the meeting

  when it's time for mingling or

  for awkward phone-fiddling in the corner

  texting nobody

  get me out of here

  I talked today

  told a little story about my parents that might have been true.

  Something about a birthday.

  I look down at my shoes

  Red, high tops, words all over them, french or english or real

  I wrote them in with pen times I don't remember

  john used to ask me if there were poems on them

  like poems were something I could put in a place

  like I have any control over where they end up

  burned, on a wall in your room, washed down the drain in green

  marker slime

  now I conquer the world like Steven does his Dixie cup

  I think today is

  my birthday

  on the bottom of Finn’s shoes

  if I hear the name jake one more time i'll scream

  (if I let myself believe that tyler never will again I'll die)

  how do I tell steven that I lost two people

  where are the funerals for dead decency

  where's the hallmark card to send your parents that says

  I miss him all wrong

  if parents don't have to exist to be real

  why should you

  (i'll burn fandom to the ground)

  For You:

  I have to get out of the house. I can’t take you walking around like the ghost of a stranger. I can’t take listening to you crying in the shower and then whistling while you fix your hair like nothing’s wrong. I can’t deal with the way you’re so on top of everything, except when you’re not and I have to help you in and out of your sweaters and you slump against me and shiver and don’t talk.

  And I don’t want to hear any more about Steven. So that’s a thing.

  You smiled this morning, and when I asked why, you said you were excited to tell Steven something. I can’t remember the last time you smiled about me.

  “He gets me,” you say, the clear implication being that I don’t.

  And maybe it makes sense that I don’t, because everything we are, whatever it is, grew out of fandom, and you are raging at fandom. You sign on to your computer for stretches of five or ten or fifteen minutes at a time, click through journals, slam it shut and sit there shaking with fury. I’ve tried to stop you, weirdly and passive aggressively, by piling a bunch of stuff on top of the computer and hoping you won’t think about it if it’s not out in the open, but that doesn’t work. And maybe I should be glad you’re feeling something so straightforward. But somehow, angry at fandom just feels like angry at me.

  “Out of the house” in this case means Charlie’s bar. I’ve been here for about fifteen minutes, and of course he can’t come straight over. He keeps making little hand gestures that are meaningful between us – tugging his ear, biting his knuckle, this customer is an ass, I’m glad you’re here.

  Okay. Here he comes, with a beer I can’t afford. Good thing he can tap it out for free. We need every damn dollar because your hospital bill came today. Happy belated birthday, I guess. Even after Up Below’s insurance, the copay is more than I’ve ever seen on a bill, ever. It’s going to wipe out our savings, and I have no idea where the money’s going to come from for your Zyprexa next month.

  I’ll have to get a job.

  But the thing is that I found your shoes in the trash today, your written-on shoes, twisted so the soles cracked like maybe you didn’t like what you’d written and tried to crumple them up like paper, and I’m freaking out because I left you for an hour to come down here for a beer I can’t afford, so how am I supposed to leave you alone all day? How am I supposed to leave you on bad days?

  Today’s not a bad day. Today’s a Steven day.

  Steven, with his similar trauma, with his ability to relate to you, Steven who understands. Steven who I sent you to because I couldn’t help.

  And I know that’s the point of the group, and I feel awful. That’s the whole reason I wanted you to go, isn’t it? If Steven’s helping you, I want you to have him. I want you to get better.

  No. I wanted you to go so you’d get better enough to talk to me. You’re my best friend. I thought I was the one who understood you.

  God, how selfish. I am the worst person I know.

  That’s a self-indulgent statement if there ever was one. I’m not the worst person I know. I’m jealous and insecure and I miss my best friend, and this is nothing I haven’t done to you every time I prioritized Charlie. I’m not awful. I’m just sad.

  Why can’t Steven be there to help you out with the trauma stuff, and I’ll still be your go-to person for...

  For what? Fandom? You need a trauma buddy now, and you don’t need me, except to pay for therapy and drugs (and apparently a new pair of shoes).

  It’s not gonna matter anyway if we can’t figure out where to get the money to keep you in group. And despite my fucked up conflicted feelings, I do want you to stay in group.

  Charlie’s smiling and making drink your beer gestures, why is he fucking amazing, so what the hell. The beer is cold and light and feels like being irresponsible with everyone’s heart.

  So...

  God.

  I shouldn’t have gone out.

  I got home about
an hour ago. You were sitting in the middle of a pile of broken laptop components, trying unsuccessfully to break a piece of casing in your hands and crying.

  “Finn?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Did I do it?”

  “Break the laptop? Yeah, baby. It’s okay.”

  “No...”

  “It’s okay, Evie.”

  You let me sit you down on the stool in the bathroom and wash your face and hands, take down your ponytail, brush your hair, get you ready for bed. Now you’re just staring at the wall and acting like I’m not here, which I guess I might as well not be. But I’m not going to leave you alone again tonight.

  Charlie got in about ten minutes ago and stuck his head in here, but I sent him away. Tonight it’s just you and me. He kissed us both before he left, and left behind a brown leather journal with a cat on it.

  It’s much nicer than mine, and I’m jealous (for a change, ha), but Charlie says it’s for you.

  Maybe we won’t have to get you new shoes after all.

  in Charlie’s notebook

  My favorite fics were the ones where you were cold.

  I could have read those a hundred times

  read each individual one

  a hundred times

  some of them I did, over and over

  bad writing, trite cliches, the same tropes in all of them

  it was the tropes that I liked.

