The Nice Boxset

by Jasinda Wilder

  The wood of the door was splintered and rough against my forehead. My breath was a ragged influx of panic, a terrified soughing exhale. I knew what I would find on the other side.

  He’d come home two days before, eyes glassy and heavy-lidded, flesh greasy and sallow, unwashed, stringy hair lank around his face. He’d slammed his bedroom door behind himself, and I’d heard the plastic-cracking sound of a bottle of whiskey being opened. The rasping hack of a three-pull swig straight from the bottle. Heard a lighter scrape and flick and whuff into life, inhaling. Coughing exhale. The scent that wafted to me, then, was not the familiar pungent, innocent smell of pot. No, it had been thick and dark and poisonous.

  I’d pounded on the door with my fist. “Alex! Let me in, man.”

  “Fuck off, Cade. Leave me alone.” His voice had been thin and wavery and fragile.

  “Talk to me, Alex.”

  “I told her, man. Amy. I told her. I told her I was in love with her.” He’d coughed, took a hit. To cover the sob, I think. “She said exactly what I thought she would. ‘Sorry, but you’re just not my type for something serious.’”

  “Shit, man. That sucks.”

  He laughed, a mirthless, aching sound. “Yeah. It sucks.”

  He hadn’t responded after that. I’d heard him in there, listened at the door every once in a while. He’d been silent for hours now and I was worried. I knocked on the door, hesitant at first, and then with increasing urgency. I finally got the courage to twist the knob. Locked. I found a paperclip at the bottom of my backpack, unfolded it, fed it into the tiny hole at the center of the knob, popped the lock out.

  I didn’t believe in God or anything, but in that moment, I prayed. “God, please. Don’t let me find him dead.”

  I opened the door, knowing, despite my prayer, exactly what I would find. And I did.

  He was on the bed, on his back. A fifth of Jim Beam lay empty on the floor to the right of the bed. His right hand lay stretched out down his thigh, curled slightly open. His pipe sat on his palm, along with his transparent yellow lighter. He was shirtless, and mucus-yellow vomit spilled down his mouth and over his throat, onto his pillow. His eyes were open, staring at the ceiling. Lifeless.

  I sank to my knees, unable to breathe or to cry or to do anything.

  Eventually, I dug my phone from my pocket, dialed 911.

  “Nine-one-one what is your emergency?” The operator’s voice was flat, female, brusque.

  “It’s Alex. My roommate. It’s not an emergency, though. He’s already dead.”

  “Can you tell my why you think he’s dead, sir?”

  “He OD’d. On crack. He’s dead. I know he’s dead. I can see it. Smell it. I didn’t know who to tell. He’s dead. Someone needs to come get him.” I heard myself speaking, but that part of me was disconnected from the part of me that was on the floor, on my knees, staring at dead Alex, another death.

  I’d known he was on drugs. Why hadn’t I gotten him help? Why hadn’t I made him go to a clinic? See a doctor? I should have—I should have done something. I wasn’t sure what, but something. He wouldn’t have liked it, he would have hated it, hated my interference. We weren’t friends. He said so himself. Just roommates. He’d apologized after saying that, sure, but I think it was true. He was my friend, but was I his? Could I have saved him?

  The operator was speaking, and I couldn’t hear her, understand her. I rattled off the address and let the phone fall to the floor. After a span of time I couldn’t have measured, didn’t care to measure, I heard feet, voices, felt someone push past me, pull me to my feet and out of the way to the couch. They spoke to me, whoever it was. A guy. Young, black hair. Not young, though, now that I looked at him. Maybe thirty? Brown eyes that spoke of having seen things like this all too often.

  “Hey. My name is Kevin. Can you come outside with me?”

  I followed him outside, answered his questions. Cops, their questions. Yes, I’d known he was using drugs. No, I didn’t use drugs. I didn’t mention having smoked pot with him once in a while, because that didn’t seem to matter. I told them they could look through my room. Why did they need to do that? Because of the drugs? I wondered idly if they would arrest me for having not helped Alex quit smoking crack. I knew he was depressed, upset about Amy. But…

  Was it my fault? I didn’t know. I thought no, and then I thought yes.

