The Beginning of After

each one to avoid that. On some steps the creak was on the left, on others it was the right, and with one it was exactly in the middle.
    I put my foot on this step and gently moved my weight over it, remembering how long it had taken me to find the sweet spot. Years, really.
    Getting up in the middle of the night for a drink of milk was a thing I’d done forever. When I was a toddler, I took a sippy cup to bed. My parents let me, probably because it helped keep me asleep all night, but my first cavity at age five put an end to all that. They offered me a cup of water as a compromise, but I refused. Then I’d wake up and reach for something that wasn’t there anymore, and start to thrash when I realized I couldn’t suck milk through my teeth and wash away the bad dreams. I started sneaking into the kitchen to take a swig from the gallon jug in the fridge, swish it around my mouth, and then go upstairs and back to sleep.
    Even during these days after the prom, it was the one time besides going to the bathroom that I ventured out of my room. I didn’t want Nana to know. I was aware of her keeping track of my bathroom visits, could feel her listening to my movement across the hall and back. She and Masher were alike that way; if Nana’s ears could have pricked up like a dog’s whenever the door of my room opened, I’m sure they would have.
    But Masher was the only one who knew about my milk trips. I’d just make it into the kitchen and reach for the refrigerator door when I’d hear the click , click , jingle , jingle of his toenails and collar on the hardwood floor behind me. Before the prom, I welcomed the company, taking a few moments to pet him before heading back upstairs.
    Now he stared at me as I opened the milk carton and raised it to my lips, a needy intrusion. I ignored him.
    When I was done, I looked at the carton. In the past, it was always a gallon jug; we needed that much milk in the house, between Toby and me drinking it and Dad’s coffee and Mom’s tea, and cereal and scrambled eggs and the occasional cookbook recipe.
    I hadn’t seen this difference until now; Nana was buying less milk. I looked around the half darkness of the kitchen, illuminated only by the stove light. What else had changed?
    In the pantry, the shelves were full but familiar things were missing. Like the Flamin’ Hot Cheetos that Toby loved so much. My mom would buy them for him and then yell about the neon orange dust on everything he touched.
    The counters were clean. That was unusual. My mom and dad played a game of Wiping Chicken when it came to the counters. Each one thought it was the other’s job and would only give in with sighing resentment. Which didn’t happen all that often; crumbs and spill stains were things I’d stopped noticing a long time ago.
    Then I noticed the knife block. Nobody in our house could agree on which knife went in which slot. We each had our own way of doing it. Dad always put them in so the blades were facing left because he was left-handed; Mom and I did it randomly. Toby always put the small knives in the big slots out of sheer laziness. But now they were organized perfectly; each one in its place, each blade facing to the right. I pulled one out and it looked shinier, sharper than ever.
    Holding the knife with the blade against my palm, it became so clear how my life would only contain shadows now. Shadows of things gone; not just the people themselves but everything connected to them. Was this my future? Every moment, every tiny thing I saw and did and touched, weighted by loss. Every space in this house and my town and the world in general, empty in a way that could never be filled.
    I can’t do this.
    The thought doubled me over and I sank to the floor, the knife still in my hand.
    And besides, why should I?
    Seeing the silver of the knife in contrast to the textured skin on my wrist, I couldn’t push the dangerous question out of my head.
    What do I have to live for that’s worth this much pain?
    I’d seen the movies in health class and gone to the school assemblies. I had considered myself depressed a few times, in middle school and for a good solid month in ninth grade. I’d wondered about the different ways you could off yourself, and which one I might choose if it came to that. Didn’t everyone think about that stuff?
    But the word suicide had always seemed rather cliché.
    Yeah, yeah. Don’t make that “final decision.” We get it!
    But now I got it in a totally