Where Dreams End
I. The Boy Who Sang
DriQuez couldn't sing.
Nobody had told him that yet, so at four years old he sang everywhere: in the kitchen, in the bathtub, while playing with his toys, and especially while sitting on the toilet.
The bathroom was his favorite. He didn't know anything about acoustics, but his voice sounded bigger in there. Sometimes it echoed. If he sang loud enough, he could make the walls vibrate.
His feet dangled above the floor, his shorts around his ankles, and he was halfway through a song he'd heard on the radio. He didn't know all the words. He made up the missing ones and jumped back in whenever the real lyrics came around again.
"DriQuez!"
He stopped.
"Yes, ma'am?"
"You almost done in there?"
"Uh-huh!"
"Then come on! Your breakfast getting cold!"
"Okay!"
He resumed his concert, smiling a big, ridiculous smile that showed the gap between his front teeth. He wasn't trying to impress anyone. He just liked singing.
He liked cartoons, video games, chicken nuggets, playing outside, and following his older brothers around when they let him. He talked to strangers. Sometimes his mother would turn around in the grocery store and find her son explaining a TV show to someone who hadn't asked.
"Boy, leave those people alone."
"He ain't bothering me," the stranger would usually say, laughing.
"Sorry. He just talks."
DriQuez didn't understand why she apologized. Talking was fun. He had questions, stories, things he'd seen that he wanted other people to see.
His grandmother called him a character. His mother said he had enough personality for three children. His brothers, depending on their moods, either found him hilarious or told him to shut up.
At four years old, he couldn't imagine running out of things to say.
⸻
The constipation started before kindergarten.
A few days without using the bathroom. Then a week. Then two. His mother started asking every morning and checking his underwear when she suspected something. Sometimes he went a month without a proper bowel movement. Once, almost two.
His stomach hurt. He'd sit on the toilet for hours, straining until his face turned red and his legs went numb. Sometimes he cried. Sometimes he gave up. Sometimes he stood up and found his underwear dirty, and he hadn't felt a thing.
His mother explained that he was so backed up that waste was leaking around what he couldn't pass. He didn't understand that. He only understood that his underwear was dirty again, and everyone was upset.
"Again, DriQuez? Why didn't you tell me you had to go?"
"I didn't know."
"How you don't know?"
He wished he knew.
"You're getting too old for this."
He was always getting too old for something. Too old to cry. Too old to have accidents. Too old to need help in the bathroom.
He wondered when he'd be old enough to stop disappointing everyone.
⸻
The medicine was horrible. Sometimes a liquid, sometimes something mixed into a drink. He'd start gagging before the cup reached his mouth.
"Come on, DriQuez."
He shook his head. "It makes me throw up."
"You're not gonna throw up. Drink it."
He took a little. His throat contracted.
"Stop that."
He tried. Another mouthful. Another. The third came back up.
His mother screamed. "Goddammit, DriQuez!"
"I'm sorry!"
"Why can't you just do what I tell you? You know you can die from this? All that stuff sitting inside you? You can die!"
He hadn't known. He knew people died in movies, and sometimes in cartoons, though they usually came back the next episode. He didn't know a person could die because they couldn't use the bathroom.
"I'm trying!"
"Then drink it!"
He gagged again.
She hit him. He covered his head. "I'm sorry!" She hit him again.
Then his brothers were in the room.
"Ma! Stop!"
"Get out!"
"Stop hitting him!"
Someone grabbed her. One of his brothers wrestled her onto the bed to keep her away from him. DriQuez curled into a ball.
Now his mother was crying. That confused him more than anything. A moment ago she'd been angry. He wondered if he'd done something else wrong.
His brothers got her out of the room. One came back and sat beside him, looking at the cup.
"Man, you gotta take that stuff."
"I tried. It makes me throw up."
"I know. But you gotta get better. Just take a little bit. Don't try to drink all of it."
DriQuez looked toward the door. "Am I gonna die?"
His brother stared at him. "Nah, man."
"Mommy said."
"You're not gonna die." He held out the cup. "Come on."
DriQuez didn't want to die. He didn't want his mother to hit him again either. So he tried.
When the medicine didn't work, his mother gave him an enema. He hated those more than anything: the preparation, the discomfort, the humiliation of needing help with something other kids did without thinking. Afterward he'd sit on the toilet for hours, waiting, trying, crying, until something finally happened.
Then everything was okay. His stomach stopped hurting. His mother stopped worrying. His brothers stopped asking.
For a month. Sometimes two.
Then it started again.
⸻
His brothers teased him. They called him names and made jokes when he walked into a room. He learned to laugh along. It was easier than letting them see it bothered him.
But they weren't always mean. They played video games with him and let him watch movies he wasn't supposed to watch. When he had nightmares, one of them sometimes let him sleep in their room. When their mother lost her temper, they tried to protect him.
He loved his brothers, even when he wished they'd leave him alone.
His father was different. He didn't tease him, and he didn't hit him over the bathroom problems. He just became distant. Sometimes he'd see DriQuez in the hallway with dirty clothes and shake his head. Sometimes he'd say something to DriQuez's mother, just quietly enough that DriQuez couldn't hear. Sometimes he said nothing at all.
That was worse.
DriQuez knew his father was ashamed. He didn't know how to make him stop. Eventually, he stopped trying.
There was never a big argument between them. No dramatic falling out. Just years passing without either of them learning much about the other.
⸻
By kindergarten, the little boy who sang on the toilet had gone quiet.
"Can you tell me your name?" the teacher asked.
He stared at his shoes.
His mother touched his shoulder. "Tell the lady."
"DriQuez."
"That's a beautiful name. Are you excited about school?"
He shrugged.
His mother laughed awkwardly. "He's shy."
That became the explanation. He was shy. He'd grow out of it.
Nobody knew he'd been a different child a year earlier. Nobody knew about the singing, or the medicine, or the nights he cried himself to sleep because he was afraid his body might kill him.
They knew he was quiet. That was enough.
