Gone, Gone, Gone (16 page)

I want to wrap myself in the dark and disappear.

I want to wrap myself in Craig and disappear.

Will I give in to this? Is my heart broken now? Will I spend my whole life trying to turn boys into him? Dressing them in polos and pricking their fingers to make them cry?

I have a desperate urge to get what I deserve, for once.

I go into the bathroom and drink water out of the sink. It’s hard to swallow. My lips still feel tingly, and so does my body everywhere he touched me. Maybe I’m dying.

Tonight, I’ve been so worried about getting sick again. My whole head is throbbing
cancer cancer cancer
,
and I’m paranoid it means something. I got blood work done last month, and I was fine. But I’m scared. I’m scared again. I close my eyes and do deep breaths.

I bet Craig never thinks, “I’m dying.”

And to be honest, I probably spend more time thinking, “I’m living.”

I sit down on the toilet. I can see myself in the mirror. This is so weird. Who wants to look at themselves in the mirror when they’re on the toilet? I guess it’s okay when you’re only sitting here, like I am now. But I still like to
know where mirrors are before they sneak up on me.

I look at myself for a while.

I try it a few different ways; I turn my face at different angles, and push my hair back off my forehead, trying to see how I’d look if I were a tiny bit different in a few different ways.

I am so pathological.

I feel like I need some sort of hotline right now. Not a suicide hotline, more like the opposite. Is there a hotline for people who feel a little too motivated to be alive?

I don’t want to die, but I wish waking up every morning didn’t feel like such a
fuck-you
every single time. Sometimes I don’t want to get out of bed with my hands in fists and a fight song in my throat because rah rah I beat cancer. Sometimes I’m only getting up to go to school, and that has to be okay. I need to calm the fuck down about still being here, but I don’t know how.

I’m worried I’m going to go through my whole life feeling like someone’s pulling me, like from a string behind my belly button. I’ll keep going if you let go. Really. You don’t have to make me. I have every intention of sticking around. I didn’t
mean
to be ephemeral. I wasn’t trying to scare you.

I put my hand against my reflection for a second, like it’s a door I can fall through. This isn’t
Alice in Wonderland
. I’m not nearly pretty enough. I’m probably not even fucked up enough.

There’s
a scratching at the door. I open it, and a little white kitten comes in.

I go down the stairs.

I go down the next flight of stairs.

I’m in Craig’s room. Or his basement, anyway.

He’s on his side on his bed, facing away from me. He’s whispering. His voice is so quiet it makes my ears hurt to listen. Maybe whispering for him is like crying for most people.

He says, “Please please I would have saved him if I could, I would have done anything, would have given up anything just to keep him here so that my boy could be okay. I know there’s nothing I can do but I need it to be enough that I would have done it, and I need that boy back with me right now.”

I can’t listen to this without wanting to believe it’s about me. I can taste crying in the back of my throat and in my sore mouth. I don’t want it.

A dog barks and Craig starts to roll over. Fuck. I run back up the stairs with my six-minute-mile legs.

I hear, “Lio?”

I’m already gone. I sit in a chair in the kitchen. He doesn’t come after me.

I whisper, “What if someone breaks in and tries to kill me? What if you wake up and I’m gone?”

I take the phone off the wall and call home. My dad answers almost immediately. And instead of saying hello, he lists all of us who aren’t
there, top to bottom: “Talia Rachel Veronica Lauren Lio?” He always does that. Always. And it always breaks my fucking heart.

“The last one.”

“Honey. You okay?”

“Can you come pick me up?”

“I’ll be there in a second.”

“I want to come home,” I whisper.

CRAIG

WHEN I WAKE UP, HE’S GONE.

I can’t say I’m that surprised.

Was that a dream? Did I sleep?

My mom says, “Where’s Lio?”

“Left early.”

I made his escape too easy. The code for the alarm system is still on a Post-it on the wall, because we can’t remember it yet, and clearly my dogs don’t give a shit if someone comes or goes in the middle of the night, and I didn’t do anything to encourage him to stay, so what did I think would happen? I don’t
even care that he left, pretty much. It’s not like he’s dead.

