Unforgivable (11 page)

David's eyes, clouded over with smoke. A different smoke from the one I know, not herby and benign. This one is too sweet. Poisoned candy.

My mother's body draped over the too-large armchair. “Mom, wake up.” I shake her. Nothing.

Your tears were so loud, they drowned everything out. My thoughts, my feelings—just whispers compared to your screams.

Tinfoil everywhere, tiny blackened crumpled silver. Junkie confetti.

Blinds pulled. The house dark. Black, except for the tiny red ember of my mother's cigarette. I hear her inhale and the red glows, illuminates her face.

“You're not supposed to smoke in here,” I say.

She says nothing.

Evie, you were right in front of me, but I couldn't find you.

She puts the cigarette out on the arm of the chair. The living room smells like burning leather. “Are you happy now?” she slurs, and I have to find my way up the stairs in the dark.

I thought if I loved you enough, if I came running every time you called, maybe that would save you. If I said yes every time you asked for anything. If I never said no.

His tooth is brown and rotting. I can smell it. I try to convince him to go to the dentist, I am sure Dad will pay for it, but David refuses. “I don't need his dirty money,” he says as he snorts a pile of brown powder with a rolled-up dollar bill.

Mom, don't you know you're killing him?

Razor blade edge. Red blossoms turn into a stream. There is nothing but this blood, nothing but this clear, simple pain. Unambiguous. Perfect. Comforting. Mine.

A few days later, the tooth is gone. David chewing on a bloody handkerchief. “See?” he says. “Fuck Dad. I can take care of myself.”

The only thing that can take away this pain is a different kind of pain.

Your face when you were sleeping. The only time I trusted you not to go away.

No love, no pain.

David's death, permanent on my skin. He joins the other scars. So he'll be with me always. So he can never leave.

Again. A razor blade between my fingers. This old bully, resurrected. A promise to myself, broken.

Each cut, a good-bye. Each cut, the only truth I can speak.

The pressure, the break through skin, then the sting. The moment of fear mixed with anticipation, the moment before the blood blooms.

Each scar on my arm is a memory.

Then the relief. The sigh. The letting go. My pounding heart, the blood going whoosh inside my head.

Gone, gone. Everyone gone.

The moment of calm when I cross through the space in between pains.

Each scar is a point in time when everything else disappeared.

Now. Old scars reopened.

Whatever problem I had bleeds away.

I hide behind the blood.

I fall asleep before the shame sets in.

NEON LIGHTS REFLECT OFF SCUFFED LINOLEUM FLOORS. Metal wheels squeak. Carts clatter. Phil Collins's eighties heartbreak song “Against All Odds” crackles over the loudspeaker. Dad hums along cheerfully, as if he's completely unaware that this is one of the saddest breakup songs ever written. I'm embarrassed that I even know this song. Dad's bad taste in music must have seeped into my subconscious over the course of my childhood.

“How can you just walk away from me?”
Phil Collins sings.

How could you, Evie?

I'm leaning against the back of the shopping cart, following Dad through the aisles of the grocery store. Since my run-in with the cops, he's been overdoing it in the parenting department, as if making a sudden heroic effort to pay attention to me will make me behave the way he wants, as if watching TV next to each other on the couch will get me closer to becoming a miniature version of him. There's no use grounding me since I don't have a life, so he
has made my punishment more “family time,” but I cringe every time he says it. I don't know how he can justify calling the two of us a family.

The fresh cuts on my shoulder throb beneath their bandage, and my dad has no idea. Even after a couple of days, the wounds are still raw, still seeping. I woke up this morning and the old familiar shame was right there waiting for me, pounding in my head with every heartbeat. I had to throw away my favorite T-shirt, had to hide it in the bottom of my trash can so no one would see it. Nothing can get that much blood out.

I promised myself a year ago I wouldn't do this anymore. No one is worth this blood. No one is worth hurting myself over. But I still did it. I still thought it would fix something. But Evie is still gone and I am still empty.

“Marcus, where do you think we'd find marinated artichoke hearts?” Dad's looking at a list Monica gave him for dinner tonight, but neither of us know how to find anything outside the frozen food aisle.

“How would I know?” I say. I grab a jar of spaghetti sauce and a pack of noodles and throw them in the cart. That's all the cooking I know how to do.

“Eggplant?” he says. “Radicchio? Is this a joke?”

