On Mount Everest With You

CHAPTER TWO

↠ Etienne

”I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,

in secret, between the shadow and the soul. ”

― Pablo Neruda, 100 Love Sonnets

▌ ♚ ▐

I used to believe that Id been in the wrong place at the wrong time, but now I think that would be subjective. What happened that day would go on to change the course of my life regardless of where I was when it occurred. Nothing in the world could have made it any less tragic. Really, there was no right place to be. And I suppose it couldve been worse. I couldve been walking down the street when Davids body hit the ground.

But I was standing in my own living room instead, which in retrospect sounds like one of the better options. Complaints about my misbehaviour had been piling outside of our door for my father to collect. The incident that became the one too many was when he was notified that I had broken the Smiths kitchen window and John Smith Sr was expecting us to cover the damages. We weren exactly poor but we definitely didn have enough money to be taking too many liberties.

”Do you know why you
e here, boy? ”

My father sat on his armchair. His nose was buried in a newspaper, on some political article that he found more interesting than me. My mother sat cross-legged on the long sofa next to the armchair, her gaze empty and her lips slightly parted as she looked at the television. The weather report was being aired.

”Is it because of what I did to Albert? ”

My father lowered the newspaper and his unforgiving gaze found me. ”What did you do to Albert? ”

”Nothing. ”

I had the tendency to stand with my hands clasped behind my back every time I addressed my father. Straight posture, a growing tension tightening my throat. Albert and I had gotten into a fight earlier that week. A fistfight that had left him with a bloodied nose and a bruised eye to proclaim my victory. My fathers expression hardened. His patience was wearing thin. He would rarely hit me, so I wasn necessarily afraid of him. I just feared that his disdain for me would increase even more.

He was about to scold me when we heard the sound of a thud out in the street. It had been quick and it hadn been followed by any immediate commotion. My first impression was that maybe someone had dropped a really heavy sack out on the pavement. But it was the silence that followed that made everything feel a little wrong. A little out of place.

There was no angry merchant with a heavy accent cursing out everything in Gods green earth. Matter of fact, there was a complete absence of noise. That never happened in Millfield Road. With the number of questionable characters that we had living in the area, silence was a luxury we could rarely afford. There was always something. Always some fight, some construction work, some guy blasting unnecessarily loud music. And yet, silence is what we were given on that uncharacteristically beautiful sunny day.

I specifically recall the atmosphere feeling heavy, almost sticky. All three of us were unable to shrug it off, to return to the normalcy of past moments. I led the way to one of the windows with tentative steps, both my parents following behind with a careful curiosity controlling their every move.

I opened the closed curtains but could only see a couple of heads moving down on the pavement. Our view was not the best from up there. We couldn see anything that would indicate what exactly had happened. But something was very wrong. I could feel it. My throat was already closing. My intuition whispered horrible suggestions. Sophie had been caught having sex with one of Davids colleagues the day before. Theyd parked his car at the very end of the lot hoping no one would notice.

Everyone did. The neighbours were all extremely nosey. They gathered around like spectators tuning in to a televised tragedy. We all followed Davids aggressive steps as he crossed the parking lot and forced open the door of the black vehicle. It was an ugly scene. I had never seen him so humiliated. So completely and utterly broken.

I had this awful premonition of what had just happened and I begged and begged and begged that I was wrong.

I don recall ever making it out the door, just that I saw Mike Doyle, who lived down on the second floor, rushing up the stairs. He had to stop on the seventh floor because he was severely out of shape and seemed physically incapable of continuing any further. ”The girl, is she up there? David just jumped! Hes hit the ground! Hes offed himself! ”

Ive never been able to put into words the exact feeling that came over me. I just know that, whatever it was, it crawled all over my body, expanding into every corner and every aperture, leaving no place untouched. I had this violent urge to cry but could not bring my face to move or my body to react. It was as if my feelings had gotten stuck somewhere in my chest and were fighting to be let out but I simply could not reach them.

