Empath
Chapter 12
Narrator: Artemis/Dante
I went home and tried not to think about Dante, or Reggie, or that guy who’s name I never learned. I tried to sink into my memories, but whenever I closed my eyes there he was.
Vulnerable. A little scared. Bleeding heavy enough to accept help.
I couldn’t shake him. My own life went on around me like a tv show I couldn’t focus on. Finally a sound out my window caught my attention, but when I looked outside I was just peering into Dante’s living room.
—
I don’t know why I went back home after Marco and David helped me. Maybe I’m just a glutton for punishment.
It was the same thing as before, over and over again. I was stuck in a loop on the day Sharon broke my ribs. Maybe I thought it would be something different now. I’d escaped and spent some time outside of my own life so.. sometimes that moved the story along.
I guess not this time.
I came home at four in the morning, and Sharon was sitting on the couch, crying. I didn’t want to deal with her. I was dealing with my own shit. This was the day I remembered what happened when I got dosed at the club.
Well not completely, but I remembered enough to be disturbed by it. I remembered who did it at the very least.
So when Sharon reached for me the way she did when she *needed* me, I recoiled. She caught my hand and she begged me to touch her. I tried to tell her I wasn’t feeling well, and she screamed at me.
Sharon had a hard night on the street, and she was about to take it out on me.
—
I drew in a sharp breath. Even if I couldn’t feel what Dante was feeling, I would have been in a panic. I wasn’t sure what to do. If I tried to intervene there was a good chance that D wouldn’t even be able to see me.
I chewed the inside of my lip. Sharon grabbed him by the throat.
“Don’t you get it?” Sharon pressed her face against Dante’s face and squeezed until I thought she might collapse his airway. “Don’t you fucking get it? I *need* you, Dante. You make it all go away. You’re the only thing I have, and you can’t tell me ‘no’ because I CAN’T STAND MY FUCKING LIFE!”
I heard an echo. Her last words morphed into “I saved your fucking life,” and I couldn’t tell if the echo was Sharon’s true meaning or if it was Dante’s interpretation. Either way it was chilling.
I climbed through my window just as Sharon shoved him away and he fled into the kitchen.
—
I put the table between us, and Sharon used it to shove me against the wall.
She was screaming at me the whole time, but most of her words were lost in my panic. She shoved the table into me and I shouted at her to stop. She pulled the table back a little bit in preparation for another hit. I dropped to the floor and the table slammed into the wall. Sharon crouched down and caught my sweater as I tried to scramble away. I pulled at the zipper and fell out of it, but she used it like a lasso to catch me again.
She had it around my neck and she flung me across the room. I was disoriented, and I couldn’t see what I hit. My body went numb for a moment. I felt myself fall off of something and onto the ground. I couldn’t move. My hands and feet tingled, and then everything came back. I could open my eyes, and I could feel pain. My head hurt and it hurt to breathe. It hurt *a lot* to breathe. I took shallow breaths.
—
Neither of them could see me. I couldn’t restrain Sharon. My hands went through her. Dante couldn’t hear me. His reality was too strong, and I wasn’t a part of it.
Sharon flung him into the sink, and the sound it made was sickening. Dante’s body went limp, and I could feel my own panic rising. There was blood on the brick backsplash. I rushed to his side, trying to ignore Sharon who was doing the same.
“Oh shit!” Sharon leaned over him.
Her panic shot through me like a bullet and I froze. I tried to breathe, tried to do anything, but I was paralyzed.
Everything around me froze, and it took me a moment to notice. I let out a breath. I felt static in the air. The room went fuzzy, and then it reset.
Dante came in the front door, and Sharon called to him from the couch. Anxiety rose in my stomach as I watched it all play out again. I tried to get his attention, but I couldn’t even touch him. I was like a ghost.
This was like the worst version of Groundhog’s Day.
—
I did it over and over and over again. The fear and pain were exactly the same as every other time. A seemingly endless cycle of panic. A dream where the monster is always right behind you.
I smashed into the sink again for the millionth time and my body went numb. I slid to the ground, and when I could open my eyes Artemis was there.
Artemis?
“Can you see me? Do you know who I am?”
“Y-Yea,” I choked. I blinked as something wet rolled into my eye. I tried to lift my hand, but moving my arm sent a sharp pain through my ribcage. I sucked in a breath and held my arm close to my body.
Artemis startled and put his hands on me. One pressed firmly into my arm, the other touched my head gently and came away bloody. His touch was warm, and soothing for some reason.
