Tosca frowns at the wooden planks and chews on her thumbnail. The water’s turning dark blue at the edges. Her hand is perfectly still on my leg, and I can feel her pulse through my pants. After a while, she takes her nail out of her mouth and looks at it like it’s the reason for all the problems in the world.
“Sometimes people don’t die.” She takes a deep breath. “You know? Sometimes they just disappear. It’s not heavy. It’s not anything. It’s just empty space, and you try so hard to find even a little piece to hold on to. It doesn’t matter how solid people are. They can just vanish.”
Her eyes flick up at me for a second, then back to her thumbnail.
I want to say something, I really do. I want to tell her my mom still sings in the mornings. How no one in my house sleeps. We lie in bed, or pace, or listen to see if anyone else is awake, and those creaking floorboards sound like hell. How sometimes I wake up sweating, gasping like there’s something huge sitting on my chest. I want to tell her the bathroom walls were smeared with blood. The toilet, the bathtub, the shower curtain. It’s a smell you can’t get out of your nose for weeks, and it doesn’t go away just because you saw it happen.
I want to tell her anything, everything, but my heart’s pushing at the back of my tongue, and I feel sick, and it’s all I can do to get air in and out of my lungs. So I breathe. I keep breathing, and the pause stretches away into silence.
Tosca shakes her head like there’s a fly in her face. Bits of hair come down across her cheeks.
“Women attempt suicide more often than men,” I say for no reason, “But more men succeed in killing themselves.”
“Statistics are bullshit. Who the hell tries to kill themselves, then changes their mind halfway through? What a bunch of pussies.”
“That’s one way of looking at it.”
She makes a big show of spitting off the pier. “If I offed myself, I could at least do that right.”
The ripples from her spit slide back towards us. I don’t think I ever wanted to die. Not really. Once, I guess. Hence the therapist. There are a lot of things that don’t land you in a hospital, but are psychologically abnormal enough to worry your mother. Nothing like what you see on the news. Nothing like Jenna. Apparently you have to know what you’re doing, and no one told me suicide required research.
I didn’t do it right. She did.
I look down at the bump in Tosca’s jacket and start to say something dumb, but Tosca pokes my hand as an excuse to move.
“You have good hands, you know. They say you’re a decent person.”
“Oh.” I try not to look confused. “Thanks.”
She stretches and stands up in that exaggerated way people get when they’re trying to pretend they’re relaxed. “Man, I want a beer. And some fries. Maybe one of those sandwich things. Are you hungry? Let’s bounce.”
She takes off back towards civilization so fast I have to run after her. The sun’s gone and it’s undeniably dark now. I scrutinize a few buildings, try to remember where I parked, and try not to think about the fact my ass is toast when I get home. I’m walking the wrong way to the car.
Tosca’s still babbling when I catch up to her. “…and there’s this rad bar on the other side. They have music and stuff. You can throw shit at the band if they suck. I’ll buy you a beer. You have money, right?”
“I’m going this way, actually.”
She kicks a cigarette butt. “Smoking’s bad for you. Do you smoke?”
“No.”
“But you drink, right?”
“I guess.” I stop on the sidewalk to read a street sign. “Tosca, I have to go.”
“Oh.” She grinds one toe into a crack in the sidewalk. “Okay, whatever.”
“I’ll walk you home if you want.” I want to slap myself as soon as I say it. Mom’s going to kill me.
But Tosca laughs and shakes her head. “God, Jake, you’re just a kid. What are you even doing here?”
“What?”
She smiles, but there’s something sad about it. “How old are you really? Sixteen?”
“Twenty,” I lie. “Why? You’re not that old.”
“You’re a virgin, aren’t you?”
“What? I–” My face starts turning red. I can feel it. “I am not. Do I look like a virgin?”
“Yes.” She pats my cheek. “You still have hope in your face. Look at all that hope. You pretend you’re a big tough guy, but deep down you still hope. You think she can create you and erase you until you’re a whole different person. You think she’s going to love you.”
“I–”
“Life’s never what it’s cracked up to be, is it?” The corners of her mouth turn down. “It doesn’t change anything. I just want you to know that.”
I don’t realize Tosca’s standing close to me until she steps back.
We’re at the mouth of an alleyway choked with garbage and a few hobo shanties. I wonder if there are dead bodies in the dumpsters. Hookers and dealers and runaways who picked the wrong fight. Funny how it’s legal to stick bodies in an art exhibit, but not a dumpster.
I stare down the alley at the scraps of darkness and artificial light, laughing to cover how stupid I feel. “I should go.”
“Okay.” She tosses her head and looks away.
I start to do that stupid dance adults do when they’re supposed to leave and the other person wants them to leave but the conversation hasn’t been neatly tied up yet so they just start edging away while pretending they’re not really doing it. I should say something. I’m not sure what.
“Maybe we’ll run into each other.”
Tosca stares at the garbage with her arms crossed. The streetlight turns her cheeks and chin gold. The rest of her face is just blots of gray. This is probably the part where I ask for her number or something like that, but I have no idea what I’m doing and she has a weird expression on her face. The whole thing’s already botched. I guess I’m supposed to leave.
I stop debating and start down the alley, hoping it connects to the street I parked on. There are probably murderers and rapists and all sorts of other fascinating people lurking behind the dumpsters, but my brain’s going too fast to care right now. I’m walking and thinking and not thinking about everything when I hear Tosca yell my name.
“Jake!”
I turn around, and she comes running up with the kidney in her hands, held out to me like a gift.
If there’s anyone else around, they’re probably calling the cops and we’re going to jail for theft after all. The street seems deserted, but Tosca’s voice echoes off the buildings. I try to put her hands back into her pocket, but she pushes back at me.
“Tosca, what are you doing? Someone’s going to see.”
“Take it.”
“What are you–” One of my fingers brushes the cold clammy plastic and my heart’s pounding like crazy. “Why would I want it?”
“I just…” Her hands are shaking. “I can’t do this. I just can’t. Will you keep it safe for me? Please?”
She pushes harder, and I jump back with my hands out like someone’s pointing a gun at me. “Are you crazy? I can’t keep that thing.”
Tosca kicks a dumpster and curses like a sailor. “Fuck, fuck, fuck. Please Jake, just do this one thing for me.”
I rub my hands on my pants and take another step back. “I don’t want your kidney. Get rid of it yourself.”
“But…” She stops and looks at me. Her eyes are pale in the low light and her lips are pressed into a thin line. “Fine.”
There’s a clunk as she chucks the kidney in the dumpster, then she turns on her heel and walks away.
“It’s not going to fix your life,” She yells over her shoulder, “It’s not going to fix you.”
I start to shout back that I have no idea what she’s talking about, but she covers her ears and starts running. The thudding of her sneakers dies away.
I should go home.
Right now. I should get in the car and drive and get the hell away from here, but as soon as she’s gone, my head’s in the dumpster and I have a handful of dirt and vacuum cleaner bags. For Christ’s sake. I hope no one’s around to see this. My hand goes into something cold and squishy, and I remember all those stories about kids finding razors and battery acid and HIV-infected needles in the garbage.
My breath bounces off the plastic and rusted metal. It smells like shit and old meat, and I can hear air going in and out of my lungs. In a corner, at the bottom, under plastic bags and food and who knows what else, my fingers brush something smooth. I lean in until the side of the dumpster cuts into my stomach and my toes are dangling off the ground.
I hold my breath, and my hand closes around the kidney.