I raced up to Cassies apartment with blurred vision and a ringing in my ears that distorted my reality for a couple of seconds. Everything felt distant and surreal because logic suggested there really was no way any of this had actually happened. Surely, there must have been a misunderstanding. Surely, things like these don just happen.

I barged into her apartment because I didn know what else to do. Shed been stepping out of her bedroom when I came in, completely unaware, completely oblivious. She was startled by my abrupt entrance but recovered quickly from the fright. She smiled at me.

If my heart was already broken then the sight of her made unimaginable things to it. Her smile dropped and it was only then that I felt the tears that were already sliding down my face a little too freely.

Her smile wavered. ”Etienne? ” She knew.

We remained frozen in time for the longest minute that mankind has ever experienced. I should have hugged her. I should have told her that everything was going to be okay. But I was not a quick thinker and realisation hadn come knocking on her door just yet. There were no tears, no screaming. Just a reality that refused to be altered for all of sixty seconds.

Cassies mother came, police arrived, and an ambulance was called. There was no need for further investigation. It was all open and close. David had jumped from the rooftop. Willingly.

That was the end of our childhood and the beginning of a very weird stage of our lives.

I had lost the only adult in my life who ever truly made me feel safe. The world Id taken on quite audaciously before suddenly felt like such a scary place without him. It is weird to be ten and feel as if theres no one there to care for you. I cried myself to sleep for a week straight and then went through this odd phase where I would randomly burst into tears every other week. I think they were angry tears. I was angry at the universe for taking David. There was a very bitter voice somewhere in the back of my brain that came around every other week. Sometimes every other day.

It shouldve been you, I thought to myself after being scolded by my father, after listening to my mother ravaging the living room, after walking past Sophie on the staircase. It shouldve been you and not him.

But if there were any surviving victims of this tragedy, it had to be Cassie.

Everyone expected her to handle his passing badly. She had just lost the parent she was closest to in a very unfortunate way. People pitied her for months. Everyone was kind to her all of a sudden. But I don think anyone expected someone so young to be able to reach such staggering lows. It wasn long until their whispers of pity carried this slightly judgemental tone to them. Months passed and the novelty of it all wore off. People found other things to pity other people for and everyone became less understanding of her suffering.

I tried to be there for her but I was never told how to deal with a friend who was going through extreme levels of grief. I didn know what to say or do to make it better. I held her whenever she cried, I reassured her, I was by her side always. But it didn matter how tightly I held on, she kept slipping away from me.

At thirteen, Sophie took her to visit an aunt of hers who had terminal cancer and a big stash of medication. They went to see this aunt on numerous occasions, a couple of times a month perhaps. It was then that Cassie began stealing pills and experimenting with drugs after a long battle against an endless void.

That was it. A crime of opportunity that forever changed the course of our lives. I don think she intended to become an addict. Although, in all fairness, I don think anyone ever does.

No one ever tells you what to do when you
e thirteen and your friend is suddenly an addict. I tried to talk some sense into her but I came across as an idiot each and every time. I was basically quoting those anti-drug commercials that aired on TV and that made me sound like a middle-aged man trying to seem relatable to the youth. And she didn want to hear it. She already knew everything that needed to be said. We would sometimes get into arguments that I would back away from because I was afraid a small push would send her too far from me.

”Im just changing, okay? Thats it, ” she told me once as she stormed inside her bedroom with a huff of annoyance that immediately told me I needed to take two steps back.

But this wasn just a change. Drugs don just change you. Especially when you
e so young. Drugs kill you, figuratively a little more so than literally.

It was terrifying to watch all of this play out. At fourteen, I spent weeks doing the necessary research to figure out how to get her out of that place. I helped her look for an affordable therapist in the city. A psychologist. Maybe even a rehab centre. I found that one of the pharmacies had a very good sale on antidepressants. She did not have the energy to do the groundwork but I did. I thought myself capable of going to the end of the world for her.

And then Ridgeway happened.

I had attended Ridgeway Institute for years. It was an all-boys school that my parents had sent me to because it was a ten-minute drive from home. They cared very little for the lack of discipline of the pupils and the overall flexibility of the institution. It was not an outstanding school in any way. They did not have any triumphs to put on display. That is why they decided to open their doors to female students that year, hoping that a bigger crowd would give them more notoriety in the area.

