I smiled. She probably didn’t know how to handle a Reggie smile. I took her hand, and a tear slid down her cheek. She looked bewildered. And disoriented. And strangely okay.
“You’re not alone,” I told her.
The infamous miracle process lasted an extensive period of time, filled with tears and abnormal shrieking and scarring sounds I all but burned from my memory. One minute I was staring at a wall and wanting it to collapse on top of me to spare me the experience, and the next I’m hearing another shrieking, bloodcurdling cry. Except that time, it wasn’t Carla.
I looked at her face and had never seen her so tired and sweaty and worn out. She was wrecked, but her eyes were something else entirely. You would have thought someone had just handed her the key to happiness and the lock was attached to this gross, bloody baby the doctor placed in her arms.
I’d never believed in the maternal, love-at-first-sight propaganda people always tried to sell. Like, you see this underdeveloped mutant thing for the first time and it steals your love in an instant. But as it cried, and Carla cried, and it pressed its hand to her chest, I thought that maybe there was a chance it existed.
The doctor cleaned the baby off, wrapped him in a blanket, and put a tiny blue beanie on him. Carla held him in her arms, brushing his cheek with her fingertip.
“He’s beautiful,” she whispered, pressing her cheek to his forehead. “Ohmigod, I love him.”
“Someone’s here to see his little boy,” the nurse announced, stepping aside and motioning him in.
Snake stood in the doorway, dressed in his THE RENEGADE DYSTOPIA T-shirt that he had worn the first time I met him. This time, coupled with frayed jeans and dirty sneakers. He glanced at me and then at Carla, like he didn’t know how to process everything at once. His hair was messier than usual, his blue eyes drifting and overwhelmed. Carla looked at him and smiled, and he smiled back at her. A beaming Snake smile. Seeing it almost made the separation worth it.
He walked to the edge of the bed and caught a glimpse of the baby.
To that day, I had seen Snake at what I thought were his best moments. When he talked about the snake and the mouse with wonder and admiration. When he filmed the sky with pride in his ability to capture uselessness. When he sang like he didn’t care how terrible it sounded. When he stared at me, not wanting to waste his opportunities, not knowing why he couldn’t stop. All of those moments were happy and easy and as alive as either of us ever thought we would be.
But those fleeting pleasures paled in comparison to the Snake who looked at his shriveled little baby for the first time. He didn’t need a pill or me or Carla to give him a feeling. He wasn’t wanting too much. He wasn’t needing. He was fearless in his disposition, no matter how pointless it could be. He was as messy as the way he chose to love, but through it he was finding the greatest privilege of being alive.
Fearing nothing.
“You want to hold him?” Carla asked.
He nodded. Carla gently placed the baby in the nook he made with his folded arms. He couldn’t keep the dorky grin off his face when the baby opened his eyes and looked at him. “Bad news, Carla,” he said. It was the first time I’d heard his voice in nearly two weeks. It was also the first time I’d heard him call her anything other than babe. “He’s got blue eyes.”
“So?”
“So I have blue eyes. And you don’t.” He looked at her and smirked. “I think he’s going to look like me.”
“All babies have blue eyes when they’re first born. Give them time to darken.”
He lifted up on the hat. “Bad news part two. He has some hair, and it’s not red.”
“Shut up.” She smiled. “I’ll deal with his uncanny resemblance to you later.”
He kissed the baby’s forehead. “Consider yourself lucky, Little Man,” he whispered. He glanced over at me for a moment. And it was like I’d never left him. He wasn’t mad or distant or craving something to fill the void.
We were surviving. But more than that, we were okay. Only okay and nothing more.
“I’m glad you guys are here. I pictured this going a lot differently,” Carla said, her eyes scanning from Snake to me. “I like the way it went.”
“Do you have a name picked out?” I asked her.
“Preston,” she answered. “Preston Henry Banks.”
