by Sarah Porter
Whatever was wrong with this man, I thought then, it must be getting worse. Officer Rodriguez clearly had some degenerative brain disease, and he was trying to hide it so he wouldn’t lose his job. There was no point in getting angry. I made myself go cold again, stared flatly. He patted me on the shoulder.
Then he left, and as soon as I was alone, or anyway surrounded by unconscious strangers who’d staggered in during the night, his words started circling back around. Zipping past and flicking at me. If that’s what you call alive!
What was that supposed to mean? Josh couldn’t have lapsed into a coma, could he, while I was slumped in that chair? The thought nagged at me; it threatened to locate some sick premonition in my dream. I was up, aware that I should wait for a nurse to call me, and aware that I wasn’t going to wait another moment.
No one stopped me in the hall. No one jerked me back at the door to his room.
The bruises on his face found my gaze first, like a garland of fat purple chrysanthemums. As far as I could tell, he was sleeping peacefully, his lank, unwashed hair spread out in rays of mixed color. He looked so sweet, and so terrible. An IV snaked into his arm.
I bent over him. Watched him breathe. His lashes were fluttering; they seemed too light and frail without his usual mascara.
“Kezzer!” he said. His free arm whipped around my neck. I was shocked by how strong it seemed. He yanked me down to him so sharply my feet nearly skidded out behind me, showered wet kisses all over my cheeks. “Kezzer, they said I was lost for three days? They said you went crazy searching for me?”
I’d told him that last night, too, but it was to be expected that his thoughts were a mess. “That’s all true.”
“Did you miss me unbearably? Did you realize how totally you love me, once you thought I was gone?”
“I didn’t need to realize it, silly,” I said. “I’ve always loved you.”
If he wasn’t so obviously traumatized, his talking this way would have made me suspicious. I might have wondered if his whole disappearance was a stunt, meant to torment me into doing whatever he wanted. I wouldn’t necessarily put it past him; he could act out sometimes, even in extreme ways; he was perfectly capable of starting drama. But, no: it was just typical Josh, fervent and unguarded.
“I strongly believe that you should love me even more. Starting now. Kezzer, say it? So I know I’m back from—wherever I was?”
He unlocked his arm and let me go; I pulled up a chair. “Where were you? Do you remember anything else now?”
Josh grimaced. “Flashes, maybe? I don’t know what’s real. Kezzer, don’t ask me about that! It makes me so confused, like I might throw up—I can’t stand to think about it.”
Hysteria tightened his voice. That was what I’d thought. I’d kill them.
“I won’t ask anymore. You know I’ll be here if you ever want to tell me.” I stroked his hair, carefully. It was so rank with sweat and oil that it stuck to my hand. “The cops are going to come around with questions, though. I can’t help that.”
His lips twitched; they still looked too thick, engorged. “You haven’t said it yet. You have to, Kezz. So I won’t feel so lost.”
“That I love you even more now?” I smiled at him. “More would be excessive.”
“Oh, like that should stop you!” At least he was grinning back at me, and he seemed like himself again, if only for a moment. Sparkling and impish.
“Oh, fine.” He ruffled with expectation. “Joshua Korensky, I love you even more than I used to. Even though I’ve always loved you a stupid amount. Are we good now?”
There was a purplish throb to the light, as if the current had winced in its wires. A subtle plucking or puckering sensation that might have come from the floor, or might have been just in me. He seized my right hand, kissed the back of it.
“And you—like, you’d do anything to keep me with you? You’d go anywhere? Officially?”
It was getting to be an unnerving ritual. But this was a time for Josh to hear whatever he needed, not for me to stay in my comfort zone. “I’d go anywhere to reclaim you from those freaks, that’s for sure. Not that you ever belonged to them!”
The lights cringed again, the ventilation rasped—isn’t unreliable power dangerous in a hospital?—and Josh’s eyes rolled back. I’d thought he was mostly better, at least physically, but maybe I was wrong. He gave a hacking little laugh and both his hands clutched at me convulsively, fingers digging into my arms. The air transmitted a shudder; it hit me in the guts.
