They ask Elise and me one question. Only one. “What happened?” We answer the same way. Boys fighting over a girl. Over me. Erik started it.
When they ask my father about pressing charges, he glances at me first. A long, lingering glance I feel move through me like a literal question. Then he says, “No.”
I wait for them to interrogate us further or ask questions that confuse us, making us trip on our story, but they don’t. They don't push back or offer a business card in case we remember anything else. I watch them leave the room, following them through the window, seeing them stop in front of a man in a black suit. The one who was already there. A quick discussion, and all three leave together.
It was a test.
“Is Erik involved in something?” The words just come out. “Or is that a…”Witness protection thing?“Me thing?”
My father closes the door behind them with both hands, carefully. “I don’t know.”
I sit back down beside Erik's bed. His hand, the one without the cannula tunnelling into it, is loosely curled on the sheet. I don't take it. I almost do but stop myself. I just look at it for a long time, this huge hand that has held mine through hundreds of nightmares and done the other things to me, too.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
blesk
Day Two.
Of dealing.
Of accepting.
Of having boundaries.
And Konnor texts me.
Konnor: So, it's been 2 days since you left me, Duch. At some point I'm going to need someone to save me. I have 5 cans of beans, 10 rolls of toilet paper, 5 bottles of bourbon, 2 bags of pasta, 6 tomatoes, 2 onions, 3 cloves of garlic, 5 frozen meals, 5 batteries, 1 spare light globe, 1 block of cheese, so at some point I will run out. Now I know you can't just let me starve, right?
The phone feels too light in my hand for what I’m reading. I want to reply. I want to go visit him and stock his pantry, though I know he’s joking.
I hope he’s joking…
And I know that if I do, I’ll jump into that whirlwind with him again and disappear before I have time to figure this all out. I inhale hard, looking around my dorm room, at the space that now shows little bits of Blesk.
I grab my things and head out to the bathroom. Elise's eldest mum sends her a podcast link about something called ‘differentiation of self,’ which Elise forwards to me with the commentthought of u.
While brushing my teeth, I listen to four minutes of it. A woman with a very soothing voice says, ‘healing isn't linear, it's a process that zigs and zags and sometimes uppercuts you.’
I chuckle once.
I spit toothpaste into the sink, and do not think about the fact that Konnor currently has five bottles of bourbon and is probably drinking them all. That’s the issue, isn’t it? I want to take care of him. Like I did when we were little.
I look at myself in the mirror, at Blesk, Liz, Erik’s sister, and Konnor’s dream girl…
Day Three:
Dad calls to inform me that Erik's numbers are good and that they think he’ll come out of this.Stableis the word he parrots from them. Stable. Unlike everything else in my life, but, of course, Erik is stable.
Konnor texts me at lunch time while I’m sitting at a study desk in the library, surrounded by that wonderful scent of books.
Konnor: 4 cans of beans, 9 rolls of toilet paper, 4 bottles of bourbon, 1 bag of pasta, 4 tomatoes, 1 onion, 2 cloves of garlic, 5 frozen meals, 5 batteries, 1 spare light globe, 75% block of cheese.
He is already one bottle down which makes me shake my head, sighing hard. He doesn’t hide the unpleasant things about himself, does he? He wears them, declares them. I wish I was more like that. This is the Konnor that I began to fall in love with. Painfully self-aware, openly vulnerable. Does that make him more stable than me? Stable in his instability, but accountable.
You’re not accountable.
That’s why you’re hiding.
