Fall for Anything

I'm always leaving, but I never have anywhere to go.

Sometimes I feel hunted by my grief. It circles me, stalks me. It's always in my periphery. Sometimes I can fake it out. Sometimes I make myself go so still, it can't sense that I'm there anymore and it goes away. I do that right now.

I hate that I'm so numb and empty and disconnected from most of these people but even I can see worth in stupid little moments like these. These people aren't even my family, but I can see their value and if I can see it in something this small, when I feel this bad, then--- Then why didn't he?

Milo and I have this drinking game about Beth: every time she annoys me, we drink. She annoys me alot.

This is awful. This is so hopeless. We're all lost in different ways, so how do we even help each other find our way out. We won't. We can't. We'll just stay lost forever.

She was young and alive, untouchable. Why did she want to go?

Eddie, It's like you died that night," he whispers. So that's it. I died. I've been dead. I blink back the tears and pick at the mattress, but I don't say anything. I don't know what I could say to him. I don't know how to convince him I'm still here when I'm not sure of it myself anymore.

Why. Why. Why. WHY. The question my life had become.

The people feel and look the same, like they've settled here even though they know there's something more-something better-just beyond where they are. Small-town life.

Like being alive one moment and dead the next.

I'm hazy on remembering or maybe I'm just tired or maybe a part of my brain wants to sabotage me.

Death has been here and where death has been no light shall ever be .

So? You have a boy's name." "And you have a dog's name.

No, you're a work of art.

You know," she says. "You're still alive. I don't know how many different ways I can try to tell you before it finally sinks in.

I want to go into the sympathy card business. . . Forget sappy messages about overcoming. I want ones that say NOW YOU’LL BE A LESSER PERSON THAN YOU WERE or WE CANNOT POSSIBLY UNDERSTAND or I CAN UNDERSTAND BECAUSE SOMEONE I KNOW DIED TOO or maybe something about how grief can make your skin feel sore and bruised and electric because that’s how my skin has felt ever since, except for my hands.

We were beyond needing other people. Anyone else who happens on the both of us, they're just temps.

When he sees me, he stops. His eyes widen, his face pales. And then before i can say anything, he's holding me. And the worst part is-I want to hold him. But I also want to slap him, hit him. Punch him. Tear out his throat. I want him to tell me what he did to me was a mistake. Some horrible mix-up. . .after I'm done holding him back.

Eddie, I think... sometimes lies bring you to the truth... or help you reconcile with it...

Then I should be dead really soon, because you're stressing me out.

When I found my dad, I knew things were going to change forever, but sitting next to her, getting ready to see my dad buried, I felt it in a different way. Everything ached. This reminds me of that - how it aches. But it's a better ache, too. I'm hopeful. I can't remember the last time I felt hopeful.

I feel the space beside me in a way that knows he's been gone a while. and my chest is winding itself tight with everything that means for me. What does that mean for me. I don't move because I don't want to move. I keep my eyes closed because I don't want to open my eyes. But eventually you have to move. Eventually you have to open your eyes. There's no note.

I take a swig from Milo’s flask and hand it back to him. He screws the top back on. He inherited the flash from his grandfather and stole the liquor from his mother. The circle of life.

I close my eyes and think of the photograph Culler showed me. I see it in my head perfectly. He'll be there, at that school. Another piece of my father. And then another. Six pieces. I will find them all, put them together. I'll find him. And then I'll let him go.

I hear the unmistakable sound of glass breaking and I start apologizing to no one, trying to pick it up again, but I can't. I can't get my hands to work because they're too cold.

If anyone else said that to me, I think I’d roll my eyes, but Culler saying it to me means me committing it to memory and locking it inside so I’ll always have it.

I bring my hand to his face. I run my fingers lightly across his skin. My index finger traces his lips. I just want to feel that he’s here. I lay down next to him and rest my head on his chest. He tenses just for a second, surprised, and then he relaxes and puts his arm around me. I don’t want to talk. I just want to be quiet with him. Listen to his heart—that constant.

I try to imagine what it must be like to have art inside of you and then to not have it anymore. To lose it, to not be able to find it, to search for it... Maybe that is a good reason to kill yourself.

Real life is always quieter and anticlimactic somehow. But devastating all the same.

You think you know someone and you don’t. I mean… I don’t know. You could all be jumpers. Wrist slitters. OD’ers. Stand in front of a train. I had no idea my dad was suicidal.