That name was one of God’s great jokes (see: catfish) (also see: my life). And by Snake’s subtle grimace, I knew he agreed. But he didn’t say anything because he wanted to keep her happy. It was a small price to pay in the long run.
“It’s perfect,” he said. “Preston Henry Eliot.”
“Banks,” she corrected with a glare. “Someone has to carry on my family legacy.”
“Your family legacy of unreasonably priced soft serve?” I taunted.
Snake laughed, but didn’t look up from the baby’s tiny blue eyes.
Mr. Banks came in only minutes later, followed by Snake’s moms. There was excessive cooing and balloons and family pictures and talk of how beautiful a baby Preston was. I stayed for most of it, because every time I tried to sneak out, Carla called me back in and ordered me to stay. Snake’s complaints about her bossiness were not the slightest bit unfounded.
An hour later, I received a text from my mom telling me to rush upstairs immediately. My stomach dropped when I read the words, knowing that what awaited me could change my life forever. My point B could be my dad’s point C. It could be his end and my middle. My pain to endure.
I said goodbye to Carla and ran out of the room without giving her a chance to stop me. When I was halfway to the elevators, I heard a familiar voice call from behind.
“Wait!”
I turned around and saw Snake standing in the hallway, his arms dangling at his sides.
“I just wanted to say thanks for helping Carla. I can imagine it was quite the challenge for you.”
“She’s not completely insufferable,” I replied. “Good luck with the fatherhood thing. I’m sure that’s quite the challenge for you.”
“It’s not completely insufferable. Where you headed?”
“Third floor. My mom said to come as soon as I can. I don’t know why.”
He looked concerned for me, like he wanted to help but knew he couldn’t. He wanted to be with me and not. He had his own point B.
“I’m here if you need anything.”
“I know,” I said, hitting the elevator button.
“I guess I’ll see you around.”
The doors opened. I glanced at him over my shoulder, and knew that I wasn’t walking away. This absence wasn’t the permanent kind. We were only as temporary as we chose to be.
“See you around.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
SOME POINT C’S WERE REACHED UNFAIRLY. When a person felt too young to let go of their line, but knew they were too old to mourn the length of the line they were given. Many hit point C with dread and regret and a resentment for the beautiful messes they had left in their wake. And maybe one day my dad would reach point C and he would determine his line too short and insufficient and plain unfair. But as I sat beside his bed and saw his eyes—open, awake, clutching point B for as long as it would allow him—I knew today wasn’t one day. Eventually, “one day” would screw us all. But in the present we were alive. Temporarily and chaotically alive.
“We prayed for you every day,” my mother cried, her hand holding tightly to my dad’s. His glasses were back where they belonged, lopsided on the edge of his nose. His eyes were as lifeless as they’d ever been, but they weren’t dead. Not yet. “Frankie read you some of your favorite verses. Even Reggie prayed.”
My dad’s eyes gradually shifted from Mom to Frankie to me, lingering on me the longest. “Is that true?” he whispered, his voice hoarse.
“Yes,” I answered. “I didn’t think it would work.”
Despite his weariness, his lips moved upward into a lazy smile. “It doesn’t always. That’s the great thing about prayer. We don�
��t get everything we ask for.”
“Well, we got what we asked for,” my mom said.
Frankie, who was standing by Blondie on the opposite side of the bed, bent down and touched my dad’s arm gently. “How do you feel?” he asked.
My dad looked thrown for a moment. The skin around his eyes crinkled, and he concentrated on the wall as if the perfect answer was scribbled on the surface. Then he relaxed, and his eyes were tremendously still. He wasn’t looking at Frankie, but at me. And he was pleased. Pleased with himself like the day in the basement when he promised me that nothing ever died. Maybe it didn’t.
“I’m just happy to be alive,” he said, releasing my mother’s hand and reaching for mine. I wrapped my fingers around his palm without hesitating. I had wanted to hold his hand from the moment I had walked through the door. It was cold, but like his eyes, it wasn’t dead.