Then it passed. We were just as we’d been, except that Josh’s lids were drooping sleepily. A nurse came and shooed me from the room.
They told me they were holding him one more day, for observation. If he kept improving, he could go home.
I wondered if Lexi would come visit; if she’d get over despising me, now that I’d found him, at least enough to look me in the face again. The thing was, Lexi had never screwed up anything in her life, not the way I could. She was always on top of whatever anyone threw at her. It was amazing she’d gone this long without deciding I was worthless.
In our house, the wall between my bedroom and Josh’s was thin. Voices sifted through the plaster. I’d had to hear Josh talking, even when I didn’t want to. I’d had to overhear him confiding in Lexi, along with her bitching about me. You can’t blame Kezzer, Josh had said; he’d said words to that effect repeatedly. It’s seriously harder for her than anybody knows but me. She totally likes you, Lexi.
And Lexi: I get that she’s protecting herself, Josh. It’s just insulting that she sees me like that, like I’m one more person she has to watch out for? I don’t think I deserve the way she’s always on her guard with me.
Of course you don’t deserve it, Lexi! But I don’t think you see—I bet Kezz would run into a burning building for you. And that would be way, way easier for her than opening up the way you want her to. The scariest thing in the whole world for Kezzer is letting anyone know her for real. She’s afraid of what they’ll see.
But if Ksenia understood me, then she wouldn’t need to be afraid of what I’d think of her!
I’d sat with my arms clutching my knees, listening to them discuss how scared I was. It hadn’t been easy. None of it: not when I heard Josh making excuses for me, not when I heard him tell her about my parents. About Owen. Not when he talked to her so seriously about things that he would have joked about with me. But I never said anything about it, to either of them. We’d hang out and wisecrack at the gorge, and I’d pretend I hadn’t heard a thing.
If Lexi wanted to know that stuff so badly, it was better if Josh just got it over with.
they might not find their way home again
I finally went back to the house, to pick up clean clothes for Josh and to shower and change myself. Word had gotten out that he’d been found and he had a parade of visitors to keep him busy, bringing him flowers and chocolate and his favorite foods: rubbery vegan brownies, fried tofu wontons. Xand’s mom gave me a ride back, dropped me off at 32 Whistler Drive: the same split-level with its butter-yellow siding, its sofa covered in Tuscan Wheat Ultrasuede.
So why did it feel so wrong? The moment I walked in the door I was struck by the conviction that I’d entered the wrong house by mistake: a house that coincidentally happened to look exactly the same as ours. Mitch’s red corduroy jacket draped from its hook by the door, but maybe it was just a very similar jacket. Emma’s sunflower teapot sat on the kitchen table, but it wasn’t as if there was anything distinctive about her taste.
I stepped outside, checked the number on the house. I even walked back to the corner to read the street sign. I had to admit that everything seemed to be in order, but the sense of wrongness, of something altered, kept its grip on me.
So I leafed through the stack of mail that waited on the kitchen table for the day when our foster parents returned. I picked up every envelope in turn and read the names: Mitch R. Delbo, Emma Kossuth Delbo. No amount of staring made the names change.
After twenty minutes or so I had to swallow the truth of it: I was where I should be. If something had switched around, it wasn’t intrinsic to the house. It must be me; I must be looking at my old surroundings differently. I decided that my perceptions were slanted by everything I’d been through—it had been a rough night, with brutal days beforehand—and went off to shower. The close, chemical air of the hospital still clung to my skin like a film.
Even though I’d talked myself out of my delusion, I still didn’t much like getting undressed in that house. I felt too exposed at the touch of its drafts, too vulnerable. For a while I stood in the bathroom, just watching everything, every toothbrush and towel, as if they would move. One of Josh’s multicolored hairs hung over the sink. A stray hair from before; from when he was still—well, relatively—innocent, undamaged. At last I turned on the water, stripped, and stepped in.
