Mirage (7 page)

Stillness.

It's like my brain is taking a deep breath, sucking me back into myself.

I think about how they say you can't die in a dream or you'll die for real. Clarity strikes like lightning: We never die. Never. I feel like the universe has whispered a secret.
The
secret. We are as eternal as the winds that flow like rivers. The winds may change shape, direction, momentum, but they always
are
. I am in on a huge secret. I want to run through this house on wheels and announce it to everyone: we literally
cannot
die. Oh my God. Nothing I do matters.

I think I always knew this. My dad has drilled this point home with his actions and even with his words. I don't matter.

I am safe from death because I cannot die.

I stand and spread my arms wide, announcing, “Nothing I do matters!” No one answers me, which kind of proves my point.

There is no death. Only change.

This realization is so expansive that it scares me, makes me feel small, insignificant. I'm a gnat in outer space. I wonder if listening to familiar music will ground me. I put my earbuds in but don't press play because I realize I don't want other people's music right now.

Fear perks its ears up. Its long tongue lolls out, panting at my feet.

My grandmother planted a seed, and I'm afraid I'll never see it blossom. I want to hear
my
song. I wonder how old she was when she first heard hers. I'll bet she heard it in the womb. I can see the truth about Gran's brain. Why does
dementia
sound like
demented
? They've got it all wrong. They don't know that that part of her brain resides in another dimension. They should call it
dimentia
.

I warn you, don't die without sharing your song.

But we can't die, Gran.
Of all people, how does she not know this? It suddenly becomes enormously important that I find a way to hear my song. I feel panicky, like I'm in peril of eternal soul agony if I am sucked into the winds before I hear my song from this life. Or share it. Why didn't I ask her what happens if I don't?

There's a pit of writhing snakes in my belly.

I need to think about something else.

I frantically pull out the folded paper from my jeans pocket. It's a quote from someone named Bill Hicks:

There is no such thing as death; life is only a dream and we're the imagination of ourselves.

Such unbelievable syncing with my thoughts that I know it's not an accident I got this slip of paper out of all the scraps. The universe is whispering again. I reread the quote. I'm already imagining things when I'm
not
on drugs. If I'm the imagination of myself, then that means there are always two of me.

Is it this
other
me who follows?

Restless wandering, passing everyone in the kitchen and living room. I step over two girls reverently touching each other's faces as I head down the motor home's thin hallway. I look in the mirror, trying to summon her, this other me, to boldly face her down. I see myself. My lips are beautiful, pillowy and curved upward at the corners, like my mother's. I admire the strong structure of my collarbone and shoulders. I can see my heartbeat, a tantalizing pulsing pearl in the indent at my throat. I step closer, peer deep into myself. My eyes are so big and so black and I think . . .

That's the hole she crawls out of.

Suddenly she's there. We stare at each other, this girl and I. She watches me like I'm a rare species in a cage. And I watch her. I wonder whose vision is truer. Maybe her world is as real as mine. Maybe I
am
someone else's dream. Maybe she's as scared of me as I am of her. Wouldn't that be weird​—​we two, feeding each other's writhing snake?

Wind rushes through the motor home like a jump door's been opened. I slam on the glass with my fist.

Her eyes blink a delayed beat later.

A sharp chill seeps in through my listening ears, invades my breathless mouth, stabs my witnessing eyes. Every velvet inch of my black skin itches from the biting cold burrowing into my pores, and I fear that if I look down, I'll have turned white. Iced over.

She presses her palm to the mirror where mine rests and leans her forehead against the glass.

I suck in my breath and lean my head forward too. It's cold. So cold. But I do it because I feel seen, because I want to feel connected with someone, anyone. She knows I'm here. She invites me in. Reaches through the door and grabs me by the throat.

I lean into her, my mouth on the freezing window of her world, and think,
How strange . . .

I feel

 

myself

 

freefall.

