In Pieces

Age 15

The front door slams shut, the sound echoing through the house, underscoring its emptiness.

It’s nothing new. I’m used to it—the emptiness. It lives inside me, and I feel most at home when my world reflects it.

When there’s no one around, there’s no one to pretend for.

My brother’s car engine starts, idles, and then off he drives, the faint crunch of gravel fading into quiet. Then…nothing but the crickets.

I like the silence. It matches the emptiness. It fits, and I let it blanket me, wondering what ever appealed to me about things like conversation and laughter.

A soft crack reverberates off my bedroom window and my pulse takes off like a rocket ship.

Is he here?

I move to the window that overlooks my backyard, violently wrestling the heavy drapery out of the way to search for him in his usual spot.

Or what used to be his usual spot.

The emptiness burgeons and billows. There’s no one there.

I curl my fingers into a fist and grind it into my sternum. It doesn’t relieve the build up of pressure. The emptiness is more palpable than any tangible substance, and it’s finally stretching the bars of its cage, seeking new territory to conquer.

It’s nothing if not determined.

I make my way over to my vast walk-in closet and kneel in the back right corner, reaching into the old duffel I’d used for my two-summer stint at sleepaway camp. I dig around until I find my stash, pull out a tiny bottle of Jack Daniel’s, and down it in two swallows. I don’t even taste it. I repeat the action with a second mini-whiskey, then stow the drained bottles in an otherwise empty Tory Burch shoebox hidden in plain sight on my shoe rack.

But my olfactory senses aren’t as lucky as my taste buds, and the ominous, pungent scent of alcohol—one I recognized by the time I was five, that used to warn me the switch inside my father was in danger of flipping—overtakes me. Memories flash, unbidden: the esteemed, professional façade he wore for the world shattering in a flash—shouting and shoving, my mother’s shrieks, my brother’s cries. Their bruises…even blood. And me, cowering in a corner somewhere, waiting for a reprieve that would only ever be temporary.

But still…I never wanted him to leave.

Too bad my brother felt differently; he kicked our father out of our house and our lives the minute he was big enough to hit back. And too bad my father didn’t care enough to come back for us. For me.

After he left, I started to suspect that mine wasn’t the normal kind of sadness other kids felt. That not everyone experienced the lost, hopeless sense of emptiness that, at times, threatened to crush me like a boa constrictor strangling its prey. I was just barely eleven.

The emptiness has only grown more and more persistent since then, and while I used to be able to find temporary refuge in simple things, like friendship and family and fun, losing Brian changed everything. Just like when my father left, my break up fed the emptiness like some kind of magic fertilizer, sending its thorny brambles climbing and twisting, until it resembled something out of Little Shop of Horrors—a monstrous weed intent on consuming even the most fledgling buds of happiness in my life.

The emptiness is a greedy bastard.

I used to wonder how far it would spread, what it would do when I had nothing left for it to feed on. I’d imagine it bursting free of my body, escaping the confines of its own wreckage. I picture the familiar image now—a torrent of melancholic colors, dark and murky, finally too much for the body that created it, exploding and escaping, destroying its shell. Free. And I imagine the relief. It’s positively palpable.

Because I know how close it is.

I startle when my phone buzzes with a text. It’s my brother.

I sigh, but don’t send a reply. Sammy tried everything to get me to come out with him tonight. To show Brian I’m over it.

It’s ironic, really. A year ago my brother had scoffed at my suggestion he take me to a party with him.

But it’s been weeks since I’ve been to a party. In fact, it’s been weeks since I’ve done any socializing at all, and I don’t even miss it. I only miss him. Still, the last place on earth I want to be is the home of Brian’s friend, at a party he is almost certainly attending, pretending to be indifferent when he acts like I don’t exist.

And, anyway, I have my own plans tonight.

The look my big brother gave me before he left—the hurt, sad bloodhound eyes, the concern and the love—it gave me the resolve I need to move forward. Because I can’t see him look like that anymore. I can’t be the cause of everyone’s pain. I won’t.

A muffled crack reaches my ears and I freeze. It’s not him, I tell myself. It’s never him anymore.

But I tentatively make my way back to the window, anyway. Just in case.

And there, past the flagstone patio, in the shadows of the white cedar gazebo, is a dark form.

He’s here.

My heart skips and hops all over the place, stumbling to gain its footing.

He’s really here!

I check myself in the full-length mirror and I’m taken aback by my ghastly appearance. I look like utter shit. My hair is disheveled, unwashed and limp, and I’m not wearing an ounce of makeup. My once bright, flawless skin is marred by blemishes from every day I’ve been too tired to wash my face, and the sweats I haven’t changed in days are wrinkled and dirty.

Yep—shit.

I should change. I should put on makeup. Really I should shower, but surely by then he’d be gone, and then he might never come back.

I check my phone to see if he called or texted to say he was coming, but all I find are the last several texts from our year-long chat—all from me, all unanswered.

He must have wanted to surprise me. To tell me he was wrong, that we can make it work long distance, that he misses me. I don’t care what he tells me at this point, just as long as he speaks to me.

Like the first warm spring breeze after a long, frosty winter, my frigid heart thaws the slightest bit, and I recognize a feeling he stole from me when he broke my heart. Hope.

But a blast of cold grips my chest before it even can fully take shape—the thought of looking Brian in the eye faltering my steps. My belly rolls with nausea as unbearable regret lances through me, and I nearly double over. Could he ever forgive me?