  I saw disapproval in the eyes of the paramedics and the cops. Had they ever had friends they couldn’t help? He was my roommate. That’s all. I realized I knew nothing about him. I didn’t know if his mom was still alive. If his sister was alive. If he had anyone at all. Other than me, and I’d sat in my room writing an art history paper and worrying while he overdosed on crack and drowned himself in whiskey.

  Eventually everyone left, and I was alone. I threw the vomit-stained sheets and pillow away, and then left Alex’s room, closed the door. Was I supposed to try and find his mom and sister? Would the cops do that? I didn’t know. I sat in the living room, on the threadbare couch, listless. I wondered if they’d taken the bag of pot and metal pipe Alex kept stashed in the old cigar box on the coffee table.

  I checked; yes, it was gone. That was probably good. For the best. That wasn’t me anyway. But it would have been nice to float away from the world for a few minutes.

  What did I do now? This was Alex’s apartment. Would they kick me out? I had nowhere to go. Of course, I had money enough to get my own place, but that wasn’t the point. I had no one. Nowhere to go.

  I went down to the mailbox, grabbed the latest letter from Ever, and trudged back up to the apartment, sat on the couch with Ever’s letter in my hand. Stared at the address until the letters blurred and wavered and shook. Ever. Ever. I couldn’t write to her. Not about this. Not another death. Another dead body haunting my memories. It was all too much, and I’d written her about it all.

  Her name kept ringing in my mind, like a bell.

  Ever. Ever. EVER.

  I found myself in my Jeep, Mom’s Jeep Commander. I found myself on I-75 heading north. Past Holbrook, Caniff, then the Davison, 8 mile. Yeah, I knew where my car was taking me. 14 mile, Rochester Road. Square Lake Road; exit, make a Michigan left, south on Woodward Avenue. Silence in the car, silence except for my breathing, which sounded slightly panicked and erratic.

  What the hell was I doing?

  I blinked, and then I was turning right into Cranbrook Academy of Art. I meandered, wandered, got lost, and eventually found the studios and the adjacent dorms.

  What the hell was I doing?

  I couldn’t make myself stop, though. I found her door. Knocked. No answer. Knocked again. Shit. What if she wasn’t here? And then the knob turned and the door swung inward and my heart lurched in my chest, skipped a beat or four, and my stomach dropped away.

  a kiss upon your flesh

  “Hello? Can I help you?” It wasn’t Ever. It was a pretty, heavyset girl with blue-streaked hair and horn-rimmed glasses, a charcoal pencil behind each of her ears and one in her hand, charcoal on her hands and streaked on her forehead, smudged on her fingers.

  “I’m—” My voice cracked, and I tried again. “I’m looking for Ever?”

  “Studio seven.” She peered at me, a curious expression crossing her face. “You’re the guy from her paintings.”

  “Paintings?”

  She tilted her head. “God, you’re even hotter in person.” She pointed across the street. “Studio seven. That’s where she always is.” And then she closed the door in my face, not rudely, but with finality and the absence of mind of a distracted artist.

  I couldn’t quite figure out that interaction, but my feet were carrying me across the road. I found studio seven. The door was locked, but I heard music from inside. I knocked. Everything stopped, my heart, my thoughts, my pulse, everything halted. The music continued, the lock scraped and the handle twisted, the door swung inward.

  I was left breathless. “Just A Kiss” by Lady Antebellum played.

  S
he was wearing nothing but a white button-down shirt, paint-spattered and smeared, the top three buttons undone, showing her porcelain white skin and a generous hint of cleavage and her long, thick thighs beneath the hem and her hair like ink hanging loose around her face and on her shoulders and her eyes green as sunlit grass and luminous jade.

  A paintbrush in her hand, tipped with bright red. Crimson dots on her cheek, emerald smeared on her chin, cyan on her cheek.

  I don’t wanna mess this thing up…

  The song was speaking to me, so perfect, exactly what my mind was shouting, pleading.

  She stood frozen in the doorway, eyes searching me, unbelieving. “Cade?” The paintbrush clattered to the floor.

  “Ever.” It was a whisper in the afternoon sunlight.

