From Him, With Love

The next morning, I woke up at six AM and forced myself to get out of bed. My hips really hurt, and I knew from experience that they were probably bruised at that point. I changed out of the clothes I’d worn the day before and replaced them with workout clothes. It was light out already, just barely. I ate a protein bar to give me the energy to work out, with the intention to vomit any remaining calories when I got home. If I worked hard enough, there would be no calories left by the time I was done.

I pulled on my running shoes and tied them, my eyes still heavy from my lack of sleep. I’d chosen to get in bed and go to sleep at four AM. Barely getting any sleep had become a normal part of my routine over the past two years or so. Outside, it was comfortably cool. I looked around, trying to make a quick decision as to where I would run.

Deciding on the park where I’d first come out to Ella, I started to run. It was two miles away, but I didn’t save energy. I pushed myself to keep running the whole time, not allowing myself a break. Come on, Alex, this is what you have to do if you want to be skinny. I ran past Ella’s house at six thirty, and I knew that I was really close. Her house was a big Victorian that didn’t fit at all in an Australian city.

I smiled at the sight of her garden. It had been about a week since we’d hung out at her house, and the garden had made surprisingly marginal progress since then. The roses looked especially good; full of life. I wouldn’t expect any less from Ella's garden.

I kept running past the other houses that looked dull and sad compared to Ella’s. It was like Ella’s house represented her, and the other houses on her block represented me. Her block as a whole represented our friendship in general. I was readily available to kill her vibe, but she wasn’t going to let me.

When I reached the park, I practically fell into a swing on the small swing set hidden by shrubbery. It had been mine and Ella’s hiding place since we were old enough to leave the house without our parent’s. We hadn’t come since I’d come out in that exact spot to her in ninth grade. It felt ten times lonelier than it had before, and I was sitting in Ella’s swing instead of mine. I remembered that it was hers because we’d each carved our name into our swing with a sharp stick pulled from the tree that we used to climb before it got cut down.

I was brave enough to sit on the worn down swing set because I weighed less than I had when I was thirteen, and it had held me just fine then. I felt like I was going to cry because I missed those days when my life seemed perfect. I knew that I was never going to have another moment with Tom like the one yesterday or the ones four years ago. He had just been showing pity, but he would go back to being angry at me in no time. Finally, I’d had enough of making myself stay there just for the pain of good memories, so I got up and began the run home.

Theoretically, I was in shape from my obsessive exercise, but I wasn’t healthy. The run home was only a little bit harder than the run to the park, but I still felt like I was going to pass out from my four mile run with so little food in my stomach. The houses started to become blurrier and blurrier by the minute as I approached my own. As soon as I tried to make it up one porch step, I fell to my knees and started to dry-heave. It was almost a good feeling, because I knew that those kinds of intense runs were the kind that made progress. The keyword in that sentence was almost. My knees felt scraped up from the fall, and I was still dry-heaving. At least I knew that I’d burned all of the one-hundred calories in my protein bar.

Finally, I stood up and went inside. My room felt cold compared to the rest of the house, but comforting at the same time. I thought that maybe I would go sit on the ledge, and I picked up my phone off of the bed on my way out. Maybe I wouldn’t have to consider jumping. Maybe I was dizzy enough to just fall. The screen of my phone was blurry, but I could see that it was seven. I’d spent about ten minutes at the park, so that meant I’d run four miles in half an hour. That was better than my last run. I felt a wave of pride rush over me, but also a wave of nausea.

I saw that you ran past my house on your way home about ten minutes ago. Do you want to come back over? It looks like it’s going to be a rainy day.

I’d love too. I’ll meet you out front in twenty minutes.

I drank three glasses of ice cold water downstairs, and it made me feel a million times better. My throat seemed to be cooling down with every clear drop of water that I gulped down. My parents thudded down the steps, and that was when I remembered that my mom wanted me to come out to my dad. I gulped, but this time, there was no water in my mouth.

“Good morning,” my dad said. “Your mom told me you had something to say.”

His voice was tired, but still kind. I had a rush of bravery, and I decided to use it while I could.

“Dad, I’m gay.”

“Alex, next you’re going to tell me that the sky is blue.”

“Jesus Christ, how did you know too?”

“Your mother and I know everything we need to know about you. Did you go for a run this morning?”

“Yeah,” I answered, deciding to go with the change of subject. “I’m about to go to Ella’s house.”

“Alright, have fun.”

He hugged me and gave me a pat on the back.

“Thanks, Dad.”

“I’m proud of you, Alex.”

With that, he sent me off. I ran again to Ella’s house, ignoring what had happened earlier that morning. I didn’t understand how my dad could ‘know everything he needed to know’ about me, and still be proud of me. It just went to show that he didn’t know half as much about his oldest son as he claimed to.

As I neared Ella’s house, I could practically see red sirens going off in my head telling me that I would pass out if I didn’t stop running, so I finally gave myself a break. The last thing I needed was a bunch of paramedics poking and prodding at me. Her garden came into view shortly after my breathing evened out.