II. The Worlds Inside His Head
DriQuez was alone often. He wasn't lonely. There was a difference.
He had video games, cartoons, books, and an imagination that could keep him busy for hours. He'd finish a game and spend the rest of the afternoon inventing what happened after it ended: new enemies, new characters, whole worlds. Sometimes he was the hero. Sometimes he was someone else entirely. Sometimes he made up conversations between characters and laughed at things he'd invented.
His brothers would hear him through the door.
"Who you talking to?"
"Nobody."
"Then why you talking?"
He'd shrug. They'd laugh. He'd wait until they left, then keep going.
His imagination gave him somewhere to go. It didn't always go somewhere good.
⸻
There was a dream he had over and over.
He was riding his bike through the neighborhood with a group of kids. They were his friends. He couldn't remember their names, but he knew they liked him. They raced through the streets laughing and shouting, slowing down whenever somebody fell behind so nobody got left.
Then they'd reach a highway, with a ramp beside it.
One by one, the other kids pedaled toward the ramp, jumped, flew across the highway, and landed safely on the other side.
Every single one, except DriQuez.
He'd pedal as hard as he could. The wind would rush past his ears. He'd hit the ramp and launch into the air.
He never made it. Sometimes he fell. Sometimes he woke up before landing. Sometimes he found himself back at the beginning, getting ready to try again.
He always tried again.
It was his dream. He could imagine anything. Why couldn't he imagine himself reaching the other side?
⸻
At night, his imagination turned on him.
DriQuez was terrified of the dark. He slept with the blankets over his head, even in summer, and woke up sweating. He didn't care. The blankets kept the monsters out.
The house made noises. Wood settled. Pipes clicked. The refrigerator hummed. Sometimes a sound from the hallway was exactly like footsteps. He'd hold his breath and listen. Another noise. Closer. He'd pull the blankets tighter.
He knew monsters weren't real. During the day.
One evening he watched a horror movie about the tooth fairy. After that, he stopped leaving teeth under his pillow. Whenever one fell out, he threw it away somewhere far from home: at school, in the woods. Once he carried a tooth in his pocket for two days because he hadn't found somewhere far enough.
"What happened to your tooth?" his mother asked.
"Threw it away."
"Why?"
"Didn't want it."
She laughed. "Boy, you know the tooth fairy gives you money, right?"
He knew what the tooth fairy did. He'd seen the movie. He wasn't taking any chances.
His mother didn't know that. Nobody did.
⸻
He made one friend most school years. Sometimes a kid sat next to him long enough for it to happen. Sometimes they liked the same game. Sometimes they just kept talking until DriQuez got comfortable enough to answer with more than one word.
Once he was comfortable, he could joke, laugh, and argue over cartoons. He wasn't incapable of friendship. He just wasn't good at keeping it.
When school ended, so did most of his friendships. He didn't call. Didn't visit. Didn't invite anyone over. What if he had an accident? What if somebody noticed and told everyone?
It was easier to stay home. Eventually, staying home was what he preferred.
⸻
Fourth grade was different. There was a girl named Jasmine.
She was funny. She smiled a lot. Sometimes she talked to him during class. He never knew whether she liked him back.
Then there was a school dance. Balloons and paper decorations hung from the gym walls. Teachers stood by the bleachers while kids danced in groups, laughing and stepping on each other's shoes.
DriQuez stood by the wall. He didn't know how to dance. Some of the kids out there were terrible at it, and it didn't seem to bother them. He wondered how they did that.
Jasmine walked up to him.
"Hey."
"Hey."
"You wanna dance?"
He stared at her. "With me?"
She laughed. "No, with the wall."
He smiled, then looked at the dance floor. All he had to do was walk out there. Move around. Maybe hold her hands.
But what if he looked stupid? What if everyone laughed? What if she realized she'd made a mistake?
He could already see it: him stumbling, her embarrassed, the whole gym watching.
"Nah."
Her smile faded a little. "Oh."
He wanted to take it back immediately. Wait. Actually, yeah. Let's dance.
He thought all of it. He said none of it.
"Okay," she said, and walked away.
He watched her join another group. Someone said something. She laughed. He wondered whether they were talking about him.
He stayed by the wall until the dance ended.
⸻
He walked home with his head down the whole way, counting the cracks in the sidewalk, trying not to think about her.
He'd wanted to dance. She'd asked. He'd said no.
Why couldn't he just do something normal?
He replayed it. This time he said yes. They walked onto the floor. He made her laugh. Maybe they held hands. Maybe she became his girlfriend.
Then he reached home, and none of it had happened.
Jasmine moved away that summer. He never saw her again.
He thought about her in fifth grade, in middle school, in high school. Years later, he'd still remember her face when he said no. Probably nothing would have happened if he'd danced. They were kids. She might not have remembered him a week later.
He understood that.
He still thought about her more than he thought someone should.
⸻
As he got older, DriQuez grew suspicious of affection. Not on purpose. It just seemed safer.
If someone said they liked him, he wondered why. He barely spoke. He wasn't funny around strangers. He didn't think he was interesting.
Girls flirted with him sometimes. He rarely noticed. A girl could compliment his clothes, ask if he had a girlfriend, and spend the whole lunch period talking to him, and he'd assume she was being polite.
People were polite all the time.
"Hey, how you doing?"
"Good."
"How was your weekend?"
"Good."
"You do anything?"
"Nah."
He couldn't understand small talk. If someone asked about his weekend, he assumed they didn't really care. Why waste their time with an answer?
Eventually they'd leave, and he'd wonder why he'd made it awkward again.
⸻
DriQuez didn't like making fun of people. He knew how it felt. When other kids teased someone, he didn't always step in, because he was afraid of becoming the next target. But he rarely joined in.
He didn't like fighting either. He hated blood. Hated seeing people cry. Hated the sounds people made when they were hurt.
But sometimes someone decided the quiet kid was an easy target.
One boy bothered him for weeks. DriQuez ignored him. That didn't work. He walked away. That didn't work either. Eventually the boy shoved him, DriQuez shoved back, and then they were fighting.
