Short Stories

Every day, around the same time, it’s always the same shit. As I pull up the driveway after work, my old truck creaks while making her way up the slanted pavement. She used to belong to my brother, and there are more reasons than one I’d rather not replace her with something new. So, once I go to put the old girl into park, she cries out, and I can’t help but wish I could do the same without getting looked at like I’m strange while I’m stuck at my job all day. To spend hours on end slaving away in a cubicle, answering phones, smashing my fingers down onto a keyboard whose inputs show up on a dimly-lit screen, I feel like a soldier taking fire in a roadside ditch and, the second I smash through my front door, I want nothing more than to break free of those constraints.  

Before that can happen, I do my best not to notice the nature of my front yard. Grass that needed to be cut a week ago, trash I’ve yet to drag down to the corner, and moss growing on the front walls of my house call out to me in the voice of my wife nagging, and, just like any other day, I ignore that voice as I would hers in that tone, knowing I’m not doing anything until I at least get out of my work clothes and washed up. 

Unfortunately, my hope to do so fades fast after I hear what I first believe is gunshots, but nothing more than the sound of our dog’s deep barks on the other side of the front door sending a ripple down my spine, forcing my mind to return to the past, and placing a fear in me to move forward until my wife greets me first. It is not the dog’s fault that I react the way I do nor do I blame him, but, as loyal as his species is supposed to be, I keep hoping he’ll get better at smelling me from afar and understanding his protective nature does more harm than good. Though, despite the disobedience our dog has shown already, he sits quietly on his polka-dotted bottom and stares with his deep-brown eyes while his Mom opens the door for all three of us and steps outside to embrace me, speaking into my ears softly at the same time. 

“How was your day at work, Isaac?” 

Like a tradition, the same question gets boring after a while, yet I still do my best to drag myself out of the mood I’ve put myself into, put a fake smile on my cheeks, and offer a response that doesn’t differ too much from my usual one. 

“You know, same as always.” 

The only part of that which has ever changed is, over the past few weeks, I make an effort to put my hand on the bump under her clothes where our son grows. That interaction alone soothes me more than any words for now, with the way a long day of work leaves my hands shaking, and, afterwards, just my wife’s presence is enough to drag me inside while she leads herself back in, showing me whatever dress she’s wearing today and her blonde hair from behind. Then, before I even head to our bedroom, I start getting undressed the moment I close the door after me and address my dog simultaneously. 

“I’ll get ya’ outside soon enough, bud.” 

Dalmatians are fairly large dogs, so, as my loafers go off of my body first and get tossed into the living room one-by-one like hand grenades, he makes quite the commotion chasing after them. My belt comes after only to be left unbuckled at my waist, followed by my button-up being freed from my pants. And, once I’ve gotten down the white hallway that runs off of the wooden floor near our front door, I come to the bedroom and am only one room away from the place I most look forward to. 

After I’ve put my black slacks on my comforter of the same color and right next to my briefcase that stands out in brown, the sound of the dog shuffling down the hall and leaving my shoes at the bottom of our mattress, like the VA trained him to do, is all that slows me down, and, once I’ve given him a scratch on the head to let him know how good of a job he has done, I signal for him to go find his Mom just so I can lock myself up in the bathroom that connects to our master bedroom. 

With two sinks, one mirror above each, a toilet to the left of them, and a bath that acts as a shower too in the corner of what little room is left at the far end, the bathroom my wife and I share couldn’t get any simpler. The left sink is mine, neatly organized with no more than a handful of objects, and the right one closest to the door is my wife’s, looking like a battlefield filled with brushes, make-up, and too much else. Though, as much as the messiness of her space bothers me at times with my obsession to keep what I can control in line, the hair on the floor and around the sinks bothers me far worse once I’ve got the door locked. 

My wife’s hair is long and light, and doesn’t stand out too much against the white tile and counter any more than the white hair from our four-legged son, yet, with dark hair on my head, face, and every other inch of my body, there’s no way the strands all belong to the few black spots the dog has, especially when I look down to the legs in the mirror that look like they belong to a stray mutt, lost in Iraq and covered in ash, and then back up to the dark circles under that same animal’s eyes. But, as soon as I turn on the silver faucet over my sink that matches the knobs in the bath and the one on the door, everything else in the world stops bothering me for a few moments, and I become that dog again, lost in the same place in my own way. 

Thirty seconds top, the water is as hot as it can go, yet I wait a few minutes more until the mirror is fogged up. By then, the bathroom is so hot that it’s like a day in the desert just before the first rain of summer, something lost to me too in my past, and that only reminds me that there’s never a total escape from any of the days I spent there. Standing here with nothing but my hands under the water, I can hear and feel it all still. The crackling in my ears with a pop here and there in the distance, a few feet away, and then beside me come first, followed by the scratching of sand and rain against my face as a storm comes in and mixes with the sweat and fear running down my cheeks. And, not long after that brief moment in time, all I can remember is a pop so loud that everything goes quiet after, and, between my teeth, the taste of blood washes out the specks of earth.  

