Nowhere Near You

by Leah Thomas

  “I’m not sure whether I can wait for Gamma Rays much longer.” Molly ran her hands over curtains cut to form the giantess’s collar. “I wish my midterm had been pushed forward. There’s only so many times you can screech ‘Get the wooden spoon!’ into a mirror before you start to question your sanity.”

  Her second mouth whispered the last word. Again she clapped a hand over her head.

  “Molly?”

  “Not me. It.” Molly’s eyes were wide. Her old confidence seemed a ghost. “It never used to talk. But sometimes when I’m nervous, it speaks up. Whether I want it to or not. I have to wonder what it’s saying. I can’t quite hear it. Why is this happening? It was silent for years.”

  “A matter of anxiety, Molly. I’m sure it will pass.”

  “Farber, how’s that—” Klaus came around the side of the giantess’s head and stopped.

  “Hallo, Klaus.” The quietest voice I’ve heard her use.

  I lowered my head. Made a show of braiding rope.

  “Here to tell us we should have finished this set a week ago?” grumbled Klaus.

  I thought I heard her back mouth whisper into her curls before her smile returned. “Oh no. I’ve long since lowered my expectations.”

  “You try working with Farber sometime. He doesn’t know a hammer from his hands.” He stalked away.

  To think the night would only get worse.

  We stagecrafters finished the bulk of our work by 7:00 pm.

  Klaus vanished the moment we finished tacking on the giantess’s dress. Molly followed shortly thereafter. That broken smile.

  Those of us who remained sat in a circle in the far reaches of backstage. Picked at sandwiches provided by cast members.

  Max Fassner. My constant shadow sat directly across from me. Leaned back against the unpainted model cow. Even I cannot avoid partial eye contact when people stare into my goggles.

  He took a swig of whatever filled his thermos. Probably not milk, Ollie. Leaned forward as if about to pounce.

  The Year Three director blew her whistle to signal the end of intermission.

  “My Oma, bless her old soul, sent along some Läckerli.” Max popped open a biscuit tin. “She’s trying to seduce all the young stallions she thinks prance about Myriad. I don’t think she understands we’re all geldings here.” Max looked straight into my goggles. “Isn’t that right, Moritz?”

  “Horse metaphors. How novel.”

  “Go on.”

  He pushed a biscuit toward me. I closed my fist on impulse. Max grabbed my wrist in his rough hands. Peeled my fingers open one by one and placed it on my palm. I had the distinct impression that other students deliberately wandered away.

  Just Max. Myself. The overturned giantess.

  “Go on, I said.” Max squatted next to me. Too close.

  I placed the biscuit on my tongue. Honey, kirsch, and hazelnut. I chewed, swallowed. Did my best to smile. I stood. He pulled me down. I would have dodged his grip, but that disorienting ache of Owen’s sadness made hazy my right ear again.

  “You know, Moritz.” Too close. “You’re nervous. You can’t hide it from me.”

  “I can’t hide anything from anyone.”

  “That’s fabulous. You’re as clear as cool water, but like a river: I can’t see through the current to what’s actually going on underneath—I can only tell that the water is moving. You’re a heartfelt mystery, Moritz, and you’re always winding away from me. Why?”

  Where on earth was he pulling these godforsaken lines from, Oliver? And why did they almost sound poetic to my tingling ears? Even as I knew they were terrible, they captivated me. My pacemaker strained to steady my heart. Max reached for me.

  I flinched—

  He only pushed another biscuit into my hand. Set his thermos to my lips and whatever was in it burned, but not with heat. The lights dimmed.

  Out on the stage they had begun singing. Usually I hear everything, but lately sounds have been muffled by the sob.

  “They’re carrying on without you.”

  “The wolf isn’t in the second act. So honest, Moritz, but you always hide your face. I want to see you. All of you.”

  I pulled away. My, did I feel dizzy. He dropped his hand and smirked.

  “Have more, if you want. I’ll be back in a bit. Don’t go anywhere.”

