Nowhere Near You

by Leah Thomas

  Bridget didn’t blink. “They took it to the entrance. I screamed on the table. To the parking lot. I screamed. The edge of the woods. I screamed. To the town. Nothing happened. They increased the frequency until I screamed. To the freeway. I screamed.” Her eyelids fluttered. “My pulse stopped after eighty-seven miles.”

  “Oh.” Is this how you’d have talked if I’d met you in person first, Moritz?

  I deserved a snowfall. A whole damn avalanche.

  Auburn-Stache’s grip loosened. “Bridget, you have my number.”

  Bridget led us to the doorstep. The wind blew like it had a grudge, and the sky seemed to have skipped sunset and gone with insta-dark.

  I patted the bulge at my stomach. “Um. Sure you don’t want this?”

  “The blender’s still plugged in.”

  For an emotionless lump, that felt almost like a joke. “See you tomorrow?”

  Bridget closed the door in our faces. I spun around to give Auburn-Stache the sort of look you give your mad-scientist friend when you’re ousted by a heartless girl, or maybe the sort of look you give when you’re in shock about what she’s just told you or what he’s never told you.

  “You know, ’Stache, no one’s ever kicked me in the testicles before.”

  “You’ve lived a blessed life, Ollie.”

  “Better than hers, huh.” I turned back to the house, closed curtains. “Is the campground definitely within an eighty-seven-mile radius?”

  “Yes.”

  We closed the car doors in unison.

  “Think she’ll take it back tomorrow?”

  “I hope so. But, Ollie?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Not all business is your business. I took you on this trip because I believed you could show some restraint. I warned you to be patient. It’s one thing for you to badger me.” His voice was so stern, Moritz. My heart missed a beat that Bridget’s made up for. “Heart or no, do you think Bridget should have to tell you about the laboratory? She doesn’t owe you any piece of herself.”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “You disappointed me today.”

  I had to look out the window.

  The campground was twenty miles away, tucked into a pathetic patch of woods.

  Once we’d set up camp on a site near the back of the lot, I unpeeled my second skin to rinse myself off at a cold water pump with my hat still on, and then I skirted around Auburn-Stache and went right to my sleeping bag with my book light.

  He could say what he wanted. At least I didn’t dismiss Bridget’s suicide attempt. If someone I cared about cried wolf, I’d come running. Like, even if you cried it a thousand times, Moritz. I’d keep unplugging the blender.

  I wrote about the Indiana cornfield that night. Auburn-Stache came in, and I didn’t say a word. His own medicine, I guess.

  I scratched out words for you, one eye on Bridget’s heart by my pillow. Our campground was called the Rustic Bear despite being pinned between two sides of a freeway, and I know woodland creatures creep out of the, erm, woodwork when they smell meat. Her heart fogged up my fishbowl. Dew formed on the bottom of the lid (by lid I mean my Order of the Phoenix hardcover). I wondered if Bridget could feel the cold glass, miles away, watching TV with her nice, oblivious foster parents. Maybe she heard me tap my fingers on the bowl and apologize to her, to it, and then snort at my own doofusry.

  I wrote and wrote as the temperature dropped inside the tent, as I huddled deeper down in my mummy bag.

  “Ollie!” groaned Auburn-Stache at last, rolling over in his sleeping bag. “Put the light out. I’ve just dreamt I was staring into headlights.”

  I closed the book and watched the heart glisten.

  “Hey, ’Stache? Sorry for badgering Bridget.”

  “Ollie,” murmured Auburn-Stache. “The light.”

  “No. This here’s an interrogation. See, I’m not sorry for badgering you.”

  He sighed. “You get one question, Ollie.”

  “Did you . . . back in the lab. Did you torture Bridget?”

  He didn’t answer right away. “Not personally. I wasn’t her primary physician.”

  “Okay.” I had to believe him, half asleep or not.

  Not. “But I can’t say I wouldn’t have, given the assignment. If someone convinced me it would help us learn, for instance, more about Moritz’s heart condition.” I couldn’t see him, which made it easier. For me. Maybe for him. “I didn’t know Bridget until after the laboratory dissolved. When it came time to place the children in homes.”