BSBD—​B
LUE SKIES, BLACK DEATH.
That's what we say when a skydiver dies. But there's no blue sky around me, only bleak and utter darkness.

This freefall has me kicking wildly, my arms spinning and flailing, like I'm swimming, using every ounce of strength not to drown. She is wrapped around my torso, her weight an anchor. I'm struggling to keep her from pulling me under.

Soaking black yearning, hot red fury, and crystalline shards of glass. My whole world is distilled into color and feeling. This new, shiny blade of fear pierces me in the gut, cuts deeper than any feeling I've ever had.

I'm fighting for my life.

I punch at her, my fist meeting more glass. It shatters against my knuckles. Her grasp tightens. I kick harder, but my legs sink into blackness like thick mud. A scream rips from my throat. My voice cuts like diamonds. I taste the blood that runs down the back side of my tongue.

You're so cavalier,
she tells me, her voice angry, accusatory,
to dance on the blade of life and death. And you're wrong . . . stupidly wrong. What you do
does
matter. Death is the end. You can die. You. Will. Die.

Sharp shards of glass cut through me as I try to deny her words. She whispers that I've slipped from the knife's edge.

We tumble in the fall, and now I'm the one dangling, hanging on to
her
. . . on to myself . . . I look up at my body, at my own terrified beauty. I was a beautiful light.
Was.
One by one, my fingers rip away.

I drop from myself.

I am the leaf, drained of color, crumbling, quaking, as it falls from the tree.

T
HERE'S HEAVINESS IN
coming out of freefall. Gravity has such strong hands. The body is constricting, a corset that's too tight. It's hard to take a full breath. The
beep-beep-beep
of a machine assaults me as the world of color and smells and sharp, stinging pain wrap around me like a barbed-wire blanket.

All senses are go.

A baby cries somewhere, and I intimately know how it feels, thrust into the wide open where anything can happen. It's confusing and scary. My body hurts. I feel like death, toasted on both sides.

It's hard to open my eyes, but I fight to, and realize I'm in the hospital. My tongue bursts with pinpricks. When I swallow, it's like nails raking down my throat. I attempt to push my voice up through the fire. “What happened?” Pain causes a hot tear to slide from the corner of my eye.

Someone's in the room, but they don't seem to have heard my raspy question. I try to move, but my body is concrete buried in gripping mud. Someone​—​Joe?​—​notices me struggling and rushes over, wraps his arms around me. I wince but let myself be held because it feels good: physical, warm, and reassuring.

“Oh my God, honey, you're finally awake. You wigged out on the acid is what happened,” he says against my ear. His prickly hair stings my face.

Acid? Oh, of course.

“I tried to tell you not to do it. We talked about this. Really, how high do you think you can raise your stakes before you lose?”

I point to my raw throat, noticing my heavily bandaged arms and hands as I do. “Why​—”

“You crashed right through the mirror like you were diving out of a plane.”

I blink hard, trying to recall. The memory hides behind a gauzy veil. I can see the outline of it but not the full picture. “I walked
through
the mirror?” I choke out. Every word cuts.

“Yeah, that was bad enough, but then you flipped, went completely berserk, flailing and struggling like you were fighting off an attacker. I could barely get you under control, and then you went unconscious. There was blood everywhere.” His kiss on my forehead is fragile. “I love you, you stupid, stupid​—”

“You ever scare us like that again, and I'll kill you myself.” That's my father's voice coming from the doorway. Chills roll over my body. He doesn't need to throw threats at me right now. I'm shaken enough. A father should be kissing my head and telling me he loves me. We stare at each other, and I suddenly remember: He's locked inside himself. Numb. He can't show me love.

Then my mother is against my side with tears in her eyes. She slips her palm gingerly beneath mine, trying to be careful of the cuts. “You lost a lot of blood. They couldn't stabilize your blood pressure. It was touch-and-go for a while.” My stomach jerks. Can we stop talking about blood? I'm appalled with myself.

