If

by Nina G. Jones

  I was sick. It wasn’t a sickness that could be seen or measured with a thermometer, but it was a physical illness nonetheless.

  My first thought was of Bird. I looked at the clock. It was ten in the morning. I had slept the entire afternoon and night and it felt like a nap. I trudged to the fridge and found some basics I could shovel into my mouth. I hoped a solid meal might help ease the lethargy.

  Since I never switched on the light, I realized that Miller and Ella probably didn’t even know I was here, and for now, I was okay with that.

  After throwing some toast in the toaster and pulling out a package of turkey cold cuts, I went to my phone. It was dead and shit, I left the charger at Bird’s place. I felt a pinch of panic. Did Bird think I left because of what happened the night before? I meant to leave her a note to tell her I would be at my brother’s, but my mind was so cloudy from the hunger and exhaustion that I forgot. What a fuck up.

  I wracked my mind for her phone number, but I never had a good look at it. She put it in my phone herself and as far as I knew, her number was “Birdie,” which was what I saw every time she called or I dialed her. I suck.

  It was Wednesday, and I knew she usually did a morning class and had a lag in the afternoon before working at the restaurant. If I left in time, I could get to her. Fuck, I have no money.

  I opened the drawers in the guest house where Miller sometimes left me a twenty, but there was just loose change. He wasn’t expecting me. I knew by now he’d be at work. I wouldn’t be able to get back to Bird’s until, at the earliest, this evening. She would think I had just disappeared again, didn’t call her, and she would think it was because she cried. I fucking made her cry.

  I thought that maybe in the main house, Miller might have a charger I could use for my phone. That would remedy this whole situation. Then I could eat, sleep some more, and make it back to Bird’s later. After inhaling two sandwiches, I slid the glass door open and stumbled out of the dark guest house like it had just given birth to me. Shielding my eyes from the sun’s assault, I trudged towards the pool, which was on the way from the guest house to the main house.

  Ella’s voice grated at my throbbing temples. She was engaged in conversation, but I could only hear her voice, like she was on a phone. I braced for small talk with her.

  Her shadow was on the side of the house, I could see it pacing back and forth, but she didn’t see me. Ella loved chatting with her friends on the phone. She owned a boutique and kept irregular hours. It felt like whenever I saw her, she was on the phone with one of her sorority sisters or something.

  “I don’t know . . . it’s like Miller is blind.”

  I stopped to listen. Is she talking shit about my brother?

  “No, it’s just that with a baby on the way . . . his brother is unstable. It’s like the whole family is in denial. Miller being number one. I understand, he lost Sarah and he’s clinging to Asher, but it’s a lost cause.” She always called me Asher, like she refused to become familiar with me. And did she just say there was a baby on the way?

  “No . . . technically he hasn’t intentionally hurt anyone, but he’s unpredictable. He’s a drifter for Christ’s sake! And just because he looks clean, thanks to us, I might add, and he’s articulate, and he’s the little genius that could . . . everyone is blind to the fact that he’s really a bum! Would you want that around your child? . . . We had an argument last night. I told him we should get Asher’s key back, and Asher needs to get a job. He needs tough love! But Miller got all pissy. He said I didn’t understand. I understand that Asher doesn’t want to get better . . . he has it too easy. Everyone coddles him. I think he exaggerates his issues . . . You know, Sarah wasn’t just Asher’s sister, Mill lost his sister too . . . Whatever, sometimes I think Asher is more important to Miller than I am . . . Anyway, Mill caved and said he would talk to him, but he is such a softy when it comes to Asher. So I don’t know . . .”

  I guess it’s one thing to know what someone thinks of you, and another to hear it. She was right. I was a loser. I was all unrealized potential. But what bothered me the most was that I was putting Miller in a tough spot. He was about to have a baby, and I was getting in between him and Ella. I wasn’t her number one fan, but they loved each other. They were trying to build a family, and I was the child she never agreed to.