Neither was I.
“Me too,” I said.
My mother glanced at me, unable to conceal her contented smile. Her eyes watered and her lip quivered so badly she had to bite it to keep it still. She reached for my other hand, and I let her take it. I wasn’t the only one who deserved to be understood.
“Love you,” she mouthed. She was crying as her lips moved. She meant it like a prayer. I nodded so she would know that I loved her too.
It had taken me too long to realize that, but I did. I was capable of caring, and that didn’t make me weak. It hurt more than it didn’t. It hurt too much, sometimes. But if love didn’t hurt, I might not have felt it at all. Accepting the pain of it made the good parts (see: answered prayer) easier to see.
Chapter Twenty-Five
A WEEK LATER, MY DAD WAS released.
I went to see Dr. Rachelle while my parents visited Pastor James. She sat in her usual spot when I arrived, holding her clipboard loosely in her lap. When she spotted the journal in my hands, she looked so nontherapist I wondered if she was even the same woman. I took a seat on the couch knocking the journal against my leg as I waited for her to start with her basic, pre-heavy-stuff checklist.
But she never said a word.
I looked up to find her watching me, a subtle smile pulling on her lips. She pointed to the journal.
“I see you’ve finally done your homework,” she said. It wasn’t an accusation, but a weird sort of appreciation.
“Yeah,” I muttered, playing with the binding. “I screwed up, though.”
“Oh?”
“I didn’t exactly follow directions.”
I extended the journal to her.
She took it slowly, opening to the first page. Her lips drew back into a full smile when she read the heading scribbled sloppily across the top.
“ ‘What depression means to me,’ ” she read. She looked up, her eyes glued to mine. “No, you certainly didn’t.”
“I couldn’t define crazy, because there’s too many interpretations. And I couldn’t define lonely, because it’s too big an emptiness. I don’t understand all the things I am, and I sure as hell don’t know how to explain them to you.” I leaned forward, mentally rebuking myself for stealing her spotlight. “But depression. Depression is only as complex as the person who’s defining it. It’s whatever I choose to make it.”
She rubbed her fingers along the words. “And what have you chosen to make it?”
“Simple. I think the more you try to convince yourself that you don’t need something, the more you need it. And I’ve only recently realized that needing is something I can survive. Like pain. It’s surprisingly bearable.”
She stared at the page, a familiar hope in her eyes. “So, where’s the line?” she asked. “Between what’s bearable and what isn’t?”
I shrugged, staring back at her. Unafraid. “I guess the line is wherever you draw it.”
She almost looked teary, which made me uncomfortable, because despite the fact I’d grown used to dealing with criers (see: Carla), other people’s emotions still weren’t my strong suit. I watched her mark something on the clipboard, and I had a pretty good feeling it wasn’t “emotionally unavailable.”
Before I left that day, I made her promise to read the entry when I wasn’t still around. I wasn’t big on hearing my feelings repeated back to me once I’d already felt them. And I was afraid she’d tell me how proud she was of my progress, which could have gone south (see: hugging).
I stopped in the doorway on my way out, suddenly remembering that needs weren’t specific to me. “By the way, I have an answer for you,” I said.
She spun her chair around, still grasping my book tightly. “Answer for what?”
“What to do when you’re alone on a street corner.” I smiled and pulled my bag onto my shoulder. “Look up.”
Later, I visited the pharmacy to pick up my prescription. This time sans my mother, who after much coaxing had reapplied for a position at the daycare. Initially, she tried to use my dad as a cop-out, saying that someone needed to keep an eye on him in case his condition took a bad turn. But I knew she wasn’t worried about my dad so much as she was doing what she’d always secretly done—taking care of me. After promising her that I would be okay as long as she was happy, or at least some version of it, she begrudgingly agreed to follow her passion right to the kiddie kennel (see: daycare).