I make myself a bowl of oatmeal. Mom’s standing at the counter, reading the newspaper. “Anyone get shot?” I ask.

She clicks her tongue a little. “No.”

“Cool.”

She says, “You don’t need to rush. You’re not going to school today.”

“Wait, what?”

“We’re pulling you out until—”

“Until what?”

“Until this has passed, Craig. God, after what happened to that poor boy, you should be relieved to stay home.”

The truth is, I’m not particularly dying to go to school, but somehow I know this means I’m not going to see Lio today, and that sucks.

“Are you still going to work?” I ask, and then, “Is Dad going to work? What’s even going on in this house, God, is Todd asleep?” And when all of those are yes, I sit patiently and wait for Mom and Dad to leave and then, woosh, I’m out looking for animals. I find Carolina, my rabbit, scratched but okay, and Mom calls from work and says she has amazing news, that she got a call from the animal shelter and she’s coming home with Marigold.

I know that it’s amazing, and I try to get as excited about this as I was when we found Sandwich. But I’m having a
hard time feeling anything today. It’s like I’m finally too tired for all of this.

Two cats.

One rabbit.

A guinea pig.

That night, while I’m hitting refresh over and over, a message finally comes in.

My heart stops and holds midbeat.

C—

Ok ok stop freaking out. I’m fine.

I miss you too.

My shrink told me to stop emailing you.

I heard about the shit happening back home. That’s insane. You’re safe, right?

Love,

C

Oh, God, he didn’t say “Fuck you.”

My fingers are going to fly off from typing so fast.

C—

I’m fine. Of course I’m fine. I’m emailing you, aren’t I?

Cody, I’m sort of
dying without you. You should see the boys I’m turning down because I’m still hung up on you. What’s going on over there?

Love,

C

While I’m typing that, my email dings as a new message comes in.

Craiger—

I want to apologize for leaving last night. And for creeping into your room. Basically I’m just sorry for being such a creeper all the time.

School was lame. Hope you enjoyed your day off and you didn’t get shot or anything. Oh, sniper humor. Have you watched the news? They’re doing all these videos about how to not get shot when you’re pumping gas. Informative.

Duck if you see a white van. Or if you’re pumping gas. Better yet, don’t pump gas, okay? But if you do, you bob around a lot and try to stay behind your car. Thank me later, when you’re still alive. Stay alive, Craig, okay? Don’t get cancer.

So I don’t
know what decision we came to, last night, really, and I’m confused, so . . . here’s what I think is going to work out best for you. Here it comes.

Essentially, I’m not going to bother you anymore. I don’t mean this in like an emo way, though it probably sounds that way to you. I wouldn’t blame you for thinking that. You haven’t seen much of my ability to make friends. But I swear I can do it. I had a whole posse of gay boys in New York. And I think my father might still think I’m straight. I don’t even think he’s trying to deny it, I think he really is just that clueless. So he’ll probably match me up with a nice Jewish girl soon, and there’s a friend.

Anyway, I’m not even sure if there are any fabulous Jews or homosexuals at our school, but rest assured that if there are, I will find them. By Friday they will be my babies. Mark it.

Lio

God, Lio. What am I going to do with him?

I resist the urge to open his email up next to Cody’s and compare them. I know which email is better. I know which boy I . . . I think I know which boy I want. So it doesn’t matter.

I sleep.

I dream about Cody.

I wake up
feeling dizzy and sick at five in the morning and go upstairs for more food—more food solves everything. And even though there wasn’t a shooting all day, I’m not going back to school, my parents tell me. Because obviously no shooting yesterday means there has to be a shooting today. Exactly like whenever there’s a shooting it means there’s going to be another right after. My parents have gone crazy.

Dad is going to a meeting with some other principals or the school board or something, and his hands are shaking around his tie. Today they’re figuring out if they’re going to close the local schools.

I notice for the first time this note by the phone, folded up with my name on it. How long has it been there?

And inside is the world’s smallest smiley face.

