Lucid

by Gabrielle Castania

  Backed into a corner by his threat, not wanting anything to potentially hinder my chances of leaving that god-forsaken school, I forced a dramatic sigh and spun on my heel to face him. I knew in my heart that he didn’t want to be vicious, but it irritated me nonetheless. When contempt for him began to well up from within me was when I noticed a new kind of red flag – perhaps I was taking this whole “turning on everyone” thing I’d decided on a little too literally. The motives of others were questionable at best, but Protoccelli never wanted anything more than to help me.

  I was a bit taken back by the blend of emotion in his face. He was a little angry, but also sad, bewildered, and visibly at a loss for words. “So after all these years, the kitty does have claws when it comes to me,” I quipped as I breezed past him as tossed myself lazily into the plush chair beside his desk, leaving him standing in awe at the easel, still looking at my painting. I kicked my feet up onto the edge of his desk and asked, “What do you want me to elaborate on first?”

  Slowly, he came back to join me, cautious in his approach. “I want to know more about all of it,” he replied, grabbing my piece on the way back over, propping it up on his desk facing toward himself and away from me, as if he could shield me from it all. “Start with your father, I guess, who I always just assumed wasn’t in the picture.”

  “He’s a prick,” I began by stating the most glaring fact about Roger. “I never bothered to correct you on his presence in my life because, with every part of my being, I wish he wasn’t in the picture. He doesn’t seem to be as of late, though – he took off a couple weeks ago. Nobody’s told me where he is, and I haven’t cared enough to ask. If he were lying in a ditch someplace, rotting and being used by small animals for sustenance, it would be for the best.”

  Protoccelli rubbed at his eyes, running his fingers down the length of his face in obvious exasperation. “What makes him so bad? I mean, nobody feels this way about their father when the worst he’s done is ground them for staying out past curfew.”

  “He’s a drunk, abusive workaholic,” I stated, tossing my head back and staring up at the ceiling for a moment to try to gather my thoughts. “When he’s not at work, he’s drinking, so even when he’s home, he’s never really there. When I was little, I looked at him with stars in my eyes, and now, he’s got me seeing stars half the time because he tends to get a little punchy when he’s drunk. That’s where the bruises come from that I explain away as me just being clumsy sometimes, and that’s why my mum is crushed under his feet – because she gets it worse than I do. He started getting wasted all the time when my mum first got sick, just to hide the pain of her cancer diagnosis and the fear of living without her, then it just got progressively worse until the booze was just kind of who he was.” I looked back to my teacher, who had lost his coloration at some point in my explanation.

  “Okay,” Protoccelli tried his best to carry on through what I was telling him, “and because of all of that, depression and anxiety are sitting up on his shoulders, which makes sense. How do you handle those things?”

  I could tell that his almost pleading look was sincere. As a high school teacher, he’d surely seen a lot of stuff with kids who cope in lots of different ways, some of them more harmful than others. “Not by hurting myself, if that’s what you’re thinking. I usually hide away from it all by burying myself in my art.”

  “And you take my class to try to get away from everything for a while. Instead, you come face to face with Ben and his troupe. They’re your laughing shades of gray,” he continued to piece things together. “But Ellie sticks out from the crowd, and she looks really mad. Why is that? Because of the people you have her standing with?”

  “Sort of. I put her back with everybody else because, like them, I don’t really think we’re friends anymore,” I confessed, wishing I could feel something, anything about the topics, but I was just so tired of my life at that point that I’d shut my feelings off. “When I got in with Joey and the popular kids, I started to progressively shove her away because she refused to conform to the person I was becoming, until I pushed her over the edge last week and she called off our friendship. Yeah, she wasn’t the greatest person, but she was all I had left.”

  “I remember you mentioning some hard feelings toward her before,” he nodded, still looking at my painting. “This whole fight really stemmed over a boy?”

