Nocte (The Nocte Trilogy #1)(6)
Author: Courtney Cole

Because of that, since they made me nauseous and didn’t work anyway, I added another chore to my to-do list the other day.  It was an easy one to cross off.

Stop taking pills

Don’t tell Calla or dad.

I picture my mental list in my head, with perfect clarity, because that level of focus tends to muffle the voices for a second.  My list is on white notebook paper, lined with blue, a pink line running vertically down the left side.  After I complete a task, I draw a mental line through it, crossing it out.  It makes me feel accomplished.

Without my list, I can’t get through the day.  It’s too hard to think without it, too hard to concentrate.  Without it, I can’t even appear normal.  Its compulsory for me at this point, just one more thing that makes me bat-shit crazy.

No one except Calla and my dad know how crazy I am.  And even they don’t know the extent of it.

Not all of it.

They don’t know how I wake up in the night, and have to force myself to stay in bed, because the voices tell me to throw myself from the cliffs.  To stop myself, I always dive into bed with Calla, because for whatever reason, she quiets the voices.  But she can’t be with me every minute.

She can’t be with me during the day when my fingers itch to scratch into my skin, to pull my fingernails out, to run down to the bottom of the mountain and scream as I hurl myself into traffic.

Why would I itch to do these things?

Because of the f**king voices.

They won’t shut up.

It’s getting to the point where I don’t know what’s real and not real anymore, and that scares the piss out of me.  It particularly scares the piss out of me because Calla and I will be separated soon.  She thinks we’re going to the same school, that I’ve consenting to going to Berkeley with her.  But I can’t.  I can’t suck her down with me. I’d be the worst person in the world if I did.

So soon, I’ll be at MIT and she’ll be at Berkeley, and then what will happen?

She’ll be fine, because she’s sane.  But what will happen to me?

As I come out of the therapy room, I bend and gulp a drink from the water fountain.  A few drops of icy water trail down my neck and instantly the voices react.

Scratch it off.

My hand is already on my throat before I realize what I’m doing.  Frustrated, I force my hand to my side.

I’m not going to hurt myself.

Jesus.

I have to stay sane.

Quickly, I find Calla curled up on her normal bench, staring into the distance.  I cover the ground between us in twelve long strides.

“Cal? You ready?”

She stares at me like I’m a stranger, before realization filters across her face and she smiles.

“You ok?”

Calla’s voice wraps around me like a blanket.

She keeps me sane.

It’s always been that way, maybe even in the womb, for all I know.  

Don’t let her know Don’t let her know Don’t let her know.

Don’t let her know.

I smile, a perfectly normal grin.

“Perfectus.”  Perfect.  “You ready?”

“Yep.”

We walk out of the hospital, into the afternoon sunlight and pile into the car.  I start the engine and steer the car from the parking lot with shaking hands.

Act normal

Calla turns to me, her green eyes joined to mine.  “You wanna talk about anything?”

I shake my head.  “Do I ever?”

She smiles.  “No.  But know that you can. If you want to.”

“I know.”  And I do.  

“Did you know that ancient Egyptians shaved off their eyebrows to mourn the death of their cats?”

I change the subject and Calla laughs, shoving her long red hair out of her eyes with slender fingers.  It’s our thing, these stupid death facts.  It’s my thing, really.  I don’t know why. I guess it’s from all the years of living in the stupid funeral home.  It’s my way of giving death the finger.  Plus, by focusing on death facts and learning Latin and making my stupid mental lists, it gives me something to focus on. Any time I focus hard on something, it staves off the voices.

Trust me, I’ll do anything for that.

“I didn’t. But thank God I know now,” Calla answers.  “What would you shave off for me if I died?”

I would plunge to the bottom of the ocean for you.  I’d comb it for shells and make you a necklace and then hang myself with it.  Because if you aren’t here, I don’t want to be either.

I can’t show her how panicky the mere thought makes me, so I shrug.  “Don’t give me the chance.”

She looks horrified, as she realizes what she said, so soon after mom died.

“I didn’t mean to….” She starts to say, then trails off.  “I’m sorry.  That was stupid.”

Calla and I are twins.  Our level of connection can’t be understood by those who don’t have it. I know what she means even when she doesn’t.   Her comment had come out before she remembered mom.  It sounds stupid, but sometimes, we can forget our loss for a second.  A blissful second.

“Don’t worry about it,” I tell her, as I turn onto the highway.

Fuck her. She has no right.

The voices are loud.

Too loud.

I close my eyes and squeeze them hard, trying not to hear.

But the voices are still there, still persistent.

She doesn’t deserve you.  Kill her you f**king pu**y kill her now.  Push her off the cliffs.  Lick her bones.  Lick her bones. Lick her bones.

I grip the steering wheel until my knuckles turn white, trying to force the voices away.

Lick her bones, suck her marrow, show her show her show her.

Today, the voices sound real, even though I know they aren’t.  They’re not my voice, they’re just masquerades, a scary mask, imposters.  They’re not real.

My voice is real.

Those voices are not. 

But it’s getting harder and harder to tell them apart.

4

QUATUOR

Calla

One thing about this mountain in the summertime, is that time seems to slow to almost a stand-still and days blend into each other.  Before I know it, one day bleeds into two, then three, before somehow, I find myself on Group Therapy duty again.

This time, however, I’m quick enough to call driving rights.  I ignore Finn’s indignant look as we get into the car, and I smile smugly at him (real, not fake) as I drive away from the house.