I stood in the back of the store, rocking on my heels while I waited for my name to be called over the intercom. The pharmacists scurried around from shelf to shelf, checking labels and dealing with ornery customers shouting demands from the drive-thru window. As an old man yelled about how long he’d been waiting in line, I heard another loud voice behind me. A voice I knew. A voice like home. I turned around, letting life in its pitiful and never-ending cycle bring me full circle.
The first thing I noticed was his hair, not hanging scruffily in his face, but clean-cut, to the top of his brows. His blue eyes were unconcealed, sparkling as they stared at me, not afraid of being seen. Of course, the weirdness of his haircut was in competition with his blue T-shirt that bore the phrase ALLERGIC TO STUPIDITY. In his hand was a basket filled with diapers, baby wipes, and a stick of deodorant.
He took a step closer, smirking with all the Snake-ish presumptuousness he could possibly attain in one grin. “Well, whaddya know? I see you’re still popping pills.”
“I could say the same about you.” I motioned to his basket. “You know, lavender-scented Dove is for women.”
“It’s for Carla. I’m heading over there later.”
I laughed. “She’s got you buying her toiletries now? Your back must be sore from that whip.”
He hung his head with a smile, but his hair didn’t cover his eyes like it used to. There was something about him that seemed so different. Not necessarily his haircut or his clothes or his basket full of diapers, but a vague change. It was like he’d aged five years in just a matter of weeks, growing out of Snake the rebellious, charming boy into Snake the man. I wondered if he saw the same when he looked at me.
“How’s your dad?” he asked, looking up again.
“Got released two weeks ago. The doctors said he’ll be fine.”
“That’s good. And you?” He moved closer, switching his basket to the other hand. I spotted a new tattoo blazed into his wrist that said PHB. “Are you doing fine?”
No one but Snake could have eyes as dull as they were bright, as numb as they were vibrant and inconceivable. He was the emotion between two slim spaces, the line drawn between contentment and devastation. I wasn’t sure which one he was in the expanse of time he waited for my answer. I only knew that I was both, and neither one was worth fearing anymore.
I pointed at his wrist to avoid the subject. “Another crappy tattoo, huh?”
A smile spread across his lips, and he rubbed the mark with his index finger. “Yep. Preston’s initials. Got it a few days after he was born.”
“Did your moms never teach you that tattoos are irreversible?”
“Well, my love for him is irreversible, so it’s fitting.
”
I slapped my hand across my face. “Oh my God, you’re becoming one of those dads.”
“What?” He laughed, half self-consciously.
“Please tell me you don’t carry a three-by-two photo of him in your wallet.”
His reached into his pocket and grabbed his wallet, flipping it open to a professionally shot photograph of Preston lying naked on a fur rug. “You caught me.”
“If I ever see you wearing socks with sandals, we’re never speaking again.”
He tucked the wallet away and watched me with a pretty, weirdly mature expression. “So that means we’re speaking again?”
My name echoed across the intercom, cutting me off before I could say something I would regret. Before I could tell Snake that I was more miserable without him than with him. That I wasn’t scared of getting hurt anymore. That being close to him at all, whether as a girlfriend or friend or just some girl, was enough for me. The medicine aisle wasn’t the ideal place to finally admit what I’d always known he wanted to hear:
We were worth it.
I nabbed my prescription from the counter and told him goodbye. And just as I was about to leave, he called, “Reggie!”
I spun around, and his eyes were dripping with every existing feeling. One look, and I knew I’d been wrong when I said we only had a scrap of useful passion. He felt it all, and found ways to keep feeling more.
“Can I come over sometime?” he asked.
I didn’t answer.
He must have taken that as a yes because he showed up at my house a few days later with Preston in tow. He walked straight into my living room like he’d received a formal invite (plot twist: he didn’t), plopping down on the couch and setting Preston’s car seat on the floor beside him.
“This is the first time I’ve sat on your couch,” he said, hitting the cushion. “Better not tell your mother the heathen’s been here. She’ll burn it.”
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