Black Box

by Cassia Leo

  For anyone who has ever felt like Mikki.

  The moment you realize you’re going to die is nothing like I imagined it would be. I imagined a deep internal struggle coupled with a visceral, physical response – fight or flight. But there’s no fighting this. I’m going to die.

  It’s possible that everyone on this plane is going to die. I wonder if they feel this overwhelming sense of peace, or if the squeal of the plane engine has drowned out all their thoughts.

  He grabs the oxygen mask as it drops from the compartment and he’s yelling something as he puts the elastic band over my head. He pulls his own mask over his head then he grabs my hand and looks me in the eye. There’s no panic in his eyes. Maybe he feels this same calm I’m feeling. Or maybe he just wants me to know that he loves me.

  He loves me.

  Or maybe the look in his eyes is his way of telling me he trusts that whatever happens to us in the next few seconds was meant to be.

  Fate.

  I used to think fate was for religious nuts and people who were too afraid to take their fate into their own hands. Now I know the truth.

  Rina,

  Please don’t look for me. You probably won’t find me. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, and please don’t blame yourselves. I’m just tired. Trying to cope . . . trying to forget . . . It’s not enough anymore. I just want to close my eyes and know that it will all be over soon. There’s nothing anyone could have done. You’ve all done more than enough. I hope you all find peace knowing I am no longer suffering. I love you guys. Tell Meaghan I leave her my black box.

  Mikki

  I used to write long suicide letters, but I don’t see the point in it anymore. If I’m going to leave this world a better place, I don’t want to leave behind a ten-page letter detailing all my emotional baggage. Besides, most of the people who know me, the ones close enough to read the letter, already know how screwed up I am.

  I tuck the note inside a plastic baggie and seal it tightly, then I lift my bedroom window an inch and lay the bagged note on the windowsill. I shut the window tight to trap the note there.

  Taking one last look around the bedroom, I smile as I think of how much I won’t miss this house. The pink tulip-shaped knit cap my best friend Rina bought for me in Holland sits on top of my dresser. I’ve only worn it once, the day she brought it back for me from her family vacation last summer. I was in High Point Treatment Center at the time, in the dual diagnosis unit because I’m one of the special cases that needed treatment for attempted suicide and drug detox.

  ‘You look awfully cheerful for someone who’s traveling alone.’ Meaghan’s green eyes follow my suitcase as I drag it behind me, violently bumping along the stairs.

  My sister is seventeen, but she’s not stupid. She knows the signs, which is why I’m trying my hardest not to exhibit the typical suicidal behavior. I didn’t give away all my belongings. I’m not traveling light. I have tried not to appear too chipper over the last couple of days. Yes, it feels amazing to have a plan. It feels like a ten-ton slab of cement has been lifted off my chest. I can breathe. I can think about the future without the crippling anxiety and depression that comes with not knowing if the pain will ever end.

  But I can’t let Meaghan or my parents see how ridiculously relieved I’m feeling. They’ve seen that behavior too many times. The last time I made plans to die, three months ago, my mom saw the signs and followed me to the hotel room where I was going to hang myself. The time before that, I swallowed a bottle of pills in my uncle’s bathroom. It was my cousin Gertie who noticed I was acting too happy. She told my Uncle Cort, ‘Mikki is smiling again.’ Uncle Cort broke down the bathroom door and that’s when I ended up in High Point. That’s also when I swore I wouldn’t commit suicide anywhere that someone could find me.

  ‘Cheerful?’ I repeat Meaghan’s adjective as I pull up the telescoping handle on the suitcase and roll it across the tiled foyer toward the front door. ‘More like nervous as fuck. I’ve never flown without Mom.’

  Meaghan yanks her green parka out of the coat closet and pulls it on over her hoodie. ‘I’ll take that.’ She pulls the hood of the parka over her long, brown hair and grabs my carry-on bag.

  I open the door and we both suck in a sharp breath when we’re blasted with a flurry of freezing winter air. The snow sticks to my face and I quickly close the front door so it doesn’t get inside the house.

  ‘Jesus fucking Christ. It’s colder than a witch’s tit out here. They’re going to cancel the flights if this shit keeps up,’ Meaghan says as we carefully descend the front steps. My dad covered the steps in his special mixture of salt and sand, but it’s not foolproof.

  ‘I have to at least show up. I saved up three months’ paychecks for this fucking ticket.’

  Meaghan opens the wooden front gate and the cab driver scurries out of the car to help us with the bags. As he stuffs the bags into the trunk, I turn to Meaghan and she’s crying. Something tells me she knows. But she would stop me if she knew – wouldn’t she?

  ‘Why are you crying? It’s just a job interview. I’m coming back in four days.’

