Chapter 42
Chapter Forty-Two
The Closet Is Made of Glass
The world moves by me in a blur, and I stumble around without any cognitive awareness that I’m doing it. Don’t ask me what day it is. Don’t ask me what the weather looks like outside. I can’t even force myself to get out of bed most of the time.
Vaguely, I’m aware of how often I try to call Luke with no response. I memorize the sound of his voicemail greeting and the chipper way he tells me to leave a message and he’ll call me back. Fucking liar. He never calls me back.
My texts read out like novels, all of them unread.
They’re apologies for whatever I said that was wrong—for whatever I did that was so upsetting, pleading with him to come back so we can talk and try again.
They fall on deaf ears. I don’t know if he turned off the read receipts or simply hasn’t bothered to open the thread.
Either way, it cuts like a knife to be so easily forsaken.
Three months of bliss wiped away in an instant. And I don’t understand why.
There’s an open wound in my chest, my ribcage wrenched apart with a crowbar to expose my bleeding heart. If I weren’t so numb from the breakup, I might actually feel the pain. Instead, I just feel like a lifeless husk.
I don’t know when I put the phone down—when the silence becomes too much to keep screaming into.
It could be days. It could be weeks. It could be hours.
All I know is that, at a certain point, I feel pathetic continuing to try when it’s clear that Luke doesn’t give a shit.
Our relationship isn’t worth preserving for him, so why should I keep trying to force it?
And yet, I can’t shake the fear that runs through me every time I wonder if he’s not answering because something worse has happened.
Where did he go after he left my house? Did he find somewhere safe?
Was he forced to go back to his moms? Did his stepdad leave him alone?
Or is he experiencing more of the same torture?
Without hearing a word from him, it’s all left to the imagination, and I’m powerless to stop it as it avalanches into darker territory.
For the first time in a long time, I dip back into behaviors that scare me.
Hours pass where I stare at nothing while my mind goes blank with crippling anxiety.
I’ll suddenly blink and find it’s dark outside when I could have sworn it was still morning.
Or realize I haven’t eaten anything as the hunger pangs try to tell my brain to do something about it.
Except, the thought of getting up to cook seems too impossible to manage—so I don’t really eat.
Misty keeps me company through all of this.
She’s the only reason I haven’t curled up in a ball to die already.
Whether it’s out of some sick determination to follow Luke’s last request to take care of her—even to my detriment—or if it’s because Misty very loudly demands my services when her food bowl is empty, I can’t say.
But if she wasn’t here to boss me around, I don’t know what shape I’d be in.
She’s just as dramatic as Luke, pawing at me, head-butting me, or sinking her teeth into my neck when all else fails.
Leave it to him to have found a companion in the world’s second-biggest diva. At least she’s cute.
I sleep a lot. It offers little peace. My dreams are plagued with anxiety-induced nightmares.
First, with images of Luke’s body lying broken and lifeless in the woods, his blue eyes glossed over in a milky white.
Then, with him leaving my house, breaking up with me with words far harsher than he used in reality—but they stay with me.
“No one could ever love you,” he says. “You’re a fuck-up. You ruin everything you touch.”
I wake up crying every time.
One night, I’m given a little unexpected reprieve from the torture. I find myself standing outside on my back deck, the night sky above exploding with a collection of stars and brilliant colors that could never exist outside of a dream—and somehow, I know this is a dream.
While I stand there, staring up at the sheer beauty my brain has created, I suddenly feel the presence of my father.
I don’t know how I know it, but he’s here with me.
Sure enough, when I turn my head, he’s standing right there, just as formidable as I remember him.
He hasn’t aged. In fact, he might be a little younger than the last time I saw him.
But it’s him. He gives me the warmest smile—the one I’d have given anything to see one more time.
It hurts my heart as much as it fills me with joy to see it now, even if part of me knows it isn’t real.
Dad looks up at the sky, marveling at its wonder. “You did good, kiddo,” he says, and I’d recognize that voice anywhere. It wraps around me like a soothing blanket, the sensation comforting. Still, I can’t help but frown.
“I fucked everything up.” My voice sounds subdued.
He just laughs. It’s familiar, long-forgotten music to my ears.
“If that were possible, you wouldn’t be where you are now,” he replies, reaching out to put a hand on my shoulder. And I feel it. As real as if we were standing on the deck. His grip is firm and reassuring.