  “And Bridget moved to Ohio.”

  Auburn-Stache kicked his feet against the canvas. “No. She’s lived with a dozen families, and rarely worn her heart for ten years. The longer she leaves it out, the harder it gets for her.”

  “Years of dusty emotions gunk up the works?”

  “Ollie, when you’ve been numb for a long while, numbness becomes a comfort. Pain is most immense right after anesthesia wears off. There’s nothing so frightening as the full weight of who you are.”

  “This is a sad story, ’Stache.”

  “It’s not a story, Ollie. It’s Bridget’s life. And I have no right to share it. Her story or the others’. Do you understand? I’m the last person who gets to lay claim to your lives, Ollie. Your lives. Not mine.”

  How many years do you think we were Auburn-Stache’s anesthesia, Moritz?

  “But she knew who I was.” I listened to beats beyond glass. “You said you won’t talk about us behind our backs, but Arthur knew about me, too. But until last year, you let me think I was alone.” I swallowed. “If that’s because you feel ashamed or whatever, why is it just me? Why am I still in the woods?”

  People kept killing my questions with snores.

  Moritz, it can’t be healthy to let pain build up until you want to plug in blenders. If you don’t feel things as they happen, those things creep up on you like a rash, and then you can’t breathe, and you just want to clutch your stomach and say, “She’s gone, she’s gone,” until the words sound like lies. Until you don’t know what you’re saying anymore, or if you’re saying it clearly, or if language can even capture being that alone.

  I’m proud of you for feeling things.

  Bridget’s heartbeat lulled me to sleep, but it took awhile.

  Good night,

  Ollie

  P.S. Okay. So it’s January and I’m writing about November, and you’ve stopped badgering me about why. But more than ever I think you deserve to know what’s been going on with me, and, Moritz, I thought I was ready to tell you. I picked up the ballpoint and I was so ready to finally get on with my life, unstop the clock, but . . . next time, okay?

  chapter fourteen

  THE NAPKINS

  You are making a habit of stealing hearts. It took me many months to offer you mine, Oliver Paulot. And yet no one near you remains heartless.

  I, too, am trying to learn patience. I understand. A heart is a daunting thing to expose to anyone. But whatever you need to tell me, do tell it. Honesty, Oliver. Isn’t that what we preach? Be honest with me. I’m not just anyone.

  Am I?

  Weeks in Kreiszig have passed as if pursued by something heartless. Scarce time to keep up with my coursework. Our correspondence. My life.

  Molly is busy with rehearsals. All I see of her now are brief embraces in the mornings, the gentle hiss of air through her mouths when she greets me.

  “Moritz, are you making friends?”

  “Possibly.”

  “I want you to rehearse, too. Practice talking to people, or I’ll just be livid, Prince Moritz.”

  Does “beg pardon” qualify as talking?

  I stay late on campus with Myriad classmates. Seeking advice from professors. (I have never before been challenged by coursework, Ollie.) Helping at rehearsals, practicing rhythm under trees where sometimes people high-five me. Chloe-Bowie has recently decided I have perfect pitch.

  “Only sensitive ears. I do not sing.”

&nbs
p; “Who cares? Help me tune my guitar!” I hummed for her in the spacious mess hall. She strummed strings. Grinned. “Give me E-flat.”

  Max Fassner stopped to listen to her plucking out “Life on Mars?” Sucking his teeth. One foot on the ground. The other on the bench. Eyes? On me.

  Fluffing conquistador.

  “Moritz, wanna tune our instruments on tour? And you could double as a metronome, you click so well.”

  An affronted click. “I am not portable.”

  Chloe sized me up with her forefinger and thumb. “Close enough.”

  Max winked. I ducked.

  What was I? Kittens or bee stings?

  When finally Owen and I reunited on a rainy Thursday, I arrived drenched at the café. Apologies at the ready—Klaus’s barking had kept me late, Chloe’s singing had kept me later—

  But Owen did not appear for another half hour. I heard him in the collapse of his umbrella, in the scraping of snow off boots in the doorway. He sat down across from me. Proceeded to spend minutes tapping on his phone. I sipped hot water in silence; Owen’s coffee went cold.

