Gone, Gone, Gone (10 page)

Adelle nods.

“This can be a part of my life.”

“That sounds very healthy,” she says, like she isn’t sure.

I say, “But shouldn’t I be past the part where I’m
so
angry?”

Adelle says, “Lio, you have to understand that grief doesn’t work in neat little stages. Bargaining, depression, and yes, anger, they’re part of grief, but they don’t come conveniently in
order, waiting their turn. Does that make sense? It’s all right that you’re angry. You’re fifteen. You don’t need a reason to be angry.”

I exhale. “I’m done talking. Can you talk for a while?”

“You don’t pay me to lecture you.”

“My dad pays you.” I’m so tired. Sometimes I use cancer as an excuse when I get so exhausted even though I sleep and exercise and eat well. I tell people it still affects me. That’s total bullshit. I’m healthy.

My last therapist said I was tired because I was depressed. I don’t think that’s what it is. One of my friends from New York has depression, and it eats him alive. I’m not depressed. I’m . . . fucked up.

She says, “You are allowed to feel guilty for surviving.”

“Everyone tells me not to.”

“People are afraid to acknowledge that there’s validity in that. You did live. Your brother did not. That
is
something to feel conflicted about.”

“I don’t wish I were dead or anything.”

“What do you wish?”

“That Theo would be back. And fifteen. But that’s stupid.”

“It isn’t.”

I pull at my jeans. They’re black, and they’re dirty. “I wish I could come in here just to talk about being in love. Like you were my friend or something, I don’t know.”

CRAIG

I NEED TO SLEEP. I NEED TO STOP THINKING AND I
need to stop thinking about how I need to sleep.

It’s four. In the morning. I need to sleep.

This is when my thoughts start to get so very very weird, when everything is on an axis and tilting, and this is how many hours of sleep you really need to miss. This is how many emails from Cody you need to not get. Here I am.

Sandwich sits on my feet and curls up and snores.

“Sandwich,” I tell her. “Do you get sick of being alone?”

She so doesn’t care at all. It’s like nobody in this whole world gives a shit, least of all Lio, least of all me.

And it’s not like it’s easy to
sleep or even possible to run out of things to think about for even a second because, ta-da, here’s this email I got a few hours ago.

Craigy—

Sorry this took me so long.

I’m sorry about your friend’s dad, and it took me a while to figure out that maybe that was all I can say—I’m sorry. For being a jerk about it. I didn’t know. And it sucks.

Truth is I talk a big game about September 11th, but I didn’t know anyone who died. It feels special because it’s home.

Truth is, I really, really miss New York.

I’m freaked out tonight. I keep hearing things in the apartment upstairs.

See you tomorrow. No. Shit. It’s Friday. See you on Monday. Damn it.

Lio

God, so what do I do with this? I’ve been staring at it for the past million and a half hours.

Why is the only thought in my head,
you can’t fool me, you were born on Long Islan
d
?

I am looking for excuses to be angry. I am picking apart the sentences for bits that could be offensive and I am wondering if I am too young to have issues with intimacy.

I hear Todd making breakfast. Speaking of talking a big game, when does he sleep? It must be while I’m at school, but it’s kind of crazy to think that my family exists when I’m not here.

I go upstairs.

He’s throwing scoops of coffee into the coffeemaker. “Good morning,” he tells me.

“Yeah.” I slump at the table and bury my head in my arms.

I hear him pause in his scooping. “You okay?”

“Yeah. You?”

He exhales. “A kid killed himself on the phone with me tonight. I was talking him down, doing everything you’re supposed to do, and I hear the gunshot. And I keep saying his name—Taylor, Taylor—like, praying it went off in his hand . . .”

“Christ.”

“And it’s like . . . of all the things to hear right now. A gunshot.” He shakes his head.

I don’t know how he can think of the sniper when he
just heard someone die, someone, an actual person, die, and how he can think that the shot he heard is reminiscent of the sniper, and not the other way around.

“How old was he?” I ask.

“Fifteen, sixteen.” He turns the coffeemaker on and starts fixing oatmeal. I feel like he’ll keep making something new as soon as he finishes what he’s cooking, and he’ll never sit down and eat, and that’s my brother, really. He says, “I’m sorry about Dad, at dinner.”

