My friend was telling me about how he named his guitar Alice. It reminded me I hadn't put this up yet. I wrote Charlie senor year of high school under the pseudonym Alice. I need to fix the ending. The rest of this.... one of my personal favorites.Do you ever have those obsessive thoughts looping through your head, like a popular song on the radio? Not a constant nagging, but there enough that once you think you’re starting to forget, it pops up again.
Did Charlie ever love me?
Charlie. The skinny guy in tight jeans with the perfectly mussed just-got-out-of-bed hair and the green eyes that looked almost gray. But when I think of him, that’s not what I see. I see the way he’d always offer me a light, even though he knew I didn’t smoke, or how when he gave me a ride home, he’d always reach across me and open the door for me, even though my hand was only inches away from the handle.
And no matter how many hours, days, I spend analyzing every look, every word, every touch, I will never know. I just have to go on what he told me.
That fucking note that I’ve reread a thousand times in my head.
The funny thing is he will never know how much he impacted me, how he’s all I think about before I go to bed, he’s what I think about when I wake up, the countless dreams of him and me, a happy couple out of a Calvin Klein ad.
The way he practiced blowing smoke rings when he thought no one was watching.
“Tell me something,” I say as my new friend threads a needle.
“We need to get you to a hospital,” he responds. He’s never made eye contact with me in the half hour we’ve known each other.
“Something about you.”
“I will feel terrible unless we get you to a hospital.”
Always this fixation. I can already tell this is going to be a dividing point in our relationship. “I’m not going back there.”
“You’re bleeding to death.”
My new friend exaggerates. What I’m feeling right now is cold detachment and bitter indifference to the hole in my stomach. This isn’t death. Death is helplessness. Death is giving a fuck.
He comes at me with the needle and a damp washcloth. I feel a sting as he begins dabbing the wound, cleaning it enough to start step two.
“Please talk to me.” The words come out needier than expected.
“What about?” He puts the washcloth, now red, aside.
“Tell me something about you. A memory.”
“What type of memory?”
“You ask too many questions. Any type, whatever comes to mind. I’ve always believed…” my nails dig into his arm as the needle enters my skin. “I’ve always believed that knowing something that happened to a person is a far better judge of who they are then what they like or what they think. That changes. Memories stay the same.”
Staying focused on mending me like a broken doll, my new friend thinks for a second— a second of silence that stretches forever as all I feel, all I think, is the hole in my stomach taking over all my body until all that’s left is that cursed thought.
Did Charlie ever love me?
“It was about five years ago. I was walking along the… cliff,” he says the word with a pause, not sure if it will offend me somehow. “I don’t remember how I got there or why I was there. I’ve always wondered why some parts of memories are clearer than others, because I can’t recall anything before that moment. Anyway, as I’m standing… there, it must be four, maybe five in the morning, you can start to see the sun coming up. And I can sort of make out a figure standing on the beach, just watching the ocean as if waiting for something to happen. So, I look out to see what it is, and maybe about thirty feet from the shore is a man, trapped in the water, trying to swim his way back, but he keeps getting pulled down, and comes up, and pulled down, and comes up, and this figure is just standing there, watching. I tried to call out, but…” he stops sewing, and looks at the ceiling. “Then he stopped coming up.”
“And the figure?”
“Turned back to look at me, but I couldn’t see the face. He just stared at me for a couple moments, then walked away.”
My new friend puts down the needle, and for what feels like hours, the only sounds are my short, desperate breathing, and the seagulls outside.
“Without immediate medical attention, it’s going to infect.”
“I know.”
“You can’t die on me.”
“Don’t die on me…” the doctor says, hovering above me. An oxygen mask is on his face, or maybe mine, and I don’t know where I am or how I got here, seconds before I was in the kitchen, slicing tomatoes or maybe onions, and I was crying, and now this man, who’s face I can’t see, is telling me not to die.
Followed by three months strapped to a bed in a white room, with the only visitor being a woman I don’t know asking me why I did it.
Telling me how we had a future ahead of us.
All the while, like a broken record, did Charlie ever love me, did Charlie ever love me, did Charlie ever love me…
I wake up and my new friend’s still there, sitting in that armchair. He hasn’t changed since I passed out, and I wonder how long I've been here.
