This Is How I Disappear

“Did you hear—?” my mom starts to ask someone, but then Gerard closes the phone. His face is bone white as he stares at me, fear written plain in his eyes. I wear a similar expression.

What did I just get him into? I think, guilty and terrified.

Probably nothing he hasn’t been in before, my brain assures me, but sounds worried as well.

“Where’s my rent?!” the landlady shouts.

“We have to go,” Gerard tells me urgently. “Now!”

I scramble up off the bed where I was seated, and grab a chair to put under the window. Gerard is throwing things out of his drawers, searching frantically for something.

“I want my money, Gerard!” the landlady persists.

“The photo!” he hisses. “Where is it?”

I pat my pockets uncertainly, before I catch sight of it on the bed. Snatching it up, I hand it to him, and he stuffs it in a backpack. Then he pushes the dresser about a foot to the side, and pries open a previously hidden floorboard. “What’s in there?” I wonder.

“Emergency stash,” he tells me shortly, scooping passports and bundles of cash into his bag. “Time to go,” he says, zipping it up.

“Gerard!!” the landlady is still shouting.

I stand on the chair and scrape open the window. “Will you fit?” I ask, whilst hoisting myself up onto the sill.

“I have to,” he mutters from behind me.

As I try to wriggle out, I can hear the faint sound of sirens. I can tell that Gerard is biting his tongue not to remind me to hurry, because we both know we have to.

Like last time, my jeans get snagged at my hips, and as much as I claw the dirt in front of me, I can’t budge. “I’m stuck,” I hiss to Gerard. His hands grab my thighs as he pushes me through. My jeans rip down one side about three inches, but I don’t have time to swoon over his touch or be embarrassed over my falling-down pants. I turn back to the window and he gives me the backpack, which I toss to the side. He stands on the chair and pulls himself up, so that his stomach is on the sill. I help drag him forward, but he also gets caught at the hips. The sirens are getting closer.

Suddenly, Gerard starts laughing. I stop pulling, and just stare at him. “Sorry,” he laughs, “It’s just, this situation is really funny.”

Just when I was starting to think he wasn’t crazy, I mutter to my brain.

For the record, my brain comments, I never thought he wasn’t.

Sure, I say sarcastically. “Well, why don’t you laugh about it later,” I suggest, “because if we don’t hurry, it’s not gonna be so funny much longer.”

Gerard nods seriously, pushing at the the edges of the window again, before collapsing into a second fit of giggles.

“What now?” I ask incredulously.

He wipes tears from his eyes with dirty fingers. “Sorry, just…wouldn’t it be funny if the police found me like this, stuck in a window!?”

“Okay, that’s it,” I tell him, and wrap my arms around his warm torso, tugging with all my might. He tries to calm his hysterics, but to no avail. I feel like rolling my eyes at this ridiculousness, but I’m too uptight as the sirens get louder and louder by the second. I stop pulling, and go to the window. “Okay, what’s caught?” I ask no one in particular, and my hands shake as I try to run them along the edges, which means touching his hips.

“I’m fat!” Gerard giggles, and I struggle to keep my frown in place. This is serious, my brain reminds me. You can laugh later. But right now we have to get out of here.

I know, I reply briefly, and suddenly, I feel a button snagged on the sill. “I think this is it,” I tell the still laughing Gerard. “I just need to…get it….” I refuse to get distracted about where my hands are as I struggle to pop the button over the window ledge. It won’t come free. The sirens must be a block away. “Gerard, I’m taking off your pants!” I yell at him, and his laughter pauses long enough for him to say, “What?” then resumes with even more gusto.

I’m not thinking about anything but getting us out of here, I tell my brain as my fingers fumble to unbutton his jeans.

No, not at all, my brain agrees. Taking off his pants is necessary.

It is, I insist, now working on the zipper with nervous fingers. I am totally focussed on escape.

Yes, you are, my brain says. You’re not at all focussed on the feel of his hips or how he will look without pants.

Your commentary is highly valued, I return stiffly.

At your service, my brain vows.

I start pulling Gerard again, and this time, I succeed, slipping him out of the window and his pants. I catch the jeans before they fall inside, and toss them at Gerard, who is still on the ground. “Get up,” I order. “Hurry!”

Gerard groans painfully, and manages to roll off his stomach and onto his side. His eyes are squeezed shut, and his hands rest limply on a dark stain on his side. Is that…? I ask my brain.

Blood? Yes, I believe so, my brain confirms, and I drop to my knees beside him.

“What happened?” I panic. “What’s wrong?”

That’s when I see the shard of broken glass embedded in his side.