Inversion by Keira Aisling (fantasy novels to read TXT) 📕

“[She] who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”

– Friedrich Nietzsche

I can still remember the crash, drunk as I was that night—the pounding headache, the blinding headlights coming straight towards us, the yelling, the swerving, the terror, the impact.

A week later, the scars of that night still haven’t faded, won’t fade for a long time. Maybe they won’t ever fade. Because scars are meant to last, aren’t they? They’re there to serve as a reminder of your weakest moments, whether physically, mentally, emotionally, whatever.

I look down at myself, wishing that the scars are only physical. I have a few bruised ribs and a broken wrist, some cuts and a mild concussion. But the biggest scar of all isn’t anything tangible. No, it’s the emptiness in the air. The pain, the absence, the unspoken words, the guilt, the anger, the death.

They say that death is the next great adventure. That it is inevitable. The Brave New World does not fear death, does not hate it, does not grieve. No, the Brave New World invites it. There is no pain in death. But when Linda dies at forty-four, John’s grief shows that no amount of preparation can truly erase the tragedy of death.

No, the Brave New World is a utopic travesty, and its depiction of death cannot ever exist. Not when there is love and beauty in the world. For happiness comes at a price, at the steepest price.

How I wish I could pay that price and erase this pain. Take soma and forget everything.

* * *

A week into summer vacation, it feels like the coldest of winters. Since being released from the hospital a few days ago, I haven’t stepped outside once, despite the sunshine and the allure of the beach. My phone has been ringing nonstop, unanswered phone calls and video chats, ignored voicemails and text messages, my friends have finally taken the hint and given me some space.

But space isn’t what I need. Nor is time. I just want to go back in time, one week to be exact, and refuse to let my friends drag me to that stupid graduation party that ruined everything. To change that one decision that led to a whole series of other stupid choices: the party, the alcohol, the call to Jeremy.

While I’m at it, blaming everything and everyone around me, why don’t I just blame science as well? Blame the weather for that thunderstorm that night? The downpour that hid the other car until it was too late to do anything but swerve and kill just one of us instead of the both of us? Why don’t I just blame Heaven and Hell for having some sort of vendetta against me?

I’m being bitter, of course, shifting the blame to everything else so that I don’t have to admit the truth—that Jeremy’s death was no one’s fault except my own. Because I chose to go to that party, to get drunk out of my mind, to call him for a ride home.

I know it. And Dad knows it too.

* * * 

It’s nighttime. My windows are open, curtains fluttering in a light breeze. Outside, I can hear the sounds of crickets chirping and, faintly, of cars driving. Summer nights have a distinctive smell—I can’t say of what, exactly—and, as I run my fingers over the worn body of my guitar, I can’t help but let a soft smile curl at the corners of my lips.

It’s not a happy smile, but it isn’t sad or fake either. It’s more just . . . there, a reminder of what happiness once felt like, of what smiling once felt like. I can’t see my smile, but I imagine that it looks wistful and nostalgic, thinking back to better times and reminiscing about the glory of the past.

The guitar strings are familiar under my calloused fingertips. I remember, when I first began playing, how blisters would form on each finger, how each plucked note was painful. Not anymore.

The song comes to me automatically. My right wrist is in a cast—will be for several weeks—but that doesn’t stop me from playing.

It’s something that I remember Jeremy always playing. He was three years older than me, but he wasn’t like most brothers, embarrassed to be seen with his little sister. No, he was that overprotective brother who grated on my nerves perpetually, but I loved him nonetheless.

And now he’s gone.

The thought dampens my mood, as it always does when I think of Jeremy. I don’t know why I keep playing this song, as it just reminds me of him and makes me more depressed, but I can’t help it.  I feel like it keeps the two of us connected, even in death. And it’s beyond agonizing, to be continually reminded that he’s not here anymore, but it would be so much worse if I had no reminder of him, nothing to help hold onto those memories of the two of us.

“So here we go—heroes or ghosts—
One man’s mood can break another man’s soul.
Or am I just too cynical for my own good?
Am I too scared to say, ‘We’ll get there if we should’?
And you know, you know,
It’s harder than it looks, it’s harder than it looks.
But I, I know, it’s gonna take a lot of time and a little bit of luck.”

