Where I End and You Begin (8 page)

This isn’t like holding hands with my father. It’s like connecting two live wires, and a jolt runs up my arm and through my body, grounding itself in my belly. I shove the feeling away, because it can only make things complicated, and if I tried to seduce my pseudo-counselor that would probably violate some kind of rule.

His hand tightens on mine as he moves forward and I follow him, stepping where he steps. The hospital isn’t large, and we reach the other end of the room quickly. Jibril is staring up at something on the wall. I follow his gaze. Large, flat drawers are set into it, red with rust.

It takes a moment for me to realize what I’m seeing, and when I do, I wish I hadn’t.

“The morgue,” Alice says. Then: “This is so cool.”

Cool is not how I would term it. My hand in Daniel’s is freezing and I squeeze his fingers so tight I almost don’t realize that he’s wincing with pain. Even then it takes me a second to release him.

He reclaims his hand and grabs the camera around his neck. Uncapping and adjusting it, he lifts it to his face and snaps a photo of the rusted morgue freezer.

“Let’s go upstairs,” he suggests. “The light isn’t very good here.”

I want to kiss him. “Yeah,” I say. “Upstairs.”

There’s a heavy door set in the wall back where we entered and we pick our way back there. This time Daniel opens it, revealing a set of concrete stairs leading up into the light of the hospital proper. He climbs the steps and I follow, afraid to touch anything for fear the decay will rub off on me.

Immediately I feel better, and I’m finally able to appreciate the atmosphere. We’ve emptied out into a long hallway with open doors leading off it. The first one we pass seems like it might have been an office or a place to store office furniture, because it’s full of dusty desks and cracked glass cabinets and rusty chairs.

The air smells like bleach and decay, but really, it’s the chairs that get to me. I never knew chairs could get so rusty. They’re all just sitting there, waiting for someone to plop down on them. They remind me of old people in a nursing home, busting at the seams with a life to tell but no one wants to listen, and their tongues and lips don’t work right any more anyway, so no one could understand them even if they did.

It’s a fucking shame. I want to sit on each horrible, rusty seat, and I would if I didn’t feel like I was giving myself eyeball tetanus just by looking at them.

I want to give you a warm ass to hug,
I think.
Just one last time before you die.

But of course I don’t.

“This place is creepy as hell,” Alice says. “There’s probably an ax-murdering ghost here.

“Why would there be an ax-murdering ghost at a hospital?” Jibril says.

“I don’t know, maybe he went on a spree or something here and that’s why it closed down.”

“That’s stupid.”

“
You’re
stupid.”

“Babies,” I say.

Everyone turns to look at me. I lick my lips. “Babies. If there are any ghosts here, it’d be babies, or women who died in childbirth, or a doctor who couldn’t save his patients.”

Next to me I feel Daniel shift. “That’s a little morbid,” he says, and it’s the first time I’ve heard anything even vaguely disapproving come out of his mouth. Stung, I scowl up at him.

“What?” I say. “I love ghost stories. You’re gonna get the ghosts of people who left something undone here, or who died a violent death. It’s common sense.”

They’re all quiet for a second, and I feel as though I’ve stepped over some boundary.

“Let’s split up,” Jibril suggests. “Why don’t you two take the bottom floor and we’ll take the top, since we’ve done this before. You know, so we’re not all in the same place just in case the floor caves in and you guys have to call 9-1-1.”

“Is that likely to happen?” I ask.

“Not likely,” he says with a grin, “but it never hurts to be prepared. If God wills it, we’ll meet you here in thirty minutes.”

“I hate it when you say that,” Alice tells him.

“That’s why I say it,” he replies, and then they are moving through the debris, their flashlights sweeping the walls as they search for the stairs to the floor above us.

And now I am alone with Daniel.

He seems perfectly comfortable with this fact. This must not be a date. I watch as he lifts his camera and shoots a few pictures.

“The lighting today is perfect for this,” he says. “I’m excited. Do you think there was a psych ward here?”

“Probably not,” I say. “Those were usually out in the country, far away from everyone.” In the wilderness, no one can hear you scream.

“That makes sense.”

