Rocks Fall Everyone Dies

by Lindsay Ribar

It was my mom.

  I rejected the call, like I always did—but for some reason I couldn’t look away from her name on my screen.

  She’d left my dad, then taken all her stuff so he couldn’t reach into her anymore. Dad could have brought her back, and he didn’t.

  Brandy had stormed out of my room, disgusted with the newfound knowledge of what I could do. What I had done. I could have brought her back, and I didn’t.

  All that time, I’d never understood.

  Before I could second-guess myself, I pulled up Dad’s number.

  “Aspen, I’m so glad you called,” he said, after picking up on the first ring. He talked fast, like he wanted to get everything out before I hung up on him again: “I spoke to Holly. I get why you’re upset. I didn’t mean to take so much from you. I honestly had no idea that you didn’t remember my mother at all, and—”

  “Dad,” I said. He fell silent. “You remember when I asked you to bring Mom back?”

  “More like demanded,” he said. “But yes. Of course I do.”

  “And you said no?”

  He paused. “Aspen, son, I’m not going to change my mind.”

  “No, no, it’s not that.” I flopped back on the grass, staring up into the green of the May Day tree. “It’s … I mean, it was because … like, you wouldn’t have been able to live with it, right? Being married to someone when you knew that if you hadn’t used magic, she wouldn’t want you anymore?”

  “That’s part of it,” he said slowly.

  “What’s the other part?”

  “The other part is … god, I’m bad at explaining this.”

  “Try,” I said.

  Another pause. I could hear him taking long, deep breaths.

  “The short version is, it’s wrong.”

  I frowned, waiting for him to elaborate. He went on: “When you take away someone’s thoughts, or feelings, or … or impulses or whatever, you’re taking away part of who they are. I fell in love with your mother for exactly who she was. I’d never change that.”

  “Even if it meant losing her?” I said.

  “Yeah,” he said quietly. “Even then.”

  “You’ve changed things about me, though. Sadness about stuff. Memories, even. Is that it, or did you ever take other things?”

  “The memories were an accident,” he said. “I’m so, so sorry about that. I really am.”

  “That doesn’t answer my question,” I said.

  Dad sighed. “Not a lot of other things. But yes. Fear, for one. I took away your fear a couple of times.”

  Something curdled in my stomach. “Fear of what?”

  “Oh, god, I barely even remember now,” he said. “Let’s see. Oh! You remember when you wanted to try out for Little League, but you were afraid of the ball?”

  “I was?”

  “You were.” Dad chuckled. “You were absolutely convinced that the ball would hit you in the eye and somehow that would lead to your untimely death. Useless, baseless fear—so I took it away and, lo and behold, you made the team, just like I knew you would.”

  Holy shit, I totally remembered that. But I hadn’t known Dad was the reason I’d been less afraid on the second day of tryouts …

  “And your obsession with huskies, remember?” he went on. “It all started with this one dog. You met him on the street, and he was barking up a storm. You were terrified—at least at first.”

  “Wait, wait, no,” I said, because I remembered the dog, too. I’d been so small, and the dog had been so big, and it had turned from mean to friendly in two seconds flat, because Dad had … “Wait, but didn’t you reach into the dog? Take away his meanness or something?”

  “The dog?” said Dad. “No, of course not. I took away your fear.”

  So the dog had never been mean. I’d just been afraid, was all. I was so stupid for not seeing it sooner.

  “And there was one time in midtown—”

  “Okay, okay, stop, I get it,” I said. “But … okay, if you did all that, doesn’t that mean—you know, like you said—you took away who I am? Or who I was?”

  And then, of course, the question beneath the question: Who would I have been if you hadn’t taken those things away from me? I couldn’t bring myself to say that out loud, though. It was too big. Too much.

  “Son, I was doing you a favor. God, the number of times I’ve wished I could steal my own feelings … just erase them … but I don’t have anyone to do that for me. Holly refuses to break that goddamn rule, and it isn’t right for a father to ask his son for something like that. But don’t you think I would’ve erased everything I felt that time I got laid off? Or the things I felt after your mom left, if I could? You’re so lucky, Aspen. You have no idea.”

