by T. J. Klune
“Where were you all day?”
“Just took a day to myself,” Mike says, and they haven’t moved, they’re standing so close together, Sean’s hand still on his arm, and he’s warm. He’s vital. He’s here. If there’s one thing Mike’s sure of, it’s that Sean is here and Sean is real, and what they have between them is here and real. There’s no doubt in his mind about that. All the rest might be insanity, or it might be ghosts, or it might be nothing at all. But Sean?
Sean is real.
He knows that with everything he has.
“That’s it,” Sean says. “A day to yourself.”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah,” Sean says, and maybe it’s a little mean this time. Maybe there’s a little curl to his lip, the smallest sneer. “You made me worry all goddamn day. And you’re fine.” He looks away, jaw tensed. He doesn’t take a step back, and Mike figures that counts for something.
“Hey,” Mike says.
Sean shakes his head.
“Hey.” He puts his hand underneath Sean’s chin, tilting his head back up until Sean’s looking at him. “I’m fine. Okay?”
He almost says I promise, but he’s able to stop himself before that happens. He’s lying already. He doesn’t want to say anything that will make the fallout worse.
Sean’s face softens. There’s still worry creasing the skin around his eyes, but it’s lessening. Mike rubs a thumb over Sean’s bottom lip, and he flushes just a little bit. “You better be,” Sean says. “I don’t know if you know this, but I kind of need you around.”
He thinks, Oh no. Oh, goddamn you. I see things. I see things that aren’t there. I don’t know what’s happening. I tried to leave and it brought me in a circle. Like there’s nothing else out there. Like we’re trapped on an island. I can remember bits and pieces. There was a man, fo sho, and a queen named Nadine. Cigars and text messaging, and a knife going through glass. I hear them murmuring. Did you know that? A murmuration is the cloud of starlings, rolling as one, but it’s also the action of murmuring. Did you know that? The fucking birds. I love you so much I can barely stand it. You are the best part of me, and I can’t stand the thought of losing you. Of losing this.
“Do you?” he says, cocking an eyebrow. “That’s good to hear.” He should be in pictures; his acting is top notch.
Sean rolls his eyes and huffs out a breath. “Don’t do that to me again.” He means it. Mike can see that. He was scared.
He doesn’t say anything. Instead he pulls Sean into a hug, wrapping his arms around Sean, holding him tight. Sean’s arms come up and around his waist, and Mike doesn’t think anyone has ever fit against him like Sean does. It’s like they were made to be like this, like they were two pieces finally made whole the moment Mike stepped into that diner for the first time. Mike has regrets. He really does. He’s a thirty-six-year-old man. He has to have them. And yeah, maybe he can’t think of any of them right now, but he knows they have to be there.
Sean isn’t one of them. Sean will never be one of them.
So he holds on, as tight as he can. For as long as he’s able.
He thinks, It’s like this, okay? Doc says that I shouldn’t worry about it. Says that it’s mostly a wait-and-see kind of thing right now. Says that it could be nothing. Says this could all just be a product of my tired mind. Thing is, I could see that even he didn’t believe that. He was like some kid in a candy store. He was salivating at the thought that there could be something wrong with me. He’s a doctor, so of course he wants me to be sick. Of course he does, because that means he gets to poke and prod, and if you think about it, if you really think about it, do we get sick here? Do we get ill? You get migraines, but can you think of anyone else that can say the same? Or maybe I just don’t see it. Maybe I just don’t notice it. Maybe none of it’s real. You are, though. I know you are.
Sean pulls away eventually. Mike lets him go, even though it’s the last thing he wants to do. There’s a part of him, a small part, that wants to drag Sean down the road and out of Amorea just to show him what happens. Just to show him that it’s all circular. But he’s afraid. He’s afraid that Sean will see through it, that Sean will look at him and say, “My god. You’re sick, Mike. You’re sick and you’re insane. What’s wrong with you? Why are you like this? What happened to you to make you this way?”
