Page 118 of Creatures Like Us
“Don’t you believe me?” I ask, voice thin.
Noah turns to me and smiles. He takes both my hands in his and lifts them to his mouth, kissing my knuckles. “I believe you.”
My lower lip starts to shake, and for some reason, I feel like crying. “She was beautiful.”
“I know.” Noah wraps his arms around me, hugging me tight.
Afterward, we turn around and leave the woods behind, with all its memories—horrible ones, beautiful ones. We leave them all, hand in hand, not knowing where we’re going, but knowing we’re going there together.
Epilogue 2
Noah
Twoyearsafterthatday in the woods behind school, Asher and I are going on our first trip. It took us a while to decide where to go, but as soon as the suggestion came up, the choice was easy.
“We don’t like people much, right?” Asher said. “So how about Alaska? We could rent a cabin there or something.”
Said and done. We’re leaving tomorrow, and tonight I’m filled with tentative excitement, along with the anxiety of how broke we’re going to be when we get home.
Asher’s parents have stopped sending him money each week. Not because they found out about him dropping out of college, but because he asked them to.
In turn, I’ve taken up my old job at the gas station, and Asher joins me there three times a week. It doesn’t make for much of an income, but on the other hand, our everyday expenses arequite low. Traveling is expensive though. I don’t think Asher realizes quite how expensive, as he’s always had his parents’ money to fall back on.
Either way, we’ll get through it, just like we’ve gotten through everything else. This night, tomorrow, and beyond.
To prepare for our first fall and whole winter together, we installed heaters in the basement, and now it’s toasty and warm when we want it to be. Mostly, the heat of our bodies is enough.
Asher still spoons me and holds me by the throat when we sleep. We both feel safest that way, though it’s not for the same reasons it used to be. Asher trusts me not to harm him, and I trust him as well. I trust him with my life. Trust that he’ll save me, again and again, and that I’ll be there for him when he needs me as well.
I lie awake for a long time, thinking of all I have gained, unexpectedly, amazingly. The veil of darkness that always cloaked my life and mind has lifted, and now I not only hope for survival—I’msurviving. I’m living. Both of us are. And we will keep surviving, keep living, bit by bit. Day by day.
When we slip down into our black holes, we claw ourselves back to the surface with the help of each other. The people on the outside may not approve of us, but I’m no longer as terrified of Asher leaving me as I was. The feeling is still there, but it’s nagging and annoying instead of overwhelming, because I don’t believe in it anymore.
Instead, I believe he’ll stay. And I believe I will too.
Long ago, I saved his life, and in return, he saved mine, even if he didn’t know it then, and he keeps saving me, again and again. I’ve tried a few medications, but none have been as effective as just being near him. My Goldilocks. I still can’t imagine a life without him—even more so now than before—but I think that’s okay. I’m still as desperate for him as I was when we first met, but it’s a different type of desperation.
A less toxic one. A more lasting one.
Sometimes, when we’re apart, I feel an echo of what I used to feel constantly before we met. Like a stranger in my own brain—unwelcome in a world that doesn’t want me. I’m reminded of the broken, lonely creature I used to be, but these days, the feeling passes quickly.
I feel human now. I feel whole—or at least, as whole as I can be.
I don’t know if I’ll ever entirely get rid of that feeling. Something has been shattered in me, like a broken bone that healed wrong and might never fully recover. Asher has his own struggles, and sometimes I fear I’m not enough for him. That he would be better off with someone else, someone who’s whole and healed.
But the parts of me that are whole fit into the parts of him that are broken, and the parts of him that are whole fit into the parts of me that might never fully heal. That is the reason, I think, why he’s content to stay with me. And I don’t think it’s such a bad thing, even though my therapist has said we should learn to be apart, for the benefit of us both. I can’t say I fully understand her reasoning.
All in all, it’s a work in progress.
I still go into the woods sometimes, but when I do, I don’t go alone. Asher knows nothing of guns, and he claims he doesn’t want to learn. He says he just wants to be close to me. Though, I suspect part of the reason is that he’s trying to catch a glimpse of the wolf.
We haven’t seen her since that day behind school, but maybe she’s still around, watching me. Watching us. That is enough. I don’t need to be saved anymore. She’s with us every step, every breath, every crack of twigs under our feet. Reminding us of what it is to be alive and that you can go on despite the weight of your hardships. Despite the immenseness of your grief.
It will get better. That is what my therapist says, and I have started to believe her, just as Asher has started to reconcile with his sobriety.
A couple of months after the wolf sighting, he got drunk with a few of his old friends after work, and he ended up participating in more than alcohol. Not heroin, but something else.
He told me the day after. Broke down, cried about what a failure he was. I just held him. Told him it’s hard and that it will continue to be hard, but maybe, if he wants to, he can ask for outside help.
