Readjustment (Restitution #2)

17

Adam Dawson

It was four a.m., and I was wide awake.

Slivers of moonlight peeked through the blinds and onto the comforter bunched at my waist. The motor in the fan competed with the click of the blades. I counted the ticks, but never got past ten before my thoughts returned to last night.

The fight with Caleb. The devastation in his face when he saw me with Josh.

Josh’s threats as he walked out.

Caleb drinking again.

I picked my phone up off the comforter. No messages, no calls and no hope waiting for me beyond these four walls. No genie at the bottom of the bottle of Jack I’d finished when I got back to my apartment. It got me drunk, but it didn’t make the world disappear like it used to. Nothing could do that for me anymore. Not even the solace of sleep. I’d taken my last two pills hours ago, and I hadn’t so much as yawned.

I stared at the wall as the night played out in vivid detail. There was no coming back from this. I’d ignored every chance I had to save myself, and now the last of my will to live slipped through my fingers, and I’d never been so ready. The idea of letting death carry me away washed over me like a warm blanket.

No reason to delay the inevitable. I’d exhausted every option, hurt anyone who dared to save me, and still came out of it as a monster.

And the only way to stop a monster, was to kill it.

Decision made; I felt strangely at peace. I’d never been so light-footed as I padded to the dresser, grabbed a hoodie, and wrestled it over my head. I could already feel the wind in my hair as I tumbled off the roof and onto the concrete. No more pain. No more guilt. Just the sweet relief of concrete bringing it all to an end.

I should write a letter. My parents deserved to know it was my decisions that made me this way. Not them. No, that’d only hurt more . I abandoned the idea, slid on my Crocs, and was prepared to walk out into the hall when the idea of some poor kid finding me in a pool of blood stopped me. I’d traumatized enough people while I was alive; I didn’t need to in death.

Think, Adam. Think.

Just then, all that whisky hit me, and my world tilted. The carpet was spongy under my feet, and I stumbled into the closet. The doors came off track, and I steadied myself on the back wall, right next to my Glock .22 in its holster. That’ll work . I pulled it down, slid in the magazine, then sat on the edge of the bed. Among the chorus of voices in my head, one screamed for me to stop, but I had to do this. It was the only way to keep me from hurting anyone else. Like I’d hurt Caleb. And Perry. And even Josh. Because I was so fucking tired of the guilt, shame and lies. I couldn’t keep hoping it’d change, only to see things get worse.

I pulled back the slide and the click of a chamber racking made my heart skip a beat. I’d been a cop for more than ten years, but my gun never felt this heavy. My arm shook as I held the muzzle to my temple, fingers outside the trigger guard. The metal was like an ice cube against my scorching skin. My hand shook, like the rest of me, and I struggled to keep it still.

Coward. The gun fell away. With a shaky breath, I forced it back against my skull. Tears squeezed from my clenched eyes as I slid a finger off the guard and onto the trigger. I held the hub steady for a moment, let it fall, then tried one more time before my arm fell to my side. You’re such a fucking coward. You have to do this; it’s the only way to find peace. You’re headed to an early grave anyway, so why not now? Why prolong the agony? I just had to get the gun back to my head and…

The room went black, and I had the faint sensation of falling until a voice called my name.

“Adam?”

Panic squeezed the muscles around my spine as I looked up at the ceiling. The lights from the parking lot cast a glow, and the world was eerily quiet. Then the voice called my name again.

“Hey, Adam?”

No.

No. It can’t be…

I sat up to find Perry, or well, the ghost of him, sitting at the end of the bed. He was just as I remembered him. Shaggy hair still hung down to his thick eyebrows, and he was wearing his favorite blue Etnies, jeans and the oversized Nirvana (the naked baby album) shirt I’d last seen him wearing.

“Jesus!” My vision blurred as I shifted away and almost spilled onto the floor.

“Whoa, take it easy.” Perry grabbed my arm, and the touch was too human to be true.

“Am I…” I pressed my palms to my clammy, bristly face. “Am I dead?”

“No,” he shook his head, “you just blacked out.”

“How are you here?” I asked. “I don’t understand.”

“You needed me.” Perry shrugged and scooted closer to me. He looked around the room, then looked back. “What’s all this about, Adam?”

“I just…” I glanced at his fingers; throat so tight I thought I might choke. “… everything has been wrong since you died.”

“What’s everything?” He asked.

“Everything!” I cried. “I tried to keep it together. And I thought I was. I married Josh, and things were good, but then it fell apart. Then I met Caleb, and he changed everything. But that fell apart, too.”

Perry took it all in silently, offering a knowing nod here and there and keeping his hand around me. Like he was keeping me grounded.

