Collide

  I needed to sit but satisfied myself with putting a hand on the back of the chair instead. I touched him, half expecting my hand to go right through him like smoke. Like a ghost. Like the fantasy I knew he really was.

  He turned to me. “Then don’t go. Stay here with me, okay? Come to the party. Spend the night. Wake up with me in the morning.”

  “I don’t belong here, Johnny,” I breathed. “I’m sorry. I just don’t.”

  “But something’s keeping you here,” he pointed out. “Something’s bringing you back.”

  “Just smoke. Just dreams. This isn’t real.”

  “It’s real to me,” Johnny shouted so fiercely I took a step back. “It’s fucking real to me, Emm, okay? It’s been real since the first fucking time you showed up on my doorstep, and every fucking time since! I don’t care if you’re crazy or whatever the hell’s going on, I don’t care. Just…stay. Please.”

  He reached for me, and I let him hold my hands. I let him pull me closer. I let him kiss me, soft and deep. And I felt myself drifting. Giving in. Instead of waking up, I felt myself falling deeper into this dream.

  “I’ll do whatever you want. Stop making the movies. Hell, I’ll stop the parties. I’ll get a real job, if you want that. I’ll wear a fucking suit and tie, buy a car, pay my bills on time. I’ll be whatever you want me to be, Emm. Just don’t keep walking in and out of my life, making me crazy.”

  “I want you to be an artist,” I told him. “I want you to be everything you can be, that’s all I want. And I want to be with you, Johnny. I just can’t do it here.”

  “Why?” he asked, face pleading.

  “Because I don’t belong here. I don’t belong in this place.”

  He cupped my breast, thumb passing over my nipple. “You feel real to me here. You feel like you belong.”

  I put my hand over his. “But…I don’t. And whatever this is, it’s wrong of me to keep doing it.”

  “Whatever this is,” Johnny said with a humorless laugh. “What is it for you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, I do,” he said. “I love you, Emm. And I want to be with you.”

  “You are with me.” Tears slipped over my cheeks. I tasted salt. “We’re together. Just not here. Not now.”

  “Then when?”

  “In the future.” It sounded crazy, but he didn’t pull away. “I’m from the future. I’m crazy. I make all of this up in my head. It’s not real, you’re not. This isn’t. All of you are something I just made up.”

  “Stay, anyway,” Johnny said.

  I tried again to wake. Nothing. I tried to make something else happen. Change the room. Change his frown to a smile. There was only one way to do that.

  “Just a little longer,” I said. “I’ll come down to the party for just a little while.”

  Had I ever made anyone so happy before? Johnny hugged me. He kissed me. He smiled, which I loved, and he took my hand as we went down the stairs and out the back door. He held my hand as he introduced me to people whose names were familiar even if their faces weren’t. He kissed me in front of them. He brought me drinks, which I drank and got tipsy from.

  Time passed. The night went on. The party got more raucous. I saw a couple fucking in his pool, just as he’d said. I saw people smoking dope. I saw some shooting up, though I turned away at that, the sight of them injecting their veins disgusting and scary. I saw a lot of things at that party, but everywhere I went, I also saw Johnny.

  Had I ever spent so long here before? Maybe something had broken, and if it had, I’d been the one to break it. I’d forced this on myself, trying to figure out a way to stop it, and now I was becoming truly afraid I wouldn’t ever get out of it.

  People talked to me, and I answered. If they thought I was drunk it was because I slurred my words a little. Weaved a little in my walk. I saw Johnny from across the pool. He was looking at me, expression concerned, while a young woman in a terry-cloth halter top, her breasts like watermelons, tried without success to grab his attention.

  Everything was hazy, like it wanted to spin but wasn’t. And I couldn’t wake up. I took another drink, tossed back a shot in a way I’d never done in real life. Fire burned my gut.

  I stumbled into the kitchen through the back door. Ed was there. He looked up, eyes wide, mouth open.

  “Holy fucking shit. Where the fuck did you come from?”