  I should have gone anywhere.

  My breathing grew loud in my ears. My mouth tingled. I ran my tongue along the film on my teeth. Thought about what colors might look like, if colors were textures. Would red be damp and warm like blood? Would blue be silk?

  I counted threads in the curtains. Clicked.

  Something more than honey may have been in those damned cookies, something more than whiskey in that flask. I did not care. I wished only that someone would hold me. Tell me that it was acceptable that I am incapable of containing my feelings, that I cannot squirrel them away like Bridget. Acceptable that I left Owen ringing in my ears and you alone in Ohio, and tangled the two of you together in my head.

  I came partially to my senses. Uncertain where I was. Smelling the lemon oil used to polish the stage. Wood shavings and drying paint. I clicked my tongue, saw a half-dome frame of papier-mâché arching above. Later I would realize I lay inside the head of the giantess. As it was, all I realized was someone held me, running hands along my shoulders.

  “I can’t see a thing in here,” Max whispered. “But I know you’re awake. Click, click. That habit is so odd.”

  “Where is everyone?” Hard to taste the words.

  “They’ve gone home. You fell asleep. Only you and me here, Moritz.”

  I half tried to get to my feet. I half felt only like lying down. Like laughing. Ears ringing louder than ever before. Clashing cranial cymbals. “I should . . . go . . . too. Father will worry.”

  He pushed a finger into my lips. “That’s not what you really want.”

  Max ran his hands up my neck. Up over my chin and onto my face. Before I could regain wits enough to stop him, he threaded his fingertips beneath the straps of my goggles and lifted them off my nose.

  I cannot wince without eyes. Reflexively, I turned away, but Max held my head in place. Ran clumsy fingers across the surface of my eyeless face. His fingers paused. How dark was it, really?

  “That’s some costume.” Sour alcohol breath wafted to my nostrils. “I don’t always give the makeup students credit.”

  Ollie, I did not correct him. There was a millisecond when perhaps I might have told him the truth. I did not wish to see another face curdle with disgust. Thank god he was intoxicated. Thank god I was. Or something near it.

  “I can’t even feel the seams.” Fingers at my ears. “Is it netting? Can you see through it?”

  Before his brow could furrow too far, I leaned forward to press my lips against his. His hands slid away from my vacant eye sockets and back into my long fringe. He dropped my goggles down the staircase (clack-thump) and pulled me closer. My heart certainly beat fast. He hadn’t realized I was a monster.

  “Are you enjoying this?” His lips against my ear.

  I wasn’t. Or I wasn’t certain either way. But his tongue in my mouth was a firm reminder that this had nothing to do with Owen Abend. My chest ached. Pacemaker strained. I didn’t want to speak, because I feared I might laugh, might cry.

  But I am a monster. And of course it was at that very moment that someone turned on the lights. I didn’t feel the electricity, did not hear them come to life, addled as I was.

  But oh, did I know.

  I knew because Max saw that the face cradled in his handsome hands was no face at all. Me and my absences, absences I believed I’d come to terms with, Ollie, but perhaps not. Perhaps never.

  The way he recoiled. The gag at the back of his throat. Handsome hands let me go, the handsome rest of him was suddenly meters away, back pressed against the wall opposite.

  “The fuck?” Or some approximation, Ollie. Disgust does not translate easily. “The fuck?”
<
br />   The worst thought—the disgust he felt may have been mine. Because if anything radiated from me . . . it was that. “Now who’s, ah, winding away?”

  I waited for him to hurt me, to spit or shove. But Max only wished to be gone. He wished an ocean between us, an allergy to me. He did not bother with words. The sound of his heartbeat trying to leave him, the sound of him going down the ladder with all the speed he could.

  All this growing you claim I have done, Ollie, all this journeying. But I came to a beautiful place and brought ugliness with me.

  I curled in on myself, held my knees. Held my knees but could not convince them to unfurl, could not stand up.

