Clear

by Jessica Park

  “Please. I don’t deserve for you to hear me out. I get it. You feel like I’ve wrecked everything we ever had. You’re right, but I’m going to ask you to just listen to me anyway.”

  Sam can’t even begin to form a response, so I figure that separating them for the time being can only help. “Sam, why don’t you get him some water?”

  Sam scoffs but goes to the kitchen.

  There is too much tension for any of us to think reasonably. And Costa’s mention of his son has made it impossible to throw anything solely hateful his way. Losing a child will always take precedence over any other pain there is to be felt.

  Costa and I sit silently in the living room, and being alone in his presence, even for a few minutes, is unsettling and confusing. I am at a loss about what to believe or what to say. Sam returns with a plastic cup and keeps as much distance as possible while passing it over.

  Costa chugs the water and then keeps his head down while he fiddles with the cup. “I’m so sorry. Really, I’m so sorry.” He rubs his fingers over his eyes. “I need you both. You’re the only chance I have.”

  “What are you talking about?” Sam throws himself into an armchair and glares at his friend. “Spit out whatever crap you’re here to tell, and then you can get the hell out. I can’t do this anymore with you. Every single time you show up, you rip out some piece of my heart. No more.” Sam is now consumed with his emotion. “I can’t stand it. It hurts too much. I am begging you, Costa. Please get out of my life. Stop shredding me. I have nothing left to give you.”

  Costa breaks down, hiding nothing from us. For once, I see honesty and not some kind of manipulative display. Costa is raw and unrestrained when he cries and lays out his pain, and it’s excruciating to be present in his grief. “I don’t know how to explain it all,” he says rather helplessly.

  As much as I want to destroy him for what he’s done, I also want to heal someone who’s been broken. I had to be healed, and I didn’t do that alone, so I try to ease him into his story, whatever it might be. “Start with why you came back to town,” I say.

  He looks at me with gratitude. “Yeah. Okay. Last spring…I came to see you, Sam. I missed you, but I was scared to see you again, too. After the ice…the drowning…when I had been away and alone, I’d needed you so much, but I hated you at the same time. It was impossible. Losing Toby was my worst nightmare, but I couldn’t do anything about it. My whole life had been eviscerated, and maybe I’d deserved it because I probably hadn’t deserved that miraculous kid in the first place. But I’d had him and then lost him, and there’s nothing like that. There’s no way to explain exactly how my world fucking ended. But I did what I could. I just kept going because there was no other fucking option. I couldn’t die, right?” He laughs, but his laugh just hurts all of us.

  “Except, eventually, I got an idea. It was vague, nothing really thought out, but just an idea that maybe Toby could still be alive. Sure, at first, it was just wishful thinking. That’s normal, I guess—the denial stage of grief. But there is truth in it. I mean, we never found his body, Sam. Nobody did.”

  I glance at Sam and see that a good portion of his fury has subsided. Now, he is trying to hold it together while Costa talks about his little boy.

  “I came back home, back to my lifeline,” Costa continues. “You, Sam. So, I watched you for a while, just to get used to the idea of seeing you again. It sounds weird, I know, but I did. I’d see you water the garden circles every day. I liked that.” He gives a light smile.

  “But you looked as fucked up as I felt—angry and miserable. Part of me thought you deserved to live in such agony, but most of me just hated it. I hated that you were suffering, that everyone around here saw you as some kind of monster that I knew you weren’t.

  “Then, Stella showed up, and I saw you two together. Right from the start, it was so obvious that there was something really strong between you two.” He pauses and taps his fingers over his knees while he fumbles to stay with this narrative. “Then, holy shit, you two made that storm. I knew it because you were together that night. Your rain became the storm. I figured there was a power connection between you two.”

  “You watched us the night of the storm?” Sam’s anger resurfaces.

  “I know, I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t hang around or anything. Really. Just listen, okay? Please. I knew immediately that Stella was influencing what you could do. So, I tripped you to test it out. Then, there were the fireworks and everything else from the glowing lights.” Costa rubs his jeans. “That was because of you, Stella.”