He remembered being terrified. His hands shaking. Wanting it to stop.
Afterward, people congratulated him and said he'd handled himself.
He didn't feel proud. He went home, played video games, and wished it had never happened.
⸻
By middle school, he called himself stupid for everything. Forgetting something. Making a mistake. Not understanding something right away.
He thought he was the least intelligent person in almost every room. His grades said otherwise. He believed it anyway.
He could do a task a hundred times, a thousand times, and when he imagined doing it again, he still saw himself failing. Dropping something. Forgetting something. Saying the wrong thing. Being laughed at.
He could imagine other people succeeding easily. For himself, success always seemed unlikely.
He wondered whether everyone lived that way.
He never asked.
III. Somebody Important
At thirteen, DriQuez decided he wanted to be a doctor.
He liked science. Doctors seemed important. People needed them and listened to them. Nobody questioned whether a doctor belonged in the room.
He started reading about the human body: the names of bones, the chambers of the heart, the difference between arteries and veins. Sometimes he'd explain something he'd learned at dinner.
His grandmother would look surprised. "Look at you, talking."
He'd go quiet immediately.
She'd laugh. "I'm just playing, baby."
He knew. He still stopped talking.
⸻
His condition followed him into high school. Some months were good. Some weren't. The physical problems weren't as bad as when he was little, but the embarrassment stayed.
He wanted a girlfriend. He noticed pretty girls, their smiles, the way they laughed. Sometimes he'd watch a romance on TV and catch himself crying when something happened between the characters. He'd pause it, wipe his eyes, laugh at himself, and press play.
He could get his heart broken by people who didn't exist. He could spend hours imagining relationships with girls who barely knew his name. Dates. Arguments. Kisses. Marriage. Kids.
He knew it was ridiculous. He did it anyway.
The real thing was harder. What if someone found out about his condition? What if she thought he was disgusting? What if she laughed?
So he rarely tried. People assumed he wasn't interested.
He let them.
⸻
At sixteen, something changed again.
He woke up one morning and couldn't find a reason to care about the day. Nothing bad had happened. He wasn't sick. He'd slept fine. But the things he'd enjoyed felt thinner. Video games were something to pass the time. Music was something to fill the silence. School was somewhere he went because he was supposed to.
He still wanted to be a doctor. Or he remembered wanting to. He couldn't remember why.
His grades slipped. His teachers noticed. His mother noticed.
"What's going on with you?"
"Nothing."
"You sure?"
"Yeah."
He didn't know how to explain it, because he wasn't empty. That was the strange part. He could get angry, embarrassed, afraid, and sad, sometimes all in one afternoon.
And his thoughts never stopped. He replayed conversations. Imagined arguments. Invented failures. He'd lie in bed for hours thinking about something stupid he'd said three years earlier, imagining what people said about him after he left.
So he played music. Loud. Headphones, speakers, whatever he had. It gave his mind something else to follow. He'd close his eyes and listen, and for a little while he could breathe.
He never told anyone why he listened so much.
⸻
By graduation, he no longer planned to be a doctor.
His family couldn't afford college. There were other options: financial aid, community college, scholarships. But each one required him to picture himself succeeding, and whenever he tried, his mind showed him failing.
Then an Army recruiter visited his school. Education benefits. A steady paycheck. Travel. Structure. A way out of the house.
He didn't have a better plan.
So he enlisted.
IV. The Night Before
His mother drove him to a hotel the night before he shipped to basic training. The Army had arranged it. He'd leave early the next morning.
His bag sat in the back seat. Usually she had plenty to say: had he packed everything, keep his things together, listen to his superiors. Tonight she was quiet.
DriQuez looked out the window at streets he'd seen a hundred times. Tomorrow he'd be somewhere else. He'd watched videos about basic training and imagined himself running, doing push-ups, standing at attention. In some versions he did well. In most, he failed.
"You nervous?" his mother asked.
"A little."
"You know you don't have to do this, right?"
He looked at her. "What?"
"You don't have to go."
"I already signed the paperwork."
"I know that, but you can still change your mind."
He looked at the windshield. He'd never known what to say when people asked why he joined. The truth was he'd run out of ideas. He didn't know what else to become or where else to go. He'd imagined leaving home for years, and now that he was doing it, she was telling him he could stay.
"I already signed," he repeated.
She sighed. "Okay."
They drove the rest of the way in silence.
⸻
At the hotel, she got his bag out of the car. He told her he could carry it. She ignored him.
Other young men were arriving with their families. Some looked excited. Some looked terrified. A few were hugging their parents.
"You call me when you can," she said.
"Okay."
"And don't let nobody run over you."
He almost laughed. He'd spent his whole life letting people run over him.
"Okay."
"And listen to what they tell you."
"Okay."
She looked at him for a long moment, then pulled him into a hug.
He wanted to tell her something. That he loved her. That he was scared. That he didn't know what he was doing. That he didn't want her to worry.
He thought of all of it. He said none of it.
She stepped back. "You're gonna be alright."
"Yeah."
She touched his face, then went back to the car. He watched her drive away.
For a second, he thought about calling her and telling her to come back. But then what? Go home? Then what?
He picked up his bag and checked in. He turned on the TV and watched something he wouldn't remember. Then he lay in bed while his thoughts ran. Had he made a mistake? What were his brothers doing? Was his father proud of him? What if he couldn't make it through basic?
Eventually he put in his headphones, turned on some music, and waited for morning.
V. No Feelings
The Army was miserable.
He could follow instructions. He could wake up early, run, clean, and do what was asked. But the Army was about people: living with them, working with them, depending on them. And DriQuez had never been good with people.
The other soldiers made friends fast. They joked, went drinking, talked about women. DriQuez mostly listened. When someone tried to include him, he answered briefly, and eventually they stopped trying.
Some thought he was arrogant. Some thought he was stupid. A few decided he was an easy target.
