Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Dean
I dry heave as I slam awake from my latest nightmare, drenched head to toe in sweat, clammy and shivering and rigid with hot terror.
It was the one where Rashon and Mr Williams and Lacey Bordeaux and Mrs O and so many others glare at me as they lie dying, asking me why I didn't save them. It's one of the worst.
I can’t move. Except for the way my head jerks from the disgusting wrack of retching, I’m paralysed, frozen where I lie.
This happens sometimes after my nightmares. It takes ages for my muscles to unclench enough for me to move and breathe freely again, and it usually comes back piece by piece.
Once I’ve near enough stopped heaving, I try to drag air through my lungs. It brings little relief, but I’m grateful that at least I didn’t throw up all over myself this time. That’s never fun.
My mind races, and I feel like I’m in a bubble where no-one can help me, no-one can reach me and pull me out.
Not even Eli. Callie, her blood, all over me and in my mouth…
I know, I know it’s not there, but I can feel it, I can taste it, and for the million time I scream out in my mind, why ?
Why did this happen to her? To me? Why us ?
Why was I chosen by the universe for this terrible hell of surviving? What did I do to deserve it?
I can’t live like this much longer.
I can’t see the point in enduring this endless suffering.
Tears pour silently down my face as I consider this solid truth, and I can’t stop them even if I wanted to.
I can’t stand any more therapy. No matter what kind, it’s all basically the same, and in the end none of it works.
Nothing that they tell me sticks. I’ve been rolling that rock up that mountain for too long, and I’m tired.
I’m fucking tired . I was given an antidepressant once, and nothing really happened except dizziness, relentless diarrhea, and a strong desire to hang myself.
No help to be had there. And I got so close, much too close, to becoming a valium addict back when I’d just been released from hospital and this shitty new post-shooting life had just begun.
It was only my mom’s strict, lightning fast intervention that stopped me from getting strung out on benzos all the time.
God fucking damn it, but I miss the calm vacuum valium created. With every cell of my body, every fiber of my being, I want to go back there.
Maybe forever this time.
I close my eyes. Maybe it’s finally time I stopped kidding myself, stopped putting myself through this hellish torture every single day of my miserable life, and picked up enough diazepam to take with my stash of sleeping pills and check out for good.
I silently groan with longing as I think of it.
No more nightmares. No more pain. No more struggling to get through the day, only to have to battle to get through the night, and then doing it all again the next day, and the next, and the next, with no respite.
Just getting some actual, proper sleep, all the hours I lost and then some.
Melting away into silent blackness, the peace of total oblivion.
Please, god. It sounds like bliss to me.
Listen to your heart …
For no apparent reason, I have a flash in my mind’s eye of Liaden singing to me in the pub last night, singing to all of us, but especially to me.
Those ink blue eyes of hers focused on mine.
Blue is supposed to be one of the cold colors, but if that’s true, why did I feel scorched when she looked at me?
And her voice…
Jesus Christ, she blew away any other singer I’ve ever heard because she gave the songs everything she had to give.
So powerful. So strong. She sang it like she meant every word, and my mind warns me against dwelling on that too much, given the eye contact she gave me while she set my heart on fire singing to me.
Wait.My heart ?
Yeah. Because listen to your heart .
L…
My right hand makes the letter with stiff, aching fingers, almost without me realizing.
I…
Another. Her beautiful, smiling face, so close to mine as she sat next to me, thigh to thigh.
A …
Her gorgeous hair, how amazing it would feel to comb my fingers through it, wrap it around my wrists as I eased her head closer to mine.
D…E…
That crisp, clear, confident voice spilling forth so much chattering wisdom from the most interesting person I know, filling me up with stunning singing that makes me shatter into pieces and then puts me back together again.
N.
I can breathe again.
I spell her name again, L-I-A-D-E-N . My fingers loosen up enough so that the movements don’t hurt anymore.
One more time.
Holy shit, I’ve stopped shaking. Instead of the usual darkness and pain, my mind is filled with her, and the sound of her laughter, and the way she smells like springtime.
She’s the closest to heaven I will ever see, and I’m not ready to leave that behind, not yet, even for the warm embrace of a peaceful death.
So I spend the rest of the night thinking of Liaden O’Brien and everything she is, and allow myself to be soothed by the fact that such a person exists in my world. A fragment of beauty in the hellscape.
Liaden O’Brien: Hey. Just wanted to check in, make sure you’re OK.
Dean Gastright: Yeah, all good now. Thanks.
Liaden: Good, glad to hear.
Liaden: So what made it happen? Just so I know what’s OK and what’s not OK.
Dean: It just happens sometimes.
Liaden: At random? Or is there a trigger?
Dean: Honestly? There’s more than one.
Dean: I’m just sorry it spoilt the evening.
Dean: Really
Liaden: It didn’t spoil it. It made my night that you showed up.
Liaden: And it’s OK
Liaden: I’m listening.
Dean: Alright
Dean: It’s not an easy thing to talk about, but in a nutshell, one time when I was 18 I was in a room full of music and laughter and people having a good time
Dean: And then in a split second we were all dying in the worst way you can imagine
Dean: And I guess every time I’m in a similar situation, and there’s music and people having fun, a part of me will always be waiting for the first shot to ring out
Liaden: That’s really sad, but I can understand why you would feel that way
Dean: I’m always going to be this way, Liaden
Dean: It’ll never be normal or fun with me
Liaden: Normal is overrated, and I would dispute your second statement
Liaden: I always have fun when I’m around you
Dean: You do?