  Burden. I would always be a burden. No matter what I did, I would be that to my parents and Miller. Even if I got a job today and recalibrated my meds, I had already caused so much irreparable hurt, that just seeing me would be like picking at an old wound.

  I tip-toed back to the guest house, took my key, left it on the kitchen counter, and waited until Ella was back in the house. Then I left.

  BIRD

  IT HAD BEEN three days since I had seen Ash and I was starting to freak out. That night on the roof, everything was going fine until he did something stupid.

  He stood on the edge, taunting me. His eyes were wild, he thought the whole thing was funny, but I was terrified. The more I begged, the more he teetered, laughing, until I started to cry because I thought if I let the tears go, he would understand how serious I was. He did, finally jumping down and professing how sorry he was, as if he couldn’t possibly understand why I was so serious about the whole thing. It was like he had a death wish, or he was being insanely immature and stupid, which was bizarre since I had always thought of him as mature in many ways. For the first time, I was really pissed at Ash. Pissed at him for risking his life for a laugh, pissed that he taunted me, and pissed that he freaked me out so much that it brought me to tears.

  Ash kept saying he was sorry, and I knew he was, but something felt off. I couldn’t put my finger on it. On paper, the way he had been acting was fun. He was inspired, coursing with art and energy, but he also wasn’t eating or sleeping and sometimes his energy shifted from fun to jittery. I figured it was the new project—he was excited, and like many artists in the throes of inspiration, he pushed everything else to the wayside. Ash just needed some rest. He was starting to get loopy.

  So after he apologized fifty times, I told him I forgave him. Then I begged him to sleep. Not to lie in bed and wait for me to fall asleep so he could pace or sneak to the roof. I wanted him to close his eyes and sleep. And he did.

  He slept right through me making breakfast and getting ready for work. It was kind of cute. I hadn’t seen him that peaceful since the first night he slept over. I was relieved. He just needed the rest and then he had to pace himself.

  But when I came back, Ash was gone. Some absence weighs heavier than others. The apartment felt hollow. If it wasn’t for the easel, and our unfinished tree painting clipped to it, it was almost like he never existed. And yet the one piece of evidence of his existence, the easel, was a bad sign. If he didn’t take it with him, he probably wasn’t working on his project.

  I told myself I was being paranoid and called him to clear the feeling. Ash always answered. But this time he didn’t. He wasn’t on the roof. He wasn’t in his spot in the alley. He had vanished. I stayed up that night, calling him a few more times to no avail. The calls were now going straight to voicemail.

  On day two of his absence, I found his charger. It confused me more. Did that mean he was planning to come right back or that he just didn’t care about charging his phone? Was he hurt? Was he angry? The unknown was gnawing at me, and now I was the one with the sleepless nights.

  I thought about calling the police, or hospitals, but something told me his disappearance was intentional. It hurt like hell. I felt like he left because we had a little spat. It was the only thing I could think of.

  Ash reappeared at the end of day three. Jordan and I were walking home together, and as if the past few months hadn’t even happened, there he was, in his spot, looking down. He was the quiet guy again, wanting to be forgotten.

  “Ash? Ash?” I called out, running to him. He looked sick, and he had dirt stains on his face. I’d never seen him like this, even when I didn’t know him. It lo
oked like he had been through a war.

  Jordan stood beside me as I crouched in front of Ash. “Hey,” he said, halfheartedly. “You look beautiful.”

  “What—what are you doing out here? Where have you been?” I asked, beginning to raise my voice. I was concerned but angry at him.

  “I’m sick.”

  “You’re sick? Why didn’t you just come to me, then?”

  “I didn’t want to be a burden,” he said.

  “A burden? Ash, you are not a burden, dammit!” I snapped. But he looked incredibly ill, so I took a deep breath so as not to lash out any further. Jordan looked confused, too. I was too embarrassed to tell him Ash had gone missing, instead saying he was with his brother. It could have been true.

  “We should get you to a doctor,” I said.

  “No . . . no doctors.”