  I came back to myself atop the staircase. Moments or minutes later. Head pounding. Initially convinced I was having a nightmare. My right ear ached. Knives. I could not see. Water in my ears? I clicked my tongue for almost a minute straight. Finally came a slight popping sound, a beat of pain.

  I could hear.

  I sat up, cold and aching. Fumbled for my goggles. Nowhere to be found. I heard shuffling from between the curtains.

  “Farber?” Klaus’s voice. “What the hell? Get out of the prop. It’s after midnight.”

  Beats of pain, head and heart. “Yes. Um, apologies. Why are you still here?”

  “Didn’t want Molly to think I was following her. And then I had some work to do.” I clicked. Felt him lean against the giantess. “Why are you here? Max sure left in a hurry.”

  I swallowed.

  Klaus stood up straight. “Farber, are you all right?”

  “Yes. Yes. Could you pass me my goggles, please? They’ve fallen down.”

  He scrabbled around, then pushed them into reach.

  “Thank you.” I pulled them on. Blasted shaky hands.

  “Don’t thank me. Just come down, already.”

  I made my way to the bottom of the ladder on legs that felt untrustworthy.

  Klaus uncrossed his arms. “You look terrible.”

  “Oh. I am.”

  Klaus shook his head. “He tried something, right?”

  Oh, he did not want to try. What was more repulsive? That I had wanted him to, or that he could not? I don’t know, Oliver.

  “That scumbag. He’s got a reputation. Last year some kid dropped out and everyone knew Max had something to do with it. Spiked his soup. Did he hurt—?”

  “No, no.” I tried to chuckle like you might. “I’m fine.”

  “I know you’re not fine, because you never laugh. What is that? Damn it! If you and Molly would just be frank, then maybe—”

  The exit. To the exit.

  “Don’t just leave when I’m talking to you!”

  I flinched beneath his grasp.

  “Don’t touch me!” The snap in my voice, the blade of my pain. Klaus jerked as if I’d stabbed him. He did not try to stop me again.

  That buzz in my ears is getting louder, Oliver. I’m not imagining it. Sometimes when I look at my hands, I cannot count my fingers. Everything is recalled to me in sluggish slow motion. As if I really am underwater again. Tomorrow I have class. I have to see Max again. Do not ask me what I will say. How I will “handle” him. I do not know.

  If I met Owen now, he’d drown in the waves that pour out of me.

  I can’t keep trying to be human. At some point I am a lost cause.

  chapter twenty-one

  THE HEART

  Moritz. I have never so badly wanted to hurt another person like I want to hurt this Max asshole. Ever. I don’t even care if doing it would confirm my villain status.

  Because I’m selfish, okay, and I don’t always spend enough time asking about you on rainy days. But you’re one of the things I get most selfish about. Even if that’s messed up. There’s no excuse for the way you were treated. It makes me want to do something inexcusable. I am training daily to beat up Max Fassner, even if that’s totally futile. I don’t have a punching bag, but I’ve been punching couch cushions.

  How he treated you: that was all him. You don’t make people do anything. Remember?

  The first thing you’ll notice is Bridget’s handwriting is better than either of ours. All even block letters. It’s better, but it’s colder, too, like ice blocks. Maybe if she wrote with her heart plugged in, her letters would curl into one another.

  But right now this is the best way to get to know her.

  It’s kind of how you got to know me.

  This is the story of a girl called Bridget.

  This is the story of a girl who tears her heart out.

  Bridget is seven when she leaves the laboratory. She is awoken by the kind doctor with the goatee. Bridget throws her arms around his neck.

  “That’s it, kiddo. We’re leaving. Too little, too late, perhaps.”

  Bridget is the last child left in the ward. The girl with two mouths and the boy with the strange throat and the boy with no eyes are already gone.

  “Where are we going?” Bridget’s heart is heavier than all the rest of her.

  “We’ve made some arrangements.” The doctor leads her forward. “You have family in America.”

  “America,” says Bridget. “Is it scary?”