In spite of myself, I rushed through washing, then toweled off fast and yanked fresh clothes on. I went to grab his things and get out of there.
Probably that was all that was wrong with the house: that Josh wasn’t in it. He’d been gone for too long. The sense of his presence was eroding.
Once he came back, it would all be fine.
I found a shopping bag and headed to his room. As I flipped on the light and started digging through his clothes—I wanted to bring an outfit he especially liked—his voice kept on in my mind: I’m just not that kind of boy.
Josh, be real. You’ll live because nothing’s going to kill you. Would I let you get hurt? I’d wanted to comfort him, and at the same time I was annoyed. I’d suspected he was acting. Being outrageously manipulative.
You can’t watch me all the time, Kezzer. In a few weeks you’re probably going off to that stupid group home for ex–foster kids, because you won’t have any choice. We both know it. And even if we make it through that—it’ll happen sometime when your back is turned, that’s all.
What will happen? It’s not like there’s anything wrong with you. You don’t even catch colds.
Oh, Josh had said. I feel like somebody will kill me. Just, you know, sometime when I’m happy, doing whatever I want to do. I’ll be so incredibly happy, glowing with it so much, that it will piss somebody off. It’ll be obvious that I don’t belong on this planet at all!
I hate to call you a moron when you’re already crying, I’d said, and he’d cracked up laughing in mid-sob. But that has got to be the most ludicrous shit I’ve ever heard in my life.
Well, I hate to think of how guilty you’re going to feel! His tone was a blend of petulance and teasing. When you’re, like, showering my cold, gorgeous body in white rose petals, and you have to remember how you wouldn’t take me seriously! He’d rubbed his face on my tank top, wiping his tears on me, and I gave in and pulled him up and kissed the salt off his cheeks. Maybe it wasn’t fair of me. Maybe I’d acted too much like I was already his girlfriend.
I couldn’t be the strong one all the time, constantly enforcing the boundaries. It got exhausting. And maybe he’d really believed what he was saying, anyway.
In an overflowing drawer I found his favorite shirt, with a photo of a kitten dressed as an astronaut. Clean black jeans, his newish ones, socks and underwear, and a hoodie with black glitter stars. Stashed everything in the bag, hung it on my wrist, and turned to go.
In the corner of my eye, something moved. It was near the back of the dresser.
I decided that I’d had enough of it all, thanks. Enough of psych-outs and delusions and the mentally deranged comments made by local law enforcement. I didn’t turn my head, but my attention stayed fixed on my periphery, even as I told myself to ignore it. Whatever it was.
Except that Mitch and Emma would have a fit if they came home to mice. If that was what was back there, I should step up and deal with it.
So I looked. It isn’t easy to describe what I saw.
It was a fragment of Josh, as if a mirror had recorded his reflection at the moment it shattered. It had one brown eye with heavy glitter liner, a sharp angle of incomplete nose, half of his voluptuous mouth. It was unmistakably Josh, but also not: Josh shrunken and reduced and ugly, a shard of imp. Two feet tall at most.
It glided along the wall’s base, mostly flat but sometimes popping into three dimensions. There would be a thrust of cheekbone or a jutting elbow, just for an instant.
I could hear its pained breathing. Its single nostril was broken off, after all.
It saw me watching and flashed me a look: furtive and shamefaced, but also just a bit amused. The corner of its mouth hiked, but not enough to count as a grin.
It hit the edge of the wall and vanished, as if it had ducked under the paint.
The whole thing was unacceptable. It was not in any way okay for my mind to generate sights like that. I’d barely slept, and that might be affecting me in upsetting ways—but sleep deprivation was no excuse for imagining something so grotesque.
Especially since the hallucination had picked on him. I would have preferred to see myself deformed that way, or Emma; anyone but Josh, who was sweet and hurt and needed me.
I edged out of the room with quick scissor steps. My breath had stopped completely but my pulse filled my head with a maddening tick, like a metronome set much too fast. For a moment I stood in Josh’s doorway, staring back at the corner where the thing had disappeared. Too stunned to slam the door behind me.
