Where I End and You Begin

by Preston Norton

  On bad nights—the nights where I experienced a flashback reel of every terrible thing that had ever happened to me, every stupid thing I had ever said or done, every regret that haunted me like a vengeful ghost—on those nights, I would listen to my favorite song, from my favorite album, from my favorite artist, on repeat.

  That artist was Sufjan Stevens, and that album was Illinois, and that song was “Chicago”—also known as “Go! CHICAGO! Go! Yeah!”

  It was kind of a masterpiece. Also, an antidepressant. Also, a transcendental experience.

  The trick was to enter a sort of trancelike state. Basically, I would lie flat on my back in a pitch-black room with noise-canceling headphones. I would then will myself to disintegrate. To just…dissolve. I would float up and up and up, through the ceiling, through the roof, through the stratosphere, right into outer space. And I would no longer be myself. I would be part of something greater. I would be the universe, and the universe would accept me, because the universe and I were one. Our atoms were interwoven.

  The goal was not to fall asleep. The goal was to stop hating myself.

  It worked, mostly.

  Tonight, however, was not one of those nights. Heck, tonight didn’t even make the Billboard Hot 100.

  Currently, I was watching Inception. I was kind of a Christopher Nolan junkie. (His movies were like puzzles, and like I said, I loved puzzles.) Inception was my favorite. The irony was not lost on me—an insomniac obsessed with a movie about dreams. There was just something soothing about taking something so vast and abstract and unknowable—dreams—and making them structured and rule-bound. Formatting the mechanics of dreams into a heist movie was a stroke of genius.

  I was two hours in—halfway into the climax—when I heard it. The soft clicks of the lock. The gentle squeal of the front door opening and closing. Whoever it was, they were being awful quiet.

  I glanced at the time on my phone. It was a quarter to midnight.

  Leaning over the armrest, I caught my dad creeping quietly toward the stairs. He froze when our gazes connected. Blinked. Regained his composure in an instant.

  “Hey, Ez,” he said. “Whatcha watching?”

  I’ll just say it: My dad was cool. And not the sort of cool where it’s obvious they are trying to be cool. He just was. Purely effortless. It was all in his confidence. The way he carried himself, the way he spoke—casual but brimming with intelligence. And when he took the time to talk to you—which he did with a lot of people—he seemed to genuinely care, and he made you feel special because of it. In short, he was the ultimate people person.

  He was the exact opposite of me.

  “Inception,” I said.

  “Ah. The dream-within-a-dream one, right?”

  “Within a dream within a dream within a dream,” I said.

  Dad chuckled. “Have you figured out if the top falls over or not?”

  “I don’t think you’re supposed to figure that out. It’s an open ending.”

  Dad nodded discerningly, like that totally made sense.

  “I mean, I have a theory,” I said.

  “Of course you do!” Dad steered into the living room and sat on the adjacent armchair. “Let’s hear it.”

  Dad was never home. But when he was, he at least tried to make up the difference.

  “So, DiCaprio’s wife kills herself because she thinks they’re still in a dream and she’s trying to escape, right?” I said.

  “Right.”

  “But what if she’s not dead?”

  “Huh?”

  “What if she was right all along? What if they were in a dream, and she escaped, but DiCaprio never does? The entire movie is just a layer of dream that DiCaprio never escaped. That’s why the top keeps spinning.”

  Dad’s eyes widened. He raised his fists to his head and exploded his hands open.

  “Right?” I said. “Of course, Nolan covered his bases. There’s a theory that his wedding ring is his real totem. The theory is that he wears the ring in the dreamworld and not in real life. And allegedly, according to Reddit, he’s not wearing the ring at the end. Although I’ve watched the ending a dozen times, and it’s damn near impossible to see.”

  “Huh.”

  “The moral of this story is that Christopher Nolan wants to fuck with our heads.”

  “Clearly,” said Dad. He stood up and ruffled my hair—like he always had since I was a little kid. I can see why some boys might not like their dad ruffling their hair, but I liked it. In a disconnected world, it made me feel connected—if only for a moment. “I’m glad we had this talk. Is…uh…is your mom home?”

