Chapter 19 #2
Wood creaks beneath my foot. C’mon, maybe you’re just wrong.
Cold air escapes me in white smoke. Alaska didn’t do it.
I know it in my bones. My reason and my heart battle behind me, each tugging on a shoulder.
When I knock, the veins in my hands swell with fear.
At first, I hear nothing. Then, soft, hesitant footsteps come toward me.
The door cracks open. She's bathed in the dim light, wearing a short wool grey dress.
Her hair is loose. Surprise etched on her face.
She blinks. “Jack? I…I didn’t know you’d come here.” Her body goes still, her attention snagging on something behind me. When her eyes return, they’re shining like she’s just seen a ghost. I’m heaving as I wonder what has been going on for months now.
“Alaska,” I go still, my throat tight.
“Where’s Matthew?”
Alaska
“Where’s Matthew?”
Letters float in the air, arranging themselves until words appear on the walls of my heart, their echo resounding through my chamber of misery.
How could I have been so na?ve? Of course Jack would figure it out.
The imposture was too comfortable, a safety blanket necessary for my existence.
So I went with the lie, nurtured it until this inevitable moment. It was almost too easy.
First, you start by lying to yourself and the rest follows on its own.
Every day, you add a layer to the already faltering structure you’ve been trying to build.
Brick by brick, you try to rationalize things, tell yourself a story that isn’t true.
But sometimes, life is better in fiction, right?
I thought so. Until Jack, I was convinced of it.
Matthew didn’t die under the ice that day.
He remained in my heart, in my mind, in my line of sight, every single day since the accident.
I didn’t go to the funeral. I didn’t talk about him in the past tense.
I shut my ears and dissociated every time someone mentioned him.
How could I pretend he was dead when he was still very much alive in me?
Call me insane. I dare anyone who’s lived this to act like their normal self afterward.
I did what I could to survive, to not think every second that my half, before I even came into this world, was gone.
I kept the charade alive for six years. People thought I was too traumatized to talk about him.
There was no point telling them otherwise, they knew him.
They wouldn’t have understood. That’s why strangers were safe.
Each time I went out of town, for groceries, special outings, cinema, whenever I had the chance to talk about him, I did.
Yes, Matthew is a pianist now.
Yes, he’s really kind and smart and funny.
Oh yes, we’re so close.
Talking to Jack was too good to be true.
I thought I could slip through the cracks of his logic, that since he was only staying for a year, he wouldn’t care about knowing people.
That he wouldn’t make the connection. I was stupid, reckless, and now that I’m falling in love with him, I’m paying the ultimate price for my carelessness.
“Where’s M-Matthew?” Jack repeats, softer this time, his gaze flickering between my eyes and my lips, pleading for answers. The air is sucked from my lungs. My world tilting off its axis. The edges of my vision blur, and I almost wish I were blind, just so I wouldn’t have to see his disappointment.
He knows.
My tears come instantly, uncontrollable, burning tracks down my cheeks even as I force a trembling smile.
I don’t even realize I’m gasping for air, my breath hitching in erratic sobs, my hands shaking at my sides.
I had just gotten home. I was about to put on a show, curl up on the couch like any other night.
I’d been smiling like a fool, thinking about him. Now everything is unraveling.
“Alaska,” he says, his jaw clenched so tightly I swear I can hear his teeth grind.
His fists are curled, knuckles white. “Where’s your b-brother?
” I don’t recognize his voice. It isn’t the strong, steady tone I know by heart.
This one is fractured, foreign. He sounds like he’s carrying my pain, as if I had contaminated him, too.
“He’s… He’s at his…apartment,” I choke out, barely forming the words. “Playing the piano.” The lie scrapes my throat like barbed wire, but I cling to it, desperate, wrapping myself in the tattered remains of the story I’ve lived in for years.
A second stretches.
Then another.
Jack gives me a look as if he already knows. “Is he?” I nod, my whole body trembling like a leaf caught in a storm.