Only then do I lower my face to the sink and pail the water onto my skin with my hands, for, after a long day, using the bar of soap from our bathtub to rid my cheeks of oil doesn’t feel too much different from washing blood away, while I wish I had the strength to wash my mouth out too just to clean my tongue from the taste of metal. But, even after all these years, I know there’s no running from that. All I can do now is scrub so hard and for so many minutes that my flesh burns and seems ready to peel away, telling me it is time to wash away what’s left of the soap, dry my face, turn off the sink, and hold back the rest of the tears that haven’t already escaped. 

When I then go to run my hand across the mirror in a circle to let me see the blemishes on my flesh clearer than day, it’s far easier to see how the circles under my eyes have gone from black to red because of crying if only briefly, and, after I’ve gathered up my emotions, I back away from the sink, lift my shirt, and stare down at what I hide under it.  

Some scars never heal, and the one I see now just happens to be physical, a perfect line up and down my lower chest where the doctors split me open to pull shrapnel from my gut and stitch up the holes in my stomach. Ten years on, the only way someone could tell where I’ve been and what I’ve been through looks more like a stretch mark than a surgical incision, nothing but a divide of raised flesh, and, once I hear the first gentle knock on the bathroom door, I’m so unashamed of how it looks nowadays that I let my shirt back down slowly, spit into the sink to rid my tongue of the phantom taste, and make it obvious to my wife what I’ve been doing as I creak open the door. 

Looking over my shoulder as I peek my head out, she can still see the water splashed around the sink, the bar of white, Dove soap covered in suds to the side, and the circle in the mirror that says I’ve been thinking about and staring at what’s left of the past in a way I should not. Her soft tone while she asks a question then tells me that she’s more than aware of what’s been going on, since today is no different than any other. 

“You okay in there, honey?” 

A husband knows better than to lie to his wife, and, even when I know it only took her a second to notice all that I just mentioned and the redness under my eyes, what I say next is still the truth. 

“I am now. I’ll be out in a few minutes, and we can talk.” 

Between the time it takes me to do everything I’ve done since I felt my skin burning and only the sight of her green eyes for a few moments, my face is not as red, just as my hands shake less, and, though what my wife sees may not offer any confidence in what I’ve said, the sound of reassurance I last offered in my voice is enough to have her offer a weary smile and walk away. 

Alone again, there is only so much left to do before I’m ready to take on the evening, so, once I’ve cleaned up my mess and unbuttoned my work shirt for the tee underneath it, the button-up goes on the bed while I move to my dresser afterward, standing before the face in a picture frame that would probably be bothered by the sight of me half naked. To remedy that, I lift it up and bring the photo of the old stranger, dressed in his pins and stipes with a flag as the background, closer to my face, just so I can see his features once again and so he can see that I haven’t aged much since the day the picture was taken. I think the latter part is true, but, if he were here now, I’m sure he’d laugh at me and pluck each gray hair coming in on the sides of my head, one by one. 

 I’d do the same for him because, not only did we both taste metal—the blood from our bodies—that day so many years ago, but, long before our service together tore us apart, we had shared it since the day we were born. And, to look at him like looking in a mirror ten years ago, the sight only hurts a little, so, before I lose myself again, I speak to myself and offer the thanks I always do, in honor of family lost. 

“You are the only reason I am alive today, bro, and a day will never come where I forget how much you mean to me.” 

I then place his photo back down on the flag of red, white, and blue folded perfectly into a triangle and given just so the family can have something left of the dead knowing, because of the life my only sibling gave for me years after our parents had passed on, I’m still here to welcome a new member into our small family in a few weeks. So, until God decides it is my time to join him, I must keep fighting. Maybe, one day, I’ll have lived long enough where I can share the story of my brother with my son. Knowing, once he learns about who he got his name from, it’ll be impossible not to smile and cry at all of the questions he has about the uncle he’ll never meet, since it is in our nature as humans to pass on the tales and names of heroes from one generation to the next. And, if you ask me, nobody fits that title better than the boy that was born a minute before me. Isaiah, the other half of me since our mother used to always say that it takes two “I’s” to see what the future holds, hasn’t left me half-blind to what tomorrow and every day after holds for me. Because, I know my unborn son keeps me seeing clearly, and, if nothing else, the hope to be the best I can be for him, my wife, and our dog too keeps me going to therapy so, some day in the future, the fear of that moment in the middle of combat all these years ago won’t haunt me whenever I feel sweat, dirt, or tears on my cheeks.

Considering how the human mind cannot remember anything for the first few years as it develops, there are still only so many memories I can put together from my childhood, once my brain had reached that point now that I’m reflecting on that past from the age of twenty. And, as much as I would love to be able to remember everything just so I can relive those moments again if only in my mind, I find that of the memories I do still hold of my young life most involve some intense pain that a child should rarely know. I can remember well the time or all of the times my parents fought verbally and physically for hours. I can remember well the times when I’d see my Mom cry after someone she had loved in the present or the past had then passed away, and I never quite understood why it pained her so, as young as I was. And, I even remember the one time I pantsed a girl in my neighborhood at the age of five and got a verbal berating so great I’d never go on to touch a woman of my age without asking or being in a position where it was right. But, more than all of those days, the memory of how I learned who my Dad was not captures the day in my childhood that hurt the most, on a level different from all of the rest. 