  I nod. We know this to be true. There’s no question. It makes me uncomfortable, but he’s right.

  “So, all of this drove me to the idea that if Sam were somehow…strong enough…that we could trip and find Toby. And I think I’m right. I know he’s supposed to be dead, but I can’t accept that—not just because I don’t want to, but because I don’t feel it, you know? I don’t. Toby is still with me too much. I don’t care how little he was. His body would have turned up sometime, especially after the thaw in the spring.”

  Sam shakes his head, but it’s not entirely with disbelief. It’s also with understanding—and maybe hope.

  “But to do it,” Costa continues, “we need Stella. She makes you stronger when you’re not tripping, and if you had a…I don’t know…” Now, he stands up and walks the room, agitated. “A vision power or something, then Stella could get you skilled enough that we could trip and find Toby. You know how hard it is to see when we’re under, right, Sam? I can’t do it alone. But you could take your power with you and maybe be able to see where I can’t.”

  Sam is now slumped in his chair with his head in his hand. “Why didn’t you just come to me and ask? I would’ve done anything for you.”

  “Shit, Sam. You haven’t tripped since Toby! And I knew you wouldn’t. No matter what I said, you wouldn’t have believed me. I tripped you to get you going again, give you a taste of what you’d been missing, to prove how gifted you really are. You’ve never appreciated what we have.”

  Sam doesn’t move. “And what else? Say it. Say what you mean.”

  Costa drops his hands to his sides and meets Sam’s eyes. “And you let Toby drown in that frozen lake. You killed my son.”

  “And you had to retaliate.”

  “Yes.”

  “You saw me happy when you weren’t.”

  “Yes.”

  Sam looks off to the side for a minute and sniffs. “Fair enough.”

  “What I did wasn’t right. I know that.”

  “And why Stella? Why did you drag her into this shit?”

  “I thought she could make you more powerful if she tripped with you. It was a stupid idea. I can see that now.”

  I look to Sam, and he nods. He knows that he has to tell Costa. “It’s actually not a stupid idea.”

  I go to the kitchen and shake up three strong martinis while Sam explains how significantly his hearing power has increased since he tripped to get me.

  “You had your hearing power when you were under? Wait, did you hear him? Did you hear Toby? You’d know his babbling as well as I would.” Costa is at Sam’s side when I return. “Anything?”

  “No, no, Costa. It was just all noise, way too much to decipher. I could hardly take it. It was so loud. Nothing distinct. Just chaos.”

  He doesn’t mention all the other voices, I notice. Sam gladly takes the martini from my hand.

  I give one to Costa and sit back down. “There’s no way to know if this would work.”

  “It could,” Costa says. “If there’s any chance—”

  Sam finishes, “Then, we have to try.”

  “And we found out that you couldn’t surface Stella,” Costa says. “That has to be because I tripped her.”

  Sam shifts his eyes away. “So, I’d have to surface Toby.”

  Costa nods. “Sam, I’m sorry. I get it now. Finally, I get it. I was still mad and hurt…and…bitter when I got back to town. I did a l
ot of crap I shouldn’t have. I’ve been sober for two weeks. I’ve been trying to calm down and get my head on straight about everything. Toby was not your fault—not really. Sometimes, I try to tell myself that you’re solely to blame, but…we were both tripping hard and way too much, and we were both out of control with it. It was just an accident, a horrible accident. We didn’t understand tripping then like we do now, and—”

  “We don’t understand shit now, Costa. Every move we make is a guessing game, so this very likely won’t work, and you have to be prepared for that.” Sam takes a drink and then another. “And if I’m supposed to have some kind of amped-up vision while we’re under, this means that Stella would have to trip again, too.”

  Nervousness crawls through me. I dread the idea of tripping again.

  But I also can’t wait to.

  Sam downs the rest of his drink and sits silent. Eventually, he looks at Costa. “If you’re lying to us about any of this, I will dismantle what’s left of your world.”