  ‘I know.’ She wraps her arms around my waist and squeezes me so tight it hurts. I wish I could make myself cry. ‘I’ll miss you. Bring me back a hot actor.’

  ‘I will.’

  We hug like this for far longer than normal. It takes every bit of self-control in me not to tell her that everything will finally be okay when I’m gone.

  At last she pulls away and punches my arm. ‘Get the fuck out of here.’

  ‘I love you, too,’ I say, sliding into the backseat of the cab. My heart stutters as I look at the house I grew up in for the last time.

  The driver slams my door shut then scrambles around the front of the car and gets into the driver’s seat. ‘Logan?’ he asks as he turns up the heater.

  ‘Yeah, Terminal B.’ I watch Meaghan scurry into the house to escape the cold. Her heart will heal. She’ll be okay.

  I reach into my handbag and pull out my gloves, then I spot the bottle of pills. I lay the pink gloves on my lap and reach into my purse for the bottle. On the outside, this is just a normal bottle of anti-psychotic meds. On the inside, this is my self-prescribed emergency meth stash. Each capsule is carefully filled with one dose.

  I quit meth last week. Something about booking a plane ticket to Los Angeles to end my life gave me the fortitude to face the world without drugs. Besides, I was never really addicted. I just didn’t want to quit because it made me feel as if I was in control. But, even though I’m technically no longer a meth-head, I brought my emergency stash in case I lose my nerve to get on that plane.

  I’m going to Los Angeles, specifically to the Pacific Ocean, to down this bottle of pills then swim out into the open ocean until I can’t swim anymore. The water is so cold this time of year, my body will be numb and exhausted by the time I reach the point of no return. I won’t be able to fight it when the water enters my lungs. Plus, I’ll be so far out in the ocean, the odds of my body being found will be slim. My parents won’t have to identify me.

  The cab driver turns the volume up on the radio and ‘Take You Higher’ is playing. The dance beat buoys my mood and I allow myself to smile for the first time in days. I set the bottle of pills back inside my purse and pull my gloves on as I sit back.

  Fifty minutes of horrendous traffic later, the cab pulls up in front of Terminal B and one of the two guys working at curbside check-in rushes over to help us. The cab driver gently places my suitcase on the curb and the skycap waits patiently to help me inside. I pay the driver and he mutters a quick thank-you before he hurries back inside the warm cab.

  ‘Holy shit,’ I whisper, yanking my faux-fur-lined hood over my head.

  ‘I ain’t seen it like t
his in years. I bet they’re already canceling flights,’ the skycap says as he takes my carry-on bag and we race toward the automatic sliding doors. He leaves my bags and me just inside the doors then he jogs back to his station outside in the freezing cold. What a terrible day to have an outdoor job.

  I push my hood back and begin peeling off my pink knit gloves. The line at the check-in counter snakes across the floor as everyone watches the TV monitors above the counter.

  ‘Canceled,’ a voice says behind me.

  I whip my head around and find a guy with messy brown hair sticking out the front of his knit cap. He’s sitting on a gray suitcase with his phone in his hand and a guitar case propped up against the wall behind him. Something about him looks familiar, though I’m pretty certain he’s the kind of guy I would not forget if we’d met before.

  ‘You can probably still catch a cab if you leave now,’ he continues as he thumb-types on his phone.

  ‘Then why aren’t you running outside to catch a cab?’

  ‘I’m in no hurry to go back.’

  I stare at the curb outside just as another cab pulls up to drop off another unknowing passenger. I told Meaghan I’d go home if they canceled the flight, but that’s the last place I want to go right now.

  ‘Yeah, me neither.’

  The guy looks up from his phone and smiles. ‘Yeah, you also have to check in to get your flight rescheduled.’

  ‘Yeah, that too.’ I try not to blush. Something about his smile makes me feel naked.

  The flattened penny gets warm as I rub it between my thumb and index finger. I’ve memorized every dip and rise in the design: Hillman’s Diner, established 1923. My grandfather bought me this flattened penny from a vending machine at Hillman’s Diner when I was ten years old, a couple of months before he died. The crushed penny is one of three gifts from my grandfather that I’ve carried with me everywhere since his death. Well, actually, the third gift, his only copy of Black Box, has been missing for nearly four years. I guess the book is technically not missing if I willingly gave it to a stranger, but it’s definitely gone forever.

  The flattened penny now serves as a guitar pick – my lucky pick – and it looks as if I’m going to be spending a hell of a lot of time with it over the next few days since my flight to Los Angeles was just canceled. Staring at the monitor above the airline check-in counter, I try to imagine what my grandfather would say in a situation like this; flight canceled right when I’ve finally decided to take this music gig to the next level. Grandpa Hugh would probably say something like, ‘You can’t choose the road you take; you can only hope to avoid the potholes.’