He can’t have that. Not now. He can’t. He needs to keep this for as long as he can.
Sean says, “You need to stop by the drugstore?”
Mike says, “For what?”
Sean squints. “You said Doc wanted you to get the sleep pills.”
Mike laughs. He thinks it sounds normal. “Already picked them up. After the appointment.”
Sean says, “All right. Walk me home, big guy? I think we should take the long way today. I’m feeling the need for some fresh air.”
Mike thinks, Anything for you. And he says, “Sure. That sounds good to me.”
They walk on.
XV
HE TELLS himself it’ll get better.
Because it has to. There’s really no other choice.
It’ll get better.
It will.
It will.
It will.
And he believes it. Believes it when he opens his eyes in the morning. Believes it when Sean smiles at him from across the booth at breakfast. Believes it when the little bell rings over the door in the bookstore. Believes it when they walk home at night and Sean presses daring little kisses against Mike’s lips. Believes it when he lies in bed in the dark, watching the moonlight create shadows like birds on his walls and ceilings.
He believes it.
The problem is that it doesn’t get better.
It gets worse.
HE WAKES up one morning a week later and he’s thinking, Oscar, Oscar, Oscar, and he knows that name, knows it as well as he knows his own. It’s just that he can’t remember how he knows it, sure that he’s never met anyone named Oscar in his entire life.
Which leads to another train of thought that explodes even before it can leave the station. His breath is quickening in his chest and his hands are fisted in the comforter and he thinks, I’ve never met anyone named Oscar in my entire life, but what is my entire life?
There are truths he holds to be self-evident.
His name is Mike Frazier.
He is thirty-six years old.
He lives in Amorea.
He owns the bookstore Bookworm.
He loves Sean Mellgard more than anything else in the world.
He has friends. They are like his family.
He owns his own—
And he stops.
They are like his family.
Like his family.
He thinks, Who is my family?
And there’s that pressure again, right behind his eyes, and it’s sinking its claws into his skull. It’s not as bad as it’s been in the past, and he’s almost able to ignore it, because now that he’s thought it, he doesn’t know what else to think.
His alarm goes off and he thinks, Who is my family?
He’s brushing his teeth and he thinks, Where did I come from?
He’s pulling his shirt over his head and he thinks, Where was I before Amorea?
He’s shutting the front door to his house and he thinks, Who are my pare&##&#—
He stops, hand still on the doorknob.
He doesn’t know what that was. It was like he short-circuited. Just for a moment.
He thinks, Who are my pare&#*#—
That pressure is there, building behind his eyes.
He thinks, The people who raised me.
The people I was born to.
The ones who gave me life.
My par&###&***—
He knows the word. He knows it.
He thinks, Just another thing, isn’t it? Just another thing.
We’re much more progressive now, Doc said. It’s rarely recommended that a person be institutionalized because of schizophrenia these days.
As long as a person isn’t deemed to a danger to others or themselves, there shouldn’t be any reason why they can’t live a reasonably normal life. Medications can help with the delusions. The hallucinations. Those feelings of unreality. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Mike. Think of that as a last resort. You are here. You are fine. You live in Amorea. You own the bookstore, and you have people that care about you. That’s what’s real.
He thinks, Is it?
And yeah, maybe he’s a little angry.
HE’S IN the diner sitting across from Sean. It’s loud this morning, a Thursday, the townsfolk buzzing excitedly. The Amorea Women’s Club started hanging up decorations for the Amorea Harvest Festival the day before. It’s still nine days away, but Amorea always gets excited when Mrs. Richardson and her band of merry women begin their preparations. There are wreaths hung up on every doorway in Amorea, orange and red and brown plastic leaves strung together with little scarecrows in the middle. The light posts along Main Street are strung similarly, long autumn garlands wrapped along the poles. There are pumpkins and hot apple cider and the leaves on the trees that line the streets look like they’re ablaze. It’s quintessentially fall, and everyone is happy.
