Page 56 of Way Down Deep
Messages saying, I’m so sorry, my battery was dead.
Saying, my ringer was off.
Saying, I was out. I was out, Malcolm, out in the world, at a bookstore, at a bakery, at an all-day movie marathon at the cinema. And you’d tell me how scary and wondrous and loud and smelly and glorious the outside is. Tell me about the velvet feel of running your fingers down the edges of new books, the way the honey glaze glistened, the heaven of real butter on movie theater popcorn. All this time, I’d have been trapped inside, you moving about your town or city a free woman. It would’ve been so poetic, inverted like that.
I think I’m going a little crazy. Or maybe it’s the pills. I flit from moment to moment, leaping from one wild conclusion to another, hating myself for hurting you, or scaring you, abandoning you, letting you down. When I finish typing this, I’ll hate myself for saying any of it, probably coming off unbalanced.
Are you there?
Even if you never want to hear from me again—please, just say so. Tell me to fuck off. It’d take so little time. Tell me now or make me grovel, if I’ve hurt you beyond forgiveness somehow. I’m sure I could have. I’m not the best person. I never have been.
Though I’ve been a better one with you. I’ve liked myself in a way I never truly had before. I’ve known myself, and been genuine as I never have been since I was a kid, probably.
You made me that man. Or you helped him come out. I want to be him. I want to stay this way, but I’m afraid I won’t be able to without you.
So please reply. Please.
21
Friday
3.34pm
Hi, stranger.
Or figment.
Fever dream.
Just thought I’d shout into the void. Call up out of the well, in case the sky felt like calling back.
Speaking of calling, I tried to call you. Just once. Didn’t leave a message.
It went straight to voicemail, just some robot reading out your number. Does that mean it’s switched off? Or that you blocked me? Maybe your battery’s tapped, or you dropped your phone in the toilet by mistake. Maybe you’re as frantic as I was when I was in the hospital, waiting for a replacement. To imagine the explanation is something like that…
Sometimes the hope is oxygen. Sometimes it’s a slowly turning knife in my heart.
11.20pm
Hi, stranger.
Dear Diary.
I’m drunk. Not very—just a glass, except you really shouldn’t mix it with the painkillers, and now I see why.
I’m on my own now with the boy. Lied to his grandma and told her I can cope, because her constant helpfulness was making me want to scream. I’d rather scald my good arm, fumbling with boiling pasta water, than have to sit through another meal with her.
The pain isn’t making me a very grateful person. And the pills don’t work the way they did at first.
The boy’s paperwork is coming along, at least. There should be no problem getting him a U.S. passport. I already had the documentation from when the paternity was confirmed. I paid extra for rush processing. Once that comes, I’ll book two plane tickets to Albuquerque. One-way.
Sometimes, I look out the window, and I’m surprised to think I’ll actually miss that view. It hasn’t rained in a week, and the village looks different when the sun shines. Maybe not quaint enough to be the backdrop for a spate of peculiar murders, but not far off.
Okay, I know you’re not there. I get that it’s pointless. I just wanted to write.
I’m lonely. And even your silence means more than talking to anyone who might pick up back home.
Sometimes, I even hear you whisper back. Snatches of words in a voice I can’t quite hear, no matter how I strain. Like clutching at smoke.