And I miss her. I miss her.
But I can’t cry. There’s no crying in these woods. There’s no food because there’s no hunger. There is no yawning, no sleep, there are no leg cramps or sunsets or Fluffernutter frappes. There’s no world in our world, it’s just me and him. He goads me when I slow down, when he knows I’m thinking about her, when I’m slipping. Come on, Jon, steady as she goes.
I can’t speak. I have no voice. He does though, muttering about leaves, life. I start to wish I would die so I wouldn’t have to miss her but I’m already dead. And this is hell because the leaves have teeth and sometimes they nick me and there is no blood, only pain.
You screwed up, Jon. You had your chance and you missed it.
I look up at the blank canvas of sky, the threat of snow, the crackling hiss that never bottoms out. I wish snow would fall in lumps, making me deaf.
You wouldn’t be here if you’d told her how you feel, Jon. You know it, you do.
I try to turn my head, I try to talk, but the leaves on the ground flare up, they glow bright green and the electricity seeps through veins in the leaves into me, my veins.
Don’t turn around, Jon. I told you there is no going back. You should know by now.
But then, everything stops. The leaves hang in the air, as if someone hit pause on the screen of our world. My legs don’t move. There is no walking, no talking. I’m choking. My ribs are crushing, cracking. I can’t breathe. My throat is full. Marshmallow Fluff. I drop to the floor of the dead forest and my windpipe is closing and the sky is hardening, turning to concrete, whitening and stiffening. I didn’t want this world but now I’m losing it, the whiteout inside of me, outside.
And then there is nothing.
* * *
—
And then I see red. A deep red in my mind that thwarts everything else, darker than blood, pain.
I don’t know where I am or what happened. But I must be alive because this is the worst pain I’ve ever known, the searing, pulsing red of my throat. Slowly the rest of the world comes into focus. The twisted sheets in my hand. The hospital bed beneath my body.
But I’m not in a hospital. I am in a narrow room. The ceiling and walls are concrete, windowless slabs. A halogen lightbulb sizzles near my head and there are dozens of houseplants, ferns like you see at Kmart.
I don’t know what this place is, this musty underground, but it feels like a basement. I start to think about the last day I remember, the last thing I remember. The woods. Pedro shivering. And then the sub. Roger Blair. He took me.
He took me and here I am. My body on this bed. The pain in my throat. And I realize. A breathing tube. He put a breathing tube in me.
But why? How?
I tear the top sheet off and to my shock I am in normal clothes, jock things, track pants and a hoodie. But this isn’t the body I know. This body is too big and this can’t be right, this can’t be me. My hands are a man’s hands, not a boy’s hands, Pedro would drown in them now. Pedro. My legs are long, too long for my body. My chest is wide, muscled. I don’t fit in my skin and for a minute I’m not sure this is my skin. Maybe he extracted my soul and shoved it into a dead body. But I know I’m being stupid. I’m me. My left index finger curves like it’s trying to get away from my hand. There is hair on my arms. I’m just more of a man now. A coughing man, a tall man, a Brawny paper towel man who could unscrew the lightbulb in the ceiling fan in our living room—my parents, where are they?—and I sit up in the bed.
I pull at the muscles—they’re hard, they’re not mine, they can’t be mine—but they are mine, under my skin, attached to me, holding me, containing me. How is this possible? How long has it been? And then—
Chloe. The wanting is a scream deep inside of me.
I remember this thing about life, about feelings, that they are fleeting, they go away whether or not you want them to. I sit and I breathe and I let the shock ooze out of me. I need a clear head, a calm head. I need to get out of here.
There’s a nightstand by the bed and it feels like he left things here for me, that sicko. There’s a tall glass of water—don’t drink it, Jon—but I sip the water because I’m still me, because my throat burns and I don’t have the willpower to resist. There’s a battered little book and I pick that up too. The Dunwich Horror by H. P. Lovecraft. Eerie green tentacles spread over the front of the book.