“I’m just…” I pushed tears off my cheeks. “I’m walking through life with this giant pit everything good falls into. I’m broken in a way that can’t be fixed.”

“Sure it can,” Perry said confidently.

“How?” I turned my hands up. “I have no idea where to start.”

“Forgive yourself, Adam.” He said it like it was really that simple. “Look, I know you’re sorry, and you feel guilty, but I don’t blame you for what happened. I love you, and I want you to be okay. And you will be. You just need to stop punishing yourself and listen sometimes.”

“There’s no one left to listen to,” I said. “Josh is gone. Caleb hates me—”

“I’m not talking about the kind of listening you do with your ears.” Perry stood up, and the surrounding glow started to swallow him up. “You’ve come so far, and you’ve got so much in front of you. Don’t make our parents bury another kid. They barely survived me.”

“I… I’ll try,”

“Good,” he flashed a warm smile, “that’s all I can ask.”

I hesitated, biting my lip, and asked, “So, you’re, okay?”

“I’m okay.” He nodded. “I’d have loved to stay longer, but at least I won’t get the curse of going grey early.” He pointed to my hair.

A smile that seemed as impossible as him being here crept across my lips. “Is it that bad?”

“No,” Perry snorted, “just giving you shit. You look good, all things considered, but maybe lay off the drinking?”

“One thing at a time,” I said. “But I’ll work on that too.”

“That’s my big brother.” He looked down at his hands and his body started to fade from view. “Looks like I’ve gotta go.”

“No!” I shook my head, and more tears flung off my chin. “Please. I miss you!”

“I miss you too.” Perry was almost translucent, but I could see his smile widen. “Tell Mom and Dad I love them.”

“Wait!” I jumped to my feet and tried to grab his hand, but got only air. “Don’t leave,” I begged. “I love you!”

“I love you too.” Perry waved, and then he was gone.

I jolted awake to find only the Glock beside me on the bed.

“Fuck!” Perry was gone. Again. I rolled over and wept into the bunched-up comforter until my lungs burned, then sat up, dazed and a little woozy. My fingers brushed the cold steel of the gun, the fan blew across me, and I shivered.

“Jesus fucking Christ.” I went to the bathroom and splashed cold water on my face. Even after the booze and pills, I couldn’t shake the vibrant images of last night.I was going to go crazy if I didn’t get out of this apartment, so I grabbed my jacket from the living room, shoved my feet into some sneakers, and left.

The light outside 2-F flickered as I made my way to the roof access. It was another frigid night with only wispy, thin clouds streaking over the moon. I took a deep breath through my nose and the crisp, clean air sobered me a little. Beyond the ledge, all I could see were trees and the silver glow of streetlamps. The wind squeaked the chains of the playground swings on the east side of the building. The snow was untouched except for a single trail of footprints leading around the storage sheds.

I looked to the heavens. “Really?”

I followed the tracks around the hub. Something clicked a few times, and a familiar voice growled out a few curse words. Zander was using the barrier to block the wind from snuffing out his lighter. He was dressed in jeans, his Tommy Hilfiger jacket, and a beanie that looked like it was more for fashion than warmth.

“Someone here?” Zander looked every way but the right one, then spotted me. “Adam?”

I rubbed my hands together, then tucked them into my sleeves. “The fuck you doing up here this early?”

“Having a smoke before I have to get on a fucking plane. We’re staying at my rich uncle’s house in Virginia for the holiday.” He attempted to spark up his lighter again, but the wind snuffed it out. “You?”

“Couldn’t sleep.” I offered another hand to help shield his joint so he could light it. The end caught fire, and the skunky aroma wafted up towards my face.

“Thanks.” He hit it, then took stock of my appearance before blowing the smoke over his shoulder. “You look rough, dude.”

“Thanks,” I rolled my eyes, “I put on a fucking coat this time.”

“Congratulations.”

His smirk faded, and the concern that swept over his features was too much. I covered my eyes and stifled a sob.

“Whoa,” Zander pocketed his lighter and put a hand on my shoulder, “I was just messing with you Ad—”

“I fucked up, Zander.” My chest hitched, “I… I don’t know what to do.”

“Hey,” Zander’s palm was firm and flat as it rubbed between my shoulder blades. “Talk to me.”

And so I did. It was choppy and slow at first, but before long, all my disappointments and my demons flew out of my mouth. I told him about Perry, and Josh, and by the time I got to talking about Caleb I was doubled over from grief; my head almost touching the railing on the barrier.

“I’m tired of being like this.” I swiped my sleeve over a line of snot on my upper lip. “I just want to be happy. I want to be better.”