“Yes,” I whisper, though the word breaks apart on my tongue. The tears don’t stop. Falling relentlessly, dripping off my chin. Grief rests a hand on my shoulder, its nails sinking into my flesh until I realize all my hopes and dreams are over.
“Look at-at me.” His voice is lower now, but firm and something about it makes me shudder.
I can’t face the plea in his eyes, the moment they shift from searching to knowing.
His fondness morphing into disappointment and disgust. I’m stripped bare of the scraps I used to cover my true self.
Closing my eyes, I let the ice claim the last pieces of hope I’d hidden inside me.
“He’s not in his apartment p-p-playing the piano, is he?
” He exhales sharply. “Alaska…” he pleads again.
The sound of my name on his lips nearly shatters me.
I bite back another sob, dragging a trembling hand across my soaked face, mascara smearing in black streaks.
My heart isn’t beating anymore, it’s detonating into shards, ripping through my ribs.
“No,” I whisper. The truth slips out of me. I lift my gaze, finally meeting his stare, shame coating me in neon paint. “He’s not playing the piano anymore.” Something flickers across his face, a wince, painful and deep.
“Hey,” he murmurs, stepping closer, cupping my face with both hands. Liquid electricity courses through me. Why is he still here? I’m sick. I belong in a white padded room, with no soul to infect, no one to hurt. Still, his touch grounds me, even as his fingers tremble against my skin.
“Let’s g-go inside, alright?” he murmurs, glancing behind me.
“I n-n-need to know, Alaska. I need to know what ha-happened to the woman I’m falling in love with.
” The words hit me like a blow to the chest. Jack loves me.
And now, I’m going to lose him. I suck in a breath, my sobs turning silent.
He deserves the truth, every shattered piece of it.
So I step back, tears streaking across his palms, bracing for the stretch of my emotional scars to split open again.
“Okay,” I murmur. “Then…I think you should sit.” Jack steps inside, closing the door behind him.
We sink onto the couch, side by side, his gaze locked on me while mine stays fixed on the window, palms pressed beneath my thighs.
Outside, the trees sway with the wind, their branches tapping against the glass.
I close my eyes. Remembering means reliving and reliving might destroy me.
“It was a particularly cold day.”
Six years ago
The sign at the entrance of the lake had been clear: CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.
THIN ICE. I hesitated, my hands curled inside my coat pockets, my ice skates laced tight around my ankles.
“We shouldn’t, Matthew,” I muttered. “It’s closed for a reason.
” He just scoffed, already stepping onto the ice, his own skates sliding effortlessly across the glossy surface.
"It’s fine," he called over his shoulder. "Everyone’s still using it. Do you see anyone falling through? Uh? Don’t be such a coward, Alaska.
" The word clenched around my throat. I hated when he talked to me like that. Even if I followed him anyway.
The ice was smooth beneath my skates, the cold air biting at my cheeks as we glided across the lake.
For a few moments, it felt almost peaceful, just the two of us cutting across frozen water, the world quiet except for the occasional scrape of blades against the ice.
The sun had just risen, a warm glow casting above us.
Matthew laughed, spinning effortlessly before skating backward to face me.
His black jacket was open enough for me to see his ridiculous Christmas sweater.
"We should sneak out again tomorrow," he challenges, his breath smoking in the air. “After dinner and steal beers from Dad’s stache, he won’t even notice." I didn’t like the idea, but I didn’t say it.
Why would I ruin winter break? Two weeks of freedom before school trapped us again.
No early alarms, no homework, no pretending to care about geometry and maths.
Just late nights and cold air and Matthew dragging me into trouble like he always did.
I was watching a bird flying when I heard the crack.
A sharp, splitting sound came to me, as though the world itself was breaking apart.
I turned just in time to see Matthew’s arms flail, his mouth parting in a scream, his echo silenced by the immensity around us.
One moment, he was there, and the next…the ice beneath him shattered, dragging him under.
For a second, I didn’t move. I watch it all in slow motion, just like a car crash on TV.
Time held its breath and I still didn’t move, my brain short-circuiting.