Together we pick through the trash on the floor. There’s a long row of windows lining the hallway we are in, half of them broken, the other half boarded up. The gray light pools along the floor, illuminating broken two by fours and plywood. When I look up, I see that half the ceiling has come down, and I’m extremely glad that Jibril told us to stay downstairs. It’s dangerous up there.

It’s a little startling to realize that, while I’ve been downing the liquor like it’s water, hoping for some sort of release, that I don’t really want that release to come today. Sometime in the nebulous future, I might drink too much and keel over. Might drink too much and go home with the wrong guy. Might drink too much and go to sleep on a park bench in the middle of winter.

Someday I’ll step over the line, and when I’m dead I can pretend it wasn’t my fault. I can play Russian roulette with my life as long as it doesn’t feel scary.

It feels scary in here, even though I’m far more likely to be hit by a car than die exploring an old hospital. For the first time in a long time I feel a rush of something akin to excitement. Faced with this rotting corpse of a building, the background noise of low-level existential anxiety suddenly spikes in a quick injection of adrenaline.

Death feels a lot closer here.

Daniel stops and takes a picture of one of the windows, and I realize his camera may look huge and old and analog, but it’s digital.

“That’s a cool camera,” I say without thinking.

He turns and looks at me. “Thanks,” he says. “I used it in undergrad.”

“Yeah,” I say. “And you’re in grad school now?”

He shrugs, looking sheepish. “Well, not right
now,”
he says. “There is that little sabbatical I’m taking.”

“I didn’t even know you could do that.”

“It’s... not unusual.”

I don’t want to pry. I really don’t. He’s being evasive for whatever reason, so I won’t probe it. But I have to ask. “So you’re studying psychology, right?” I ask. I wonder if he knows Miss Debbie Chandler.

He gives me a strange look that I can’t quite decipher. “No,” he says, “I just have a background in counseling.”

“And you decided you’d put it to use on the poor little drunk girl that threw up on your shoes.”

The words come out more vicious than I meant, and he lowers the camera. “You didn’t throw up on my shoes.”

“You know what I mean.”

“You didn’t have to call me last night.”

I press my tongue against my teeth.
Technically,
no.

He sighs. “I just wanted to help you. I realize that’s hard for you to understand, but not everyone is out for themselves.”

He’s making me angry. “I don’t want your pity.”

“I don’t pity you,” he says. “I don’t even feel sorry for you. You’re kind of an asshole.”

That shocks me, and I laugh, a short sharp bark. “Holy shit,” I say. “I don’t think anyone’s ever just come out and said it like that.” I laugh again, but inside I am hurt.

“You’re hostile,” he says. “I only want to help you.”

“Yeah, but
why
? What’s your motivation? What deep, weird psychological need are you fulfilling by pretending to be a knight in shining armor? What do you want from me?” I almost ask him if he just wants to get laid, because I’m pretty easy to get into bed and he doesn’t have to go to all this trouble, but I catch myself just in time. I cross my arms and scowl at him.

Above us I hear footsteps. Alice and Jibril are walking carefully over the floorboards. I
know
this, but I think of ghosts anyway. A little thrill goes through me, and I have to shake my head to get rid of it.

Daniel doesn’t seem affected. Instead he looks at me, and his wide brown eyes are thoughtful. “Why?” he says. “Well...I felt guilty, getting you put on probation. And when I met you at the bar, I felt bad for you.” His mouth twists. “But I think I really decided that you needed help when you told me you’d be sleeping behind a dumpster if it weren’t for me.”

“Oh, thanks,” I say. “So I
am
your charity case.”

He blows a puff of air through his lips, clearly frustrated. “No,” he says. “It was when you said that other people slept in dumpsters, so it wouldn’t have been so bad. That’s... most people would be full of pride. They would hate themselves for sleeping behind a dumpster or in a dumpster, or they’d look down on someone for it, not think they’d end up in the same place someday. You’re an asshole, but you’re not a bad person. You’re incredibly sensitive. Empathetic. I think you must be in tremendous pain.”

I stare at him.

“Isn’t that why you drink?” he says.

I open my mouth, but my tongue won’t work right. “I...” My thoughts are hollow, rolling around inside my skull. Loud, but meaningless, like bones rattling in a clay pot. I want to tell him I drink so I can’t feel, but isn’t that the same thing?