It’s pretty beat-up. If you brought this back to our library at school, Mrs. Wyman would ream you for it. I open the book. It’s tiny, less than a hundred pages. I stop on Mr. Blair’s favorite parts, the things he underlined.
Wilber Whateley was born at 5 a.m….deformed, unattractive…dogs abhorred the boy…Yew grows…an’ that grows faster…
The most important words aren’t in the story, they’re on the other side of the front cover in a letter from Mr. Blair to me. I know his handwriting from school.
Jon,
You were in a medically induced coma. You are fine. You are free. Free to do as you wish, but a few words of advice from your old teacher…
Time moves forward. You should too. You have power, power that will present itself to you slowly, so as not to overwhelm you. Take it in stride.
You’re special, Jon. You always have been. But going forward, you’ll find that being special is a good thing. We did good work down here, Jon, and it will be interesting to see the way things play out.
You’re welcome, Jon.
R.B.
The words blur before my eyes. We did good work down here. No we didn’t. There is no we, you sicko. I don’t know what he’s talking about. I don’t remember anything. How long have I been down here? I didn’t like Mr. Blair then and I don’t like him now. My head aches and my hands quiver, trying to build a bridge between the then and now of it.
Back then, he was a weirdo with a frizzy mullet. He was always eating yogurt and licking the lids in front of the whole class. He was always trying to be my friend, he’d look at me sometimes, in front of everyone, like I was a teacher, like I wasn’t a kid. Do you believe these idiots, Jon? People laughed because nobody wants to be buddies with the sub. When Carrig superglued my hands to my desk, Mr. Blair said I could run circles around that moron. I remember thinking that he was making it all worse by standing up for me. There’s nothing worse than the wrong person being on your side.
You have power, power that will present itself to you slowly, so as not to overwhelm you.
What the hell does that mean?
Back then, he was the weirdest sub, hands down. He called us pussies, you care so much what other people think, you let your peers know that you care, waste your energy collecting approval from strangers. The next time we had him, we were scared of him, he called us delicate flowers, didn’t your mothers teach you about the difference between sticks, stones, and words? No matter what he did he always came back, even after the time he spit at Carrig. You’ll never be anything, you khaki little shit. Nobody told the principal. You don’t tattle on a sub; you just go to your next class. I never made fun of Mr. Blair. But here I am.
We did good work down here, Jon.
I throw The Dunwich Horror at the wall. I wish he didn’t write anything in the book, I wish there was no letter, I wish it could be simpler, that some bully freak kidnapped me and locked me up, me against him. But the thing about the book, the letter, now he’s made me a part of something. I can’t leave the book here for someone else to find. It’s mine now, like it or not, my fucking Horror.
I shove it in my back pocket. You’re welcome, Jon.
There are brand-new sneakers by the door, Nikes, socks too. It’s a shock, to be tying up laces, blinking and crouching. I am surprised that I can move, that I can run up the stairs. I must be over six feet tall and I take two steps at a time. I was never this strong, this big, and I spin a globe in my mind. I could be anywhere in the world. Siberia. Tennes
see. I’m not even a little bit out of breath when I reach the top of the stairs and my throat is less sore now than it was before. I open the door and step into a black box of a room where the walls are covered in old calendars. There’s something familiar about it, a scent that tells me I’m not in Siberia.
I open another door and it’s brighter in here, this is an empty shop and the storefront windows are plastered with aging yellow Telegraphs. Home. I hear Muzak. There are stronger smells now. Mustard and cinnamon, things you put on pretzels. And then it hits me.
I am in the mall. The mall.
It’s almost as bad as the book in my back pocket, the impossible lameness of it all, that I get kidnapped by a sub and shoved in the basement of the mall. The mall. I stare down at my large body. This whole time I was down here, however long it was—We did good work down here, Jon—this whole time while I was asleep, everyone I know was up here, on top of me, buying stuff on sale and returning it and stealing gum, trying out lacrosse sticks in the back room on that puke-green carpet at Rolling Jack’s. They were going to Tenley’s, to the movies, giving hickeys and getting hickeys. They were here. And I was here. The mall.
The mall.
