Light knocking drags me up out of unconsciousness like someone’s fishing for a body at the bottom of a lake.
My eyes crack open, and everything hurts in that specific way that means I got maybe three hours of sleep. Which tracks. Alyssa and I were at it until the sun started coming up.
I roll my head to the side.
She’s out cold. Completely gone, mouth slightly open, blonde hair fanned across the pillow in a chaotic halo. The clown makeup she had on is smeared into the sheets like a crime scene. White and red and blue all blended together.
She looks small. Soft. Like whatever engine usually runs underneath her skin, that furious, desperate, all-consuming thing, finally shut off long enough for her to just exist as a person sleeping in a bed.
I smile. I can’t help it. She looks so cute like this. Peaceful in a way I don’t get to see often.
The knocking comes again. Same soft, patient rhythm.
I drag myself upright, joints protesting, and grab yesterday’s shirt off the floor along with a pair of pants. I pull them on, glancing back at Alyssa one more time before I leave the room. She doesn’t stir.
“How is it that my door has become South Station,” I mutter to no one, padding barefoot through the wreckage of my living room. Books still scattered from her last episode. Couch cushions still crooked. I step over a shard of what used to be a plate and make a mental note, for the fortieth time, to actually clean this place before I forget where the floor is entirely.
I unlock the deadbolt, already bracing myself for Sun Wei’s flat stare or Lu’s silent bulk filling up my doorway. Maybe they want another folder delivered. Maybe Alyssa slacked off again and I’m collateral for round two of hostage Uno.
I pull the door open, ready for it.
It’s Josh.
He’s standing there with his hands shoved in his pockets, rocking slightly on his heels, wearing that easy half-smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes this early in the morning.
My brain catches up a half second later than it should, and when it does, something cold drops through my stomach.
“Fuck,” I say, mostly to myself.
The monthly meeting. The one for people with active suicidal ideations. The one Josh drags me to downtown, folding chairs and lukewarm coffee and a circle of people who all look like they’re carrying something too heavy for their bodies. I forgot, because as far as I’d planned it, I was supposed to be dead and gone by today.
Josh gives me a slow nod.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hey.”
He stands there a second too long.
“You ready to go?” he says finally.
I look down at myself. Yesterday’s shirt, no shoes, my hair probably doing something feral. God only knows how much white I have all over me. “Can I get like ten minutes?”
“Yeah, man.” He shrugs, easy, like he expected exactly this. “Came early just in case.”
“Thanks.”
I mean it more than the word carries. Because as much as I don’t want to walk into that fluorescent-lit room and sit in a circle and talk about the past with strangers who cry more than I do, Josh doesn’t deserve to get stood up. He doesn’t deserve the version of me that no-shows. He’s always been good to me.
“You can sit on the couch,” I say, stepping back to let him in.
He steps past me, and I watch his eyes travel across the wreckage.
“Caleb, what the hell happened here?”
Alyssa comes barreling out of the bedroom in a robe, hair wild, screaming loud enough to rattle the windows.
“WHAT SLUT IS HERE NOW?”
She skids to a stop when she sees Josh, and her whole face changes.
“Oh.” She pauses for a moment. “Fuck.”
The panic that flickers across her is almost fascinating to watch happen in real time.
“Josh, this is Alyssa,” I say, trying to get ahead of whatever’s about to detonate. “Alyssa, this is…”
“Yes.” She cuts me off, chin lifting, voice steadying into something almost regal. “I know who your best friend Josh is.”
I look at Josh. “You know her?”
“I have no idea who this is,” Josh says slowly. Then he looks at Alyssa and gives her his patented anxious smile. “Nice to meet you, though.”
He’s studying her. I can see it in the way his eyes track her hands, her posture, the door behind her like he’s doing math.
Alyssa turns to me, and her voice drops, quieter, almost defensive. “This isn’t like with your sister. I never approached him.”
“Oh.” Something in my chest loosens, just slightly. “Good.”
She doesn’t move, doesn’t blink, just stares at Josh with this strange, deliberate calm stretched over her face like a mask.
“It’s nice to finally meet Caleb’s best friend.”
The way she says finally sends something cold straight down my spine. For the first time since I met her, I feel actual fear, not for me, but for him standing three feet away in my destroyed living room with absolutely no idea what he just walked into.
I move toward her slowly, hands loose at my sides. I whisper so only she can hear me. “Please don’t hurt…”
“I know.” Her own whisper cuts through me before I can even finish. “I know exactly where your lines are drawn, Caleb.”