“Did you call the hospital?” I ask.
“Almost.” He looks at the ceiling, at the floor, everywhere but me.
“Why didn’t you?”
“Let me get you an icepack…”
My new friend leaves the room. I try and sit up, but the numbing pain has returned and I wonder whether I’ll ever be able to sit up, or I’m destined to spend the rest of eternity with a man who’s name I don’t know, lying on a cheap couch and outliving the world around me because I simply cannot die.
“What’s your name?” he asks, returning with a bag of ice and some pills. Gently, he places the bag on my stomach, and hands me the pills.
“Guess.”
“Alice?”
“We’ll go with that.” Alice takes a moment to swallow the pills, and I reflect how well it fits.
“Seriously, what’s your name?”
“Alice.”
My new friend is quiet once more, looking at his hands, his feet, the lamp. I want him to talk to me, distract me, from my stomach and from my thoughts.
I think about the endorphins surrounding my body, turning my torn and bloody clothes into a fabulous gown, the cheap couch into a soft cloud, my new friend into a handsome prince, and wonder; if you couldn’t feel pain, would you be addicted to hurting yourself?
I think about my new friend, looking at the door, the window, his knees…
I think about the gash in my stomach, a representation of everything that is wrong with me. Everything I failed.
I think about the note, probably still lying on the kitchen table next to the cutting board and the knife.
I think about Charlie; and if he ever loved me.
The room I’m in is styled in “90’s Heroin Addict Chic” with faded brown wallpaper torn in all the right places. One of the windows is broken, and I can hear the waves and seagulls of the outside world, the sounds as melancholy as a window in a prison. A boarded up fireplace faces me, and above it is a polished piece of pop art that reminds me of something and looks much too expensive to belong with the rest of the room.
“Where’d you get that?” For a second, my new friend makes eye contact with me, but quickly looks over at the painting.
“That? I’ve had that for years. Must have been…” he trails off, lost in the painting. “Years.”
“Who painted it?”
“Me.”
The room is filled with a tense silence once more, except for the siren call of the seagulls and the gentle crashing of the waves. Maybe I did die, and this is hell.
Or heaven.
“Fuck, I don’t know how to say this…” my new friend starts, running a hand through his hair. “But, I mean, when are you going to go home?”
I think of my house, the condo midtown, with bohemian furniture complimenting the earthy tones of the walls and floors. The smallish television, the twin sized bed, the cheap silverware, the bloody kitchen knife, the vanity desk. The note, still lying on the table. The rotten tomatoes or onions. I think of my house. But it isn’t my home.
“Never…” I mumble, but I don’t think he hears me. He just stares expectantly at the couch, as if waiting for it to answer.
“I mean, it’s not like there’s any hurry. I just… don’t really have anything.”
“If you were a turtle, you’d be home by now.” He looks at me, at me, and his eyes look just like Charlie, and he smiles, and his smile looks just like Charlie, and for a second, just one second I want to kiss him, kill him, talk to him, hold him, hurt him, just do something, but then the second passes as my new friend looks at his thighs, his shirt, the fireplace.
“Um… well… I’ll be… there…” he points vaguely in the direction of a door, and my new friend leaves, and I fall asleep and dream that I’m still pregnant. I wake up wondering if Charlie ever loved me.
Until four months ago, I worked part time as a cashier at a local Rite-Aid, and had a night shift as a waitress in a trendy bar called Joy Division. It was at the Rite-Aid job that I first met Charlie. He was an inspector of sorts, and came in every couple weeks to take notes on the stock. When I first met him, a few weeks after I starting working there, I remember there was a knot in my stomach that wouldn’t go away and I couldn’t talk to him or even look at him when I knew there was a chance he’d be looking back at me. I knew the back of his head so well. I had just moved from… somewhere… and I didn’t really know anyone. The back of his head was the closest thing I had to a friend. It took me two months to talk to him. One day to fall in love with him. And, like that, he stopped coming in.
“Alice?” my new friend asks. I don’t know how long I’ve been here, or how much longer I’ll stay.
“Yes?”
“You need to eat something,” he says it like a question, and I answer by looking at anything else. “Please. It’s been almost a week.” One week, two weeks, a year. Time flies when you’re in hell.