  At last, he pulled a pen from behind his ear and scrawled on a napkin. I took it eagerly and clicked to read:

  Why did you want to see me Moritz.

  “Why wouldn’t I?”

  He took the napkin back and poised his pen, but did not answer.

  “Sometimes I am preoccupied, but that doesn’t mean I don’t care for you.”

  Preoccupied with Myriad. Neat block letters, shoved my way.

  “Yes. With Myriad.”

  Frau Pruwitt asked about you. He flipped the napkin over, wrote furiously. You’re supposed to keep working the library some afternoons. You’re supposed to help her.

  “She knows I’m busy.”

  Owen raised both his hands and eyebrows.

  “With what, you ask? New classes. Stagecraft, in particular. Klaus is always hounding me! The dimwit refuses to understand what ‘color-blind’ means.”

  Is Klaus gay, Owen wrote.

  “He is not.”

  Owen narrowed his eyes. I saw the resemblance to his sister. His sister. How was she?

  I did not know if I could ask. What am I? The eyeless wonder who abandoned them.

  “Klaus only has eyes for Molly. And I’ve got eyes for no one. Ha.”

  A joke I’m sure you could land. From my lips, it did nothing.

  Oliver, was I emolocating? Frosting coffee in cold hands behind me? Raising the volume of voices? I tried not to think about what happened with Max. How I should have told Owen from the start. Why hadn’t I? Truly, why hadn’t I? Had the barista looked so glum before I sat down?

  “That, ah, reminds me. Molly’s set to perform in a play about radioactive posies next month. The Saturday before Valentine’s Day. You should come. Meet everyone.”

  You’ve told them about me?

  “Obviously!” (“I’ve got a boyfriend.” “Not for long.”)

  He filled the napkin’s final corner: Have to go, DJing downtown.

  “Tonight? I’ll come. And perhaps after . . .”

  Owen shook his head. Signed something. I adjusted my goggles, as if that could help my ears. I could not remember the sign.

  He repeated himself. I understood this time.

  Ich möchte das nicht. More or less: “I don’t want you to.”

  Owen pecked me on the goggles before departing.

  I sat. Foolish.

  I pulled my damp coat close around my neck and followed him out into the rainy street. Mostly empty, because wise people took shelter from the gale. Rivers and streams formed between the cobbles, trickling glacial capillaries by which to see.

  I see so much farther in rain. But I could not see him.

  I could scarce keep my head off the beanbag the next morning. Despite or because of this, Dr. Hoppen chose me for Kafkaesque again. This time I was paired with the mousy girl in glasses. Sally? Something inane like Sally.

  “‘In the Penal Colony.’” Clap.

  I sprawled on the floor. Outstretched my arms and rolled myself slowly over, imagining that needles traced bloody words in my skin. In Kafka’s “Penal Colony,” criminals are tortured by a mechanical device. A bed of nails that carves words into its victims. I threw myself into the role.

  There is some security in the familiar, even in the awful.

  I assumed Sally would take on the role of the lovingly devoted officer who mans the device. But I only heard her back away. Dr. Hoppen had stopped counting. When?

  “You’re supposed to freeze, Moritz. And you’re supposed to be silent.”

  I frowned. “I didn’t say a word.”

  “No. You didn’t.” Clap. “I think everybody understood this one quite clearly.” He seemed unnerved. “We’ll be moving on.”

  I do not know for certain that I darkened the room. But, Ollie. Max frowned at me. Chloe didn’t say a word. I hung my head through reader’s theater performances of Die Blechtrommel.

  Before I left the classroom, Dr. Hoppen waved me to join him by the mantelpiece.

  “Moritz, I have a question for you.”

  “Ah. I’m sorry I did not, ah, follow instructions.”

  “It’s not that. Although yes, that whining sound you made set all our teeth on edge. Like a dentist’s drill.”

  Whining sound?

  “Why do you always choose the role of the victim?”

  I clicked, bit my tongue. “Do I?”

  Do I, Ollie? Will I always?

  The finished altar took center stage during an after-school performance of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I helped my classmates follow Klaus’s barking orders. Shifted lampposts and sleighs on command.