My mom is pale, her lips bare without bright color, like a bruised rose. I've frightened her, and shame warms its hands over the fire of guilt in my heart. “I'm happy you're all right,” she says, “but I'm so disappointed in you. So very disappointed and astonished. How could you be this reckless with your life?”

“I'm . . . I'm not.”

She rolls her eyes. “Baby, what do you think you've got if you don't have
life
?”

“Nothing. Emptiness.”
It's nothing but darkness.
My voice is scratchy and flat, not my own. I feel like I need to break it in, but it hurts so much to speak. It's easier to let them all talk at me.

My mother's clenched fingers fly up to her mouth to hold in her sob. “You would take my only daughter from me!” She turns her back. Her words are a knife in my heart, and even now I appreciate the acute pierce of it, the evidence that I'm alive.

My grandmother shuffles over. Her tapered, wrinkled fingers hover over my skin as if she's feeling something beyond the borders of my body. Maybe her hands see what her eyes can't. Her hand suddenly pulls back to the breast of her flowered dress. She doesn't say anything, just shakes her head side to side like there are no words. Side to side: a metronome of sadness.

I don't feel like their child. Like anybody's child. I feel like the ax that's been slung through their lives. I guess I didn't think at all. I simply acted. And now I have to deal with the consequences. People want to be angry or sad, and despite how bad I feel, the strongest emotion I have right now is gratitude. Gratitude just to be alive.

“Forgive me.”

T
WO DAYS LATER
, I shield my eyes as I'm helped from the car to the house. My body feels alien as I move, but the more I do it, the more I sink into my skin. Being mummified in bandages from the numerous cuts isn't helping to make me feel normal. I'm glad it's summer and I don't have to face all the scrutinizing eyes at school. I need time. I'll have a lot of scars to remind me of that night. The only wound I cringe at is the one buried under gauze on my left cheek, which runs from my cheekbone to my chin. I will never look like me again.

“Thanks, Ayida,” I say to my mother as she situates me on the gray couch, bolstering velvet poppy pillows around me and handing me a glass of lemonade. She darts a look my way at my use of her proper name, but I can't help it. Everything is suddenly changed. You don't come back from where I've been unchanged.

I'm a different person now.

I look around, seeing home with new eyes. There is so much glass and luster that my reflection shines from nearly every surface. I can't help but stare at my foreign, bandaged self, but my stomach rolls at the memories of the girl's face and her fierce eyes. I haven't seen her since I fell into her. I hope she's gone forever.

My father runs through the voicemail messages. Dom's deep voice carries through the house, saying that he's calling to check on me. That he hopes I'm okay. He's miserable. He says he's sorry . . . so sorry . . . and that he tried to see me in the hospi​—

My father jams his finger into the delete button and Dom's voice is gone. I think I'm supposed to feel something, but I'm strangely removed, numb. It's been this way since I woke up. I wonder if these are aftereffects of the LSD or if it's just . . . me now.

My father makes maybe three or four passes back and forth across the room without once looking at me, as if by not acknowledging me, he can make everything go back to normal. His withdrawal feels like punishment. And his agitation scares me. He's like a loaded gun. Looks like he could go off at any minute.

Finally he approaches me but doesn't sit. His stance is military. Feet spread. Hands on his hips. He gazes down at me with impassive gray eyes. “These antics of yours, they're going to stop.”

I nod.

“You know what we're dealing with here. As a family, we're facing the very real possibility of losing everything. You copy? You have got to rein yourself in. You're our child, Ryan, but you're clearly old enough to fuck up your own life. If that's what you're determined to do, I have no doubt you will do it, but not under my roof. As long as we are responsible for you, you will submit to weekly drug testing. Stay away from Dominix for a while. He's been a bad influence on you. You will have a curfew of twenty-one hundred hours every night, and . . . no more senseless stunts.”