It hurts his head.
He thinks, If you only knew.
“You okay, big guy?” Sean asks, reaching across the table to take Mike’s hand in his own. Mike barely resists the urge to pull away. It’s a close thing.
He forces a smile on his face. “I’m fine.”
“Sleeping pills helping?”
He shrugs. “A little.” Lying is getting easier now. “It’s going to take some time, I guess.”
Sean squeezes his hand, and Mike’s got a flash of his nose bleeding, that fight from last week, the anger he felt when Daniel Houle’s elbow clocked him a good one. The pictures that fell. There were two of them, right?
He thinks, There were three, and the third was a mystery.
He thinks, No, there were two. Just two. I remember them both.
He thinks, She was smiling at the camera like she was in love.
He thinks, Oscar, Oscar, Oscar.
Sean says, “I hope not too much longer. You’re looking a little rough around the edges.”
That stings, and he thinks, Yeah, well, you would too if you saw things and remembered things that weren’t there. He says, “You leaving me for someone younger? Someone a little more put together?” He’s teasing, and Sean’s smile is a relief.
“As if I ever could,” Sean says. “You’re stuck with me.”
I’m okay with that is what he wants to say.
Instead, he says, “Do you know Oscar?”
And Sean frowns. “Oscar? Who is Oscar?”
“He’s”—fo sho—my friend—going up to them mountains—smoking his cigar in my backyard—the one who took all these photos, right? right? right?—“this guy I know.”
“This guy you know,” Sean says. “How do you know him?”
Mike shrugs.
“Oscar,” Sean says. “Can’t say that I do. Who is he?”
Sean’s still holding his hand. Mike’s other one is forming a fist in his lap. “You don’t know anyone named Oscar,” Mike says.
“No. Should I?”
“Just a name I heard, I guess.”
“Huh. So who is—”
I want you to keep track of these little events, Doc said. Anything out of the ordinary. Anything that you question. Anything that doesn’t quite jibe with what you know to be real. If you see these ghosts, or hear their voices, or find something that doesn’t make sense in the order of the natural world, I want you to keep track of it. That way, we can know just how often these things are happening.
“Where did you come from?” Mike blurts out.
Sean cocks his head. “Why, right here in Amorea, of course. You know that, Mike.”
He does. That’s what he’s always been told. Most of the people here have been in Amorea all their lives. In fact, everyone aside from him seems to be from Amorea. He’s never really thought about it before. Now, it’s all he can think about.
“Before me,” Mike says. “What did you do?”
“Before you,” Sean says slowly. “I don’t… understand? What do you mean?”
“Who did you come from?”
Sean frowns. “Amorea.”
“Not where. Who.”
The diner suddenly falls silent. Every single voice cuts out at once. It’s loud and boisterous and then it’s not. Mike looks around the diner. Everyone is slack-jawed, eyes sliding lazily out of focus. Calvin was about to take a sip of coffee, and now he’s just sitting there, arm slightly raised, cup tilted slightly toward him. Even the grill has fallen silent, Walter standing with the spatula, looking down, mouth open, and—
“Mike.”
The noise comes back like it was switched on. It’s deafening.
He snaps his gaze back to Sean, who’s staring at him worriedly.
“You okay? You kind of just trailed off there.”
He thinks, No. No, I’m not okay.
He says, “Yeah. Just… got distracted. What were we talking about?”
“You were asking if I knew someone named Oscar?”
You make a cheap date, white boy.
Most likely.
Easy too.
Hey now.
He doesn’t know what that means. But he can hear the voice clear as day. Saying Mikey, fo sho.
“Yeah,” Mike says. “Don’t know what I was thinking. Just this guy I used to know. From before. Got confused for a second.”
“Before?”
“Before I came to Amorea.”