Sophie thought it would be convenient for Cassie to attend Ridgeway because it was closer to home but it mostly had to do with the fact that shed already gotten in too much trouble at her previous school. When a thirteen-year-old is known for messing with drugs, naturally you must look at the caretakers.

That shouldve been an exhilarating notion. I shouldve found pure joy in the idea of having Cassies world collide with mine a little more. The only problem was that Ridgeway and Millfield Road had always existed separately in my life. That ten-minute drive symbolised the two opposite corners of society in which I existed. They were two paths that were never supposed to meet.

Things might have been miserable at home, but I had put a lot of effort into ensuring that life outside of Millfield Road was not a reflection of that. I was popular at Ridgeway. I was well-liked. I had friends. I was invited to parties. I was introduced to girls. No one knew that my mother was a nutjob. That my best friend was an addict. That the man whod been a father figure to me had killed himself when I was ten and the world hadn felt right ever since.

I was a different person outside of Millfield Road. Someone Id been carefully curating for years to be the right kind of ordinary. Someone that Cassie wouldn have liked. Someone who wouldn have been friends with her.

There was an unspoken understanding between us that we refused to acknowledge for that entire summer after we found out she would be attending Ridgeway. We didn talk about it. Didn fantasise about what it would be like to walk the hallways together. She could tell that I wasn exactly overjoyed, and I suspected she knew exactly why. Perhaps I shouldve been more subtle with the thousand complaints about Ridgeway that I had slid over her table as well as my suggestions that she should look into different schools.

She had already left by the time Id set out on the first day. There was never any mention of us walking to school together, or sitting next to each other in class, or meeting up at the end of the day to catch the same ride. I think she could already tell what was coming before even I did. I didn know how I was going to approach this. I didn know whether I would be introducing her to my friends or keeping her as a casual colleague. She was meant to be my secret and I did not know how much of her I was willing to share. It shouldve been so easy, but nothing ever is when you
e fourteen and you feel like the universe is conspiring against you.

I knew she was going to have a difficult time at Ridgeway. The boys there could be so tremendously cruel. I knew because I was one of them. It didn help that she didn fit in with the rest of the girls and that it probably wouldn take long for everyone to learn about her addiction because it was never meant to be kept a secret in the first place. She didn care if people found out. Even her mother knew.

”Sophie found one of the bottles today, ” she told me one evening. It was October, we were lying in her bed as we always did, her fathers favourite record was playing, I had my hand wrapped around her wrist because I was constantly checking her pulse.

”And what did she say? ”

”Nothing. ”

But the kids at school did have something to say. They had a lot to say, actually. Sophie had a reputation around town, and the second the surname Loaiza travelled through the corridors of Ridgeway, Cassie became the most talked-about student for all of the wrong reasons. She was an easy target. Everyone knew her story, they just didn know that Id been a part of it. And so they mocked her for her addiction, for her fathers passing, for her mothers promiscuous ways. As if any of that was her fault.

She was already being teased by the time I made it to school. Timmy Higgins saw the infamous Sophie Deneuve dropping her off and that alone was enough to set forth an avalanche of taunts and insults that just never stopped.

The one moment that dictated what the upcoming years would be like happened just five minutes into that first day. When our eyes met while Timmy was spewing some utter nonsense that was likely ridiculously offensive—and I looked away. With my heart all the way up in my throat and a violent urge to cry that I hadn felt since Davids passing, I looked away. My hands were shaky as I shoved books inside of my locker and listened to Timmys voice off in the distance. My vision was blurry. My breathing uneven. But I composed myself right there and then, and moved on with my day with a lowered gaze.

I forbade myself from speaking to her. My eyes avoided her like the very sight of her small frame was a source of revulsion. It was not. I don know why I did it. I think I desperately wanted to salvage the normalcy I had outside of Millfield. I knew I would more than likely be sent to the bottom of the social hierarchy if I associated with her, and my fourteen-year-old self cracked underneath the pressure.