  A horrible thought occurred to me.

  “Did you erase what I felt after Mom left?”

  Yet another pause. Long enough that I knew what the answer was.

  “You’ve never been good at dealing with grief, son,” he said brusquely. “You were better off not being sad.”

  What did he mean, not being sad? I’d totally been sad … hadn’t I? I thought back to the weeks after Mom had left, trying to find a specific moment that I could point out … but it wasn’t sadness that I found in those memories. It wasn’t sadness that had made me ignore Mom’s phone calls, or yell at her the one time I’d picked up.

  “You took away my sadness,” I said. “But you didn’t take away my anger?”

  “Of course not,” said Dad. “Anger’s a natural reaction for a boy your age.”

  “So anger’s okay,” I said slowly, “but sadness isn’t.”

  “Son, it’s not about what’s okay—”

  “Then what? It’s about what’s easier for you to deal with?”

  A pause. Another goddamn pause.

  “Aspen.” Dad sighed. “Son. It was about what’s easier for you to deal with. No father enjoys seeing his son in pain. But most don’t have the means to ease that pain. I do have the means, so obviously I used it. What other choice did I have? I’m your father. I had to help you.”

  “And by ‘easing my pain,’ you mean ‘taking stuff away from me without even asking first.’”

  Dad’s voice got quiet then. “I was only trying to help you.”

  “No you weren’t,” I said. “You were making me pick sides. Mom left, and you made it so I didn’t even want to talk to her, and meanwhile you were all like, ‘Oh, let’s have some father-son bonding time with Scotch and movies and whatever!’ and I was like, ‘Sweet, cool, awesome!’ because I couldn’t feel anything except angry at Mom, because you made me that way. Didn’t you.”

  There was no response.

  Well, that answered that question. The branches and the sky loomed above me. I closed my eyes.

  “Don’t steal from me anymore,” I told him firmly. “Even if you think you’re ‘helping’ or whatever. We have that rule for a reason: No stealing from family. You were the one who taught me that rule, for god’s sake.”

  “But you’re my son, and I—”

  “I’m her son, too,” I said. “Or at least I was. Until you took her away from me.”

  “But—”

  “No buts! Okay?” Breathe. Calm. Breathe. Calm. “I don’t want you messing with my head anymore. Ever. I mean ever, unless I explicitly ask you to. Okay?”

  Yet another pause. This one seemed to go on forever.

  Finally, I couldn’t stand it any longer. “Promise me you won’t steal from me anymore.”

  “Of course.” He sounded kind of defeated. Kind of hurt. “If that’s what you really want, then of course I promise.”

  I thought about making him swear not to touch my stuff. But I didn’t need to turn into Mom about this, taking our furniture because it was partially hers. He’d promised, and I believed him, and that was that.

  “Okay,” I said. “Thanks.”

  “Can I, um, ask where this is coming from? Did something happen up there?”

  Yes, something had happe
ned. I’d called to tell him about Brandy, about how she’d left and how I hadn’t stopped her and how I understood about Mom. But now … there were so many other things in my head. Sadness. Shame. Other things that I couldn’t even name yet. And I didn’t want my dad to steal them away from me before I could figure out what they were. Sure, he’d promised, but still. Old habits, right?

  “No,” I said. “Nothing happened.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Well …” I closed my eyes, pressing the phone closer to my ear. “They asked me to move up here, actually. To help with the ritual in Heather’s place.”

  “… Ah. Yes, I thought they might.”

  “I’m thinking about doing it.”

  Dad was silent.

  “You think I should?” I asked.

  “I think,” he said carefully, “that you’re a young man who knows his own mind. I think you’ll give this your full consideration, and I think … well, I think whatever decision you make will be the right one.”

  The right one. How could I possibly make the right decision, if I was missing parts of myself?

  No, that was a dumb thing to think. Dumb and dramatic. Dad was right. All I had to do was take some time and think about this.

