by Nic Sheff
I sit at the very back of the bus with my body folded up, hugging my knees tightly and rocking slightly.
Simon Tolliver and the doctor were both super nice to me. They made me promise several times to go straight home. Tolliver even gave me a little money.
They put me on the bus and made sure I had everything I might need. Really, they were so sweet to me. I’m grateful.
And so goddamn sad.
Because it really, truly, is over now.
Teddy is gone. And I feel that in me just like I felt he was alive before. It’s like somehow, inside of me, there is this knowledge that is real and deep and penetrating. Teddy is dead.
The voice whispers—that cool breeze again blowing through my mind, calming. It tells me that God’s plan was not for me to save Teddy, but to accept his death and save myself. There was no way I could move on before. Now I can.
I can move on and finally be, fully and completely, with Eliza. That is God’s will for me. It whispers in my ear and cools my brain even as I mourn Teddy and feel the tears burning my eyes.
I lay my head against the plastic of the bus window. My hands shake, and I cry and remember Teddy and remember how he used to be. I see him running on the beach that day. He’s wading through the water, and it’s blue and calm and perfect. I don’t know how the hell that ocean could’ve swallowed him up. But it did. It swallowed him.
“Eliza,” the voice whispers.
Yes, Eliza. She is the missing piece.
I need to get back to her.
I need to be with her and I need to be with her now. I will tell her everything. I will make her understand.
Because it is over. And if I am going to survive this, I need to be with her. I am ready, and nothing is going to stop me.
The heat courses through my body, and there’s sweat all down my neck and back. I get off the bus and transfer up Fulton to Divisadero and Hayes Street. It’s a short walk up around the park to Eliza’s.
I climb the stairs.
The crows begin to gather. Just on the edge of my vision, they swoop into position on the wires surrounding the house. They peck at their own dark feathers with their sharp, pointed beaks. Preening. Rolling their heads. Staring with their shiny black shark eyes.
I try the door and it swings open.
The crows caw at me, spreading their wings wide. They press in now, flying down onto the railing, settling on the concrete near my feet.
Dozens more take their places on the wires, the lawn, the trees. A number of them settle on a car parked in the driveway.
The car. Not Eliza’s. Not her mother’s.
A feeling like dread forms in my stomach and shoots up along my spine. “Eliza?” I call. There is no answer.
I push inside, scan the living room. The crows—they are here, too. Scattered across the carpet, perched on the walls of bookshelves.
There are more and more of them screeching into the room, swooping in from outside and upstairs.
I hear a shout.
It is Eliza.
I hear the voice again, whispering. “The crows, they have her.”
I run, sprinting up to her bedroom. The birds cry, seemingly all at once.
I throw her door open.
Eliza is on her bed, and she is covered in them. She cries out, screams as they devour her.
“Stop!” I yell. “Stop! Get off of her!”
I grab their oily bodies. Throw them off her, pulling them apart, hitting them, strangling them, repeating all the while, “I’m here, Eliza. I’m here I’m here!”
I swing my fists and pound and tear and pull until I feel my hands slick with blood. I will tear them apart for touching her. I will destroy them.
“Miles! Jesus, what are you doing?” Eliza screams.
“Get off. Get off,” I yell at the crows, punching and grabbing at them.
“Miles, stop!”
The crows swarm on me and I’m thrown back. I fall onto the hardwood floor and hit my head hard.
Eliza kneels in front of me. “Miles!” My eyes blur and water and I blink and blink again.
Eliza has a blanket wrapped around her body to cover herself. I turn to face the birds, to defend against another attack. But the crows are gone. Vanished.
On the floor beside me I see that kid—what’s his name? From Preston’s party. He’s holding his bleeding mouth and nose. And he’s naked.
“What is this?” I shake my head, trying to understand.
“Dude, Miles, this isn’t what you think,” the guy says, standing. I remember now—Kevin.
“Wait . . . what?”
I turn toward Eliza.
And I get it.
“Fuck,” I say.
Then I drop to my knees and vomit. The hot liquid bursts out of my nose and throat.
“Miles!” Eliza screams. “Miles . . . Jesus.”
The guy walks back over to the bed and starts putting his clothes on. He laughs then, telling us, “You’re both fucking crazy.” He gathers his shoes and socks in his arms and storms out the door.
I vomit again as he walks past.
“Fuck,” I say.
Eliza comes over to try to help me, but I yell at her to leave me alone.
I get up off the floor, shaky, breathing heavily.
“I’m sorry,” Eliza pleads with me, sitting back on the bed. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
“No!” I scream at the top of my lungs. “Fuck you. Fuck! You!”
I trip over myself and fall and then I get up again and go running down the stairs.
I want to scream and fight and tear myself apart now.
Outside the air is cold and still.
The crows are gone.
And so is everything else in my whole fucking world.
36.
IT IS DARK AND everyone is asleep by the time I get home.