“Why don't we just order a pizza?”

“Monica is an amazing cook. It'll be worth it, I promise.” He picks up a jar of capers and inspects it. “Damn, this is a good song.”

“Phil Collins? Dad, you are so white.”

“This was a big hit my senior year of high school.”

“Did you slow dance to it at prom?”

He smiles and puts the jar of capers back on the shelf. “As a matter of fact, I did.” He gets a faraway look on his face. He sways his hips to the music. “Ah, Gina Edwards. She was so fine.”

“Gross,” I say, but for a second, I imagine my dad, thirty years younger, with a sculpted Afro, big ears, an eighties-style tux and tacky boutonniere, an awkward teenager under a disco ball during the ugliest style period in history. That cheers me up a little.

It's Friday night, and I'm hanging out with my dad at the grocery store, but I am beyond caring about cool. At least I'm somewhere besides my room with the walls crushing in on me. At least there are things to look at and smell and hear, to distract my senses. I'll take anything to get out of my own head. Anything to drown out the spiraling thoughts in my mind, the scene on repeat, over and over, of Evie standing there and saying nothing.

The truth is, spending time with my dad the last few days hasn't been all that bad. I must really be losing my mind.

“You're the only one who really knew me at all.”

Fuck you, Phil Collins. You are so not helping.

Dad's mouth is moving, but I can't hear what he's saying. My mind cannot comprehend his voice, does not recognize it without its usual tinge of anger and exasperation. Something is wrong with his face. It is too soft, too kind. His lips curl up at the edges.

Monica leans over and kisses him on the cheek. “Marcus, your dad is so funny,” she says.

“Huh?” I say, poking at a purple vegetable I do not recognize.

“He was just telling me a story from when you were a kid.”

“Remember that time we went camping?” Dad says, laughing.

I shudder at the memory.

“We went camping one time,” he says. “And that was enough to convince us to never do it again.”

“What happened?” Monica asks.

“First of all, it rained. It started as soon as we pulled into the camping spot. I had never set up a tent before, but I was determined to do it. Renae suggested going home, but of course I would not admit defeat.”

“Of course not,” Monica says with a playful roll of her eyes. I study her face for a moment and see the glimmer of something real, even likable.

“I was going to succeed no matter who I took down with me,” he says, and something warm and unexpected spreads in my chest. What is this new self-effacing humor? He meets my eyes for a moment, and I'm the one who looks away first.

Dad chuckles. “I tried to build a fire with wet wood for about two hours while everyone else hid in the tent.”

“We had an okay time,” I say. “Mom brought lots of books and games.”

“Yeah,” he says with a sudden sadness. “I remember hearing you all laughing. I could have joined you, but somehow I thought it was more important to build a stupid fire in the pouring rain.”

Monica reaches over and puts her hand over his and they share a look between them that I never saw between him and my
mother. Monica
gets
him. He's letting her get him.

I take a small bite of my dinner. It's good, like restaurant good. Way better than the frozen crap we usually stock.

“What do you think, William?” Monica says with a smile in her eyes. “Is now a good time?”

Dad takes a deep breath. “It's as good a time as any.” He wipes his mouth with the cloth napkin from his lap. “Marcus,” he begins. “Monica and I have something we want to tell you.”

And just like that, I am numb. I have no feelings. Doors shut. I am closed for business.

“We're getting married!” Monica says, bursting with happiness.

What am I supposed to say? I want to warn her. She has no idea what she's getting herself into.

“Marcus,” Dad says, “I would be honored if you'd be my best man.”

“Okay,” I say blankly, in shock. I don't know what I think. I don't know what I feel.

“I know this must be a huge surprise for you,” Monica says. “And you probably have a lot of different feelings coming up.”

Nope. No feelings. None at all.

“We love each other very much,” Dad says, and even if it's true, it sounds like bullshit.

My phone rings. Perfect timing. I pull it out of my pocket and see a number I don't recognize.

“I have to get this,” I say, standing up. Dad's dopey in-love face shows a glimmer of the more familiar angry-dad face.

“Hello?” I say as I walk out of the kitchen and into the living room.

“Marcus?” says a girl's voice.

“Yeah. Who's this?”

“My name's Kasey,” she says. “I'm a friend of Evie's.”