Being Black didn't help. The racism wasn't subtle: jokes about Black soldiers being lazy, comments about intelligence, remarks about where he came from and what people like him were good for. One soldier openly called him a stupid Black motherfucker after DriQuez made a mistake on a task. Several others laughed.
DriQuez said nothing. He knew what would happen if he did. He'd become the problem. They'd say he couldn't take a joke, or he had an attitude, or he'd been disrespectful.
So he kept his head down, did the work, and went back to his room.
⸻
Sometimes he sat outside with his eyes on his boots for a whole afternoon, thinking about games and movies and anywhere else. But he always paid enough attention to know when someone was coming. He'd glance up and check the rank: stand and salute for an officer, acknowledge an NCO, lower his head again for anyone else.
He learned to identify people by their boots before he learned their names.
⸻
His supervisors found things for him to do.
One decided DriQuez spent too much time on his personal laptop, one of the few things he enjoyed. So he made a rule: DriQuez had to sign the laptop out, with paperwork, every time he wanted to use it.
"Roger, Sergeant."
He didn't argue. He just stopped using it.
Two weeks later, his supervisor called him over. "Why haven't you signed out your laptop?"
"Haven't needed it, Sergeant."
"What do you mean you haven't needed it?"
"Haven't been using it."
"Why not?"
DriQuez looked at him. He'd been told to sign it out. He didn't want to sign it out. So he didn't use it. That seemed straightforward.
"I just haven't needed it, Sergeant."
His supervisor studied him, then dismissed him.
He wasn't as stupid as they thought.
⸻
They gave him a twelve-hour guard shift nobody else got. He stood there for twelve hours, went back to his room with aching legs, and did whatever they told him the next day.
They sent him to do inventory every day: the same equipment, the same lists, the same storage areas. He didn't mind. Inventory was quiet. He could work alone and count things, and for a few hours nobody was looking for another reason to humiliate him.
Then there was the parking lot. His supervisor wanted an area marked off with sandbags, and DriQuez was assigned to do it alone. There were no filled sandbags waiting. Scoop the sand, fill the bag, tie it, carry it, place it, repeat. The sun beat down. His shirt soaked through. His arms ached.
He wondered why he'd been chosen. He knew why. He didn't see the point in asking.
When he finished, his supervisor inspected the work, made a few comments, and left.
Nobody thanked him. He hadn't expected anyone to.
⸻
The wallet was different.
He lost his wallet in the dining facility. Annoying: cards to cancel, an ID to replace, things to report. While he was taking care of it, another soldier reported that DriQuez had lost his weapon.
He hadn't. His sergeant came looking for it, and DriQuez showed him exactly where it was. Nothing was missing.
He thought that was the end of it.
A few days later, his supervisor called him in. There was counseling paperwork on the desk. A missing weapon was serious; DriQuez understood that. But his weapon hadn't been missing. His supervisor explained that he was recommending punishment under the UCMJ, and that he believed DriQuez deserved more than he planned to recommend to the commander.
DriQuez read the document. Responsibility. Accountability. Maintaining standards. All words he'd been taught. He didn't understand why they applied to something he hadn't done.
"Any questions?"
"No, Sergeant."
"Sign."
He signed.
⸻
Before he saw the commander, he was told someone would speak on his behalf. A character witness. He hadn't expected that. He didn't have many friends.
He waited outside the office. Through the closed door, he heard voices he couldn't make out.
Then laughter. Several people.
Maybe someone had told a joke. Maybe it had nothing to do with him. His mind supplied the explanation anyway.
They're laughing at you.
Of course they were.
The door opened. "Come in."
He straightened his uniform and went inside.
⸻
The company commander looked annoyed. Not angry, just annoyed at having another problem on his desk. He went over the counseling and talked about accountability for military equipment.
"You understand how serious this is?"
"Yes, sir."
DriQuez hesitated. "But I didn't do it, sir. My weapon wasn't missing. Sergeant came and checked. It was there."
The commander sighed. "Look, kid. You fucked up."
DriQuez stopped talking.
"I don't know what's going on with you and your platoon, but I can see you aren't squared away. Just take your two weeks of extra duty and be better."
DriQuez thought about repeating himself. Explaining where the weapon had been. Asking why the allegation still mattered if nothing had been lost.
But he could see the commander's face. The man wanted to be done. He'd heard enough stories about DriQuez. Everyone had. The quiet soldier. The strange soldier. The one who never seemed to get anything right. This fit what people already believed.
DriQuez lowered his eyes. "Yes, sir."
"Send your NCOs back in. Extra duty starts at 0500 tomorrow."
"Yes, sir."
He saluted, turned, and left.
⸻
What bothered him was that he wasn't surprised.
He'd been accused of something serious. He'd proved it false. He'd been punished anyway.
He was angry. He could feel it in his chest. But what was he supposed to do with it? Complain? To whom? The commander had already listened to everyone else.
That evening, his supervisor found him.
"Two weeks isn't so bad. I was pushing for a month of extra duty. No pay. Restricted to your room when you weren't working."
DriQuez pictured it. Work. Extra duty. No pay. Locked in his room the rest of the time.
"So slavery," he said.
The man looked at him. "It's so you'd learn."
Learn what? DriQuez wanted to ask. Not to lose something he hadn't lost? That being innocent didn't matter when enough people believed otherwise?
"Roger, Sergeant."
The man left. DriQuez set his alarm for 0430, lay down, closed his eyes, and replayed the whole conversation.
Again.
And again.
⸻
Once, he got very sick. His throat hurt, his head throbbed, and one ear felt like something sharp had been shoved into it. His temperature was 104.
He reported it. He was told to do a twenty-four-hour physical training exercise anyway. He explained he had a fever. Nobody believed him. He was used to that.
He went. For six hours he tried to keep up, dizzy, soaked in sweat, unable to think straight. Finally another medic noticed something was wrong, stopped him, checked him, and sent him to the hospital.
Strep throat and a severe ear infection.
Lying in the hospital bed, he wondered what would have happened if the medic hadn't noticed. Then he realized he already knew. He would have kept going until he couldn't.
