Let It Be

  “I couldn’t sleep after Uncle Donnie’s funeral. My mind was busy with too many thoughts. Like how I’d never…I’d never see my uncle again. How I was just getting to really know him before he died much too young. How that one motorcycle ride we took would be the only I’d ever have with him.

  “My heart hurt and I didn’t want to feel that way.”

  I look at Ian, my eyes trailing over his face. His dark lashes, thick and long, resting on his cheeks. His nose, a tiny bit crooked but incredibly adorable. And his lips, soft and slightly blue.

  “Is that how you felt all the time? Like your heart hurt? You should have told me. I could have helped you.”

  I close my eyes—I can’t stomach to look at him this way—and continue with my story.

  “I knew Hope was just a floor below me. I knew she was probably having trouble sleeping too. If I was that tore up over my step-uncle, I couldn’t imagine how much she was hurting over her mom.

  “I tried to think about losing my mom or dad and had to quickly push it away. Despite everything my mom’s done to me, all the hurtful things she’s said, and how angry I was with her, the thought of her no longer living made me sick to my stomach.

  “I decided I’d just go check. If Hope was asleep, I’d go back to bed and count sheep or something. But if she was awake, it’d be proof, like a sign that she needed someone. And since I needed someone right then too, I figured we could be each other’s someone.

  “I maneuvered around the creaky step—the one I’ve told you about, the one that got me caught sneaking out on more than one occasion. I always hated those stairs.

  “Hope sat up immediately and I plopped down beside her like it was the most normal thing in the world, and I asked her, ‘If you could go anywhere right now, where would you go?’

  “She blew out a breath and you know what she said? ‘I’d go back in time five days ago and stop my mom and Donnie from leaving.’ Just like that.

  “Her answer caught me off guard, but I covered my surprise and asked her another random question. And then another and another, and before I knew it, it was four in the morning.

  “We were both yawning, so I decided to ask one last question before calling it a night: ‘Who was your first kiss?’

  “She bit her lip, looked down at her folded hands in her lap, and shrugged. She told me she had never been kissed. And even in the darkness, I knew she was embarrassed.

  “I don’t know what possessed me to do it. I had never wanted to kiss a girl—not once in my life before that night and never again since—but I leaned over her and brushed the hair off of her shoulders.

  “Maybe it was because I wanted to do something for her. Maybe it was because I felt comfortably close with her right then.

  “Hell, maybe it was just because I had never kissed a girl before… But I placed my hands on each side of her face and tilted her head so I could reach her better. And then I kissed her. She didn’t react at first, so I slipped my tongue between her lips until it touched hers.

  “She kissed me back then. I was so torn because even though I wasn’t attracted to her, I liked kissing her. But it’s not so much the actual kiss that I liked. I think I liked that I was her first. And she was mine. I liked that I was able to find something on that horrible day to make her forget, even if only for a moment. To make us both forget.

  “She was my first girl kiss. On the fourth worst day of my life, she was my silver lining.

  “I could have been that for you. I could have been your silver lining. If you had just asked.”

  I squeeze my eyes, my teeth gnashing together. The longer I sit in this hospital, the more scared I become. The more scared I become, the angrier I get.

  “I know we fought,” I husk. “I know I pushed too hard sometimes. I can be an asshole, I know that. But what did I do that was so bad? Want you? Love you?

  “What did I do that justified this?” I toss my hand out toward the bed, though he can’t see the gesture.

  “What did I do that made you rather die than be with me?”

  The tears I’ve been fighting finally spill over, running down my cheeks in heated streaks. My chest feels tight, my airway constricted.

  “I need to know.

  “What did I do?

  “What?

  “WHAT DID I DO?

  “What did I do?”

  An angry calm settles over me. There’s a humming in my ears, in my head. I feel my body sway in the chair.

  “You’re so selfish, Ian. How could you do this to me? How could you try to leave me like this? Didn’t you care how I would feel? Didn’t you care about what losing you would do to me? Did you think about me at all?

  “No. Only your pain mattered. Only you.

  “Always you.”

  I’m gasping for breath now, staring hard into his face that doesn’t look like his face.

  “I’m sorry,” I sob. “I’m so sorry.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Eight

  Ian

  “Sometimes you just need to let it be,” I hiss. “Just once, just let someone else be right. Or be wrong, but shut the hell up about it.”

  I’m irrationally angry, I know it, but I can’t stop the poison that keeps seeping from my lips.

  “Maybe if you’d nag less, I’d be more inclined to go places with you.”

  BAM.

  It just keeps coming and coming, no end in sight.

  “You are the neediest little boy I’ve ever met.”

  POW.

  “I can’t even stand to look at you when you’re like this.”

  CRUSH.

  “Just go without me because I don’t want to be anywhere near you.”

  CRASH.

  “GO. Get the fuck out. You’d rather be with them anyway. So. Just. Go.”

  SMASH.

  He just stands there, head cast down, waiting for me to finish. I can’t stand it. It makes me want to scream more. Hurt him more.

  The last thing I ever want to do is hurt him.

  What the fuck is wrong with me?

  I can’t make it stop. I don’t know how.

