Author's Note:
I had originally planned on submitting this story to the
Love the Ones You're With
story contest, but
life
happened and I didn't finish it in time. But here we finally are: the story has been finished!
Many thanks to
29wordsforsnow
,
Anahiya
, and
YDB95
for your beta-reading/editing efforts. The story is so much better for your insights and I'm
very
grateful.
And without further
adieu
, on to the story!
THE SIX FEET BETWEEN US
For the longest time, I felt as though I'd lived but a small portion of my actual breathing life—
The Middle
, as it were.
Most nights as a child, I'd lie awake in bed staring at the ceiling and wondering if a 'tolerable' life was worth aspiring to, and if it wasn't, what was I waiting for? Perhaps, I should just cut to the chase and put myself out of my misery. Of course, I'm telling you this story, which means that I didn't, and I'm glad I persevered. But such was my life before
The Middle
.
After
The Middle
, was another miserable period, nearly as wretched as
The Before
, just in a different way. In
The After
I watched helplessly while the poorest excuse for a life form threatened to take away all that mattered most to me—what matters most to all of us, I imagine—life, freedom, and the prospect of love. It was a cruel time.
Ah, but
The Middle
. I learned how to
live
in that beautiful
Middle!
I shouldn't be surprised, I suppose. Many of the best things in life are middle things—like the heart of a story between the covers of a book and the creamy white filling of an Oreo cookie. And without my own
Middle
, I might have breathed the last bit of air for my allotted years on earth and checked all the boxes of a typical human life, only to disappear silently at the end, having never truly lived at all.
THE BEFORE
It should go without saying that I was born in
The Before
. I breathed for the first time. I cried and pooped my diaper. I learned to crawl and walk and say my first words.
Don't remember any of it
.
I grew to a toddler and then a small child and remember none of that, either—except those memories with a photograph attached to them. The photos never seemed authentic, though—more like counterfeit replicas of someone else's memories. Someone else's childhood.
Of course, the boy in those pictures had to be me—I couldn't possibly deny it. But whoever said 'the camera never lies' has never taken part in a family photo, have they? The kind where Mom declares the need for a holiday propaganda photo and every smile is coerced with a "
Smile... or else!
" threat from a maternal tyrant. And while no one wanted to find out what 'or else' meant, how could she expect the end result be anything but a forgery? The photos felt like that—photographic lies.
To this day, most of those snapshots merely trigger the
sparks
of memories—like when you strike the back side of a knife blade against a flint rock and the tiny flash of light teases the possibility that fire could follow. But a spark is not a flame, and I sensed these pictures only hinted at how life could have been—how it might have been—not necessarily how it was.
The sparks themselves were only kept alive by reinforced storytelling, when my mother would pull out the shoeboxes, spread their contents on the floor, and explain the still-life images into the night until one or both of us fell asleep. It was always just the two of us and she would ask, repeatedly, if I remembered any of it. I never did, but she never stopped trying to fan those embers.
When the shoeboxes came out, my father would conveniently disappear, just like he did in the photographs. And when he did, he always took a particular shoebox with him—the one with a giraffe sticker on it.
I suppose those memories, or at least the stories of them, were my 'good old days.' I'm glad I have them. They just never seemed real.
++++++++++
Then I became a pre-teen.
Hated it
.
It didn't help that I was, and I suppose still am, a military brat—dragged all over the country, never staying in one house, town or even state, long enough to set down roots. I was once 'the new kid'
three
times in
one
school year. Let that sink in for a moment.
It also didn't help that I
loathed
my father, and the constant moving was the least of the reasons why. Far more significant was his heavy hand that frequently met my cheek, followed by him crying like a child, begging forgiveness, and then heading to the bar. (That sequence of events, by the way, was 'an episode' according to Mom. And just like on television, there seemed to be a new one every week.) And yet, even
that
wasn't the worst of the reasons. No, the ignoble 'top' spot was reserved for one simple fact:
he hated me first
. The kicker was that I didn't even know why, though my father swore I did and he'd 'be happy to remind' me, if it weren't for my mom.
The wandering with no sense of home was one thing and the bruises quite another. But seeing that he couldn't look at me without a glare was a wound far deeper. Fathers should love their children. Period. Mine could barely tolerate me.
I suspect certain fates from those formative years are forever inescapable—like a stellar black hole that swallows its own light. And no matter how much longer I have breath in my lungs, I might never escape the gravity of that early emotional damage.
++++++++++
I lived to be a teenager so, of course, I hated that, too. Though, at least by then, the 'episodes' waned and I slowly learned to stop fearing the man.
Eventually, there was college and things got more interesting. Not extraordinarily better, mind you—just different.
I discovered a proclivity for math and a fondness for puzzles, a peculiar hobby by most college students' standards, but at least I had something. The best part was that I could do them alone. Sudoku and logic problems became my go-to's for recreation. They occupied nearly all of my non-study time while my classmates engaged in more 'edgy' activities, like parties and drinking and sleeping around.
I did try,
once
, to fit in with the crowd.
Shortly into my freshman year, I was invited to a late-night pool party at a frat house, but I chickened out and left when I smelled the chlorine and saw the blue-lighted water. Mom swore I'd been a good swimmer at one point, but that just sounded like one more of her fabrications. To this day, water freaks me out. I never went back to that frat house or to any other party.
While my classmates poured shots, I poured myself into my studies until eventually, without any fanfare, I graduated with honors. No one in my family attended my graduation, not that it mattered. I didn't go, either.
I received my degree via the mail the same day my first student loan payment was due. I stared at it, studied it, and felt its weight. They printed my name on it, in fancy letters on fancy paper with the fancy seal of the University embossed to make it look
extra