That was what he did.
⸻
The Army didn't teach him discipline. He'd always been able to follow instructions. It didn't teach him endurance. He'd been enduring things long before he enlisted.
It taught him that people believed what they wanted to believe. That being quiet made it easier for other people to decide who you were. That some people would mistreat you because they could, and others would watch because standing next to you might make them targets too.
He learned not to expect much.
It made things easier. At least, that's what he told himself.
VI. Nine Months
Afghanistan was worse.
The days were long and the weather was miserable. He saw things he'd remember for the rest of his life. People dying. People screaming. Bodies missing pieces. Children who should have been playing in the street lying motionless beside it.
He'd never liked violence or blood. But he did his job. When someone gave an instruction, he followed it. When something needed doing, he did it. He didn't cry, scream, or freeze.
Some soldiers looked at him strangely for that. He wondered what they expected. He felt things: fear, anger, disgust, sadness, sometimes all at once, too fast to separate. None of it changed what needed to be done.
So he worked. And when the work was finished, he went back to his bunk.
⸻
At night, his thoughts became unbearable. He replayed what he'd seen and remembered details he wished he hadn't noticed. A child's shoe. The sound someone made before they stopped moving. A man's hand reaching for something.
He could hear it. Sometimes he could smell it.
He put on headphones and turned up the music. Sometimes it helped. Sometimes the memories kept playing right through it.
⸻
He wanted to leave. Not the way soldiers talked about going home. He wanted to get up in the middle of the night and walk away from the base.
He planned it. Which direction he'd go. How much water he'd need. Where he'd hide. Sometimes he pictured crossing the desert, finding a road, finding someone willing to help, reaching somewhere safe.
He knew it was ridiculous. He knew he could die out there, and that even if he survived, he couldn't simply go home. It didn't stop him from imagining.
Sometimes he escaped. Other times he died in the desert, or got caught, or collapsed before reaching anything. He could never make the ending work.
It reminded him of the bicycle ramp. Everyone else made it across.
He never did.
⸻
Nine months overseas. Nine months of waking up somewhere he didn't want to be, around people who mostly wanted nothing to do with him.
Sometimes he scrolled Facebook. Birthdays, weddings, parties, vacations. People living their lives. Nobody from home messaged to ask how he was. Not his old friends. Not his brothers. He didn't message them either.
Two of his brothers didn't speak to him the entire time he was in the military. The third reached out once, because he needed money.
DriQuez sent it.
He told himself that was normal. People drifted. Everyone was busy.
He'd look at old pictures sometimes and remember playing with them, laughing with them, the time they'd protected him from their mother. He loved his brothers. He couldn't remember the last time he'd told them.
He didn't have their numbers saved anymore. He wasn't sure they had his.
⸻
There was a woman back at his duty station. They'd been dating before he deployed. She was nice, and she said she liked him, and he believed her more than he believed most people.
They talked when they could. It wasn't always easy. She wanted him to tell her what he was feeling, and he didn't know where to start. He could tell her about his day, what he'd eaten, that he was tired. The things inside his head were harder.
He didn't want to burden her. So he kept them to himself.
⸻
Then a girl from high school reached out. A girl he'd liked years before and never quite gotten over.
It started casual. How you been? What you doing these days? Remember so-and-so? Then the messages got longer. She made him laugh. She remembered little things about him, things he hadn't expected anyone to remember.
He started checking his phone whenever he could. He pictured seeing her again. Maybe finally having the relationship he'd imagined years ago.
It felt like something he'd missed was being offered back. He didn't want to miss it twice.
So shortly before coming home from Afghanistan, he broke up with his girlfriend. He told her the truth: he'd reconnected with someone and wanted to see where it went.
She was hurt. He felt terrible.
But for once, he thought, he was doing something for himself instead of letting it pass.
⸻
It lasted about a month.
At first it was wonderful. They talked and laughed and remembered school. He imagined a real future with her, not just something he made up to entertain himself.
Then he got back to his duty station, and the distance got harder. Their conversations got shorter. She wanted more from him than he knew how to give.
Then one day she texted that her dog had died.
He knew she loved that dog. He wanted to help. But what was he supposed to say? He typed something. Deleted it. Typed again.
Damn. I'm sorry.
When she answered, she was upset. "That's all you have to say?"
He hadn't meant to hurt her. He knew nothing he said would bring the dog back, and he didn't understand what she wanted. So he asked.
That made it worse.
She told him he was cold. That he didn't care. That she needed someone who could actually be there for her.
He did care. He cared a lot. He just didn't know what to do with someone else's grief when he couldn't fix what caused it. But when he tried to explain, it sounded like an excuse, even to him.
It ended not long after.
He read their old messages and remembered how happy he'd been a few weeks earlier. He wondered how he'd managed to ruin something he'd wanted for so long.
He felt like an idiot. He always did.
⸻
Then his ex, the one he'd broken up with, reached out. She asked if they could get back together.
Part of him was relieved. Someone still wanted him. Someone he'd hurt still wanted to try.
But he wasn't ready. He'd just lost the relationship he'd spent years imagining. He needed time to stop replaying everything.
He told her that. She kept asking. He tried to explain again. She wanted an answer, and he didn't have one.
Finally he snapped. "Can you just let me process shit?"
It came out harsher than he meant. She was hurt. He hated himself for it.
Two women in a few months. And he still didn't know what he was supposed to do.
⸻
A week later, his phone rang. It was his best friend, or the man DriQuez considered his best friend. They'd played games together, talked, shared jokes. DriQuez didn't have many people he could call friends.
They talked about nothing for a while. Then his friend brought up the ex.
"Hey, man. You and her done for real?"
"Yeah."
A pause.
"So, you cool if I fuck her when I'm in town?"
DriQuez stopped breathing.
He'd heard every word. Something inside him dropped away.
He was sitting on his bed with the phone against his ear, staring at the wall. He thought about her, the way she'd looked at him, how she'd asked to try again. He thought about his friend, who knew all of it, who'd listened to him talk about the breakup.