            I can play this song in my sleep, I’ve played it so many times. And as I lose myself in the music—in the chords and the lyrics and the sadness—I block out everything except for the feel of the guitar underneath my fingertips and the sound of my voice blending with the notes, beauty in pain and comfort in grief, music as therapy—never a replacement, but something to fill the gaping hole in my heart, if only temporarily.

Maybe that’s why I don’t hear the angry, pounding footsteps out in the hallway until my door is suddenly slammed open. I stop playing, raising my head and opening my eyes. I feel dazed and disoriented, like I’ve just awakened from a dream, but even so, dread pools in the pit of my stomach. Although, subconsciously, I know who has just come into my room, I look to the doorway for confirmation, in the minute hope that perhaps I’m wrong.

Dad’s standing in the doorway, his figure framed against the hallway light. I have only a small lamp dimly lighting up my room, so it takes his roving eyes a few seconds to find me sitting in the corner, my guitar on my lap. The hope shrives up, leaving a bitter taste in my mouth and a sick feeling in my stomach.

“What are you doing?” Dad thunders. His words are slurred, his eyes unfocused. He’s drunk.

I feel a shiver run down my spine at the realization. Sober Dad is bad enough; all he does is mope around the house, staring unseeingly at the old family pictures or at the TV screen. But drunk Dad—that’s another thing. Drunk Dad is angry and violent. He’s short-tempered, venomous. Terrifying.

I keep silent. Before Jeremy’s death, Dad rarely drank. From the stories, though, I know that Dad was once a bit of an alcoholic, before Jeremy and I were born, and he was a mean drunk. He stopped drinking when he met my mom, but he picked it up again by the time I left the hospital. It’s only been four days, but I’m already terrified.

“That was his instrument!” Dad shouts, striding into my room somewhat unsteadily and jerking the instrument away from me. As much as I want to stand up and yank my guitar back and scream in his face, I don’t, instead trying to shrink in on myself. “How dare you? Do you think you can just replace him? Do you think your mother and I can just forget what you did if you try to take his place? You’ll never replace him! He was smart and talented and going somewhere in life! And what about you?” Dad’s voice is suddenly ice cold and dripping with poison. “You’re nothing compared to him. Look at you, you ugly, miserable, worthless piece of shit.”

It feels like he’s just stabbed me in the heart a million times. He’s never said something like this before. Of course, I usually try my best to avoid him when he’s drunk, but my few encounters with him have usually led to a punch or two, along with a few choice words blaming me for Jeremy’s death. Nothing like this.

And suddenly, I find myself wishing that he would just take a swing at me. Because that pain would be preferable to this one. As tears flood my eyes, I silently beg for him to throw me at the wall. Something, anything, to get his vitriolic words out of my head.

“It’s your fault he’s dead, you know,” Dad continues. His voice is no longer angry. Just broken. And that made the words hurt twice as much. “My son is dead because of you!”

“Dad, please,” I whisper, unable to take it anymore, knowing that every word that leaves his mouth is the truth. The cold, hard, but no less painful, truth.

“Shut up!” he yells, his voice rising in pitch, bordering on hysterical now. His fingers tighten on the neck of the guitar, turning white except for the red lines where the strings dig into his flesh. “Shut up, you useless bitch!”

And the insults keep flying at me. They’re a battering ram to my head, a dagger to my heart. Tears stream silently down my cheeks as I cower in my corner. Dad is relentless, his face twisting in pain and hatred. It feels like hours before he finally begins to wind down, but it has probably only been a few minutes—half an hour at most.

Dad’s words begin to blend together, becoming less and less intelligible as his eyelids droop. I remember that he’s drunk as he sways on his feet. Suddenly, he topples over, the guitar sliding out of his grasp. I jump up just in time to catch it before it smashes to the ground. Dad isn’t quite so lucky. He falls to the floor heavily, with a painful-sounding thump that makes me wince, but he doesn’t seem to notice or care. His breathing becomes slower and heavier as he drifts off to sleep.

I kneel in front of him, unable to get his words out of my head but unwilling to leave him like this. I look at his hand, the one that had clutched the guitar. There are dents where his hand dug into the strings, but otherwise, he looks fine.

Just pissed.

I thought he was asleep, but I’m wrong. Dad suddenly opens his eyes, his blue eyes that mirror mine exactly shining in the darkness. They’re swimming with unshed tears, but his gaze is perfectly clear. For that one moment, he is perfectly lucid, perfectly aware of what he is doing. Of what he is saying.

It’s said in a whisper, but it rings in the silence:

“It should have been you.”