I must have *really* hit my head.
I saw Sharon move behind Artemis. Or.. through him? He was occupying the same space as her so that I could barely see her. I could hear her fussing over me and I could feel her hands.
“The loop usually stops here,” Artemis and I spoke in unison.
“Great,” I rasped. Speaking hurt my throat. “You broke it. Now fuck off.”
“I’m not just gonna leave you here,” Artemis insisted. “This means you’re not going to forget I’m here. We can figure something out.”
Sharon lifted me off the floor and leaned me against the cabinet. My head swam.
—
“No don’t!” I tried to stop Sharon from moving him.
“She can’t hear you,” Dante said just before he threw-up.
Tears spilled down his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. He pressed his hand against his ribs and tried not to gasp for air.
“You need to leave now,” he said again, and this time I felt his desperation.
“Why? What’s gonna happen?” I asked, echoing his urgency.
“Nothing! Just get out!” He sent aggression at me, and I had to step back and breathe to let it dissipate.
“I can’t leave,” I said. “I’ve been stuck here for a while.”
I stayed out of Sharon’s way as she bustled around and cleaned Dante up. She muttered frantic apologies the whole time, on the edge of tears.
“Shit,” Dante hissed and closed his eyes. He let the anger fade and I could feel his fear again. Dante really did not want me here.
Sharon finished the bandage on Dante’s head, and straddled his lap. She kissed his face, apologizing repeatedly. Dante looked at me pleadingly.
I was overwhelmed with feelings, and my mind was starting to feel slow. He was desperate, and I was panicking.
“Look this is happening, so could you at least not watch?” He said.
“Wait is she.. gonna..?”
“C’mon man,” Dante pleaded.
Sharon kissed his neck and then his collar bone.
“Oh,” I uttered, “oh no.”
I felt a familiar twinge in the back of my mind, and I crouched down next to Dante. “I have an idea,” I said and took his hand. I closed my eyes. I drew his fear into me and let it shake loose something I didn’t like to think about.
—
I was in a church. I assumed. I was on a hard wooden bench with a high, ornate ceiling overhead. The previous reality loosed its hold on me. As I laid there I moved days, and then weeks away from that day. My head stopped pounding. I breathed a little easier.
I heard music. Like someone plunking out notes on a... a pipe organ? That made sense for a church.
I sat up and looked to the front of the sanctuary. There was Artemis, maybe fourteen years old, playing the organ with some old guy in a dark robe.
“This seems creepy,” I said under my breath.
The old guy put his hand on Arty’s back. I frowned. His hand creeped down. The organ tripped and halted when his fingers slipped under Artemis’ belt. The old man laughed jovially, and told Artemis to start over.
“Oh, c’mon,” I groaned, and then shouted, “Yo! Artemis! Can you hear me?!”
—
I gasped and turned my head, and Brother Bernard removed his hand. “Who’re you?” He started, then dissipated into smoke.
I stood and turned and toppled the bench I was sitting on.
“Arty,” Dante said with a smirk, “Did your parents not talk to you about this? Anything below the belt is bad-touch.”
“Can you not? I just, like, helped you out.” My heart was racing so fast it hurt. My ears and neck were so warm they burned, but my fingers were so cold they ached. I almost forgot about Dante for a minute there. It was just me and Brother Bernard.
“Ok, ok. Fine. Was that religious weirdo for real about to molest you though?”
“Yes and it was terrifying so *can you not*!” I took a deep breath and looked down at my hands.
Oh right. I was fourteen.
I bit my lip and shook my hands like there was water on them. Then I stopped suddenly and took another breath because I was *certain* Dante would say something.. hurtful. My hands trembled and I balled them into fists so I wouldn’t flap them.
—
“Oh Christ,” I said under my breath before I made my way to the organ.
I forgot Artemis couldn’t just shove it down.
“Hey,” I said and touched his hands. They were like ice. “Thanks. For real. This was a hell of a thing to do for someone... like me.”
Artemis glanced at my face but he didn’t meet my eyes. I turned around before I could see the tears dart down his face. It seemed easier than convincing him I wouldn’t tease him about it right now.
He had no reason to trust me.
As far as I was concerned he had no reason to help me either.
“Hey let’s get out of here,” I said without looking at him. I headed for a door and poked my head out.
