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PROTAGORAS SAID ALL IS RELATIVE, BUT OUR BONES SHELTER UNIVERSAL TRUTHS
Leaning against the stack of cardboard boxes filled with biscuit packets, Baine stares at me with eyebrows raised to his hairline. 'No.' His voice is torn between amusement and anger. 'No fucking chance. Michael told me all about your scenes when you worked for him.'
I've had so many employers over my teenage years that "Michael" means little to me, yet it's not difficult to infer was my boss at Tesco.
I do my best to meet Baine's eye but his traffic cone Sainsbury's vest combined with the fluorescent lighting sears my retina whenever I try. 'Why would he tell you about that? You're rivals.'
Baine returns to stocking the shelves of biscuits. 'The companies we work for are rivals. We're actually neighbours.'
Perfect.
'That was over two years ago. I was on the wrong meds. I'm not gonna do that now.'
'You think I'm gonna hire some loony with the worst track record I've seen? I'd be happier if you'd never worked a day in your life and had no experience but you've been sacked from six jobs.' Baine jabs at me with a gingersnaps packet. 'Now piss off before you scare my customers.'
I stare desperately at him for a moment before I slug out of the shop. The overcast has broken in my five minutes inside; I'm quick to squint and shield my eyes but it does little to ease the pulsating at my temples once it has started.
Quetiapine is the worst of my medications so far. Normally, the migraines fade after a few days, but I started quetiapine over a week ago and still can't bear to watch telly. Or anything else brighter than a magnetic drawing board.
I dig the crumpled list from the pocket of my trousers — my uniform trousers because they're the only semi-formal ones I own — and frown. The past three days have passed with me begging for every job available in Sufsdale. I asked all my previous employers, including all the people whose lawns I used to mow and toilets I used to scrub in Eastwich, and phoned every number from every notice board with no luck. Everyone either hired summer workers already or they just don't want me, which I guess is fair, because I hardly have glowing recommendations.
But it's not my fault. My frequent tardiness had nothing to do with my unreliability and everything to do with Tristan and Lysander. And when it comes to Tesco... well, I didn't misdiagnose and prescribe myself SSRIs either. It's not my fault my hallucinations interfered with my work performance.
The issue with boring towns like Sufsdale is that gossip is the best hobby most people can find so of course everybody knows. Have all my efforts since Edenfield been entirely redundant?
I thought Ronny at the least would give me a few hours a week, but he can't afford to employ anyone. No matter how many times I insisted that I'll work for two quid an hour, that I don't care how illegal it is, I just need something, Ronny's a product of being working class during Thatcher and the only thing he has left is his principles.
I drag my feet past Under the Dryer only to slow to a halt. My gaze is so dull on the buzzer to Dal's apartment that I wouldn't see the numbers even if they weren't worn off. A lazy debate begins in my mind, less ping pong and more DVD screensaver that lags from one edge to another. Affirmative wins; I ring the buzzer, though only once and awkwardly announce myself into it.
Dal unlocks the door without verbal response, When I reach the third floor, he's waiting in the dusty corridor. This is the first time I've seen him since my attack or episode or whatever it was. He looks no different. I'm sure I do.
He scans my flat cornrows, puffy eyes, and chapped lips as I lag over to him. 'Wallahi, blud, you look like shit.'
'I'm recovering from pneumonia,' I say though he knows the truth. Is it a lie or a joke? Is there a difference?
Either way, Dal doesn't censure me for it as he lets me in. 'Your dad told me.'
Spices itch my nose before I've kicked my trainers off and tears seep into my lashes the nearer I get to the kitchenette. Dal dices onions without as much as a mist in his eyes. Do people become tolerant of onions as they age?
'Your mum wouldn't let me talk to you, tho.'
'Sorry.'
'It's fair.' But there's something strained in the manner he scrapes the onions into a saucepan. It's only once he has rinsed the knife and shaken water off its edge that he glances at me. 'Your cell goes straight to voicemail.'
I nod. My cell is still untouched on my floor with the battery under the dresser.
Dal disrupts the preparation of his dinner to fetch an unopened carton of pineapple juice. He pours a tall glass and hands it to me. A weak smile is the thanks I manage. I hover behind him and watch the froth circling the top of the juice. The day's hot enough for the glass to sweat and I have to hold it with intent to stop it from slipping from my grip.