Liaden: Yeah. You let me ramble on and you make me smile and you’re good at your job
Liaden: And you’re hot
Liaden: Are you still there?
Dean: Yeah
Liaden: Good, because I have a question, if you’re willing
Dean: OK
Liaden: Why did you come out last night, in spite of all of that? Nobody would blame you for ducking out of something that isn’t an obligation, especially when it’s not like you can join in
Dean: Don’t ask me that
Liaden: Why not?
Dean: Because if I tell you the truth that’s going to change things and right now things are comfortable and nice and more than I ever thought I’d have. And I don’t want them to get weird
Liaden: Dean. Why did you show up last night?
Dean: Because you were there.
Liaden: 3
Liaden: LOL you’ve reduced me to emojis. Most unprofessional for a linguistics prof, and not something I generally do. Don’t tell my boss [wink emoji]
Liaden: By the way, I went because I want to get to know your friends, but that’s not the main reason
Liaden: I had one eye on the door until you arrived because what I truly wanted was for you to be there
Dean: 3
Liaden: I like you
Dean: Liaden…
Liaden: Yes?
Liaden: …?
Dean: Never mind. Catch you later x
Liaden: Aww, come on, don’t leave me hanging LOL
Liaden: Dean?
Liaden: OK, I get it. You’ve reached your limit for now. I’m still here, whenever you want to reach out x
Dean
Twenty-eight ceiling tiles. Five scuff marks on the wall opposite me. Two loose threads on the top of the armchair in the corner, where Mom and Dad have taken it in turns sitting with me for…how long now? Sometimes it feels like I came in yesterday, other times it feels like nearly a decade.
I can’t get used to not being able to speak.
The number of times I open my mouth and try, because I forgot for a moment, is truly depressing.
I don’t feel up to learning sign language just yet, and the small whiteboard and pen is getting on my last nerve, so mostly I just lie here in silence.
The drugs they’ve given me have dialed down the nightmares, and they’ve given me something to keep me calm, but Callie fills my every waking thought.
Where did you go, my angel? Why did everything change into this nasty hell at the snap of fate’s fingers?
One of the nurses keeps telling me how lucky I am to have survived. I wish she’d go away. I wish they’d keep her the fuck away from me.
Something’s different about today, though.
Neroli has been kept away from me up until now.
She’s only twelve, and this is a lot for a child to see and deal with.
But she’s been begging to see me, even throwing the first tantrum since she was a two year old and demanding to be brought to the hospital, and finally it seems I look in a fit enough state not to frighten her. Or not too much, anyway.
I’m trying to summon up the feeling for her, to get excited to see my little sister - especially when I may have died in that classroom - but there’s nothing nice left in me.
I’ll try to fake it as best I can, because it’s not her fault I’m dead inside and I wouldn’t hurt her feelings for anything, but I kind of wish it was happening another day.
Mom is nervous while Dad picks Neroli up from Eli’s; she’s been staying with them while our parents keep watching over me.
I think she’s picked up on how I’m feeling.
She’s pulling my bedding straight, stroking my hair back from my forehead, saying soothing things and trying to raise my spirits ready for them to arrive.
And, I think, to give her something to do while we wait.
“She’s been so looking forward to seeing you, sweetheart,” she says to me softly.
Comfort? Fair warning? I try to use my eyes to express to her that I get it, and I won’t have one of my meltdowns where I throw things across the room.
My whiteboard, the fucking bedpan, anything I can grab.
But I’m going to keep a tight lid on everything.
Neroli is still innocent and unknowing, and I want her to stay that way, if I can help it.
What little control I have over my life will be spent protecting her.
There’s the sound of my father’s voice talking quietly in the corridor, getting louder as they get closer…and then there they are. Dad has his arm around her shoulder, holding her tightly as she takes the room in with huge eyes.
Poor kid looks terrified.
Her gaze falls on me, and her mouth tightens as her eyes fill. I can see the effort she’s making to swallow it all down and be brave for me, and for the first time since that night, my heart squeezes with something other than misery.
Kiddo.
The baby who turned up as if by magic when I was six. The five year old with skinned knees and my old sneakers, running after me in the sunshine. I taught her to swim. We used to spend Saturday mornings watching SpongeBob together, giggling and doing impressions of Squidward at each other.
I have missed her.
“Dean,” she says in a watery voice, before clearing her throat. She pulls on her Powerpuff Girls t-shirt, the way she always does when she’s nervous. She ruins a top by stretching it out of shape every time she has a test at school.
I will not allow her to go to Nolan High when the time comes. Over my dead body is she setting foot in that place, whatever’s left of it or whatever they manage to rebuild.
Our parents watch us anxiously, and when my sister moves towards my bed, Mom takes an unconscious step forwards.
She may not admit it, or even realize it, but she knows what’s up.
She knows that her son, the one she raised, is gone, and has been replaced with a dark pit of misery that she needs to protect her daughter from falling into.
Neroli fidgets with the edge of my blanket, looking like she has loads to say and no idea how to say any of it. And then there’s me, her big brother, her protector since she was born, with nothing to say and no way of saying it anyway.
And then, out of nowhere, I know exactly what to do.
I boop her nose.
It’s our thing. I’ve done it every morning at breakfast time since she was born, and over the years she’s gone from insisting on it before she’ll eat, to play-fighting and batting my hand away, to rolling her eyes…
And now to smiling and crying with relief, just like our mother, because this thing in the bed in front of her still has some traces of her big brother inside it.
And though I don’t mean it, I summon up the first smile since I lost my voice.
For my sister.