Because confident and catastrophic can’t coexist.
One will destroy the other.
I am the destroyer.
I am catastrophic.
And I don’t have many days left.
We’re quiet the rest of class while I dwell on it.
I clear my throat when the bell rings.
I can’t do this.
Her nearness, her scent, her Alice-ness is agonizing.
What was I thinking?
Gathering my books from the table, I hastily stuff them in my backpack. I’m sweating like a fiend. Mentally, I’m already out the door and down the hall running away from her as I stand from my chair, but I can’t walk away without saying something. Even though the heaviness of misery and self-loathing feels like it’s crawling up my throat and I’m about to be sick.
“I’ll see you around, Alice.” It sounds like goodbye and not the kind of goodbye that means you’ll see the other person in a few hours. Or even in a few days. It sounds like the kind of goodbye that’s indelible.
Standing, she slings her backpack over her shoulder and grabs her cane from where it’s propped up against the desk. “You okay, Toby?” she whispers. She’s concerned. About me. She knows I’m off. More than normal.
Clearing my throat again, trying to keep the bile at bay, I answer as steadily as I can, “Yeah. Fine.”
“Well, I’m not. And I know you’re lying. We should talk.” She sounds and looks on the verge of tears.
I can’t handle sad Alice and knowing that I’m the reason for it. So I walk away.
By the time I make it to the hallway the masses are a blur of color and motion through the helplessness filling my eyes and perching on my bottom lashes ready to tumble free. Head down, I swipe at them with the cuff of my sweatshirt.Get your shit together!is a blaring command from within, but it’s muffled by the quieter, but intimately bossier,You’re nothing. You’re nothing. You’re nothing, on repeat.
“I know,” I whisper in response to both. I’m standing in the last toilet stall now, behind the barrier of metal that I often use to divide my tears and breakdowns from their eyes. I can usually purge it quickly, the stone in my throat that comes with the wet cheeks and runny nose loosens and settles in my stomach where I carry it around unnoticed. But not this morning. The bombardment grows until my self-hate takes over every thought. Nina drifts in, the most angelic image of torture imaginable, her smiling face from my memories distorted by a coat of blood red. The color of death. And then the images that haunt my nightmares begin an unbidden slideshow to torment.
Nina.
My hands compress her rib cage begging for a miracle.
Nina.
My breath forced from my mouth to hers failing to inflate her lungs.
Nina.
Her frail body lying atop a pool of blood.
Nina.
Nina.
Nina.
I can’t do this.
I can’t do life.
Without her.
