AnguiSH (22 page)

             
“I’m already tangled in you Breaker.  So, why don’t you lay down with me and spill your guts?  I don’t charge as much as Dr. Mavis and I might kiss you.  Wait, she doesn’t kiss you does she?” I laughed at the look on his face coupled with his visible shudder.

             
“I won’t even justify that with an answer,” he said as he pulled me down with him onto the layers of blankets. 

             
We lay there for a few minutes before he began to speak.  He lay on his back, arms crossed over his chest, staring up at the twinkly-less ceiling.  He’d forgotten to turn them on.

             
“It was a Saturday night.  I’d been waiting for Holly to get home from shopping or whatever in the hell she’d been doing.  We were supposed to go to see some local band at the Chimes.  So around ten or so when she hadn’t come home and wasn’t answering her cell, I decided to go out by myself.  I grabbed my keys and decided to head over to one of Memphis’ infamous parties.  I hadn’t been to one in a while because Holly practically assaulted me every time I mentioned going. 

             
When I knocked on the door, Memphis answered, half sloshed, half lucid, which was nothing new.  But when I tried to go in, he stopped me with his foot behind the door.  The blood trickled from his face and he started frantically looking around.  At this point, I didn’t know what the hell he was looking for.  But then I,” he stopped to clear his throat and I adjusted my position, trying to subside the nausea.  I’d wanted to know this story for so long, but now that he was telling me—I just wanted to un-know.

             
“She was in the lap of some guy.  I didn’t recognize him that minute, but days later, I pinpointed his face.  He’d been in her “study group”.  He’d come to pick her up several times and like an idiot, I’d trusted her, the thought hadn’t even entered my mind.  I think I called out her name and said something.  I don’t really remember what I said because by then the blackness had started to invade the corners of my visions.  And then the guy started in on me, saying that she’d been paying his rent and buying him stuff with my money.  And, of course, he’d been sleeping with her for who knows how long.  I don’t even think it was her that gave me the panic attack or what she’d done.  It was me.  I’d just been so blind and stupid.  And I kept thinking that my dad was gonna kill me for all the credit cards when he found out.  And before I knew it, I was out cold and woke up in a hospital days later. And then that’s when the real fear broke me.  I never wanted to be that vulnerable again.  And the only way I could avoid it was to lock myself in here where no one could get to me.”

             
He didn’t look at me after he finished.  And I really, really hated Holly.  People should realize that when you are dishonest and conniving, it doesn’t just affect them.  They leave waves in their wake and sometimes it drowns others. 

             
“Do you still—love her?  Miss her?”

             
He rolled over and his nose touched the tip of mine.  “I thought I did.  Honestly, everytime she called she would ask me if I missed her, I told her I did.  But it was like I missed having someone around, not her.  I missed saying I had a girlfriend, but it didn’t really have to be her.  I just missed her presence, anyone’s presence.”

             
The chunks of my birthday dinner rose into my throat at his admission.  I was right.  I’d been right all along.  He wasn’t looking for me, he was looking for anyone.  He didn’t need me, he just needed someone.  He didn’t love me, at this point he would love just about anyone.

             
“Well, I’m glad you didn’t end up getting Lucy, you’d make a weird couple.”

             
“Is that what you think?  You think that any random person could’ve walked in here and made me feel the way you do?  No one but you and your pigheaded fury could’ve pulled me from the darkness.  Don’t ever underestimate yourself—you’re the only one I’ve ever loved.”

             
I thought the chunks would make their way back down to my stomach but they stayed in place—because it was high time I made my own admissions. 

             
“I have to tell you something.”

             
Breaker weaved an unruly strand of hair behind my ear, “You can tell me anything.”

             
“Your mom pays me—a lot.”  I twirled around the real point.

             
“Good, you deserve it and she certainly has the money.”

             
I scrunched up my face.  He’d missed my point.

             
“She pays me to clean.  And in the beginning she said she’d pay me extra if I’d try to get you out of your—she called it phase.”

             
He didn’t have the reaction I’d expected.  I expected him to stomp from the room, throw things and never speak to me again.  But it didn’t feel right to lie to him.

             
“She paid extra to handle her nut job of a son, huh?”  It was a question but he was on his back again, catechizing the air instead of me.

             
His stance grew frigid again, “So you did your job well.  You used your wiles to get me out of the house.”

             
“I did—in the beginning.  Then everything changed.”

             
“Yeah, you realized what a sap I was and how easy it would be to fool me.”

             
“Look at me.”  He was acting like a child. “Look at me Breaker James.”