  As much as I loved Grandpa Hugh, that’s a ten-ton load of bullshit. I don’t believe my life is already planned out. I refuse to believe that I don’t have control over my worthless fate. I’m not a brilliant man like my grandfather, but I am a pragmatic man. And life has shown me all too often that there is no rhyme or reason to the cruelty inflicted upon humanity.

  The glass doors slide open and a girl rushes in with a skycap, bringing with them a swirl of freezing air. The skycap leaves her luggage just inside the entrance doors to the terminal then he rushes outside to his curbside post. She’s tall and thin, and when she pushes back her hood I get a strange feeling in my belly. Something about her looks familiar. Maybe we shared a class at Harvard. No, I would definitely remember if she were in one of my classes.

  She continues to stare at the monitors above the check-in counter in a daze. I feel the need to help her. ‘Canceled,’ I say, pulling my phone out of my back pocket to type a response to Harlow’s text message.

  My older sister Harlow is the quintessential overachiever. She graduated from MIT four years ago and now works on the West Coast as a social media advisor to the CEO of one of the largest tech companies in Silicon Valley. I’m not supposed to disclose the name of the company to anyone. She almost made me sign a non-disclosure agreement, that’s how serious she is about her job.

  But, as serious as she is about her job, she’s even more serious about staying in touch. She’s a social media addict. She sends me at least ten messages, tweets, or comments per day. She’s able to multitask better than anyone I’ve ever known. She’s married to a geek she met at MIT and they have their first baby on the way in less than three months, which hasn’t slowed her down one bit. She’s been trying to convince me to go to Los Angeles to record this demo for years. She found out my flight was canceled before I did, so now she’s texting me to make sure I don’t allow this to stop me from going to L.A.

  Harlow: I swear to fucking God, if you back out on this I’ll plant naked pics of Mom on your phone.

  Me: Lol. I’m not backing out. And if you do that, I’ll gouge my eyes out. Do you want to be responsible for blinding me?

  I glance up and the girl is looking at me strangely. And now, seeing her face straight on, she looks even more familiar. ‘You can probably still catch a cab if you leave now,’ I add because she looks confused about what she’s supposed to do now that her flight is canceled.

  ‘Then why aren’t you running outside to catch a cab?’

  Her voice has a hard edge to it, but it’s wrapped in soft uncertainty. She doesn’t sound familiar, but something about her lightly freckled skin makes my chest ache. ‘I’m in no hurry to go back.’

  No need to elaborate. She doesn’t need to know that I’m leaving Massachusetts because I’m tired of screaming into a void. I’m exhausted from all the talking I’ve done that hasn’t done a damn thing to make anyone understand me better. Not my shrink, my family, or my friends; no one understands what I’ve seen. I’m almost glad for that.

  I’m not going to record this demo for fame and fortune. I’ve got plenty of fortune and I have no interest in fame. I’m going because I don’t know what else to do at this point. And a small part of me thinks that maybe if I get a record deal, I’ll never have to speak to anyone again.

  I look down at my phone to read Harlow’s newest text:

  Harlow: Geez. Do you really have to make it so easy for me to dish out meaningless platitudes?

  ‘Yeah, me neither,’ the girl replies.

  I look up from my phone screen and smile, trying not to chuckle. ‘You also have to check in to get your flight rescheduled.’

  She smiles and her cheeks blush crimson. ‘Yeah, that too.’

  She covers her face with both her hands as she shakes her head. She’s probably embarrassed that she’s blushing in front of a stranger. I can tell by the obviously dyed black hair that hangs above her emerald eyes and the tattoos on her fingers that she’s not the type of girl who blushes often.

  ‘Go away,’ I say and she uncovers her face.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The tattoos on your fingers.’ I point at her hands as they drop to her side.

  She glances at her fingers. ‘Oh, yeah, I got those when I was young and stupid. You know how that is.’

  My eyebrows knit together in confusion. ‘How old are you?’

  She swallows hard as she turns away to look at the flight monitors again. ‘Older than . . . Nineteen.’

  ‘Nineteen? So you think you’re past the young and stupid phase already?’

  She doesn’t look at me. She continues to stare at the monitors for a moment before she grabs the handle on her rolling suitcase. ‘I have to check in.’

  She gets in line behind thirty-some other bodies with suitcases, but she’s not a body. She’s a soul. That much is plainly obvious by the way she stands in line with her eyes closed, thinking. Maybe she’s silently screaming into the void.

