The Loss of Neither

Prologue

Diego's eyes wandered to the flimsy plastic stars stuck to the popcorn ceiling above him. The fabric of the bare mattress scratched at his forearms, and he reached over to pull his sleeve down. He sighed.

His desk wasn't across from him where it had always been; in its place was a streak of dust and a scratch on the hardwood floor. His posters had been cleared off the walls and his collection of snowglobes was packed in a box on the floor. The only things that really remained in the room were the mattress, his wheelchair, and the stars on the ceiling.

There was a soft knocking on his open door. He turned his head slightly. His mom was standing there, coffee stuck on the peach fuzz above her upper lip and deep circles under her eyes, her eyes worn and her posture tired. "Diego," she whispered, the name sounding unusual and foreign. And sad.

He liked to forget he made her sad.

He sat up the best he could. She helped him over into his wheelchair. He rubbed his eyes with his right hand, and scanned the room one last time. He thought he could see the thin line of marker where remained the dog he'd drawn on the wallpaper and done his best to clean up. He thought he could see the chip in the floor from when he dropped his PS4 on the same day he got it. He even, just a little bit, thought he could see the line where he'd dragged his desk across the floor to climb through his window, to walk for the very last time.

"We're going to get your mattress later," his mom said.

He nodded.

"Everything else is already in the van," she said. "It's going to the airport soon."

He nodded.

"The Uber should be here in two minutes," she said, sounding timid and afraid.

"Okay," he said.

She didn't say anything else. For a second, they stay there, in the doorway of a room he'd been in his whole life, about to leave. For a second he waited for her to say something else. She inhaled a significant amount, as if to start a speech, but then just shakily exhaled it. And was silent. He didn't want to think about why she was silent. His therapist told him to stop thinking about the why, because there doesn't always have to be an answer to everything. Maybe there was no reason; she was probably just sad.

She pulled him out of his room. He blinked, and looked away. The quicker he got out, the better.

He was maneuvered down the stairs by her, a morning routine of bumping and jostling and, frankly, pain, that was finally coming to an end.

Diego glanced back at the stairs -- they were the only carpeted thing in the house. They -- Diego, his younger brother, his dad, and his mom -- used to laugh about it. The laziness of the people who'd lived there before them, to just carpet the stairs. They thought maybe that the previous owners had fallen down the stairs and thought that it deserved some fortification. He vividly remembered acting this out in front of his brother when they were home alone -- complete with screaming, "MY LEGS! MY LEGS!" He wished he could go back in time, and laugh at the irony with his younger self.

He smiled to himself and turned back forwards.

And his mom wheeled him out the door. 

"Take one last look," his mom said quietly. 

He turned around. 

He refused to acknowledge the guilt in his gut, the tearing at his chest. He refused to acknowledge his mistakes, what he knows he ruined. He refused to acknowledge any of it. He turned his head forwards again. 

There was the Uber, already waiting.