  “Okay, well let’s get you back, you need a shower, and a bed, and some soup.”

  Jordan and I helped him to his feet. Jordan shot me a confused look, and I only mouthed “thank you” back.

  When we got back to my place, I made Ash a bath. When he took off his clothes I was shocked to see scrapes and bruises along his body.

  “What happened?”

  “I walked back from my brother’s. It’s a helluva journey,” Ash muttered.

  “What? That’s like—really far!”

  “Yeah, I had a fight with some bushes and a fence,” he said, grimacing as he lowered himself into the steamy water.

  I sat on the edge of the tub as he leaned his head back, closed his eyes, and sighed.

  “How could you do that?”

  He opened his eyes and peered over at me.

  “How could you just leave like you did? You didn’t call, you didn’t think I might be worried? I was worried sick!” I scolded.

  “Bird, I’ve been taking care of myself for a while now. I didn’t want you to worry about me. I’m sick and I know you have a big heart and you’d want to take of me.”

  “You thought I’d worry, so you disappeared? Awesome logic,” I snapped. “You just vanished. That is not okay, Ash.”

  He winced and kneaded his forehead with one of his hands. “I thought it was better.”

  “You have people who care about you, places to go. What about your brother?”

  “I’m not going there anymore.”

  I threw my hands up, exasperated. “You know what’s a bigger burden, Ash? This. Having you tell me you feel like a burden. Do I not make you feel welcome? That you would rather be out on the street, walking god knows how many miles, than just be here with me? Do you feel like you can’t reach out to me for help?”

  “No . . . that’s not what I mean. Bird, you are going places, you have your shit together. I am a burden. You may not see me as one, but it’s a fact. And you are giving and caring and I am just trying spare you from me.”

  “I don’t need you making choices for me, Ash. I’m not stupid.”

  “I know you’re not, and that’s why I can’t figure out for the life of me why you give a shit,” he snapped.

  “Because I do, Ash. And I won’t justify it to anyone, including you,” I said, stomping out of the bathroom.

  Tears streamed down my cheeks and I opened up a can of soup and put it on the burner. I cared so much about Ash, but he was like water. No matter how I tried to get a hold on him, he was always slipping through my fingers. I wanted to tell him he was a hypocrite, telling me I was lovable and beautiful despite my flaws, and yet he was unwilling to accept love and care because of his. But, I didn’t want him to see the tears. I just wanted it to be back to us dancing and painting. I didn’t want to complicate things with my tears again.

  “Bird.” He was standing behind me. “Bird?” his voice was softer the second time.

  “Yeah?” I said. I cleared my throat to hide the emotion, but it only made the crying more obvious.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  I nodded. I didn’t want to speak because then the tears would start up again.

  “No really, I’m sorry. I fucked up. And when I fuck up, I have a tendency to want to disappear. I didn’t give you a choice. I took it away from you. Sometimes, I just think it makes things better if I just go away.”

  “That’s not healthy.”

  “I know,” he muttered.

  “You have so much going for you and for some reason you’ve got it in your head that you aren’t worth it. You have to stop that.”

  Ash didn’t reply, but after a few moments he spoke. “I went to my brother’s the day after we hung on the roof, and I heard my sister-in-law telling someone on the phone that my brother and her were going to have a baby. He hadn’t even told me yet. And she said she didn’t want me around the baby because I don’t have my life together. She said I was holding my brother back. And she’s right . . . I’m a mess, Bird. And I don’t . . .”

  “Don’t say it,” I said. I knew how he was going to finish the sentence and I didn’t want to hear it. I was sick about hearing who deserved what. The world doesn’t work that way, so why should we?

  “I’m already starting to hurt you.”

