Page 116 of Creatures Like Us
“It’s fine. Come here.” Noah flicks the floor lamp off, reaches for me, and gets me to lie down beside him. I let myself be manhandled, and I end up with my hand around his torso. His stab wound is healing nicely. He says it doesn’t hurt anymore, and he stopped taking painkillers long ago.
Ethan has called me a few times since that day in the hospital. Needless to say, Noah never pressed charges, so my brother doesn’t have to worry about repercussions. In my opinion, he could do with some consequences for his actions though.
It’s strange how much my view of him has changed. Before all this happened, I would’ve been over the moon to receive a phone call from him, just to hear his voice, but that time is gone.
I’m not ready to talk to him yet. Maybe I’ll never be ready.
Months have passed since that day at Joshua’s house, but I still wake up sometimes from nightmares of Noah’s blood warm and wet in my palms, pouring through my hands, and his dead eyes staring back at me—truly dead, not that fucking nickname given to him by his bullies.
Noah tries his best to console me, but I still have a hard time believing he’s alive and a hard time trusting he’ll stay so. When we meet our end, I can only hope we’ll meet it together, but for now, we’ve both promised each other to keep our feet on the earth, among the living, among all those people who never wanted us and never accepted us.
We have to accept ourselves in their stead.
My parents haven’t yet caught on that I’ve dropped out of college, but when they do, I’m sure they’ll stop sending me my allowance. Until then, Noah and I live on their money. We don’tspend much, since we hardly do anything, and Noah’s hospital bill was nearly all covered by insurance, but I know we can’t live like this forever.
It’s pretty hard, to be fair, figuring out what you’re going to do with your life when you’ve lived like Noah and I have. Day by day. Not knowing what tomorrow will bring or if there will even be a tomorrow.
I think that’s okay though. I know I want to be with Noah, and I know he wants to be with me, and it’s all I need to know for now. Finally, I have someone who roots for me, who believes in me. Who sees me, not for who they want me to be or for who I pretend to be, but for who I truly am. He used to hold me captive, yet I have never felt more free.
Strangely enough, I’m the one who feels the most vulnerable after a session like this, even though he’s the one who offered up his control to me. Over the past few months, I’ve started to feel like I’m the needier one of us. The weaker one, if you will, but even that feels okay.
I don’t need to be strong. I just need to lie here, with Noah, breathing in, breathing out. I’m free to leave at any moment, but my heart still binds me to wherever he is. I need him too much to ever leave, and he needs me too. I can see a future where we’re both ready to accept help outside of ourselves—therapy, medication, that sort of thing. Proper methods to handle my addictive tendencies. But we’re not quite there yet.
For now, I just try to be honest, and it helps that I feel safe enough to tell him the truth. On my bad days, I crave it so much I want to cry.
Last night was the end of such a day. We were lying in bed, trying to sleep, and my voice came out unnaturally loud in the quiet darkness.
“Noah?”
“Yeah?”
“I still think about it sometimes. What if I never stop thinking about it?”
“You don’t have to stop thinking about it,” Noah said. “Just take it one day at a time with me.” He turned around, eyes steady in the darkness, and in the midst of them?…?a light guiding me home. “There is no future laid out for us, Asher. We have to make our own.”
“But what if?…?what if I fail? What if I use again? Would you hate me for it?”
“I could never hate you. Not for that, not for anything.”
Tears surged at the back of my throat, and I nudged closer, closer, closer still. If it were possible, I’d open his chest up and crawl into his body, among all that warm, soft tissue. I think I’d feel safe there.
“Thank you,” I said.
“For what?”
“For just being here. For being alive. With me.”
“Of course.”
Despite his words, there is nothing certain about this, nothing we could ever have predicted. But it’s right. I choose him—not because he’s my only option, but because he’s the only option Iwant. Are we the healthiest couple in the world? No. But we’re better together than we are apart.
“I think I’m ready,” Noah says.
“For what?”
“To return.”
Return?A jolt of anxiety courses through my chest, but then I remember. “Oh.”