  Everything inside me, every molecule of my body was on fire as I closed the space between us, instinct and need taking me over and operating me, moving my legs and causing my arms to lift, my hands to close around her cheeks, gently, so tenderly, electric fire blazing from the touch of fingertip to her flesh, and now her eyes were close and so bright and caught up with wonder and her hands were on me, on my back and the nape of my neck and I was kissing her, kissing her, god I was kissing her.

  Something in my soul splintered open. Her lips were heat and moisture and tasted of cranberry. She kissed me back, no hesitation, no doubt, nothing but pure response and awestruck passion.

  Nothing had ever felt so cataclysmic, so fraught with atomic power. I couldn’t breathe for the kiss, hadn’t taken a breath in an eternity and it didn’t matter because now, suddenly, she was my breath. I’d never kissed anyone before this. Her fingers tangled in my hair, pulled me closer, deeper. She rose up on her toes and wrapped one arm around my shoulders and I couldn’t do anything except lift her up, catch her with my arm beneath her thighs and under her ass, and I kissed her, felt dizzy from the way she devoured my breath and my kiss and my need and returned it and hadn’t questioned my presence or this sudden kiss, had only responded in the way I needed so badly.

  Somehow we were moving and I heard the door slam closed and felt her hand return to tangling in my hair and there was a couch beneath my legs and I was tumbling backward, sitting down and sliding to my back, holding on to her, refusing to relinquish a single point of contact, and she was on top of me, above me, all around me, her hair a night-black curtain around our faces; her lips were desperate against mine and her tongue was frantic inside my mouth and she was making these tiny little sighing sounds that made me mad and wild and primal with need.

  “Awake My Soul” by Mumford & Sons played, and yes, I was waking up for the first time, my soul expanding and learning to breathe.

  She pulled back, just enough to speak, her lips moving against mine, her eyes wet and so close to mine. “Is this real?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you really here?”

  “Yes.”

  She whimpered and buried her face against my throat. “Don’t—don’t lie to me. Don’t let it be a dream.”

  My hands were on the backs of her thighs, her flesh hot as coals and softer than silk. “Ever…” I didn’t know what to say. I was praying it wasn’t a dream just as fervently as was she. “It’s real. Say my name, so I know it’s real.”

  “Caden.” She lifted her face to look at me. “Cade.”

  Then “Why are you here?” She threaded her hands in my hair, her thumbs on my temples, her lips, between words, touching featherlight kisses to my lips and the corners of my mouth.

  “I couldn’t…I don’t know—I couldn’t take it anymore.”

  “Take what?”

  I brushed her hair from her eyes and tucked it behind her ears. I’d known the feel of her body for all of my life, it seemed, known the possession of her flesh for as long as I’d drawn breath. “The loneliness. The memories. The need for…for something I’d never had. The need for something to fill the hole inside me.” All of that was the raw, unvarnished truth, but it wasn’t all of the truth. “I’ve always told you everything. Mom died, and I wrote you. Dad died and I wrote you. And now…and now my only friend died, and I couldn’t take any more of it, couldn’t take it all alone.”

  “Who died? How?” She brushed her thumb over my cheekbone, and I shivered from the touch.

  “Alex. My roommate. I’ve never had friends. Never made friends. Except you. And he…he OD’d. I found him dead in his room. And I can’t take it anymore, can’t stand to bury him too. Fuck. I’m…I’m alone. Always alone. And I can’t—I can’t take it anymore.”

  “You’re not alone. You’ve always had me. And how did you know I needed you?” She said this in whisper aching with vulnerable fragility. “I was losing my mind. Doubting everything. Doubting myself. Doubting…life. And then you show up and…and I was too afraid to go to you, afraid you’d—you wouldn’t want me, you didn’t feel—”

  “Ssshhh.” I stopped her. “I do. I always have.”

  “Then why…why are we just now meeting? Just now doing this?” She shook, her shoulders, betraying the tears she hid against my shirt.