I walk silently to my dad’s office and then to the bathroom.
The knife I’m using was a wedding present given to my parents that has never actually been used—as far as I know. It’s Japanese—large, almost like a butcher’s knife. I had to take it from a fancy wooden box in the top drawer of the rolltop desk in my father’s office.
I’m using the expensive knife because I know it will be sharp—much sharper than that dull-as-shit Ikea knife set we have in the kitchen.
I take the blade into the tub, wearing my sweat pants—because I totally don’t want to be stark naked when they find me.
I sit cross-legged with my back pressed up against the mildewed tile.
The drops of water left over from whoever took a shower last are soaking into my pants, and the smell of soap and shampoo and whatever else is overpowering.
I breathe out long and slow.
The bathroom is small and cramped and bright and I would’ve preferred to light some candles or something, but I guess I have to make do with what I’ve got.
There aren’t any pictures in here at all—only the mirror over the sink and a lot of toiletries and dried flowers and bath salts and my mother’s pretty perfume bottles she never uses.
I decide to cut my right wrist first, holding the knife in my left, ’cause my right hand is much stronger. That way, once my right wrist is done, I’ll still be able to use the hand to finish the job.
The voice is whispering softly, telling me that this is what I deserve. I have destroyed everything. This is all that is left.
“You are a parasite,” it tells me. “You aren’t fit for survival. You are a burden on your family. You are a burden on humanity. You are sick, diseased. The world will be better off without you.”
It tells me what to do.
“Cut with the knife,” it says. “Start with the right one.”
And so I do as it says. I take the knife in my left hand and cut it
into my right wrist. I try to do it fast, without even thinking about it. I draw the knife quickly and deeply straight across the veins. It stings like a motherfucker. That’s what I can say. It stings and burns and it fucking hurts.
It hurts so much that I drop the knife. I’m struggling for breath like I’ve just jumped into the freezing cold ocean. A thousand needles cover me and the blood comes—deep purplish, crimson, black.
Somehow I do manage to grab the knife with my right hand, though, just like I’d planned. Gritting my teeth, I draw it quickly, albeit less deeply, across the other wrist.
This time I vomit. I flop onto my side and throw up into the shower drain. I choke and cough and wretch as the vomit forces itself up and out of my throat. I’m covered in blood and puke and I feel myself quickly passing out.
The only thing left to do now is call 911 to make sure the EMTs find me before my parents do—or, God forbid, Jane. To scar her like that would be worse than anything. I can’t let that happen—no matter what.
So I swing my body back around to where I put my phone. Luckily, 911 is pretty easy to dial, even with both wrists sliced open—but I guess that’s probably the point.
My twitching fingers find the numbers and I wait, fighting to stay conscious.
Click.
“Nine-one-one Emergency, how can I help you?”
My breathing comes fast and shallow, so I can barely get the words to come out of me.
“Th- . . . th- . . . there’s been a . . . No, I . . . I killed myself.”
Pause.
“What? I’m sorry, sir, what? Can you repeat that?”
More breathing.
“I . . . I . . . I said I killed myself. 1717 Clement Street.”
“You killed yourself?”
I close my eyes.
“Th- . . . the back bathroom.”
“What? Hello, sir, are you there? Please stay on the line with me, sir.”
I feel tired suddenly—so deeply fucking tired.
The curtain falls.
There is only darkness.
37.
IT TAKES ME A few moments to realize what’s happened and where I am.
The room is bright and blinding. I’m being choked by something so I can’t talk, but I need to. I need help right away. There is this giant plastic tube down my throat and my eyes are watering and I keep on gagging as I call out, “Ahhhhh! Ahhhhhh!”
And then a nurse is there standing in front of me, cocking her head to one side as my eyes go wide and I jerk my body back and forth, still gagging, and begging her to get this thing out of my throat.
“Aughhh! Aughhhh!”
She leaves then, if you can believe that. She leaves, and so I start flailing and making as much noise as I can to get them to pay attention to me and get this thing out of me.
I’m not sure how long that lasts, but finally two nurses come in—and one, this large drag-queen-looking guy, says to me, “Just hold on, sugah.” And he holds on to me while the other nurse pulls the tube out of my stomach and out of my throat and I gag and breathe and gasp for more and more breath.
“Well, you awake now, honey. Good. The doctor will be here shortly.”
And then the other nurse starts messing around with one of the IV drips I have going and shoots in what I imagine must be a bunch of morphine, ’cause I start to fade out again pretty quick after that.
“You sleep,” the nice drag-queeny one says. “The doctor will come.”
I nod my head—trying to say thank you, but my throat’s burning too bad.
“Shhh, shhh, don’t talk.”
My eyes close again.
And that’s when . . . suddenly . . . I remember.
I failed.
Again.
38.
WAKING A SECOND TIME, I sit up all at once out of the deepest blackness. There is someone there, next to me, whispering in my ear.
“Get out. Get out of here.”
