Sometimes things just seem worse when you don’t know the full story.
I smile and I finish my coffee, and then I wash the mug out and I make Carrie a coffee, because she’s not had any coffee in over twenty-four hours so I bet she has a killer headache. I get that sometimes—a headache from no caffeine. It’s an addiction really, the caffeine, but it’s my only one so I don’t berate myself too much. Some people have much worse ones. Like drugs, or drinking, or sex, or other things that are much, much worse. Things that people don’t talk about as much.
My first roommate in the hospital had one of those addictions, and sometimes he’d tell me about the things that he fantasized about. The people he dreamed of hurting, and the ways in which he would hurt them.
It made me feel sick, and that’s why he did it. He would tell me the stories of things he wanted to do, and things he had done, until I puked and I cried and I begged for my mom. And then he’d laugh and he’d kick me in the stomach as I lay in my own vomit curled up on the floor, and he’d tell me to‘stop being such a pussy.’
So I did.
I stopped being such a pussy.
I stopped crying when he told me those things, and I became impassive to them, even though they still made me want to puke and cry. Even though I would never get the images out of my head and sometimes they still haunt my dreams even now.
I stopped being a pussy and I became a man, because it was the only way to survive in that place.
I’ll always be haunted by the things that went on there. I’ll never forget them. The stories I heard, and the things that I saw, and the feel of someone’s head beneath my boot. I had to prove I was strong to stay alive. At times I wondered if it was all worth it. But I know now it was, because I’m here and so is Carrie.
I frown and I look up at the clock while the kettle boils again, the steaming bubbles escaping from the spout.
It’s been longer than twenty-four hours, I realize, a small, steaming bubble of anxiety creasing my stomach.
I got here Friday, but I’ve slept since then. Then I was in the hospital, so now it must be Sunday. I frown harder, because the timing still seems wrong. I go into the other room, the one with all the strange things in it, and I turn on the television. I flick through the channels and my movements are hurried because I’m worrying now.
I find a news channel, and scrolling along the bottom is the date and time. It’s Monday now. Which means Mr. Fancy Asshole Adam is coming back tomorrow. Fuck, it’s not enough time.
It’s never enough time.
*
“I have to go, Ethan.” Carrie is crying, her tears mixing with the rain that falls from the sky. “Please. It’s not you, it’s me.”
I don’t want to be angry at her for using that line, but I am. It’s the most cliché line ever. It’s used in all bad literature. It’s used in cheesy films. That line is every editor’s nightmare. And here she is, my Carrie, using it on me.
“I know it’s not me,” I say. And perhaps I say it with a little more venom than I mean to, but again, I can’t help it. She’s making me mad. She keeps doing this. She keeps running when I want her to sit down. She keeps going when I need her to stay.
“I can’t do this anymore, Ethan. Do you understand?” Her face is beseeching me, and I soften to her, I really do, but I’m also still angry so when she puts her hand on my shoulder, I shrug her off.
She nods like she understands, but of course she doesn’t. Because if she understood, she wouldn’t leave. Again.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers. Carrie leans across and kisses me on the cheek. I want more from her, but of course she doesn’t give me more.
The bus has turned up and she’s gone; climbing the steps into the bright light of freedom and away from the rainy, dark streets of our hometown. And then she’s gone, and I am alone.
All alone without my Carrie.
I stand there, cold and wet, for far too long.
The streets are soaked, the world a blurred and dirty image.
I hate the rain,I think. I hate it because it washed Carrie away.
