Side Effects May Vary

by Julie Murphy

  I pulled him down to me, wrapping my legs around his waist. Our lips collided roughly, our pace mismatched and wrong. I moved fast, my kisses harsh. He tried to be slow and gentle, giving soft pecks. His hands slid down my shoulders, so I did him the favor of moving them to my chest. He gasped. I wanted to smash his body against mine until I became just as much of a stranger as he was.

  “Wait, Alice.” I tried to silence him with my lips. “Alice,” he murmured. “I think you’re a great girl.” A great girl? Who was this guy? “And you’re beautiful; God, you are so beautiful.”

  “Yeah, you’re okay too.”

  He rolled off me and rested on his side between me and the wall. “Alice, I have a girlfriend.” He went quiet. It took me a second to realize that he expected me to react and that his confession was supposed to be shocking, like a big reveal or something.

  From below us came a quiet sigh. Debora.

  “Oh. Okay,” I whispered. “Let’s just have tonight.”

  His eyes lit up, like he’d won the hormonal jackpot. “You’re okay with that?”

  “I’m great with that, Brian.”

  “My name is—”

  I pulled his face to mine and made our lips move together. It didn’t matter to me what his name was or whether or not he had a girlfriend. I only cared that he could make my life melt away for however long he could last. All I wanted was for him to do this to me and take away the raw misery I felt. My heart throbbed, reminding me that I was alive, even though all I felt was everything but.

  We rolled over so that I was straddling him. This time he got the point and his hands roamed my body more aggressively. He pulled the string that stretched across my back, holding my swimsuit top in place. I leaned down closer to him and a moan fell from his lips. I felt myself disappearing.

  A sharp memory of my body pressed against Harvey’s on this very mattress last night. His kisses on my eyelids and my cheeks and— I froze, completely paralyzed. The whole situation came into focus. This stranger. In my bed. Debora on the bottom bunk. Harvey in the living room.

  I grasped for the strings of my bikini, trying to hold my swimsuit top in place as I scrambled off his lap and into the corner of the twin bed farthest from him.

  “Get out. Go.” I felt disgusting. This was wrong. Maybe I had lost Harvey, but I couldn’t lose myself, especially not when I had a choice.

  “But you said—”

  “I said get out. Now.”

  He practically fell from the top bunk, then gathered his shoes and combed the carpet for his car keys, tripping his way to the door. I closed my eyes tight with my knees pulled to my chest. The bedroom door clicked shut behind him. I felt like I was drowning again, like last night. And again, it was all my fault.

  When I heard the front door shut, I climbed down the ladder to lock the dead bolt. On my way back, I heard the buzz of the kitchen light and tried to tiptoe past Harvey, who was standing there with half a piece of cold pizza in his hand.

  Too late. He had already spotted me, pinning me in place with his eyes. He dumped the rest of the pizza in the trash. I watched him as he stood there, his chest bare, wearing only blue plaid boxer shorts. His hair was disheveled and his face lined with pillow creases.

  Humiliation crept up my chest to my cheeks; I crossed my arms. Not in defiance but in defense.

  Then he spoke to me, which I never expected to happen again. His voice was detached and cold. “He didn’t know how much to leave for you. I told him first one’s on the house. Isn’t that right, Al?”

  The worst part was that he called me Al. It felt familiar, but really it was a knife in my ribs. My chest tightened, and my eyes burned, holding back tears. I didn’t say anything.

  He didn’t mean it, I told myself. He only said it to get back at me because I had hurt him.

  In my bedroom I found Debora sitting upright on the bottom bunk, with the blankets lying neatly across her lap. She reached for her glasses on the nightstand and unfolded them carefully before pushing them up the bridge of her nose, her eyes relaxing as her world fell into place. The little lamp on the bedside table let out a small pool of light.

  I wanted her to disappear. I wanted her to dissolve.

  “Get out, Debora.” Maybe if I told enough people to get out they finally would.