  “I don’t know. God, Ever. I don’t know. Why?” I held her and felt my own eyes sting with tears. “So close, for so long. Why did we never—”

  She heard the break in my voice, heard the tears. Lifted her face and let me see hers and pressed her lips to mine and we kissed, our tears mingling. “I don’t know. It doesn’t matter, now. It doesn’t matter, not anymore. You’re here. I’m here. We’re…we’re here.” She breathed a shuddering sob/sigh and clutched my neck. “Don’t go. Please. Please. Don’t ever leave me.”

  This was an outpouring between us, an unleashing. It was as if a lifetime of pent-up need and imprisoned love was finally unfurling once-pinioned wings and taking flight, finding freedom in the far blue forever of the sky.

  “I won’t.”

  She pinned my eyes with hers. I saw need in her jade gaze. “What is this, with us?”

  “I don’t know.” What words could I use? I’d just met her after five years of letters. But I knew her, and I needed her. “It’s…everything. It’s—”

  “That’s what I need. I need everything, Cade. I need you…your everything. Your always.” She sounded as if the words were being tugged from her, drawn involuntarily from the depths of her soul. Like she didn’t want to say them, to admit such need, but couldn’t help it.

  I knew exactly how she felt.

  “Is this crazy?” I asked.

  “Yes. It is.” Her forehead touched mine. Both of us had our eyes shut tight. “But it’s not. We’ve divulged to each other our deepest secrets, the most vulnerable truths. We journaled to each other for five years, holding nothing back. At least, I never held anything back from you, and I don’t think you did either—”

  “Neither did I. We haven’t been writing as much lately, I guess, and when I found Alex, I just couldn’t—”

  “I needed more than letters. I didn’t know what to write. Billy…he cheated on me, lied to me, and it fucked me up in my head so bad, I don’t even know how deal with it. And I dreamed of you, and I can’t get you out of my head. I paint you, all the time. Even when I was with Billy, I would paint you when nothing else made any sense, when I couldn’t get another piece to work right, I would paint your face. Again and again, and it always helped, and then I found out about Billy lying to me and cheating on me and I just—I just—I thought about you, about what if there was more, what if I showed up at your house—”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  Ever rested her head against my shoulder, pillowing her face between my bicep and my pectoral muscle, and my hands were on her waist, one near her hip and the other on the small of her back. So familiar. Like holding her was my whole eternity, like we’d always held each other this way. But we hadn’t, and it was exhilarating. It was Ever, actually Ever, and her body was so soft against mine, warm, her weight a perfect pressure, her breast crushed against me, and I wanted so much, but there was more to say.
>
  “I was afraid.”

  “Of what?”

  “That you’d…stopped caring about me. That way, I mean. This way. You said you’d had a crush on me, and that it was a literary love, but did that mean more? I didn’t dare ask, because I was with Billy at that point and I—I don’t even know why I didn’t ask, why I didn’t—” She stopped abruptly, curled her fingers into fists in my shirt, raw emotion consuming her. “Why did we waste so much time, Cade? Why?”

  “I don’t know, Ever.” I ran my hands up her spine and back down, stopping at her waist. “I wish I knew. I wish I’d been with you all this time. I’ve—I’ve never stopped feeling this way about you.”

  She lifted up and our eyes met. We were still lying on the couch, her on top of me. Her partially unbuttoned shirt hung free, and I could see she wasn’t wearing a bra, wasn’t wearing anything, was bare beneath the thin scrap of cotton. My body was on fire. “What way? Tell me, Cade. Tell me how you feel. We’ve never shied away from the truth with each other. Let’s not start now.”

  “But…we haven’t—we haven’t seen each other since we were fourteen. Fifteen? We’re basically meeting each other for the first time. How can I…put all that out there so soon? How can I even be feeling all this so soon? It’s crazy. It’s…so much. My head is spinning. My heart, all of me is spinning.”

  “Me too.” She was completely on top of me, her arms beneath her, propping her upper torso on my chest. Her arms were barred on either side of her breasts, which bulged out of the shirt. I was mesmerized, torn between her hypnotic eyes and her tantalizing breasts. “But …all that time, all those years we’ve known each other. I know you, Caden Monroe. I know who you are. This is right, and I’m not afraid of it. I’m afraid of losing it. That’s all I’m afraid of, now. Losing you. So what is this, for you? What am I to you?”