Maybe that was a bad thing.
“Lenny…” I walked around so I could take a seat at the kitchen bar. “Lenny you don’t know why you were at the hotel. You don’t know why you’re acting the way you are. Don’t pretend like you do.” She opened her mouth to rebut but I put my hand up. “No, the only meds you’ve been taking these past months are the wrong ones. I’m willing to bet I have a better clue what’s going on inside that head of yours than you do.”
Lennox sighed and slid her head in her hands. I expected her to yell at me, or throw something. Instead she crumbled in on herself. In the years I’d been with Lenny, I’d seen many sides to her. Most people keep their sides pretty well hidden, because they don’t know themselves enough to show them.
Fuck knows I don’t.
Lenny, though, she didn’t get the choice. Her sides came roaring to life without her consent. She had happy, she had sad, she had angry, she had mad, and she had a whole mix of in between that lit up like the goddamn bat signal. The thing was, she didn’t light them up herself. They lit up, and then a couple of hours later she’d realize it, but everyone was already there, staring, and gawking, and wondering at her.
Right then Lenny was realizing what had happened. She was realizing that the bat signal had lit up “horny” and it had really, really fucking lit up.
Lennox looked up at me, eyes shiny. “I feel like I’m trapped in a prison where the jailor is my stupid brain.” I exhaled and moved back around to sit on the floor with her. I wished I could help her. I wished I could reach in and rip her from the prison her mind had built around her. Instead, I rubbed her arms.
“I don’t understand, Vic.” Lennox looked at the floor, tears evident on her lids. In the years I’d known Lenny, she’d only cried a handful of times. Each time, she took a piece of me with her. I gripped my hands on her arms tighter, trying to rub out the pain. “Why am I like this?”
“You’re special Lenny,” I explained.
Lennox laughed brokenly. “Some kind of special.”
“You see the world differently. You feel deeply. You think bright
er than most. Unfortunately, it comes at a cost.”
“I wish I was normal,” Lenny said and leaned forward into my chest. I felt her sobs as I would a gong to my heart.
“No you don’t.” I rubbed her back. “Normal is the worst kind of prison.”
I angled the glass to the fridge and as the water poured, I let myself relax. Water filled up the crystal, its sound soothing to my ears. Lenny was finally asleep upstairs, whatever demons haunted her sleeping alongside.
For a moment, things were calm, and for a moment, I let myself be calm.
Fuck me though, right? I should have known by then that the only time I got calm is before the barrage of bullet fire. The only moments I got were to say goodbye. Things had started to feel good again, though, and I’d weakened. I’d let myself wish.
Lenny called me particular, and that was on her nice days. I liked everything in its place. Towels belonged on the rack. Dishes belonged in the cupboard and china on the display. Nothing should be out on the counter.
So why the fuck was a small black box wrapped neatly with black ribbon sitting carefully on the counter? While Lenny was doing her best impersonation of Sylvia Plath, I hadn’t noticed it. Now, though, as I pulled the nearly overflowing glass away from the spigot, it was impossible not to miss.
I carefully walked toward the counter, keeping my hand steady despite the water that wanted to spill. I didn’t need to open the box to know what it meant, but I did anyway. In the brief seconds before the wrapping fell away, I thought back to what I should have done. I should have heeded that bright red car’s warning. I should have listened to the words behind what the asshole said. I should have sent Lenny away. For a moment, though, I’d let myself be calm.
Is this when I say something about storms?
“You don’t get families either, Vic.”
When I opened the box, what I saw made me drop my water, but not because I was surprised. I’d been expecting it since the beginning. I dropped the glass because reality had finally come home. Even with all the silence and the screams, the shit and the fuckery, for the past months I’d been deluding myself. I’d let myself think there was a light at the end of the tunnel, but now my tunnel had caved in.
Glass hit tile, shards flew everywhere. One might have pierced me. I thought water might have spilled on me based on the cool numbness I started to feel.
I don’t know.
I was too busy staring into the box.
“What’s going on?” I glanced at Lenny with her ruby hair messed up like she’d just been fucked, sleepy at the top of the stairs, the shirt she’d borrowed from me wrinkled and dipping to the side of her shoulder.
“Nothing…” I waved her off, hiding the box behind my back. “I just dropped the glass.”
“Are you okay?” Lenny asked, rubbing her eyes.
“I’m fine,” I said, keeping my voice level.