Fighting among my family was common back then, especially with how I was as a child, for I was a true demon, like Devin the Devil. And, there was one day among one of my temper tantrums and the fighting it caused in my family’s household where I learned something about my Dad that my parents had managed to hide for a whole seven years. Outside our two-story, brick home with two, white garages, the day was sunny, and our grass out back and out front was cut. But, inside of the house, all was not so well. Connected to the living room, kitchen, and the stairwell leading to the basement-and-first-floor hybrid, a hallway contained everyone’s bedrooms. My sister had the first door on the right, where a room with pink walls and white furniture laid beyond, and that door was right across the hall from a one-person bathroom, with half of it blocked off by a deep-blue shower curtain with fishes all over the fabric. Then, just past that part of the hall, one would reach the end of it, so short, and, when the floor came to its conclusion, two doors sat on an angle, the two, largest rooms in the house hidden behind the white-painted wood. 

The one room on the left on that angle was that of my parents, bigger than all the rest with a square shape, space for a king-sized mattress, and another one-person bathroom, but, with nobody else in the house left but myself, it should be obvious that the door next to my parent’s and on the right was mine. And, beyond, a rectangular room waited that I still miss sometimes. Opposite of my sister, the walls of my room were sky blue, just like my eyes at the time and the blankets on my twin mattress. When walking into my room, it was like being at the base of a tall rectangle where, at the far side, two windows looked out over our driveway that connected to our three-home cul-de-sac, and, in that far left corner of the room, my twin bunk bed with dark-brown wood stuck out into the room. Then, along the opposite side, there was a dresser of the same color and with six drawers, and, depending on how spoiled I felt like being that day, there was either a small TV and set-top box or a Dell laptop on top of the wood. And, if that doesn’t paint the perfect picture of how inactive I had become, the taped design along the ceiling and walls where the two met consisted of just about every kind of sporting equipment the mind can imagine, always mocking me, yet, all of this mattered little on the day I learned the truth about my Dad, except for the scene it set with me at the head of my bed crying, my Mom at the foot crying too, and my Dad standing by the door and not sure what to do. 

In this moment, I had just got done rampaging around the house, screaming, crying, and breaking whatever I could find all for a reason I cannot remember or tell, and, now sitting on my bed with my tears dying down again and a headache spinning up, my mother would open her mouth to say something that not only hurt me, but hurt my Dad too, as her second personality enjoyed doing so much. 

“David is not your real father, Devin.” 

And, just like that, the tears would start running down my face again, but so much more than that was said. David, my Dad, the man that had been there since the day I was born, the man that had given me his last name to bear with pride, and the man that had raised me to be half of who I was by then was not who I thought he was. This was something that was easy to understand the second my Mom said those first few words, but it would still be questioned anyway, because the truth of it was so hard to believe. Then, as one question followed another, I came to learn so much more. By blood, David was not my father. Which, if that was not bad enough, it meant that the sister I had always known, the daughter of David and my Mom, was only half of me and half my blood. And, from that realization, there came a story a about a man that I looked just like, such a mystery. 

The name of this man was Dennis. He entered my Mom’s life sometime after she and David divorced in the early 90s, and, after who I thought had been my parents went their separate ways long before I was born, my Mom came across Dennis, practically awestruck by the appearance and intelligence of this man. And, a few months later out of pure luck, I was born. My Mom was thirty-three, to Dennis’ age I’m not so sure, but my Mom had been clamoring for a child long before she reached that day. Yet, after one miscarriage with David a few months into pregnancy, the doctors told her that, with this  dream of giving birth, you never will be able to, Mrs. Harbison. But, a few years later somehow, she proved those doctors wrong when she fell in love with a strange man in the span of a few months and took nothing but his own seed to bring a child into this world that she would love dearly, before asking Dennis to leave for forever it seems. 

You see, this was not Dennis’s first time around the rodeo. Divorced from one wife previously, he had two kids named Zach and Glenna, who were both older than me, yet, somehow, I looked more like my father than both of them, the second I was born with my pure-blue eyes and brown hair. Yet, at the same time, David was still in my Mom’s life, as nothing but a friend, but, if David’s family were to have discovered that the child my Mom was about to have was not of his blood, the news would have torn them to shreds, especially his mother who was a woman infused with the grace of God greater than any other before or after her. So, on the day I was born and likely decided a few months before the day of my birth on February 24th, 1998, David stood by my Mom’s side as she gave birth, and, when the fluorescent hospital lights reached my newborn eyes, the adoption papers made those eyes, the face they sat in, and all of me his. 

When this information first came to my young heart, the words were easy to understand, but the possibility was hard to believe, having asked my Mom several times if she was lying during the story. Yet, being so young, it seemed I forgot about what had been said a few days later or washed it away in my newest video game. Or, at least, I had washed it away until I was about twice the age I was then, fourteen if I want to be exact. When I got into high school, I had so many issues from being diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder and Generalized Anxiety Disorder all the way down to simply trying to figure out who I was and who I wanted to be, and, because I had never known half of who I had come from, in came a deadly curiosity. 