  “Mr. P, I went out for dinner with the kid literally one time, and all of a sudden, everybody wanted to be my best friend. At first, I was really excited about hanging out with Joey, but then his friends got involved and complicated everything for me, and before I knew it, I was a totally different person. I let them change me, and let me tell you that it’s a little horrible to come to the realization that you’re no longer the one in control of your own life.” His eyes darkened, knowing well the type of people Ben and his friends were; I didn’t need to explain them. “I couldn’t take the pressure of it anymore, so I broke up with Joey yesterday morning. It was nothing against him, since I really do genuinely love him, but I just couldn’t take the stress that came with being his girlfriend anymore. I’m not cut out for the kind of life he lives.”

  My teacher sat still for a moment, scanning over the piece for something he hadn’t yet addressed. “What about the guy from that band? He was the one you did for your portrait assignment, right?” I nodded in confirmation. “Tell me about that again; it’s been a while since that project.”

  For the first time all day, a smile found its way through all my darkness. “I wound up in a cycle of lucid dreams with him, and he as always there to hear me out. He’s the first person who told me I was changing, and he left for a couple months to give me space to explore my new life. He’s back now, though. He knew I was starting to fall apart, so he came back to try to help me stop that. Talking to him in my sleep seems to be the only solace I’m going to have from all of this for a while, but it’s okay because he makes me happy, and I’d do anything to sleep forever, just to feel that way all the time.”

  Immediately, Protoccelli’s eyes widened as he looked back to me. “Ashley, you talking about suicide isn’t something that I can take lightly.”

  “What?” I snapped back to attention, torn from my pleasant thoughts by the weight that word carried. “Who said anything about suicide? I don’t want to die; I just want to sleep, is all. I’m just so tired – tired of my feelings, tired of my life. I just want to sleep, wake up, and have all of this have been a dream. I was a mess before it all started, but at least I was a familiar kind of mess. This kind, though, I don’t know how to stop. I just need something to bend before I break.”

  He sighed, flipping the canvas down so neither of us had to look at it anymore, now that he’d combed through everything on it. “Most people don’t go through half the things you’ve been going through, and it’s understandably a lot for anybody to handle. I know you’re strong, but you have so much on your plate right now, more than anybody should have at this point in their life. The end of your senior year should be fun and carefree, but here you are, stuck inside yourself because of all of it.” He stopped to breathe, taking a moment to catch up with what was going on. “You know I have to do something about this, right?” he asked after a moment, looking me in the eye and trying to read whatever he thought I was hiding.

  I smiled sarcastically. “What are guidance counselors going to do a week before I leave about a friend that hates me, a boyfriend I willingly broke up with, and parents who are too busy fighting to see how everything has been pulling me apart?”

  “Well, they can get you out of your house, for starters. They’ll call Child Protective Services and have you removed. They’ll help you arrange for therapy so you can work things out with someone more trained in that field than your teacher.” His eyes intensified as he leaned toward me. “Someone can help you, Ashley. You can’t give up.”

  “I never planned to give up,” I replied. “I just plan to sit back and let whatever happens, happen.
Clearly, I can’t do much to stop what goes on in my life, so I might as well just work on accepting that.”

  Looking a little dejected by my words as the bell rang to end the school day, Protoccelli kept his eyes glued to me. “I’m really worried about you,” he told me plainly. “I’m going to do everything in my power to get you out of this hell you’re in.”

  “You’re more than welcome to try, but it all seems a little futile, at this point,” I said as I collected my bag from the floor. “I tried all of that before, and all it did was get me into even deeper shit than I started in, so good luck.”

  He told me with determination, “It doesn’t mean I’m not going to try for you, Ashley. There’s a solution to all of this, and I’m going to try to help you find it.”

  Not looking to fight him on the impossibility of his quest, I simply called over my shoulder as I headed for the doorway, “Have a good night, Mr. P.”