  “Outside.” I looked at the bottle in front of him. The cigarette. The drugs. The notebook.

  This was the same as the last time, except the bottle was already empty, the ashtray overflowing, the drugs gone with only the needle left behind. I blinked and went to the sink to splash cold water on my face. Also like the last time.

  “Holy fucking shit,” Ed said. “You were there. Then you weren’t. What the fuck? What the fuck?”

  “Maybe you’re high,” I said cruelly, my voice thick like syrup. “Maybe you’re crazy.”

  “I am crazy,” Ed said.

  We stared at each other across the kitchen. Heat shimmered between us. That’s what I thought. But it wasn’t heat, it was something else. Something invisible pulled me, tugging at my belly like a string attached to my guts. I twitched.

  “Fucking crazy,” Ed said. “You were there, and then you weren’t. Did you know I wrote a poem about you, Emmaline?”

  “Yeah, you told me.”

  “You don’t like it. You’re not impressed.”

  Something tugged me harder. I went to my knees right there on the kitchen floor. They smacked the linoleum, hard and painfully. I put both hands flat on the linoleum, wondering if I were going to fall. Puke. Pass out? How could I pass out when I was already unconscious?

  “Oh, shit,” Ed said.

  I closed my eyes.

  The world shook.

  Then the world wasn’t shaking, just my bed. Just me. I opened my eyes, blinking, and Johnny’s face swam into view. He had my shoulders and was shaking me.

  “Emm!” he cried when I focused on him. “The fuck are you doing?”

  “She was just trying—” Jen began, rubbing at her eyes.

  Johnny glared at her and gathered me close. “Fucking bright idea!”

  Jen looked scared. “Is she okay?”

  “I’m fine. Johnny! I’m fine!” I pushed him away a little bit so I could catch my breath. “Seriously, lay off.”

  He cupped my face and looked into my eyes. To Jen, he said, not meanly but not in a voice filled with sunshine and light, “I think you’d better go.”

  She did, squeezing my shoulder before she left. “I’ll call you.”

  “Yeah,” I said, too tired to get up and fight him to go after her, wanting really to just curl up next to him and knowing my friend would understand.

  When she’d gone, Johnny kissed me, my face still in his hands. Then he looked into my eyes again. “What the hell were you doing?”

  “I was trying to figure out if I could control the fugues,” I whispered, hating that I felt ashamed.

  He drew in a slow, shuddering breath. Emotions flowed over his face, too many for me to discern. “And can you?”

  “Apparently not,” I said sourly.

  Johnny shook his head. “Don’t do it again.”

  Annoyed, I turned my face from his. “Is that what you want? Me to just do whatever you say?”

  “No, Emm.” Johnny turned my face gently to face his again. “I just don’t want to lose you all over again.”

  Chapter 25

  It felt like something had broken inside me, but it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Whatever had made my brain skip and jump back and forth from dreams to consciousness seemed to be…not repaired. I wasn’t stupid enough to think that. Not fixed. Broken worse, and yet better.

  I didn’t go dark again for a week in which Johnny hovered over me so mercilessly I thought I might kill him. Then another week passed with me clearheaded. One more. At the end of the month, spring was inching into the air and I hadn’t even dreamed of Johnny-t
hen in regular sleep.

  I did make an appointment with Dr. Gordon, ostensibly for my yearly woman care, but I had her check out everything else, too, including a new CAT scan. I didn’t protest when she suggested it. We talked a little about my night in the hospital and my treatment options, and though I know she wanted to put me back on higher doses of antiseizure meds, I resisted.

  “I already have trouble remembering to take my birth control pills every day. Adding in another dose of something else would be a pain in the butt,” I said.

  Dr. Gordon shook her head. “Are you sure you don’t want to switch over to something a little less difficult for you to maintain, Emm?”

  I laughed, which always feels awkward while sitting on a paper-covered table in a flimsy gown. “Nah. I’m okay. I’m in a stable relationship right now, not having multiple partners—blah, blah, blah—and we use condoms, although I think we’ll have the talk about STDs pretty soon and get rid of those. Besides, he’s had a vasectomy.”

