I slide down onto the top step as I wait for her to go. My head rests against the wood and my eyes slowly begin to close, but a whisper pulls me back to consciousness, her voice coming from the other side of the door.
Mom.
“I lost your father like this,” she says softly as I listen. “Watched him waste away.”
I stand slowly, my hand reaching out to lie flat against the door as she keeps talking. Soft hallway light creeps under the door. “Oh, Kyle.” She sounds so sad.
Sighing, I twist the handle. She’s sitting on the floor, her back pressed against the wall, eyes closed. She looks so sad. Instantly I feel terrible.
“Your old bones okay?” I ask with a small smile. “Sitting on the floor like that?”
She looks up at me and rolls her eyes, clearly not amused by my jab. “Ha ha.”
I reach down and pull her up, her hands wrapping gently around my forearm.
“Okay, you win. I’ll go to bed…,” I say, nudging her toward the stairs. “If you will.”
“I love you. You’re going to be okay,” she says as she studies my face, deciding, before finally giving my arm a squeeze and heading off in the direction of the stairs.
I pull the door closed behind me and sit silently at the top of the basement steps, holding my breath, waiting for what feels like an hour, until I’m certain she won’t be straining to hear the creak of the door opening or my feet on the hardwood floor. I check my cell phone, and the screen lights up to show it’s only 3:30 a.m., a few hours still left before the sun rises.
I creep quietly into the living room, ready to take my spot in the armchair, but a shape on the couch stops me dead in my tracks.
It’s my mom, curled up into a ball, fast asleep. Her light snores are the only sound in the room. I take the quilt off the back of the couch and cover her with it, something about the image making all of this worse.
You’re going to be okay.
The thought of her words makes my heart rate spike. Turning to head back downstairs to my room in defeat, I touch the bandage on my forehead, worried that what lies underneath is way more broken than the doctors initially thought. Worried that I’m not going to be okay.
Worried that I could’ve stayed up for a hundred nights and that spot on the couch would have been empty for every single one of them.
Because she was never there in the first place.
6
Days all start running together. Texts are left unread; food wrappers litter the floor. A week blurs into two, and then a month, and soon almost the entire summer drifts by, the sun slowly setting earlier just outside my small basement window.
I don’t get out of bed in the morning. I don’t do anything.
I just lie around, refusing all of Mom’s attempts to get me out of my room. I’m not interested in torturing myself. I know what waits for me out there.
In the basement, on the other side of my bedroom door, are the French doors that lead to the backyard, the same doors Kimberly would use to sneak in after my mom fell asleep. I could go upstairs, but I would see the front lawn she used to cartwheel across in middle school or the kitchen where we made that monstrous-looking, but insanely delicious, chocolate cake for Sam’s birthday.
But, mostly, I don’t want to give my brain anything to twist and trick me with. I don’t want to think I see her.
My mom’s knocks on my door become more and more frequent, just like the clicking sound of her feet pacing outside my door as she pleads with me. “You’re in there. I know you are.” Today she tries the doorknob. Once. Twice. But I’ve locked it now.
I can feel her on the other side, willing me to let her in. Instead, I let daylight melt into evening once more. I fight to keep my eyes open as long as possible, because when I do sleep, my dreams are filled with images of sparkling disco balls, fluorescent hospital bulbs, a truck’s headlights getting closer and closer.
At least when I’m awake, I can suspend myself in nothing.
I’m not sure how much time has passed, but however much it is, it doesn’t matter.
“Get up. Right now.”
I struggle to open my eyes and squint to see my mom standing over me, shaking me awake. I look past her to see my bedroom door against the wall, taken completely off the hinges, a gaping hole now leading to the rest of the basement. How did I sleep through that?
“You get out of bed and get yourself together,” she says, throwing my blankets off of me. “We need to have a talk.”
I groan and grab the blankets right back, pulling them up to burrow underneath them.
“About what?” I grumble as she sits down at the edge of my bed, her eyebrows forming a V.
Uh-oh.
Serious Mom.
I peer at her over the top of my covers, worried about what she’s going to say.
“Kyle, it’s almost September. Your friends are all starting to leave for college. Sam is enrolled in classes at the community college,” she says, taking a deep breath. “So, UCLA.”
I sit up and push my mess of hair out of my eyes, my fingertips grazing the raised scar on my forehead. She can’t possibly think I’m actually going. “What about it?”
“I know UCLA was supposed to be you and Kimberly. I know how much that plan meant to you,” she says, reaching out to grab my hand. “But you need to accept that the exact future you had planned isn’t possible anymore.”
My eyes find the UCLA pennant Kimberly bought me hanging on my wall, the blue and yellow taunting me. The future I had planned wouldn’t have been possible anyway. Kimberly would’ve been packing her bags to start a new adventure at Berkeley.
Without me.
I feel the tiniest twinge of anger and then a familiar wave of guilt. Kim would give anything to be going anywhere. Just to be here.
“But that doesn’t mean you don’t have a future,” she continues. “You’re supposed to leave in a week and a half, and maybe that would be—”
“I’m going to defer,” I say, making a decision. The only decision that will get Mom off my back, at least for a few more months. “For the first two quarters. It’s too soon.”