“It’s fine.”

“He’s not very sensitive of you, and I’m sorry. He just doesn’t understand you, you know?”

“I think I’m the one who’s supposed to talk about how misunderstood I am, and you’re supposed to come back at me with lots of elderly wisdom or something. Can I have a glass of milk?”

“May I.” He actually says that, and then he pours a glass for me. He overfills the glass, and milk spills onto the counter.

“Don’t cry,” I say, and he snickers a little. I wipe it up with a paper towel.

“Thanks,” he says.

“It’s my milk.” I take the glass. “Besides, the cats would be up here in a second if I hadn’t jumped on it.”

He says, “That’s where Dad’s issues come from. It’s not just the fact that he doesn’t know how to deal with anyone but elementary schoolers—though let’s not pretend that’s
not an issue. He has no idea why you got all the animals and what to do with the fact that you essentially took over this house last year. Or let them take over the house, at least.”

“I don’t know what to say. I love them.”

“God, I know, Craig.”

“And it’s not like it matters because now they’re gone.” And I start shaking, and then here is Todd hugging me, and here I am crying again because I am apparently four, or however old he told me I was.

“Hey,” he says. “It’s okay. We’re going to find them.”

“Flamingo already died.”

“Who?”

“The bird.” I breathe hard. “Dead bird. Now what? How many other dead animals are out there? And Dad won’t let me go look for them . . .”

“Come on,” he says. He lets go of me and puts on his coat.

“What?”

“It’s not as if you have school to get ready for, yeah? And I don’t need sleep. I have Saturday nights off. Come on, let’s go look.”

When we’re looking around, calling and whistling and swinging our flashlights, Todd tells me about this girlfriend he had who used to leave letters in his locker folded up like frogs or swans. I don’t know why he thinks this story will make me feel better, but it does.

He doesn’t have a girlfriend now. He says he’s too busy.

“Is that how it works?” I say. “Is having a girlfriend or a
boyfriend something like a job, like you need room in your schedule?”

“Well, no, Craig, but they call it a commitment for a reason. You don’t need to block out time in your day for a relationship, but you do need to have time to nurture it. Time to give a shit about someone else. And sometimes you don’t have room for another person.”

So I guess we have a capacity for things we can care about and then we reach it, and we’re screwed. That sounds like I’m judging Todd, but I’m not. I think that it’s a shame that he loves a few people so incredibly much that he’s used up all his love and he can’t spread it around, and that those people are me and Mom and Dad and people who call him on the brink of death who he loves with every bit of him for those five minutes, and the problem is that none of us give that much of a shit about him, because we don’t know how. Because I see him looking at me and caring so much and trying to connect to me and failing failing failing, and I don’t know how to help him, because I don’t know what I need from him. I don’t know what I need from anyone.

I’m so worried about him. And God, what if something happens to one of us? It would be like losing all your money in the stock market. That’s a horrible analogy, but it’s what I mean. It’s
just that I think there are some good reasons to keep a foot on the ground. That’s all I’m saying.

Todd says, “And you’ve been in a relationship more recently than I have. You know how it is.”

“Not really,” I say, because I never had trouble making room for Cody. But Todd looks at me funny, so I say, “Yeah. I don’t know. It’s been a really long time. Sometimes I think I’m remembering it wrong. Like it wasn’t . . . how I thought it was.” I’ll decide that I’m pretending everything was so much easier and better and sweeter than it possibly could have been, in reality. Was he really that gorgeous? Were we really that molded together? And then I see a picture or I hear a song I heard with him and, yes, it was just as incredible, and he’s just as gone.

Todd puts his hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry. We don’t have to talk about this.” He lowers his voice. “Though you brought it up.”

“Well, yeah. I’m thinking about it.”

“Look,” I say.

Todd shifts a little so he’s in front of me. “What?”

I aim my flashlight at a bush. “There’s something moving.”

He says, “Let me handle it.”

“It’s not going to shoot me.” I approach on my hands and knees and make kissing noises. “Hey, baby baby, come out?”