  She chuckled. “Sounds like you have all the bases covered.”

  I shrugged. “I don’t want to go back on drugs if I don’t have to. That’s all.”

  She put her hand on my shoulder. “I know you don’t. I know. But as your doctor, I have to at least offer the treatment I feel is best, even if you don’t want to follow my advice.”

  I nodded. Dr. Gordon had known me a long time. “Right. But I think we both know it’s not really going to make a difference in the fugues or even in my management of them. They come. They go.”

  “They come, they go,” she said. “I wish we could figure out some better answer than that for you.”

  Of course she did. So did I. So did my parents, friends. So did Johnny. But none of us were going to find something better, so I had to accept what I had.

  My mom had driven me to my appointment, not because Johnny couldn’t but because we’d decided to have a mother-daughter bonding day. After my appointment we went to lunch, saw a movie, then came back to my house where my mom was going to sort through my closet and see if any of the stuff that didn’t fit me would work for her.

  Talk about depressing, giving your mother hand-me-downs because she’s losing weight and you’re…not.

  I was happy for her, though, as I watched her spin around in a long peasant skirt I’d bought on sale and had never worn. Frankly, never would, and not because it wasn’t the right size. It had been an impulse purchase, the color wrong for me, the material not my style. But it looked great on her, and I told her so.

  “Oh, you think so?” She smoothed the skirt and spun in front of the mirror again. “I love this. I’d never have picked it up for myself.”

  “I know. Maybe it was fate I saw it that day at Marshalls.”

  She checked the tag, as I knew she would. “I’ll give you the money for it.”

  “No, you won’t.” I shook my head and my finger at her. “No way.”

  She sighed. “Emmaline.”

  “Mom, no.” I found a blouse in my closet, too, and handed it to her. “Try it with this.”

  She held it up, then glanced over her shoulder at me. “Oh, before I forget, I have a couple of boxes for you in my trunk. Your dad found them in the crawl space when I was cleaning out some stuff for the church bazaar yard sale. There’s a bunch of your things in there.”

  “I’ll go get it.” I tossed the rest of the clothes I was sorting onto the bed and grabbed her keys.

  The boxes she’d brought were the kind with lids and handles, easily lifted, though whatever was inside made them heavy. I took them all into my living room and left my front door open so the fresh evening air could blow through the screen door. By that time my mom had changed into her own clothes and come downstairs.

  “What is all this stuff?” I took the lid off one box and found a pile of papers, books, small toys.

  “Oh, things you left behind.”

  I looked at her. “Did you think maybe I left it behind because I didn’t want it?”

  She gave me a “Mom” face. “So throw it away. I don’t need your junk any more than you do.”

  I knew she didn’t mean it like that, but the words stung and I felt my face twist. My mom saw it, too, because she sat down beside me right away. She took the lid from my hands.

  “Emm, I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “It’s okay,” I said.

  “No. Look at me.”

  I didn’t want to; I knew I’d start to cry the second I did. There’s something only mothers and daughters can trigger in each other, that bursting-into-tears reaction to emotion. Hallmark card commercials ain’t got nothing on moms and daughters.

  “Oh, honey.” My mom hugged me, stroking my hair. “What’s wrong? Have you been feeling sick again? Is it something with that man?”

  Funny how she’d been calling him Johnny all these weeks but at the first hint he might be making me cry she called him that man. “It’s not him. He’s great. I mean, I know you and dad aren’t sure about Johnny, but it isn’t that.”

  “It’s not that I’m unsure about him,” my mom said. “I’m just wondering about having a son-in-law who’s old enough to be my husband.”

  I laughed through my tears. “We’re not really talking about getting married, Mom. Don’t worry.”

  She gave me a familiar snort that told me she knew better. “We’ll see.”

  “It’s not him. And I haven’t had any problems lately. The opposite, in fact. Nothing for a month. Dr. Gordon took another CAT scan, but even that was just for the records. She doesn’t expect to see anything new.”