It wasn't pain, exactly. It felt like someone had reached into his chest and pulled everything out.
"Bro?"
DriQuez swallowed. "Yeah."
"You sure?"
"Yeah."
He hung up.
He sat there a long time with the phone in his hand. He didn't cry. He didn't yell. He didn't call his friend back or message her. He stared at the wall until he realized he was staring.
He never spoke to either of them again.
⸻
He thought about that call for years.
You cool if I fuck her?
Maybe his friend thought he didn't care. Maybe he assumed the breakup meant the feelings were gone. Maybe he really believed asking made it okay.
DriQuez never found out. He'd said yes, then disappeared from both their lives.
People probably thought he didn't care. He'd told his friend it was fine. He hadn't argued or asked him not to.
How could anyone know what it had done to him? He'd never told them.
⸻
Eventually he came home from the military. Found work. Got an apartment. People thanked him for his service. Some called him a hero.
He didn't feel like one. He felt like a man who'd spent years doing things he didn't want to do, and survived.
That was something, he supposed.
⸻
Afghanistan followed him home.
At first he thought he was adjusting fine. He didn't cry every night. He didn't talk about the war much. He went to work, paid bills, bought groceries.
But sometimes a sound brought it back. A scream. A voice. A smell. He'd be standing in his kitchen and suddenly be back on a particular afternoon overseas. He could see it, hear it, feel the heat. Then he'd look around. His apartment. Years later. Nothing happening.
He knew that. The memories didn't care what he knew.
Sometimes he heard voices. A shout. A name. Words he couldn't make out. He'd turn around. Nobody. He'd check the TV. Sometimes it wasn't even on.
The doctors eventually told him he had PTSD. The diagnosis explained some things. It didn't make them stop.
So he used music. Headphones, speakers, anything loud enough to cover the noise. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn't.
He kept trying.
VII. Sundays
His mother wanted him to call more.
"You know, you could pick up the phone sometimes."
"I do."
"When?"
He thought about it. "I called you last month."
She laughed. "Boy, that's not enough. You gotta make an effort."
She was right. He rarely called anyone. So he started calling her on Sundays, usually in the afternoon, usually when he remembered while sitting on the couch.
"Hello?"
"Hey, Ma."
"Hey, baby! How you doing?"
"Good."
"How's work?"
"Good."
"You eating?"
"Yeah."
"You need anything?"
"Nah."
She'd tell him about his brothers, his father, relatives, people he'd known growing up. He listened. Sometimes he asked a question. After fifteen or twenty minutes, she'd say she had to go.
"Love you, baby."
"Love you too."
He'd hang up and go back to whatever he'd been doing.
Some Sundays he forgot, and she'd call later in the week.
"I ain't heard from you."
"My bad."
"You know you gotta do better."
"Yeah."
⸻
He didn't dislike talking to his mother. He loved her. He remembered her teaching him things, her laugh, how worried she'd been when he went into the Army.
He also remembered the medicine. The hitting. The crying. The fear.
Those memories lived side by side. He didn't know what to do with that.
He wasn't interested in confronting her. What would he say? That she'd hurt him? She already knew she'd hit him. That he'd been scared? She'd been scared too. That he'd spent years believing something was wrong with him? He didn't know if she could understand that, and he didn't want to hurt her.
So he called on Sundays. Answered her questions. Told her he loved her.
And kept most of his life to himself.
⸻
Sometimes his father was in the background. "Your daddy says hey."
"Tell him hey."
Sometimes his father took the phone.
"How you doing, son?"
"Good."
"Work alright?"
"Yeah."
"That's good."
"Yeah."
A pause, and his father would hand the phone back.
DriQuez didn't hate him. He didn't even really resent him. They just didn't know each other, and after so many years, he didn't know how people changed that. What did fathers and sons talk about? Sports? Cars? Women? His father didn't seem to know either.
So they stayed polite.
⸻
He spent most of his time alone, and he didn't mind. He had his apartment, his games, his movies, his music.
But he wondered about things. Relationships. Marriage. Kids.
He liked watching couples in the grocery store argue over which cereal to buy. He wondered what it felt like to have someone who cared which cereal you bought. Someone who expected you home, noticed when you were late, wanted to know about your day.
Whenever he imagined actually approaching someone, his mind showed him failing. He'd say something awkward. She'd get uncomfortable, or realize he wasn't interesting. He'd imagine explaining the voices and the memories, and he couldn't picture anyone wanting all that.
So he didn't try.
"You dating anybody?" people asked.
"No."
"Why not?"
He'd shrug. "Just ain't."
They'd tell him he needed to get out more. He'd agree. Then he'd go home.
⸻
Sometimes he wondered whether anyone could tell how much he felt.
He didn't think so. They saw a quiet man who rarely reacted. Someone who seemed indifferent.
But his mind never stopped. He could remember an embarrassing conversation from ten years ago and feel the shame all over again. He could think about his brothers and miss them, then remember they never reached out and get angry, then feel guilty for being angry. He could remember his ex with affection, then remember the phone call, and feel that same hollow place open in his chest.
He loved people long after they'd left his life. He hated that. He wished he could stop caring.
He couldn't.
So he told people he didn't.
"No feelings."
It got easier. Nobody questioned it. They believed him.
Eventually, he stopped correcting them.
VIII. The People Who Stayed
DriQuez started writing at twenty-nine, by accident.
He was watching a TV show when a character said something ridiculous. He picked up his phone, opened the Notes app, and rewrote the conversation, just for himself. One line. Then another. Then a response. Before long he had a whole scene.
He read it back and laughed. Not the polite sound he made when someone told a joke at work. He actually laughed.
He read it again. Laughed again.
Then he wrote another scene.
⸻
At first it came easily. He didn't know anything about structure or pacing or character arcs. He just invented people and let them talk. They argued, fell in love, did stupid things. Sometimes he'd sit on the couch laughing at something one of them said. Sometimes he'd get mad.
"Man, what the fuck are you doing?"