  “Yeah,” I said. “You’re probably right.”

  I thought about calling Mom. But after what I’d just learned, I had no idea what to say to her. So I set my phone aside, settled into the grass, and tried to think.

  The sun moved overhead, and eventually the bright blue of daytime gave way to faint streaks of pink and purple over the mountains. Over the Cliff.

  Then, soft footsteps. Shoes whispering against grass, moving toward me.

  “Hey.” Leah nudged my shoulder as she sat down next to me. I’d texted her right after hanging up with my dad, and she’d agreed to meet me as soon as her shift at the bookstore was over. “Communing with nature?”

  “Yeah, not exactly,” I said, shooting her a small smile. “Mostly I was wondering how different it would look.”

  “Different?”

  “If the Cliff fell.”

  “Ah,” she said.

  Shrugging, I angled myself away from the Cliff, so I could see Leah’s face instead.

  “It’s my family, you know,” I said. “Not the town. That’s what Heather meant in her letter. If the Cliff falls, it kills our family. Everyone who ever descended from Willow. Um. Did she tell you about Willow?”

  “Immortal matriarch of the Quick family?” Leah smirked. “Yeah, she told me.”

  “She asked me to move up here.”

  Her face tightened. “To replace Heather.”

  I nodded.

  “Gonna do it?” she asked.

  “I dunno,” I said. “Probably. Ugh, I dunno. Should I?”

  Her lips quirked into something that wasn’t quite a smile. “Is that why you texted me? To ask for advice?”

  “No, no. Well. Yes? I don’t know who else to ask, is the thing.”

  “How about your girlfriend?” she said. “Oh wait. Right. You’re still lying to her.”

  “Actually, no, I’m not.”

  Leah’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh yeah?”

  “She left this morning,” I said flatly. “Apparently I’m a horrible, gross person who shouldn’t ever date anyone again, just because I—”

  My throat felt tight.

  “Aspen?” said Leah. “Just because what?”

  “Because … god. She was right, wasn’t she. I did make her fall in love with me.” Leah’s eyes went wide. “I mean, not exactly, but it adds up to the same thing, doesn’t it? I changed her. I changed who she was as a person.”

  “Wait, hold on,” said Leah, making a calm-down gesture with one hand. “You made her fall in love with you? And you told her about it?”

  “Well, yeah,” I replied. “You said—”

  “I know what I said! But holy shit, Aspen, there’s such a thing as too much truth, you know?”

  The question barely registered. My whole life was falling apart at the seams. Everything I knew about myself was crumbling like an avalanche.

  “I’m just as bad as my dad.” My voice sounded tinny and far away.

  “Your dad?” she said.

  I nodded. “We have a family rule. No stealing from each other. No matter what. But he stole stuff from me anyway. He stole my sadness away when Heather died, and when my mom left. He stole sadness, and he stole fear, but he left everything else, and everything else is just me being pissed off a lot, but apparently that’s fine, anger’s just natural, but how is it still natural if he steals some stuff and leaves other stuff just because I’m ‘bad at dealing with grief’ or whatever?”

  “Bad at dealing with grief,” Leah echoed, her voice low. “As opposed to what? It’s not exactly something you can get good at.”

  “I don’t know,” I said, leaning forward, covering my face with my hands. “Apparently some counselor told him I was too sad for a boy my age. Something. I don’t know.”

  “So, what, boys can’t be sad?” Leah said. “And your dad wants you to be some robotic manly-man who doesn’t feel feelings? Is that it?”

  “Ha. No. Or yes? God, I don’t know. But would I have done all that to Brandy if none of the stuff with my dad had happened? Because, I mean, what else did he steal? Maybe I am a robot. Maybe I can’t empathize with actual human people.”

  “What, did he steal your empathy, too?” asked Leah.

  I thought about that. “Well, no … at least, I don’t think so. But he took a bunch of other stuff. I don’t feel all the things a person is supposed to feel. Isn’t that where empathy comes from?”