  “Ash, I care about you. I want to help you. I want to.” A tear leaked out as I blinked. “Not letting me help you is hurting me. If I thought you were a loser, if I thought you were destined for anything less than sharing your gifts with this world, I wouldn’t want to help you. I would know it was pointless. But you are not what you see of yourself. I might not see auras, and colors, or taste my feelings, but I see things you don’t see too. I see who you can become. So stop trying to convince me you aren’t worth my time. Because you are. You are special, Ash. I won’t fucking stop until you believe that. I don’t know what happened to make you think you weren’t worth the effort. And maybe one day you’ll finally tell me. But I guarantee you, you are worth it. And your sister-in-law is a bitch,” I said.

  He laughed softly.

  Ash’s chest pressed against my back as he wrapped his arms around me, shrouding me in love. We might not have been ready to confess it to each other, but we were drowning in it. I inhaled his scent, no longer of earth and sweat, but of soap. “I’m just so afraid I’ll hurt you,” he said.

  “Then don’t.”

  ASH

  The evening Bird found me on the street, after days of drifting and generally feeling like shit, was when I decided I was done with running away from her.

  Maybe it was selfish, because I knew stuff she didn’t. But she was convincing. She made me believe that somehow, together, we could fix me. Despite the sadness that draped over me those three days that I wandered aimlessly, sleeping on park benches and in alleyways, that entire time, I was just slowly finding my way back to her. She had become my beacon, with her lavender glow shining through the fog of depression.

  I knew that finding myself would be hard. I had gone up and come down, and I wanted to just remember what it was like to be Asher, before the meds. But I was stuck in a hole. I wanted to see Bird in all the colors, and I wanted to sense the world as vividly as I used to. I wanted the energy to finish the rooftop project. I didn’t want to worry about trying to paint the smallest of details in a piece, only to be thrown off by the sudden shaking of my hand.

  I needed a reset. I wanted to climb out of the depth as fast as I could. I knew nothing could get me out of the bottom faster than stopping my medication.

  I hadn’t been great about the meds lately, but I was on them. I started to think they were a pointless attempt at making me level. It had been almost two years since the breakdown and maybe I could be fine again without them.

  I was sick of being tied down to a bottle of pills. I was sick of the check-ins to monitor my lithium levels. Even living on the street, I was never really free because of them. I was a slave to the very bottle of pills that was putting a damper on the two things that made me who I was: my synesthesia and my art.

  I had lived most of my life without medication and I had been fine. Maybe it was time to try li
fe without it again. Maybe it was the meds that were holding me back, like some sort of crutch that wouldn’t allow me to sprint.

  They threw a wrench in the cycle of vision to canvas that I had relied on for most of my life. I had so much living to do. I wanted out of this medicinal alteration. I could do this. I would do this. For Bird. For Sarah.

  So that night, after Bird fell asleep, I got my bottle of pills and I emptied the few remaining ones down the toilet. I was going to be the real Ash, no longer viewing the world in its ordinary dullness.

  I could do this.

  ASH

  I WAS RIGHT.

  It had been four weeks since Bird found me on the street, back to my old ways. I let her think it was some kind of flu that I had succumbed to from the lack of sleep. It wasn’t hard to convince her. In many ways, that’s what the low felt like: my body and head ached, and all I wanted to do was sleep.

  During the third week, the fog started to roll away on its own. I didn’t need the medicine. I just needed Bird and my art. Bird helped me forget the guilt. She filled me with feelings I was afraid to feel. All this time I feared I might hurt her, that I might lose control. But I was starting to learn to funnel those high feelings into my art. That was the healthy way to do it, not these numbing meds.

  Bird was off with teaching the little ‘uns, as she called them, and I decided to venture out for a walk. It had been a while since I had done that, spending most of the past few weeks in a miserable fog.

  The sun beamed on my skin, and it felt like life was being fed into me. Weeks ago, the sun would have felt like an annoyance, a reminder of how good I should feel. Nothing feels worse than knowing something should feel good, but instead feeling nothing at all.

  This time, I stayed away from 5th.

  A child screamed, not a tantrum, just the way toddlers like to test out their vocal cords with a random screech. A blast of white exploded and disappeared just as quickly.

  I walked a little further, past a construction crew. The jackhammer pumped a collection of dark purple dots before my eyes.