Or heaven.
Three memories.
One note.
One knife.
One perfect day.
“Just, anything. Soup, bread, whatever it is, I’ll get it…”
The note, on the kitchen table, written in ink, smudged by someone’s tears.
“You can’t live on painkillers and water…”
The knife, on the kitchen floor, covered in our blood, drenched in guilt and sorrow.
“Just an apple, a piece of toast, anything…”
The day, spent sitting on the park bench, going to the beach, the restaurant, like one of those couples in old movies, the day Charlie loved me.
“If you don’t eat something, it’ll be like I never saved you at all.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t have! Maybe you should have minded your own business! Of all the fucking days to be on the beach, why the fuck did you pick that one? Playing hero to me isn’t going to bring back that poor fucker you saw drown, you’re still going to have your personal entourage of demons. Would it help if I told you he probably had it coming? We all have it coming. That’s why we die. It’s not some weird coincidence, it’s because we fucking deserve it. Or did you save me, hoping to get lucky? Some weirdo like you, living in a fucking hut on the beach, I bet you haven’t even seen a girl since 1996! But you’re hoping that by saving me, who knows, maybe we’ll fall in love and get married and I’ll discover that life is really worth living and you have someone who can look at your fucking face for longer than ten minutes, right? Fuck that! I’ll have an order of Drain-o, with a side of rat poison, thank you,” my thoughts pour out of my mouth, and I stare at him, expecting a response. But his eyes stay on his legs, and I don’t think he heard me because he just sits there, waiting for something. “Maybe just a piece of fruit…”
I wrote him love letters every day for two months until he responded.
My new friend nods and gets up. He returns a few minutes later with an apple, and carefully hands it to me, like a delicate doll to a child. Outside, the waves crash and the seagulls caw. Inside, the painting reminds me of something. I take a bite into the fruit, and eating it gives me a headache, and my new friend looks at the apple, my hand, my mouth.
I fall asleep and dream I’m dying, I’m drowning, and somewhere above me, unable to help me is my new friend, shouting out for help. And standing there, watching, is Charlie. I wake up wondering if Charlie ever loved me.
The days pass in a blur of dreams and thoughts, painkillers and silent conversations with my new friend.
Then, one day, I sit up.
My new friend is in another room when it happens. And, once I hear his footsteps, I lie back down.
“Any better?” he asks. He’s carrying a canvas, but I can’t see what’s on it.
“No,” I groan, and reach out my hand for pills. He shakes his head.
“You still have two more hours until I can give you another dose.” He sits down in the armchair next to me, and looks at his hands. “I made you something.”
I turn to face him. He picks at one corner of the canvas, so concentrated on it, you’d think there wasn’t anything more important in the world than getting whatever it was, off.
“Here,” he dusts off nothing, and places the canvas, face up, on my lap. It’s a painting of a turtle, and it says; “If you were a turtle, you’d be home by now” and there’s something familiar about it. “I just thought…” he looks at the canvas, then at me, and my heart flutters. “I just thought you’d like it.”
“I do,” I mutter, cradling it in my arms. “Thank you.” He looks down at his knees then smiles.
It started one night when I dreamt about driving off the cliff and woke up on the floor. One of the stitches tore. I tried to stand up, but it was like my legs forgot how to work, and I fell back down. Lying on my stomach, reaching my arms out, a fish out of water, I tried to grab onto something, anything, and my hand found the cushion of the arm chair, and I heaved myself up, standing, wobbling for a moment, before sitting down.
So it began, every night, about an hour after my new friend gave me the final dose of pills, I would try and walk. And every morning, after my new friend brought me breakfast and my first dose of pills, I would lie to him and say I wasn’t healing.
Just like I lied to him and said that driving off the cliff was an accident.
Just like I lied to him and said the hole in my stomach was from the wreck.
Honesty isn’t a strong point in our relationship.
My new friend shows me paintings he does, with the enthusiasm of a child who just got back a good report card. Some of them are abstract. Others are of me. Each one reminds me of something. I wonder if Charlie ever loved me. I wonder if my new friend loves me.
"It's good," I say. My new friend looks at the painting, then at my mouth.
"Really?"
