6. PAIGE
SIX
PAIGE
A groan pushes past my lips as I roll to my back. The soft mattress does nothing to soothe the immediate pain that shoots through —everywhere— as my eyes slowly blink, squinting to open. The vent in my ceiling comes into a blurry focus.
Ugh. Well, it’s tomorrow.
And it’s definitely worse than yesterday.
She’s still gone—same as the last year — and now I feel like my body has been stretched by ancient torture devices.
Fucking hell.
Luckily, my apartment is closer to The Window than Venice, and traffic —for fucking once— was in my favor. I made it to my bed in about twenty minutes before immediately passing out.
But fuck. I can’t go into the club today. I don’t think I can move. I hear a small scuffle by the window, just beside the foot of my bed and decide to test the theory. Wincing and flinching, I take an eternity to sit up. “Oh, holy fuck—” I grit out, slowly dipping my chin and gently trying to rotate my neck.
Pain shoots through my arms, my back—but in trying to move my neck, my eyes lock with the wide gray ones staring back at me from the Fern Gully -inspired terrarium.
Cheeto, my tiny house dragon—also known as my leopard gecko—is judging me. And I don’t blame her.
Rookie mistake, we agree. I should know better from my experience with painful living. The day after the bad thing is always the worst—when you wake up and realize it wasn’t a dream.
He left. He left you.
She’s gone.
Still gone.
You’re alone.
A whimper tightens in my throat as I twist my back, stopping quickly when the sharp pain at the base of my neck becomes too much, and I inhale deeply.
Ugh. Fuuuck.
Sitting still for a second, I breathe in through my nose, and out through my mouth—trying to let my body recover from the small bit of movement.
I think maybe there’s some part of me that just feels valid wallowing on the day —the anniversary of bad things— and then the day after, when the world reminds you it’s still turning, it feels even worse because you’re not done.
I’ve been “not done” for seven years. And truthfully, I don’t think I’ll ever be done grieving my losses. They’re too big. I’m just a piece of fucking Swiss cheese trying to not get blown away.
Cheeto is still watching me. Maybe she’s worried. Being that we’re both nocturnal creatures, I’ll usually plop her on my shoulder while I stretch, and we’ll watch a movie or listen to some music after I get home from the club.
“Sorry, girl,” I say quietly. She takes my apology and climbs back under the cave of her rock.
I move, slowly. So slowly— my body flinches through every bit of it, as I push myself to stand, and swipe my phone from the nightstand.
It almost slips out of my hand, but I jerk to catch it, wincing and yelping at the abrupt movement. My muscles tense through the spasm between my shoulders. Once it finally subsides, I take another breath, and then hobble to the bathroom, catching an unfortunate glance of myself in the mirror.
Blue hair —everywhere. I didn’t wash my face so my makeup is smeared over my cheeks, and my eyes are dark and heavy from sleep.
Adding insult to injury is the tiny nature of my bathroom, which allows me to see the top half of my head in the mirror as I sit on the can, wedged between the shower and the wall.
I sit, long after my business is done, mostly because it took me an hour to sit down, and text Rio.
Me:
You were right.
I sigh, my body deflating at my fucked- meter—which is pretty much off the charts. I made a pitiful hundred bucks last night, and I truly think some of it only accidentally fell onto the bar counter.
Rio:
I always am. You know the drill—72 hours.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I knew it. But goddammit. She knew after her little evaluation last night that I had no shot of making it in today—giving me till the morning was a courtesy. But after a confirmed injury, I knew she’d dole out a mandatory seventy-two-hour leave. As a dancer herself, she takes injuries very seriously. Suddenly, another message comes through, and I look down again.
Rio:
Take the break, Blue. You need it.
My head leans into the wall, still sitting on the toilet, as a pathetic whine pushes past my lips. The plaster on the wall is cool to my clammy forehead, my body still tense, my muscles aching.
But something warm finds its way to my chest at the acknowledgment. Rio knows about Gram. She’s the only person that knows anything real about me.
Last year, when I fled our house in Venice—it’s all a bit of a blur. I know I ended up wandering into a coffee shop by the club, and she found me. Like a stray puppy. But she got me a job, helped me find this apartment.
Just like the wristbands she makes for me, it’s a kindness, but even more so.
It’s an intuition I’ve only noticed a few people possess. Typically people that are really paying attention. Typically other people who have been down on their luck.
They’re a special breed of human that don’t need words or explanations for your brokenness. They just see it, acknowledge it, they recognize it’s in the room.
Surprising myself, I feel my lips quirk at the corner.
I’m pretty sure Rio is that kind of people.
So was Gram.
My eyes squeeze shut again, and I try to shove the thought away. But no matter which way I turn, my mind is full.
I’m going to need to figure out how to make up for losing out on this much money. I’m still a good four hundred dollars away from making my rent for the month, and there’s only a week left in September.
“ You could always go home, ” I hear Gram’s voice sneak through my mind and I tap my forehead into the wall.
I can’t. Not yet, I tell her silently.
Even in the couple of weak moments where I’ve let myself run away back to Venice over the last year, I haven’t been able to make it past the street before ours.
Everything is . . . so fucked.
But I can’t do anything about it. Not right now, anyway. I wouldn’t dare argue with Rio, but even if I did—there’s no way I can dance tonight.
I finally push myself off the toilet. All I want to do is crawl back into bed, but that will just make it that much harder to move again later.
Just keep moving.
I did it again. I stared at the bad decision, I saw it cocking its eyebrow back at me —daring me to keep walking past the idea of spending money on things I don’t need. Money I don’t have. And then I did it anyway.
After falling back asleep then taking an hour to get out of bed, I limped down to the corner market and bought two bottles of champagne, a pack of Irish Silver cigarettes, and bath salts. Lemony ones.
