27. Blesk
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
blesk
Day Two.
Of dealing.
Of accepting.
Of having boundaries.
And Konnor texts me.
Konnor: So, it's been 2 days since you left me, Duch.
At some point I'm going to need someone to save me.
I have 5 cans of beans, 10 rolls of toilet paper, 5 bottles of bourbon, 2 bags of pasta, 6 tomatoes, 2 onions, 3 cloves of garlic, 5 frozen meals, 5 batteries, 1 spare light globe, 1 block of cheese, so at some point I will run out.
Now I know you can't just let me starve, right?
The phone feels too light in my hand for what I’m reading. I want to reply. I want to go visit him and stock his pantry, though I know he’s joking.
I hope he’s joking…
And I know that if I do, I’ll jump into that whirlwind with him again and disappear before I have time to figure this all out. I inhale hard, looking around my dorm room, at the space that now shows little bits of Blesk.
I grab my things and head out to the bathroom. Elise's eldest mum sends her a podcast link about something called ‘differentiation of self,’ which Elise forwards to me with the comment thought of u.
While brushing my teeth, I listen to four minutes of it. A woman with a very soothing voice says, ‘healing isn't linear, it's a process that zigs and zags and sometimes uppercuts you.’
I chuckle once.
I spit toothpaste into the sink, and do not think about the fact that Konnor currently has five bottles of bourbon and is probably drinking them all. That’s the issue, isn’t it? I want to take care of him. Like I did when we were little.
I look at myself in the mirror, at Blesk, Liz, Erik’s sister, and Konnor’s dream girl…
Day Three:
Dad calls to inform me that Erik's numbers are good and that they think he’ll come out of this. Stable is the word he parrots from them. Stable. Unlike everything else in my life, but, of course, Erik is stable.
Konnor texts me at lunch time while I’m sitting at a study desk in the library, surrounded by that wonderful scent of books.
Konnor: 4 cans of beans, 9 rolls of toilet paper, 4 bottles of bourbon, 1 bag of pasta, 4 tomatoes, 1 onion, 2 cloves of garlic, 5 frozen meals, 5 batteries, 1 spare light globe, 75% block of cheese.
He is already one bottle down which makes me shake my head, sighing hard.
He doesn’t hide the unpleasant things about himself, does he?
He wears them, declares them. I wish I was more like that.
This is the Konnor that I began to fall in love with.
Painfully self-aware, openly vulnerable.
Does that make him more stable than me? Stable in his instability, but accountable.
You’re not accountable.
That’s why you’re hiding.
Ugh. Shut up.
I write stable on the back of my hand in pen. If Konnor had not come back into my life, I would be stable and Erik would be stable and the us part… That would still be kept in the dark. Maybe stable isn’t always a good thing.
Elise leans against the back of my chair, reading the word inked on my hand from over my shoulder. "What are you writing on your hand?”
I can’t hide the stupid word now that it’s there, so I just tick the final text book off my list. Hire books or hunt down second-hand ones. Tick.
I sigh, setting the pen down. "Nothing. A reminder."
"To be stable?"
"To buy oat milk."
"Coconut is better.”
Day Four:
I wake up to his message.
Konnor: 3 cans of beans, 8 rolls of toilet paper, 3 bottles of bourbon, 1 bag of pasta, 4 tomatoes, 1 onion, 1 clove of garlic, 4 frozen meals, 5 batteries, 0 spare light globes, 50% block of cheese.
No spare light globes. I think about him sitting in a dimming apartment, counting batteries and figuring out the percentage of cheese left in the block, then putting them into a phone that never acknowledges his troubles.
I try to listen in lectures, try to be deeply interested in every open text book in front of me, so I don’t need to look up very often until I am inside my dorm with Elise.
Then I try to sleep.
Day Five:
His message arrives in the afternoon.
Konnor: 2 cans of beans, 8 rolls of toilet paper, 1 bottle of bourbon, 0 bags of pasta, 2 tomatoes, 0 onions, 1 clove of garlic, 4 frozen meals, 3 batteries, 20% block of cheese.
Elise's other mum's contribution is forwarded to me as an audio note. "Guilt is information, not instruction. It tells you something matters. It does not get to control your actions."