  “No.” She clasped her hands in her lap. She wore pink-and-white-striped pajamas, the type of PJs that button up the front and look like they should be ironed. Each of her even blond hairs sat uniformly in place.

  “Leave.”

  “You are hollow on the inside, Alice; did you know that?” she asked. “Rotten too. And no one cares. No one cares because you make it so difficult to. I should tell you to go on being rotten on the inside, but I can’t because Harvey is so invested in you. Here’s the sad truth: Harvey cares for you. He more than cares for you, and he still would even if you were as ugly on the outside as you are on the inside. Harvey, the one you string along mercilessly. Not some slob who wants you as arm candy, but Harvey. He loves you, and for whatever reason, this transcendental devotion he has for you defies the laws of science and love.”

  Tucking her hair behind her ear, she said all of this in a calm, even tone, like she was reading from a history book. Regardless of her tone, her words hit me and drilled into my chest, burrowing deep and deeper. I was rotten on the inside, and I didn’t know if that had happened over time or if it had always been so. For a moment, I felt bad for Debora. Here she was telling me how much her boyfriend loved me. The worst part of it was that she was more deserving of Harvey than I was and she knew it.

  I sat down next to her on the bottom bunk, and the tears that I had swallowed back in the kitchen with Harvey poured down my face. My shoulders shook as sob after sob broke through my chest.

  I loved him too, but it wasn’t that happy-ending bullshit. It was disfigured and crushing. “What do I do?”

  “About Harvey?”

  “No, well, yes, but no. What do I do—” I stopped, letting my tears eat up my words. “About what’s wrong with me.”

  “I don’t really know, Alice. I think it’s different for everybody. But maybe you should figure that out on your own, before dragging Harvey through it.”

  Wiping my nose with the back of my hand, I nodded.

  “I know what happened last Friday with the memorial stuff must have been hard. I still can’t believe someone would even do that. I don’t know what to say except that I’m sorry that had to happen to you.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Listen,” she said, “I can’t tell you what to do. I mean, you of all people, obviously. You don’t listen to anyone. But don’t destroy Harvey. Because you can. You have that power. Love’s different for him. For Harvey—”

  “Do you like him?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “You should tell him,” I said.

  “I don’t think there’s room in his heart for me or anyone else, not when you live inside of it.”

  More tears. I felt an awkward hand on my back, patting me.

  “Stop,” I said, not at all comforted by the touch.

  “Thank you.” She sighed.

  I smiled.

  I knew the first step to filling the black hole inside of me, and it started with an apology. The most difficult things usually did.

  Harvey.

  Now

  I’d only been asleep for about forty-five minutes when that asshole stumbled out of Alice’s room last night. I’m not a violent person, and I’m not the type of guy who’s going to beat up some dude because he looked at the girl I liked the wrong way. But when I saw that guy’s silhouette moving through the living room, I wanted to kill him.

  This time yesterday morning, I’d woken up next to Alice with our bodies huddled together, our foreheads touching, and our skin warm with early-morning sun. I wanted so badly for that to be my every morning. I’d made a point of being the first person in the house to wake up. Considering Bernie’s requirement to keep our d
oor open, I didn’t think she would have appreciated us sharing a twin bed.

  I meant to tell Alice about Debora joining all of us for the last two days of our trip, but every time I had the opportunity, the moment was too good to ruin. Especially yesterday morning when it was the five of us in the kitchen. It was all too easy to forget Debora. I’d held back that night when Alice first kissed me. But, later, as she and I lay in bed, I left the memory of any girl that wasn’t her on the beach.

  A few weeks ago, when I’d asked my mom if Debora could come, she raised an eyebrow and nodded. Bernie and Martin knew too. Everyone but Alice knew. And all of that was my fault, but this went so much deeper than me dating someone else.

  “Hey, Harvey.” Debora stood in the doorway of the sliding glass door, which was actually useless now, thanks to Alice and her iron-skillet pitching skills. I had to admit, that had impressed me.

  “Hey, Debora.” I pulled my legs in and patted the length of lawn chair in front of me. She dropped her duffle bag and sat down in front of me. “So I guess you’re checking out of this mess early, huh?”

