Damaged

by Amy Reed

  When I get onto the country road, I stick out my thumb. The first car stops to give me a ride. I am very aware that in the real world, this particular form of transportation is considered dangerous. But this is not the real world. This is a place where nothing happens. The driver is an old lady who lives a half mile down the road from me. She babbles about her grandkids while I stare out the window.

  I knock on Grandma’s door. She doesn’t like it when we enter without knocking. We don’t even have keys. I think she’s secretly afraid Mom will steal her stuff and try to sell it. Grandma doesn’t even bother to come to the door and greet me. I just hear her gruff voice from somewhere inside call, “Come in.”

  I open the heavy front door and enter. Somehow it’s about twenty degrees cooler inside. The blinds are all drawn and everywhere I look it’s dark wood and velvety colors Grandma describes as “merlot” and “indigo.” Even though a house cleaner comes every week, it still seems dusty, like the air is thick with years of accumulated boredom and repressed feelings. I don’t know how she lives in here alone. It’s the most depressing place I’ve ever been.

  “Hi, Grandma!” I say, attempting to sound somewhat cheerful. I figure I owe her that much for letting me enter her dungeon. I hear a grunt of acknowledgment from somewhere deep in the house, but nothing more. I walk up the creaky grand staircase to the computer room. Sickly red light streams in through stained glass windows and paints my skin. All the angles and dimensions of this place seem somehow off, and I feel dizzy for a moment, unstable, like the staircase is rippling beneath my feet, like everywhere I look are fun house mirrors that warp the world into twisted versions of itself.

  The feeling passes as quickly as it came on; I take a deep breath and remind myself that lack of sleep can bring on impaired balance. I look around to reacquaint myself with reality, but even though the world has stopped spinning I am still in the same haunted house. It’s still cold and dark and full of whispers. I can’t believe my mom grew up here. No wonder she’s so crazy.

  The computer room doesn’t fit with the rest of the house, which is why I like it. It’s a small room with a big window, which I open wide to let as much air and sunlight in as possible. The walls are plain white instead of covered with ornate wallpaper, and the shiny laptop and printer sit on the desk like they could actually belong to someone in this century. The browser is still open to the same thing I was looking at the last time I was here, something about extracurricular activities at the University of Michigan. I click in the upper right hand corner and start typing:

  how to stop nightmares

  Dr. Phil’s site says something about dreams reflecting unfinished business from your life, how repeating traumatic events is normal. Thanks a lot, Dr. Phil. He says talk about it with someone. Not going to happen. Next.

  Everywhere I look says basically the same thing: anxiety, stress, emotional issues, traumatic experience. All the suggestions seem so stupid: avoid eating close to bedtime, don’t drink caffeine or alcohol, don’t watch scary movies, spend time in nature, think happy thoughts, try to take charge in the nightmare and turn it into a happy dream, and if none of that works, see a therapist. The longer I search, the weirder the websites get. It’s astounding how many people claim to be certified dream interpreters. What kind of school issues these certifications? I also come across quite a few magic spells. Who are these quacks? I want step-by-step instructions that have been endorsed by major medical schools. I want something certain. I want something scientific. But there’s nothing like that. No one has a real answer. The Internet is full of people claiming to know things they don’t actually know.

  I close the laptop and feel a sudden gust of cold wind. I look out the window but the leaves on the trees are still; there isn’t even the slightest breeze. I rub my eyes and realize suddenly how exhausted I am, and apparently so out of it that now I’m hallucinating temperatures and air movement. But a little tiredness I can deal with. Sleep is something I can control. And that’s when it comes to me:

  The only real way to avoid nightmares is to not sleep at all.

  * * *

  “Someone called for you,” Mom says when I get home. “A boy.”

  “Who?” I say, even though I already know who it is, though I have no idea how he got my number.

  “He didn’t say. But he had a low voice. Very manly. Sounded cute.”

  “How does someone sound cute?”

  “Same way someone sounds like a bitch,” she says. “For example.”

  I open the fridge and say nothing.

  “Oh, and Camille’s mom called,” Mom says. “Again.”

  My throat closes up and guilt spreads through me like poison.

  “What is that woman’s problem?” Mom says, her voice sour. “Can’t she take a hint? How many times does she have to invite you over for dinner before she realizes you’re never coming? Her kid dies, and now she’s trying to adopt you? It’s creepy.”

  It takes all of my strength not to jump across the room and strangle her.

  “I’m going out tonight,” Mom says. “Don’t wait up.”

  “Whatever.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You’re not working?”

  “Nope.”

  “It’s the last Friday night of high school, and you don’t have plans?”

  I pull a jar of peanut butter and an apple from the fridge.

  “God, Kinsey, why don’t you just kill yourself right now?”

  Before I have time to even realize what’s happening, my arm retracts and my shoulder shifts back, like some kind of involuntary muscle memory left over from when I used to play softball. I throw the apple and it barely misses her head. It thuds against the wall behind her.

