“Come on, Chris.” Laurie said with a nod as she held my shoulder. “At least try to eat something.”
With a half-assed nod I agreed. My heart wasn’t in it. The woman had to practically pry the broken object from my clammy grip.
Quinn was sitting at one of the chairs at the table. He perked up at my presence but I didn’t spare him another glance. He’s just a stranger anyways. I’ll take him to Pennsylvania and then we’ll go our separate ways and that’ll be that. He can live his exciting life on the run and I can get this bullshit roadtrip over and done with and then drink myself to death in Michigan. Living is overhyped anyways.
The two strangers got to know each other as I pushed mashed potatoes around with a fork like a broody tween. As lame as it sounds, I always dreamed of getting scolded by a mother, one that was actually around. Toby used to tell me mothers were overrated. But now he’s dead and so is my mother and my father might as well be. And Ria is living her own fantastic little life and I’m just a child crying over bruised knees and the fact that I don’t have someone to bandage them for me. Well boo hoo, Christy. What’s new? I’ve always had to do everything on my own. God, I hate that fucking name. Why can’t I just do what I’ve always done? Build my walls back up and move on. Stupid asshole Tobias. My life would have been so much better if I had never even known you at all.
I didn’t mean that. I didn’t mean that. I just… I just- I-
AGH. Mashed potatoes taste like fucking cardboard and this whole earth is colorless. Everything is so stupid. What’s the point? I hate this. I hate this world. I hate this life. I hate me. I hate me.
I can’t even cry. There’s nothing left. I’m just an empty husk, hugging his girlish knees over a full plate of food. And nothing matters. Nothing. Matters.
So I stopped trying. I got up and dumped the food and dragged my feet up the stairs without a word into the bedroom. I curled back into the sheets, watching the night sky glimmer effortlessly out of a dusty window. I feel nothing. I wish I was asleep just to not be here anymore. Of course I can’t though. I’m so tired but I just can’t sleep.
I begged my body to stop existing. It has a knack for spiting me. Might as well just take my meds then and pray for sleep.
One time in our second year-
“Chris-!” The door swung open. The shock had me frozen for a second as I took in Quinn, slightly breathless and hair all messy. And then his eyes went wide because of fucking course he just barged in, needle still buried deep into my outer thigh, hand mid-pressed onto the syringe. My one fleeting thought of that moment: at least I didn’t do it in my ass this time.
“You use?!” he sputtered stupidly. That shocked me out of my spell. Of course he’s a goddamn idiot.
I finished my injection and tossed the needle into an empty water bottle, pulling my pants back up. “I’m kind of regretting bringing you along right about now, you know that?”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“What do you think it means?”
"I- wait so you don’t?”
I groaned loudly and pushed past him in the doorway, seeing as it was clear he didn’t look like he would be leaving anytime soon.
“Where are you going?” he called as he raced after me down the steps.
“Outside,” I growled.
“Chris-”
“Go away.”
“Chris!”
“Quinn.” I slammed open the back door onto the deck and shoved my body against the railing, willing my back to grow wings to take flight.
“Chris!” Quinn yelled, chasing after me.
“Why are you even here?!” I yelled. “Go away! Leave me alone!”
“Chr-”
“Don’t pretend like you care! Just… don’t.” I sunk to the wood in defeat, hugging the bars of the railing.
“I know- I know what it feels like to lose-”
“No you don’t! No you fucking don’t! You don’t know what this feels like! You don’t know what it feels like to lose the one person in the world you love, the only person who could ever love you! You don’t know what it feels like to have your heart ripped completely out of your chest and replaced with this- this- this growing void of numbness and-and pain and every STUPID memory you ever shared with him! You don’t know anything.”
“Christopher, stop! You’re hyperventilating! You have to breathe.” I felt more and more cornered by Quinn and his words and his body, inching forward until I was fully pressed against the bar to keep as much distance between us as possible. And then I did the only rational thing a person could do in that situation. I threw up.
Completely puked my guts between the bars of the railing onto the grass down below. I kept vomiting until only bile came up, acid burning the lining of my esophagus. With a wince, I wiped away the string of saliva from my lower lip. As the world came back into focus I realized Quinn was holding up my hair for me.
Stop-” I croaked out.
“I’m literally not even doing anything. Shut the hell up you dumbass white boy,” Quinn scolded. Under different circumstances I might have even laughed.
After the nausea subsided, I sucked in gulps of fresh air as I leaned against the wood. Hell of a moon we got tonight.
“Listen-” I started, not knowing where I was going with that.
“You don’t have to explain. I mean, you don’t owe me an explanation. None of my business,” Quinn rushed to tell me. I sized the man up, curious as to his motives. I’m a nobody. Is he this nice to everyone? Why steal that jewel then? I know there’s more to that story. Whatever. Not my problem.
“Well whatever you’re thinking I can guarantee you that’s not it.” I shrugged and left it at that.
“Here. I was actually looking for you for this.” Quinn extended a rolled joint to me. I looked at him in surprise.
“What’s with that look?” he asked with a chuckle.
“I just didn’t expect you to smoke weed.”
“Really? Why not?” Because you’re like a little puppy. I just shrugged. I paid attention to his hands as he lit the joint for me. They were rough and scabbed. Didn’t suit his almost angelic face and aura. They made him look more… human. I don’t know why that disappointed me. But it did.
After two hits, I passed it back to him. I let the smoke sit in my lungs and clear my head before exhaling. Is dying before I’m thirty really such a bad thing? It’s obvious life was never meant to be easy for me. Maybe I’ll just quit while I’m ahead.
“Chris?”
“Dude stop calling my name. It’s fucking annoying.”
“How old are you?”