Sean’s brow furrows, like he’s not quite understanding. “Before.” Then, “Right. Before. It’s just… sometimes, I think you’ve always been here, you know? It feels like that to me.”
Mike likes that. He likes that a lot, even if he’s thinking, That was an event. That was an event just now.
“YOU DOIN’ all right, bud?” Happy asks. They’re walking down the sidewalk, heading toward their respective shops. It’s a short walk for Happy, but they’re moving slowly.
“Sure, Happy.”
“We’re friends.”
“Yeah.”
“So you can tell me stuff.”
“I know.”
“You doin’ good?”
Mike sighs. “Yeah. I’m good. Just got a lot on my mind, is all.”
“Sean?”
“Nah. Don’t even think about him much.”
Happy snorts. “Bullshit. You look at him like he craps gold and hung the moon.”
“Jesus, Happy.”
“Truth hurts, ain’t gotta tell me none. He looks at you the same.”
“He’s good,” Mike says, unable to meet Happy’s gaze. “For me.”
“I know. Always thought so. Two peas in a pod, you are. You needed him, I think. He needed you too.”
He thinks, Before. “Happy.”
“Yup.”
“Before me. Before I came to Amorea.”
“Oh yeah.”
“Sean. Was he…?”
“Was he what, Mike?”
“Was everything okay? With him.”
“Sure, Mike. I suppose. I mean, every now and then he seemed down and whatnot, I guess. But he got better. And then you came and everythin’ was right as rain. Darnedest thing, love is.”
He refuses to blush at that. “How was he down?”
Happy shrugged. “Can’t rightly say, I guess. More a feelin’. He didn’t seem… happy. Just goin’ through the motions. Gettin’ up every day and comin’ into work and then goin’ right on home. Nice to everybody, always was, but you could see it. In his eyes. And it was….”
“Was what?”
“Hmm? Oh yeah. I just… sorry. Got to thinkin’ about somethin’. He used to….”
“Spill it, Happy.”
Happy rolls his eyes. “Ain’t nothin’ big, hold your horses.” He says it like hawsus, and Mike thinks about a ho
rse walking across the road, hooves on pavement, and he doesn’t know whether it was a memory or a ghost. “Just… everyone’s got their tics, you know? Weird little things they do.”
“Okay?”
“I touch my nose. Know I do it. Don’t know why I do it. I just do it. It’s a thing. You scratch your wrist a lot.”
He does. Maybe he’s always done it. “Okay,” he says again.
“I’d look over sometimes, and Sean would be standing up there behind the lunch counter, you know? He’d be talkin’ or laughin’ or some such, but he’d always be standing there, left arm out in front of him. He’d be usin’ his other hand and he’d rub a couple of fingers right there in the crook of his elbow. Like where Doc takes blood. Always with the couple of fingers, always just touching right there, like he didn’t even know what he was doin’, but doin’ it anyway.”
Mike… doesn’t understand. “What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Probably nothin’. You asked. Only thing that stuck out. He didn’t do it no more after you’d been here for a while. That’s all. Only other thing that changed was how happy he was. That’s it.”
“You’ve known him a while?”
“Sure. Forever, probably.”
“What was he like? As a kid?”
Happy squinted at him. “How’s that now?”
“When he was a kid. Was he—”
“Look, Mike. Are you sure you’re good?”
“Yeah. Swear it.”
“Okay, then. I believe you. But shouldn’t you be askin’ your fella this stuff? Best comin’ from him, don’t you think?”
Mike doesn’t know what to think. Or maybe he’s just thinking too much. Maybe it’d be just easier to let all of this go. It’s hurting his head, and all he can hear is Doc asking, What do you know about schizophrenia?
“Anyways, bud, I gotta get to the store. Poker tonight my place?”
“Yeah. Sure, Happy.”
“Beans and weenies already in the Simmer Crock, you know.”
“All right.”
Happy salutes him and walks away, whistling a happy tune. It sounds like Donald’s love shack song.