Being that my Mom loved me so and likely felt some negative feelings about the choice she had made before I was born, she went out of her way from time to time to ask if I wanted to meet my father or just get in contact with him, yet, for the longest time, I said no to her, denying my curiosity about it because the thought of my father hurt deeply. For a young man to have the knowledge that their father was never part of their life or had left at one point never to return, there are infinite questions. Does he ever think about me, has he ever thought about me, does he love me, would he ever love me, would he ever come back, or… Dad, why did you leave?  

And, for a year or two, I would refuse to take my chances to get an answer for those questions despite the army of fatherless children waiting in line behind me, dying for a chance to meet their own dads in an opportunity they will never get, but, once my family including my Mom, David, and my sister had moved to a apartment complex on the corner of where Route 1 and 100 intersect out in Elkridge, my Mom and I would be driving down Route 1 one day to head home, and, for whatever reason, she felt the need to stop the car along the road and ask a question that was too hard to ignore, like she knew what she was doing. 

“Devin, your father’s best friend lives up that road. Would you like to go meet him?” 

So, within five minutes, my Mom and I were riding up into a neighborhood that did not look too good, nor did the house we would come to stop at look the best. The lawn was uneven and half-dead, and, when I walked up the front steps of a home that was about half of the one I had grown up in with its garage door open and junk strewn about, I stood awkwardly as my Mom and I waited for two people I did not know, but who knew me, to appear at the door. Upon approach, it was obvious that this man and woman were nothing alike as the husband was thin enough to fit through the crack in the door, while the wife could barely fit out the open door, but, the moment they saw me, recognition filled their eyes. Once the old couple came out onto the porch where my Mom and I stood already, they knew damn well who I was, being the lost son of their friend with my damned eyes and hair. And, as I stood there with my Mom catching up with the husband and wife, there was no doubt about how I was sucked in, while I thought about how the possibility of meeting my father could be good for me, but, after we had left and I had been given my father’s number, it was plain as day that was not the case. Yet, I was already in too deep. There were still the questions I had from before, but, now, there was a new one. And, it was how do you make up for seventeen years of lost time? 

Within the time it took me to realize that you cannot do so reasonably and without driving yourself mad, I reached out to my father on the phone once just to hear his voice as he drove up the mountains to see his own parents and seemed completely disinterested in me, and I would text him too much, sometimes obsessively. Some mornings, I’d take the bus to school and listen to sad music for the whole ride, and, in those moments, all the questions I had in my head drove me to a point where my behavior was like that of an abusive boyfriend, always sending angry messages to my father. And, in time, I would overcome in different ways. Once I realized my father didn’t care too much and was too busy with his second wife plus a third son, I turned to music, letting it save me when it had pushed me before, and, inside of the poetry I explored to express suppressed emotions, he became the unnamed villain, the reason I was the way I was and am. And, when I went to write my first novel, my burning hatred for my father fueled my protagonist’s hatred for his own, once he learned how to turn into a dragon and burn his foes, and that was a trick from his mother’s side of the family.  

Yet, while I figuratively wrote my father out of my life with the writing I had been doing in my free time, it was more important that I helped write him out of my actual life and came to understand that I did not need his embrace or love, for, when I want home each day, I already had the love of another. In my life long before I learned of Dennis and long after, there was only one person that would always be beside me on a spinning roller coaster, or in the cold water at the beach, or on any day when I simply needed someone to tell me that, to be okay, all I had to do was breathe, This person was not my Mom or my younger sister, as much as I loved their support, for, even when the thought of my biological father tormented me, I had the love and the embrace of David, my Dad, my father in every form but that of blood. He was the man that had been there since my day one just to raise me as his own. He was the man that stood up for me, took me to school every other morn, bought half of the toys I got growing up, and loved me no matter what for something lesser men would have given up on. And, for that. I will always love him because, even though I am not of his blood, he is my fucking Dad, and I hope one day I can do good on the name he has given me. Not Devin, my Mom’s amalgamation of Dennis and David, but Harbison, the name his father gave to him and the name I will give to my son.

When I was a young lad between fourth and sixth grade, I found myself in a stage that I still find many others in. That stage was of peak laziness, filled with procrastination and overeating, and that was getting worse and worse upon every new day. As a student in early elementary school before that period, I was very promising and quickly put into excelled reading and math groups, but, only a few years into classes like that, I found myself dreading school, wishing to stay home every day and play video games instead. Where this state of mind came from, I cannot say for certain, yet I can say that, as my attention in school fell to pieces at my feet, so did my life at home. And, being that I was too young or too stupid to face what I dreaded head on, so came to be one place I could always hide or push back those worries and those dreads as I lied down in the same place all of us visit once, or twice, or three, or more times a day. 

Some of my earliest memories are of my parents fighting upstairs in the kitchen, as I hid downstairs among our floral-patterned couches and played whatever video game I had just begged them to get, but, while they would fight from time to time, it truly was few and far between. For, they lived happily together yet divorced somehow for the first couple of years of my life, at least until another man entered my mother’s heart. And, while I could spend a significant amount of time describing this new man and my father, it is better to describe them as people that already exist, and we should know. This man, my mother’s new boyfriend, was like Clint Eastwood in his fifties, and my dad was like Danny DeVito, bald instead of balding and not anywhere near as ugly. So, knowing that, it was no surprise my mother would kick my father to the curb and out to live on his own, and so began that lovely back-and-forth that all kids of a divorce know.  

