❝Silence, I discover, is actually something you can hear.❞

HARUKI MURAKAMI

✩

3.2 : explanations

(tw: mentions of abuse, alcoholism, drugs, stalking)

Nick Rojas is twelve years old. He stands at the edge of a grave. The headstone is brand new, perfect marble. He traces the letters that spell his mother's name. Behind him, his father stands solemnly in a nice suit. Nick never sees his father cry. He finds it strange.

But his father does get angry. He throws things. Mostly at the walls, but sometimes at Nick. That's usually when Nick goes into his room, picks up a book, and shuts the closet door. He waits there until it's quiet outside. Then he can go to bed.

But in high school, he stops picking up books and starts picking up cans of beer. At parties, after school, but sometimes at home, when his father isn't around. In junior year he has a stash. In senior year he sells it.

Somehow, Nick manages to struggle through high school enough to go to school. Vanderbilt University, in Tennessee. 

He studies English because he doesn't know what else to study. He fails English because he's just there to drink.

In freshman year, a friend introduces him to weed. In sophomore year, the same friend introduces him to Hazel Finley. He falls in love with both.

But it was Caroline Knapp who said, "Alcohol makes everything better until it makes everything worse." And she was right.

Weed makes Nick sleepy, but tequila makes him angry. He doesn't remember throwing that book at Hazel, but he doesn't remember her having a black eye. He doesn't remember yelling at her, but her roommate does.

They'll both find out how broken they are soon enough.

In Nick's senior year, and Hazel's junior, they attend a party. Nick gets drunk. Hazel gets more drunk. Stumbling back to her dorm, she tells him everything. Pukes on his shoes. Tells him more.

And it scares him. Even when he's sober. So he calls her the next day before class and tells her they're over.

But he soon finds that like alcohol, like weed, like the speed he's so recently discovered, he can't live without her.

And Hazel can't live without him, either.

They're back together in two weeks.

He graduates, but just barely, and on the same night, invites Hazel to move in with him.

She declines.

They break up.

And are back together in four days.

Hazel moves in.

But they fight. When Nick's drunk, when Nick's high, and when Nick's trying to be sober.

Two weeks into Hazel's senior year, she starts disappearing at seven o'clock every Wednesday.

Six weeks into Hazel's senior year, she tells Nick she's been seeing a therapist, recommended by a girl in her clinical psych class.

Seven and a half weeks into Hazel's senior year, she packs her things, tells him she's had enough, and disappears into the night.

It's the first time she's ever broken up with him.

He calls her twelve times in three days.

She never answers.

And she never comes back.

An old college friend brings something by for Nick to try. He does. And he likes it. So he comes back for more.

It's on the three-year anniversary of their breakup that it happens. Nick will never get the date out of his mind. He drinks a bottle of vodka. And another.

He loses count of how many.

He vomits once. Feels cold.

The nurse tells him his landlord called 911 when he heard the crash. There are glass shards in his hand. Nick doesn't remember dropping the bottle.

He does remember the light. He remembers the voice.

He remembers being allowed to live.

So he checks himself into rehab and stays three months at a center. He makes friends there. He remembers what it's like to be happy there.

Two days after leaving the rehab center, Nick joins an AA. He tells them that his name is Nick and that he's an alcoholic.

One week after leaving the rehab center, Nick joins a church. He tells them that his name is Nick and that he met God once.

Three weeks after leaving the rehab center, Nick is baptized. He tells God that his name is Nick and that he wants to be saved.

He moves to Mississippi, to a little town, as a missionary, serving underprivileged children and their families. He joins an AA there too. And that's where he meets a young girl named Clara.

Clara's at meetings sporadically. She shows up once, and then is absent for weeks on end. Nick invites her to coffee the next time. He wonders if she's alright. There are bags under her eyes.

Then he discovers her name is Clara Finley.

And that she has a sister named Hazel who's training at the FBI Academy.

So he invites her for coffee again.

On the third coffee date, Clara tells him she has a boyfriend who's also an alcoholic.

On the fourth, she tells him everything.

And then she disappears. Not just from AA, from the surface of the earth. Doesn't answer calls, texts. Even her house looks empty.

Four weeks later, she shows up at AA again. Tells Nick she got kicked out of school. Tells the group that she's ready to change.

The pastor of the church Nick attends in Tennessee emails him. There's a scholarship opportunity at the University of Maryland to study education. Nick mentioned wanting to be a teacher, so would he like to take it?

Nick thinks and prays for three days.

He responds yes.

Hazel's in Virginia.

Nick wonders if he should call her.

When Clara finds out, she wants to move with him. She breaks up with her boyfriend and moves in with him. He breaks into Nick's house two nights later with a gun. He leaves with a broken arm and a concussion.

Clara and Nick move together.

They find a nice apartment in downtown D.C. It's not the nicest side of town, but it's not bad. Clara finds a job at a coffee shop a few blocks away, and Nick doesn't mind the commute to College Park.

He calls Hazel.

She tells him to leave her the hell alone.

So he does.

He and Clara join an AA together.

Three weeks later, he finds vodka underneath the sink.

They fight.

Clara storms out and doesn't return for two days.

Nick drives to Hazel's apartment and waits for her. Wonders if she knows where Clara is.

But she shows up with a man. A man who looks at her like Nick used to.

Hazel shouts at him.

No.

Fin shouts at him, tells him to get away, to leave Clara–

No.

To leave Lars alone, and then her new boyfriend steps in.

So Nick leaves.

Lars shows up finally and refuses to say where she's been. They fight again. She leaves again.

This time, she does go to Fin's. She comes back at midnight, crying. Nick comforts her. Then she leaves again.

One night, she shows up fuming. Says she and Fin had an argument. Nick tells her that they have to explain everything to Fin. Lars is reluctant, but he convinces her.

So now Nick is sitting on Fin's couch. It is four a.m. He has just told her everything.

She stares at him for a long moment, and then her eyes widen. "Then who's been stalking me?"

~

o.O