  “I should go home.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Thanks for driving out for the night. I’m sorry it was like this.”

  She nodded, her hair grazing her chin. “Harvey, I want to be with you. But I can’t.” Her finger traced a pattern between us. “You two are too . . . intense. I don’t think I can be in the middle of that, not while trying to stay sane.”

  I knew this was coming. I lay awake all night thinking about it—and well, Alice too. Debora didn’t need to get caught up between me and Alice. Even Dennis had said so.

  “Dennis is freaked out about us anyway.” I squinted my eyes at the beach behind her. “You can tell him if you want. Or I can,” I said, staring into the sun, letting my eyes ache.

  “I’ll do it.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut for a second. “Need help taking your bags out to the car?”

  “No. I’ve just got the one.”

  Debora was as put together as ever in a khaki skirt and polo, but she looked tired, less perky than normal. Sometimes you don’t know how wrong your life is until you imagine it from an outsider’s point of view. Debora must have thought we were crazy. And we were, too.

  “Debora?”

  “Yeah?”

  “It wasn’t bad. Being your boyfriend.”

  “I was thinking that maybe if someday you decide—”

  I kissed her. Her lips felt full and soft. My hand drifted to her face and I held her cheek lightly, my hand almost hovering. I parted her lips, just barely. She leaned into me once and then pulled back. It felt . . . good.

  “Well, I’ll see you at school.” She stood and smoothed invisible wrinkles out of her khaki skirt, avoiding eye contact with me. I could be happy with Debora. We would be good for each other.

  “I’m sorry for all of this.” I thought about telling her that I’d kissed Alice, but it didn’t seem like it would make a difference. It was probably wrong of me not to say anything, but I didn’t want to hurt Debora any more than I already had.

  “No,” she said. “I think I wanted to fool myself into believing that you were ready for something that you’re not.”

  “Yeah.” I was an ass. I knew from the moment I’d asked Debora out that I wasn’t over Alice. I was too selfish to even bother wondering how this might end.

  “This isn’t my story; this is all Alice. But you know where to find me. Be smart, Harvey.”

  Alice towered over me, eclipsing the sun, with her hands shoved deep into her pockets. “Hi.”

  “Hi.”

  She sat down on the edge of the lawn chair, exactly where Debora had been. After she left, I had drifted off to sleep beneath the early-morning sun. “What time is it?” I yawned.

  “Eight thirty.”

  “Our parents still asleep?”

  She nodded.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “We need to talk, Harvey.” Her voice was soft and so unlike her.

  She pulled her knees to her chest, concentrating on a point past my shoulder. I turned, my eyes following her gaze to the shattered sliding glass door. “Harvey, there’s something wrong with me.”

  She paused, and I waited. Whatever she had to say wasn’t going to come out easy.

  “I’m sorry for everything. I’ve used you and manipulated you, and I don’t know how I’ll ever fix it. And us, I’ve ruined us completely. But you—” She paused again. “You freak the shit out of me, Harvey. I don’t get it—how you can feel like there are no consequences for living with your feelings on your sleeve. Because there are, you know. There are consequences so horrible, and I wish I could ignore them like you can—the feelings and their consequences. I wish it didn’t matter to me.” She stopped, pushing her fingers through her hair. “I don’t know how you love me. I really don’t.”

  “I wish I didn’t.” I almost took it back, until I remembered what she’d said to me yesterday on the beach.

  Her lip trembled. “I know I can’t fix us, but please let me try.”

  I wanted to reach for her. But I couldn’t. I didn’t want to be her pathetic Harvey anymore.

  When I didn’t respond, she took a deep breath. “I need you to know—” She stopped, twisting a piece of thread hanging from the bottom of her denim shorts. “I need you to know that I really care about you. You make me crazy. Angry and happy and terrified.”