My mother and her boyfriend still lived in my childhood home just around the corner from my elementary school, but my father, after about a year or two, would move twenty to thirty minutes away into the home of his new girlfriend, who was a knockoff Mary Poppins with too many fucking dogs. And, by that point in time, my body was reaching peak obesity, playing Call of Duty all day as I consumed whatever food I could find, so, when I woke every other morning at the home of my dad’s girlfriend, I always needed a place to hide and a place to hold at bay my dread for school. From that long drive back to it that is just as long as the one I make to college now and from the bullying I would endure from my changed appearance at 5’6’’ and 250 pounds of pure jelly, I hid away. 

I’d wake each morning afraid to move lest I discover I’ve pissed the bed again, a terrible habit I could do nothing about until it disappeared at about the same time in my life, and, on the mornings when I was in the clear and not covered and stinking of a yellow mess, I would always follow the same pattern where I took refuge in the only place I knew. My bed was big enough for two people, who I then was as big as, and, when I would throw my legs over the side of the mattress on each of these morns, there was little room to squeeze through the path between my bed on one side and a desk and dresser along the other. But, once I did and usually rattled that desk in the process because it was more of a bookshelf and less of a desk, I was largely in the clear. For, I would simply turn left to head out of my room and then right to go down the hall, where all three of the dogs in this house would always wait. 

Yogi, like Yogi Bear, was a Shiba Inu. Sam, always timid and skittish, was a black Labrador. And, Max, looking like a giant Golden Retriever with a head bigger than a mailbox, was a Leonberger. Yet, as I listed the dogs in order of their size from smallest to biggest, their tempers were the opposite of their girth, with the largest dog being the nicest and the smallest one the reverse, but, as all three were waking up too, they would bother me little as I meandered down the hall in the morning, if I were to ignore what all of the pups left on the hardwood floors that dominated this woman’s house. For, Yogi, with his thick fur, left loose hair wherever he went and whenever he got pets. Sam, always so scared, would leave a puddle of piss where he stood whenever he heard a loud noise or the mailman at the door. And, Max, with his bull-sized skull, could not lift his head up enough to keep the drool from spilling out. So, for an unworthy comparison, I could say that walking around in this house while barefoot was like walking through a field of rice patties and booby traps in Vietnam as I exited my room, passed the room to the young son of my dad’s girlfriend on my right, then the room that my dad and her shared after on the same side, only to then turn left and end my journey a few feet later as I came to the door of my hiding place so ready to escape.  

This room ahead was larger than most others like it, for the space was rectangular, with the door centered along one of the longer walls. And, once I had opened it and stepped inside, I was always greeted with an image I didn’t want to see, that of myself. The mirror before me would take up more than half of the opposite wall from where I entered, from the left side of the doorframe all the way to the right wall, and, beneath it, there were two sinks with white faucets, while the cabinets below were made of a light-brown wood. Then, to the left of those sinks and in between them and the bathtub in the left side of the room, there sat a toilet that was big enough for my rump and a window behind the tank. Yet, as I entered the bathroom each morning on these days when I had not wet the bed, I was always ready to throw the blue shower curtain with fishes on it aside, so that I may start the running water, but, because I still had all the liquid in me from the previous night, the toilet was my first stop. And, while it drained with the handle turned down, I would then move quick to the bathtub’s knob to feel the rush of hot water on my hand, but, other than that moment, I would not feel the water again, never touching my skin. For, depending on the mood, I would choose to run the shower overtop the tub or just the tub, and I would then set myself up on the bathroom floor, ready to daydream as I lied down on my side with my towels now acting as blankets once they cover me and my clothes from the previous night still on my body. 

Knowing I would be at school in about an hour after I had gotten up and left the bathroom still dirty because I refused to enter the bath or shower, I did not care. I would go to school like that with my hair visibly greasy, something else I would be bullied for, but, despite knowing that, my process of lying down rather than showering was always worth it to me for a reason I could never figure out. That is until now, twice the age I was then. For, as obvious as how bad I used to smell, what I was doing was like crying out for life to return to the way it was, and that was so unrealized at the time, but so clear now once I think of what I would do before my parents went to live in separate homes. Back then and  before this part of my life where I enjoyed lying in the same room I shat, there was a pattern and a morning ritual that was just as common.  

When my dad had already left for work in the morning back at the home I grew up in, I would crawl out of my bed with my legs less than half the length they are now and slowly move from my bedroom to my mother’s, and, despite the trouble I had getting out of my bed, I had none when sliding myself onto her mattress like a snake and instantly passing out. Or, at least that was the case until I would hear her wake too and enter the shower, from which the sound of the water running was so sweet. 

To me, that sound has always been lovely, the sound of running water, a faucet, a waterfall, a showerhead, or the rain all the same, and, to be forced to guess the reason I find it so amazing, I’d say it is because the acoustics are so peaceful and relaxing to the ears and mind. The walls of the first home I lived in were thin, while the rooms were closely knit, so, even when I had not crept from my bed to my parent’s in the morning, I would wake to the sound of a shower or bath no matter what and no better a noise to rise to, so calming. So calming that, when it woke me and when I probably should have been getting out of bed soon too, it would put me back to sleep instead, like the lullabies my mother used to sing to me.  