  “Hate me all you want. Just help me get my son back.”

  “I’ll do anything you need,” he says.

  FORGIVING COSTA IS WHAT WE DO. As we see it, it’s our only option. His heartbreak is too much, and perhaps it grants him license to lash out in illogical ways. I can’t begin to understand his loss.

  Sam, however, does.

  Sam’s willingness to allow Costa back into his life and mine didn’t come with total ease, but his devotion to his friend was, as he said, unbreakable, even under the worst of circumstances.

  “I could have been Costa. I would have done everything that he’s done if I’d lost my son.”

  Sam and I have to be all in or all out. There’s no middle ground.

  So, we’re in.

  And now, we work.

  We all agreed that a vision power was the right choice. While Sam and Costa are experienced enough with death tripping to be able to move well and have a sense of orientation, neither of them can see very far. Sam has been tripping for two weeks now, and despite both of us focusing on the idea of vision before he dies, he hasn’t been able to surface with the power.

  He was a wind-maker for one day, which quite delighted me, and I even bought a kite at one of the souvenir shops in town. I wasn’t sure that Sam was entirely amused by my flying it in the living room even though he kept it aloft and let me play for a few hours. He also accidentally blew off a section of roof tiles from our house, but he was utterly exhausted, so it was understandable that he got sloppy.

  Costa is up on the roof right now, repairing the damage, and I do find it slightly funny that death tripping seems to come with a lot of home repairs—Sam’s front door, a hole in the wall from that intense night with the three of us, the mirror and glass door that I broke.

  Right now, I’m watching Sam pummel the shit out of the sandbag hanging from a sturdy tree limb. He surfaced a few hours ago, and he’s still surging and trying to work it off.

  He insisted that we come up with a plan to handle his surges because he was not going to let me offer myself up each time he came back. As much as I love Sam—and sex with Sam—I had to agree. Something felt very creepy about the idea of throwing myself in his path just so that he could discharge his trip energy. Because he made me promise, I try to make myself scarce for at least the first hour or so after he’s back. So, we have the punching bag.

  And both of our kitchens are positively stocked to the brim with food. Costa has two good black eyes, courtesy of Sam, from when he tried to help himself to some of the food I’d cooked for Sam. I’m not convinced Sam couldn’t have stopped himself there, but he punched Costa a few times and then finished an entire chicken and serving bowl of mashed potatoes.

  Sweat pours down Sam’s back and chest as he continues fighting imaginary targets, repeatedly slamming his fists into the punching bag. Watching him is not easy for me. He’s lost weight, and there are dark circles under his eyes. He’s been going to work in the mornings, coming home in the afternoons, and then tripping. Keeping his trip time down to just a few hours or less has gotten easier, so he’s been able to work off the surge and get to bed at a reasonable hour, but this amount of death tripping has taken a hard toll on him. I’ve cleaned up more vomit and washed more laundry than I care to admit. When the surge ends, there’s also the shaking, the clammy sweat, and the near delirium—and the nightmares. I’m not sure how much longer he can do this, and I can’t figure out why we can’t get him the vision power. I’ve been trying to get him to slow down, to let his body recuperate, but he’s refused.

  “If we can get to Toby,” he said earlier, “then this tripping binge is more than worth it.”

  Costa comes down from the roof and gives me a nod, so I head into my bedroom and watch through the French doors as Costa gently guides Sam away from the sandbag. Sam leans against him and lets Costa untie the boxing gloves. Costa wipes him down with a towel before they walk slowly inside his first-floor unit. He’ll eat the four Italian subs I made, drink at least a gallon of milk, and probably polish off the rest of my chocolate chip cookies that he’s become fond of post-trip.

  I’ve forced myself to stay near him because that has seemed important for getting a certain power, but watching him die over and over feels like it’s killing me, too. He was killing himself at first—with pills mostly—but he asked Costa to take over and do it. In his worn-out state, Sam said he just wants it to happen faster, and he doesn’t have the energy to get creative or dramatic.