There’s a tremor underneath it. Small. Almost imperceptible. Like she’s just as nervous as I am, just better at hiding it.
“Caleb, what happened to your apartment?” Josh asks again.
Alyssa’s breathing picks up next to me, sharp little inhales that she’s clearly trying to keep quiet and failing.
“Uhhh.” I look at her. She’s already gone pale under whatever’s left of last night’s paint. I look back at Josh. “I got mad and started throwing stuff.”
Josh’s eyebrows climb toward his hairline. “Really?”
“No.” Alyssa yelps. “I got mad. I went through his porn history and I started throwing stuff.” She pauses and thinks for a moment. “Actually, what happened is I went through his porn history first, and I realized my husband has a massive clown girl fetish, so I painted myself into a clown, and then while I was waiting for him to get home I got so angry thinking about him jerking off to a bunch of disgusting whores that I just, I couldn’t help myself.”
Josh blinks. “Husband?”
Alyssa’s whole face goes red. “FUCKING GOD DAMN IT!”
She rounds on me first, then catches herself, spins back to Josh with something desperate flooding her eyes.
“Look, Josh, I wasn’t ready to meet you today, okay? This is off timeline.” Her fingers fly up to her mouth, teeth working at the edge of her thumbnail. “I’m losing control. I’m losing control. The narrative is slipping. What do I do, what do…”
I step in front of her, hands landing on her shoulders, steady, grounding.
“Alyssa. Hey. It’s alright, okay? Not everything has to be a narrative.” I keep my voice low, even, the way you’d talk someone off a ledge. “No matter what happens today, when I get home, I’ll still know we’re married. Okay?”
I have absolutely no idea if that’s true in any legal, verifiable sense. But she’s fun. She’s the most fun I’ve had being alive in years. So I offer it to her like a fact instead of a guess.
She collapses into me, arms locking around my ribs, face pressed into my chest. Her whole body shakes while she starts sobbing.
“You’re going out?” Her voice comes muffled against me.
“I promised Josh a long time ago I’d go to these meetings with him. Once a month.”
She sighs, long and shuddering. “I know. I forgot it was today.”
“So did I.”
She pulls back just enough to look up at me. “I really wasn’t ready to meet Josh today.”
“It’s fine.”
She nods slowly, wiping at her face with the sleeve of her robe. “When are you leaving?”
“Like ten minutes.”
“Okay.”
I feel surprised. “You’re not going to stop me?”
Her eyes flick past me, toward Josh, who’s standing very still by the couch pretending not to watch this entire exchange with the focus of a man doing complex arithmetic.
“I can’t stop Josh.”
“I see,” I say.
I have no idea why she’s decided Josh is some kind of arbitrary stopgap in whatever calculation is running behind her eyes, but I don’t ask. Whatever logic she’s using, it’s working in my favor right now, and I’m not about to poke at it.
“Josh, why don’t you go wait in your car? I’ll be right out.”
“Yeah, okay.” He glances at Alyssa one more time, like he’s trying to figure out if I’m safe in this room. Then he heads for the door.
The door clicks shut.
Alyssa’s whole body loosens the second he’s gone, shoulders dropping, breath easing out of her like she’s been holding it since he walked in. For about two seconds, she just looks relieved.
Then she doesn’t.
Her hand shoots out and grabs my collar, twisting the fabric tight, yanking me down to her level with a strength that always catches me off guard for someone her size.
“If he talks you into leaving me,” she says, low and even, no hint of a joke anywhere in it, “I’ll kill him.”
I don’t say anything. I just watch her face, the way her jaw sets, the way her eyes have gone flat and certain.
“I don’t care what happens after. If I can’t have you, I will ruin every single good thing left in your life.” Her grip tightens on the fabric. “You don’t want that. So you’re going to defend me. You’re going to be a good boy for me. Right?”
I laugh a little under my breath, and lean in to kiss her before she can build any more momentum. It’s slow, deliberate, the kind of kiss meant to unravel something rather than start it. I feel her stiffen for half a second and then completely give way, her fingers loosening on my collar until she’s just holding onto me instead of threatening me.
“Alyssa,” I murmur against her mouth. “I’m not leaving you.”
Her eyes search mine, flicking back and forth like she’s trying to catch the lie hiding somewhere in there. She doesn’t find one because there is nothing to find.
She nuzzles into my jaw, breath shaky.
“You better fucking not.”