And Now, The Probable End

“He really did it,” Nirvana told Keebs.

“He said he would.”

“Did you know when you met him that he was like this?”

“That he was insane?” Keebs laughed. “I knew he was different.”

“He told me not to worry. But he wasn’t talking about the kid.” Nirvana’s eyes filled with tears. Her hands tried to get to her face discreetly but she realized it was futile to hide it from Keebs. Her voice began to crack. “He told me he knew why I was running after {ria}. That after my family died I was desperate for meaning. And he was right. I used to believe that life was teeming with wonderful surprises and luck and love and kind people and when they were gone I was so sad I wouldn’t eat or talk or stop crying for days. The crash took everyone I ever loved and I couldn’t, for the life of me, understand why.”

They never really talked about the accident, but now that Nirvana had opened up, Keebs figured it would be okay to ask. “Were you able to talk to anyone after it happened?”

Nirvana shook her head. “I clammed up. It’s like a storm silencing a forest fire for good. The things I found fascinating I now found bland and insignificant. I had friends who tried to hang out but couldn’t really bear to see me like that. Downward spiral from a high and airy place. Until I couldn’t feel anything any more. And I got deeper and deeper in until one day I decided to end it.”

“You what?” Keebs did not know this about Nirvana. He knew her from freshman year, mostly from Dante’s stories, and he never portrayed her as the sad, broken thing that she really was. Keebs wondered whether Dante just chose to see Nirvana in a different light, or whether this was really how he saw her. He wondered how much of the stuff he was able to accomplish was because of Dante’s belief that he can do them, he wondered if Dante saw people’s cores and forced them to accept it and live it or at least face the demands of knowing.

“I read about how to best cut yourself if you really wanted to die. And at this point I tried every manner of pain hoping I might be able to feel things again. Pain, even. Anything. So I went to the old Film Center building and cut myself.”

“Deej.”

“And then, out of nowhere, Dante was there. And so slowly I began to believe in things again. That someone was taking care of me from far away. That maybe things can be okay again. And before he went away tonight he said I should stop looking for meaning. Because the truth is everything is our choice. And that the things that happen, they don’t happen fora reason. We create a reason,  and trust it will make us feel better.”

“He’d say that.”

“He told me the kid could be the reason.”

Keebs nodded. Together they looked out at the river, now tranquil and smooth like before the storm. “And Dante’s always right,” he said. He was going to miss his friend.