I open the window again roughly two hours later after tossing and turning in bed for far too long. The television is dead and the light in the hall is turned off. With my jacket loose around my shoulders and my jeans snug around my legs, I slip outside and shimmy down the rain gutter.
My nocturnal wanderings often bring me to the park, engulfed by the buzz of my thoughts as the night air weaves through their tar-black webbing. The abandoned playground is unnaturally quiet, but somehow comfortable, as I settle into one of the swings; the chains are cool beneath my hands. Somewhere, a streetlight flickers like a lighter’s flame. I tilt my head back to stare up at the needlepoint-pierced sky and start to make a wish, but then don’t. What would I wish for? I don’t want the superficial happiness I am lacking, nor the courage to confess my filthy trains of thought to those closest to me. I want the end. It just seems so dirty to pin on a wishing star.
“Hey!”
The sharp call lances the stillness so suddenly that my frozen heart jolts against my ribcage. Starkly shadowed under a streetlight, there’s a boy crossing the street next to the park, a large furry dog trotting next to him. As he gets close enough for me to make out his face, I realize that the person is actually a girl with short, tousled hair. She seems to be about my age, and she has a round face and smiling eyes; I can’t tell what color they are in the dim light but they’re fairly pale, possibly blue or green. Her clothes are mostly black and she wears a spiked choker and studded belt. A chain dangles from her pocket.
“Hey,” she says again, flashing a lopsided smile. “What’s up?”
“Nothing,” I shrug, glancing at the dog. It’s a Siberian husky with blue eyes and no collar.
“You seem down. Something wrong?”
“No,” I reply, smiling damply. “I’m okay.”
“You don’t look okay,” she insists, sinking into the swing next to me. The dog flops down in front of her and rests its head lazily on its front paws. “You’ve got the same look my brother sometimes gets. He’s manic depressive.”
“Oh.” I lower my gaze to the husky. “Well…”
“Come on, I’m not going to tell anyone. Lighten your burden a little, stranger.”
It’s odd. The way she says “stranger” brings the same bizarre comfort as when Trystain calls me “ingrate.” Why is it that I don’t feel that warmth with my own name? Whatever the reason, it coaxes me to talk to her.
“I’m not really sure,” I admit. “I just feel like I’m on the outside looking in, like I don’t fit in with everyone else because I see things differently.”
“I can relate to that. I’m homosexual.”
That catches me off guard, making me jerk my head up to look at her.
“…Oh. Okay. Now it makes sense.”
“Thought I was a boy at first, didn’t you?” she laughs; it’s a full, natural sound.
“Yeah.” This time I smile honestly, put at ease by her mellow atmosphere.
“So what is it that makes you see things differently?”
“It’s kind of…I just do. I can’t show people my real feelings anymore because they’re dirty.”
“Dirty bad, or dirty perverted?”
“Dirty bad. Love, happiness, promises…It all seems superficial to me, like…like I…”
‘Why don’t you want to die?’
Because I…
“…like I don’t deserve it.” There. I said it. The husky’s ear twitches as a drop of salt rain rolls down my chin and shatters on it. “Like I don’t deserve those things. I want it to end, but I don’t deserve that. I’m a liar and a coward who won’t show her true face. If I can’t help myself, I don’t deserve for someone else to help me out of this. I…I’m worthless…!”
My hair drops to form a light brown curtain between us as my face contorts and my eyes squeeze shut, forcing rivers down my cheeks. I feel the dog’s head shift against my foot.
“You’re good enough for me.”
I blink, sending a teardrop plummeting silently between my lashes and down onto the dog’s ear with a barely audible pat. The husky shakes its head loudly as I lift my gaze, part confused, part incredulous, part the smallest pinprick light of hope. With my voices deadly silent, I stare. The girl is swinging a little, the chains squeaking, with her own gaze sweeping the blue-black sky and white-hole moon and paint-splatter stars and I realize that oh my god she’s beautiful.
“I don’t quite get the why you feel like love and happiness is superficial, but I don’t think that makes you dirty. Hell, maybe they are superficial,” she adds laughingly, shrugging her shoulders. “But they feel good, don’t they? Happiness is great. And love, it’s—well, love is incredible. Why don’t you enjoy yourself a little, whether you deserve it or not?”
There’s a tugging in my chest that melts into her words, but my monsters lash out first. My mouth is moving under a layer of salty wetness.
“But…it’s so selfish!” I insist, and the nettles in my heart dig deeper. “The only reason people love eachother is to make themselves happy!”
“What’s wrong with being selfish every now and then?”
For the first time in a long, long time, my mind goes wonderfully blank. No voices in my head. No warped feelings. The girl’s voice strikes me but doesn’t echo—it’s just there. Perfect and white. Judging by my blank stare that I’m not going to say anything, she gives a half-smile and places a hand on my head.
“It’s okay,” she says, “to do things for yourself sometimes.”
Blank. Snow white. Just one thing distorts the silence.
Thank you.
I don’t say it, but I feel it so strongly it seems to seep from my pores, and she seems to understand. Her hand rests on the back of my neck like a sort of security blanket while I cry out my poisons, and the dog leans warmly against my foot, its blue eyes solemnly half-lidded.
After I’m done crying, I sit with her for a while longer, not bothering to wipe my wet face. Her hand is still resting on my neck.
“What’s its name?” I ask at length, nodding at the dog; my voice is a little scratchy from weariness but relieved all the same. Her mouth twists to the side thoughtfully.
“I don’t know. He’s not mine,” she replies. “I see him trotting around the park at night with no collar, but no one has come to claim him. I can’t bring him home because my dad’s allergic to dogs, and besides, he just goes wherever he wants to. Animal control can’t catch him,” she adds, giggling a little. I smile down at the dog, whose tail thumps the ground contentedly.
“Oh yeah,” I perk up. “What’s your name?”
“Kat. It’s short for Katherine, but I don’t like my name.”
I laugh airily and decide to try my hand at a lame joke. “Do dogs ever chase you?”
“Oh god, when I was little, I was attacked by a pit bull. That’s got to be why.”
The next few days, the skies are clear. I laugh openly with my friends at school, and when I’m alone I walk with my head up. Trystain doesn’t visit, but I don’t mind or even notice for a while because I spend my nights at the park with Kat. We’ve exchanged phone numbers. I laughed when I was caught texting in class. And I’ve pulled Cyclamen off of my shelf and opened it. It had a strange dedication on the first page, stating in italics that it was for “the one I love and hate the most” with nothing to explain it, and the voices in my head didn’t apply it to me for a long time, and I was able to ignore them when they did.
I smile. Things will get better.