She never confronted me about it once we were back in the privacy of our homes. Oddly enough, things did not change when back in Millfield Road. And by that, I understood that she saw herself as unworthy of my company. She was not. Not a day went by in which I did not scorn myself for the way I treated her, and yet I never changed.

And just like that, our friendship was reduced to whatever happened inside the brick walls of our apartment building. I did try to make up for my putrid behaviour. I tried to be by her side as much as I possibly could. I hated seeing her do drugs but I hated leaving her alone even more. It made me itch to know that something could possibly go wrong and I wouldn be around to help her.

The most memorable night out of all the ones we shared happened to be New Years Eve. We were sixteen by then. Sophie had gone out with her newest lover–a man in his early thirties who dressed as if he was working an office job every hour of the day. I knew Cassie would be using that night, so I cancelled the plans I had with my other friends to stay with her.

As a teenager, Cassies appearance remained loyal to that of her childhood self. Her round face housed tired eyes that looked strikingly like Davids, pain and everything. Her features were still harsh and tired and they made her look like she was perpetually irritated. Wavy black hair fell past her shoulders, and she continued her habit of never putting any effort into it.

I think the most notable physical difference that marked the separation between our childhood and current selves is that I had stretched into one-eighty-six meter height while she was somewhere in the lower half of one sixty-something.

We were in her bedroom. The apartment was eerily silent, serenaded only by the sound of other people celebrating off in the distance. We were illuminated by the golden LED lights that hung lazily from the walls. Her eyes were closed, her breathing shallow. For a moment I felt comforted by the fact she at least wasn in any pain. And then she opened her eyes to reveal her small pupils and the tears that threatened to spill. I instantly wrapped my hand around her wrist. There was a pulse. Everything was alright.

”Im sorry Im such a bad friend, ” she said, her voice hoarse due to the tightness in her throat.

I could not believe, for the life of me, how she believed herself to be the bad one out of the two. She was far too kind with her judgement. If there was anyone who shouldve been profusely apologising it shouldve been me. But she couldn see that. She always painted me in very flattering shades of gold that made me out to be far more than I was.

”Happy New Year, ma chérie, ” I whispered, softly pressing my lips against her forehead. We could hear the commotion coming from an outside world that we did not want to let in. ”Heres to many more. ”

No one at Ridgeway knew that I was the one who found her when she overdosed that summer.

It all started with the sound of choking. A sound that is never known to indicate anything good. Unless you
e into that sort of thing, I guess. It happened in June. My mother had ordered me to go ask Sophie whether she was done with the magazines she had borrowed. There were three. ”Make sure she hands you back all three, ” she said.

I walked up the set of stairs, from the eighth floor to the ninth, and knocked on the door that was directly in front of me. I did not receive an answer and did not put it past Sophie to be out with one of her many lovers on a Sunday morning. I hoped maybe Cassie would help me get the errand done, and so I called for her.

But instead of receiving either one of the two options I was expecting, be it a ”Coming! ” or no sound, I heard choking. Deep intakes of breath, wet coughs, a throat that was unsure of which direction to send the foamy liquid that was flooding it.

I froze. I could neither yell nor show any urgency. My fist closed around the doorknob. Please turn. It turned. The door felt both heavy and incredibly light, and my senses had gone into such overdrive that I could not even feel the coldness of the metal that pressed into my palm. I did not want the door to open because I feared the scene that would be waiting for me. In that sense, everything moved slowly. Seconds dragged by, elongating as if to follow the commands of a moment that wished to remain frozen in time. But I knew I needed to act fast, and although my mind was asking for time to brace itself, my body was choosing to act without bothering to receive authorisation.

She had been laying on the very centre of her living room floor, only a couple of feet away from the door. I had the impression that she had been in the process of rushing to get help when her body had caved in. She was drenched in sweat, her mouth producing noises that indicated a clear struggle, and her skin had turned a variety of shades that each pointed to a different issue. It seemed as if life had been drained out of her.

And it occurred to me, as I watched the paramedics work on what appeared to be her lifeless body, that she never really stood a chance.