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Johnny knew four things for certain:
The first thing Johnny knew was that he had changed. He could tell that he had changed for a few reasons, even though he didn’t exactly remember his old self. When caught a glimpse of his reflection, he could just tell it wasn’t right somehow, although he never lingered. His face was too sullen, his eyes were wide and shadowy, his hair was damp with grease and hung limply from his head. Johnny knew that if he ever sat down in his room and studied himself- like really, really studied himself- there would be more noticeable changes.
Once he caught his reflection one too many times, and now his bedroom mirror sported a series of thin fractures running from the center that made his face look jagged and crooked and split into pieces.
The second way Johnny could tell that he had changed was that now there was blood on his hands all the time.
Sometimes he knew exactly why. He would look down at his hands and all the sounds of screaming and tearing flesh and the smell of fresh blood that was no longer surprising to him would come rushing back. Other times it was a mystery. He would study the strikingly red substance over older blood that had dried to be a dark ruddy color, and he would briefly wonder who it had been, although he never lingered. Johnny knew deep down that if he really didn’t remember than there was probably a good reason.
The second thing Johnny knew related to the first thing: Johnny knew that he used to be happy. He would see people out in public sometimes, joined at the hip with their arms wrapped around each other, and he would get a sudden rush of deja vu. He must have been like that with someone at some point. He wondered who they had been.
He once found a box full of old pictures in the back of his closet hidden under a mass of Christmas lights. It was clear that he hadn’t wanted himself to find them. It was also clear that he hadn’t wanted himself to see them either, judging by the frantic pen scribbles across his own face and the faces of the other people in them. He couldn’t see their faces so he didn’t know if they were happy, but their posture seemed comfortable and relaxed.
Who were they, and what had they been like? Why did he obscure his own face? Johnny had clearly stumbled across these pictures before. What terrible or painful memories did they bring back? Johnny decided not to linger. He knew if he had worked this hard to hide it from himself then there was probably a good reason.
The third thing Johnny knew somehow weighed more heavily than the second thing: He knew that no matter what, he would never be happy again. Sure, he would have fleeting moments of joy every now and then, but they never lingered for long. Sometimes he would even have entire days that were good, but they were always spoiled by the fact that he knew the darkness would still be there at the end of it, waiting to draw him back in.
On those rare good days he would go to the bookstore to visit Devi. He didn’t usually want to buy anything, he just wanted to see the one person who made him happy.
“Hi there, Johnny,” she would say when she saw him, folding her arms on the counter and leaning forward with an easy smile on her face. Johnny blushed. He liked the way Devi greeted him by saying his name like that. “And what brings you here on this fine day?”
“Wanted to see you,” he would say, trying to sound confident and cool like one of the protagonists from his favorite action movies.
“And why is that?”
Johnny swallowed, “I, uh, read something you might think is interesting,” this was true, “It’s about sea otters…. They hold hands while they’re sleeping so they don’t drift apart.”
“Aw, I do like that,” she’d say, studying her nails, “I was reading earlier that a group of crows is called a murder. Did you know that? I thought you would like that.”
They had had countless versions of this conversation before. Johnny liked Devi so much. He wondered sometimes if any of his old friends had been like her.
Oh, well, he would probably never know. He felt certain that him and Devi would never really get close enough to be real friends. Maybe that was for the best.
He was sure that someone like Devi probably had all kinds of friends, who Johnny could never hope to compare to. She probably went out every night.
Johnny had good days and bad days. On good days, he would go to the bookstore and talk to Devi and she would laugh at his jokes. On bad days he would have mysterious blood on his hands and gaps in his memory, and catching glimpses of his reflection would make him wince. He had long since taken down all the mirrors in the hallway, and the mirror in his bathroom. He hated the fact that he was the last thing thing people saw before they died.
The final thing Johnny knew was possibly the darkest thing of all.
Johnny knew he was getting worse. He was having more and more bad days, which meant more and more strange gaps in his memory.
He had walked into his bedroom on one of his bad days to gloomily lay in bed and peel away the dried blood from his hands, only to find those ruined photographs laid out on his bed in neat little rows.
When had he done this? Why?
It was the kind of thing a ghost might do to try to send a message from beyond the grave. Johnny’s old self was dying and he was desperately trying to save it somehow. But what had he been trying to tell himself?
Johnny examined them all again, very carefully. He racked his brain for any kind of answer.
Had he taken them out in a pathetic fit of feverish loneliness, only to find that looking at them only made him feel worse? Had he dug up the pictures again in a rare and sudden moment of clarity, gone to find his die-ary to write everything down, but forgot before he could get to it? Those certainly sounded like things he would do.
Sighing, Johnny gathered up the pictures and stuck them in his dresser drawer. Out of sight, out of mind. Maybe it was best not to linger. Maybe if he really didn’t remember, than it was for good reason.