Reese
The thing about intermittent explosive disorder that people don’t always get is that it comes out of nowhere and goes from
zero to sixty just like that. Like one second I’m fine, and the next I’m throwing shit and screaming at people and it doesn’t
matter who sees or hears.
The other thing people don’t get is that I feel guilty after, like when I wake up the next morning and think about how close
I came to stabbing Wyatt with that glass, I feel bad. Embarrassed. Sometimes scared.
Sometimes it’s just thoughts. Like when I’m driving through the school parking lot and kids are walking real slow right in
front of me, blocking the way, being assholes, and I think about stepping on the gas, about running over them. I wouldn’t
do it. At least I don’t think I would.
But there are times when it’s not just thoughts.
When I act on it. When that happens, it’s like my body is on fire, burning from the inside out, spreading out of control across my chest, up my neck and down my legs and arms like wildfire.
Or like when the Hulk transforms from Bruce Banner into the Hulk and goes all scorched-earth on everyone.
That’s how I feel. Like I’m not myself. Like I’m someone else, someone I have no control of.
And then it’s over and I shrink back down to Bruce Banner size, left with the guilt and shame of what I’ve done, knowing you can only say sorry so many times before no one believes it, before no one says, It’s okay, Reese, anymore.
Which is what happened with Skylar. I said sorry one too many times to count and she can’t forgive me this time.
Because swearing and kicking over a garbage can in the middle of physics on the last day of school with everyone watching—all
because your friend made plans with a different friend and not you—is not cool.
It didn’t help that someone in class got a video of me kicking over the garbage can on their phone. That they posted it to
TikTok. That it was viewed thousands of times by the end of the day, so that even if Skylar wanted to forgive me, she couldn’t.
She couldn’t be friends with me anymore, because by then everyone knew I was a freak.
When people saw me in the hall after that, they called me Robbie Gould, which, under different circumstances, would have been
a compliment (greatest Chicago Bears field goal kicker of all time, according to Nolan). But they didn’t mean it like that.
It wasn’t a compliment. They were making fun of me, referring to the way I kicked the garbage can, the way it went airborne,
flying across the room, trash going everywhere.
They pointed at me and laughed. Hey look, there’s Robbie Gould!
Some kids stopped me in the hall and asked for my autograph.
I almost felt sorry for Robbie Gould, that he would be associated with me.
Incandescent with rage. Seeing red. They’re real things, not just idioms or metaphors or whatever. They’re real. Because when
I get mad enough, I feel hot, like I actually glow, a redness creeping into the periphery of my vision until everything I
see is bloodred.
When I’m mad, I actually explode. Relief—release—comes first, followed by guilt, regret, humiliation, shame. Thinking everyone
would be better off if I was gone. If I was dead.
Which is how I feel when I wake up in the morning and remember what happened with Wyatt last night, knots forming in my stomach as I lie there in bed, think about kneeling on his chest, about holding the chunk of glass above my head, and hoping something like that never, ever happens again.
Everything would be so much better if I was dead.
I leave the cottage before anyone else is awake. I go outside, dragging the door closed behind me, careful not to make any
noise. I turn around, looking out at the world, which looks different today, and I think it’s because of Daniel. Because I
kissed a boy last night.
I smile without meaning to, without really knowing that I am.
Our cottage sits on top of a hill so that it overlooks everything else. Down the hill from us there are other cottages, which
are quiet now, everyone still inside for the night. The sun is just coming up. It sits low in the sky, a giant glowing red
orb on the horizon, surrounded by wispy gray clouds that I see over the lake, the light pouring sideways like spilled paint,
turning the lake red.
The morning air is numbing. I jam my hands into my pockets to keep warm, and then I head into the woods, following the same
path I took last night, trying to go back over my steps, to remember which way Daniel and I went to the cemetery, wanting
to see what it looks like in daylight.
I thought finding it again would be easy.
But the woods are different during the day.
Even with the sun coming up, they’re disorienting, almost as disorienting as they are at night, but for different reasons.
Instead of seeing nothing like last night, all I can see are trees, though there are so many of them and they’re packed so closely together that it feels like the trees are moving.
There are no markers and no landmarks. There are only trees, which all look the exact same to me, tall and brown, the bark covered in moss, the roots exposed and lying on the ground like a disembodied hand, like Thing from The Addams Family, some of which I trip over, swearing as I lurch forward and then catch myself before I can fall.
The path is wide at first. It’s easy to navigate. But over time it narrows, closing in on me until it’s almost the exact same
width of my feet and I wonder if it’s a path at all or if it’s just what happens when the grass gets worn down by enough people’s
feet. There are noises in the woods, which makes it feel like the woods are alive, like they have eyes. Rustling leaves. Falling
pine cones. Squirrels.
And then there are the sounds of things I can’t see.
When I get there, it hits different during the day, when I can actually see what’s around me. It’s less creepy and more sad.
Tombstones surround me. They’re matching and mostly old with square tops that sit sunken down into the earth. A broken chain-link
fence wraps partway around the cemetery while, inside, some of the tombstones are cracked, the granite severed, and I wonder
if it happened all on its own or if vandals broke them. They’re smaller than I remembered. Their edges crumble. Moss grows
like carpeting on them, staining the gray green. I take a closer look at the dates etched in the stone, most of which are
ancient, though there are a few that aren’t. Born: 1931. Died: 1972. Twin daughters of Dorothy Frank. January 3, 1926–January
3, 1926. Mother. Father. Beloved son.
Flowers lie on a Jessica Clarke’s grave, which has no headstone, but only a flat marker, her name and the dates 1985–2019
etched in it, and I wonder what’s so special about it that it has flowers when none of the others do.
I’m staring down at her grave when I hear a noise from behind and I jerk, turning around.
I’m not alone like I thought. Someone else is here.
The woman stands at the far end of the cemetery.
I’ve seen her before. I know who she is.
She’s the same woman from the resort, the one who was in the lodge that day we checked in, who gave us our keys to the cottage.
The sun comes up behind her, its glare making it harder to see.
I put a hand to my eyes to block the sun, watching as she bends to lay a handful of pink wildflowers on someone else’s grave (the same pink wildflowers as on Jessica Clarke’s grave), their delicate petals lifting up in the wind.
I start to back away, but in my retreat, I step by accident on a stick. She hears it, throwing a glance over her shoulder.
When she sees me, she turns around. “This is a private cemetery, honey,” she says. “Didn’t you see the sign?”
“What sign?”
“The one that says no trespassing.”
I turn, looking for it.
“No,” I say, looking back, shaking my head. “I didn’t see it. I guess I got lost.”
She watches me, her short, gray-streaked shag blowing in the breeze, neither of us speaking until she says again, “This is
private property. You’re not supposed to be here.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I didn’t know. I’ll go.”
As she watches, I leave through the broken chain-link fence, though I don’t go back to the resort like she thinks. Once I’m
out of view, I step off the path, creeping deeper into the woods, and then I squat close to the ground, in the trees, making
myself as small as possible and wait for her to leave.
Eventually she goes. I watch her leave and then, when I’m sure she’s gone, I get back up and cross the small cemetery for
the flowers she left behind.
When I come to them, there is no marker and no headstone, though the earth is somehow different when I look, the ground concave, the grass patchier than the rest of the cemetery, like someone dug a hole in it and the grass didn’t grow completely back.
I wouldn’t know for sure, except for the flowers, which are undeniable, like a buried treasure, X marks the spot.
If it wasn’t for them, you’d never know someone was buried there.