Sixty-Two ☼ Phan

Twenty-Two

The following weeks were basically a downward fall from there.

It was like waiting for a detonator to go off. Day by day the timer ticked lower, and the six of us, Mr. L and James included, were the only ones who knew about it. The only ones who were affected by it.

It was around two days before the bonfire. Phil and I, not being able to go to the stone house, had retreated to sitting in trees together. Each time, we tried to go to a different one. I had gotten significantly better at climbing, and no longer needed guidance from him.

"I hate this," Phil said quietly.

I swung my legs from where I sat on a branch. He was on a seperate branch, facing me.

"Hate what?" I asked.

"This." He had his head leant against the trunk, staring downward.

"Are you talking about the bonfire?"

Phil turned his gaze up to mine. "Not just the bonfire. This whole end of summer. It's not fair."

I pulled at a tiny twig that sprung out near where my hand was. "What do you mean?"

"It just seems so dull. To leave camp like this, suspended without a final goodbye."

"I thought you didn't care for that sort of stuff?"

"I didn't," he defended himself. "I mean, I don't. It's just, I expected us to go out with more of a bang, even if I didn't care if we actually did."

I shrugged. "Guess we're going out with a dud, instead."

Phil's eyes fell away again, and I watched the way he studied the tree bark. Down the side, breaking outward and scratching inward. The sun was high in the sky still, and it made the whole camp bright. Typical, I suppose. Our good moods were destroyed, but it made for a better ray of sunlight. Traveling through one medium to another.

"Do you ever think about dying, Dan?"

I kept my gaze towards him, although his remained away.

"Sometimes." I bit my lip, not even surprised anymore. I was getting used to his strange questions.

Phil peeled a piece of bark off. "In what way?"

"In what way do I think?"

"In what way of death."

I let a short wind of silence breeze between us, staring at him. Trying to see past his skull and into the thoughts that were spinning beneath. Fragments of different emotional responses, chewed and regurgitated over and over until the starting points were no longer existent.

"Burning," I told him. "In flames. In smoke."

"Oh," he said.

"Oh?"

Phil's eyes shot up for just a second before back down again. "Yeah."

"What about you?" I asked.

Part of me didn't want to know the answer. But another part did. It wanted to know how far the mind of a suicidal person went, how deep the options were explored. If Phil could still be considered suicidal, that is. What exactly happens to suicidal thoughts when the attempt backfires? Are they still there? Did he still think about killing himself?

"A lot of different ways," he said. "It's weird, you know? I almost was sure I wouldn't die when I tried."

"If you were sure, then why did you still do it? Try, I mean."

Phil shrugged. "I wanted people to know how I felt. When I saw her."

"Is that a sort of justice?" I asked.

He met my eye again, but this time held it for a little longer. His mouth moved into a smile. "More like revenge."

I felt myself smile, too. Sadly. "Maybe they're the same thing."

"They're never the same."

"Batman references fix everything, right?" I joked, trying to lighten the mood.

"Definitely." His smiled widened a little.

I leaned backwards further against the branch that was behind me. My stare turned up, staring into the sky. The sun was directly to the near-center, and, as I peered through the leaves, I found myself squinting.

This would be my last normal day of camp. Closest to normal, at least. Past all the technicalities, I had considered the moments up until the following days a new type of normal. But, sitting in that tree, it all felt off again. Alien. As if the momentum of tomorrow was already creeping in.

"What do you think will happen to the bonfire?" I asked.

"Who knows?" Phil said.

I let my eyes close. "We didn't have anything planned. Maybe they'll just throw something together last minute."

"Maybe."

I guess Mr. L hadn't called my mom just yet. He had to have been waiting until the day before I was set to leave, since I hadn't had any missed phone calls.

My mom. Once again, she was at the front of my attention.

I didn't want her to be even more disappointed in me. I wanted to head home from camp on the last day, with everybody else, to bask in normality and soak up, at least, a taste of it. Before I had to go back. Back to my house that was still less of one person. That still had an empty side of a bed, an empty dining chair. An empty echo of laughter.

I wondered if I reminded my mom of my dad. We looked alike, I'm sure. I'd heard it dozens of times before, continuously overlapping every other remaining piece of my father until all that was left was one conjoined interference. A wave, constructed over and over, bouncing all around my head. I was at the center, the last remaining crest. There were my brothers, too, but it was obvious that they got more of my mom's looks. Maybe one day I would wake up, look in the mirror, and see my dad staring back, instead.

What did she expect to gain from sending me to this camp, anyway? The same one as my dad. To knock some sense into my brain, which was burning itself alive?

I felt a twist of anger, of momentary spite. Towards my mom, for putting me through such an emotional rehabilitation. For stranding me on an island where every grain of sand was up against me. Towards my dad, too, for dying and leaving us. For making this campground a graveyard rather than a place of memories. I had never been so helplessly mad. Not since his death, since the phone call from the police telling us about it. About the wreck. Not since I started seeing red everywhere.

Phil was right. It wasn't fair.

So, what was I going to do about it?

"I think I have an idea," I said aloud, opening my eyes.

Phil glanced at me, his fingernail dug into the tree from where he was still scraping at the bark. "For?"

"For a way to go out with a bang afterall."