  “Sometimes.” The doctor takes her through the radiation screen. “But don’t worry.”

  “I won’t.” Bridget reaches past her hospital gown and into her chest. She pulls her heart out from between her parted ribs.

  The doctor sighs. He places the beating heart in the pocket of his coat.

  Bridget feels nothing.

  “I’ll do the worrying for both of us, then.”

  There are no scientists in the halls now. There are a few men dismantling machines. They put the pieces in boxes. There is a woman at the front desk. She collects papers into folios. A tub of plastic toys sits on the counter. A tub of hazardous-waste bags sits beside it.

  The doctor and Bridget go through automatic doors. Bridget has never left the underground laboratory. She has never seen cars until now in the dark parking lot.

  She doesn’t feel surprised to see them. Her heart is not in her.

  The doctor drives Bridget outside. This is her first night sky. She does not feel curious about stars. Her heart is not in her.

  “Bridget.” The doctor pats his coat pocket. “Don’t you want this back?”

  “Will I feel scared?” Things Bridget feels scared of are sharp needles, bright lights, cold hands.

  “Perhaps.”

  “I don’t want it.”

  “All right, Bridget.”

  Bridget falls asleep.

  They get to the airport. The doctor drops the beating red thing into her lap.

  “I don’t want it.”

  “Bridget. They won’t let me carry it through customs.”

  The taxi driver sighs.

  “Leave it here.”

  “We can’t just leave it behind. It’s your heart. You only get one, and you have to look after it. Come on. If you are scared, you can hold my hand.”

  Bridget puts her heart in.

  She begins to cry.

  She cries all the way through security and onto the plane. She cries and people stare at her. This makes her cry more. Everything is terrifying. Being outside. Being around people who aren’t sick children. Climbing into a metal tube that goes into the sky.

  “Take it out. You have to take it out. Please take it out take it out take it out!” Bridget tries to reach into her chest. The doctor grabs her arm and says, “I’m sorry.”

  Bridget screams louder. This is terrifying. She screams so loudly that people ask if the doctor is hurting her.

  “Please quiet down your daughter,” says a woman. “We can’t have twelve hours of this.”

  “He’s not my father!” Bridget screams.

  “Who is he, then?”

  “I’m her doctor.” The people on the plane are whispering.

  None of them are kind to the doctor. That is scary, too. Because the doctor is the only kind person Bridget has ever known.

 
She stops crying.

  “He’s my doctor.”

  They keep whispering.

  Virginia is beautiful. Virginia has green hills and purple hills and orange skies in the evening. The roads in Virginia are winding. Every time the doctor speeds down one Bridget thinks her stomach is dropping out of her. She smiles.

  “Now, your aunt and uncle are wonderful people,” the doctor says. “But you mustn’t take your heart out while you live there.”

  “Even when I’m scared?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “If a monster comes after me?”

  “No such thing.”

  This is a lie. Bridget can remember many of them. They worked in the laboratory. She is getting nervous. Bridget reaches into her chest—

  “Bridget, that can’t be your solution. You have to feel things. You have to feel scared sometimes.”

  “Do you?”

  The doctor nods. “Oh yes.”

  “How do you take the pain out?”

  They pull into a short driveway in front of a barn-red house.

  “Sometimes you share it with the people around you, and then it isn’t so dreadful. You’ll see.”

  People are standing on the porch. They shift from foot to foot. Bridget thinks that maybe her family is scared, too. None of them have pockets in their chests.

  The doctor holds out his pinkie.

  “Promise me, Bridget, that you will feel things.”

  Bridget latches her finger with his.

  “Mmkay.” Her heart beats.

  On the porch, a smiling woman with dark hair and eyes takes her hand.

  Bridget keeps her promise. Her new family tells her that she has a last name. It matches theirs. They feed her warm food. They take her out to look at the family orchards. There are no ripe apples in midsummer. They give her clothes to wear.

  They say they hadn’t known she existed.