  For a moment there is complete silence while Mom’s eyes grow big and her mouth drops open. I freeze. I make a quick mental note of where the kitchen knives are in case I have to defend myself from her attack. I wait for surprise to morph into fury, but instead her body relaxes and her face opens into a big cruel grin, and she erupts into her cackling laugh she reserves especially for me when she thinks I’m a big joke.

  “You think you scare me?” She picks up the half-smashed apple from the floor and tosses it back to me. I catch it. “You were going to eat that, weren’t you?”

  I say nothing. I feel the wet pulp in my hands.

  “It’s still half-good,” she says. “You don’t want to waste food, do you?” She walks over and pulls it out of my hand, holds it up to my face. “Here,” she says. “Eat it.” She pushes it against my lips.

  I back away. “No,” I say.

  “Come on,” she says, getting closer, pushing the apple even harder against my teeth. My face is wet with it. The sweet smell makes me sick. “Eat it.”

  “No!” I shove her and she stumbles a few steps back. She smirks and tosses the apple at my feet.

  “Nice to see you’re not a total wimp.”

  Neither of us moves. Neither of us is willing to be the first to look away. My eyes burn into her and I can hear nothing but the fire in my head growling I hate you I hate you I hate you.

  Finally, she looks away, breaking the spell. She walks in slow motion to the kitchen table and picks up her purse. “I’ll wait for my ride outside,” she says, then struts out the door. Her moves are exaggerated, like she has to remind herself how to walk.

  I can’t be certain, but I think I just won that round.

  * * *

  I am watching TV. I am trying to stay awake. I start getting drowsy as soon as I get bored, which is always. I click through channel after channel, not staying on anything too long. The longer I sit here, the more like a zombie I feel. I can sense myself getting stupider with every reality show I linger on too long. It seems like every other channel has a version of the same show about ridiculous, irrespons
ible rich people. Why are there so many of these shows? Why do we allow these horrible people to be famous? Is it because of people like me, bored idiots sitting on their couches for hours on end, needing desperately to be entertained? People who, despite their better judgments and taste, can’t help but be fascinated by how this different species lives, these people who are so far removed from the real world the rest of us live in.

  What would it be like to never have to worry about money? To be so rich you don’t even have to care about how you treat people because you know there will be more lined up to follow you around and be your “friend”? What if you felt entitled to anything you wanted, entitled to having your own TV show, entitled to hundreds of thousands of people fascinated by watching you shop and talk on the phone. What if you could get away with anything? Would that power automatically corrupt the best of us? If you gave a saint a billion-dollar trust fund, would he turn into an asshole overnight?

  No matter how fast I change the channels, my eyelids start to feel heavy. I make a pot of very strong coffee. Agave syrup will never taste as good to me as good old-fashioned white sugar, but it’s better than nothing. I sip the sweet concoction as I watch a series of commercials: dating hotlines for lonely people, two-year technical colleges, drug rehab, something about Jesus, weight-loss systems, at-home electrolysis kits. They assume I am one of the lost and ugly who watches late-night TV on a Friday, and they are right. The marketing companies are speaking to me. They are saying, “Get a life.”

  I return to a show about rich people. An orange-skinned, leathery-faced woman gets Botox. Someone’s toy poodle catches a lizard by the pool, and they all have to talk about it for ten minutes while drinking margaritas.

  This tiny blender will change my life, and it comes with a free knife that’s sharp enough to cut tin cans! This man found the Lord, Hallelujah! This woman lost 133 pounds and now she’s perfect!

  Mom’s still not home.

  This pillow is soft.

  My eyes are heavy.

  Heavy.

  So heavy.

  Motionless. The air is like paper. Thin and sterile. Blank. We sit on a log on the side of the road, watching the show.

  “Why can’t I feel the fire?” I say.

  “This is what it’s like to be a ghost.”

  “I’m not a ghost,” I say. “I’m dreaming.”

  “Same thing.”

  A fireball lights up the trees. Shadows dance across every­thing solid. Red and black and red and black. There is your car, becoming a skeleton. The world is melting in front of us.

  A semi truck is tipped over, cradled by a wall of trees. The driver is out, eyes wide with flames, a phone to his ear, petrified, his only movement his wet mouth: “Oh god oh god oh god oh god,” he says, such useless words against fire.

  I close my eyes. So many lives are over.

  “Kinsey, look!” you say.

  “No,” I say.

  “You have no choice.”

  Hunter is no longer a mannequin. He is a live, breathing thing. He is all movement. His skin is charred. He is made of fire. He is pulling me out of the burning car. “Are you watching?” you say. He sets me down on the side of the road, in a grassy spot away from danger.

  “Do you see how he cushions your head with his hand?” you narrate. “How gentle?”

  “I didn’t know he did that.” My voice is small. “Why’d he get me first? Why didn’t he get you?”

  “Oh, you’ll see.”

  Sirens in the distance. The night getting bigger.

  Hunter carries your body in his arms. You are covered with blood. You are roasted. Your face is completely gone, like someone shoved it inside your head. Your arm hangs limply at an unnatural angle. You are nothing but a bag of meat and bones.

  “Oh god oh god oh god.” I don’t know who is speaking.

  The approaching fire truck lights the trees a strobing red. On off, on off. Like a pulse. Like the forest’s heartbeat. The car on fire, consuming itself.