Zander turned his back to the barrier, crossed his arms, and gave me a quizzical glare. “Then you have to get out of your own way, bud.”

“You don’t understand.”

“Sure I do.” He put his hand over mine on the cold railing, and the warmth worked its way down to my bones. “You still blame yourself for Perry, even though you didn’t realize he was in danger, right?”

My lungs and throat were burning, so all I managed was a weak nod.

“That’s you standing in your own way.” Zander tapped my knuckles. “You deserve better than your husband, but you stay—and yes, he has dirt on you, but you’re the one giving him the power to do it. And Caleb? You’re obviously nuts about him, but you threw a fucking nuke at him, whether you intended to or not. That’s you—”

“Alright.” I waved my hand. “I got it.”

“Good.” Zander said. “Then tell me why, Adam? What’s inside you that won’t let you go?”

“I don’t deserve good things. I don’t deserve happiness,” I said sniffling. “Everyone my entire life has had to suffer because of me.”

“Bullshit.”

My head snapped back. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me.” Zander waved the idea off. “That’s such an overused excuse for not making a decision. You’re using your guilt as an excuse because you’re scared shitless. And you know how I know that?”

“How?”

“A real simple experiment.” His shoulders rose at the intrusion of someone’s car alarm blaring below us, then cut off. “Now that that’s done…If I told you everything you’ve told me tonight. Would you tell me I didn’t deserve to be happy?”

The skin on my face tightened.

“That’s what I thought.” The fucker had the audacity to smirk. “I’m not a shrink yet, but it doesn’t take a degree to see that you never forgave yourself for what happened with your brother. Or maybe it’s more than that, but the ‘why’ doesn’t matter. You locked yourself in that world, because the idea of leaving it was terrifying. You surrounded yourself with people who didn’t challenge you to heal. Instead, they watched you put band aids on a gaping wound. I can see how that might look like acceptance or unconditional love, but it isn’t. People who really love you don’t enable you.”

“Yeah,” I swiped more snot from my lip with my sleeve. “I’m starting to see that.”

Zander moved close enough for the sleeves to touch. “Complacency breeds contempt, Adam. And that makes it easy to tell ourselves we don’t deserve any better. Or that no one could understand you, and if they tell you something that doesn’t line up with your inner compass, they’re lying. To me, it sounds like your husband played right into that.”

I froze. Was that what I’d been doing? Accepting complacency because it was easier than fighting for more?

“You realize you’re a fucking nerd, right?” I said.

“Yes, but I’m on the right track. Your big-ass ego would tell me if I wasn’t.” He elbowed my side. “And that’s not a bad thing. I’m sure as a cop, you need to have some sort of ego, but that’s also part of what’s holding you back. To move on, you have to admit what you’ve been doing is wrong. That your character judgment was off. And that sucks, man. It does. Divorce sucks. Admitting you made a mistake that dragged on for years sucks. But you know what sucks more?”

“Staying where I am and being a miserable asshole?”

“Bingo.” Zander clapped. “Though I’m not sure I can save you from being an asshole.”

I flipped him the bird.

“I’d say that’s also part of the job, but I’ve met Caleb.”

“He punched me tonight.” I gently rubbed my jaw.

“Did you deserve it?” Zander squinted as he looked at my cheek.

“Yeah.” I rubbed the bruised skin and looked out into the night again. More flurries blanketed the field like a plain, unused canvas clean and ready to be painted. Could anything do that for me?

Zander pocketed his joint and lighter and stood at my side. “The unknown is scary, but could it really be worse than what you’re feeling right now?”

No, it couldn’t. Nothing could be worse than Caleb staggering around, drunk and bleeding. Believing he meant nothing to me.

“What if it doesn’t work, though?” I asked. “What if it all goes wrong?”

“And what if it all goes right?” Zander tapped his temple. “Ever think of that, genius?”

If that were possible, I’d be…happy?It was a nice idea, though at the moment it felt too good to be true.

“The fear, right?” Zander said. “That’s the real reason you keep doing this.”

“Yeah.” With that one word, something in me relaxed, and some of the weight on my shoulders faded. “I don’t want to be afraid anymore.”

“Then stop convincing yourself you’re not worthy.” Zander clasped my shoulder. “You can’t accept forgiveness if you won’t forgive yourself, so start there, then work your way upward. Because you are worth it.”

“Thanks.” I tapped his knuckles. “You’re a good friend. I don’t have many of those.”

“Come on,” Zander tugged my sleeve, “Let’s get off this roof.”

Outside his apartment, Zander paused with his keys in hand. The warmth of compassion cut through the hall’s draft. “Take care of yourself, Adam.”

“I will.” I turned away, knowing that this time, I meant it.