  Among the many things that worry me is that I’m not sure Sam’s explanation is true. I think he dies better and with more pleasure when Costa does it. The bond between them has intensified with each kill. I see the way they look at each other when Sam is losing blood. The truth, however, is that I don’t hate that look. In fact, I enjoy their connection. But Sam compromising on his belief that a death tripper should trip himself tells me how worn-out he is.

  Costa texts me when Sam has finished eating and has had a long shower. I wipe my eyes and take the wraparound porch to the stairs, using these few moments to brace myself before I get to Sam’s bedroom. Costa is just pulling up the covers, and he looks almost as ashen as Sam does.

  Sam groans and rolls on his side, reaching out to wrap his hand over Costa’s arm. Costa leans in so that he can hear and then shakes his head. He has to peel Sam’s grip from him, but at least I know that Sam still has some strength left.

  “No, Sam. No! It’s way too soon.”

  Sam groans again and turns onto his stomach, pulling his legs under him so that he is hunched in a ball. Costa winces in reaction.

  I step fully into the room and sit on the edge of the bed. I’m not sure Sam even knows that I’m here. “Why don’t you go get some vitamin water, CJ? I’ll stay with him.”

  Begrudgingly, Costa rounds the bed toward the door but pauses by me. He starts to say something but stops.

  “I know,” I say. “We’re trying. I swear. I don’t know why we can’t make this work.”

  Costa’s eyes are the darkest I’ve seen them. “He has to stop. This is breaking him.”

  I’m reluctant to agree, but it’s the truth. This is too much. Sam is too sick.

  “Did he just ask you to kill him again?”

  Costa nods. “I won’t, not until he’s better. He’s too doped up now. And…” Costa hesitates. “He doesn’t just want to trip. He needs it. His body is asking for it, and he can’t tolerate not tripping.”

  Sam shudders, and I scoot over to his side to put a hand on him. He’s burning up now.

  “Sam is addicted again, isn’t he?”

  “We’re always addicted. But now, he’s using. It’s my fault this time. Last time was his, but this time, it’s on me.”

  “Sam chose to do this for you. He insisted.”

  “This trip was one way too many. He can’t trip again until he’s clean. That’s at least a week. And he’s going to be a real mess for a bit, so he can’t go to work.”

  “I’ll
go talk to his mother and make up some excuse for why he won’t be at the inn. It’s mid-September, so the season is over really, right? They’ll be okay without him.”

  “Thanks, Stella. I’m going to clean up the kitchen and the bathroom.”

  “Don’t. I’ll do it in a bit. You’ve done enough. Go rest. Get something to eat.”

  He tries to wave me away.

  “Please. I can’t have both of you down.”

  “Okay. Maybe you’re right.” He gives me a weak smile before he leaves. “You can try the ice, if you want. It might help this time.”

  I reach over Sam and grab two of the heavy ice packs. I set both on his bare back. He whimpers and scratches his nails into the sheets. The heat radiating off of him now is strong, and I can only imagine how high his temperature is. We’ve got another ten ice packs in the freezer, and I suspect we might need them.

  I spend a while moving these two around, pressing them against his skin, and giving him some of the water that Costa brought in. Sam had made me promise not to give him any medication to help him sleep, but I’m tempted to ignore that promise right now. His fingers trickling over my skin had helped me, but me doing the same just agitates him, and he shakes me off.

  When he’s warmed the ice packs, I switch them out for new ones and turn him onto his back. He struggles against it, but I get three on his upper body and another on his forehead. For a while, the cold and the weight of the packs seem to help although he starts muttering in a half-sleep state. I can’t make out any clear words, but he does cover his ears at some kind of invisible distress that’s plaguing him. Putting pressure on his legs and his arms appears to help, so I lean my weight into him and work over his body.

  Just when I think that maybe the worst has passed, Sam breaks into tears and puts his hands over his eyes. “Stella, please make it stop. Please.”

  “I’m trying, Sam. I’m trying.” I have no clue how to console him.