33
Susie
My parents were gone for a weekend trip visiting my aunt. I came up with some excuse still needing to study so I could stay home, I had no idea why they bought it. I spun some lie about extra credit, just those last few points I needed to get my A in Histroy to an A plus and really solidify that 4.0 GPA they were so proud of. I hate to admit, but after seeing what we had all seen, lying was becoming easy to me. It was becoming easy to say I was staying at Gwen’s house every weekend when we went somewhere Else. Gwen was my best friend, at least was my best friend who didn’t know about somewhere else. Lucky for me, lucky for all of us really, that not once did they have doubts about what a teenage girl could get up too when she had free reign to leave home for a weekend doing god knows what. I’m surprised they didn’t think I was spending time with a boy, maybe some college guy with a trust fund, his own apartment, and enough charm to lure some toothless high school girl into his clutches. I would never fall to such pathetic charms, but I was spending time with a boy, I was spending time with Cody. I spent a lot of time with Cody, I gave my- no, you know what happened. If it’s been not outright said in this piece, I’m sure you can assume what two teenagers got up too at a party out of the watchful eyes of adults and chaperones. Don’t go thinking it’s a moment I want to relive. All I’ll say is that as enjoyable and right as it felt in the moment, I hate that the situation created for us makes that the time I’ll always look back on as the first time- no, it doesn’t bother me. I keep wanting it to bother me, I keep wanting to say the choice I made was wrong. But damn, in that moment it felt so right. I wanted it, even before I got drunk enough to work up the courage to instigate it, I wanted it.
Damn it why can’t I stop thinking about this right now! That’s not what I want to talk about. Give me a moment, let me collect myself.
So, I texted Cody and Brad that three of us had to talk, we needed to talk without Christian. I tried to emphasize my texts with the kind of tone a scolding mother has when she puts on her serious face and tells her boys that they need to have a serious discussion about their behavior. If my parents knew I had spent my weekend alone inviting not one, but two boys from school over, they would have flipped. But we weren’t going to have any fun today. As much as I’m sure Cody kept thinking about fun he could have with me, after marking me, after knowing what I was willing to give him. I knew that he knew no such nonsense like that would be happening between us anytime soon, or ever again for that matter.
God damn you Christian. Without you, we could have finished our high school lives without a care in the world. Cody could have become an insurance salesmen, and I could have become a dental hygienist or a physical therapist or some other such bullshit and we could go to office parties and Christmas parties and entertain people with laughter when we told them, “Well, we were high school sweethearts, we visited each other while we were at college, we dated for a while, then separated for a bit, but then we found each other again and we just knew it was meant to be,” god damn you for stealing that from us Christian. Know that for that I will curse your name for that until the day I die.
Enough of longings for things impossible now.
Enough being angry.
I’ve been angry at him for so long. What makes it worse is that it’s not the kind of anger that can actually be productive. It’s not the kind of anger that can actually make you get off your ass and do something. It’s just that most terrible kind of anger that bubbles in your heart and gut, the kind of anger that makes you want to scream into your pillow and scream into nothingness. Some of my alleged friends at the D.A.’s office can sense I carry some kind of emotional baggage. They don’t know I carry a secret, but they know that I carry something. Damn it, I can’t even talk about this with anybody. It’s probably why I bury myself in my work so much.
It was only by the gold Christian’s world gave me I was even able to afford Law School. Afford leaving Law School with no debt at least. Thanks to the gold, that sinner’s gold I acquired somewhere else, I basically had a free ride. tuition, room, board, even books, I paid for it all with what I had acquired somewhere else. I ended up using all of it in my academic career. I don’t have any gold left. Brad always said he would just horde his away and let it keep building in value, Cody said that he we would go to a cheap college and just get his degree while keeping the coins as his nest egg for retirement. I’m glad I spent them all, I’m glad that every tie I had to Somewhere else is gone now. I’m my own woman, I have my own career, and I make a lot of money in this world, the real world. I am 32, I am unmarried, and I am childless. I don’t know if it’s the intimidation of my position, the intimidation about the amount of money I make, or the sense that the men who’ve been brave enough to court me have when they realize I’m a woman carrying a secret strong enough to send them away from me. This is my life. I bring men misguided to justice. Christian was a man misguided from justice. God damn, if I could just get a minute in a courtroom with him, if I could show any jury all the fucked-up shit he had done, make my case in a fair and balanced world, I could bring the hammer of the law down on him with a force unthinkable. The charges I could bring against him, never mind the murder he committed, with what he did next, I could bring so many more.
In my career I’ve found I have this insatiable lust to put murderers in jail, put rapist in jail. And put them in jail is what I do. I’ve seen cases that seemed lost causes to let men doing what men are wanting to do, men about to get away with something terrifying, something horrible. I stay late, sometimes I disregard sleep and just have a power nap in the office. I bring everything I have against them. I condemn people who’ve done wrong in this world, the real world. It gives me the only solace I can find after seeing Christian prove to me what men are capable of when they’re in the throwes of passion.
When Cody and Brad arrived, I let them in and told them we all needed to sit at the kitchen table. So many serious discussions my family had happened at this kitchen table. Maybe it was instinct that told me that this particular serious conversation should happen at that kitchen table as well.
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“So, Susie, umm, what are you doing for graduation?” Cody asked, smiling nervously. Maybe he was trying to break the tension, maybe he wanted to pretend we weren’t here to talk about what we were going to talk about.
“I know this is kind of serious,” Brad said, “None of us did anything wrong, we didn’t know anything wrong was going to happen,” he said, “It’s not our fault,” he said trying to reassure us.
“Christian needs to stop,” I said, “Do either of you know where he is right now? Because my guess is that he’s probably Somewhere Else,” I knew he was Somewhere Else, I knew he was so enveloped in that fantasy world.