—
When Dante turned around I shook out my hands and sniffed and wiped my eyes on my sleeve. Dante wandered to the back of the sanctuary and looked out into the hallway. I followed after him.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to go poking around. I wasn’t in a great place right now, and these halls had a lot of bad memories echoing through them.
“No wait, don’t,” I said as Dante slipped through the doors and wandered down the hall. I cursed under my breath and followed him.
“Is this where you went to school?” Dante asked me.
“From seventh grade on, yea,” I answered, looking around nervously.
“Is there like nuns an’ shit?” Dante asked, and a nun appeared at the end of the hall. “Oh shit.” He stopped walking.
I froze. Heart pounding. Sweating.
“Mr. Mathews? Why are you out of bed!?”
I drew in a cold breath. My chest hurt. I recognized her voice.
“Sister Mary Catherine,” I whispered in horror.
Dante turned around and grabbed my sleeve. “Dude, run!”
—
I took off down the hall and I could hear Arty’s footsteps behind me. I ducked into a classroom and closed the door behind us. I peeked into the hall while Artemis caught his breath.
“So who’s Sister Mary Catherine?” I asked.
Artemis grimaced. “Math teacher.”
I chuckled quietly and tried to think of something to say that wasn’t inherently.. sort of mean.
Damn being nice was hard. But this kid just went out of his way to help me so..
“Hey, How did you find me anyway?” I asked. From my perspective he just appeared out of nowhere.
“It’s because.. because I was thinking about you, and then your home was outside my window.”
“Why the hell were you thinking about me?!”
Artemis scoffed. “Because you’re a bully, Dante! That’s what happens when you say shit that makes people feel bad about themselves! They think about it a lot!”
“Woah. Ok.” I raised my hands and leaned back a little.
I looked down at the floor. I wasn’t sure what I was feeling right now. Sort of.. bad? Did I feel bad for picking on Artemis?
Someone opened the door and bumbled into the room. I stepped out of the way and glared. “Yo, fuckin’ occupied man!”
—
I bristled when Edmund and his lackeys pushed into the room. I stepped back and put a couple desks between myself and them.
“Oh, hey retard,” Edmund said. There was a predatory glint in his eye.
Dante looked at me and rolled his eyes. “Retard?” He smirked at Edmund, “Are you fucking kidding me? What is this? The nineties?”
Edmund turned his attention to Dante. “Who’s this little twerp?”
“Little?” Dante laughed. He laughed too hard.
I took another step back, feeling nervous.
Dante slipped something out of his pocket and got close to Edmund. His hand moved quick. Edmund’s mouth dropped open. Dante twisted a knife in the boy’s gut. I gasped and covered my mouth. Edmund dropped, chairs and desks screeched across the floor. I felt the noise in my skin and muscle and bones. I covered my ears, and closed my eyes, and held my breath. If I didn’t move I didn’t look like such a fool while the wretched sound vibrated through my whole body.
—
The boys dissipated into dark smoke after I stabbed one of them. I grinned, and laughed, and looked over at Artemis.
“Oh shit,” I breathed and moved through a mess of desks and chairs to get to him. “Hey, hey it’s ok. They’re not real. They poofed. Just like a video game. Look.”
Artemis let out a breath and uncovered his ears. He looked at me through narrowed eyes and the corners his mouth drew downward. “It’s the noise,” he said and brushed past me, “I don’t give a shit if you kill them.”
A chill ran down my spine. He left the room and left the door ajar behind him.
What noise? Stabbing didn’t really make a noise. Was it the body hitting the ground? I guessed that *might* be disturbing..?
I sprinted after him. He was a ways down the hall already.
“Artemis!” I called after him. He only paused enough to recognize it was me and kept walking. I caught up with him and he seemed.. tense. “Hey. Hey! What’s going on with you right now?”
“Nothing!” Artemis exploded. He didn’t slow down. “I just can’t stand that fucking noise!”
“What fucking noise?” I asked, and Arty stopped to look at me.
“Fucking metal *scraping* across the *fucking* floor! “ he yelled at me, and I felt my heart jump a little. “I can’t fff— it hurts my whole goddamn body!” He started down the hall again and I let out a breath. His energy was sharp and frantic. It stabbed through me painfully, and I needed a moment before I went after him.
—
Dante found me in a dark storage closet. I was sitting on the floor, knees to my face, arms around my legs. I squinted when the door opened. He left it open just a crack so he could see, and he got down on the floor in front of me.
