Chapter Ten
My name is being called and it sounds far away, as if in a tunnel. I stay motionless, curled on the bathroom floor.
Then the cold and lifeless air around me is supercharged with the feel of Alan’s presence.
He drops to his knees beside me. “Fuck, Chrissie! What did you do?” I feel limp like a rag doll, as he pulls me from the ground and drags me into his lap. “What did you do, Chrissie? Baby, what did you take?”
He is rummaging through the mess of his stash box splashed across the floor. He slaps my face. “Baby, you’ve got to tell me what you took.” He slaps me more. I can’t feel his touch, I can’t feel my lips, and I can’t find the words in my head.
Panicked and terrified, Alan starts to drag me across the floor. “Oh fuck! Damn it, Chrissie. What did you take?” He is pushing me over the toilet and his fingers are pushing in on my mouth.
Part of my brain focuses. No, no, no. This is wrong. I don’t need to throw up. I plant my hands on the porcelain and struggle to break free. “I don’t do drugs. I didn’t take anything,” I say, my voice breathy and toneless.
Alan releases me and sinks on the floor. He is shaking. “What the hell is wrong with you? I thought you OD’d. Jesus Christ, I thought you’d OD’d.”
His breath is rapid, hard and ragged, as if he’s just run himself to exhaustion. When I finally look at him, he is sitting elbows on knees, face in hands.
His eyes, burning and angry, lift to fix on me. “What the fuck is that doing scattered all over the floor? What game are you playing here? Are you fucking out of your mind, pulling a stunt like that?”
I curl into a ball and stare. Alan starts picking up the mess from the floor, tossing it back into the lacquer box before slamming the lid shut and putting it back beneath the vanity.
He stands above me, rigid and enraged. “Goddammit, speak to me. Is this some fucked up little girl tantrum because I had to leave today? I don’t do bullshit, Chrissie, and I don’t play little girl games.”
When I don’t answer, he reaches out and grabs me from the floor. He is hauling me from the bathroom, his fingers tightening and tightening with each step. They press too hard into my side and I wince.
He jerks up my shirt and the color drains from his face. “Oh fuck, Chrissie. Why did you do that today? Baby, just tell me. I don’t know how to help you.”
I curl on my unburned side and wrap myself around his pillow. I start to sob, quietly at first, and then harder and harder because the numbness is fading and the distraught look on Alan’s face made it all come tumbling back.
The things I now know for certain to be real. The things I remember. The things I want to forget. The things about Alan that terrify me. The things about myself that I hate. My thoughts are echoing and bouncing inside my head, and he wants me to tell him how to help me. He can’t help himself. We are two fucked up people. Jack had it half right. Neither of us are circus ready.
I feel his fingers in my hair. “Hush, baby,” he breathes, and gently he pulls my paralyzed body into his arms, burying his lips into my hair. “Can you tell me what happened?”
His voice is so achingly anguished. I force myself to shake my head no. He exhales what sounds like a sigh of relief that I’m responsive and continues to kiss gently all through my hair.
“Did something happen to you, Chrissie? Did someone hurt you?”
I shake my head. He exhales again.
“Are you upset that I left?” He runs a shaking hand through his hair. “I should have called. I would have called. I didn’t have a chance to.”
I shake my head. His hands, soothing and tender, move to my arms, gently rubbing up and down. “Shit, you’re freezing cold. How long have you been laying there?”
I shrug. He scoops me up and carries me back into the bathroom. He is worried and almost despondent. “I don’t know what I did. You have to promise not to do this again. Just get angry. Just yell. Why can’t you talk instead of doing this?”
I watch him from my perch on the toilet while he fills the tub. After shutting off the knobs, he comes back, eases off my shirt, examines the infinity burn on my lower left abdomen, and then transports me into the warm water of the tub.
Alan collapses into a sitting position beside the tub, long limbs exhausted, and I curl in a ball in the center of the tub hugging my knees silently.
We sit together like this, neither of us moving or talking for ages.
“Does the water make it hurt?” he asks after a long while.
I turn very slowly until my cheek is against my knees so I can face him. “A little. Not bad. I like the pain.”
His eyes flash. “Well then you are one fucked up little girl, because I can’t even stand the sight of you in pain.”
I don’t know why that does it, but it makes me cry, a more normal and emotional cry.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to put you through that.” I use the towel on the ledge to wipe my nose.
“I’ve never had anyone scare me more in my life,” he whispers, eyes widening, the fearful expression returning.
“It’s no big deal. It’s just what I do when everything gets too close and too real.”
“I understand the too close and too real.” His eyes close again and I watch myriad emotions cross his face. “But please, for me, don’t do that again. I’ve seen a lot of shit, but that was the fucking worst. You looked dead. Why did you do it? Goddammit, talk to me!”
I don’t answer him.
He opens his eyes and looks at me. “OK. But soon, baby. Please make it soon.”
He lifts me from the tub and sets me onto the waiting towel. He pats me dry, sets me on the bed and goes to my duffel for fresh clothes. He covers me in a long sleeve t-shirt, pulls on my panties and then a pair of sweatpants.
“Do you want to go to sleep?” he asks.
I shake my head no and then notice the exhausted lines on his face. He’s been at it since 7 a.m., he’s still dressed in the types of clothes he wears for interviews, it is 4 a.m., and he came back to the apartment having to deal with me. I feel my heart clench anew, but for kinder reasons.
Fucked up he is, but Alan is a good guy, more than he believes.
“Are you hungry?”
I shake my head no.
“Have you eaten today?”
“No. Too many people in the apartment and a hideous girl in the kitchen.”
That makes Alan laugh in a tired way. “Hideous girl would be Jeanette. My secretary.”
I struggle to make a comical face. “See, you do know what someone does here, who works for you.”
He pulls the blanket from the foot of the bed and wraps me in it. I’m transported down the hall to the kitchen, where he sets me on the butcher block island before going to rummage in the refrigerator.
He starts pulling out cartons and setting them on the counter. “Kitchen finally stocked. An entire buffet of readymade here. What do you like? Does it matter? I just need something to kill the pain.”
I shrug and watch. I haven’t the energy for behaving as if I’m OK. Not just yet, but I’m nearer.
He dumps the cartons and a fork on the counter, settles in a bar high chair, and then scoots me around until I’m facing him, my legs dangling at his side.
He fills a fork and holds it up for me. “I’m not sure what this is. Eat.”
I take a bite. A reluctant laugh whispers out of me. “It’s potato salad.”
He takes a bite. “Not bad. Let’s see what we have here.”
Fork to my lips. Another bite. “Macaroni salad.”
He takes a bite and sets it aside. “This I know. Meatloaf. Do you want me to heat it? I like it cold.”
“Then I’ll eat it cold.”
We pick at the meatloaf until we’ve both had our fill. At some point between forks full, he poured himself a very tall glass of whiskey. A part of me really wishes he wouldn’t, and a part of me taunts Who are you to be critical of his weaknesses? We are both messed up. Equal. The same.