             
He turned only his face towards me.  “Put your pesky ego aside.  Think about what has happened between us.  Then let me know if you think I was just doing a job.”

             
I got up and went back to my room.  Who wants to be in a romantic little nook with someone they’re upset with?  He had every right to be leery of me now, but I knew that it was so much more than a job.  It stopped being a job when he told me he loved my voice. 

             
I climbed between my sheets, proud of myself for telling him the truth but disappointed in myself for not telling him the whole of it.  He needed to know about my concern that he’d latched onto me.  He needed to know that I didn’t really think he was getting well at all.

             
I drifted to sleep sometime after midnight, not a good birthday after all. 

Breaker

             
I had to break free from this pattern.  I always trapped myself into these artificial tantrums as a reaction to everything.  I wasn’t an idiot.  I’d figured my mom had paid her to get under my skin.  My mother thought she could pay anyone to do anything.  So when she admitted it to me, which took guts, I should’ve told her I could care less.  I should’ve told her it didn’t matter. 

             
Because it didn’t matter—I loved her for who she was even if I never left this house again. 

             
After hours of immature groveling I went down to her room.  I hated to wake her but I didn’t want any more of her birthday to be stagnant with festering anger.  She lay on her left side, facing the door, looking as angelic on the outside as she was on the inside.  I knelt beside the bed and took in the sight of her.

             
“Ash—Ash, baby wake up.”

             
Her eyes opened immediately, like even in her dream state she’d been waiting for me.

             
“Did you come to tell me what an ass you were?”

             
She was trying to be funny but I just couldn’t laugh—she was so right.

             
“Yes.  I don’t care who or what money brought you here.  I’m just thankful that you found your way into my life.”

             
“Did you come to tell me that you acting like that cut you out of a hot, birthday make-out session and that makes you even more of an ass?”

             
“Yes. And I need to make another confession.”

             
She flopped onto her back and groaned, “Ok, but just one more.  Three confessions per night is my quota.”

             
“I’m afraid,” I whispered to her.  She moved over on the bed giving me room to get in next to her.  She was so strong and I felt like such a weakling around her all the time.  One day I wanted to be her strength, I would be the hand reaching out to her through the waves.

             
I got in next to her, “I’m afraid I’m—God, this is hard to admit.”

             
Her hand glided down my jaw, “Tell me.”

             
“I tried—I tried to go out the other day, just for a walk or something.  I couldn’t do it.  I couldn’t make it passed the damned threshold of the door.”

             
Her face was pure disappointment and I knew mine mirrored it.  And admitting it to her, I felt like a shadow of a man.

             
“But you tried right?  That has to count.  I mean, you go out with me all the time.” Her voice faltered at the end of the sentence.

             
“I did try.  But I couldn’t go through with it.”

             
She scooted closer to me and put one hand on my face while she buried her own in the hollow of my neck.  “Can you just hold me and forget that there’s something we can’t do?  I’d like to hang on to the notion that you can do anything—just for the night.”

             
And there was nothing else I wanted than to buy into her beliefs.  I wanted to lay there with her thinking that with her by my side I could conquer the world.  But I couldn’t.  But even more than that, I wanted to be able to conquer the world without her.  Because one day, and I hated to even think about when that day would come, she would need me to be more than just a tagalong.  In order to do that I had to start facing the cold, hard fact—I needed to do this by myself.  Just the thought pulsing through my neurons made me hold her tighter in physical protest.  I wasn’t ready to let her go—I just found her.

              I got her new running shoes and had flowers and balloons delivered to the house on her birthday.  I’d seen her raggedy running shoes and honestly worried for her safety in them.  I made sure her birthday had as much joy as I could give her.

             
We were tense now.  We shuffled around each other awkwardly since the night we’d opened our chests and let our souls speak to one another in earnest. 

             
She’d spent a lot of time out of the house the past three weeks.  I’d tried almost daily to make myself leave the house but it wasn’t happening.  We pretended to be ok, but we were far from it.  I knew she started school soon and I decided to see about spending some time with her before she went back to school.  I tramped down the stairs and knocked on the door to her room, fully prepared to be happy, even if I had to straight up fake it.  She opened her door and smiled faintly at me.  Behind her, I could see her clothes folded up in piles on her bed.  My first instinct thought she was doing laundry or cleaning out her dresser—and then I saw her suitcases.

             
“Hey,” she bit her bottom lip, which she never did, and looked in the direction that my eyes were staring, “I was coming to talk to you tonight.”

             
“Were you?” 

             
“Yeah, let’s go in the living room and talk.”  I stared after her things so nearly organized on her bed for a few more seconds before following her down the hallway and into the living room.