“Hey, Artemis,” He said softly. “I get it. I think. When I’m Outside loud noises hurt. I don’t.. do this,” he gestured to me, “so I dunno. Maybe it’s not the same. But...” he sighed. “Whatever.”
“You just ignore it better,” I said. “I can feel it sometimes when you’re Out there. It’s still bad. It’s always bad.”
“That sucks,” Dante said. “Would it help if you were older?”
I struggled with the question. It seemed impossible to do that while I was here. I was only here through my teens, and it was surrounding me. How could I possibly be anything else right now?
However, what Dante asked was ‘would it help’, and it definitely would.
How long was I thinking about this? Was it a long enough time that just answering the question with no other preface would be.. weird? What else would I even say at this point? That required the fewest words? My mouth seemed far away and like it might not work right. Maybe if I waited long enough he would-
“Would it?”
Ask again.
“Yes,” I said.
—
“Ok, so I know you’re still a Polly Thruple with Jamie and Lexi when you get outa’ here,” I said.
“Yea.”
Mostly what I knew about Arty’s life was what he remembered Outside, and so far not much of it was about his adulthood. It was mostly this Catholic Boarding School For Bad Kids bullshit.
“Where did you live?” I asked.
“It was.. kind of like where we live now.”
“San Francisco?”
Artemis wasn’t great with details. He was sort of... conceptual. He remembered things as feelings, not as names.
“Maybe,” He said. “It seemed smaller though.”
“Uum,” I thought of something else to ask him. “What was Jamie’s job?”
I saw Artemis smile. “He was a weed dealer.”
“Haha, nice,” I laughed. “What about Lexi?”
“She... got a scholarship or something? She went to a dance school.”
“Oh cool, so did Gia,” I said, then added, ”Gia’s my Lexi. I don’t remember if you know that.”
He nodded his head but didn’t say anything, which didn’t tell me if he had already known.
“So what were you up to?” I continued asking him questions.
“Playing housewife, mostly,” he answered with a little laugh. “I cooked and cleaned a lot; when I wasn’t making weird art. Things were.. pretty much ok. I don’t remember a lot because.. it wasn’t terrible.”
I hummed. I remembered terrible things better too.
“So did you guys ever fight or..?” I was grasping at straws.
“I got beat up on the street once,” he said.
“For real?”
“It was my fault. I looked too queer.”
“Oh dude,” I said. I wanted to.. I dunno, reach inside Arty’s brain and change the way he thought about himself.
—
“No I was,” I said. I knew he pitted me for blaming myself. I stood up and went to the door. “Come see.” It opened onto a city street and I stepped through.
I was in my neighborhood, walking down the sidewalk by myself. I picked a flower as I passed by. I smiled at it and turned it between my fingers. It’s petals spread as it spun around.
I tucked it behind my ear when I was done admiring it. I looked to my right and smiled at Dante.
“You look like a hippie more than anything, to me,” he said.
“I was that too,” I said.
We crossed into a different neighborhood, and I took a nervous breath. Dante stopped walking and I turned to face him.
“We don’t have to keep going. Mission accomplished you’re.. how old are you actually?”
“Twenty-two,” I answered and crossed back into my neighborhood. “Why did you help me?”
“Because,” Dante shrugged, “you helped me. Now we’re even. Nobody owes anyone anything.”
I sat on the low brick wall behind me. Everything here was on a hill, and the small patch of grass in front of every building was leveled, resulting in a series of walls that started at your feet and rose over your head as you walked past. Well, unless you were walking uphill.
I lit a cigarette then passed the pack and my lighter to Dante. “I should probably tell you something,” I said. “That loop you were in isn’t the only thing I saw.”
—
I lit a cigarette and passed Arty’s things back to him. “What are you saying?”
“I also saw you with Marco in those Stone Ruins he likes to live in.” He looked at my face, trying to tell how I felt about this. I wasn’t thrilled. “It seemed personal,” he went on, “so I tried not to see too much, but I know you cut yourself. And I know Marco does too.”
I took a long drag on my cigarette and breathed out a large cloud of gray smoke. I felt.. uneasy. I didn’t like people to know things about me that I didn’t tell them. But also people talk and things get around and I did like knowing what people knew about me so.. I couldn’t get angry at Artemis for telling me or he’d never tell me anything again.
“Ok,” I said.
“I’m sorry,” Artemis offered.
I shrugged. “It’s not really your fault. This place is like a fucking funhouse. Thanks for telling me though.”