Then I did. It banged shut and I started gasping.
It didn’t matter if that thing had been a hallucination. There was no way in hell I’d let Josh sleep in the same room with it. When he came home, he’d just have to sleep next to me.
And when Mitch and Emma got back here, only four days from now? What did I think I could do, call an exterminator?
The bag of Josh’s clothes had gotten twisted, tight as a tourniquet around my wrist.
* * *
The hospital was weirdly empty that night. The only nurse I could find—a twitchy blonde who jerked along like a puppet, like she might have some kind of muscular disorder—was nice enough to let me sleep in Josh’s room, in a pile of mangy blankets on the floor. They’d moved him to a double, and now an old man snorted, in seemingly permanent sleep, on another bed across the room. There was the soft beep and wheeze of machinery, the chirr of current in the wires. I didn’t tell Josh anything about what I’d seen. He was still fragile. I didn’t want him to get weirded out or feel nervous about returning home.
I stretched out below him. Josh hung his arm over the side of his bed, and I propped my elbow on my bag so that I could hold his hand. The nighttime lighting gave the room a silver-black cast. The grit of an old photograph.
“Kezzer? Isn’t this awesome?” I laughed; leave it to Josh to think that being stuck in a hospital was something to celebrate. “I don’t mean that! I mean, it’s like we’re already together. We don’t have to sleep in different rooms, or worry about Emma or Mitch walking in on us.”
It’s not that I like both boys and girls, Josh had said. I like people! That’s one reason Kezzer is so perfect. She’s a million times more of a person than she is a girl.
But you don’t like Kezz like that, Mitch had answered. Quickly. You don’t like Kezz in that way, of course, Josh. You love her as a big sister. And Josh hadn’t answered.
Mitch had in fact walked in once when Josh was sleeping in my bed, and he’d completely bought Josh’s line that he’d had a nightmare and needed me to comfort him. Then he’d told us that we were too old for that and shouldn’t do it again. It didn’t look right.
“They’ll be back soon,” I said. “We need to be prepared for that, emotionally I mean. They’ll want to know when I’m leaving.”
“Maybe they won’t come back,” Josh said sleepily. “Then we’ll just live together in the house.”
Every time I started thinking he was back to normal, he’d say something like this. Something that proved me wrong. “That seems unlikely. Seriously, Josh, you can’t be hoping that the
y’ll die in a plane crash?”
“No—oo. I’m not hoping they’ll die, Kezz. That would be way too mean. I just think they might not ever find their way back here. That’s all.”
This sounded less like insanity, and more like Josh’s way of playing. He’d go off on flights of wish fulfillment sometimes. Giddy and whimsical. If he was just having fun, then I shouldn’t shoot him down.
“Right,” I said. “That’s totally a thing that happens.” I was trying to play along, but my voice was taut.
“It is!” Josh said. “This is why people should be very, very careful about going on vacation. They might not find their way home again.”
“What about us, then? Will we find our way home from the hospital?”
“Of course we will! We’re still right here in town.” He squeezed my hand. “Don’t you worry, Kezzer. We could be in a labyrinth with walls made out of living snakes, and I’d make sure we got where we were going.”
The day when we’d be forced apart was much too soon, and it was coming just when he’d been through hell. That was all this was. Josh was defending himself against the crush of reality by saying crazy things. I could understand the impulse.
“Then next time we’re lost, I’ll leave it all up to you.” My mind was sliding. I could feel my eyes wanting to go out, my vision guttering like candle flames. “Baby? I think it’s time to sleep.”
“We’re lost right now,” Josh murmured. “But in a good way.”
“In the best way,” I told him. My voice sounded slurred. “Because I got you back.”
“I love you so much, Kezzer,” Josh said. “Anything I ever do, that you maybe wonder about? That’s why I did it. Like, I can guarantee that in advance.” Even through the blankets the tiles felt cold beneath me. My shoulder blades seemed too sharp. The hospital beyond our room was oddly quiet, as if it had been evacuated when we weren’t looking.