  This was when things inevitably became awkward.

  I hesitated. Then shook my head.

  “Oh. Okay. Well, make sure you don’t say the f-word around her, okay? Can’t have her thinking I’m a bad dad, am I right?”

  I nodded, but my reaction was somber. Sad, even.

  I wanted to talk to him about Willow. I wanted to talk to him about a lot of things. But when all the things stacked up, I felt like a clogged drain.

  I just choked.

  Said nothing.

  “Night, Ez,” he said, and started down the hall to his empty bedroom.

  The saddest thing was that you could see his relief.

  “Night, Dad,” I said.

  It was all I could say.

  • •

  My parents were their work. Dad was a surgeon, and Mom was an internist (doctor of internal medicine). They often worked sixty-plus hours a week. Sometimes more. They both worked at the same hospital, Memorial Hospital of Carbondale—that’s actually how they met—so you’d think they had a shot at a healthy marriage. However, Willow and I—through our own detective work—learned that they were cheating on each other.

  This was back when Willow and I were close. When we still talked to each other.

  It all started when Willow noticed a text on Dad’s phone. It was from someone named Celia. It said:

  I can’t stop thinking about last night

  Willow snapped a pic of it on her own phone and went directly to me. Barged into my bedroom and shoved it in my face. “Tell me this isn’t what I think it is.”

  I took her phone and studied the picture. As the image sank in, I felt something die inside me—a slow death, full of pain and uncertainty.

  “This is Dad’s phone?”

  Willow bit her lip. She nodded.

  I spent another small forever studying it.

  “It could be anything,” I said.

  “What else could it be?”

  “Something…that happened at work,” I said. “They work nights enough. Celia is another surgeon or a nurse—”

  “I don’t doubt that.”

  “—and something happened,” I said, ignoring her. “Maybe something bad happened, a surgery went wrong or something, and she can’t stop thinking about it.”

  “Or the thing that happened is Dad boned her,” said Willow.

  I took a deep breath. Exhaled. “Yeah. Or that.”

  For the next several days, Willow and I commenced an intensive stealth operation. We were determined to get to the bottom of this. Really, I think we hoped for proof that this adulterous scandal was just a product of our young, wild imaginations.

  What we discovered instead were two boxes of condoms. One in the drawer between our parents’ underwear drawers—unopened and close to expiring—and the other in Dad’s gym duffel bag. Accompanying it was a nearly empty bottle of Neosize XL and a brand-new bottle of Sir Maximus.

  As if that wasn’t proof enough, one day while Dad was in the shower, we finally got ahold of his phone.

  You couldn’t unread the things that we read.

  “Oh my god,” said Willow. “How can someone as boring as Dad text like he’s a character in an HBO show?”

  That was actually a vast understatement, neighboring on praise. It indicated a hint of prime-time television class, which Dad did not have in these texts. He sounded more like a plum
ber in a cheap homemade porno.

  Once we had eliminated any shadow of a doubt about Dad’s faithfulness, we moved on to Mom’s phone. We had to find out if she knew.

  What we found instead were dick pics. Sooooo many dick pics. It was dicks as far as the eye could see. Most of them belonged to Derek—tattooed, shaved-and-trimmed, endowed-to-a-fault Derek—but these were occasionally interspersed with the dicks of Sean, or Milo, or Terrence.

  Most of these only went as far as sexting. But occasionally they ended with a hotel address.

  When Willow and I discovered our first video, we opted to put our detective work to rest.

  We never confronted Mom and Dad about it.

  We stopped talking about it.

  And then we just stopped talking.

  enough to fall asleep, I never felt it happen. It just snuck up on me. I simply woke up—whether it was a half hour or eight hours later—and I would think to myself, Well, that was lucky.

  I woke up.

  My first thought was not, Well, that was lucky.

  It was, Where the hell am I?