“How old do you think I am?”
“I don’t know. Thirty one?”
“Fuck you. Actually fuck you.”
“What? Am I wrong? I thought you were older than me.”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty nine.”
“Bullshit.”
“I’m serious.”
“You’re twenty nine?”
“Ha why do you sound like that? Is that so weird?”
“Yes! I’m twenty five. I thought you were younger than me.”
“Why?”
“You’ve got that whole young and innocent vibe.”
“I should steal more often if I get compliments like that.”
Maybe it was the weed but a small smile inched along my cheeks.
“I think that’s the first time I see you smile.”
“Keep talking and I’m going to steal your teeth in the middle of the night.”
Quinn laughed suddenly, that orchestrated choir of vibrations that shook the silence of night.
“You remind me of… someone I used to know.” I’ve been getting that a lot lately it seems.
“Do you have any goals in life, Quinn?” I asked once we were both thoroughly leveled.
“Hmm if I don’t end up in prison for stealing a priceless artifact… I’ve always wanted to be a math teacher.”
"A math teacher? Why the hell would you want to do that?” I asked in disbelief.
“What?” the man defended. “What’s so wrong about that?”
“Literally no one in their right mind ever dreams of being a math teacher. They settle on being a math teacher when their dream job fails.”
“Well I do!”
“You’re a weirdo.”
“Well what about you?”
“I don’t know about all that, life goals and the works. But I always wanted to get out of Greenville Ohio. And I made myself a promise not to turn into my old man. But, honestly, it’s harder than it sounds. I think I’m failing already.”
“Bad relationship with your father?”
“Mind your damn business, Quinn.”
“So-”
“Yeah. Bad relationship.”
“Gotcha.”
“You?”
“Never knew him. My mom and grandma raised me.”
“Gotcha.”
“If it makes you feel any better, we’re not in Ohio anymore.”
“You sound like Dorothy.”
“I’m right though,” Quinn smiled as he stretched out his arms to the night sky.
I breathed in, enjoying the prickle of cool air on my skin. It all suddenly felt nice, breathing in air that didn’t belong to Ohio, to my father or mother or everyone we ever went to high school or college with.
‘Yeah,” I nodded with closed eyelids. “You are.”
“You know-” Quinn started. “You don’t have to but you can talk to me about whatever is bothering you.”
“But we don’t know each other, nor will we. What’s the point?” My slightly high brain challenged.
“That’s the whole point. We’re strangers. No strings attached. We can just vent and shit and it won’t even matter. Because we’ll go on our separate plans after this and never see each other again.”
“I tried a no-strings-attached relationship. It never works.”
“What happened?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know.”
“Yes. That’s actually the whole damn point.”
“Smartass. Why are you so hellbent on trying to make me feel welcomed?”
“You first.”
“I- fine. Whatever. We fell in love. And then we planned on running away after college. We had only a few more months, but now he’s dead. Happy?”
“How did he die?” Quinn asked gently. I was about to tell him off for being too nosy, but the look in his eyes as I turned made the words die in the back of my throat. No one has asked me that with such genuine concern and care. What could I do but answer?
“He killed himself. That morning he texted me that he was going to visit his parents. He told me he loved me and that I should stay at my friend’s for the night. I- I knew it sounded weird but, at the time, I just brushed it off like it was another one of his poetic seizes. But I couldn’t shake that feeling that something was wrong. He- He never made it to his parents. He drove to our old high school and slit his wrists in the parking lot.” Strange, how empty I feel saying that out loud.
“The reason as to why we’re here right now… he couldn’t leave me in the will for my own safety. So now I’m on this stupid roadtrip, picking up every broken piece of us.”
“I’m sorry,” Quinn apologized softly. I shrugged. Not much he could do. I get it. “You know I did lose someone close to me. I can’t say anything that will ease that pain. Everyone always told me that time will heal, but it didn’t. Never did. But I learned how to honor the person I lost in the day-to-day. Learned how to forgive myself and how to accept the hurt on some days and accept my own joy on others. I just want you to know it is possible. The first step is… learning how to forgive.”
“How do you even do that?” I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose.
“Love. Your love for him and the discovery of a love for yourself.”
“You make it sound so easy. Like I haven’t struggled with that shit for all twenty five years of my life.”
“Only because I’ve been where you are right now. And I was able to do it. So I know you can too.”
“You don’t know what I’m capable of.”
“I don’t. But look at you now. You’re doing what you never could in the past. You have to give yourself the credit.”
“Fine, Mr. All-knowing.” I said with an obvious eye-roll, even if some part of me did agree with him. “Your turn. Why the hell should you care?”
“I kind of answered that already but I’ve been where you are. And, for the record, I don’t give a shit about sexuality so don’t go acting like that for the rest of the trip. I think everyone deserves kindness and respect. What they do with that kindness after getting to know me is up to them.”
“Ugh you’re like Oprah or something.”
“Will you stop being a whiny bitchbaby for one second, Chris?”
“Nope,” I said, puffing up my chest proudly. “It’s part of my charm.”
“If you say so,” Quinn chuckled before getting to his feet and dusting off his jeans. He reached a hand out to me, which I took.
“Come on. Let’s go inside.”
The room was still cold as I sat amongst my pillows with the broken snow globe, hand lingering on the wind-up screw of the base. I wondered if the music box still worked, after all this time. Only one way to find out. I wound up the screw until the spring clicked and let go. The soft melody of an old holiday tune wrapped around the room, defying that part of me that wished it wouldn’t.
Despite how hard I willed for my brain to forget, all the memories I wish I never had were coming back. And I don’t know how to deal with them all. Before, I had Toby. But now I’m completely, utterly
alone.
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