And after soaking in them for about an hour, I’ve now shoved my pruny ass into some sweat pants and, currently, I have no regrets.
Though, that is probably in large part due to the fact that champagne bottle numero one is already down the hatch.
“ ’Bout time you loosened up, ” Gram’s snicker filters through my ears, and I huff a laugh.
My body wobbles a bit and there’s a dull ache in my tailbone, just as I notice that I must have sat on the floor at some point.
My body still hurts, but my mind is too drunk to care. Which is exactly where I want it. A beat passes, and I sigh, suddenly, oddly, aware of my blinks. I can’t tell if they’re slow or fast.
Shaking my head, I lift my eyes, peeking around the perimeter of my dark, seven hundred-square-foot apartment, realizing just now that it’s night time.
When did that happen?
I never turned the light on. Just the small lamp on my makeshift table by the door. A vintage, repurposed, moving box.
“ Look out, HGTV, ” Gram’s voice sounds again and this time, I breathe a laugh. I can feel the film of moisture that’s been over my eyes for the last hour—maybe longer—and I don’t think it’s the booze.
One of my many plights in life is my inability to not relive the most horrible days in blurry, fractured pieces. And fighting the memories from last year is as awful as . . .
My last day with him.
I groan, scrubbing my palms up and down my face. The alcohol feels like it’s slowly sinking further into my bloodstream, and I gracelessly lie back, wincing through the dull ache my drunkenness has awarded my muscles for the moment. My eyes stare up at the ceiling.
The uneven planks of the wood floor poke at the back of my head, and my vision blurs and focuses, pointing at the light casting over the ceiling from the window just beside Cheeto’s terrarium. Watching the light change ever so slightly is a little haunting.
The shadows flicker, pull . . .
Someone walking under a streetlight.
A car driving by.
Blink.
“Make sure her face catches the light.”
My eyes slam shut.
What the fuck?
The sudden —unexpected— memory hits like a sandbag to my chest and I gasp, curling my legs into my chest as I turn to my side.
Tightening to the fetal position does nothing to help even out my breathing, but I’m trying desperately to squeeze the thought away.
Why?
God, it would just be fucking polite if my bullshit could take turns.
Gram’s voice finds me again, still too far as she says, “ This is why we ask Buffy for favors. God can be quite the fickle bitch. ”
Just the thought of her response eases some of the tightening knots weaving and tugging through my body.
But still, I keep my eyes closed, focusing not on her words but her voice.
Swallowing the lump in my throat, I listen again.
I read somewhere once that the sound of a person’s voice is the first thing you forget once they’re gone.
And I can’t let that happen.
My mind leans into my drunkenness and floats, it drifts to a softer surface. A better, bad day . . .
Warm arms held me as I woke up and suddenly registered I was screaming, crying—losing my fucking mind.
“Shh,” a soft voice hushed, and my body loosened at the familiarity, but whimpers and cries still punched past my mouth as I grabbed onto soft, knit fabric. The big beige cardigan that was basically like a small throw blanket
Gram.
The smell of roses and black tea surrounded my terror. A terror I couldn’t even let meet the air.
“Oh, my sweet girl,” she said, her voice rich with tenderness.
But I was too consumed. I couldn’t even remember what dream I’d been having—just that it was bad.
It was all so fucking bad.
Asleep. Awake. Alive.
Gram’s cheek rested on the top of my head, she continued to run her fingers through my hair, and I did what I could to steady my breathing.
“Paigey May,” she finally said through a sigh. “It’s a hard lesson to learn, this one.” She pressed a kiss to the top of my head and I winced. The tears continued to fall in thick drops, outlining my nose as I pressed myself harder into her side.
She thought this was from proverbial teenage heartbreak.
And holy fuck, did I wish that was true.
That’s all she could think, though.
The truth was my own personal haunting that only I would know and I must keep.
Her soft sigh did something to at least ease some of the tension bunching between my brows as she said, “I know it sounds crazy right now, but . . . this experience. It’s an important one.”
I swallowed. Unable to say anything. My fingers curled into her, gripping her like a scared, helpless child.
“We rarely want life lessons, baby. And one of the hardest lessons to learn is that humans must separate.”
My eyebrows pinched, holding her tighter.
“I mean, not from me. I’ll haunt ya for eternity,” she chuckled, and I tried to smile, but it didn’t work. She took another deep breath, then said, “I just mean, in one way or another—through distance, time, death—humans separate. And learning that is far more difficult than enduring the separation. This will be the worst of it, my girl. Because after this—after you pick yourself up off the floor, you’ll know you can survive. And that’s worth the shitty lesson. I promise you.”
I appreciated the comfort she was trying to give me. And God, had she been trying—coddling me for the last six months of my living nightmare.
One that seemed to have no sign of slowing down.
I couldn’t respond. Just listen—but not even to the words. Just her voice.
Her voice.
My eyes open, blurry from tears, but I can see I’m in a kiss or kill moment with the dust along my floor.
Still on the floor.
My eyes shut again, willing the memory back, willing her voice back.
And I can still hear it, but it’s further away, mixing with the other fallen voice I’d managed to somehow keep safe.
Deep breath.
In. Out.
Seven years ago, a deep well formed in my heart.
Some experiences force you to hide things even further inside yourself. With my heart as its safe, the well holds anything precious I’ve managed to keep.
But this pain . . .
I rub my palms up and down my face, fighting off another swelling ache tightening my throat.
God, I need her.
Through all of it. Everything. I’ve always had her. My eyes close again with a pained, long blink, sighing just as I hear her whisper through me, “ I’m here, baby. ”
My eyes reopen, cheek to floor, devastation renewed as I stare across the empty space between me and the wall. I swallow back the new swell of tears before my voice croaks out, “But you’re not.”