8 Years

Deathcab AND Stars are playing today in downtown T.O. and I'm sure it's fucking amazing. But I won't be there. There's too much at stake this weekend.

***

I'm in my living room, staring mindlessly out the window. The day is beautiful - there's sunlight, birds singing, not a cloud in sight - but there's nothing the weather can do to chase away the shadows inside. I sigh, turning away from the outside, and close my eyes for a few seconds.

A loud crack breaks the silence, snapping my eyelids open. At first, the source of the noise isn't apparent, but as I look around, my own reflection catches my eye in the glass. A long gash runs up the side of my face, from temple to jawline, reflected with shuddering detail in the windowpanes.

I reach up with a shaking hand and run my finger along the gap. There's no blood, but as my fingertip touches the crack, it quickly propagates across my face. Within seconds, my reflection is scored with jagged lines, as if my body is falling apart. I hold my breath, and I can hear my heart pounding underneath my shirt. I'm afraid to move.

I gasp, a tiny intake of air, but that's all it takes. Pieces of my skin start falling away - not down, as dictated by gravity, but up, towards the ceiling. Like wallpaper and sand, my body erases itself, and I watch my reflection in horror as something moves under my rapidly dissolving skin.

And it's not just me. The yellow paint on the wall cracks and turns to dust, and a dusty shade of pink appears underneath, a pink I recognize. My heart seizes. Not now. Not this. Like ashes blown by a chill wind, the room begins to erode.

I look at my reflection again. There's something underneath my skin. With trembling fingers I brush the pieces away from my face, unveiling whatever is hiding below. At first I don't understand what I'm seeing, but as the face of a 12-year-old boy is uncovered, I almost scream.

It's me. I look at myself in the window's cold reflection, a version of me from 8 years in the past. I press my fingertips against the glass and my mirror image does the same. The room is still changing around me - furniture is rearranged, paint flies away, decorations resort themselves. It's like being in a time machine, except I know exactly where I'm going, and I don't want to.

Everything stops. I'm breathing heavily, looking at my small hands in disbelief. My reflection stares back at me, wide-eyed and grim-faced. The room is pink, dusty, and unorganized, exactly as I remember it. Everything is the way it was that day. 8 years.

I hear footsteps, and I look up. My heart stops because I know what's coming, I know exactly what's coming, and it's going to be the hardest thing to endure. I close my eyes and still my trembling fingers. I need to be strong. That's what they all said. I need to be strong.

My mother walks in, and my sister follows. I forgot that she had that ridiculous haircut, but she didn't have much reason to style it. My sister, 9 years old, is a far cry from the 16-year-old she is today. But she looks exactly as I remember back then. She's shaking, and she sits down next to me. My mother puts herself into the armchair across, visibly trying to conceal her emotions. Like me, she needs to be strong. She has to be.

I know what's coming, but I'm unable to stop it. I clench my fists, breathing in short gasps, repeating my mantra: I need to be strong. I need to be strong. IneedtobestrongIneedtobestrongIneedtobestrong...

Then my mother says the three words that will, over the next 8 years, doom me to a half-life, a partly meaningless existence, with a broken heart and broken mind. "He is gone."

I remember screaming, but reliving it is terrifying. The shriek that comes out of my mouth is inhuman. I didn't even think a person could make such a sound and still live. I scream and scream until my voice grows hoarse and my body collapses, until I almost pass out. My eyes are closed because I don't want to see the truth. The sound of my voice alone should have been enough to drag a soul back from the grave, but it isn't. I fall back, breathing, crying, sobbing. Part of me has just died.

When I open my eyes, I'm sitting on the couch again. The room is yellow, the couches are clean, the day is bright. My reflection looks back at me, the 20-year-old with a vacant stare and sweat dotting his forehead. My cheeks are wet with tears and I raise my hand to them, cold and shaking. 8 years. Never gets any easier to live through. Welcome to my Nightmare, I whisper to myself, bitterly.

No, I'm not going out today. He'll never be there to see me graduate. Never be there to see me get married. He'll never meet his grandchildren, never teach them what he taught me so long ago. He'll never whisper in my ear again. Never see the man I've become.

Are you proud of me daddy? It hurts so much.