  I was in a bedroom—which would have been weird enough on its own—but it wasn’t even my bedroom. It wasn’t even a bedroom I recognized. I was lying on my side, staring at a wall that was barely visible beneath everything plastered all over it. One half was covered in ’80s band posters—the Clash, Talking Heads, Depeche Mode. The other half was a collage of blown-up photographs—photos of backwoods Illinois, of Carbondale, of Piles Fork High School.

  I sat up in bed. Sheets of electric-blue hair cascaded down either side of my face.

  Oh shit.

  I reached up to touch my face. Neither my face nor my hands felt familiar.

  I swallowed and glanced down.

  I was wearing a loose-fitting Van Halen tank top. My gaze, however, shot straight down the valley of two soft mountains attached to my chest.

  What the fuck, what the fuck, what the absolute fuck?

  My head snapped upright. I rotated my gaze until I was looking at my reflection in a sliding-mirror-door closet.

  I was Wynonna fucking Jones.

  I didn’t realize how far I was leaning over the edge of the bed until it was too late. There was a sharp chime beside me. I jumped and screamed—easily the girliest sound that ever came out of Wynonna’s mouth—and lost my balance. My limbs flailed, but my legs were tangled in knotted-up sheets. I toppled over the edge of the bed, making a futile grab for the nightstand, which I nearly brought down with me. Instead, I merely knocked off the bedside table lamp. The lamp, however, had different plans. Gravity whipped the lamp cord taut, cleaning the surface of the nightstand in one fatal sweep. Bedside paraphernalia rained down like the biblical plagues of Egypt.

  The good news was that I broke my fall with Wynonna’s face. The bad news was that I was wearing it.

  I heard it again—a sharp chime.

  I opened my eyes.

  There was a phone, like, three inches from my face—Wynonna’s phone—and a text message from a number that the phone didn’t recognize, but I did. It was my number.

  I was still hanging halfway off the bed, legs knotted in sheets, like a mermaid on a clothesline hanging out to dry. My upper body, meanwhile, was spooled onto the floor like dog shit. I attempted to writhe my legs free, but mostly I just pulled the sheets down with me.

  I sat upright, back wedged into the nook of the bed and the nightstand, and read the text:

  Erza, pick up the ponhe, or I saewr to god, I’ll kill you! I know yo’ure there!!

  That was actually putting it generous because some of the letters were upside down. Some of the letters weren’t even real letters! The longer I stared at it—tried to make sense of what I was looking at—the worse it became. The letters became fuzzy. Blurred out of focus.

  I squeezed my eyes shut, holding the inevitable headache at bay. Opened them again.

  Erza, pcik up the pnhoe, or I sewar to god, I’ll klil you! I konw yr’uoe three!!

  What the shit? Was Wynonna on drugs?

  The screen went black. I swiped to open it.

  It went directly to her lock screen.

  Shitballs. How the cock was I supposed to know her—

  Ding! Another text.

  the cdoe is 1234.

  Well, okay then. I typed the code and unlocked the phone. I discovered twenty-three missed calls and fourteen missed texts. Half of them appeared to be threats—although I didn’t bother attempting to read them. Just looking at them was giving me a headache. The letters were scrambled, backward, upside down, imaginary.

  The rest of the texts were the code.

  I called her back. She answered before the first ring finished.

  “WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON, SLEVIN?” said my voice, but angrier than I had ever heard it. “WHY AM I YOU?”

  I didn’t even know where to begin processing the question. Just the thought of it made me dizzy.

  “Uhhhhhhhh,” I said, thought-provokingly.

  “You’re a witch, aren’t you? This is some kind of witchcraft. ISN’T IT?”

  “Wha—? No! Are you serious?”

  “Don’t play dumb with me, Slevin. You did this before. I know you did.”

  “What, back at the school?”

  “No! I mean, yes, that, too. But I’m talking about back when we were kids.”

  Huh?

  “My whole life, I thought I was crazy,” said Wynonna/Ezra—Wynezra? “I saw a fucking psychiatrist because of that shit. You did it before, and now you’re doing it again BECAUSE YOU’RE A WITCH!”

  “What are you even talking about?”

  “Don’t you dare lie to— Ohhhhhhh my god.”