  I try to run. But Hunter’s burning arms are around me now, holding me too tight. I thrash and buck, but he is too strong. I try to close my eyes, but he’s holding them too, pulling them open, forcing me to see. “Let me go!” I say. But he cannot hear the cries of a ghost.

  “Oh god oh god,” I say; “Oh god,” says the truck driver; “Oh god,” says Hunter, all of us singing in harmony with the light. Our prayers, pulsing in the dark.

  FOUR

  I wake up screaming.

  My legs run but I am going nowhere.

  The world is hard and dark and close around me.

  A stranger’s chipper voice calls from somewhere.

  Is this hell?

  Strange canned music.

  Is this the waiting room for hell?

  No. I am on the floor. My foot kicks the couch. My forearm is sore where it must have hit the table. My cup is smashed on the floor in a puddle of cold coffee.

  “No!” I scream. I punch the couch until my hand throbs with the memory of the dream. “No!” I scream until my hand is bruised, like some small amount of violence can pound out this feeling. An infomercial for an exercise machine is on TV. The announcer chirps his empty promises. How dare he try to sell me something so useless at a time like this? How dare he, when Camille is dead?

  The room wobbles around me. Something is off. Something is tilted. All the angles of the walls seem askew. Things are not in the right places. It’s like someone came in and moved everything an inch to the right. I am dizzy. I close my eyes. I go back to black, back to zero. But the world is slanted even there.

  The only solution is moving. You can’t sleep when you are moving. Nightmares can’t chase someone who’s running.

  So I run. I was asleep for barely an hour, but I run. My stomach feels sick and empty, I am dizzy with exhaustion and adrenaline, but I run. The trees are black like they should be. No red. No light pulsing. The trees are not breathing. The only breath is mine, harder than normal. My body is weak. My legs feel like noodles. But I keep going. I will push through this. I will run through this weakness. It is all I can do.

  This is the forest but it is a different forest. This is not where she left me. This is not where she was taken. That was somewhere else. Miles away. Still charred by the explosion. The stupid white cross someone stuck in the ground. The wreath of fake flowers. The teddy bears and candles and notes from people who barely knew her. But that is not here. The trees here are still standing, still fresh, still green behind the darkness. This road has not been cursed.

  Run. Run. Breathe. Breathe. Run.

  Light. In the distance.

  Two eyes blinking.

  The trees shift, become feathered tentacles, grasping for me.

  I run faster. I run from everything chasing me.

  The night stirs. The light grows. The ground shakes.

  She is coming to replace me.

  It was not Camille who was supposed to die.

  Pure white. Blindness.

  Some force pulls me off the road, like arms made out of wind.

  I am lying in a coffin, the roots and vines tying me in, taking me under.

  A sharp pain shoots up my leg.

  Death starts at the feet and moves upward.

  The brain is the last to go, to make sure you remember every last detail.

  The light fades.

  White then red then nothing at all.

  Like a flashlight losing batteries.

  But I am not gone.

  It is dark again and I am in a ditch. Dirt sticks to the sweat on my skin. I am not dead. This is not heaven or hell. That was just a car driving in the night. I breathe. My heart pounds in my chest, testing itself. I sit up. My head aches. All I’ve had to drink in the last eight hours is coffee.

  I shift my weight to my legs and stand up. Fire burns a trail through my leg. I steady myself on my right fo
ot and tap the ground with my left. Pain throbs with the pressure. The pain sobers me, makes the night stop moving.

  It is the middle of the night.

  I am standing in the road in running shoes and ripped pajamas, and I just twisted my ankle.

  My best friend is dead instead of me.

  As I limp home, I can’t stop replaying the dream in my head. I can’t stop seeing Camille with no face. I squeeze my eyes tight, but she’s still there, an empty hole, gone forever. I try to remember what she looked like before—her eyes, her nose, her lips—but it’s like that’s all been erased, like my whole life’s worth of memories is gone, and now she’s nothing but her absence, nothing but a big gaping wound.

  I force myself not to think about her. I count my steps. I count the trees. Whenever I feel the sting of emotion coming on, I find something else to count. Numbers have no feelings. Numbers don’t miss people. I count everything I can find until I get home. I count ice cubes into a plastic bag. I count five Advil into my mouth. I count how many times the Ace bandage wraps around my ankle. I sit back down on the couch and count the channels until it’s time to get ready for work. Whenever I get sleepy, I press my left foot against something hard so the pain will wake me up.

  Mom still isn’t home when I leave to open the restaurant for lunch, which is more than fine with me. I don’t have to hear her making fun of me as I attempt to ride my bike the eight miles to work with a twisted ankle. I don’t have to listen to her calling me stupid for going running in the middle of the night. I don’t need reminding. Every time my left foot pushes on the pedal the pain reminds me how dumb I am.

  When I get to work, I feel dizzy. I nearly run into a family crossing the street for their morning shift at the beach. As soon as I walk in, Bill notices something wrong. “Had a little too much fun last night?” he kids.

  “Totally,” I say, wishing it were true, wishing I could blame how I feel on something normal like a hangover.