Nanowrimo 10

I wake up the next morning. Froid hasn’t changed at all. Her eyes are still pried open, unwillingly, looking at the ceiling like a mandate.

            “Ambrosia Froid, let’s get up.”

            She complies, sitting up in bed and mechanically moving around to the door. She opens it to find Callahan half on the couch, half on the carpet, socks shimmied halfway off his feet, hair lying flat and upright, mouth wide open in raucous snore, drool pouring out of his mouth with determination.

            “Callahan!”

            He snorts as he wakes up and looks at me, looks at the pool leading from his mouth, and gasps.

            “I’m so sorry! Really. I don’t drool, ever. It’s not something I do, I promise.”

            I flex my wrist and flop my hand down like it’s not a big deal. I’m going to give him diarrhea again today though. If he weren’t such an easy manipulation I would want nothing to do with such an unattractive person.

            “Well, you two are on your own completely today,” I announce to them. “I’ve got a full day of surgeries starting from eleven until the evening, so knock yourselves out for food and whatever. Go to the park. Go hiking.” I look at Froid. She will not go anywhere or eat anything willingly.

            But Callahan will.

            “Of course! I know we won’t see all of Seattle today but we can try to hit some parts. Let’s go back to Chinatown for lunch! I want to explore a little bit more.”

            Unsurprisingly, Callahan’s enthusiasm and optimism radiated obnoxiously during the day and steadily waned to the night. I know by the end of the day he will be so disenchanted with Froid he’ll be begging me for suggestions or try to escape or something.

            I nearly push the two of them out the door, and Callahan welds himself to Froid. She says nothing.

            The two walked down the hall in minimal camaraderie. I blame Froid for that. Callahan constantly tried asking her trite questions, or even annoying ones like how she slept and if I bothered her at all, but she derecognized all existence of him or the questions. The day had barely begun, and Callahan had felt the first pangs of discouragement.

            He would feel them throughout the day in relentless fashion. Callahan would go into a store or buy a hot chocolate and she would sit on a bench outside. Callahan told her he was feeling hungry, and she told him to go eat as she wandered off. Callahan then had to tug her in tow by the edge of her jacket and force her to eat. It all seems so familiar to me. Only with Callahan it’s funny.

            The two sat down at a dumpling house nearby where they had eaten yesterday. Callahan ogled the pork dumplings while Froid looked around to see if anyone was watching them. She looked at me. I have Callahan smile. She didn’t respond.

            Callahan ordered for Froid, figuring that in the likely event that she didn’t eat or even so much as move at the table he could just eat that as well.

            Froid caressed the fork at the table. I have Callahan look at her hands in detail, eating wonton strips while he was at it. Her fingers were short but thin; her nails were cut short so that the skin on the tips grew over to protect them. Her veins made momentary appearances when she wrote or squeezed her hand. She did neither of those things now. For Callahan to see purple would be a sign of her acceptance, that she felt comfortable enough.

            I have never seen her do either of those things. Froid hasn’t even picked up a piece of paper since coming to Seattle. I don’t think she’s ever going to write anything again.

            Callahan ate everything on the table. After gesturing repeatedly to Froid to at least try one of the dumplings, he gave up. She kept looking outside, her hands on the table, so pale that Callahan couldn’t see a single vein.

            Callahan extended his hand to the waiter when the bill came, but he dropped the booklet when he saw Froid ball up her hands. She had moved. Her veins were prominent around her knuckles connecting to her wrists. She kept looking outside, but the scenery was the same. Callahan bent over and reached under the table to retrieve the bill.

            When he sat up again, Froid was gone.

            He bolted upright, nearly toppling the table over, and ran out of the restaurant. He didn’t get very far, because a thug at the front of the door blocked his exit. Callahan gave him a fifty-dollar bill and squeezed out. The thug would have pursued him but I have him let Callahan go. I can’t lose track of Froid like this.

        Callahan ran around Chinatown, pushing people out the way dramatically and getting yelled at in English, Mandarin, some Cantonese and many expletives. He was glad he didn’t speak any other language aside from English.

        This didn’t come in handy when trying to communicate with a taxi driver and attempting to drive around Chinatown with him, telling him to turn into this alley, stop here, wait, repeat.