The thought is depressing as I see how life has changed over time and how I used something I loved on good mornings and good days in the past to get me through bad mornings and prepare me for bad days in the future, but, from where I am now even further in the future, all of that has become the past, so far gone. Exactly ten years have passed since the days when I would do my best not to fall asleep on the bathroom floor in the home of my dad’s girlfriend, and I’ve got a new morning ritual now that is very similar but just as different from the one I had a decade ago. 

As I sleep these days at the age of twenty, I no longer fear others as I go about my day, for that damage is done with my mind rended by the past while my worries now are filled with what that divided mind does during the darker hours of the day, literally and figuratively. Now, as I sleep each night, my dreams shift so fast and move like the Wheel of Jeopardy when a contestant first gives it a spin. Each scene in my sleep is fast at first and then slower and slower until they eventually land on a lengthy dream, but they all have the same effect together. When I first open my eyes, I am disoriented and with a weight on my chest, like waking up on the wrong side of the bed, but I am still in bed. For, as every dream no matter how good leaves me feeling like the soul has been ripped from my body, there are no good dreams, truly.  

In them, I’ll wake up to find my pants ripped, a tooth chipped, or that someone new has blocked me for a reason I could never know. Or, in another, I’ll come to tears as I’m reunited with old friends or lovers from my past, only to wake and realize they’re still gone. Or, I’ll scream as my mother chases me through a forest, with me on my feet and her by wing as she is now some flying beast. Or, I’ll stand silently and stricken with fear as a giant reaches through a classroom window three stories up and shatters the glass and surrounding wall of that room, the one that I sit inside of and is filled to the brim with people I do not know and part of a school I cannot remember seeing. Or, more likely, I’ll visit two recurring places that are like a mall and train station stuffed with people it’s like my mind is begging me to remember, but the thoughts are lost to time or the several moments of weakness when I tried to overdose twice with memories lost as a result. But, when I do wake up and remain confused for a few moments as I try to figure out if I’m back in the real world or still dreaming due to the lucidity of what I experience in my sleep, that morning ritual continues as it renews itself with a different purpose than what came before. 

These days, I wake at a reasonable time, either by the crying of my dog that is a black Lab like the one my dad’s girlfriend had or by the ringing of my phone at 9 AM, and, as I struggle to reach for my cell to either shut off the alarm or to check for any messages, I roll over in the same bed from ten years ago, no different except for the covers and blankets. From there, the feelings in my body that are impossible to explain leave me disconnected from reality, like cement has been poured over me as I slept and forced me to stay in bed, but, an hour or two gone, I normally have my blue and gray blankets off of my body, with boxers and a sweatshirt on it. And, after I’ve wobbled past my desk that is parallel to the bed, I bend down before the door to my dog’s crate, trying to open it like a drunk man trying to get a key into his car door. 

Once I eventually get it open and then have my dog’s collar in my hand to make sure he does not run upstairs since I reside in my family’s basement, his energy comes to be mine almost, while he pulls me towards the back door that leads to our backyard, and he wakes me up a little in the process, with the crust gone from my eyes at the same time. Yet, after both of us have done our business with his outback and mine in the bathroom I am destined to return to, I let him inside only to lock him up in his crate again, and I then make my destiny come to be. Feet dragging and still dazed from my dreams, I’ll walk out of the larger room of my basement, past the blind I use to divide the room, then down a hall, and only stop once I’ve reached the door to the bathroom, where the scene is almost no different from what it was all those years ago. 

For, other than the fact that the bathroom I’m about to step into is reversed with the bathtub on the right instead of the left, and one sink instead of two, my pattern is about the same. Though, with the toilet already used, I simply step inside and turn the shower head on, and, once I feel the water come to a scald, I give into my desire to lay down and to collect myself as the water runs against the material of the tub and creates a sound I know I love. Yet, no longer is the bathroom a place where I avoid responsibility and what I must do on a day-to-day. A bathroom is now a place that I use to build my strength for each, where I find myself again, and where I put the pieces back together in my head, for I know I am strong enough to face the future, not to hide from the dread it brings me. And, while I’m at it, I make sure to spend a good twenty minutes under that shower head eventually, for, to have me feel so bad mentally, how could I ever reason with myself that it was a good idea to let myself smell too?

I came across her one day on Tinder amidst my infinite search that I started in 2015, now the summer of ’17, and this journey always had me looking for my next distraction, my soulmate, or just another friend that would grow tired of me and leave before six months came to be. And, when I saw her, it was excitement and curiosity, as strange as that is to say about seeing a girl on the internet to some. So, because of the oddness of this situation, there’s a discussion to be had and a divide to be found about love at first sight. Those experienced will say it’s real and tangible, and those that are inexperienced may be unsure, deniers, or convinced it only happens in Hollywood movies. God forbid a dating app. And, at one point in time, I would have told you my opinion on love at first sight, as clear and bright as the sun in the sky, but my heart isn’t and was not then what it used to be. Yet, the feeling I felt upon seeing her was similar and of the same strain, like I’d do anything to match with her, to talk to her, to get to know her, and, when the time was right, to fall asleep beside her.  

