Prologue
Beth
Age 15
The front door slams shut, the sound echoing through the house, underscoring its emptiness.
It’s nothing new. I’m used to it—the emptiness. It lives inside me, and I feel most at home when my world reflects it.
When there’s no one around, there’s no one to pretend for.
My brother’s car engine starts, idles, and then off he drives, the faint crunch of gravel fading into quiet. Then…nothing but the crickets.
I like the silence. It matches the emptiness. It fits, and I let it blanket me, wondering what ever appealed to me about things like conversation and laughter.
A soft crack reverberates off my bedroom window and my pulse takes off like a rocket ship.
Is he here?
I move to the window that overlooks my backyard, violently wrestling the heavy drapery out of the way to search for him in his usual spot.
Or what used to be his usual spot.
The emptiness burgeons and billows. There’s no one there.
I curl my fingers into a fist and grind it into my sternum. It doesn’t relieve the build up of pressure. The emptiness is more palpable than any tangible substance, and it’s finally stretching the bars of its cage, seeking new territory to conquer.
It’s nothing if not determined.
I make my way over to my vast walk-in closet and kneel in the back right corner, reaching into the old duffel I’d used for my two-summer stint at sleepaway camp. I dig around until I find my stash, pull out a tiny bottle of Jack Daniel’s, and down it in two swallows. I don’t even taste it. I repeat the action with a second mini-whiskey, then stow the drained bottles in an otherwise empty Tory Burch shoebox hidden in plain sight on my shoe rack.
But my olfactory senses aren’t as lucky as my taste buds, and the ominous, pungent scent of alcohol—one I recognized by the time I was five, that used to warn me the switch inside my father was in danger of flipping—overtakes me. Memories flash, unbidden: the esteemed, professional façade he wore for the world shattering in a flash—shouting and shoving, my mother’s shrieks, my brother’s cries. Their bruises…even blood. And me, cowering in a corner somewhere, waiting for a reprieve that would only ever be temporary.
But still…I never wanted him to leave.
Too bad my brother felt differently; he kicked our father out of our house and our lives the minute he was big enough to hit back. And too bad my father didn’t care enough to come back for us. For me.
After he left, I started to suspect that mine wasn’t the normal kind of sadness other kids felt. That not everyone experienced the lost, hopeless sense of emptiness that, at times, threatened to crush me like a boa constrictor strangling its prey. I was just barely eleven.
The emptiness has only grown more and more persistent since then, and while I used to be able to find temporary refuge in simple things, like friendship and family and fun, losing Brian changed everything. Just like when my father left, my break up fed the emptiness like some kind of magic fertilizer, sending its thorny brambles climbing and twisting, until it resembled something out of Little Shop of Horrors—a monstrous weed intent on consuming even the most fledgling buds of happiness in my life.
The emptiness is a greedy bastard.
I used to wonder how far it would spread, what it would do when I had nothing left for it to feed on. I’d imagine it bursting free of my body, escaping the confines of its own wreckage. I picture the familiar image now—a torrent of melancholic colors, dark and murky, finally too much for the body that created it, exploding and escaping, destroying its shell. Free. And I imagine the relief. It’s positively palpable.
Because I know how close it is.
I startle when my phone buzzes with a text. It’s my brother.
Just got to Coop’s. People asking for you. Let me know if you want me to come back and get you, ok? 9:36 PM
I sigh, but don’t send a reply. Sammy tried everything to get me to come out with him tonight. To show Brian I’m over it.
It’s ironic, really. A year ago my brother had scoffed at my suggestion he take me to a party with him.
But it’s been weeks since I’ve been to a party. In fact, it’s been weeks since I’ve done any socializing at all, and I don’t even miss it. I only miss him. Still, the last place on earth I want to be is the home of Brian’s friend, at a party he is almost certainly attending, pretending to be indifferent when he acts like I don’t exist.
And, anyway, I have my own plans tonight.