  Applause grew loud enough to reveal a packed house.

  You would not know this from Klaus’s expression. A single click revealed deepening frown lines. When we began breaking down the sets, Klaus whistled for us to gather.

  “You’re free to go. I’ll take care of this.” On paper the words seem a kindness, but in truth a warning. Chloe-Bowie patted me on the back. (I still fight the urge to duck when people reach for me.)

  “Come to the after-party, Moritz. After that freak-out in class today, I think you could use a drink. And there’ll be cute boys there. Well, at least if you come, there’ll be one.”

  Queer candyland. Fieke’s sneer.

  “Ah, I have homework. But thank you, Chloe.”

  She shrugged, rejoined her friends. Together, they encapsulated all eras of Bowie.

  Behind me, Klaus unscrewed bolts from backdrop stands. The jingling of the metal hitting his palm revealed careful hands, intense focus, despite all his crotchety posturing.

  “Farber, if I’d wanted to be stared at, I’d be an actor. Go home.”

  I looked at the wreckage before us. “You can’t do all this alone.”

  A bark. “Watch me. Actually, no. Don’t watch me.”

  I gathered costume debris from the scuffed floor, tossing pieces into bags for dry-cleaning. Velvet to faux fur. Klaus carried on, making enough noise to see by. In an hour or two, most of the lumber had been returned to the storage space at the back of the auditorium.

  “I don’t know why,” Klaus announced suddenly, while I pushed a broom, “but I feel like you want to ask me a question. It’s like an itch inside my skull, Farber.”

  I started, stopped the hissing bristles.

  “So spit it out.” Klaus kicked off his boots. Sat down under the pulley system between the inner and outer curtains.

  “Was Molly not in attendance tonight?”

  Klaus grunted. “I work on seven plays a semester. Nobody goes to all the shows.”

  “But you’re upset?”

  “Only because I invited her. But I can’t expect anything. We aren’t a couple.”

  “And if you were?”

  “We wouldn’t stand each other up. Obviously.”

  “Obviously.”

  He scratched his neck. What was I projecting, that h
e snapped his eyes my way? “People don’t come to plays to see the scenery.”

  “I would say . . . scenery matters a great deal.”

  “You’re one weird fish, Farber.”

  “Yes. I’ve seen worse scenery than this place.”

  “Has Molly?”

  I closed my mouth.

  He stood up and pulled the broom from my grasp.

  “Go home. Your misery is catching.”

  He has no idea.

  I’d avoided the Sickly Poet for weeks. For fear of Fieke. Any confrontation could only end with one of us incapacitated, by boot or cane. Our haunt was unusually empty, apart from a crooning torch singer at center stage.

  And Fieke, sitting at one of the front tables. Crying into her drink. Hands balled into fists, face so gentle she was scarce recognizable. I could not begin to guess what the matter was. Perhaps it was only the music.

  If I were you, Ollie, I would have sat down with her. Anyone human would not have turned tail and stepped back into the mire.

  Father was not waiting up with tea at the table.

  I turned on my stereo. Full blast. Bass that made cats yowl on the balcony, made a neighbor holler. Checked my mail. Phone. Nothing.

  There are many words for “loneliness” auf Deutsch.

  Mutterseelenallein is one that comes to mind. Don’t laugh. The literal translation? Essentially “without even a mother’s soul.” We share the greatest loneliness.

  Don’t laugh. Don’t be alone.

  Tell me what’s wrong.

  chapter fifteen

  THE SCHOOL BUS

  Moritz—

  Neither of us knows how to do this “living” thing. Sometimes I blame our weird childhoods. But maybe Arthur’s right: we live like anybody lives.

  We aren’t alone in screwing up all the time. So you suck at relationships? That makes you normal. Look at Klaus and Molly! Look at Fieke, crying. (I hope she’s okay.)

  Maybe feeling alone is what normal means. Maybe everyone on the planet is a hermit until they share that with someone else.

  So here’s what’s gone so wrong with me, Moritz:

  Turns out I can’t keep people near me, either.

  Is this legible? Or are my hands shaking?