I’ve been in pain. I’ve known it. I probably still feel it, right now. A raw, aching thing blaring through me, so loud in the beginning, but after so many years I’ve grown inured to it, gone a bit deaf. So yes. Maybe that’s why I drink.

I don’t want to tell him that. That’s too much.

“We’re all just a moment away from sleeping in a dumpster,” I tell him instead. “It only takes a second for your life to change. Why wouldn’t I be fine with it?”

He frowns. “You shouldn’t be fine with it,” he says, but he sounds unsure. “Doesn’t it scare you?”

“Of course it does,” I say. “I’m scared to death.” And I am. There’s a dark, yawning void below me. I am suspended above it by the thinnest of threads. When the end of the semester comes, barreling toward me like a freight train, the thread will break. “It’s too late for me,” I tell him. “I don’t think I can save myself.”

“Let me help you,” he says again. “Please.”

I don’t get why this beautiful, impeccable person would give two shits what happens to me, but for a moment I consider it. Why not let him make me into his own personal little crusade? The end will come whether I want it to or not.

“I’m hopeless,” I say, a last ditch effort to save him from himself.

“You just say that because you don’t want to hope.”

“Yeah. That’s what hopeless means.”

The corners of his mouth turn up. Finally I’ve managed to coax a smile from him, even if it is somewhat rueful, and I’m surprised when I smile back. “You’re also stubborn,” he tells me.

“I know.”

He inhales deeply. “What can I do, right now, to help you?”

I think. “In this instance? Or just in general right now?”

“In general.”

“Help me study.” The words are out of my mouth before I realize it, and up until this moment I hadn’t even given studying for my midterms a second thought. It had seemed like an exercise in futility. I’ll have to attend every class from now until the end of the semester. No days off. No hangovers. No days too drunk to function. I don’t know if I can do it.

He looks uncertain. “Help you study? How?”

“Sit in the same room as me,” I say. “Seriously. Just sit there. Read a book. But if someone is there, maybe I’ll actually do it. And when I start to fall asleep or get distracted or give up, you can tell me how great it is to hope I get straight As. Which I need, by the way.”

“It
is
great to hope for straight As,” he says, “but fortune favors the prepared. All right. When are midterms?”

“Next week.”

His brows rise. “You want me to sit and watch you study this weekend?”

I shrug. “Why not? You didn’t have anything better to do on a Friday night than take
me
out and that’s pretty sad. I figured you’d be free this weekend, too.”

That was harsh, but Daniel laughs anyway. “Ouch,” he says. “But you’re right. I don’t have anything pressing this weekend. All right. I’ll help you.”

And then your duty to me will be discharged,
I think. “Awesome,” I say. “If I get all As, you have to stop trying to help me.”

That’s probably a weird thing to say, but right now I don’t care. Daniel McGuire, if he’s really a good person who thinks he can save someone... I feel sorry for him. And it’s pretty bad when I’m the one feeling sorry for someone else. He is patiently waiting for me to tell him what’s wrong, but what’s wrong is everything, and even the things that are right are infected with wrong, and I feel like, if I tell him, I’ll just infect him, too. So I’m going to be silent. I’m going to take his offer. I’ll see if one thing—just
one—
is fixable.

His brow creases. “And if you don’t get straight As, I’ll call you up every day and ask you what I can do for you.”

“That’s weird. And creepy. And stalkery.”

To my amusement, he suddenly looks worried. “Is it?” he says, as though this hadn’t crossed his mind.

I raise my eyebrows at him.

“I suppose that is a little weird,” he concedes. “Look. Just make straight As and we won’t have to have that conversation. But I’ll still take you out to dinner. In a non-stalkery way. And you can pick the place.”

Oh, goddammit. Tempt me with food. That’s so goddamn low. The administration does it all the time to get people to attend school spirit events. Free hotdogs? We’ll mumble our way through the school song just for packets of mustard. “Fine,” I say. Then, because I have been a jerk, even if he is a little weird, I add: “Thank you.”

He hesitates. “You’re welcome,” he replies. Then he clears his throat. “Shall we explore?”

I nod, and he leads the way. We move through the hallway, and at the end there is another narrow hall leading off to our right. We take it and find two large doors. Daniel reaches out and pushes one, gingerly, and it swings inwards.