            The cab driver demanded a down payment, or so Callahan thought. Callahan reluctantly gave him twenty dollars and the driver sped off. Callahan was stranded in the middle of Chinatown, with no cabs around, and completely Froid-less.

            That was when he saw her. She was standing on the curb on the other side of the busy intersection. He didn’t think of the busy intersection, even though I kept warning him about it. He only saw her. As he ran, his entire existence moving at a glacial pace, he began writing a poem.

I see you standing there

And you look like you want to smoke.

But I’m telling you no. You can’t smoke

Because I love you

But I can’t be around you if you’re smoking like that.

It’s gross, and I don’t want lung cancer.

I can’t wait to take back your hand

Cold, like your last name,

And your cold eyes

And your cold face

And your cold smile

That you never share.

You’re all cold, Froid.

Maybe that’s why you smoke.

To heat yourself up from the inside.

God, I hate Callahan’s poetry. It’s like the monologue of a self-righteous third grader. I try not listening to his poem, but suddenly everything cuts off.

The last moment I remember Callahan is running towards Froid amid enveloping honks and Doppler effects. I don’t see anything from him now. I try to look at Froid. Nothing. Nothing from Samuel. All I have is my own sight, my own mind, my own frustration.

I’m not taking this very well.

After stepping on some of the shards of Froid’s disintegrated phone I scream. I scream and pummel the phone to the ground again, making it even more sporadic as it sits all over my kitchen floor. I punch a carton of milk and it explodes. I nearly tear my refrigerator door off its hinge and the contents slide over indignantly, dangling at the mercy of gravity.

I storm into my bedroom and rip open my shelves. Froid’s stuff. All of it, taking up my space in my shelves. I grab her socks, shirts, pants, clothes I bought her, and throw them all in a pile in the middle of the floor. I take a kitchen knife to them and tear them all up into shreds, the pieces of cloth fluttering gracefully as I butcher everything I’ve ever cared about. She can’t accept gifts, can’t she? She can’t accept anything I’ve ever given her. Well, if she won’t be grateful for all I’ve done for her, then I’m going to make sure she’s never grateful again. Because she’ll have nothing to be grateful for. No more lavish clothes. No more phone. No more paper, pens, poetry, writing. She’ll have none of that. If ever I get into her mind again I’ll make sure she has nothing. This is what she gets for betraying me like this. If I can’t have her, no one can. And even if I can have her, I’ll be sure that she never knows anyone else, ever.

             A bridge. It’s a tall bridge, drifting over the sea. Ballard Bridge? I can’t tell from the angle, because I’m looking down towards the water. In my fury I realize that this is not me. It’s someone else, but who? The wind is calm, like today, and sunny. The weather is beautiful for this time of year in Seattle. Warm. The hands touch. Cold.

            The person’s eyes close, and a single face flashes before them.

            Samuel.

            Eyes open, and the person jumps, the water approaching fearlessly. Once submerged the water drags her down as she doesn’t even try. She doesn’t try to kick, to swim, to live, to anything. In her last moments I see Callahan’s face, in a contortion like I had never seen it before, and everything dilutes into the dark.

            Froid. Oh God, Jesus, Froid, what have I done?

I crumble onto the pile of clothes, my hands bloody from nicking them with the knife. I cry for the first time in a while, soiled, and truly alone.

            A few hours later Callahan comes home, mildly bruised but sopping wet. He limps his way across my carpet, drenching it with saltwater and flops onto the Ottoman. We hardly acknowledge each other; we’re both too exhausted. I’ll inquire about his current state, but first I try to look into his mind.

            He flashes back to when he was almost hit by a cab trying to run to Froid. The cab driver honked so loud that Callahan was discombobulated for a minute before dashing into the driver’s seat. Froid had disappeared again, and he drove out of Chinatown.

            After about a half hour he had come to the Ballard Bridge and saw someone jump off. He didn’t know whom, but in his valorous adrenaline rush he swam into the water to save a life.

            My vision is interrupted by something else. Samuel is in a dinky motel in Chinatown, screaming his guts out like I had been hours before. He spins around his room, destroying his poetry, ripping up his paper and breaking his charcoal in half. He sits, as I had, in a crumpled mess of black and paper, paper cuts on his hands from where he writhed too close to corners.

            What’s going on? I’ve never seen my brother like this.

            And then he starts screaming words.

