Star Witness

21

TOMÁS

I haven't ever seen Jesse cry before.

That's a strange realization, because he's seen me cry. Lots. After a fight with my mom or a good movie or because of some physical pain or when those depression thought spirals are hollowing me. Crying is how I get through life. And besides, we're made to feel things. It's one of the many purposes I've found in existence so far.

His head is tucked against my ribs, his back heaving. I can feel his cut bleeding onto my thigh. The uninjured arm is working, grasping at his face. A distress stim. He does it during withdrawals, sometimes.

I stare at the house.

I love him more than I've probably ever loved anything. And I love a lot of things.

Once he's veering into making himself sick territory, I start to calm him down. Jesse, Jesse, it's okay. Everything's okay. I feel stupid for saying that. It's not. But, soon enough, he goes still underneath me. "Your arm," I say softly.

He sits up, scrubbing at his face now with the backs of his hands. Not really cleaning his tears, just an erratic, repetitive motion. There's a small noise vibrating again and again in his throat. I don't stop him. I know it will upset him more.

The cut on his arm is so nasty that, even though he's wearing long sleeves, it's fully visible. "It's okay," he mumbles, and his shoulders slump as the upset stimming gradually stops.

"Are you okay?" I whisper.

He isn't looking at me. Just stares at that house. "I found her."

"Found her?"

"In there." He points. "She overdosed." His head tosses, hard. He often twitches like that.

"Jesse," I say. Just that. Useless. I can't think of words.

"Her eyes were open," he says.

"It's not what you think it will be," I hear myself say.

I feel his head drop onto my shoulder.

"A few years ago this girl I knew with CF died. They did an open casket. I was afraid to look at her, but when I did, there was nothing there. The body, it was empty. What I missed, the person I lost, she wasn't... there." I hold him close to me. "It's what makes me think there's something else. Because you leave, the second you die. And it has to be to somewhere. How could we just dissipate?" We're too big and bright. That's what I think. "And it makes me think that whatever happens next, there's no body involved. Because... I mean, she left it behind." My voice goes quieter. "Or maybe I just don't want there to be a body involved."

He buckles into me. And he starts to cry. Really cry, not just the wet hyperventilating from before.

"I want it to be nothing," he sobs into my shoulder.

"I know." I close my eyes. "I know."

"I could have done something." No, I say, shh, I say, but he's repeating it again and again. I could have done something. I could have done something. I could have saved her. And, hiccuping on sobs, he whispers, "I just want to go everywhere she goes."

We sit there for a long time. The day changes color, the sun moving around us. Neither of us talk.

When his tears have slowed, I pull a little travel case of tissues out of my bag. Jesse makes an odd noise, and when I look at him, worried, I realize he's laughing.

I glance back down to my tissues, and I understand why--because of course I have tissues with me in the middle of nowhere. Right now it feels so wrong to laugh, but I'm accustomed to that feeling. I've laughed on the brink of death in a hospital bed more than once. So I let myself do it now, and I say, "Don't make fun of me for being prepared," and after we've indulged ourselves in crazed crying laughter, he lifts his head.