"Yeah, very..." I search my head for the name of an artist, any artist, but the only name I can think of is Charlie. He looks at my mouth expectantly. "Very controlled. I mean that as a good thing."
"That means a lot." His eyes are back on the painting. "You're my muse."
"Your muse?"
"Well, um... after I saw that... years ago, I haven't been able to paint. But you... I mean, I can again. And I think it's because of you."
And then he looks at me, and then he's next to me, and then I think about Charlie and the last time I was this close to him.
The only time I was this close to him.
I think I dream I cheat on Charlie. Except I don’t wake up, because in the morning, my new friend is lying next to me, his head buried into the side of my neck.
“Alice,” he mutters, and I can feel his lips move with the word. “When are you going to tell me your real name?”
“I don’t have one,” I respond, placing a hand over my stomach, checking for any torn stitches.
“What did your parents call you?”
“I don’t have those, either.”
“Like a turtle.” He rolls off the couch. “I’ll go get you your pills.”
Did Charlie ever love me?
My new friend returns with a glass of water and a handful of pills. So this is what it’s like in hell.
Or heaven.
“It’s weird,” my new friend said, the night before. The lights were off, and I could only make out the outline of his face. Outside, the seagulls were crying and the waves were slamming, and the scene reminds me of something out of a book I read or a movie I saw or a song I heard years ago. “I feel like I know you, but I don’t.”
“You don’t need to.”
“But I want to. Tell me something about yourself. A memory.”
The way he’d always look at windows to check his reflection.
“How long have I been here?”
“About a month.”
The room is filled with that familiar silence, and my new friend is looking at me, but I’m trying not to look back at him. “I once tried to kill myself.”
“When?” I don’t respond. “Alice? Alice?”
I hold out my hand for the pills, but my new friend just stands there, pills in one hand, glass in the other. His hands are shaking. “What is it?” I ask. He’s looking at me, but it’s almost like he’s looking past me.
“I saved you, right?” he drops the glass and it shatters, and he steps closer to me, stepping on the glass. His foot starts bleeding. “I mean, something happened to the car, or maybe another one was coming, or maybe, fuck, maybe you had too much to drink, I don’t know. Just tell me that you didn’t want to die.”
“I didn’t.”
“Then what happened?”
Honesty isn’t a strong point in our relationship.
Everything is amplified in hell.
Or heaven.
By that night, I can walk again. Part of me wants to creep into Charlie’s room and put a pillow over his face, watch his body squirm until he’s out of breath. Teach him a lesson for what he did to me, since my last lesson didn’t work, but then I remember this isn’t Charlie’s house.
I dream my new friend is the one drowning, Charlie is on top of the cliff, and I’m the one who doesn’t save him.
The note said to stop calling him, to stop writing him, to stop driving by his house. The note was a restraining order.
“I want to believe you.” My new friend’s foot was bleeding, adding another stain to the floor. “But I don’t.” My new friend stayed in one of the other rooms for the rest of the day.
The note. That’s when I self-aborted Charlie’s child.
My new friend brings me breakfast in bed. Some eggs and a piece of toast, a fork, a knife, a glass of water, and my pills. The eggs taste funny.
“Why weren’t you honest with me?” says my new friend, or maybe Charlie.
“Because you wouldn’t love me if I told you the truth,” I reply, cleaning the egg of the knife with my sleeve. “Why didn’t you ever write me back, Charlie?”
“My name isn’t Charlie.”
I begin to feel dizzy. I push the breakfast tray off me, and launch off the couch. I fly across the room and collide with my new friend, sticking the knife into his neck. I fall down and I can’t get up.
My new friend holds on to his neck, and I can see the blood pouring out from the cracks between his fingers. The collar of his shirt is a dark red, contrasting with the white of his neck and face. He looks at me with such utter distaste and hatred, for a moment, he looks just like Charlie. He collapses next to me. I know this feeling. This is dying. The poison constricts my throat, as if an invisible hand is pushing down on it. I try and imagine what we must look like, lying side by side.
A match made in heaven.
Or hell.
My last memory is lying on the floor, staring at the painting. It reminds me of something. All my memories, all my thoughts, start to fade to black like the end of a movie. All I hold on to is that cursed thought, that dreaded question.
Did Charlie ever love me?
