Play (Stage Dive 2)

“I didn’t do that, sweetheart. That was all you.”

He groaned again.

“You were most insistent about having your hand there. I figured after you fell asleep I’d be able to move you. But it didn’t happen.” I rubbed my cheek into my pillow, his bicep.

“This pu**y is mine.” His fingers stretched, pushing against the material of my underwear, stroking accidentally over the insides of my thighs. So not the time to get turned on. We had talking to do.

“Yes, that’s what you said. Repeatedly.”

He grunted and yawned, then rubbed his h*ps against me. Morning wood pressed into my butt cheek. “You shouldn’t have made me drink so much. That was very irresponsible of you.”

“I’m afraid that was all you too.” I tried to sit up but his arm held me down.

“Don’t move yet.”

“You need water and Advil, Mal.”

“’Kay.”

His hand withdrew from my crotch and he rolled onto his back with much huffing and puffing. I hadn’t managed to get him into the shower last night. Accordingly, this morning, we both stank of sweat and scotch.

I got him a bottle of water and a couple of pills and sat back on the side of the bed. “Up. Swallow.”

He opened one bleary eye. “I’ll swallow if you will.”

“You got it.”

“You better mean that. A man doesn’t like to be lied to about that sort of thing.” Ever so slowly he sat up, his lank, blond hair hanging in his face. He stuck out his tongue and I dropped the pills on it, then handed him the water. For a while he just there, sipping the water and watching me. I had no idea what came next, what I should say. It was so much easier to just crack stupid jokes than to actually attempt to be deep and meaningful. To help him.

“I’m sorry,” I said, just to break the silence.

“Why? What’d you do?” he asked softly.

“I mean about Lori.”

He drew up his legs, braced his elbows on his knees, and hung his head. There was nothing but the noise of the air conditioner clicking on, the clink of silverware or something from the room next door. When he finally looked up at me, his eyes were red rimmed and liquid. Mine immediately did the same in empathy. There wasn’t a part of me that didn’t hurt for him.

“I don’t know what it feels like so I’m not going to pretend I do,” I said.

His lips stayed shut.

“But I’m so sorry, Mal. And I know that doesn’t help, not really. It doesn’t change anything.”

Still nothing.

“I can’t help you and I hate that.”

Fact was, a part of wanting to soothe another person was making yourself feel useful. But nothing I could say would take away his pain. I could turn myself inside out, give him everything, and it still wouldn’t stop whatever was wrong with Lori.

“I don’t even have a functioning relationship with my mother, so I have no idea. Truth is, I used to wish her dead all the time. Now I just wish she’d leave me alone,” I blurted out, then stopped, reeling at my own stupidity. “Shit. That’s the worst thing to be telling you.”

“Keep going.”

Crap, he was serious.

I opened my mouth and my throat closed up. The words were dragged out kicking and screaming. “She, um … she checked out on us, Lizzy and me. Dad left and she went to bed. That was her great solution to the problem of our family falling apart. No trying to get help, no doctors, just lying in the dark doing nothing. She pretty much stayed in her room for three years. Apart from the time child protection services came by. We managed to persuade them she wasn’t a complete waste of space. What a joke.”

He stared at me, his lips thin and white.

“I came home one day and she was sitting on the side of her bed with all these little colored pills lined up on her bedside table. She was holding this big glass of water. Her hand was shaking so bad it splashed everywhere, her nightie was all wet. I didn’t do anything, not at first.” That one moment was horrendously clear in my head. Hovering by the bedroom door, torn over what to do. It had to be manslaughter, to stand by and let it happen. Something like that had to stain you.

“I mean, it was so tempting,” I said, my voice cracking. “The thought of not having to deal with her anymore … but then Lizzy and I would have gone into the foster-care system and probably gotten separated. I couldn’t risk that. She was better off at home with me.”

His gaze was stark, his face pale.

“So I stayed home to watch her. She tried to kill herself a couple more times, then gave up on that too, like even dying was too much effort. Some days, I would just wish I’d been five minutes too late. That she’d managed to finish it. Then I’d feel guilty for even thinking that way.”

He didn’t even blink.

“I hate her so much for putting us through that. I get that depression happens and it’s a serious, terrible illness, but she didn’t even try to find help. I would make her appointments with doctors, try to get brochures and information and she just … you know, she had kids, she didn’t have the f**king luxury of just disappearing up her own ass.” Tears slid down my face unchecked. “Dad wasn’t much better, though he did send money. I guess I should be grateful he didn’t forget us entirely. I asked him ‘why’ when he was leaving and he said he just couldn’t do it anymore. He was really quite apologetic about it. Like he’d ticked the wrong box on a form or something and now sorry, but he was opting out. Family? No. Oh shit, did I say yes? Oops! Fucking ass**le. As if saying sorry changes anything when you’re walking out the door.

“You don’t appreciate how much time it takes, running a house, paying the bills, doing all the cooking and cleaning until it’s all down to you. My boyfriend stuck with me for a couple of months but then he became resentful because I couldn’t go out Saturday nights to games and parties and things. He was young, he wanted to go out and have fun, not stay in to look after a manic-depressive and a thirteen-year-old kid. Who could blame him?”

I ducked my head, trying to line up the important details in my mind. It wasn’t easy, considering how much time I’d spent trying to forget. “Then Lizzy rebelled and that just made everything so much worse. She hated the whole world, and who could blame her? At least when she behaved like a selfish, immature kid there was an actual reason behind it, what with her being one. She got busted stealing from this store. I managed to talk the owner into not pressing charges. The scare seemed to snap her out of it. She settled down, got back into her schoolwork. One of us had to make it to college because I tried, but there was no way I was keeping up with school on my own.”