Dal never asks me how I am and I love him for it. How would I even begin to answer, comme ci, comme ça? But today, what I appreciate even more is his refusal to attempt comfort. He doesn't make a fuss of promising that everything will be alright and it, whatever "it" is, isn't my fault. He allows me silence that doesn't expect to be filled nor resists if I do. He understands that support can be provided in silence.
I watch him slice plantain, then okra — can't believe he willingly eats okra — and add everything to the saucepan before I clear my throat.
'I was thinkin... if you need a runner or somethin.'
Dal laughs, though it's entirely empty of humour, a cold laugh intended only to make fun of me. It rolls out of him, slow but uncontainable, like the drip of a tap to empty the pipe once it's already screwed shut.
'No fuckin chance.' He increases the speed of the fan so that the rest of our conversation is scored with whirring. Though he doesn't as much as glance at me. 'I promised God I'd never let you get involved in this, and if I keep one promise in my life, it's that one.'
I rotate the glass of pineapple juice in my hands and stare at the back of his neck. 'It's just til I can make 2373 and twenty pence.'
Dal takes his time adding water and tomato paste, stirring it all together before he places the lid on for it to simmer. 'That's what everyone says. "Just a one-time thing", "just to pay rent this month".' There's an unmistakable bitterness in his tone, reminiscent of a rusted outdoor drying rack that croons when it's windy. Every time you see it, you think soon it'll break and then I'll replace it, except it's been nine years and it still hasn't broken and you still haven't replaced it. 'What, you reckon you'll sign a twenty-hour contract and hand in a letter of resignation when you're done?'
My mouth is already open to protest when he looks at me over his shoulder and my voice sizzles out.
The plastic chopping board scathes against the counter as he drags it to the sink. 'Besides, you ain't got no sense. Someone'll kill you within a week, innit, bare cause you're so fuckin annoyin.'
'But I need the money.'
'Get a job then.'
'I can't. Cause everyone here thinks I've already been to prison.' I jab my glass onto the table. He's the one person who's supposed to not do the I'm-an-adult-and-I-know-what's-best-for-you stuff. 'Dal, c'mon, I'm not your brother.'
His shoulders hitch. The knife he's drying nearly cuts his thumb. Slowly, he places it onto the workbench. When he speaks, the bitterness is gone. His voice is hollow, so hollow it wrings my spine. For the first time in my life, I'm afraid of him. 'Libaan's not in prison.'
Confusion disrupts my frustration. Fear lingers. 'But... But you said he got twenty years for carrying an unlicensed firearm.'
'He did. He made it two months.'
My insides freeze. How did I not know? Like a sped-up cassette, every instance over the past three years that I've spoken of Dal's brother like he's on holiday, gone but soon to return, reels through my mind, and my throat tightens. How did I never notice that his pain was beyond that?
'I'm so sorry.'
'Fuck sorry.' The bite is back. 'It's my fault.'
The words spool onto my tongue as some innate response built into the human psyche: no, it isn't, it's not your fault. I flatten them against the roof of my mouth and their blood seeps between my teeth. For the first time in my life, I understand what makes people voice them, that it's not about the truth in it but easing someone's burden. Maybe I've been too harsh with those who say it to me.
I sink into a chair and drag my glass closer. The surface is slippery and I wipe patterns into the mist with my thumb.
Dal doesn't like pineapple juice. He bought this for me. Bought it because he knows it's all he can do to help me feel better, because he knows I need to feel better. He knows as much as Iya and Baba, if not more, because he knows about my bike tyres, and the first time I got called a terrorist or a faggot from the corner of a stranger's mouth, and about Oxford, and about everything else I've felt or thought in the past years.
When was the funeral? Did I see him that day? And proceed to pour my own troubles onto him without a second's consideration that he might have pain of his own?
I drink my juice slowly. I'm halfway through when Dal sits opposite me to knead muufo. His shoulders are free of tension though he does punch the dough with a little more force than necessary... unless I'm imagining it. Can my perceptions ever be trusted or am I always either self-obsessed or paranoid?
I rotate the glass again. 'I'm sorry.'
'It's calm, blud.' He grins, a gesture that adds something about how I'm a kid and I'm supposed to be full of myself and as much as it does his head in, he loves me anyway.
I wish I'd still believe him tomorrow.
There's a piece of gum dried between the leg of my chair and the metal that outlines the seat. It started raining before I left Dal's and it has since evolved into a downpour that pellets against the sheet metal windowsills of the Johnstone building. Cars slosh through the puddles. My legs bounce with the urge to stand up and watch them instead of the woman opposite me.