LIO

I’M GETTING PRETTY FUCKING SCARED OF GOING TO
school. In the car, I ask Dad, “I’ll go today, but can I stay home tomorrow?”

There are teachers lined up outside the school to make sure I don’t get shot on my way in.

He takes one of my hands and squeezes. “Yeah, champ. If it makes you feel better.”

Michelle hasn’t been back since it happened. A lot of the kids from her school haven’t, I think.

No Craig at school, not that I’m supposed to be looking for him. Second day in a row. And today is the one-week anniversary of realizing I’m in love with him. Yay, my life.

I celebrate the occasion by attending a Gay-Straight Alliance meeting after school, before therapy. I told my dad this morning that I was going. He nodded and said, “Have fun.” I’m so confused about what he wants me to be and who he thinks I am.

Everyone mills around, waiting for the meeting to start. There are a few flamboyantly gay guys, who I envy and fear at the same time, and some girls in black buckled boots and eyeliner with really long hair.

This is my first GSA meeting ever. And I’m here for the sole purpose of picking up boys. Hopefully a few of them. I need one to make out with, but I would also like a posse.

But more girls come in, dominating the meeting, and there are only three boys who don’t scare the fuck out of me. My radar immediately locks on one—Jack Johannson, he says, when we go around introducing ourselves. Alliterative first and last names are my favorite. Like Peter Parker or Ben Bruckner. Amazing.

We talk about dental dams and this talent show coming up and gender-queerness, which is a concept that I want to understand but don’t, yet. I sit and listen and don’t talk. Afterward, we mill around and eat chips and soda. I am the only one who doesn’t drink diet. I love gay boys so much.

I make a beeline to Jack and give him my
I’m short and isn’t it cute?
smile. Can I do this without talking?

Apparently so. He smiles at me and holds out his hand. “That’ll get you far. What’s your name, kid?”

I shake his hand. “Lio.”

“Like Tolstoy.”

“Uh-uh. L-i-o, short for Liam. Which is short for William.”

“A nickname of a nickname.”

I missed being teased. Craig is too nice to do it. “Can’t get much more abbreviated than that. Soon I’ll just be a thoughtful pause.” This is an old joke, so it isn’t hard to get out.

He laughs a little. “I haven’t seen you here before.”

“I’m new. Transfer.”

“How are you liking the meeting? Are you a freshman?”

“Hey. Sophomore.”

He grins and sips from his cup. “Sorry, sorry.”

“You?”

“Senior.”

Ho buddy.

He takes an Oreo off the table and looks around. Damn. It must be my turn to talk. Um . . . shit. Okay. I say, “So, do you come here a lot?”

He says, “My best friend actually founded the group. Her name is Leah, funny enough.” He gestures toward her. She’s one of the girls in boots.

I say, “Hey, that’s like me,” in a dry voice, because clearly that’s the point. He laughs.

He says, “Yeah,
she and her girlfriend were getting some shit written about them in the bathrooms. It was completely cliché and disgusting. We never thought we even needed a GSA branch here, but there you go. And the school was surprisingly open to it, and I think it’s been helpful.”

“You’re straight, aren’t you?”

He chuckles in that way again. “Yeah, I put the S in GSA.”

I snap my fingers like, “damn it.”

He’s still smiling. “I’m too old for you anyway.”

And then he gives me a hug.

He asks me how I’m coping with freshman year. I make a face and hit him. Then he asks how I’m coping with the shootings. I give him my usual one-word answers, but he says, out of nowhere, “You’re used to saying a lot with your eyes, aren’t you?”

It scares me, being noticed. But I nod. Because I like that I didn’t have to play the dead brother card or the cancer card for him to understand that there’s stuff I’m not saying.

Sometimes, it’s nice to remember that I have stuff I’m not saying.

Maybe I’m not as talked out as I thought.

Because there are things I should have said last night when Craig was telling me that he wasn’t ready, and telling me that
I
wasn’t ready.

I should have said:

It’s up to me whether I’m okay with the possibility of being broken.

Plus, I’m a
tough little son of a bitch, and don’t you forget it.

If you really don’t want to be with me, you cannot slide out of it sideways. You have to mean it.