The brightness floods in and I blink my eyes and call out, “Who’s there?”
The voice speaks from some hidden place inside me.
“Get out of here. Get the fuck out of here.”
My breath comes in gasps—my throat is dry and pained and raspy.
I grab at the needles all stuck in my arms and pull them free, along with the tape that held them fastened.
“Get out! Get out!”
There is a plastic curtain around my bed that I take hold of to try to hoist myself up, but it tears away from the metal frame and I find myself sprawled out on the cold, chemical-smelling linoleum, the curtain all tangled around me.
“Get out! Get out!”
I start to crawl, but something is stopping me—something at my waist. I reach down and feel what is there, burning and tugging at the place between my legs.
“Get out!”
“I will get out,” I say aloud. “I will get out.”
There is a piercing noise like an alarm going off loud in my ears.
“Help me!” I yell. “Help me! Get this out of me.”
But the voice has abandoned me suddenly.
“Hello? Hello? Help me. Hello?”
There is nothing but the alarm screaming. It screams like a siren.
I hold my palms up against my ears.
And then someone else is there, holding me under my arms.
“Jésus Cristo, kid.”
My head thrashes wildly.
I feel myself being lifted up.
“Hold him. Hold him.”
The burning between my legs intensifies.
“Get off of me!” I yell. “What the fuck!”
There is a great pressure on my chest and then something sharp cutting into my side.
“Get him down. Hold him.”
The alarm stops screaming at me then, but the pain in my side just keeps getting worse and fucking worse.
I’m having trouble breathing.
“Your ribs are broken,” says a voice, “from the CPR. Lie still.”
I do as I’m told.
I lie, blinking my eyes and trying to see.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “Someone was here. Someone was making me leave.”
And then there is a loud sobbing noise next to me, and I turn and finally recognize something: my mother.
She is hunched over, crying, her shoulders heaving, and at the same time shouting, “He needs his medication! Please! I told you! He needs his medication!”
She is very pale-looking, and her gray hair is knotted on top of her head.
“Goddamnit,” I say hoarsely. This is exactly what I didn’t want.
I feel the almost weightlessness of my mom’s frail hand on my shoulder.
“Hush, now, Mie. Hush, baby.” And then louder, to the nurses, or whoever else is there, “He needs his medication.”
“Please,” I whisper.
There is the prick of a needle in the crook of my arm and then a warmth flooding me.
“Am I peeing?” I ask.
And then it’s all black again.
39.
MY MOTHER IS THERE and my father, too, both staring at me intently as my eyes try to focus.
“That’s better now, isn’t it?” my mom asks me—and I have to admit that it is.
I feel calm and clear for the first time.
I know fully where I am.
I mean, I’m in the hospital.
There are needles stuck in me connected to fluid drips and a catheter up in between my legs—which must’ve been what remained attached to me when I tried to run away. There are machines monitoring my heart rate and my blood pressure. There are thick bandages wrapped around both arms. Fuck, man, they’ve stitched me up and put me back together again. And they must’ve gotten me on the right meds now, too, because I�
�m not acting all psycho.
“Mom?”
She smiles. “Yes, yes. I’m here.”
I smile back, suddenly aware of how parched I am. My tongue is thick and swollen.
“W- . . . water? Is there water?”
My mom turns, and I can see that my dad is standing there behind her. My request triggers a chain reaction of people looking over their shoulders. My mom, my dad, the doctor, a male nurse. Actually, it stops at him. He goes off, returning a second later with a plastic cup in his hand.
“Here you go,” he says, his voice deep and startling.
He helps me to sit up and take the cup with my right hand. The wrists on both sides are still sore as fucking hell.
I gulp down the water.
“Th- . . . thank you,” I manage to say.
He bows his head, and then the doctor comes over and puts a callused hand on my forehead. He speaks very gently.
“You are still running a slight fever. But the worst of it should be over now.”
“Thank you,” I say again.
He nods, adjusting the stethoscope hanging around his neck. “My name is Dr. Fliederer, Miles. I was the doctor on call the night you . . .” He pauses. “Came in here.”
His eyes are so transparent and blue and kind, I can’t help but look away.
“Oh,” I say dumbly.
“And now,” he continues, audibly tapping his foot on the linoleum, “well, I’ve been working with your parents on your continuing care plan.”
My dad steps forward at that moment. His skin is gray and ashen-looking.
“Hey, buddy,” he says, putting his hand up.
I smile. “Hey, Dad.”
My voice cracks. I can see his eyes are red and swollen from crying, and I think maybe I might cry then, too. I mean, he looks so helpless standing there, so awkward and unsure.
“We just want to do what’s best for you,” he says, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.
“That’s right,” my mom says, walking up between my dad and the doctor, moving some hair back from my eyes. She leans forward and kisses my cheek. I try to smell the smell of her, but hospital disinfectant and plastic obscures everything else. “We just want what’s best for you,” she repeats.