My heart stops. All the feelings I wasn't feeling a moment ago come rushing into my body at once like some kind of toxic storm. I feel everything there is to feel. I am light-headed. I need to sit down.

“How is she?” I ask, leaning against the wall. “Is she okay?”

“She's fine. She's great, actually.”

Something releases inside my chest. I exhale and close my eyes. When I open them, tears cut a river down my cheeks.

“She wants to see you.”

“Why didn't she call me herself?”

“She wants to talk to you, but she didn't want to do it over the phone.” The voice named Kasey sighs. “Do you want to talk to her or not?”

“Yes,” I say. “Yes.” A million times, yes.

A tiny glimmer of hope. The world stops ending.

SO MUCH SPOKEN IN WHISPERS. A SECRET LANGUAGE between us.

You said, “You see me.” And in those moments, I believed you. When your shoulders would fall away from your ears. When you would close your eyes and breathe into my neck, and we'd curve around each other like swans, and I would find the places made for my lips.

Supposedly, swans mate for life. When they kiss, their necks form the shape of a heart.

But a swan song is not a love song. It is good-bye. It is a last act, a final performance.

Does a swan really sing when it dies? Is its pain really that beautiful?

I'M WALKING TOWARD A COFFEE SHOP IN DOWNTOWN Berkeley, the kind of chain Evie and I would never have gone to.

I feel her before I see her. The back of my neck tingles. My eyes find her at a table in the corner, staring at me. My feet don't feel the ground as I walk the miles it takes to get to her. Her smile is nervous. She seems to be shaking as she stands up to hug me. The hug ends before I even have a chance to feel her in my arms, before I have a chance to smell her. My body stings with her absence.

She sits down and so do I. “Do you want to get something?” she says.

“No, I'm fine,” I say. “What are you having?”

“Green tea.”

“That's new.”

“Yeah, I'm trying not to do coffee anymore.”

“Why?”

She shrugs. “Trying to be healthy, I guess.”

“Me, too,” I say.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Evie's toned down her look in the few weeks since her coma. She's in a simple T-shirt and jeans, her face is bare of makeup, and her short blond hair is swept casually to the side. The hardness she had cultivated before is nowhere to be found. She's more beautiful than ever.

“You look good,” I say. “Healthy.”

“I've been swimming a lot,” she says. “You cut your hair.”

“I needed a change.”

She takes a sip of her tea in the silence that follows. I wish I had bought a drink so I'd have something to do with my hands.

“This small talk feels weird,” Evie finally says. “We never had to do small talk.”

“So let's stop talking small.”

She holds her breath for a moment before speaking. “I'm sorry it's taken me so long to contact you. I know you must have been worried. It was cruel of me to disappear like that without an explanation.”

I say nothing. I wait for more.

“Even now, I can't really explain it.” She's looking at her hands. “When I woke up from the coma, the first thought on my mind was that I needed space. Not just from you, from everything that reminded me of cancer, of my life after cancer, everything that reminded me of getting high.”

“You needed to run away,” I say.

“No, Marcus,” she says firmly, looking up from her hands. Her pale blue eyes burn into mine. “I needed to stop running.”

“You could have told me,” I say. “I would have understood. You could have trusted me.”

She shakes her head.

“You didn't trust me?”

“No. It's not that.” She suddenly looks so innocent, so lost. “I didn't trust myself. I knew if I saw you, I'd fall back into my old ways.”

“But I wouldn't let you. If I knew that's what you wanted. I'd help you, Evie.”

“That's not something you can control. It's not up to you.”

I shake my head. “I don't understand.”

“I don't have everything figured out yet. But I think you inspire something in me.” She looks down. She cannot meet my eyes. “Something reckless.”

“You're blaming this on me?”

“No. It's—” She searches for words. “It's how I react to you.”

“That doesn't make any sense.”

She stares at her tea, so rigid, so still, and I am a hurricane.

“You know my parents wanted to press charges against you?” she finally says. “They wanted to believe everything was your fault. I managed to convince them you didn't know anything about the pills.”

“I didn't.”

“Right. So you're off the hook. You avoided the wrath of the Whinsetts.” She's trying to be funny, but I cannot think of a worse time for humor.

“What happened?” I say. “How could you let it get that far?”