I don’t know why I expected to be far away, but I did. Something extraordinary has happened and it feels like the journey home should be more dramatic, like years have passed and people should be zooming around in jet packs.
The Dunkin’ Donuts is still here, the same as ever, always with new items, this time they’re pushing Snickerdoodle Croissant Donuts. An old man sits at a table with a glazed cruller and a Telegraph. When he finishes his doughnut and stands to go, he leaves the paper behind.
It’s scary but I have to do it. I have to know what year it is, and I look at the top corner of the page and there it is. The number blinks out at me, unfathomable. Four years. Four years. I lost four years of my life. Roger Blair took them from me. He stole the one thing you can’t get back. Time.
My hands shake as I turn the pages of the paper. I see coupons for restaurants I know, restaurants I don’t know.
And then I’m on the move. For a while I just walk, the way old people do in malls. I have to get my head together before I go back to my life. I make decisions without meaning to make decisions.
I will tell them the truth. I woke up in the basement, I don’t remember a single thing.
But I will never tell anyone about The Dunwich Horror.
I will never tell anyone about his letter.
I tuck the evil little book into the waistband of my pants and I go into the old Radio Shack. Now it’s called Meditations. Wind chimes are tinkling and fountains are gurgling and a happy hippie greets me at the register. She says of course I can use the phone. I remember my mom’s number and I’m dialing and my fingers are big, too big, and the woman squints.
“Wait a minute,” she says. “Are you…are you…Jon Bronson?”
CHLOE
Noelle pumps the squirt gun. “So did you guys do it yet?”
It’s one of the grosser things about my friends, their curiosity. We’re about to graduate and the summer is starting to feel like this painful stretch of highway we have to get through before college. I’m ready for a new world, one I can’t fully imagine. One where people don’t say do it.
Marlene intervenes. “Noelle, you know they didn’t do it yet. Why do you even ask?”
“Unreal,” Noelle says. “By now his balls must be dark blue. Or light blue. Sky blue?”
I’m the Virgin with a capital V in the horror-movie version of our lives even though Marlene’s a virgin too. It’s because I’m with Carrig, have been since the summer after Jon disappeared. Noelle’s been annoyed ever since, that I would go from being Little Miss Goth Girl to Little Miss I Fuck Lacrosse Players. But technically, I don’t, and this annoys her.
“Chloe,” she says. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but it feels like you’re clinging to your drama. I mean what are you trying to prove by putting it off?”
I throw her a bone. “We’ll probably end up doing it after prom.”
It was the wrong thing to say and she rolls her eyes at Marlene, as if I’m blind. “Well played, Sayers. Way to make prom night all about you.”
She’s not wrong. There’s something phony about me that I don’t like, something that keeps me from sleeping normally, from sleeping with Carrig. I can’t help but think that a true artist wouldn’t be here sipping on spiked seltzers and waiting for her jock boyfriend to show up. A real artist would be in her studio, painting, pining, like a whaler’s wife. You can’t have it both ways. But you have to defend yourself, so I remind them that Care’s going to BU and I’m going to NYU. “We’re not even gonna be in the same city, so it’s like why take it to the next level, you know?”
Noelle grunts. “Right. Because none of us are in the exact same boat. Jeez, Chloe, we’re all going away.”
And then it’s back to talking about prom, about dresses and limos, the generic glory of being this close to the end.
Noelle squeals. They’re here. The boys. And the butterflies do flutter inside of me. I love my boyfriend, gorgeous, patient, we-can-wait Care. I scramble to fluff my hair, adjust my bikini bottom. I tread water, full of want, unable and unwilling to scrape the smile off my face, grateful that it’s there, that I’m here, waving to him as he yanks his shirt over his head, revealing his body, the lacrosse bruises, the way he winks at me as he dives in the water, inviting me to wrap my legs around him. Hey, C.