She doesn’t have to know yet that I’m never setting foot on that campus.
She blinks. This was not at all what she expected. I can tell from the set of her shoulders she was ready for a fight, but this is logic she can’t ignore, which is what I counted on. So she nods, satisfied, I guess, that I’ve made any sort of decision about my life.
“Fine. But if you do that, you need to make a new plan. If you defer UCLA, you can’t just do…” Her voice trails off, and she motions to the pile of dirty clothes. The used dishes. The overflowing trash can. “This. You have to do something.”
I look around the room. I haven’t left it all summer and it shows, but I can’t muster the energy to care.
“You’re still alive,” she says, squeezing my hand. “And you can’t stop because she isn’t. You need to keep living.”
I let out a long exhale, running my fingers through my matted mop of hair. Just having this conversation is exhausting. I have no idea what living even looks like now.
“I don’t even know where to begin,” I say honestly. Maybe if she just tells me what she wants, that’ll be enough.
“Sam wants to see you,” she offers, holding up my phone. I have no idea how she even got it. “It’s been months since you talked to him, and I know for a fact he’s hurting too. You could start with that.”
She tosses it to me, and it hits me square in the chest, my hands fumbling as they miss it. My reflexes are way out of practice. The screen lights up to reveal dozens of missed calls and texts, mostly from Sam, a few from guys I played football with through the years, though those tapered off ages ago.
Sam’s the only one still trying.
I scroll slowly through his messages, watching as they go from hey man, how you doing? to dude, it’s been almost two months since I’ve heard anything from you. call me. I’m worried about you.
“You can’t shut him out forever,” my mom says, reading my mind. She pats my leg twice and stands.
“Now, call him and get up. Go to the grocery store. I’m not shopping or making food for you anymore,” she says, heading for the door. “Maybe if you get hungry enough, you’ll have to come out and join the living,” she adds.
My stomach growls loudly in response.
Traitor.
* * *
I’m dripping sweat by the time I get to the Stop and Shop. My jeans cling to my legs, my skin used to the fuzzy insides of sweatpants. It took me close to an hour to get here, limping along the winding blacktop path that passes by my high school and the library, my leg suffering without the physical therapy appointments I’ve been avoiding.
Mom subtly left her spare key out on the counter, but there’s no way I’m getting behind the wheel again.
I try to avoid looking at all the storefronts that remind me of Kim. The Chinese food restaurant where we’d always get takeout during finals week, Sam hogging all the lo mein. The coffee shop where Kim would get her seven-dollar latte with oat milk, insisting it was “better than the real thing.” The corner hair salon where she’d get highlights while Sam and I watched football on our phones in the waiting area.
So I keep my eyes on my feet until the sliding doors of Stop and Shop open with a burst of cool air. I grab a cart to take some of the pressure off my leg and roam the aisles to pick up the essentials, munching from a huge bag of Funyuns I grabbed off a shelf as I walked in.
Milk, eggs, bread. I add in a few bags of pizza rolls because Mom didn’t specify what exactly counted as a meal and I have a microwave in the basement for a reason.
And that reason is pizza rolls.
The sun is just starting to set as I walk home with my two bags, the sky turning orange and pink, slowly giving way to a deep blue. I must have been there a lot longer than I thought.
The sound of thunder fills my ears, loud and steady and rolling. For a second I flinch, suddenly back in the storm from that night, but then I look to the side to see the football stadium at Ambrose High aglow, the parking lot filled with cars.
Drums. Not thunder.
Cheers pour from the stands, nearly drowning out the steady drumbeat of the band. It’s Friday night; one of the first football games of the year is in full swing. I find myself tucking the grocery bags under my arm and veering off the path, the lights and the cheers pulling me into the crowd and onto one of the cool metal benches.
I take a deep breath. Everything feeling… strangely right for the first time in a long time. The crowd around me. The teal-and-white uniforms on the field. Coach blowing the whistle that hangs around his neck.
Some of the current Ambrose High players laugh on the bench, shoving one another as they joke around. One gets up and does the spirit dance that Sam started incorporating into every huddle junior year, while another sneaks a few Pringles out of a drawstring bag at his feet as everyone else is distracted. That so reminds me of Sam.
When we were freshmen and distinctly second string, we would sneak snacks onto the field in our helmets, eating them when Coach was in the middle of calling a play. One game, I convinced Sam we should try to be a little healthier by bringing peanuts instead of Famous Amos cookies. Of course, that was the day Lucas McDowell, a senior benchwarmer, decided to rat us out at the end of the third quarter.
Coach made us run laps for every peanut left in the bag.
I nearly lost a lung that day. And then I had to listen to Sam bitch the whole time about how we would’ve been done twenty laps ago if we’d just stuck with cookies, because there wouldn’t have been any cookies left in the bag by the end of the third quarter.
I smile to myself and watch as the game goes on. Before I know it, I get swept up in the crowd in the best kind of way, cheering when our team pulls out a first down on a carry up the middle by the running back, or when the other team misses an easy thirteen-yard field goal.