She sighs. “My dad's father was a horrible alcoholic, and so was his grandfather. I never met either of them. They both died young. That's why my dad doesn't drink, why there's never been any booze in our house. Dad vowed never to drink because of them. The disease is in my blood,” she says, “before drugs or alcohol even entered my body. I can't ever get away from it. It's like I was programmed to get addicted as soon as I tried something.”

We're both quiet for a minute. Even though I know addiction can be hereditary, it seems like such a convenient excuse. If it has everything to do with your family, why did Evie catch it and I didn't?

Evie laughs a tired, ironic laugh. “What is it with me and diseases?”

I shake my head slowly. I cannot stop shaking my head. It is the only movement that feels right. “How could I not have known you were high all those times? How could I be so stupid?”

“There's no way you could have known. I did everything I could to hide it from you. From everyone.”

“I should have noticed the signs. I know what they look like. There were so many.”

“Marcus, don't.”

“The flu? Who gets the fucking flu in June?”

“That's over now.”

“I could have helped you. I wanted to help you.”

“I know.”

“I can help you now.”

That's when I notice the tears in her eyes, her bottom lip trembling.

“I'm changing, too,” I say. “I quit smoking pot. I have a really great internship this summer.”

“I'm happy for you,” she says sadly.

“We can help each other.”

“You can't save me, Marcus.”

“We can save each other.”

“No,” she says. “We can't.”

“Why not?”

“That's just not how it works.”

Silence. A silence so loud it kills me.

Evie sits up straight and I can tell it's taking all her strength to look at me. “My one priority right now is to stay sober,” she says with a rehearsed strength in her voice. “I have to let go of everything that might get in the way of my doing that.”

“So you're letting go of me?”

“I have to take care of myself now,” she says without feeling, as if it's a line, pumped into her by some ventriloquist. “I can't see you anymore.”

“Do you still love me?” I demand.

“Marcus, don't.”

“I have a right to ask that. I have a right to know.”

“And I have a right to not answer.”

My shoulders tense, the muscles in my arms go rigid. Somewhere deep down, I know I still love the girl in front of me. But all I can feel right now is disgust, fury. “I used to think you were the bravest person I ever met.”

She looks away.

“But maybe I was wrong.” I want to hurt her. I want to tear her apart. “Maybe you're a coward like everyone else.”

“Stop it.”

“Only a coward could throw someone away like this.”

“Marcus, stop.”

“If you love someone, you stick around. No matter what.” I know I'm raising my voice, I know people are looking, but I don't care.

“Please go,” she whispers.

“No.” I pound my fist on the table. Her cup of tea spills and drenches my lap, not hers.

“Just go!” Evie yells. “Leave me alone!” Everyone in the café looks in our direction. A few bodies lean toward us, ready to protect the sweet-looking girl from the thug across from her. Of course everyone would assume it's me who hurt her.

“Fine,” I say. “I'm going.” I stand up. “You're really good at this, aren't you?”

“Good at what?” she mutters, unable to meet my eye.

“Breaking people's hearts.”

Then I walk out the door.

I need to rage. I need to slam into people. I need to go someplace so loud it will drown everything else out.

So I drive to the one place I know I can count on for this kind of diversion: 924 Gilman, the all-ages punk club in Berkeley where bands like Green Day and AFI got their start, before they sold out and made millions.

The handwritten sign in front of the club says tonight is a metal-core showcase, featuring bands I've never heard of. The people milling around outside are the usual mix ranging from Urban Outfitters pseudohipsters to Dumpster-diving gutter punks who look halfway to homeless. As usual, I am the only nonwhite person here, as I am at most shows I go to. By now, I am used to being the token black guy, despite living in an area full of black people. But the scenes don't mix much, and I'm even more of an outsider with the black kids than I am here.

I walk through a cloud of cigarette smoke to buy my ticket and notice a girl with long bright-green hair and a lip ring checking me out. An old spark ignites and the warmth feels better than anything I've felt in a long time.

“Hey,” I say. “Do you have an extra smoke?” Her eyes are lined with dark purple. The rings in her ears are thick plugs of wood. She's cute, but I can't help but compare her to Evie, how Evie's beauty was so natural, how she didn't have to try so hard to be cool.

“For you, my dear,” the girl says. “Anything.” She puts a new cigarette in her mouth along with the one she's already smoking, lights it, and places it between my lips.

“Got anything stronger?” I say, and she grins. She takes my hand and I follow her.