“I called him earlier,” Cody said, “He actually answered, His parents are away for the weekend too, he told me he’s spending the weekend home alone, with a case of beer, he’s not going back. He’s not going back this weekend at least,” Cody shrugged his shoulders, “Susie, this weighs on him too, think about what he’s going through, what doing that can do to a person,”
“Don’t!” I raised my hand and put it to Cody’s face, “What he did was wrong, it may have been the right thing to do Somewhere Else, but it was only right Somewhere Else, we’re talking about the real world, how can a man who does something like that even function here,” she said, “If he can do what he did and still pretend he can have a normal life in the real world, knowing he killed someone from the real world, he’s a psychopath,” I said. I know that things were complicated, part of me knew that Christian didn’t see an option and saw what he did as the only way to save a world he loved too much. But he still killed another person, killed her in cold blood. She was offering him everything I thought a man like Christian would want and he still killed her.
“He’s not a psycho,” Cody gritted his teeth and defended that monster, “He’s just, he’s fucked up, okay? I know it,” Cody looked to Brad then looked back to me, “We all know he’s fucked up, look at what he’s dealt with his entire life, we never went through the pain he has, it would fuck anyone up, we can’t blame him,” Cody said, “That world is everything to him, he didn’t see another option, he told me so himself,” Cody looked away from us. Even now, even after seeing the true madness Christian was capable of, he still felt the need to defend him. Was it really all for a ninety-four on a high school English test? Was that worth it in the grand scheme of things, worth taking another person’s life?
“Cody,” I turned to him, my lips quivered, I could feel them quiver, “He killed someone,” I said.
“I know,” Cody banged his fist on the table. I thought for a moment he was as angry at Christian as I was for the mess he had subjected us to. “I know, but he didn’t kill someone innocent, we all heard the stories, Morgan had killed hundreds of people, she showed no sign of stopping. I know that world isn’t as real to us as it is to him, but that world is real to him, those people are real to him. Morgan was killing those people he held so close, and he made a terrible decision. You weren’t the one he grabbed after he did it, you can’t understand the emotions he poured out to me. It weighs on him, the fact that he’s here getting drunk at home alone is enough proof he’s having a breakdown, we need to support him,” Cody said.
“There’s your pity again, Cody, he murdered someone, how many times do I have to say it, he murdered somebody, somebody real,” I said.
“What are we supposed to do?” Cody asked, “Should we have just let Morgan keep destroying that world, you saw what she was capable of, the power she had. If Christian didn’t do what he did she would have curb stomped us. Hell, she probably would have killed us there and then if we didn’t take her offer to join her,” Cody said.
I closed my eyes. Why, why defend this monster? I thought. Cody’s pity and empathy knew no bounds it seemed.
“What’s done is done,” I looked up, opened my eyes, and looked to Cody and Brad, “Nothing can change it, nothing can change what we saw,” I collected myself. Part of me knew that we would have to have this conversation eventually. At least a part of me that looks back and sees all the red flags Christian was throwing up with reckless abandon. “Christian needs to stop, we all need to stop. It was fun for a while, it was fun children had until it became, not that,” I said. “We need to sit down with him, and drill it into his head that Somewhere Else won’t lead to anything good for us,” Susie said, “He’s spent more time there than any of us, we all may have been able to enjoy a quick romp there, but he’s become obsessed, and if we really are his friends, if we really are people who care about him, we need to stop him,” I said.
“What are you suggesting, how can we even do that?” Cody asked.
“An intervention,” I said, “We’ve all seen the effects Somewhere Else can have on someone,” I looked to Brad, and then I looked to Cody, quickly looking away the minute our eyes made contact and we simultaneously remembered the fun Somewhere Else can give you. “It’s one thing to visit on weekends and make a few grand in coins, but Christian is obsessed with that world, we all heard what he said,” I took a deep breath, raised my shoulders and spoke in a commanding voice, “I just want to live in it, that’s what he said. We need to convince him he’s wrong,” I said, “We are just four teenagers living in this world, we have to make him stop, we’re his friends,” I shudder at the thought of ever calling Christian a friend, “He’s an addict, with all the wants and weaknesses an addict has, he needs help,” I looked to them, desperately hoping that my case was strong.
“He does need help,” Brad said, “That was fucked, what he did, and I saw him do it, he was cold when he did it, I think…I think he wanted to do it,”
“He didn’t want to do it, he cried in my arms for god’s sake, doing that broke him, he-” Cody shook his head, I could see he was coming around to the point I was trying to make, “He needs help,” Cody looked down, defeated. No longer could he defend him. Sure, he could defend him for an awkward faux-paux at a party, he could defend him for being a weird and deranged outcast, he could defend him for wanting to escape Somewhere Else during a school day, but even he knew he couldn’t defend him for this.
“We bring him to a safe space,” I said, I had seen more than a few episodes of some reality shows about giving someone an intervention. “We just sit him down and have a conversation, a real conversation, about how Somewhere Else is killing him. And it is,” I said looking at the two boys, “It’s killing him, I think he’s teetering on an edge, ready to give up our world to just live his days in fantasy land, we can’t let him do that,” I said. “We’re probably the only people on this side of the lake that he trusts, the only people he’ll listen too, it’s up to us. We can’t let him just waste his life over there,” I said. “We’ve seen what happens when people from our world think they can make a life there, we saw what Morgan did after she abandoned this world, if we don’t stop Christian now, he could become as bad as she was, maybe even worse,” I took a deep breath. Cody and Brad both agreed with me.
We would take a day off school, the three of us were careful with our absences and we could all afford it. We would have a sit down with Christian and convince him that the best course of action to ensure the sanctity of the world we had so much fun in, now that Morgan was defeated, was to never interfere with it again. To just, let it be.