He'd say it out loud, to someone who didn't exist, and then laugh at himself.
He was having fun. Actual fun. He hadn't felt that in years.
⸻
He wrote romance. A lot of it. He didn't necessarily believe in happily ever after. He just liked watching people connect.
He liked the small things. A woman cooking breakfast for someone she loved. A man remembering how his girlfriend took her coffee. Two people arguing over something stupid. Someone reaching for another person's hand without thinking about it.
He'd imagined moments like those his entire life. Now he could write them down and come back to them.
He built whole families, friendships, worlds. He knew what his characters were afraid of, what made them laugh, what they wanted and wouldn't admit they wanted. He wrote scenes that didn't advance anything: two people on a couch, talking, watching TV, doing nothing.
Those scenes were what he'd always wanted. To be comfortable with someone. To spend time with another person without wondering if he was doing something wrong.
His characters didn't judge him. They didn't think he was stupid. They didn't misunderstand him.
While he wrote, he could sit with them.
⸻
Sometimes he didn't want to stop. He'd finish a chapter and keep going anyway. Send his characters to dinner. Let them argue about what to order, go home, watch a movie, fall asleep.
Nothing important happened. He didn't care. They were his friends. His only friends, really.
He knew how that sounded. He knew they weren't real. When he closed the laptop, they didn't go on living somewhere without him.
They waited for him to come back.
And he always did.
⸻
The writing helped with the noise. The memories and voices were still there, but when he wrote, there was something else to listen to. His characters had voices of their own, and he could follow them instead.
He'd write for hours and look up to find it was three in the morning, with work in a few hours.
"Fuck."
He'd laugh, and write another paragraph.
For the first time in years, he looked forward to coming home. He had people waiting for him.
Even if he'd made them up.
⸻
Eventually, he finished a book.
He sat at his desk looking at the last chapter. He knew there were mistakes. He could see what he'd fix. But he'd done it, beginning to end.
He was proud. He hadn't felt that in a long time.
Then he had a thought.
I wonder if somebody else would like this.
⸻
He told his mother.
"I wrote a book."
"A book? Like a real book?"
He laughed. "Yes, Ma."
"Well, look at you! What's it about?"
He tried to explain. Several characters. Complicated relationships. Things that made more sense if you'd read the earlier chapters.
"That's nice, baby. You gonna sell it? Maybe you can make some money."
He hadn't thought about money. He just wanted someone to read it.
She asked him to send it, and he did. Two weeks later, he asked if she'd started.
"Not yet, baby. I've been busy. I'll get to it."
He didn't ask again. She never mentioned it.
⸻
He found a website where people shared stories. Created an account. Uploaded a cover. Spent an hour on the description. Posted his first chapter.
Then he waited, and checked. And checked again.
Three views.
He smiled. Three people. Maybe they'd read it. Maybe they'd liked it.
He posted another chapter. Then another. Eventually someone commented.
Interesting.
He read it three times. Someone he didn't know had stepped into a world he'd made, and liked it.
He was happy.
⸻
He kept writing. Different genres, different characters, different ideas. He studied dialogue, read books about writing, watched videos, practiced. He rewrote whole chapters and didn't mind.
He got better. His dialogue sharpened. His characters got more complicated. He learned to tell when a scene wasn't working.
He liked having something he wanted to be good at.
⸻
Then more people started reading.
Not many at first. A handful. Then a few dozen. Then enough that he couldn't guess who they were anymore.
They left comments. Real ones.
A woman wrote that she'd read three chapters on her lunch break and had to go back to work with red eyes. Someone said one of his characters talked exactly like her grandmother. Two readers argued in the comments over whether the man in the kitchen scene deserved to be forgiven.
They argued about his people.
Like they were real.
DriQuez read that thread four times.
Then he tried to reply to the woman with the red eyes.
He typed Thank you. Deleted it. Too short. She'd think he didn't care.
He typed three sentences about why he'd written the scene. Deleted them. Too much. She hadn't asked.
He typed I'm glad it hit you like that. Stared at it. Did that sound like he was happy she'd cried?
Twenty minutes later, he posted: Thank you for reading. That means a lot.
Then he closed the app before he could see whether she answered.
⸻
It kept happening.
People asked when the next chapter was coming. Somebody stayed up until two in the morning to finish a book and told him they were mad at him for it. He knew it was a compliment. He read it the way he read everything.
Looking for the catch.
Maybe they said that to everybody. Maybe it was just the internet version of How you doing? Good. That's what's up.People were polite all the time. He'd known that since he was a kid.
He could get a hundred kind comments and find the one reader who'd stopped after chapter two.
That was the one he took to bed with him.
⸻
He found a group online. A community of Black authors.
He joined late one night and read everything. Writers posted word counts and cheered for each other. Someone shared a new cover and twenty people told her it was beautiful. Someone posted that she was thinking about quitting, and the replies kept coming for two days.
Stay.
We need your stories.
Don't you dare.
He wanted that so badly it embarrassed him.
He wrote an introduction. Hey. I'm DriQuez. I write romance mostly. Been doing it a couple years.
He read it back and saw himself in a fourth-grade gym, telling a girl nah.
He saved it as a draft.
It stayed there.
He read that group almost every night. Sometimes he'd see a writer he liked having a hard week and type You're good. Keep going. I read your stuff. Then he'd delete it. Who was he to tell anybody that?
They didn't know him.
He made sure of it.
⸻
The readers stayed. That was the strange part.
The problem wasn't the numbers anymore. It was him.
He'd sit down to write and hear the readers before he heard his characters. Would she think this was too slow? Would the woman with the red eyes feel cheated if this couple broke up? He used to write for the people inside the story. Now he was writing for the people outside it, and he didn't believe a word they said.
A chapter took three weeks. Then one didn't get finished at all.
You're so fucking stupid.
He'd been saying it since childhood. It still sounded convincing.
And the noise came back. Afghanistan. His mother's voice over the medicine. Look, kid. You fucked up. You cool if I…
Music didn't cover it anymore.