  I didn’t know what was happening on the other line, but it sounded excruciating. Maybe even lethal. Mildly alarming, considering that she was me.

  “Whoa, are you okay?” I said. “Am I okay?”

  “What an excellent question!” said Wynezra. “One of us is clearly not okay because I’m currently rocking a GIANT. RAGING. BONER!”

  Oh.

  “Why?” said Wynonna. “Why do I have a boner? Is this some pervy Viagra thing?”

  In a situation where I literally had no clue what was going on, it was kind of refreshing to be asked a question that I did know the answer to. I latched onto it for dear life, like Leo and Kate on that floating door amidst the wreckage of the Titanic. It had a disturbingly calming effect on me.

  “It’s called morning wood,” I said, matter-of-factly. “And it’s a normal male anatomical function.”

  “Oh my goddddddd,” she whined. “I’m not sure what’s worse, your gross morning wood, or the fact that you make me sound like a total dweeb.”

  “Where are you?”

  “In a bathroom?” she said, like she wasn’t sure. “I’m trying to figure out how to pee, but this thing won’t go down!”

  “Wait, what? Are you touching my—”

  “Oh, don’t flatter yourself, Slevin. I don’t want to touch this thing, and I won’t if I don’t have to. But I have to pee so bad I’m gonna die. How do you make it go down?!”

  “You’re asking the great unanswered question of mankind,” I said. “Be sure to tell us when you figure it out.”

  “What? Are you fucking kidding—”

  I sighed. “Look, just…sit down.”

  “Sit…down?”

  “Sit down and lean forward.”

  There was silence on the other end. Quiet shuffling.

  “It’s still aimed at my face,” said Wynezra. “Now what?”

  “Um. You kind of have to just wait.”

  “Wait?”

  “And…will it down.”

  “Will it down?” said Wynezra.

  “Like, willpower.”

  “What, with my mind? With my goddamn telekinesis?”

  “Look, you just have to wait and concentrate, okay? That’s all I can tell you.”

  “Oh god, I hate you. I hope my period comes early, you bastard.” />
  “What?” I felt a sudden wave of alarm.

  “You heard me!” Wynezra screamed. “I wish the blood curse upon you and your stolen va-jim-jam!”

  “Can you stop screaming?” I hissed. “Is my sister still home?”

  “You have a sister?”

  “Yes!”

  “Well, I don’t think anyone else is here. In case you haven’t noticed, we’re late for school.”

  I pulled the phone away and glanced at the time display. She was right. School was starting in five minutes.

  “I have to peeeee-eeeeee-eeeeeeeeeee!” Wynezra cried.

  I sighed again. “Okay. I give you permission to touch it.”

  Wynezra stopped crying. “What?”

  “You’re gonna have to bend it down. Muscle it down.”

  “Are you kidding? This thing is pure bone! It’ll break before it bends.”

  “I know it seems that way, but there’s a little bit of wiggle room. You’re not bending it so much as the axis.”

  “What does that even mean?”

  “Just lean forward, push it down, and aim for the top of the bowl. You should be able to get everything inside.”

  “Oh boy, here we go.”

  Even over the phone, I could hear the stream of pee hitting the porcelain full force.

  “Ahhhhhhh,” said Wynezra, in a tone of low-key panic. And then it escalated. “AHHHHH.”

  And then, relief.

  “Ohhhhhhh,” said Wynezra. “Well, shit. Now it’s down. What is that all about?”

  “Anatomy,” I said, like the punch line of a joke. “Am I right?”

  I laughed uneasily. Wynonna did not reciprocate. The conversation plunged swiftly into a vacuum of silence. The impending anxiety attack I had so successfully been holding at bay was finally closing in, going straight for the jugular, choking me.

  I took a deep breath.

  “Aside from the riveting possibility that I’m a witch,” I said, “any other ideas why this is happening to us?”

  I didn’t expect her to have an idea. Heck, I didn’t even expect her to have a response! Perhaps no one could ever know why something like this was happening to us. It defied logic. It defied science. This was purely in the realm of speculative fiction—somewhere between sci-fi and magic.