“What if it’s too hard to keep going?” I want to fold into his touch, feeling as small and vulnerable as a little kid again.
Dad smiles, and suddenly, I’m overcome with such an enormous feeling of love that it’s almost overwhelming.
It’s like it’s radiating from him, aimed solely at me.
A wordless knowing that he feels nothing but fondness and joy for me.
Surrounded by it, it’s impossible to remember any other feeling could exist. Peace washes over me, and I wish I could stay in this space forever.
“You just have to remember you’re not alone.”
The dream starts to fade, the image beginning to blur. My heart jolts as I realize that he’s fading too. Don’t go.
But then Dad says, “It’s time to wake up, Ethan,” his voice farther away. “Wake up.”
The dream fades as reality pulls me down, the chains of misery still firmly locked around my heart.
The warmth dissipates like a puff of smoke, taking with it the serenity I felt.
Instead, my body feels heavy and listless, and the bed beneath me is the only thing keeping me from sinking into the earth.
“Ethan, wake up!”
This time, the words are spoken in the real world, the voice panicked. Someone is shaking my shoulder with such urgency that it immediately throws me into fight or flight mode, my heart racing with sudden adrenaline. Is the house on fire? Did someone die? Am I being robbed?
“What? What?” I ask groggily, fighting against sleep as I turn my head to look up.
Marcus is standing over the edge of my bed, a worried pinch to his brow. He’s staring at me very intently, searching my face for something. My brain feels fuzzy, as if the world still hasn’t come into focus. God, how long have I been asleep?
“What did you take?” Marcus demands, his voice stern.
“What?” I frown with confusion.
“What pills did you take?” he asks again, enunciating the words like he thinks I didn’t understand them the first time. I mean, I didn’t, but he doesn’t have to be so harsh about it.
He suddenly points to the bedside table for emphasis, and I follow his gaze to the various orange prescription bottles I’d left sitting there for Luke.
I never bothered to put them away, too busy wallowing to care.
They’ve been knocked over haphazardly—probably from the cat—but none are open.
I stare at them with confusion, trying to figure out what Marcus is asking me.
It takes a long moment before my tired brain makes the connection.
Marcus thinks I’ve been popping prescription painkillers—overdosing on them, more like. Jesus fucking Christ.
“Oh, fuck off,” I snap back harshly, instantly pissed at the assumption. “I didn’t take anything.”
“Then what the fuck are they there for?” Clearly, he doesn’t believe me.
“Those aren’t for me. They were for…someone else,” I say sheepishly. I don’t owe him an explanation. “What the fuck are you even doing here?”
Marcus huffs an angry sigh. “Dude. You’ve been MIA for days. No one’s been able to get ahold of you. Your mom is worried fucking sick. You haven’t returned her calls. She’s two seconds away from booking a flight to come up here.”
I groan, dragging a hand down my face, and reach over to grab my phone off the bedside table where it’s been lying face down on the charger on silent.
Immediately, the screen comes to life with a million and one notifications of missed calls and text messages—some from Marcus, the guys, my mother—and even a few from Tiff.
Glaringly, one name is noticeably absent from the cacophony—Luke.
He still hasn’t called or texted me back. It stings just as sharply.
At the very least, I click on the texts from my mom, reading through the never-ending stream of pokes and prods where she asks me to call her or at least pick up the damn phone in various threatening ways.
It ends with a very typical Elaine Carlson warning, all in caps: SO HELP ME GOD, IF YOU’RE DEAD, I’LL KILL YOU.
I tap out a simple reply of, not dead, then turn the screen off and toss the phone back on the bedside table. At the very least, she’ll know not to keep worrying—though I know I’ll get an earful about how terrible of a response that was later.
Glaring up at Marcus again, I feel a well of anger bubbling up inside me. It might be misguided, but at least it’s better than being numb. Dare I call that progress?
“Did you break into my fucking house?” I ask, knowing that I locked all the doors, not wanting to be disturbed.
“It’s not breaking in if you have a spare key, asshole,” Marcus snaps. “I was afraid I would come up here and find you dead. You scared the shit out of me, man.”
“Congratulations. I’m not dead. Now you can kindly fuck off.”
“What the fuck is wrong with you?”