Effie wrings her fingers in her lap as she shares. Has she been coming here for the last two years or has she too regressed and now returns, a prodigal son? I guess I'd know if I listened but my mind is fixated on the storm and the effort required to refocus it is daunting. Is it the meds or am I just lazy?
Her cuticles are still crimson from her incessant picking of them. So she can't be that much better.
I'll never understand how talking to a bunch of suicidal teenagers is supposed to help when all they do is reveal to me all the reasons why life is miserable that I myself hadn't thought of. Like two years ago, there was this bloke, Lucas, who would go on spirals about how he'd accomplish his ideal life only for it to all be upended by climate change or a new world war so why bother trying? I never saw it like that but sure he had a point.
My teeth find another fringe of dry skin to exfoliate from my lower lip. Forget the end of the world, where am I going to get 2373 pounds and twenty pence?
I'm never going to find work in this town. If people don't think I've been to a youth institute, they think I'm insane, which I can't blame them too much for after my short episode of psychosis in 2006 that convinced me, among other things, that in place of a collectable toy, one of the Cheerios packets in Tesco trapped a live robin hatchling and began promptly to empty all of them on the floor. Am I supposed to find a job somewhere else and commute? I don't have a driver's licence, much less a car.
My name reaches me like an echo in a cave and I wrestle my attention to the group. Miss Farris, a thirty-something who thinks she can still relate to teenagers — simultaneously endearing and embarrassing — smiles at me despite my clear absence of intent to reciprocate it.
'Would you like to share?' Like? Has anyone ever? 'You didn't say anything last time.'
In case it wasn't clear, I don't want to be here.
I don't say that. Tracing one of my cornrows, my eyes are out of focus by the time I do speak. 'I've got new meds– more... meds. So I sit around all day, being even more of a burden than I already was before. It's bare brilliant.'
'Why do you say that you're a burden?' Miss Farris hasn't perfected her psychiatrist voice yet, nor her psychiatrist face. Sadness seeps in, the kind of sadness that comes with blame — you're making me sad and you ought to feel sorry for it.
'Because I am.' I drop my hand back to my lap. 'I keep ruinin everythin for everyone all the time. My parents have better things to do than chaperone me, and–' I cut myself off. What do I even say about the rest of it? They all live in constant fear of me. And what have I done to Sonia? Or Miles?
'Your guilt is natural, Ziri, but you have to remember that you're not in control of your illness. Just like cancer, it's not your fault.'
'I hate it when people say that.'
'Pardon?' She asks because she genuinely didn't hear but it sparks embers in my chest and I can't stifle the fire.
So I allow it to consume me. '"It's just like cancer". I fuckin hate it when people say that. "It's an illness just like cancer but in your mind". Except it's nowhere near cause people get cancer and either get cured or they die. Those aren't options for me. I have to live with this forever. "What about your parents? They love you. They don't want you to die". You don't say. But you don't go tell a kid with leukaemia that. You don't tell them they have to keep fighting it or they're bein selfish. So it's not like cancer, is it?'
I wrap my arms around myself and stare at my trainers. The fire dies out to leave wet coals lodged into my ribcage that make breathing difficult and provide no warmth. I sink back into nothingness. Is the absence of feeling a feeling?
At first, I mistake the explosion for thunder. In actuality, it's all eleven other attendees breaking out in rants at once. With the noise, it's impossible to tell who agrees and who protests. Not that I try.
Miss Farris manages to speak over them. 'Everyone can get their chance to respond but let's do that one at a time.' Effie is the first but I've returned to listening to the rain. Meds or laziness, either way, I don't process another word until the session ends.
I toy with my cross as I shuffle out, stuck in the middle of the group that I wish would walk faster because electricity fills my knees as my impatience grows. The haze shatters the moment I step over the threshold. The hall is already crowded; another group has ended minutes before and several stragglers continue their conversations.
Everything becomes too sharp.
My eyes lock with his. I freeze on the spot. My heart skips.
Miles.
The crowd blurs into vague shapes and I forget where I am, where we are. We are. Why is he here? Since when does he go to group and what group? Not that it matters more than: does he know what group I'm in?
I snap my head back and scour the door. It's plastered with posters advertising the sessions available with overt titles or "inspirational" advice. From his position, I could equally be leaving Reclaiming Agency Begins With Accepting Abuse or Self-Help Addiction Recovery Program as Suicide Attempt Survivors Support Group (for ages 15-25).