  And, walking out into the sea of students, I efficiently shut out yet another person in the decidedly small club of people who might actually give a damn about me.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  I yanked my headphones from my schoolbag as I made my way outside, using Tragic Magic to drown out the whispers and white noise buzzing around me while I walked. When I walked home before, it was always with Ellie. When Joey came around, I always got picked up. Now that both of them were gone, I had no choice but to hoof it on my own.

  The summer sunlight greeted me happily after the long void of winter, but I couldn’t feel its warmth against my skin. The air around me smelled fresh and crisp, but I couldn’t savor it. People passing by on the sidewalk occasionally smiled and greeted me, but I couldn’t empathize with their optimism and happiness. I shambled through the streets of Marmara like a zombie, cold and unfeeling.

  Mum wasn’t there when I got home, which was a bit strange, but regardless, I made my way up to my bedroom. All I wanted to do was lose myself for a while, tired of being locked inside my mind. I turned my stereo to a relatively ambient volume, set up a blank canvas on my easel, and let myself get to work.

  Once I decided what I was going to paint, I decided I might give myself something to help me get to sleep afterwards. I’d opted to outline the beginnings of a piece about Danny, and god, did I want to see him again. I had so much to talk to him about but not the patience to wait for the night. I was too buzzed from my conversation with Protoccelli, though, and knew I’d never be able to take a nap by myself without some help. It seemed like the perfect time to head out in search of some sleep aids.

  Roger tended to fall asleep once he was good and drunk, so I thought I might start there. I headed down to the dining room to raid his liquor cabinet, figuring that, if he ever turned up, he probably wouldn’t miss a bottle of something. However, when I opened the doors of the old, wooden cabinet, I was more than a little surprised to find it entirely empty. All I found inside was dust, speckled with clean spots where bottles once sat.

  Maybe he’d come home while I was at school and collected all of his alcohol. No matter, I thought, because I knew he hid some around the house, for easier access. When he was already buzzed, he didn’t always want to go all the way back to the dining room, so he had little stashes of things lying in hiding spots he thought were clever. Hoping he hadn’t thought to take those as well, I set off to find them.

  After checking in the couch cushions, behind the television, in the refrigerator, amongst the household cleaners under the sink, and behind a box of winter clothing on the shelf in the coat closet, I deemed the first floor a loss and headed upstairs. The closet in the hall yielded no results, nor did any of the drawers of his dresser, but finally, I lucked out when I made my way into the bathroom off my parents’ room. Stashed away in the very back of their linen closet, hidden within a stack of plush bath towels, was a medium-sized bottle of vodka, yet to be opened.

  I thought I’d found everything I was looking for, until I perused the other shelves in the closet as well, just to be sure I would be able to pass out for a while. Also sitting in the closet were all of my mother’s assorted medications, and certainly, she had to have something to help her sleep. After a bit of rummaging, I found a box of store-brand sleep aids, and brought my treasures back to my room with a smile.

  There was no limit on how long I wanted to sleep for, but the packaging on the sleeping pills directed me to take one tablet for eight uninterrupted hours of sleep or my money back. I popped one into my mouth and washed it down with a burning, gasoline sip from Roger’s bottle. Once I got it down, though, I began to think. If I wanted to sleep forever, one tablet was not going to cut it. They didn’t list a dosage for forever, so I figured I’d play it safe and take several more. I wound up swallowing every pill in the packet one by one, each one followed by a hefty sip of the nauseating liquid for which my father had a penchant, clearing most of it by the time the pills were all gone.

  The box for the pills mentioned that it was going to take about hour to kick in and make me sleep, which gave me enough time to work with my painting before I conked out for who knew how long. Smiling to myself at the premise, I picked my paint pallet back up and got right to work, determined to have it done before I went to sleep so I could show it to Danny when I met him in my dream.