  “Then what, honey? Your junk?”

  “I just…” I sighed, plucking at the faded knees of my jeans. “I don’t want to move back home ever again, but I don’t really like knowing you’re glad I’m gone, you know? I mean, don’t get me wrong, I totally understand why—”

  “Emm!” My mom cried, shocked. “How could you think something like that? Glad you’re gone? I should smack you for that.”

  I flinched exaggeratedly, though I knew she wasn’t going to hit me. “C’mon, Mom. You know it’s true.”

  She put her hands on my shoulders and looked into my eyes. “Emmaline, I am happy you’ve been able to move out on your own, have the life you deserve. I’m happy you’ve grown into a lovely, independent young woman who is capable of living her own life. But I could never be happy you’re gone. And if you ever had to move back home, you’d hate it way more than I ever could.”

  We both cried a little then, until our tears turned to soggy laughter.

  “If you don’t want the stuff in the boxes, throw it in the garbage,” she told me again. “Most of it’s from so long ago you might not even remember it, but I didn’t want to just toss it without letting you see it. That’s all.”

  I nodded and sifted through the papers. Old report cards, construction-paper valentines, that sort of thing. A lot of fast-food toys I couldn’t believe she’d kept. And then, at the bottom of the first box, a book.

  “Oh, my goodness,” my mom said when I pulled it out. “I haven’t seen that in years.”

  I hefted the thick paperback, pages yellowed but not falling out of the binding. I flipped through it, noting the dog-eared corners where someone had marked favorite pages. My fingers felt gritty from touching it, and I tasted grit, too.

  “This was…mine?”

  “Well, it was mine. Everyone had a copy of that book, it seemed. I read it a lot when I was pregnant with you,” my mom said fondly, and lifted it from my hands. “Ed D’Onofrio’s poetry was really popular for a while, though I really only liked a few of his poems. Well, just the one, of course.”

  I looked at her. “Of course? Which one?”

  My mom smiled. “‘In Night She Walks,’ silly. You’ve read it, haven’t you? You must’ve, Emm.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t think it was ever assigned in school or anything like that.”

  She laughed and flipped to one of the most worn sections of the bo
ok. “No, honey. See? ‘In Night She Walks.’ It’s where I first heard your name. It’s why I named you that.”

  My stomach twisted, then lurched, my lunch burning in my throat. I stood so fast the book fell, and I didn’t pick it up. My mom looked immediately concerned and stood.

  “Emm, what’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” I forced myself to sit and pick up the book, to scan the page. The poem on the page was different than the one Ed had spoken during my fugue, but it was close enough that there could be no mistaking the similarities. “I just didn’t know. I mean, I was surprised.”

  “I thought you knew,” she said. “I was sure I’d told you. But it must’ve been so long ago, maybe you don’t remember. I read that book aloud over and over again when I was pregnant with you, sitting in that old rocker Gran gave me. And I read it to you when you were in the hospital. I guess…well, now that I think about it, after that I didn’t read it aloud to you anymore. Maybe we never talked about it.”

  “It’s kind of a strange poem to read your kid, isn’t it?” I ran a finger down the lines, then looked at her. “Not like ‘Humpty Dumpty.’”

  My mom tilted her head. “Honey, are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine.” I forced a smile. “I’m okay, really. Tired, though. That’s really neat about the poem, Mom, thanks.”

  “He was very popular when I was younger,” my mom said almost dreamily. “I wonder whatever happened to him? You could probably look him up on the internet. I wonder if he had any other books published?”

  Only after he was dead. He’d been dead, in fact, when this book was published, if I remembered correctly. I didn’t tell her that, or about the fugues, or the “coincidence” that Johnny had been one of Ed D’Onofrio’s best friends way back when.

  “Your dad never liked the other poems,” she confided suddenly. “Just that one. It was his idea to name you Emmaline, actually. We couldn’t agree on a name, and, oh, we argued and argued. He wanted something trendy and different, and I thought a more old-fashioned name would work better. We compromised. You were always the only Emmaline in your class.”