  I pick up the closest thing to me, a half-full bottle of water, and launch it across the room. It smacks the wall hard and falls to the ground. It’s not enough. Not nearly enough.

  I grab the frame sitting on the end table—a photo of Hope and Guy—and fling it to the ground. The sound of the glass splintering breaks through my angered haze.

  I didn’t mean to do that. I didn’t mean to break it.

  Guy picks it up, turning it over in his hands. There’s a crack running from one corner to the other. He blinks slowly. “I just won’t go. We can order in and rent a movie.” He sets the frame back on the table and disappears into the bedroom.

  As soon as the door shuts, something takes hold of me again.

  I stalk toward the room, throwing the door open. It hits the wall, bouncing back toward me. I kick it this time and the knob smashes into the drywall, holding the door in place. Guy stands up from the bed, watching me. Unsure. Uneasy.

  I’ve never hit him, but he’s watching me like that’s exactly what I’m going to do. It kills me and infuriates me at the same time.

  Without a word, I take hold of his arm, pushing his back into the wall. He doesn’t question me as I push his pants down to his knees, exposing him. He doesn’t ask me to stop as I stretch one of his arms out, palm flat to the wall, followed by the other.

  Then I drop to my knees and grasp him in my hand.

  I want to make him pay for making feel this way.

  I want to tell him I’m sorry for feeling this way—acting this way.

  I take him into my mouth and do both.

  There’s something wrong with me. I don’t understand how he can care about me. Why he stays with me. Why he would ever want to be with a person as useless as I am.

  I have to show him I’m worth something.

>   Moisture pools in my eyes so I close them. I don’t want him to see. He’ll think I’m crying because of something he did. Something he said. But it’s never him. It’s me. Only me.

  He’d be better off without me. So much better if I didn’t exist. I’m only holding him back.

  So many enemies inside my head and they’re all me.

  Nine

  Guy

  “You’re probably wondering why I look like this,” I say quietly.

  I’m still in my suit, covered in wedding cake and icing. And now Ian’s blood. My pants are still damp from the bath water when I pulled his lifeless body from the tub.

  “I came straight from the reception as soon as I saw your texts.”

  I’m sorry.

  It won’t always be this way.

  Please forgive me.

  Please answer me.

  I need you.

  I can’t live without you.

  I won’t live without you.

  Please come home.

  Never mind. It’s too late.

  I love you.

  “I stared at the texts, reading and rereading them. You didn’t say it, you didn’t tell me what you did, but I…I just felt it.

  “It was the last one—the I love you.

  “You’ve never said it before and I knew…it felt like a goodbye.

  “I should have called 911. I shouldn’t have wasted the time to drive home.

  “I should have been with you.”

  The door opens and I step back quickly, wiping my eyes with the backs of my hands. Ian’s mom steps into the room. I’m shocked, but try to hide it. His parents live nine hours away. I wasn’t expecting them this soon. I look at the clock for the first time since I got Ian’s texts.

  Has it been that long?

  Mrs. Miccoli’s gaze moves almost unseeingly over me, settling on her son. She takes in his palled skin, the bandages circling his wrists, the tubes running from his arm and his nose. And she breaks.

  A noise—guttural and agonized—erupts from her throat. She moves toward the bed, her eyes wide and brimming with tears.

  “Why?” she asks.

  “Why? Why? Why?”

  I don’t think she’s asking me. I don’t even think she’s asking Ian. Maybe God. Maybe the fates. Maybe the universe.

  Maybe no one at all.

  It doesn’t matter. I don’t think there’s an answer. Not one we can understand, anyway.

  I shouldn’t be here. Ian wouldn’t like it—me alone with his mom, my emotions so obvious. After taking one last look at his face, I pivot on my heel and leave as quickly as I possibly can.

  In the hall I move faster, trying to escape this prison.

  When I burst through the doors, there’s no relief. Everything remains fucked up. Only now, it’s fucked up under a starry sky.

  Going against Ian’s wishes, I take my phone from my pocket and dial Hope’s number. And when she answers, her voice full of sleep and confused concern, I tell her everything—the truth about Ian and me. From our first date all the way up until I kicked the bathroom door in and found him floating in a pool of his own blood.

  Ten

  Ian

  I want to tell him I love him every day. That I’ve never loved anyone more. But it continues to sit on my tongue, unsaid.

  But I feel it. I feel it in every inch of my body. My heart. My soul. Always.

  Today, another feeling is stronger. The beastly demon I fight against every minute of every day. I won’t be getting out of bed, and I know it’s going to piss Guy off. At first, I hid it well. After a couple of months, it became harder to hide. He was understanding for those first few months. But now, it’s grown old. His patience has run out.

  I’m not sick with a virus. I haven’t caught a bug. But I am physically ill. The best way I can describe it is like poison, swimming through my veins, draining everything from me.

  My head is foggy—that’s always the hardest to ignore. Like my mind is thick with the poison, swirling, swirling, swirling. My body is heavy, my blood weighed down, syrupy and coagulated. It takes all of my energy just to roll over. I can’t imagine trying to get up right now.

  Sleep.

