Unveiling The Sky (9 page)

I closed my eyes against the darkness and let myself actively think about the one thing I’d been trying to block out since I got back. My mother. Had it really only been
days
since I moved back home? Only
days
since the first anniversary of her death?

Despite trying to keep her far from my mind, it was useless. The fight tonight proved as much. It seemed even if my mind could forget, my body couldn’t. My mind had been blissfully ignorant tonight, but my body still remembered the helplessness, the sorrow, and the anger. I didn’t wonder why I punched that guy at the slightest provocation; I wondered why I hadn’t been walking around punching people for days.

I think I was still in shock as Sherry bombarded me with questions and Naomi apologized repeatedly for taking so long. The guy responsible for this whole mess glared at me as his friends finally got him up and mumbled halfhearted apologies. They quickly dragged him out the door Gabe and Derek left through five minutes ago. Within minutes, the bar returned to normal, but I definitely did not.

“Come on. Let’s get out of here.” Naomi wrapped her arm around my shoulder and led me toward the door.

“I can’t believe he punched him,” Sherry said as soon as we got in the cab.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Just… can we please,
please
talk about something else?” I begged. My mind was pleasantly numb after being lost in a dozen conflicting emotions for the past ten minutes, and I wanted to enjoy the peace.

“Like what?” Naomi asked.

“Kevin asked me on a date.” Sherry shrugged casually before staring out the window.

“He did?” Naomi reached across me to slap Sherry’s arm, but in the process, she clipped my injured side, causing me to groan.

“Sorry, sorry.” Naomi winced and lifted her hands by her head.

“Yeah,” Sherry answered like nothing had happened.

“What’d you say? What’d you say?” Naomi asked in a flurry of excitement.

Sherry raised a disbelieving eyebrow. “What do you think I said? What do I
always
say?”

“No,” we responded in unison. I smiled, and it was only a little bit harder than usual, as Naomi chuckled. But when her eyes focused on me, the grin that had taken form quickly fell, and she looked troubled. She mouthed,
You
okay?
The clouds in her eyes lifted a little when I gave her a small smile.

“It’d be stupid.”

“What would?” I asked Sherry.

“Going out on a date and pretending I’m long-term girlfriend material.”

“The only reason you’re not long-term girlfriend material is because you’ve never tried and you’ve never wanted to be. I’m in the same boat. It doesn’t mean we’re incapable of it,” I said.

A myriad of emotions flashed across her face. Sadness. Pain. Anger. Fear. Longing. Love. Hope. Joy. Each one left as quickly as it came, until she settled on
very
forced humor.

“
We’re
in the same boat?” she asked with a laugh.

Frowning, I looked over at Naomi, only to discover her laughing.
Okay, maybe it didn’t look forced to everyone…

But
I
knew a forced smile. I had perfected the forced smile. However, as I continued to stare at Sherry, I saw a pleading in her eyes I didn’t even think she was aware of, so I let it go.

“Well, we’re at least docked in the same harbor.” I shrugged as the three of us started laughing. Naomi abruptly stopped and leaned over me again.

“Wait… when did this even happen? I thought you were off hooking up with my brother?”

“Nah, he bought me that drink, but then we went our separate ways. Believe it or not, I don’t
like
pissing you off. At least not all the time.”

“You could have fooled me,” Naomi said right as the cab pulled up to our complex.

We all filed out and silently made our way into the apartment. The threshold seemed to be a switch for our exhaustion, because within ten minutes, we were all in our pajamas with our makeup only haphazardly taken off and dragging our pillows and blankets into the living room. Sherry got her stuff out of the hall closet as we all made ourselves comfortable on the floor in the common area, just like we always did when Sherry stayed over.

“Hey, guys?” I asked tentatively.

“Yeah?” Sherry asked around a yawn.

“Thanks for making me go out tonight.” I paused, surprised by how much I meant it, especially since I ended the night bruised and on the floor, before shifting around to face them. “I think I had a good time,” I ended on a whisper.

“Well, of course you did,” Sherry said before she lightly started snoring.

Naomi simply looked at me with a smile that was sad, worried, hopeful, happy, and relieved all at once.

Minutes later, I drifted off to sleep.

…

I woke up to a bear dying right next to my ear. Okay, not really. But that’s what a snoring Sherry sounded like.
God help her future husband.

When I turned my head, I felt a kink in my neck, and I groaned as I stretched it out, but as I moved, I became aware of the other physical pains I’d forgotten about. I lifted my shirt to reveal a decent-sized bruise on my hip from where it hit the floor last night. A few other parts were sore, but at least there were no other visible marks—

Oh
.

I sighed as I looked down at the wrist pulling my shirt back down, and frowned at the finger-shaped bruises forming. I threw the blanket off me and padded to the kitchen, grabbing some water before glancing at the clock. It read just after 8:00 a.m.
 