She was clearly beautiful once she caught my eye as I scrolled through her five pictures, and she almost looked like the girl of my dreams or my perfect type were her hair not deep blonde and, instead, dark brown. Laying in my bed with her first picture and my iPhone 6 about an inch or two away from my eyes, I could see that she had an ovular face. Her lips were large and pouted. Her cheeks were perfectly gaunt. Her nose was average, just right as it sat upon her face, and her eyebrows were meticulously plucked. Then, in a second picture where she smiled, the view was heavenly as she showed off big teeth that were blindingly white, yet her expression was dorky at the same time, being that her defined jaw pushed her teeth too far forward or her lips drew too far back as she let the world see the radiance her happiness offered. 

Onto the third and the fourth of her pictures, I could immediately tell that she was tall too, only a few inches less than me, for I worried she might tower over me with heels on her feet. And, I could also tell that she was skinny yet fit, for, in one of those two images, she sat on the edge of a pool wearing nothing but a blue, two-piece bikini, with her long legs hanging off of the edge to dangle them in the water. And from then on, I knew her body was at its best with clothes off of it. But, in the same image, I also knew there was more beauty to her than just that of simple flesh, for, near her right shoulder, she had a tattoo of three flower heads with eight petals each and whose name I do not know, all connected by a dotted line. And, when I moved to her final picture, if I hadn’t known already, I came to realize she had eyes as dazzlingly blue as mine. Blue like the sky but speckled with gray like dark clouds on the horizon, eyes like that are the most important feature I want to see ten years down the road when I stare into the newborn face of the first and second child of mine. All of that about her made her perfect to me already or as perfect as one can be to another’s eyes. 

In that moment and in seeing her beauty, I was so wound up about getting in contact with her that I hoped to make use of all the tools I had at the time which was nothing but a super like, like a swipe right times two for those unfamiliar. Though, unfortunately, I had just used the one I’d be given daily in a bout of stupidity so, in truly showing how insane and dedicated I was to talking to this girl and in showing how impatient I am as I refused to wait twenty-four hours for another, I completely remade my account, and that involved deleting the original one, carefully creating a new one with the exact same pictures and bio, and then setting the distance range for matches to what her profile had shown at 14 miles away. And, a few excruciating minutes later, I had used up my daily like limit while simply swiping right on everyone surely and slowly until I eventually came to her. Except, in that first batch, I had not, so off to my wallet I ran. 

$10 to $15 spent and a few more minutes passed with my time more precious than the money of course, I now had the subscription for the dating app with unlimited swipes in any direction and five times the daily number of super likes total, and, not long after, her profile was in my sights, the only one worth that special like with its blue star and the way it drags your profile to the top of the list of people for whoever you’ve used it on. And, because I’ve outed myself already as quite unwell mentally by doing what I have to simply talk to a girl, you might think I would be dying from the anticipation brought to my body by the possibility of matching with her, but such was not the case, not even a little. Somehow, I had trained myself well enough with all my time on this damned app to no longer worry about who and what I match with after I’ve swiped, so I wouldn’t even say I waited to match with her, even though I did. But, not any more than a day later, my subconscious waiting would end once I had her profile in my hand again, and, as I write this, I can’t say for certain that I regret the extent to which I went to match with her despite knowing how this story ends. All I knew then was that the hard part was over, at least at first. 

Talking was easy and always has been, especially online over face to face. I wouldn’t make a good writer otherwise I think, and, to much surprise, this girl I had spent so much time trying to get in contact with could keep up with my pace, the instant she replied to my first message. She was interesting, intelligent, no single word responses, only a few emojis, and, soon enough, I had more reasons to fall for her as fast as I did. With her bio and a few messages passed already, I knew she wanted to go into dentistry, be a model, be a writer just like me with so many beautiful dreams. And, knowing that last bit, I had to see some of what she had written already. Her poems proved to be beautiful, just like her, but they were also depressing as that of a young woman usually are, all of which I still have saved. And, on top of that, the book she wanted to write was like an autobiography but fictional, and the parallels between her and her female lead were evident with what information I already knew about her and the opinion of her I embraced. She was growing ever more perfect with each passing minute, but, naturally, no one is truly perfect. 

Known to me within a day or two, her imperfections were debilitating anxiety, bipolar disorder, deadly depression, suicidal thoughts always right around the corner, one single attempt on her life in the past, and, near the end of each day, those issues would come under the microscope, nothing but sadness in sight. So, that is when I came to realize something about her. That, when I moved past the fact that she was a woman and how she had the beauty of God’s favorite angel, I was starting to see more and more of myself in her. 

No, I do not mean the fact that we both have blue eyes and are intelligent, nor do I refer to the fact that we both loved writing. Here, I see an image of myself in the mirror. I see myself in high school when I was first diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder and Generalized Anxiety, and I especially see the year prior to this where I attempted to take my life three times, spent six to eight weeks out of the fifty-two in a year in a bed and place that was not my own and not my home, and even a night in jail all because of what mental illness had done to my body and mind. 

 And, upon each new message she sent in one of those moods, the recognition of myself grew as did the recognition that I had found the strength to escape my demons, meaning that I truly believed I could save her from her demons too, and, with each new day having her in my life, it became a balance, a question I did not but should have asked myself. 

