“I gotta go,” I tell him, unable to stop my voice from cracking. “Gotta go get safe. Gotta go ’cause everything is shaking, D-Dom. Everything is s-shaking and I can’t… I….”
“Tyson James Thompson, you listen to me,” he demands, breaking through the whirlwind in my head. “Are you listening?”
“D-Don’t come here.”
He’s stunned. “What?”
“You didn’t d-deny it. You didn’t t-tell me it’s a j-j-joke. Stay away. Dom. Stay away. I can’t. I can’t b-b-breathe.” I start moving down the hall toward the bathroom.
“He’s having an attack,” he snaps at someone in the background. “Call Bear and Otter. Do it now!” To me: “Ty? Tyson!”
“I d-don’t want to see you.”
“I’m coming.”
“No.” I reach the bathroom door, and it takes so much energy to push the door open
“Ty, please. I need to see you. I need—”
“You don’t n-need. You don’t.” I stumble toward the bathtub. My teeth chatter together. It hurts. Everything hurts.
You knew this was coming, it whispers. You knew. Some part of you knew.
No. No. I didn’t. This isn’t real.
Poor Tyson! Poor Kid! You need structure. You need organization. You need routine and every little thing in its place so you can categorize, so you can compartmentalize. And when something disrupts that order? You crumble. You collapse. Did you really think this wouldn’t happen? You’re sixteen years old. You can’t even handle this. How could you ever hope to have him?
“I’m coming,” Dom says again. “Tyson, I’m coming for you.”
“I d-don’t want to see you,” I gasp out. I drop the phone… and slide over the edge into the bathtub. The invitation slips from my hand and flutters near my face. And for all that is inevitable, for every word of our day, for every moment it has been for me to be able to just breathe, all I can see are the first four lines of blackened script set against eggshell white.
Mrs. And Mrs. Harold Warner cordially invite you
to celebrate the wedding of their daughter
Stacey Ann Warner to Dominic Miller,
in faith, in joy, and in love.
Breathe! I scream at myself. Breathe, oh fuck, breathe!
“Tyson!” I hear him shout from the phone. It sounds so far away, like it’s buried.
No, it whispers. That’s not right. It’s not buried. It’s drowning. Tyson, it’s drowning.
In an ocean.
Breathe, I think. Breathe.
It’s inevitable, he’d said once to me.
We’re inevitable, I’d said once to him.
And all I can do is breathe.
Just breathe.
Part Two: Coming Home