  When I finally finished it however long later, I took a step back to admire my work, smiling for the second time that day. The rich earth tones of the meadow staged the atmosphere for Danny and I, bundled together beneath our tree. Our eyes were closed, and we were snuggled up together, grinning softly to ourselves. Painted in black, cursive scroll against the sun rising in the sky were the lyrics to one of his songs – “Although as strange as it may seem, I see your face in every dream.”

  “Your mother’s been telling me you’ve gotten really good at this whole art thing.” Before I had time to react, I felt my father’s enormous presence standing beside me, shooting freezing vines of ice up my spine. Full of life, he laughed heartily, a sound I hadn’t heard in quite some time. “I missed a lot in the past few years, huh?”

  Scarred by the constant need to defend myself, I whirled to face him entirely so he couldn’t take me by surprise again. Through my astonishing lack of feeling emerged a terrible blend of fear and confusion that I tried to swallow back so I could think clearly. “Why are you in here?” I slurred defensively. He turned to look at me, brow creased with perplexity. “Stop pretending you give a damn and answer my question.”

  He proceeded carefully, “I know this has to be strange for you. Could I have five minutes to try to talk to you and explain myself a little?”

  “Why?” I asked, my tone almost more of a bark as I stood up straight, muscles rigid with adrenaline. “Why should I bother to give you the time of day?”

  “Just give him a chance to talk, Love,” Mum, who appeared in the doorway, cooed to me. She took my pallet and brush from my hands and set them on my dresser before guiding me to my bed, pulling me down to sit beside her. “You might like what he has to say.”

  Roger stood before me for what felt like forever. For the first time in a very long time, he didn’t actually look like he was in shambles – he looked healthy, somewhat happy, and definitively sober. He moved his hand up into his hair, raking through it a time or two before finally speaking to me. “Ashley, I know there’s nothing I can say to change how I’ve treated you for the past few years, and before I start pleading my case, I want you to know that I acknowledge that. I’m not expecting you to jump up and hug me at the end of this whole thing. In fact, I anticipate you’ll probably resent me for a really long time, and just so you know, I don’t blame you.”

  Mum chuckled to herself, the sound light, almost girlish. “She knows, Roger; get on with it.”

  Heavily, he exhaled, turning his attention to me and looking me in the eyes as he began his spiel. “As you may or may not have noticed, because your mother says you’ve been pretty busy lately, I haven’t been around in the past couple weeks.”

>   “And as you may or may not have noticed,” I interrupted him, turning up my nose to him, “I didn’t care enough to come looking for you, or to ask where you were. You could have run away to never come back, or you could have been dead, and I wouldn’t have been the least bit bothered.”

  His eyes flinched shut, their cool, once again vibrant blue disappearing momentarily. “I deserve that,” he said more to himself than to me. Quickly, changing the topic back to where he wanted it to be, he cleared his throat. “I came up here to tell you where I’ve been, regardless of whether or not you realized I was gone. I know drinking has been a serious problem for me, something I’ve used to cover up a lot of pain, and I know that I’ve been handling things in all the wrong ways. I don’t remember a majority of the past decade of my life, and I feel like I’ve failed you and your mother.”

  I gave a dramatic gasp, recoiling in forged shock. “Never.”

  “Ashley,” Mum scolded, nudging me hard in the side as she burned holes into me with her eyes. “He’s tryin’ to tell you somethin’ you and I have wanted to hear for a long time now.”

  Expectantly, I turned back to my father, crossing my arms, forced to listen without a way out of it. “What I’m trying to say is, the problems that I had before aren’t going to be problems anymore. When I got the news that your mother was going back into remission and told one of my coworkers about it when he asked why I was smiling, he suggested we go out for drinks to celebrate the good news. And it was then that I realized that I didn’t know how to drink to celebrate, or even how to drink socially. It was always something I did by myself just to try to smother a lot of things I was feeling that I didn’t know how to deal with. It opened my eyes and made me realize what a mess I have to have been over the past several years, and I realized that you and your mother deserve far better than that.”