“You’re up.” I turned around to see Naomi leaning against the entryway to the kitchen, a piece of paper in one hand and her glasses in the other.

“Yeah, how come we always forget how freaking loud she is?” I asked as I looked toward the wall that separated us from Sherry.

Naomi laughed as she entered the kitchen and leaned against the counter opposite me.

“I guess we just remember what we want to remember.” She gave me a sad smile that had my eyebrows bunching together.

“Are you okay?” I asked. “Because if this is about last night, I’m fine.” I tried to give her a reassuring smile, but that only seemed to make her frown deepen.

She gripped the paper in her hand before holding it out to me. Cautiously, I took it, noting the jagged edge where it had been ripped out of a binder before smoothing it out. When I looked down, I was grateful I had put my water on the counter behind me, because if I hadn’t, I surely would have dropped it.

Scrawled in familiar black handwriting was:

There’s a crack in my mind,

That I don’t know how to heal.

There are demons in my head,

People tell me are not real.

The voices are my own,

Speaking words I don’t believe.

Convincing me I’m worthless,

And that everyone will leave.

You want me to be better,

Don’t you think I want the same?

But you’ve convinced yourself it’s nothing,

Or that I’m the one to blame.

So I’ll tell you that I’m “fine,”

Because that’s all you want to hear.

And I’ll conceal it with a smile,

While hiding all the fear.

I’ll bury all the feelings,

And I’ll cut out all the pain.

But that won’t mean I’m healed,

I’ve just chosen to not “complain.”

Because being sad was only half of it,

And it was not the half to kill.

The downfall began when I started to feel nothing,

When I slowly lost my will.

“Do you remember writing that?” Naomi asked softly.

I nodded, unable to find my voice as my eyes continued boring holes into the page. Of course I remembered writing it. It’s hard to forget any part of it when you’re constantly terrified of it coming back.

“When I found that in your room, I cried for like an hour after reading it.” I looked up to see her staring at the paper right before she gave a humorless laugh. “God, I felt like such a shit friend… that I couldn’t see it.”

I grabbed her hand. “I didn’t want you to.”

“I should have seen it anyway.” I opened my mouth, but she cut me off. “It just sucks is what I’m saying. We both could have done things differently, and it just sucks that this is something we have to deal with.”
 

I smiled at her use of
we
.

“I just want to make sure you’ll tell me if you’re not fine. Because I wasn’t worried when you were crying or when you had emptied half your closet out onto the floor. I worried when you were numb. When I came to see you and all you’d be doing was staring out the window or up at the ceiling. When I had to say your name four times before you responded.”

I laughed as a thought suddenly occurred to me. “Was that why we started doing random things like breaking plates and screaming underwater?”

Her eyes lost some of their sadness as she laughed with me. “Yeah. I wanted to make sure you knew it was okay to feel those things. Which is why every time you said ‘fine’ last night, I wanted to strangle you. Because I can’t tell if you’re really fine or if it’s a cover. I don’t want you to think—”

“I know. And I promise I was telling the truth.”
 

She looked at me for a long time before nodding. And even though there was probably more to say, we both tapered out into comfortable silence, content with how much was said.

But Naomi could never stay silent for long, and as she started up the coffee maker a few minutes later, she said, “So I talked to Derek last night.”

“Is he okay? How’s Gabe’s hand? How’s Derek?” I winced when I thought of how much worse it could have been.

Naomi waved away my concern. “He’s fine.” She turned around with a smirk firmly in place and mischief in her eyes. “But he did say Gabe was pretty upset.”

I rolled my eyes; I should have known where this was going. “Don’t start. I thought we decided he was off-limits, since he’s Derek’s roommate.”

“I don’t remember having that conversation.”

“Me neither,” Sherry said around a yawn as she came into the kitchen.

“Fine.
I
decided he’s off-limits and I’m sticking to it.” They must have heard something final in my tone, because after giving each other a cautious, we’ll-come-back-to-it look, they shrugged and began preparing their coffee. I turned around and started digging things out of the fridge to make breakfast.
 

He’s off-limits. Because he’s Derek’s roommate. Because I wasn’t serious when I said I was ready to start dating. Because I barely know him, so there’s no way I like him already. It’s definitely not because I’m a neurotic scaredy-cat with commitment and trust issues. Noooo, siree. That’s not what this is about at all. At. All.

I sighed.

Thank God I’m not an actress.

It was nearly noon when I arrived, and despite the hour, the restaurant parking lot was only half full. It had been four days since the incident at the bar, but honestly, it felt like a lifetime. That person wasn’t me; I was never the guy to get in a fight. But this year, I became a lot of things I wasn’t before. I became the guy who quit college. The guy who had one-night stands. The guy who got blackout drunk. And now, apparently, the guy who punched people out.