The cheerleaders’ bright uniforms catch my eye. They’re in formation on the track, right in front of the stands, their teal-and-white pom-poms moving precisely. When a girl with blond hair is launched into the air, I look away before my mind can try to mess with me.
I refocus my attention on the quarterback as he calls the play on the field. My eyes follow the players as they move into position. I spot a fullback standing out of place, leaving a gap wide enough for the defense to easily slip right through. Oh no. I want to shout to the quarterback to look out, but my voice is frozen.
The center hikes the ball. I grip the bleacher I’m sitting on as the offensive line breaks to run their play. The quarterback cocks his arm to launch a pass just as the defense blitzes. Red jerseys rush the offense, and hulky Number 9 finds the gap.
Everything seems to slow down. My chest is heavy with dread, but I can’t tear my eyes away. It’s too familiar. Way too familiar.
On the field, the fullback freezes, realizing his error. He leaps to protect his quarterback, but it’s too late. Number 9’s already there, nothing but air separating him from his target.
I lurch clumsily to my feet as the ball drops awkwardly from the quarterback’s hand, his entire body crumpling under the weight of Number 9.
His scream reverberates around the stadium.
My shoulder twinges in sympathy as I see the fullback calling for help, his quarterback writhing on the ground, arm splayed behind him at a nauseating angle. Coach runs onto the field and rips the quarterback’s helmet off to reveal messy brown hair and… Oh my God.
I’m staring at myself. That’s me down there, arm twisted backward.
I almost vomit, barely managing to swallow the sour bile. This isn’t happening.
The fullback drops to the grass. He yanks his helmet off. It’s Sam. Sam missed the block.
I can see the panic on my best friend’s face from here.
My bad leg trembles and buckles, no longer able to hold my weight. I collapse onto the bench, one of the worst moments of my life playing out right in front of my eyes. How is any of this happening? My brain is fucking with me again. It has to be. Just that thought starts to calm me.
It’s not real. It’s a hallucination. That’s all.
“You’re stronger than this, Kyle,” a voice says from next to me.
I freeze, then slowly turn my head.
God, there she is. Kimberly, sitting on the bench beside me, eyes straight ahead, focused on the field, her skin as smooth as porcelain under the bright stadium lights. I blink furiously, waiting for her to disappear, but she doesn’t.
“You’re not here,” I whisper.
“I haven’t left,” she says as she turns to look at me, the stadium lights illuminating the rest of her face. The entire right side of her head is cut up and bloody, her blond hair matted and red. She reaches out her hand to touch mine. And nothing stops her. I feel it. But no one else is reacting.
“You’re not here.” I rip away from her and jump to my feet, trying to put as much space as possible between us. “You’re not here! You’re not fucking here.”
“The fuck?” someone says, knocking me back into reality.
In one blink Kim is replaced by a curly-haired guy a few years younger than me, his face painted teal and white. “I’m here, dude,” he says, sliding away from me as he looks me up and down. “You might need to be somewhere else, though.”
Fuck.
What just happened? What is wrong with me?
I grab my defrosting groceries and get out of there as quickly as my busted leg will carry me.
* * *
My head is searing by the time I open the front door. I drop the groceries in the entryway and run straight to the bathroom.
Taking a deep breath, I grasp the edge of the sink, the marble cool un
derneath my palms.
“She isn’t haunting you. It’s all in your head, idiot,” I say to my reflection.
I lean forward to stare at the scar, the long, jagged red line still inflamed and angry. I reach up, almost touching it, wanting to feel the healing skin underneath my hand, wondering what is still broken underneath it.
Which might be everything.
I let my hand fall, and my fingers find the counter again, gripping tighter. My gaze drops from the scar to meet my own reflected eyes, the pupils large and unsteady.
“Kyle?” a voice says from behind me, and I practically jump a mile.
I lean to the side and look past my reflection in the mirror to see my mom, still in her work clothes, her eyes tired but alert.
“Are you okay?”
When I don’t deflect right away, she grabs hold of my hand, leading me down the hall and into the living room. She sits me down on the couch, and I finally blurt out the truth.
“I keep seeing Kimberly,” I say as I brace myself for the look of pity to cross her face. “On this couch, and at the ice cream parlor, and today in the stands. I know it’s not real—you don’t have to tell me that. But, Mom… it feels so real. And I keep feeling like it’s because it’s my fault that—”
She squeezes my hand to stop my rambling, my words hanging heavy in the open air.
“Kyle, none of this is your fault,” my mom assures me, her voice calm. Certain. “None of it. You’re going to get better.”
I don’t believe her, but at least she’s not looking at me like I’m insane or pathetic, which is a relief. Just telling her seems to help me get my breathing back under control.
“Do I even deserve to get better, though?” I ask. My voice cracks on the last syllable, and I swallow hard, fighting to pull myself together.
She takes my face in her hands, her thumbs softly tracing my cheeks. “You’re going to be just fine. It takes time to heal. To move on. And not just physically,” she says, then takes a deep breath. “When your dad died, it took everything in me to pull myself together so I could show up and be the best parent I could be for you.”
All This Time Page 4