  I text Harlow back:

  Me: Your meaningless platitudes are the bread that feeds my soul. Never give up. Keep on trucking. It’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey. Always separate your whites. And so on. See ya soon.

  I tuck my phone into my back pocket and stare, unabashedly, as the soul makes her way through the snaking line and half-heartedly argues with the check-in clerk about somethi
ng. She tries to hold her head high as she lugs her suitcase and carry-on bag toward me.

  ‘Did they give you a hotel voucher?’ she asks me.

  I shake my head. ‘Nope. I’m only thirty minutes away. They’re only offering vouchers to layover customers.’

  She sighs heavily. ‘Shit.’ She turns to stare at the monitors again and I can feel the desperation pulsing off her.

  She doesn’t want to go home. Neither do I.

  ‘Hey, how about we go get a cup of coffee while we figure out what the fuck we’re going to do?’ She turns to me and I see a glimmer of fear in her eyes. ‘I’m not trying to hit on you. I’m just not ready to go home yet.’

  She doesn’t look convinced, but she must really not want to go home because she holds out her gloved hand to me. ‘I’m Mikki.’

  I stand up from my suitcase and grab her hand. I’m six-foot-one and this girl is almost as tall as me in flats. For some reason, I find this extremely attractive.

  I take her hand in mine and give it a gentle shake. ‘Crush.’

  ‘Crush?’ she repeats. ‘That’s your name?’

  ‘Not my birth name, but it is my legal name. I had it changed a few years ago.’

  ‘Crush.’ She tilts her head as she stares at me. ‘Cool name.’

  ‘Now it’s my turn to blush.’

  She lets go of my hand and her smile disappears. ‘I don’t have money for a cab.’

  ‘I’ll take care of it.’

  The uncertainty returns to her features and I can’t fight the feeling that I know this girl from somewhere. If I tell her she looks familiar, she’ll think this is just a creepy come-on from a stranger.

  ‘We’d better hurry up and get a cab before this mob beats us to it.’

  She nods as she pulls her pink gloves back on over her tattooed fingers. She follows me as I grab my suitcase and guitar case. We head outside and walk around the curved sidewalk until we find an empty cab pulling away from the terminal. I flag it down and the driver helps us load our luggage into the trunk. We rush into the backseat and my nose and ears are already frozen from the few minutes we spent outside. I look at Mikki and her nose and lips are so red they’re almost purple.

  ‘Render Coffee on Columbus,’ I instruct the cab driver and he immediately drives away from the terminal.

  ‘What’s that?’ she asks, settling back into the seat as she begins removing her gloves.

  I grab her hands to stop her and she flinches at my touch. ‘Sorry, but you’ll want to keep those on. Render is just a few miles from here. They have the best coffee in Boston. Have you ever been to Boston?’

  She crosses her arms, tucking her gloved hands under her arms as she gazes out the window. ‘Only twice, when I was young.’

  There she goes again. She’s only nineteen, but she doesn’t think she’s young. What the hell has this girl gone through?

  ‘Well, I’m going to get you the best fucking coffee in all of Boston. And maybe you can give me something in return?’

  She turns to me, her face livid as if I’ve asked her to give me a blowjob.

  ‘No, nothing like that,’ I insist. ‘I was thinking maybe you could . . . Oh, forget it.’

  What the fuck is wrong with me? Why was I going to ask her to listen to my song?

  She pulls her feet up onto the seat and hugs her knees. ‘I just want to go to L.A. I’m so tired of this fucking place.’

  ‘What’s in L.A.?’ I ask as she rests her chin on her knees.

  She takes a deep breath and smiles. ‘The rest of my life.’

  The warm air circulating in the cab is stifling. My face is burning up and my hands instantly begin to sweat inside my pink gloves with the cutoff fingers. I want to take my gloves off, but this guy insists I keep them on. Why did I listen to him?

  I lower my feet onto the floor of the cab and begin peeling off my gloves, trying not to glance at Crush to see if he’s watching. I lay my hands flat on top of the gloves in my lap and smile as I remember the day I got the words ‘GO AWAY’ tattooed on my fingers. It was a few months after the night of the party. My shrink told me I need to stop referring to it as the night of the party, as if nothing of significance happened that night other than the party. As far as I’m concerned, nothing happened.

  People want you to confront your past, stare down your demons, and all that other bullshit. Most of them don’t have the kind of demons I have breathing down my neck, so it’s easy for them to dish out banal clichés on facing the past. I don’t want to remember. I don’t want to think about the night of the party. The more I think about it, the more control I surrender; the more I remember, the more pieces of myself I submit to them. I will remember only in the moments when I choose to remember, not when someone else snaps their fingers and tells me it’s time to talk.

  Talking is overrated.