While alone in my dorm room, surrounded by nothing but Elise and Blesk, I listen to the note.
Elise is at the library with her new study group, and being alone is lonely in a way I think I need.
It’s quiet. My mind is… not quiet but isolated from too many influences.
No green-eyed, dimpled boys making my head swim right now.
Lifting my phone, I press play on the audio note again. Her mum has a nice, strong voice; she sounds like the kind of woman I imagine runs laps around men in the courtroom. Powerful. This really explains Elise in all her talkative, opinionated glory.
My fingers move to the message dashboard and hit Konnor’s name on autopilot. I stare at Konnor’s message thread, with my finger hovering over the keyboard, deciding whether to text Konnor, ‘Are you okay?’
Pain spears my chest, and I let my action get controlled by guilt instead, without Elise looking over my shoulder, alone in this dorm room while a man I am apparently falling in love with eats two tomatoes and a single clove alone in a slowly darkening apartment.
Day Six:
Elise and I are already in bed—the sun is long over the reality of today just like me—when his text message arrives, and the feeling of sheer relief I experience causes me to actually smile.
I waited for it.
Konnor: 2 cans of beans, 7 rolls of toilet paper, 0 bottles of bourbon, 2 tomatoes, 1 clove of garlic, 2 frozen meals, 3 batteries, 10% block of cheese.
The bourbon has hit zero, and my emotions shift from relief to guilt to fear to desperation between the first word and the last. Then a helplessness…
like the floor of a lift giving way for a split moment then levelling out, leaving you clutching yourself.
I should be relieved that he’s run out of alcohol, but I’m not.
I want to go buy him a bottle, leave it with Adolf.
Konnor: This hurts, Liz.
Konnor: Fuck, sorry.
Konnor: Blesk. Blesk. Blesk. Blesk. Fucking Blesk.
Konnor: Sorry for swearing at you.
I hold my phone to my chest for a humiliating amount of time, like a teenager reading her first text from a boy at school. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fucking fuck.
Elise rolls over in her bed and eyes me. "Are you... hugging your phone?"
I keep hugging it. "No."
"You're hugging your phone."
"It's cold in here."
Day Seven:
It’s been a week, and I look forward to his silly messages, though they come at all times of the day and night.
Today, I try the affirmation thing properly. I write one on a sticky note and put it on my mirror: Someone will love all the pieces of me.
I read it while combing my hair into a high ponytail and even believe it, for about three seconds after my hairbrush lands on the chest of drawers.
I should text him now.
Thank him for not pushing me.
Thank him for— And apologise. Yes, I should. For all sorts of things that are not, on reflection, my fault, or maybe they are, including the weather, a mix-up at the campus café, and now, apparently, a national cheese shortage that only affects one block, in one fridge, several blocks away.
Elise walks over to my mirror and leans in close to it, a sparkly purple pen braced in her hand. She writes: Except for the piece that hugs my phone. It's WEIRD.
She grins at me.
My phone buzzes.
Konnor: 0 cans of beans, 6 rolls of toilet paper, 0 tomatoes, 1 clove of garlic, 1 frozen meal, 3 batteries, 5% block of cheese.
I sigh angrily. At myself. At the situation and the unbearable and fictional image of him wrapping a clove of garlic in toilet paper and eating it out of pure stubborn determination to stay lonely rather than walking the four hundred metres to a shop.
The day goes by with classes, and I check my phone over and over, but I’m not sure why. It’s time for a different conversation with him! One devoid of batteries and toilet paper. But… I can’t bring myself to start one.
That night, I am almost asleep when my phone beeps. My eyes flash open and when I look at my phone, there is a voicemail. A voicemail? He called?
He called!
Smiling, I listen to his voice.
"Hey. It's me. Obviously. Look, I'm not going to keep doing this, the daily thing, it's... probably not great for either of us.
I just. You want to be just friends? I can do that.
I want you any way I can have you. I need you to know I'm not going anywhere.
Whenever you're ready. If you're ever ready.
Okay. Bye. That was a weird way to end that. Bye, Blesk."
The phone shakes by my ear. I play it four more times just to hear him say bye, Blesk, and hug my phone to my chest as if I can crush the words inside the speaker.