  That was it. After everything—our childhood, the cancer, her list—that was all she could say. “You care for me?” My jaw twitched. “Alice, I—I care about our principal, and my boss, and the lady at the donut shop who gives me extra donut holes. But I love you,” I spat. “And you know what that feels like? It’s like a fucking cheese grater against my heart.”

  Her face scrunched up like she was about to cry. “I’m sorry.” She let out a shaky sigh, but it wasn’t enough to stop her tears. “I wish I could be better.” Her voice shook. “I want you to have everything you deserve. But I can’t give you that.”

  I leaned toward her, our faces only inches away. “Say it. That’s all you have to do.” I tried to hide the desperation in my voice. “Say you love me.” I needed to hear her say it out loud.

  She turned her head to the side, facing away from me, and knotted her fingers in her hair as her shoulders began to shake.

  It wasn’t supposed to end like this. Rubbing my hand up and down the back of my neck, I asked. “Why? Why can’t you say that to me?”

  She shook her head and bit down on her thumbnail.

  She couldn’t even give me a reason—a fistful of words that would explain to me how it could be that she didn’t love me. It didn’t matter, though. She wouldn’t say it. I was done. Saying good-bye to her would hurt, but nothing could ever hurt worse than this.

  “Alice,” I said, forcing myself to look at her even if she wouldn’t look at me. “All I ever wanted was to be proud of myself and to be with you, but I can’t be both at the same time. And now we’re too far gone. There’s no going back from here. I won’t do this anymore.”

  Silently, she cried, her whole body trembling, but I couldn’t comfort her. Not anymore.

  After a few minutes, she stood and walked to the doorway.

  “Hey,” I said, my voice barely working. “What did that mean yesterday?” I had to know, and I knew my mom would never give me the whole story. “About your mom and another guy?”

  Her face stayed blank and unmoving as she said, “She’s been cheating on my dad. I saw her. Before I had cancer. Luke did too.”

  I opened my mouth.

  “He told Celeste.”

  A puzzle of memories slipped into place. “Is your mom still, you know . . . ?”

  She shrugged and walked inside, little pieces of glass that Bernie had missed with the broom in her wake.

  Alice.

  Now

  It’d been about a week and a half since spring break and about two and a half since The Day I Died. I started
calling it that in my head: The Day I Died. Our detention had been served, and now the only proof of my faux memorial was my memory of it. And it seemed to be there every time I closed my eyes. Candles, dying flowers, and tears. The tears that made me cringe with embarrassment. The tears that made me want to lash out and retaliate against Celeste and Luke.

  I felt out of place in this room. Although they’d never made me uncomfortable in the past, the mirrored walls made me too aware of myself. I’d only turned on half the lights in the studio and was grateful for the minimal lighting. The black leotard I’d found in my closet was loose, so I’d taken a safety pin to the straps, making an X across my shoulder blades. Behind my ear was a small bald spot where my hair hadn’t grown in yet.

  The cool wood floors bled through my tights, a familiar relief against my skin. Inside the stereo, I’d found an unlabeled CD with a mix of popular warm-up songs. Starting out with some sit-ups seemed like a good idea. When I lifted my upper body, my abdomen whined in protest. I was so out of practice I swore I could hear my body creaking and groaning.

  After a few labored repetitions, I sat upright and spread my legs so far apart I was almost in the splits. The muscles that stretched along the insides of my legs burned. I reached forward and laid my cheek flat on the cool floor in front of me—difficult, but still possible. Sweat began pooling at my hairline. I tried rolling through the splits and onto my stomach, but my hips felt like they were stuck in mud. I sat, frustrated, with my cheek still pressed against the floor. I inhaled a great big gulp of air and tried again. With little grace, I rolled through the splits and onto my stomach.

  “Aw, is this the comeback part of your story?”

  Celeste.

  I’d barely seen her or Luke since returning from spring break. So much had happened since their little prank that I’d forgotten to be angry with them.

  She stood in the doorway, light flooding in behind her silhouette, with her hands on her hips. “Don’t stop on my account.”

  I didn’t.

  She shifted her weight, leaning up against the door frame.