  All I want to do is sleep.

  My stomach hurts. I feel as if I might vomit. It might just be the fog, making me dizzy and lightheaded. It messes with my equilibrium. Or it could be the anxiety building because I know this is going to cause another argument with Guy.

  And that’s just the physical.

  All the negative thoughts racing through my mind make me want to scream. To rip my ears off, though I know that’s not where I hear the thoughts.

  It’s not voices.

  It just one voice.

  My own.

  Telling me I’m not good enough. Telling me I never will be. Insisting that my parents’ lives would be so much easier without me. That Guy would be happier. That I could end so much suffering.

  When I was younger, thirteen-fourteen, I would sneak into my dad’s office. I’d take the key he kept hidden in his top, right desk drawer, and I would open the little lockbox he didn’t know I knew about.

  I’d sit in his chair, spinning, spinning in circles, lockbox in lap. Then I’d take the gun out of the velvety case, and I’d hold it to my head.

  I never checked to see if it was loaded. I never checked to see if the safety was on. Hell, I don’t even know if it had a safety. I never cocked it. And I never pulled the trigger. But I would close my eyes, spinning around and around, gripping that gun like a life vest.

  Like it was my savior.

  I haven’t done that since the day I left for college. Haven’t even thought about it until recently.

  I wish I could tell Guy about my dad’s gun. I don’t think I ever will, though. He’d think I was insane. He’d be worried. Maybe even mad. I’ve pissed him off enough lately.

  So instead, I’ll just stay in bed.

  Eleven

  Guy

  Unable to sleep in the home I share with Ian—in the bed we share as a couple, I drain the tub and begin cleanup on the bathroom. No matter how much bleach I use, I can’t un-see the blood. It’s a blaring red sign of Ian’s pain. Smeared on the floor, stained in the grout of the shower walls, soaked into the bath rug.

  The fingertips of my rubber gloves are caked in my boyfriend’s agony.

  I need it gone. I need it off of me.

  Now.

  NOW.

  Scrubbing harder, quicker, I keep going. More bleach. More cleanser. I dump the bucket of water and get new. Another sponge. Another scrub brush. Faster. Faster. Faster.

  And when I can no longer see it, I strip off my soiled suit and shove every piece into the trash before cleansing myself in the same place Ian tried to end his life.

  ~*~

  I step out of the shower, wrap a towel around my waist, and wipe the condensation from the mirror.

  I don’t recognize the stranger reflected there. Dark circles around his normally light eyes, red-rimmed and bloodshot. But it’s the look on his face that won’t let me look away. This man looks broken. Like he’s beaten down and giving up. That’s not who I am. I’m the happy one. The easy-going, playful one. The one who’s always smiling. Joking. Laughing.

  My eyes close and I know the man’s in the mirror do too. I turn away, dressing quickly. I need to get back to the hospital. I know I can’t stay in his room, but I need to be close by for when he wakes up.

  I leave a message on my boss’s voicemail, letting him know I won’t be in for a few days. I don’t give him details, but he knows me. He knows I wouldn’t take time off without a good reason.

  After four years in college, you’d think I’d be basking in my dream job—which I would be if I knew what that was. For now I’m stuck with a liberal arts degree and a full-time bartending gig at a club I would never go into if I wasn’t getting paid to do so.

  But I have to pay the bills somehow and I’d rather do what I do than ever have to ask for a handout
.

  Ian works from home, writing for a small news website. I know he’s not working in his ideal career, either, but it’s convenient for him. He can do it all from home and never have to leave the apartment, which he prefers.

  I drop onto the couch, resting my feet on the arm. I just need a minute. Just sixty seconds where I can pretend everything is normal. I get about twenty before there’s a very distinctive knock on the door.

  I push myself off the couch and hurry to answer it.

  “Open up, I need to pee,” Chase yells from the hallway.

  I huff out a light laugh as I open the door. He pushes past me, booking ass toward the bathroom. “I got up and came straight here before I went,” he utters. “And Park had to stop for coffee on the way.” He keeps talking, but his voice is muffled behind the confines of the door. I can only make out the words “creamer” and “ass” and decide I probably don’t want to know what he’s saying anyway.

  Park, one of my closest friends for as long as I can remember, shakes his head as he steps inside. “My daughter isn’t even that bad. I swear he has a bladder the size of a peanut.”

  “Only if his bladder is the same size as his balls,” I reply automatically.

  He chuckles, running a hand through his dark hair before setting his Styrofoam cup on the table. He opens his mouth to reply, but is cut off by Chase as he pops his head out of the door.

  “That’s offensive,” he calls.

  “To peanuts,” Park retorts under his breath.

  “I heard that,” Chase yells.

  “I don’t give a shit,” Park sings.

  I sigh. This feels good. This feels normal. My friends giving each other shit over absolutely nothing. I needed this.

  Park settles onto the couch, his head falling back against the cushion just as Chase joins us. We all sit there in silence for several seconds. And then Chase sits forward, resting his elbows on his knees and says, “Peanuts are good for you.”

  “Are you defending your sack size?” Park asks, his head rolling to look at Chase. “Because that’s just sad.”