Devin, how do you balance your sex drive, your desire for something lasting, and your hope to make someone the best they can be mentally?  

And, that became our friendship, where I balanced what I wanted from not just her but anyone, and I did what I could to understand and respect her simply by being the listener to a broken mind. For, who better to be a listener than one that lived years in the same shoes? And, in some sense, the fact that she kept on fighting to make it through each and every week made her even more attractive to me. Though, in my mind, there was always the greatest emphasis on the last part of my question, that about making her the best she could be mentally, for, if I failed her, I feared she would fail her family and friends as well, like I had done three times in a span of seven months to those that knew me. But, thankfully for the first few nights of her and I talking once we had quickly moved off of the dating app, I found great success helping her through those feelings, for those emotions were ones I had once upon a time, all the know-how that offered. So, I would help her battle the darkest thoughts of her mind during the evening, with the reasoning of a mind stronger because of what it had been through already, and, during the day and upon the connection we had built, we would talk non-stop too and come to learn so much more about one another. 

I came to know that she had issues with her heart and one surgery for it beat, but she was terrified of the possible outcomes of the necessary next. And, I came to understand her family as well, mother and father split. Her younger brother lived with their Dad, and she lived alone with her Mom. Those two would occasionally be visited by her older sister, who was married and with a daughter of her own, and this girl loved her little nephew almost as much as a kitten she had just adopted. Never have I seen something so pure, yet why she felt so horrible later in the day in a way that was still present throughout our interactions was not.  

Knowing where I had been and what I had been through, I knew the only way to escape the darkest recesses of one’s mind was either a hard kick in the ass or through outside help and medicine, and the final two were off of the table for her. Medicine she already had made her madder than she already appeared to be, stirring her thoughts and making her sadder than you could believe, and, with therapy, she was one of those people that would not try it again since she had a bad therapist once or, more likely, being that she was someone who does not respond well to outside critique. Yet, opposing that idea, she somehow did beautifully with my help, for a short time. 

Our friendship only alive within the confines of about ten days, somewhere around the fourth or fifth day she woke in the morning as unhappy as she was in the eve, and that is when I came to learn the reason she was the way she was, as she was. It began with her dreams, which was something she had not talked about before, but that day I was quick to learn what took place in them. Haunting, dragging up the past, making her afraid to fall asleep just like mine had been for months before and after I came in contact with this girl, the way she dreamt of her past had a basis. There was a reason that was not genetics but experience that could be blamed for all the failings of her mind. That morning and so short into our friendship, she felt comfortable telling me, as supporting as I had been before, that she had been molested and raped by a member of her extended family until she was in her teens.  

My body’s immediate response was pain and rage, like I would kill the man in question just to set her free, but, when that subsided and when I came to reason with what had happened to her in my own mind, I knew I had to be there for her, more than I already had. What she had been through only grew my feelings towards her and for her as has always been the case with whoever I come across, for life is nothing to me without helping those that I feel need it. Because, though I have been through so much in my life already as I’ve been dragged to Hell and back by not just what my own mind can do but by family and peers too, my resolve has only grown stronger each time my heart aches. There is nothing more satisfying to me than helping and having a positive impact on those that need a higher level of support, but, even with the perfect image of this girl now in my mind and my purpose as a part of her life now clear, our time together would all only last a few more days. 

Upon one of them that was around the seventh or eighth, she opened up the last of her doors to me, in a sense. Already invited into her mind and heart after she had briefly explained one night how she felt about me and after she explained how much my support meant to her, she invited me into her body through pictures, with us both putting aside what she had told me a few days before, and, soon enough, we were discussing when, how, and where we would meet. She sought the presence and embrace I offered, and I was unsure of what exactly I hoped for, almost leaning towards that sex drive again. 

But, before I went to bed on the ninth night and the final night of our friendship with our plans to meet and spend time together stated, I did not give her a concrete date, which may have been something positive to look forward to as she slept, and, as the night went on and on, her depression would not subside no matter what I said and no matter what I tried. So, before my body forced me to shut my eyes, I left her with my phone number, being that we only messaged through an app, and I gave her my second-to-last message, fearing what would happen were I to leave her with nothing. 

Call me if you find yourself on the edge again ❤ 

That night, she never did, not exactly as she made a choice that would forever change the shape of my heart. For, I woke a few hours later still half asleep, and, within the few minutes before I passed out again, I checked a single message, the only one from her. It was a picture with the actual image of it blurred and a few words. 

I love you  

Too stupid to realize and too in a daze for any greater thought, I simply replied that I loved her too and fell asleep once more. It was only when I woke fully a few hours later that I started to piece it all together. My message still unchecked and only sent ten minutes after hers in the worst timing known to man, I waited, and I waited, and I waited for her to respond that following morning, and, when the anxiety grew to be too much, I reached out to the friend that had been staying with her, finally confirming my fears. She had given into her demons shortly after sending that message to me, with only one more sent to another lifelong friend apparently, and, just like that, she was gone forever, never to be seen.  

Her name was Emily or just Em, always a friend to me, and, to this day, I can’t help but feel like I failed not only her but her family and friends too, just like I had failed mine once upon a time.