            “FROID! FROID! FROID!” He just screams her name over and over again. He doesn’t call her Ambrosia like he normally does; he calls her Froid, like I do in my mind, like everyone else does. Then, with his hands black with charcoal, he staggers out of his room towards a hospital.

            Now I jump out of my room and nearly tackle Callahan.

            “What happened? Where’s Froid? Why are you ruining my carpet?”

            Callahan blushes and scoots over to the tile of the kitchen, gingerly stepping over the extra pieces of Froid’s phone that weren’t there when they had left.

            “She… jumped.”

            “What?!” I try to sound as surprised as possible. It seems to be working with Callahan.

            “I lost track of her at lunch, and when I finally caught up to her, she… jumped off a bridge.”

            I pick Callahan up by the collar of his shirt, bringing him so close to me that I can smell his sweat mixing with the saltwater.

            “How?! How did this happen? How could you lose sight of her like that?”

            “She disappeared in seconds!” He protests. I know he’s telling the truth, but I need to keep being upset.

            I push him back on to the ground. He winces as he hits a bruise that was made maybe an hour ago. We sit in the silence for a moment.

            “When did she jump?” I ask.

            Callahan looks at his watch. “Not two hours ago,” he replies.

            “Then where have you been since then?”

            “The… hospital.”

            Aside from his bruises, he clearly had some more serious injuries. I see gauze on his elbows under his shirt, bandages bulging under his jeans where he probably scraped up his knees.

            “You… jumped in after her?” I ask incredulously.

            Callahan looks irritated. “Of course I did! What, you think I can’t swim or something?”

            He’s so offended by my disbelief that I have to take his word for it. I nod. “I understand. That’s probably how you got so beat up.”

            Callahan half-grins sheepishly. “My diving formation was off. I basically flipped a time and a half and landed on my knees.”

            The replay of it happens in Callahan’s head. I laugh at it.

            “Which hospital is she at?”

            “The University’s Medical Center. There’s… inpatient treatment there too for her. It seems that since this was a suicide attempt that she’s going to be there for a bit.”

            I understand. She’ll be away from me, but I’ll still be able to visit her. And she won’t be going anywhere.

            Callahan looks like he’s in much worse condition than Froid. She hardly seems touched, sitting upright on the hospital bed, scowling that she’s still alive. Callahan holds her hand but she looks at him in annoyance.

            “Thanks for nothing,” she growls.

            Callahan says nothing and pats her hand.

            I had tried hugging her when we first saw her, but she had been combative. She didn’t want me to even hug her. There was a different fire in her now. What was once apathy had been consumed with anger and regret.

            It’s unclear whether she regretted her life in general or regretted not dying. I think it’s both. I feel acquiesced to know that as much as she seemingly hates me right now, she hates Callahan even more.

            A nurse comes in and tells me, her legal-ish guardian, treatment plans available for her. Given the circumstances, inpatient treatment was almost necessary; the only question was for how long. Even at the shortest plan, she would still be missing the first couple weeks of the winter quarter. I assure the nurse that I will be in close proximity for as long as she needs me. I forcefully hold Froid’s hand. She hates it. With Callahan holding one hand and me the other, she feels trapped. It isn’t long before she pulls both of her hands out from under our grasps and tucks them akimbo on her hospital gown.

            As if her air doesn’t need any more animosity, an even more unwelcome figure comes trudging into the room.

            Samuel. Well, some pathetic self-reproaching son of a bitch masquerading as Samuel.

            I’ve never seen my brother like this, but I can’t say I dislike it. He’s finally showing regret for everything he’s ever done or felt. He’s regretting everything from Froid at once. His eyes are wide, pupils dilated in mania, magnifying Froid in his vision so that she is the only thing he sees. His vision is blurry because he doesn’t blink, but then his eyes water and everything is double: two Froids, two Callahans, two me’s, as is all he’s currently feeling.

            And then Samuel starts crying and ripping out chunks of hair. I can’t believe it. I don’t know whether to kick him while he’s down or pity him. Callahan is as bewildered as I am and lets go of Froid’s hand to pat Samuel’s shoulder. In wild, animalistic reaction Samuel recoils at Callahan’s empathetic touch.

            “What… are you doing?” he blubbers.