  It was you shivering that I liked

  The ones where you were cold had Tyler with a down jacket ready to

  wrap you up

  they had pretty frozen fingers

  scared eyes

  sometimes your hair would be wet

  sometimes you'd have a fever, hot really

  but cold to your bones

  and no one could warm you up.

  But Tyler would never stop trying.

  Those were my favorites.

  that doesn't mean that there weren't times

  that I set you on fire

  I saw it

  that's the thing

  I saw smoke coming from that light

  and I thought to myself

  okayokayokay

  you don't smell burning plastic mannequin skin fake LA

  plastic reality machines

  you don't hear anything starting to burn and whistle

  you don't see smoke coming from that light

  I could have pulled a fucking fire alarm

  a poet

  should like irony.

  it matters less than what I wrote about

  your shivering is bigger than my shallow breathing and your burning alive

  I scrape feelings out of your grave

  making out with a tv screen

  I prefer delusions

  I prefer poems

  with pretty line breaks

  and timing

  it's just that I'm waking up in the middle of the night

  invisible hands on my throat, invisible smoke in my lungs

  not shiveringwaiting for

  a part of me

  to like it

  in Charlie’s notebook

  after group

  Steven and I lie in the grass outside the rec center

  waiting for finn to pull up

  he taps my nose with the stem of a dandelion

  What show was it again?” he says

  I tell him

  or I tell him the name.

  I don't watch much TV,” he says, not like

  he's judging me, not like

  it matters really, just like

  it's a useless fact about him

  a color hair he doesn't have

  something he doesn't think about

  a person he doesn't know

  "TV raised me,"” I say, and I tell him about learning sex from Boy Meets World

  drugs from Degrassi

  family from Man of the House

  He's never heard of any of them

  a hundred voices in my head

  and here is a boy who has never heard of any of me

  I go home and kiss Finn's shoulders and pretend it is all

  the parts of her

  in Charlie’s notebook

  Hi Gena. You left this in the kitchen and I thought you might want it. I’ll be playing Halo if you need anything.

  —Charlie

  I'm here but you're not. invisHalo! --Gena

  I took out the trash!!

  Where the hell did YOU go, is the question.

  Well. This seems like an opportunity for a treasure hunt. Let’s see how quickly you find this.

  gena was on the fire escape

  the question is

  WHERE AM I

  --notebook

  Notebook,

  Are you sentient? You must know so many secrets. Tell me everything.

  —Charlie

  do my pages know secrets?

  let's see if they do

  if you've found where i'm hiding

  you've found the next clue

  --notebook

  I found you in

  my tv tower

  after searching for

  a fucking hour

  but the question is

  as questions be

  did you note what was

  underneath me?

  uh. what?

  for the ease

  of your finding

  i've slipped the clue under

  a door so sliding

  this picture’s from the set of man of the house

  it must have been the day you shot that thanksgiving scene

  I remember your ugly sweater

  is that why you were crying?

  in fact it was!

  i didn't know you watched.

  Zack was my age, and it was a family show.

  We always watched on holidays.

  My mom used to say you were cute.

  my mom said i had too-big eyes like a bug.

  they still call me that.

  if you’re a bug you’re a Tardigrade

  which is a super tough bug that can survive in a vacuum

  (I just Googled that.)

  i used to think that

  about surviving in vacuums

  i used to live like that.

  shrunk up and vacuum-sealed.

  put me anywhere.

  why do you write poems on your shoes?

  in retrospect, it’s dumb to think it was only because

  no one had ever gotten you a notebook

  so if people try to read them when i don't want them to

  i can kick them in the face

  god. it's a bad day.

  I’ll make you macaroni and cheese with bacon for dinner.

  If you don’t like bacon you can always pick it out, which will

  be adventurous.

  i do.

  the truth is

  we were friends when we were little because we were together

  we were friends because people told us to be friends

  conveniently i loved him and i think he loved me

  but we didn't talk for ten years,

  and we had some nice emails before he died

  and i told him i was in love with your girlfriend'

  the truth is

  i didn't know him that well

  and in the middle i had jake.

  how do you NOT be a fangirl? how do you not do it?

  how do you just love one person

  how do you just choose everyone's real person.

  you don’t.

  the truth is

  your heart is stronge
r than you think it is

  and bigger than you think it is

  the truth is

  loving someone isn’t a period

  it’s a semicolon

  and the choice you make is what comes

  on the other side

  maybe it’s a picket fence and a subaru and 2.5 kids

  maybe it’s a fantasy world that lives in your computer

  maybe it’s a guild

  maybe it’s a fandom

  maybe it’s the last thing you ever expected

  loving someone means whatever you decide it means

  that’s the choice

  really

  i love you charlie

  are you gonna watch the premiere with us?

  if you want me.

  I’d love to.

  carefully folded, tucked in the back of Charlie’s notebook

  our counselor says

  you didn't get to choose what happened to you

  you don't get to choose if it still hurts you

  you get to choose if you put it in your sentence about yourself.

  So here is my sentence.

  I love you, Zack

  and fuck all the rest of it.

  from: Joan Bartlett

  to: Finn Bartlett

  date: Monday, November 3 10:14 AM

  subject: Girls shopping day!

  Dear Stephanie,

  Angie and Lydia were here last weekend. We all went shopping. I’ve attached a picture of them holding up their new sundresses. We all missed you and wished you were here. Will we see you soon?

  I got a seed packet from my subscription service in the mail. Sunflowers. I’m thinking of planting them in their own little patch in the backyard, but sunflowers are kind of garish, aren’t they? I wonder what you think. Would that be too dramatic? Do you think the neighbors would complain?