We smoked in silence for a moment.
“Why did you help me?” I asked Artemis his own question. “I’m such a dick to you.”
“Because,” Arty took a drag and smoke rose from his lips as he spoke, “I understand why you’re a dick. Also, I’ve had worse. You know how to push my buttons and piss me off, but you’ve never threatened to cut me open.”
“Christ,” I said, “someone threatened to cut you open?! At the Catholic School for Bad Kids, right?”
“Yes. He wanted to see if queers looked the same on the inside. So, really,” Artemis looked at me, “Nothing you’ve done ever stayed with me the way that stayed with me.”
“Fucking Christ,” I breathed. I wondered if he was talking about the one I stabbed earlier. I hoped he was.
“Oh, sorry for attacking you before,” Artemis said, and I furrowed my brow.
“When?”
“Before all this. When Marco was trying to tell everyone something important.”
“Oh! Right! Yea that hurt,” I said. Then I shrugged. “Eh, I deserved it.”
—
I still felt bad about it though. My anger was like its own entity, and sometimes it just did what it wanted. I don’t know why it went for the throat so often..
But when I saw Sharon attack him, her fingers squeezing into his neck.. I did not feel good about what I did to him. I couldn’t analyze my reaction at the time, but looking back on it now it played a large part in my desire to intervene.
I actually had no idea how Dante felt while it was happening. The only time I couldn’t feel every person around me was when I was angry. It just blocked everything else out and I became absorbed in my own experience.
—
Artemis stopped moving except to smoke (*for, like, kind of a long time.*) I was only familiar with Artemis vicariously, through Our own memory. If I tried I could remember something that happened to him Outside, and I could remember it as though I were him. But I’d never really spent any time with him. We didn’t hang. I picked on him when he was around because he was weird and it was easy, and sometimes I was just in the mood to fight.
I dunno. It was a shitty thing to do, and I knew that while I was doing it. And I really didn’t like that I was thinking about this right now. I knew I was trash, I didn’t need to sit around and analyze it.
“So uh..” I scuffed the toe of my shoe absently against the hard ground. “I should probably... go.. now.” I took a few steps. “Thanks for, uh.. Y’know.”
Artemis nodded. “Any time.”
—
Dante vanished into the distance. I wondered where he was going. I hoped it wasn’t back home, but he was entitled to his self-destruction if that’s what he chose.
I finished my cigarette and flicked the butt into the street. I closed my eyes and breathed. I thought about Reggie.
Damnit.
I opened my eyes in her apartment. She was looking out her kitchen window.
“Hey Reggie,” I said, and she spun around.
“Artemis!” She started toward me then stopped. “Wait why are you here?”
“Just had kind of a shitty day,” I said.
She came to me and put her arms around me. I hugged her close. I felt her breathing against me.
“I don’t know what you are, Reggie,” I said, “but I love you. I’ll always love you.”
“Even if I do something terrible?” She sobbed.
“Probably,” I said, “You’re already spying on everyone, and I still love you.”
Reggie held onto me tighter as she cried. “I just feel so hallow! Like I’m nothing! Like I don’t— I don’t know!” She pulled back and pressed her hand against her chest. “Like there’s nothing in there!”
I pulled her back to me and squeezed her tight. “It’s ok. Shh. It’s ok. I feel like that sometimes. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“Do you remember our last year of high school?” Reggie said with the side of her face pressed firmly to my chest.
“Yes,” I said, “We felt like this all the time. But it passed.. for the most part.”
“I feel like something is really wrong,” she said, “I feel like I’m not a person! Like I’m just a face and a voice and a room!”
“Shh, Reggie, you’re a person.” I held her even tighter as she began to shake. Her legs started to give and I lowered us to the floor. “You’re real, Reggie. I’m holding you right now. What else would you be?”
She burrowed into me, curling into a ball and clinging to my cloths. I didn’t know what else to do but hold her. I could feel her emptiness and it made me hurt. My insides felt.. raw.
Reggie lifted her head and looked at me. I looked into her eyes, fighting the instinct to look away. She wasn’t empty. She was full of feelings.
She was overwhelming.
She pressed her lips against my lips.
I melted into her.
Everything fell away and it was just me and her. I remembered high school. I remembered being Outside with Reggie and not knowing we were there. I remembered the agonizing bliss of not knowing what I was. I didn’t know what Reggie was, but I knew it would be bittersweet when she found out.
For now all I could do was be with her, and share her pain.