His characters used to.
Now even they sounded like they were waiting for him to fail.
⸻
He told himself he was taking a break.
Then he told himself he was protecting them. If he couldn't write them right, he shouldn't write them at all.
Then he stopped telling himself anything.
He took the stories down first.
Two days later, a message came in. Hey, did something happen to your book? I was on chapter forty.
He read it on his couch.
He didn't answer. He couldn't think of a way to explain that wouldn't take twenty minutes and still come out wrong.
Then the drafts. The notes. The character profiles, where he'd written down what they ate for breakfast, what scared them, which one always apologized first.
Then the folder with the longest story.
Two years.
He opened it one last time and found the scene. Two people after an argument. Neither saying much. One reaching for the other's hand.
He read it.
And it hurt.
That was what he hadn't expected. He'd told everybody he had no feelings for so long that part of him believed this would be easy. It felt like watching his mother's car pull away from the hotel. It felt like the phone in his hand and his friend saying Bro?
His throat closed up.
He selected the folder.
A message asked whether he was sure.
He wasn't.
He clicked yes anyway.
Then he emptied the Recycle Bin, fast, before he could go back for them.
He sat in the dark for a long time.
He didn't make dinner.
⸻
Afterward, he told himself nobody noticed.
It was easier than remembering chapter forty.
IX. The Other Side
At thirty-five, DriQuez had a job, an apartment, a car, and a bank account.
He called his mother on Sundays. Sometimes.
People at work said he was a decent guy. Quiet. A little strange. When something should have bothered him and didn't seem to, he'd shrug.
"No feelings."
They laughed. He let them.
One afternoon, a coworker asked what he was doing that weekend.
"Nothing."
"You married?"
"No."
"Kids?"
"No."
"Shit, man. What you got?"
He almost said it. I had a lot of people. I got rid of them.
"Not much," he said.
⸻
Saturday morning, he opened the laptop.
He knew the folder was gone. He looked anyway, the way you pat your pocket for keys you already know are on the counter.
Nothing.
He opened a blank document and tried to bring them back.
He knew that couple better than he knew his own father. He knew how she took her coffee. He knew he always apologized first, and that she always made him wait a little before she let him off the hook.
He wrote the kitchen scene from memory.
It came out wrong.
The words were close, but the rhythm was off. She said something she never would have said. He reached for her hand too early.
He deleted it and tried again.
Worse.
They were still in him somewhere. He could feel them. He just couldn't reach the versions that had lived on those pages, the ones he'd found one sentence at a time at three in the morning.
Those were gone.
And the person who took them was him.
He closed the laptop and went outside.
⸻
The weather was nice. Kids were out. Somebody was mowing a lawn.
A little boy on a porch was singing. Badly. Loudly. Making up the words he didn't know.
"Boy, what are you singing?" his mother called.
The kid kept going.
DriQuez slowed down.
He tried to remember the song he used to sing on the toilet, feet swinging over the floor. He couldn't.
But he remembered how it felt. The echo. The walls buzzing when he got loud enough.
That surprised him.
He'd thought that was gone too.
⸻
Down the block, some teenagers were doing tricks on bikes. One of them wiped out, laughed, and got back on.
DriQuez thought about the dream.
The neighborhood. The highway. The ramp. Every kid making it across but him.
He'd never once imagined the other side.
But standing on that sidewalk, he remembered a part of the dream he'd forgotten for years.
The other kids always slowed down. Whenever somebody fell behind, they waited so nobody got left.
So what was on the other side of the highway?
For the first time, he let himself picture it.
The kids on the far shoulder, straddling their bikes. Looking back.
Waiting.
The way his characters used to wait for him to open the laptop. The way a stranger had waited on chapter forty.
All those years, he'd only ever imagined falling.
He'd never thought about who would be standing there if he landed.
⸻
At the intersection, the light was red.
A woman next to him was laughing into her phone. "Girl, no! That's not what happened!"
The noise in his head started up the way it always did. A voice he couldn't make out. A memory. Another one.
He let it come.
Underneath it, quieter, was something else.
The couple at the kitchen table.
He couldn't hear their exact words anymore. But he could see them. Her at the stove. Him at the table, pretending to read his phone. Both of them waiting for the other one to say it first.
He missed them.
It hit him all at once, so hard he put a hand on the light pole.
He missed them the way he missed his brothers. The way he missed Jasmine, who probably didn't remember his name. The way he missed the boy who sang.
It had never been nothing.
He'd just gotten good at saying it was.
The light turned green. People walked around him.
He stood there and let it hurt.
⸻
He took out his phone.
It was Saturday.
He called anyway.
"Hello?"
"Hey, Ma."
"Boy, it ain't Sunday. What's wrong?"
"Nothing."
She waited.
"You remember that book I sent you?"
A pause. "Baby, I never did read that. I'm sorry."
"It's alright."
"You still got it? Send it again. I'll read it this time."
He closed his eyes.
"I don't have it anymore."
"What you mean you don't have it?"
He didn't know how to explain that in under twenty minutes. He didn't know how to explain it at all.
So he did something he hadn't done since he was four years old.
He just started talking.
"There was this couple," he said. "They had a fight. Something stupid. And afterward she's at the stove, and he's at the table acting like he's reading something…"
He couldn't remember the exact words.
He told her anyway.
Halfway through, his voice cracked. He kept going.
His mother didn't interrupt.
When he got to the part where the man reached for her hand, he stopped. He was standing on a street corner with wet eyes, telling his mother about two people who didn't exist anymore.
Neither of them said anything for a while.
Then his mother asked, quietly, "Then what happened?"
DriQuez wiped his face with the back of his hand.
He didn't know.
He'd never written what came after.
Across the street, the little white walking figure lit up.
"I don't know yet," he said.
And he stepped off the curb.
The End.
![Fated to My Ex- Best Friend [Moving to Galatea]](https://cdn-gcs.inkitt.com/vertical_storycovers/ipad_49edb1dbf9a28b50b9c4d68d8598359b.jpg)
