Chapter 23 Zeth
Zeth
“Zeth! Zeth! Wake Up!” Something hard jabs me in the ribs.
I flinch, recoiling from the contact. In the space of two seconds, I spin off the bed, grabbing hold of whoever was touching me, and raise my fist, ready to strike.
I manage to stop myself just in time—the person stupid enough to enter my room and prod me while I’m sleeping isn’t a person at all.
It’s a broom handle. Fuck me. My knees are exploding with pain from where I slammed down onto them when I rolled out of the bed. My heart is charging like a piston.
It’s not him. It’s not him. You’re fine. Breathe.
I blink at the broom handle, trying to shut down the attack commands screaming inside my head.
“Zeth.”
The voice is solid. Calm. I look up from the pale wood at my feet and find Lacey standing in the doorway, her worn, pink terry-cloth robe drawn tight around her body. It’s threadbare, but she will not throw the damned thing out.
Something must be up. She knows not to bother me if I’m in my room and the door’s closed. And she’s smart. She prodded me from a distance rather than approaching the bed. It’s undignified, sure, but I’d rather suffer the indignity of being poked with a stick than hurt her.
Ahh, fuck, I’m naked. Great. Straightening from my defensive stance, I fix a questioning look on Lacey.
“What’s up?” She doesn’t blink at the fact that I’m dressed in nothing but my skin.
Then again, she doesn’t blink at the fact that I attack people in my sleep, either.
We know not to probe each other, to go digging in places we’re not welcome.
She understands. She has her shit, and I most definitely have mine.
“I can’t sleep. I don’t feel great,” Lace whispers. “Do we have any painkillers?”
When your housemate decides to kill herself, there are certain precautions you take when she comes home. Got codeine in your medicine cabinet? Acetaminophen? Knives in your kitchen? Bleach under your kitchen sink? Yeah, I don’t. Not anymore. Not until I’m sure Lacey’s straight again.
I pad barefoot to my bedside table and grab the pack of Tylenol I keep there to take the edge off my hangovers. They can be brutal sometimes. I pop two pills from the blister pack into my hand and offer them to Lacey, who rolls her eyes.
“Jeez, Zee, you’re being an idiot.”
“You’re the idiot.” I glare at her. She knows I haven’t forgiven her for the shit she pulled yet, but she hasn’t said she’s sorry.
She never will. I’ll die holding my breath before that ever happens.
I expect a part of her is actually waiting for me to say it: Sorry, Lace.
Sorry I dragged your ungrateful ass to the hospital yet again. Sorry for saving your life.
But you know what? Fuck that. She’s being a selfish bitch right now. I watch as she tosses the pills down her throat and swallows them dry. And then I cross a line.
“Why, Lace?”
She forgoes the part where she pretends not to understand what I’m asking. All of those doctors at the hospital, each and every one of them must have asked her the same question. She tucks her crazy hair behind her ear and tugs on the cuff of her robe. I’ve broken the secret accord between us.
She knows, though. She can’t brush me off.
She has to tell me something, be it all the truth or just half.
She frowns, anger flickering in her eyes.
“You know when you wake up in the middle of the night and your heart’s pounding?
When the dream feels so real your skin is still crawling?
When you can still hear it all, ringing in your ears?
When you’re too scared to close your eyes, ’cause you don’t wanna go back there? Not ever?”
I study her, still as marble. I experience that on a nightly basis, but I won’t admit it. Shit, no. I will never admit to being afraid again.
Lacey accepts my silence. “Well, I don’t feel that anymore, Zeth.
I dream… and I wake up, and I’m not… not scared anymore.
I’ve accepted it. My body’s accepted it.
There’s something very wrong with me,” she whispers.
I understand the horror in her eyes all too well.
Whatever happened to her, somewhere along the way, her body has committed the darkest act of betrayal: it started enjoying it.
“Dying is the only thing I’m afraid of these days,” she breathes. “And I need to be afraid. I need to not feel like… like I do. I’d rather be dead.”
She is a lost girl in her grungy robe, with her messy hair and her haunted blue eyes. I look away, nodding. “What do you need?” I can’t hug her. Can’t hold her. There are some things I can do, and there are some things I cannot. Won’t.
“Nothing,” she says. “You’ve done enough.” She adopts a vacant stare as she focuses on my chest. “That doctor. She wanted me to go see her friend. Said she would help me.”
“And what did you say?”
“Told her the truth. That there’s no point.
There’s no fixing something this broken.
I’m not human, Zeth. I’m like one of those statues left behind after Pompeii.
The shape of me is still here. The outline of who I used to be.
But the rest of me is gone. I’ll never get it back again.
All I will ever be now is ash and stone. ”