He mews a little and comes out. Holy shit, it’s Shamrock. He’s as cute as I remembered.

“Todd, it’s Shamrock!”

He breathes out. “I’m so glad we found one.”

And, for a minute, Shamrock is my whole world. It’s like when I adopt them for the first time, and for a second all I have to do is keep a little animal clean and fed and warm and that is enough, and this kitten needs nothing else from me but love and there is nothing my love won’t fix for him. I can hold him against my chest and tell him I love him and there you go, he’s purring. That’s all he needs. His fur is so soft. “Thank you, Todd,” I say.

One dog.

Two cats.

Three rabbits.

A guinea pig.

I have this weekend friend. He’s only my friend on the weekends, because we don’t go to the same school and we don’t care enough to track each other down. But on Saturdays we have karate together, so after that we usually get Slurpees or something. His name is Mansfield, which is one of the most unfortunate things I’ve ever experienced.

He’s not very good at karate, either. I don’t know why he’s in my class, but there are only six other kids in the class with us, so maybe they’d feel too bad about dumping him. Anyway, it’s not like I’m great at karate. We’re probably the
failure class and no one cared to tell us, but I still like doing it. It keeps me from being an angry young man, I guess.

After class we pack up our shit and I ask him if he wants to walk to the 7-Eleven, and he says, “I don’t know, Craig. I don’t know if this is the perfect week to be walking around looking for a Slurpee, you know?”

What the fuck?

I say, “Come on, it’s like half a block.”

“It’s right by a gas station.”

“Yeah . . . ?”

Mansfield looks at me. “Come on, Craig, don’t play dumb. That’s where everyone’s getting shot: gas stations and parking lots. I don’t want to die before I have sex.”

“So I’m home free, then.” I give him this big smile, and Mansfield looks at me with this face, and it’s so worth him thinking I’m straight if it makes him this jealous of me. Heh. I mean, he could always be jealous of the fact that I’ve slept with a boy, too, or also that I own him at karate, or that I’m not too afraid to get a Slurpee, but this is easier.

So I think, whatever, I’ll go get a Slurpee myself, it’s not as if I really value Mansfield’s company. But when I walk out of the karate studio, there’s my mom, station wagon idling in front of the place, and she says, “Craig,
come on, hurry into the car.” Jesus Christ. It makes me want to wear fluorescent pink clothing and jump up and down. I need to send Lio to her, to tell her exactly what my chances are of getting shot. Next to nothing. Next to
nothing.
This is all so stupid.

LIO

I DON’T THINK THERAPY ON FRIDAY HELPED ME.
I probably should have sucked it up and talked about the sniper. Maybe that’s what I needed. Maybe that would fix me.

My dad is on the phone with one of my faraway sisters. Jasper and Michelle are at the mall buying Chrismakkuh presents. They asked me if I wanted to come. I don’t know why I said no. I like the mall. I never buy anything, but I like to walk around and look at people.

My therapist has been on me about that, lately, how I always say no to things I would like. I don’t think I’ve ever had a drink on an airplane because I always say, “No thank you, I’m fine,” too quickly to consider something. It’s
ridiculous that these are the problems that my dad pays so much for me to talk about.

My real problem is that Craig hasn’t answered my email.

I should probably do some homework, but I have a hard time convincing myself that homework really matters. I haven’t done any reading for a class since middle school, but I still get As on all my papers.

It’s depressing that those As are, so far, the entirety of my success story. When I was nine, I thought I would drop out of school and join a band and travel all over the world. And now here I am, and whether I do my homework or not, graduation has started to look inevitable. I got out of dying from cancer, but I can’t get out of graduating from high school.

Maybe I’m destined for a middle American life. That’s probably why my twin got killed off. Your average desk bitch doesn’t have an identical twin.

This doesn’t explain why I’m gay. This doesn’t explain
anything.
God, I need to shut up. Or maybe say some of this stupid shit out loud so it will go away.

I sit up.

I should probably tell my therapist this, except she’s not supposed to listen to me say this bullshit stuff. She’s paid to weigh in on my bullshit stuff. I don’t need perspective on this. I don’t need to be told that all of this comes down to twin guilt.