Lacy lights into me after she finds out about the conversation with Nick. She's pissed, saying I should've just told him she was at the gym (which I didn't know) and at least feign civility until he left. She didn't use those words exactly, but the sentiment was the same. A little louder, a little more forceful, but the same message.
"Couldn't you just be nice to him? For my sake?" she asks me from the kitchen before returning to the living room with two bowls of soup. She sets one in front of me and places the other on a side table.
"Why are you taking his side?"
"I'm not. Promise."
"Then why are you defending him?" My fingers curl before I quickly pry them back open. Start picking at my nails. Biting the edges of them. Anything to keep from fighting with Lacy, to keep from isolating everyone I know. Breathe.
Lacy rubs at her right eye, and sweeps away an eyelash. (It bothers me because I can't help but wonder if she made a wish on it. Probably not. She didn't when she blew out the candles on her birthday cake last year. I make a wish on it for her. Patience. A wish for both of us. My stomach knots.)
She sighs. "M., I understand what you're saying, but Nick isn't having a good year, either. No one is, really. I don't want to get in the middle of this, but it wouldn't hurt if you both tried to see it from the other person's perspective."
My eyes sting. Nick isn't having a good year? No tears come out, but my hands shake.
Why did he have to come here, and why did he have to leave? Couldn't we let our pain sit between us, unanswered, until he realized that he couldn't help me? Until he realized that his presence was a reminder, digging into an open wound? But he didn't, and we couldn't.
It spills out. A trickle to a flood, and I've unleashed everything I've been holding in for so long, not even knowing I was holding it in. "He's having a bad year? You're having a bad year? You didn't... You don't know what it's like, Lacy. And I'm sorry, I really am, that you lost a friend. But don't act like she meant the same thing to you guys, or that you..." I crush my eyes closed, trying to hold everything in. It doesn't work. "Whatever. I'm leaving."
"M.!"
The door swings shut behind me, and the cold is biting. It grips me by my shoulders, shaking me, and jostling everything inside me into different positions. And the teardrops come. Again. (I can never stop them, not anymore. I didn't used to cry before this. I didn't used to be like this.)
But I am now.
The city lights blur before me, spun into thick smudges of color. It would be pretty, almost, if I could actually admire it. But my eyes keep filling up (and though I close them to try and clear them, it only works momentarily), and I can only see the broken path behind me and the lonely night stretching before me.
Clair leaving is a mortal wound, and now it festers, poisoning everything, infecting everything. I'm breaking everything around me, and I thought I didn't have anything else left to break. I can't even go back yet because I'll have to apologize to Lacy, and I can't face her. I can't look her in the eyes, knowing that I shoved her away when I didn't want to, and why did I? Why did I?
What's wrong with me?
The night prowls around me, darkness drawing close, and the wind snarls in my ears. (It growls low, a wolf. The night is a wolf, a wild animal, gnawing me to the bone. Fleshless and skeletal, that's what I am. Until I'm gone.)
I'm going to be sick. There's nothing I can do for her, but Lacy. (Here. I need to be anchored here, I can't go back. I can't think about Clair.)
(Didn't, can't, couldn't. Here lie my failures.)
Lacy. A mantra: Lacy, Lacy, Lacy.
I've got to make amends. Amends and redemption and absolution.
More and more and more. Amends first, though. One thing. I can do this one thing.
But not yet. Not until my eyes dry (the puffiness fades and tear tracks are no longer frozen on my face. Not until my hands stop shaking and my breath stops coming in wracking gasps. Not until I've pulled myself together.)
And with that, I'm doubled over, howling with maniacal laughter. Pull myself together? Like I can sew up my innards with a neat row of stitches, and everything will be in its proper spot. I throw back my head, staring at the sky and at the hidden stars. Laughing and laughing and laughing and crying.
The wind tangles in my hair, whipping it into my face, lashing at my eyes. They sting from it and from the chill of the night. My throat and lungs and heart burn from the laughter, too loud and too high in my ears.
Pull myself together?
That old cosmic joke.
And the laughter catches in my throat, and just like that, it's silent, save for the wind. With my sleeve, I swipe at my face. (Pull yourself together. An order this time.)
Okay. Okay.
The metallic tang of blood is sharp on my tongue, so I must've bit it. (Choke it back. Choke back the trail of blood and the lump in my throat.)
(Choke everything down. Don't drown in it, but push it back. Everything into its proper place. Stow away the anger, tuck away the pain.
No one can see it.)
My breathing is ragged, but finally under my control.
When I finally stumble into the Purple Onion, I'm aware that I have no coat, no money, and no dignity. But I also don't care, so long as they don't kick me out. It's still pretty busy, with people hunched over textbooks or lit up by laptop screens. Still, I'm able to find a spot in the back, and wipe away my (always-present) tears with the cuff of my sweatshirt.
I wish it wasn't like this. I wish I wouldn't have yelled, wish I could've held it together, wish wish wish. When will I stop wishing and start fixing?
Stupid. There are things we can't come back from, and I've crossed that line already.
(But after we cross one, does another appear? This is the new normal, but if I cross that line, I'll never get back here? That's a depressing thought, and I'll let it float off before I get sick.) The new normal though... This? Blowing up at Lacy and storming out and trying not to cry in a coffee shop, and still having the lights and windows take on a glossy blur. This is the new normal?
No no no no. This can't— No.
I'll go back.
My hands shake, and I cross my arms across my chest, trying to make myself as small as possible. Breathing is hard, my chest still rattling from the sobs. (Why why why am I this thing? Why did she leave and why did I make us this way?)
I can't think about her.
I duck my head, resting it in my palms. My fingernails dig into my hair, tugging it, scraping my scalp. Strands of hair come out, snaked around my palms. It feels good though. Reminding me that I'm here. Everything isn't just in my head. A deep, shuddering breath.
Lacy. I need to talk to Lacy.
I can't stay here. It's a quick thing, but my skin crawls under the lights, and every action feels magnified here. I can't stay here, and I can't linger in the night.
(It'll collapse around me. And a few minutes is all it will take, enough for everything I've been trying to hold together to tumble over me, and for it to sweep out again like the tide.
The wind and the starless night will play their tricks on me, prey on me.)
Amends. One at a time.
So I slink back, opening the door to our apartment quietly. So different from when I'd left. Every action done gingerly, quietly, cautiously.
(She'd been crying too, though her voice is strong and smooth when she greets me. But her makeup is smudged a little, and her chin juts up. An actress playing a role.)
"I'm sorry, Lacy."
Again, she rubs at her eyes. "I know, M." She closes her eyes for a second, and her lashes flicker. "We're going to be okay. Just not yet." Her lips slant, the smallest of smiles, but her eyes are jewel-bright with unshed tears.
And I nod, even though we are the farthest thing from okay. A lie might be strong enough for her, and I won't take away something else tonight. I perch on the chair across from her for a few minutes before neither of us can take it anymore, and I have to stumble to the bedroom and crawl under my comforter.
("I know, M. We're going to be okay." )
The lie sings me a lullaby. Okay okay okay.
Maybe I need it too.