100 Yellow Doors

december 3rd, 2019, 8:24 p.m.

For Beck's sake, she wouldn't say it, but it had been the worst Thanksgiving Iman had ever lived through.

    Hours meant to be spent in the kitchen—shearing collard greens away from the stalks or brining a massive turkey or laughing as Beck tried and failed at not crying while cutting onions—were instead spent guiding Beck around his childhood house, pressing his hands to light switches and doorknobs, listening to him count the steps between each room in the house. They were all trying to smile for him, but Iman wasn't stupid. She saw the way Beck's sister and dad looked at him as he staggered through the house, the ache in their eyes, like something within them had snapped in half.

    Now, Iman guided Beck through the door of their apartment, switching on the light above their heads. For a moment Iman just stood there, Beck's arm linked in hers, overwhelmed with the strange emptiness of the space around her. It was the same—same dark granite countertops, same food-stained cabinets, same animal print rug on the floor in front of the television that Beck hated. But somehow it felt different, warped, useless, as if there was no point in looking at any of it if Beck couldn't do the same.

    "Im?"

    "Right," she said, snapping back to her senses. "Are you hungry?"

    Beck shook his head. "No. I think—I think I just need to lay down for a while."

    Iman sighed, but nodded her head. All Beck had done lately, it felt like, was lie down for a while. He got up, traced his way to the bathroom, or maybe to the window to feel the sun on his face for a while, and then went back to the nearest couch or bed, staying there until someone dared to move him.

    He was lost. So lost. But Iman didn't know what she was supposed to do.

    Iman started to lead him towards the bedroom, but he shrugged her off, walking ahead of her. When she started to protest, he held up a hand. "I'll find it," he said, a new determination in his voice that at once uplifted and frightened Iman. "Let me just—let me find it on my own, please."

    "Beck."

    A gentle shake of his head, his fingers trembling. "Immy. This is it. This is the rest of my life. If I don't get used to it now, I never will."

    So Iman fell silent as she watched him slink off down the hall. He walked with both his hands held wide, brushing the walls, fingers tripping over the hung up paintings and photographs, over the divots left in the paint from bad nail work or accidental bumping-intos. Every time he brushed a doorknob, Iman told him, politely, "No," until finally it was, "Yes, that one," and Beck opened the door with a creak and vanished inside.

    Iman lingered in the hallway, a hand held to her chest, right where her heart hammered beneath the skin. The ache she'd seen in the eyes of Wendy and Lemmy was no doubt within her own eyes, too; it was the ache that came automatically with missing someone who was right in front of you.

    When she stepped into the bedroom, she found Beck seated at the edge of the bed, his ankles crossed, a book in his lap. She stopped upon the threshold, watching his fingers as he traced pages full of words he could no longer read. His fingers danced across the edge of the paper; until briefly he flicked the page and brought his hand back again with a hiss of pain.

    "Shit, Beck," said Iman, grabbing a tissue from the box on the dresser. "Be more careful."

    She knelt in front of him, folding the tissue around the pad of his finger and holding it there. Red bloomed into the white as Beck said, "Which book is it?"

    "Hm?"

    "Which book did I pick up?" Beck asked, lifting his head. It was a simple question, but the darkness in Beck's voice colored it complex.