I love his voice. I love this pool. I love going to Rolling Jack’s with him, being the girl to his boy. I go weeks without looking at a newspaper. I giggle whenever we sneak into his dad’s back room where he hoards his guns. I chew gum and I don’t know who’s the secretary of state. I don’t miss crying myself to sleep. Explaining to police officers that Jon and I were just friends. Care is here, always. When our legs touch, I feel alive. My whole life I’ve wished that he wouldn’t go around shooting helpless animals and picking fights with younger kids, weaker kids. Jon. I’ve always thought you can’t change people. But in the pool I feel powerful. I see how much he wants to be with me. How willing he is to make the first move. I imagine a world where he doesn’t hunt, where he isn’t a bully. A world where he’s with me. We’re good for each other, better together than we are apart. Sometimes I almost think Jon left so I could be here, in the water, fully.
Carrig’s it now, moving toward me. Our toes touch and he smiles. “Marco,” he says.
I know how the game works. I don’t say Polo. I take a deep breath and disappear down into the water, silently inviting him to come find me, unlike Jon, who left nothing for me, not a note, not a clue, nothing. Instead, I hear a noise. The unmistakable sound of Noelle’s mother opening the sliding door, invading our space. I reach the surface and everyone is staring at me. They know something that I don’t know.
Noelle’s mom is waving her phone. Pacing. “They found him,” she says.
“They found who?” I ask.
“Jon,” she says. Like he was my hamster. Mine. “Chloe, they found your friend.”
We are treading water. We are supposed to go to the movies, to the woods. I am going to ruin everything by leaving. It won’t work with an uneven number. Without me. Five are not six. I look at Carrig but he looks at the wall, leaving me before I can leave him. So I do it. I go. I get out of the pool. I dry off with a towel.
Everyone else stays. I shiver. I feel so naked, as if I have no bikini on.
“Hurry up, Chloe. Your mother’s already on her way.”
I don’t know if I am going because I want to go or because I have to go. I just know that this feels like going to the dentist. They found your friend. Four years ago I was a different person. I would have given up everything for Jon.
I have things to give up now. Jon is taking them away. I’m a shittier person than I was back then.
I want to be in the pool.
It doesn’t matter. My mom is outside beeping.
* * *
—
I’m in the front seat of my mom’s car, looking out the window, my hair soaking wet. My teeth chatter. Marco. Polo. Jon. Carrig.
“What’s wrong?” my mom asks. “Besides the obvious. I know I’m in shock. Are you okay? Because nobody says we have to go over there.”
“Mom, of course we do,” I say. “I’m fine. I’m just cold.”
She blasts the heat. I look out the window. My phone is ringing. Carrig. I put it on silent. And now a text comes through. It’s me, Chloe. Me! I don’t know what to write back to him. I am not the girl who saved the papers for him. I am the girl who threw them away. I can’t think of anything to say and everything I come up with sounds trite or cold or just plain shallow. And now it’s too late. We’re here. I put my phone into my bag and feel my heart start to pump. It’s real. There are trucks everywhere. TV crews.
My mom puts the car in park. “Do you want me to go in with you?”
If she wanted to stay, she would turn off the engine. It’s as if we’re in a time machine. She wants to know how long I’ll be, which is not a question she asks when she brings me to Noelle’s. And then she gasps. I look out the front window and I know why my mom is slamming the brakes.
It’s my Jon, but it isn’t. The man standing in the driveway, waving, is what they’d call a hunk in one of those old TV shows. My mother just about swoons. “My God, Chloe, that can’t be him.”
My heart bursts. “That’s him,” I say. “I’m sure.”
I’ve been so worried about the ways I’ve changed that I forgot about him. How he’s changed. All the times I imagined him at this age, every time I drew him, pushed him forward another year, lowered his brow, his eyelids, widened his jaw, all my machinations never resulted in anything like this.
When I step out of the car, he starts to jog toward me and I’m rushing toward him, crying. I am so close I can smell him, but then I lose my balance, my legs, my breath. I trip on my own feet. I feel blood drip from my nose and the TV trucks are swirling into a tornado up, up, and away, and the ground is sucking me in, pulling me under. I don’t get to say hello. I don’t get to kiss him. I disappear, out cold.
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