Him by Anna Kiesewetter
Walking into his house is like walking into a graveyard.
It’s as if everything has been preserved in time, a burial ground of forgotten memories: the same stepping stones, the same statues we played on as kids. My mouth tastes acrid, metallic, as if ashes coat my tongue. Each step I take resounds into the eerie silence, my only companions the skeletal trees hailing me inwards.
His mother is at the door before I’ve even rung the bell. I remember her being a doughy woman, all curves and warm smiles; but today her expression is pinched and pale, fittingly reminiscent of a ghost. “Bea, honey, thanks for coming.” She pulls me into a stiff embrace. “My boy’s been really scaring me.”
“Of course, Marcy.” I pause. “He’s okay with me being here?”
Her expression wavers. “Why wouldn’t he be?”
So he hasn’t told his mother, after all these months. My stomach clenches tight.
"No reason,” I mutter, hurrying down the familiar hallway.
His door is slightly ajar, and despite the heat, I shiver. There’s no telling what long-forgotten corpse I’ll encounter inside.
When I squeeze open the door, the room is black as ink. The silence is pressing, demanding, shrouding everything in an uncomfortable warmth. It takes me a minute to find him, barely discernible from the mess of blankets on his bed.
“Hey. How are you?”
His eyes are spikes of metal, ripping into me. “Get out, Bea. Go tell my mother you can’t fix me.”
“I don’t want to fix you; I just want to help.” I bite my lip. “I haven’t heard from you in forever.”
“Is that surprising? I didn’t think we were all that close, after you left here in a big hurry that night.” His voice is like broken glass. Sharp, and unmistakably bitter.
“That was months ago; forget about that,” I urge, stepping closer. I reach for his hand, and he shifts away, laughing without mirth.
“What, have you come to requite me this time?” His tone drips with sarcasm, sardonic and cruel. “You’re the one who walked out on me, if I remember correctly.”
I recoil. “You frightened me. I barely recognized you, with your whole death obsession. How could I ever love someone with such little self-respect?”
My stupid, hypocritical words fall to the tiles like shards of ice. I want to retract them, but it’s too late; already they are melting into slush, collapsing into something dilapidated and sad.
He shrugs his shoulders, as if I can’t see the gaping wound I’ve reopened, and turns back to the wall.
“I didn’t mean that.”
He exhales into the relentless silence. “No, you did. And I honestly don’t blame you.”
It’s a painfully long moment before he sucks in a breath. “God. There’s just this storm raging through my brain, and I’m lost inside it.” He stares at the wall as if searching for some answer written there. “Most days I doubt myself too much to even leave the house; that night, I was especially out of it. And then there was you.” His voice turns soft, vulnerable. “You were the most perfect person I’d ever met. I didn't just want you, I wanted to be you.”
I feel myself slipping. I’m grasping at words, everything I want to tell him: You don’t want to be me. There's something broken inside of me, something I can't even begin to fix. But my lips are sewn shut.
He shakes his head at my silence, as his gaze slides onto the harsh linoleum floor. “I think you need to go.”
He gets up, steering me towards the door.
“No,” I finally blurt out. “I’m worried about you.”
It’s the exact wrong thing to say.
“You’re worried about me? Join the club.” His voice hardens. “Go find me some pills, or something. My mother would love that.”
“You know I don’t mean it like that,” I push back against him. "You mean a lot to me.”
He perks up, and my heart aches. I open my mouth to spill out everything, to let loose the burning words searing into my thoughts. But as I taste the ashes, my throat closes up. I panic, and what I mean to say never comes.
“I care about you, I just . . . can't be with you.”
Once again, his expression darkens. “Yeah. I get it, Bea.”
With that, he releases me into his garden, the gloomy scene truly reminiscent of the darkness within.
As I shuffle down the street, my gaze shifts to the ground. I can’t meet the eyes of any of the passersby; something akin to shame presses onto my shoulders and anchors me to the pavement. With my downcast eyes, a walk that is usually a matter of minutes feels more like years.
My pace slows to a crawl, and I fold in on myself, head cradled in my hands. I came to help him, to apologize. To confess my own problems; to find some kind of peace in sharing what I was afraid to admit. But all I did was leave him more isolated than ever.
“God, Bea, what is wrong with you?” I hiss under my breath as I turn on my heel, rushing back onto his street.
I was wrong earlier: his house isn’t a graveyard, it’s a morgue. Nothing is cut clean into stone; everything about him and the memories I associate with him is messy, unlabeled. My emotions are a gaunt pile of cadavers wishing hopelessly for recollection.
When I burst back into his house, he’s right there in front of me. A muscle ticks in his jaw as we stare at each other in silence for a full minute, and then two.
I swallow hard. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you. I was wrong to leave you that day. You're not alone. I . . .” I close my eyes as finally the prickly words claw their way out from my chest. “I've been having anxiety attacks pretty frequently. For a few years now.”
I wait for the flames to lick my throat, for the ashes to choke me to death. But somehow, I'm still intact. Somewhat bolstered, I continue.
“The thing is, I’m terrified of admitting it, and putting a name on what I’m feeling. And I’ve started thinking: maybe the reason I keep avoiding you is that you're just like me.”
He blinks once, twice, expression unreadable.
“All my fear, my doubt, my unwillingness to acknowledge your condition. It’s partially because I’ve just been pushing down my own demons and pretending that they don't exist—and thus that you don’t exist. I walked away from you when you needed me, because I was too scared to admit that my own situation was not too far off from yours.”
He’s silent for a while, mulling it over. When he finally opens his mouth, his question takes me by surprise.
“Is that why you haven’t said my name this entire time?”
I freeze, the realization dawning on me. It’s something so simple, so small, yet it’s true: I’ve pushed the guilt so far back that I haven’t even let myself assign him his name.
“Evan?” I taste the syllables.
And suddenly, something seems a little clearer, because I do know who Evan is. Evan, who once chased after me in the school gardens. Who let me borrow his handkerchief when I started crying in front of the class.
Beneath the dark facade, I see the boy within him. The boy I’ve known forever. A boy who’s really good and true inside, no matter how broken we've become.
“Evan,” I say again, and the words feel right on my tongue.
His lips curve upwards, the shy beginnings of a smile; and I realize I must have been wrong both times, because such a gentle look doesn’t belong on a dead body.
The taste of ashes is still there; but it’s not quite so burning. And rather than death, it feels a lot like rebirth.
Perhaps this is the beginning of something new. Something real.
My own grin is wide and sure as I take his hand, ready to face the new day.
Anna Kiesewetter is a high school junior from Issaquah, Washington. Her work has been recognized by the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards and is published or forthcoming in the Blue Marble Review, Skipping Stones Literary Magazine, the Lumiere Review, and Kalopsia Literary Journal, among other magazines. When she’s not scribbling down stories, she also plays the violin and enjoys eating anything matcha-flavored.