Regardless, I slip between two attendees whose names I don't remember and shove through the fire door to the back stairwell. Only for emergencies. This is sufficient.
I've never been good at running down stairs. A fact I pay for when the door bursts open and I'm only on the first half-landing.
I cave the moment he calls my name. Stumbling, I look up.
It must be my imagination but the scent of agarwood envelopes me and something innate in my abdomen, something transcendent of apathy because it's transcendent of emotions, yearns to bolt back up the stairs as if my spine itself needs him. Maybe half of my skeleton has always been built from his bones. They simply didn't know it until they came into proximity with the rest in him. Now they'll always ache if the distance grows too long.
'Why are you here? Are stalkin me?'
Miles scoffs a laugh. 'The universe don't actually revolve round you. It's my dad's death anniversary and all. Kinda felt like talking to someone.'
Idiot. My face screws up and I cram a hand over it. What is wrong with me? So many so many so many things. Idiot. It becomes easy to run away again. So I do, grabbing the sticky leather handrail even though the bolt heads bruise the webbing of my thumb as I rush down.
He runs after me. Of course, Miles is one of those people who fly down stairs without falling over; he's on my heels in no time. 'I wanna talk to you.'
'Talk to your besties.'
'Stop calling them my besties!'
'You prefer BFF? The lads?'
'You know I've well not spoken to em since...' His patience snaps. He speeds past me to cage me onto the last stair of the flight. 'You don't get to make...' His voice cracks, constraining him to mouth silent explanations and gesture at his chest. 'And then just disappear.'
His left hand rests on the rail so that I'll have to circle him the long way to get to the next staircase. I could fall into him. Catch me or don't. He loves me, he loves me not.
I feign a sigh. 'I really can't be bothered with this.' And step around him.
His hand twitches like he's going to grab me. He doesn't. He doesn't even follow me down the next flight of stairs. All Miles does is call to me from the landing, voice taut with his attempt to keep it steady but it breaks and I don't need to look back to know he's crying. 'What about me? What about my feelings? And what I want?'
I whirl around halfway down the flight. Blood gushes in my ears.
'You don't want this!'
'How the fuck d'you know? You psychic now or summat?'
I glare right into his eyes. He stares back, unfazed by the tears collecting at his waterline. He's crying because of me. Something sharp cuts down from my jugular notch to the centre of my chest and my throat starts to swell shut. I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry. Please don't hate me. I don't want you to hate me.
All I want is to storm back up the stairs, right into him, and press so close that my ribcage will shatter. I won't mind because I won't need it anymore. How could my heart ever need protection from you? I want to love you wholly and without restraint, not even the evolutionary kind.
My fingernails dig into the leather of the handrail to shackle me in place.
If anything, today has proved to me that I'm entirely full of myself, and if there'll be one time in my life when I don't make the selfish decision, it's now.
The worst part about adjusting to new medication is that it always robs me of the ability to cry. Unavoidably, there's less of me when I can't live every emotion to the extreme. But right now... Now, it's a blessing.
I relax my shoulders and allow my hand to slip from the railing to my side. Even the blood stops rushing in my ears. I do my best to sound like Dal: unaffected and hollow, and though I'm far from, my voice does gain an echo. 'I don't want this. Sorry if I gave the wrong idea, but I'm not interested in you like that.'
Miles clenches his jaw. Spinning the frayed friendship bracelet around his wrist, he shakes his head and moves down a step. Then another.
'I don't believe you.'
A whine or a whimper attempts to escape my throat but I manage to cram it back down. Stay there, please. If you come any closer, I'll give up. All twenty-seven bones of my hand ache to hold all twenty-seven of yours.
I may be hurting him now but I'll hurt him a lot more if he comes closer.
'Your problem, innit.' I crack the knuckles of both my index fingers. 'You're such a people pleaser, you don't have a personality to be interested in. I dunno if I've been hangin out with you or your dad.'
The tears forgotten in his eyes seep into his eyelashes but don't fall. Miles blinks. 'Go fuck yourself then.'
His voice isn't hollow but it is quiet. Or maybe it's dulled by the overlapping spirals of self-loathing whirring at my temples. It takes everything in me not to crumble when he climbs back onto the stair above.
I wouldn't dare answer. So, with a nod, I leave.
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