This chapter contains a mature issue, and it is not an issue to be dealt with lightly. If you cannot handle it, please read no farther, as this theme shows up in later chapters. Use your own tolerance level.
* * * * *
| Early December |
Brian stared at the sheet of paper in front of him, full of useless rhymes.
“Said,” he muttered. “Dead, bed, shed, lead, med, wed.” Crumpling the sheet he threw it across the room, hitting an unsuspecting Nick in the head.
He smothered laughter. “Brian, web does not rhyme with said.”
“Shudup.” He pulled his baseball cap lower over his eyes and smiled. “You got any ideas?”
“Don’t make a rhyme?”
“Well, the first time is ‘said’ with ‘fed.’”
“So?”
“It just doesn’t sound right.”
“Hey, don’t shoot the messenger. Can you blame me for your writer’s block?”
“Can you blame me . . . cause that’s what she said!” he cried triumphantly, grabbing the paper back and scribbling a few random sentences. “Thanks Nick!”
Nick simply stared at him and shook his head.
* * * * *
“Long time, no see!” an extremely intoxicated Todd shouted at Malia as she tried to put a distance between herself and Paul’s roaming hands. He was a nice guy she supposed, but although they were officially “going out” she never saw him as more than a friend.
“What is this stuff?” she yelled back, shaking a plastic cup in the air at him.
“Don’t know, but it’s potent!”
She felt one of Paul’s hands slip into the back pocket of her jeans in an attempt to lead her to the left. “That’s a no-no,” she said, pulling his hand away.
“Aw, c’mon.”
“Nuh uh.”
But as she slipped further and further into her drunker stupor she no longer noticed when Paul disobeyed her gentle requests for him to stop.
* * *
Malia slapped some cover-up on her face. For a person who had just slept on the floor, woken up, thrown up, and stranded her boyfriend, she looked pretty damn chipper.
She wrapped her black ‘hoodie’ over her narrow shoulders and stared down the interior of the apartment. She could either choose to have a drink now, and fight off the after-affects of ‘a little too much partying,’ or she could just tough it out. Sighing, she carried out option A and left for the mall to buy a few small Christmas presents.
* * * * *
Leighanne sat as Brian lay sleeping on the bed next to her. Smiling, she ran her fingers through the tiny wisps of hair that hung over his forehead, her perfect oval nails barely skimming the surface of his skin. He exhaled, she sighed. She smoothed her thumb under his eyes and his chest fell again, in rhythm.
It was over.
It was imprinted all over his face: ‘I want someone else.’ Oh, it hurt. It hurt so badly. She couldn’t pretend that her heart wasn’t breaking inside.
And all she could do was blame herself.
* * * * *
“Hey,” Brian muttered, walking into the spacious den. He had a week with Leighanne, alone, before he went back to Lexington for Christmas, with her.
“You still love her, don’t you?”
Her question made little sense to him. “What?”
She continued channel surfing, hidden by the couch so he couldn’t see her face. “You still love Malia.” It wasn’t a question this time.
“Yeah, right.” He rummaged around in the refrigerator. “How old is the milk?”
“Look at me.” When he turned around she was standing behind him, strangely silent, her blue eyes wandering into his depths of his hidden thoughts.
“What does it matter if I do? I'm here with you.” He cracked a half-smile that never reached his eyes.
“Don’t say it.”
“Say what?”
“’I'm a poet and don’t know it.’”
“Hey, you’re a poet and--"
She groaned. “Can’t you ever stay on topic?”
“Depends who you’re asking. Anyway, I thought the topic was the milk.” He shook the carton in the air, watching it slosh back in forth. “I don’t think it’s fresh.”
“That’s not the topic.”
With no reason or logic, he turned around and pressed his mouth forcefully onto hers. Instead of feeling the usual gentleness and warmth the sensations that hit Leighanne were anything but. She fell back to the counter as Brian’s hands moved to her lower back, but she didn’t respond. Either he didn’t notice or he decided not to, and his fingers wandered to her jeans.
“No,” she said suddenly.
“What?” he muttered, still immersed in her body.
“I can’t do this.”
“Do what?”
“Sleep with you.”
“Did I say you had to?”
“Brian, you’re thinking about two things right now: getting some and how you’re going to get Malia back.”
* * * * *
She stared into the mirror, a shadow of herself. The charcoal hollows under her eyes stood out against her pale skin. She knew she was in pain but she did nothing to stop it.
Underneath the thin white cotton of her bra a slow, red river was pooling up and running down her side. She threw the soiled garment into the “things to wash” pile and reached for a bandage.
There’s got to be a cleaner way, she thought. Replacing the stain remover she had used to ineffectively fight the caked blood, she knocked over a lighter she kept for emergencies.
With a slow and sad smile she picked it up and formed her idea.
* * * * *
Days like this I don’t know what to do with myself
All day--and all night
I wander the halls and under my breath
I say to myself
I need fuel--to take flight
And there’s too much going on
But it’s calm under the waves, in the blue of my oblivion
Under the waves, in the blue of my oblivion
Is that why they call me a sullen girl--sullen girl?
They don’t know I used to sail the deep and tranquil sea
"Sullen Girl"/Tidal