I examine the top of Oliver’s head. I touch him gently, careful not to come in contact with the blood. “He’s bleeding, but it doesn’t look like much,” I tell Clarisse. I hold my hand up to his nose and feel his faint breath, warm on my palm. “He’s out cold,” I say.
Clarisse watches me, in silence, tears staining her cheeks. She looks at me, then Oliver, then back to me, but she doesn’t say a word.
I peek out through the beach grass on one side and then the other. This stretch of the beach is deserted, for now. I see hotels in the distance, some of their rectangular windows lit up, others dark, some tourists awake and watching the water dance under moonlight, some already asleep in anticipation of tomorrow’s scene—beach umbrellas snapping open for the day, towels and blankets unfurling themselves in the sun, children running to the shoreline in inflatable arm bands. Water wings we used to call them, a phrase that brings to mind flying fish, those nearly impossible creatures that fly in and out of the water, living in two worlds at once. I see the empty playground—the swings swaying like ghosts in the breeze, the tubular slide twisted like a large varicose vein.
I grab Oliver’s feet and drag him until I hit the concrete of the concession stand. This is the easy part. His body glides over the cool sand, making a heavy brushing sound. Now I need Clarisse’s help.
“You grab his ankles,” I tell her, my voice quiet but firm. She does as she’s told. I walk to the other end of Oliver’s body and clench my arms tight under his armpits and we lift him up, barely able to keep him from grazing the cement. Our steps are shaky in the beginning but become steadier with adrenaline as we approach the public restroom at the concession stand.
At first, I worry it will be locked after dark. I push the silver plate on the door expecting to be met with resistance, but instead I feel the sweet release of motion and hear the high-pitched squeak of the rusty hinge as the door opens, scraping the cement floor. Now we’re inside, the three of us.
I prop Oliver up in a sitting position in the corner of one of the two stalls. He is a life-size doll, a mannequin with bendable limbs, his legs placed in a V to keep him upright, a sturdy base for his limp body. He probably weighs as much as all of me plus half of Clarisse, and we’re sweaty and sticky from the exertion of moving him.
There is no electricity inside the beachside restroom, just a skylight to illuminate the space, our slick skin cast in bluish white, like milk. The floor is dirty, scattered with scraps of brown paper towels, a few flattened cigarette butts, an empty soda can that has been crushed by someone’s hand.
I kneel down, untie Clarisse’s T-shirt from the back of Oliver’s head, and instead tie it around his open mouth. I don’t want him to scream when I wake him up. Still kneeling, I start patting his cheek with my hand, lightly at first, working up my nerve to slap him hard. The sound of my palm on his cheek makes an echo against the hard walls, punctuated by the drip from the faucet. Smack, ping, smack, ping. Everything sounds wet in here, even Clarisse’s breathing. Quick and open-mouthed, I can feel her working to slow down her heaving lungs until she’s in sync with the sound of the water droplets that disappear down the drain.
I whisper-scream into Oliver’s ear as loudly as I think I can without anyone outside the room hearing me. “Wake up! Wake up!” I slap his face on both sides now, alternating each time. Ten slaps, fifteen slaps, and his eyelids begin to flutter. He tries to move his mouth for a second but then realizes he’s been gagged. His eyelids open, then close, then open again, and each time I can see his eyes are rolled back into his head, the light picking up the whites of his eyes, the absence of iris and pupil.
I grab one of Oliver’s hands and make him slap himself with it. His hand is heavy in my hand at first but gets lighter and lighter as he regains consciousness, his muscles slowly taking control. He tries to stand up, but his legs fumble and collapse beneath the weight of his body, a newborn foal trying to walk. He whimpers through the T-shirt, tears pooling at the edges of his eyes—wide eyes, as though his eyelids are suspended from invisible wire or fishing line so fine it looks like nothing at all. I wish I could remember what color his eyes are, but there isn’t enough light, and I can’t recall what it was like earlier, at sunset, when I looked into his face and I smiled up at him and he smiled down at me, the horizon full of color, streaks of pink and red and orange in the sky.
“What the fuck, Evelyn? Why are you doing this?” Clarisse asks, finally finding a way to make sound. I stand up, turning around to face her. She looks small, a little girl shivering in the night. She hugs her arms to her chest. She doesn’t look me in the eye.
I walk toward her slowly, my movements delicate, as if I’m approaching a frightened animal in the wild.
“Evelyn, tell me what the fuck is going on right now,” Clarisse says. Her voice is ragged with sobs. She inches away from me until her back is against the wall. She puts her hand on the door handle.
I smile at her but she doesn’t smile back. I reach for her, grazing her shoulder with my fingertips. She grips the door handle tighter. “Oh, don’t leave now, honey,” I say. “You’ll miss all the fun.” The door scrapes the cement floor as she flings it open and runs out into the darkness.
I add to The Catalog of Everything I’ve Done Wrong: made Clarisse run away from me.
I sit down on top of Oliver, straddling him, my face so close to his our noses are almost touching. I place my hands on his shoulders and I look into his terrified eyes, but I see nothing but myself. He cries a small sniffling cry. “There, there,” I say, smoothing his hair with my fingers and then embracing him, my arms around his neck, which is drenched in sweat and streaked with blood.
“This will be easy, if you want it to be,” I tell Oliver. “I promise.” It feels so natural now, this way of thinking, this way of speaking. It’s familiar.
I don’t have to consider consequences because nothing matters anymore, and it feels so right. The world is a black hole. It’s been this way all along, but I’m finally realizing it now. Someone once tricked me into thinking that there’s both darkness and light in this world, but I can see clearly now, can make out the horizon for what it truly is—pitch black and swallowing me whole. I’ve been melted and poured into a mold. My father is the maker, and he has cast me in his shape.
I bite Oliver’s earlobe, gently at first, tasting the sweat and sand, and then as hard as I can, tasting his blood, warm and metallic. He screams, but it’s muffled. “Oh, you have something to say?” I ask. I untie the T-shirt and let it fall away.
Oliver tries to speak, his mouth opening and closing silently like a fish, his shallow breath piercing the air with sound. He tries to keep his eyes open, but it’s becoming more difficult. His head falls toward his shoulder; he’s losing consciousness again.
Then I feel it inside—the switch flipped, the machinery engaged, the blood coursing and coursing through me like a pulse. I close my eyes.
What comes next is primal. I’m split open and raw. I think for a moment that I should run away and never come back, but then I realize that that’s impossible, for I already know my fortune. It’s written in stardust, in prison logs, in letters I’ll never send, in sediment patterns on the ocean floor, in lines on the warm flesh of my palms.
I open my eyes. Now comes the fire, flames fanned and devouring all the oxygen in the room. It’s getting difficult to breathe, but don’t worry—it’s almost over now. I promise.