I didn’t have to knock, I just walked in. She was sitting cross-legged on the couch with her Australian Shepherd puppy, Red, on her lap. Red wagged her tail happily when she saw me, and she hopped off of Ella’s lap to come cuddle my leg.

“Hey,” Ella said. “Do you need to use my shower? You look like you just ran ten miles.”

“Six, actually, and yeah, that would be great.”

I bent down to rub Red’s ears before going to Ella’s bathroom to take a shower. Now, you may be wondering why someone would name a black dog Red.

You see, Ella had synesthesia, which meant that some of the wires in her brain were crossed where they weren’t crossed in the brains of normal people. This let her see colors when she heard a sound or smelled something. She associated colors with certain letters and numbers, so she was never that good in math or foreign languages. Anyway, she always said that Red’s barks were the color red, so that’s how Red came to be Red.

Her shower was nicer than mine. The water pressure was a lot better, and it didn’t run out of hot water quickly. I saw that she had a razor blade too, but I didn’t think anything of it. I resisted the urge to pick it up and use it, because I was worried that my blood would stain her white bathtub where mine was black. It was a dumb thought, but whatever.

However, I did take a minute to wish that I could. Mine was just unscrewed from a cheap pencil sharpener that I bought for fifty cents at the general store, but hers was like the ones with long, slender handles and unbelievably sharp edges like we used to use in science for experiments.

I wondered briefly why it was in her shower, thinking that maybe I wasn’t alone, but then I remembered how infamously emo her older brother was before he’d left for college. He’d probably forgotten it. Either that, or Ella had been doing a particularly messy science experiment in the bathroom and had left it there. She’d always had a thing for science, and her room was genuinely a professional science laboratory, a product of her parents’ wealth. I don’t think there had ever been two best friends as different from each other as Ella and I were.

I rinsed my body thoroughly, being careful of my cuts. They weren’t scabbed over yet, and they were met at the edges with discolored skin. Finally, I got out and dried off with the towel that Ella had given me to use. My clothes were sweaty, so Ella had brought me a pair of jeans and a shirt that I’d left there. After I put the clothes on, I reached for the doorknob. On a second thought, I grabbed the razor that had been burning in my peripheral vision and concealed it in my pocket. I hoped that Ella wouldn’t notice that it was gone.

When I was downstairs, I sat down on the couch next to Ella.

“What do you want to do?” I asked.

“Let’s watch movies.”

“I’m bored,” Ella complained at five PM.

We had literally sat on her couch doing nothing all day. I didn’t mind.

“Let’s make dinner,” I suggested.

She paused the Harry Potter movie we were watching, and she pushed herself up from the crisscross position she’d been sitting in for the past ten hours.

“Oh, shit!” she exclaimed, falling onto the ground.

“Damn, I guess you underestimated your strength there, little girl.”

“Oh, you’re one to talk. You have the strength of someone living in a concentration camp.”

"It's about twenty degrees cooler in this shade.”

“Sorry,” she apologized sarcastically. “I forget that you’re a Jew because you literally spend the entire holiday season feeding off of my refrigerator. Honestly I'm surprised your parents haven't soaked you in holy water, or whatever the Jewish equivalent is."

“Well up until this morning, they thought you were my girlfriend, and they were just happy that I wasn’t forever alone.”

“How did they find out that I wasn’t your girlfriend? Oh my god, Alex, did you come out to them?”

“Yeah, I did.”

She hugged me.

“Oh my god, I’m so proud of you!”

“Thanks.”

Her kitchen was huge, just like the rest of her house, and I often let myself not care about what I ate there.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“I don’t care.”

“My parents put left over chicken in the fridge, do you want that?”

“Sure.”

She pulled out a Tupperware of the meat and put it in the microwave.

“Do you want sweet potatoes with it?” she asked, putting her head back in the fridge.

“No thanks, I’m sweet enough,” I joked.

“You’re potato enough,” she muttered, pulling out the container of sweet potatoes.

“Shut up," I laughed.

She pulled out the meat and replaced it with the sweet potatoes while I texted Jack in a burst of confidence.

Hey, you.

“This meat is drier than your personality,” she said, making a face at the piece that she’d just put in her mouth.

I’m taking May to dinner. Do you want to come?

Sorry, no can do, I’m hanging out with Ella.

Invite her too.

“Jack invited us for dinner; let’s just go with them instead if the meat is so dry.”

“That sounds like it might be a good plan.”

The timer on the microwave beeped, alerting us that the potatoes were done. She pulled them out, replaced the lid, and put them back in the fridge.

Where should we meet?

I’ll pick you guys up.

Okay, Ella’s address is 164 West First Street. It’s a big Victorian that doesn’t look like it belongs in Australia.

We’ll be there in ten minutes.

“I’m going to go change out of my pajamas,” Ella told me.

“Hurry,” I answered.

I went to the front door and tied on my running shoes, then went to sit on the stoop. Ella came out eight minutes later wearing blue denim shorts, a tank top inscribed with Long Beach, California, and a pair of black Doc Marten boots. It wasn’t long before Jack’s rental stink-mobile was parked at the curb.