            Callahan picks Samuel up off the floor and looks into his eyes. Samuel won’t look at him though. He keeps looking over at Froid, glaring into space, hating it for simply existing.

            And then Samuel snaps again. He collapses to the ground, taking Callahan with him and writhes his way over to Froid. Froid looks at him in disgust, but for the first time since my arrival she looks scared, like she has something to lose. Her contempt begins to crack, and slowly she dissolves into a similar vein of hysteria as Samuel.

            And so, I watch as my stoic, inhuman brother and the lovely gentle girl that he made like himself both descend into incapacitation. They’re making Callahan look composed and godlike. Callahan looks at me. In a stroke of something resembling compassion I call for a nurse. One comes by a few moments later, sees that she now has two patients, and calls for some backup.

            A large, burly man picks Samuel up by the armpits. Samuel doesn’t fight him. He goes limp as soon as he doesn’t have to support his own weight.

            “Do you know this man?” the nurse asks Callahan and me, shaking Samuel’s carcass-like body in front of us.

            We both nod as he sets Samuel down on a chair and takes his blood pressure and pulse. Not surprisingly the former is low and the latter his dangerously high.

            “He’s my brother,” I reply as Samuel twitches at the touch of the nurse ripping the band off of his arm. “He’s been in Seattle for a couple of days but has been very stressed out. He did a poetry reading at the University-”

            “Wait, is he Samuel Taylor Coldridge? The Samuel Taylor Coldridge?” The nurse is suddenly much less professional as she ogles at her impromptu patient.

            “Oh, Mr. Coldridge! It’s such an honor to meet you… Though not like this. I’m sorry I couldn’t go to the-”

            “I say a messy tress of less

            Supports rapport of brazen

            Raisins in the days…”

            I’ve never heard this poem of Samuel’s, but I can imagine why. He sounds like a lunatic. He’s probably making it up on the spot.

            The nurse stares at him in wonderment like she’s receiving some gospel. Callahan is a mixture of concerned and enamored with the verse. Froid bites at her hangnails systematically. I just can’t take my brother seriously at this point. He’s not making art. He’s hardly cognizant. His blood pressure clearly drops again and he slumps over on the adjoining chairs.

            “Do you think you can move him to a separate room?” I ask the nurses.

            They are more than happy to comply for the sake of him. Another nurse brings in a wheelchair and they set him down in it and take him out of sight.

        The three of us are left in silence again. Froid closes her eyes, trying to remove herself from the scene. Callahan has taken her hand again in cynical avarice. I talk to a nurse when she returns about the condition of my brother. Samuel has suffered some sort of nervous breakdown at the sight of Froid in the hospital. I can’t imagine why, though. Taken out of the context, Froid looks unscathed whereas Callahan looks like he fell off a building. I suppose the context is everything.

        I stand up and walk over to Froid. “I’m so glad you’re okay,” I tell Froid since seeing her.

        She closes her eyes. “Go away.”

        I grab her hand and bring it up to my face.

        “Drop it.”

        Callahan and I look at each other. Who is she talking to?

        “I want to be alone.” She opens her eyes and glares at both of us. “Want me to feel better? Leave.”

            Callahan takes it better than I do. He nods and passively leaves, while I’m stuck standing there, trying to reason anything that has happened today. I’m still holding Froid’s hand and she’s still glaring at me.

            “Leave,” she repeated.

            I keep my hand over hers. I’m not going to give up on her. Callahan left, Samuel’s been dragged off, but I haven’t. I hold her hand against my cheek. Cold. But it stops feeling cold after a while. I touch her hand with my other one. Still cold.

            “Leave.”

            She keeps saying the word as if it will make me move.

            “Make me,” I whisper. I admit that it’s childish and that it probably will not work.

            But then, I see something. She closes her eyes and I see my face from a few minutes ago, as I was looking at her, my determination. She opens her eyes again.

            “Luke,” she whispers.

            I come closer to her and move her hand to my lips.

            “Help me.”

            Her eyes glisten with sincerity. She floods my mind with hers, everything that’s happened to her since Seattle. Watching Samuel collapse in front of her, waking up in my apartment, eating curry, burning the letter that Samuel gave her, jumping off the bridge, waking up in the hospital.

            I smile warmly at her. “Of course.”

            She smiles back at me and rests her palm on my cheek. It’s warmer now. Froid. You’re not so cold now.