  She crinkled her nose a little. “Maybe? I guess? I dunno. Seems to me you could be as empathetic as anyone else, if you bothered trying. Maybe it’d take a little more effort for you than for the rest of us, but …” She spread her hands wide, leaving the rest of the sentence unsaid.

  “Great,” I said. “Awesome. So my dad’s the one who stole all that shit from me, but it’s still my own fault that I’m such a …”

  “Such a what?” asked Leah.

  That was a very good question. What was I? What would I have been if not for all the things my dad had taken—or if I’d known about those things, and bothered making the effort to compensate for them? Hell, what would I have been if I’d never had this power in the first place?

  “A screwup,” I said. “Leah, I really screwed up.”

  She offered me a little smile. “Maybe you did. But you love that girl, right? Brandy. Love makes people do stupid things.”

  Was it even love that I felt for her, though? Or was it just some kind of stupid obsession?

  “I don’t even know anymore,” I said. “But it wasn’t just her. I steal stuff from everyone. Like, okay, Theo used to get pissed at me because I got better grades in math than he did. So what did I do? I took his jealousy away, then I stole some other kid’s algebra skills and gave them to Theo.”

  “What other kid?”

  I blinked. “What do you mean?”

  “Who’d you steal the math thing from?”

  I thought about that for a second. “Um. Not actually sure,” I admitted. “But see, that’s the point! And Brandy’s friend Lauren—she used to have this crush on me. But I wasn’t interested, and I didn’t want it to be awkward, so I took it away. And we had this neighbor who kept these herbs on the fire escape between our apartments, and they smelled weird, so I took away his memory of having to take care of them, so they died, and—” I stopped. Breathed. “See what I mean? I’m such a horrible person.”

  It felt like the truest thing I’d ever said.

  “Oh sure, and that makes you so special,” said Leah, her voice suddenly edged with weariness. “You’re clueless as shit and no mistake, but everyone hurts other people, Aspen. All the time. That’s what people do. Even without weird supernatural powers.”

  Suddenly incensed, I said, “Brandy’s brain is all changed around, and that guy Jess
e is blind, and—”

  “And your cousin spent the last few years of her tragically short life totally friendless. Whose fault is that? Mine.”

  “How is that the same thing?” I demanded. “It’s not even in the same universe. Me, I’ve been stealing stuff from people my entire life, and now that it’s finally sinking in how shitty that is, what do I do? Do I stop? No, actually, I’m thinking about moving up here so I can do it more. So don’t even try to tell me your stupid … friendship angst is even close… .”

  “Friendship angst,” she repeated softly, climbing to her feet. “Yeah. Okay, sure. Sorry, you were right. You are the most horrible person in the whole wide world, so my tiny little lady-feelings should just get out of the way so you and your giant man-feelings can have more room to brood about how your daddy ruined your life.”

  “Stop it,” I said, squinching my eyes shut. “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Noooo, no, no, of course it isn’t.”

  “Look, Leah, you don’t even know me, okay? So just stop it.”

  “Are you kidding? I totally know you.” Hands on her hips, she regarded me with a gaze that was a little too keen. “You’re the guy who thinks nothing is ever his fault. The guy who gets dumped and then tries to blame his dad for it. You’ll graduate from college and immediately write a memoir about how hard it is to be a twenty-something in the modern age. Women will never be able to understand you, so you’ll never understand them right back, and you’ll become an alcoholic by the time you’re forty, and you’ll start voting Republican by the time you’re fifty.”

  She paused, like she was waiting for me to contradict her. But really, what the hell was I supposed to say to that? Especially when there was a tiny part of me that thought, if I wasn’t careful, she’d probably end up being right.

  “Leah,” I said, moving toward her.

  She moved away again, giving me a mirthless smile.

  “I’ll see you later, Aspen. Call me at the store when you want to buy your first Jonathan Franzen book.”

  “Stop. Leah.” I darted after her, but she turned away and started walking faster. I walked faster, too. She was the only friend I had. The only person, aside from my own relatives, who knew my secret and didn’t think it was gross. “Leah, wait. I’m sorry. Just stop.”