I force it out of my mind. I have to get to him before he changes his mind about wanting to see me.

I rush down the stairs and through our foyer, nearly slipping on the marble tile. I take the quickest route outside—through the great room and out the French doors—only mildly aware that I’m barefoot. I hurry across the patio and around the pool, and down the two stone steps until my soles meet the dewy grass. And still, I run. I make a beeline for the gazebo—our gazebo.

“Bri?” I call out.

He doesn’t respond.

“Bri, are you here?”

Silence.

“Brian?”

I search through the shadows, seeking out his familiar form. But it’s too dark. We always leave the lights off in the gazebo. He may or may not know Sammy is at his friend Cooper’s party, but he doesn’t know my mother is in the city for the weekend, so surely he’s sticking to our protocol for sneaking around. Brian is closer to my brother’s age than mine, a grade above him, in fact, and only weeks shy of eighteen. Sammy was less than thrilled about us from the start, so we’ve always taken caution to keep our private life private.

Brian isn’t in the gazebo, a fact I realize before I step onto the wood-planked floor, so I sit on the bench that lines the walls, waiting for him to reveal himself. But when he still doesn’t emerge from the trees a minute later, I know.

He isn’t here.

He was never here.

I’ve become so desperate that even my mind has begun to betray me, conjuring visions of things that were never real, not even when they were real. Maybe tangibly, but not truly. Or I wouldn’t be alone in this gazebo right now.

The emptiness swells, the hopelessness surges, and I’m finally ready to set it free. There’s no other choice.

I slowly make my way back into the house. I’m in no rush—I’ve timed it perfectly. Sammy is staying at his best friend Tucker’s tonight, and my mother won’t be home until Sunday evening. I can’t let anyone mess things up, or make me second-guess something I’m sure of.

My feet track dew-damp spots through the house, but they’ll be long dry before anyone comes home to find them. I step back into my bedroom, and I pause to really take it in. The memories are suffocating.

Smiles and giggles as my mother painted my toenails right there on my stark white eyelet bedspread. My dad’s tickle attacks and dramatic readings of Harry Potter—awful British accent and all—but only on weekends, if he happened to be home for my bedtime. Sammy and his friends Tucker and David unapologetically manipulated by their six-year-old hostess into the tea parties and dance parties I loved so much.

But although those happier memories are greater in number, it’s the other, more potent memories that monopolize thoughts of my childhood.

I slip my hand between my mattress and box spring, to the small cardboard box that will fix everything.

I remember the moment my father handed it to me on my eighth birthday—how my eyes lit up as I opened the white box with the gold-lettered logo from the popular, local jewelry shop, to reveal a second, black velvet case. I reach unconsciously for the chain dangling from my neck, fingering the hand-shaped white-gold charm with the diamond eye in the center. A “hamsa,” traditional to his Jewish heritage, meant to keep away the evil eye. To bring luck.

Worthless piece of shit.

I tear it from my neck, not bothering with the clasp, and empty the current contents of the box into my palm, slipping the necklace back into its original home. I replace the cover, and slide it back under my mattress, pushing it deep, where no one will find it.

I close my hand around the forty or so small, football-shaped white pills I’ve pilfered from my mother’s medicine cabinet over the past two months, always fearful she’d notice. She never did.

I sit on the edge of my bed, and grab the water bottle off of my nightstand.

Should I leave a note? Maybe text my brother and mother that I love them? But I don’t want them to know something’s up—to give them time to thwart me. I pick up my phone. Maybe I can leave an unsent email for them to find later…

I jump as it buzzes in my hand, as if it knows what I’m planning.

Or whoever’s texting me does.

I know I shouldn’t look—that it’s probably Sammy again, worrying as usual lately. But against my better judgment, I click on the home-screen and open the text.

My heart leaps into my throat.

It’s Sammy’s friend David.

I shouldn’t respond. David is a wildcard. He makes me feel things. He always has. Things even Brian never did. But Brian returned my affections; David never could. He’s my brother’s oldest friend, after all.

I shoot back the quick reply and stare idly at the phone in my palm for a few beats, before my other hand squeezes its contents, reminding me that this is not a moment for chatting with my childhood crush. Even if once, for one fleeting moment, I thought maybe, someday, he could possibly be something more. Because I’m holding a handful of guarantees that that’ll never happen.

Buzz.

I startle again.

Again I look, despite warning myself not to. Because just the fact that he gives half a shit has me acting like a stupid, boy-crazy schoolgirl again.

But I do give a fuck. I give all of them.

Bea, not kid. My chest swells and my heart races. My lips almost twist into some semblance of a smile, but I catch myself.

Because I’ve put too much thought into this to be swayed by some false hope and a pet name that once meant the world to me, and nothing to him. Story of my life.

The lie comes easily enough in its digital form. Because there will be no more tomorrows. Not for me.

Another buzz from my phone, but this time I just power it off.

David. He’s the one thing causing that whisper of doubt I really don’t need right now.

I sit on the edge of my bed, and I down the pills. Every last one.

I wait for that moment of panic, of regret, but it doesn’t come. Only certainty and relief.

I lie back on my bed, wondering how long they will take to work.

And then, I cry. Not for myself, but for the few people in this world who love me. Because I know that tomorrow they will be hurting beyond measure, but I also know that in the long run, they will be far, far better off.