We smoke a bowl behind a boarded-up warehouse a couple blocks away from the club. Gilman has a strict no drugs and alcohol policy, but they must know at least half of the people at the shows are wasted. The girl's name is Amber and she's from San Leandro. I lie and tell her I just graduated from Oakland Tech.

We don't talk much as we pass the pipe back and forth. The more I look at her, the more I can tell this isn't really her style. Her large-gauge earrings are fakes—I can see the part going through her ear is actually a normal-sized piercing. Her shirt is newly ripped. Her scalp is still green from the recent dye job.

A wave of sadness hits me so hard it makes me sick to my stomach. I don't want to do this. Not this bullshit. Not here. Not with her, not with anyone who's not Evie. But then she reaches over and pulls me close, puts her mouth close to my ear, says, “Want to go see the show?” and I can't think of how to tell her no.

The club is dark and the music is loud and pounding. The vocalist screams into the mic and he could be talking gibberish for all I know. It doesn't matter what he's saying, just how it sounds, how it feels, how the rage and anger pulses through the crowd and catches like wildfire. People are pushing and thrashing in front of the stage, running into each other, knocking each other over, taking out their aggression on strangers and friends. Are they really that angry, all these stomping white kids with tattoos and bulging neck veins? What are they so angry about? Does it even matter?

I want to run into the middle of it. I want to get bruised and
beaten by these people I don't know. Amber hangs back while I throw myself into the pit. I close my eyes and join the jabbing elbows and shoulders, the hands pushing, the bodies slamming. But none of it hurts, not really, not in the way that counts.

The pit is a frenzy of men, half of them shirtless, running around in circles until they crash into another's orbit, hot skin on skin, sweat mixing. We touch but never make eye contact. It looks like rage. It looks like anger. But maybe that's not all it is. Maybe it's the only way some people can figure out how to touch, how to throw themselves into another person without really getting hurt.

After a few songs, I am panting and drenched with sweat, not all of it mine. All the songs sound the same—same beat, same three chords, same unintelligible screaming—but I don't care. I stand on the edge to catch my breath. Blood races through me like electricity. I need to do something with this adrenaline. I'm not done, not spent.

A hand grabs mine and pulls me into the shadows against the wall. Lips and a tongue that taste like smoke and cinnamon.

Amber pulls me to her, presses her body against mine. “Do you have a car?” she says.

I nod.

“Take me there,” she says, even more breathless than me.

We are silent as we fumble around in the car to put our clothes back on. I kept my shirt on so she wouldn't see the fresh cuts on my shoulder, and I can feel the sting of wounds reopened. The stain of blood on my shirt shimmers in the darkness, evidence of
my cracking open. I am so tired—posthigh, postmosh, postsex—and all I want to do is curl into my bed and sleep. But there's a girl next to me pulling a shirt over her head. There's a sick, empty feeling in my stomach telling me I made a huge mistake. We just did one of the most intimate things two people can do, but I don't think I've ever felt so lonely.

Amber puts on a fresh coat of bright red lipstick, then pulls out her phone and starts texting. We are inches apart, but it's like I'm not even there.

“So,” I say.

“Hold on,” she says, holding up a finger to silence me. Her phone buzzes with a new text, she types something back, then puts the phone in her purse. She looks at me and smiles the kind of smile you'd give someone ringing up your groceries.

“That was fun,” she says.

“Can I call you some time?” I think that's what I'm supposed to say.

She laughs. “You're really cute, Marcus. But I don't want a boyfriend or anything. I'm leaving for Vassar in like two months and I'm traveling most of the summer.”

“Oh.”

“I'm gonna go now, okay?” she says, opening the door. She leans over and gives me a peck on the cheek. “So cute.” She climbs out of the car and closes the door, leaving me in the backseat, sticky with the sweat of so many strangers.

When I get home, I take a shower and wash the memory of this night off me. But I also have the munchies, so I stop in the kitchen to grab some food before I head upstairs. I hear footsteps on the stairs, and I throw my sweatshirt over my head just in time so Dad won't see the bloodstains on my shirt.

He's humming as he enters the kitchen, in pajama pants with no shirt on. The tuft of tight curls on his chest has started to gray, and his belly is rounder than I remember it.

He startles when he sees me. “Oh, Marcus,” he says, and I can tell he's embarrassed. “Hi.”