𝐋𝐢𝐚𝐫, 𝐋𝐢𝐚𝐫 | 𝐉𝐉 𝐌𝐚𝐲𝐛𝐚𝐧𝐤

18. peg the patriarchy. (pt.3.)

E I G H T E E N

Peg the patriarchy.

The air in the car is full of excitement, the prospect being truly, insanely rich being only a length of rope away has everyone grinning.

But there's also a sense of everyone being being on edge, we're robbing an old woman of millions of dollars. That's not a great look, no matter which way you cut it.

My hands anxiously fiddle with the slightly frayed bottom hem of the shorts I've borrowed. My fingers slide up from that and pull at the pilled material only centimetres higher. The weight of everything feels heavy again, and I decided against numbing it all with a Xanax, it didn't really help yesterday. I just ended up pill and alcohol hungover, laying naked on the tiles hating the fact I woke up.

JJ's arm is laid against the back of the seat we both sit on, with Sarah sitting on the other side of me.

I try and ground myself – one of the very few sessions I went to with one of my therapists before she decided we weren't compatible she told me to find things to ground myself. There was some whole formula including numbers and other shit, that went in one ear and out the other, but the sentiment of finding things to bring me back down to Earth before my head convinces me it's time to leave it, stayed.

It's just the little shit. The smell of the shirt I'm wearing, JJ's fingers that twirl a piece of my hair around them, Sarah's leg bouncing.

It's all enough to bring me back down from freaking out and just screaming because I need to get the emotion out and I need someone to know I'm hurting.

The car is packed, the clunky yellow car trundles down the bumpy road, all of its passengers dressed in ridiculous black clothing. Ready to rob an old woman. We're the delinquent kids old people claim are ruining the world. She probably killed her husband – at least that's what I'm now accepting and telling myself so I don't feel bad for robbing her. Also, she's not even using it, she probably doesn't even know it's there, and what she doesn't know won't hurt her.

I watch John B's fingers squeeze and flex their grip on the wheel, obviously an anxious tic. "You got the rope?" He asks, glancing back through the rearview mirror.

"Got it," Pope confirms confidently, I've seen him check thirty times in the span of ten seconds. That's not even anxious behaviour, that's just him.

"Grappling hook?" He asks a further question.

Pope looks exasperated, obviously having checked and rechecked that we have everything we could possibly, realistically need. "No grappling hook. We're not Batman," he answers.

The closer we get the more neurotic John B becomes, running through the list again and again like he forgot the answer he got two minutes prior. It's not helping anyone else's anxiety – or mine, JJ sat beside me seems cool as a cucumber, the fucker even yawns. I'm constantly tired, but right now I'm wired, the second this is over I know I'll crash, but right now I could be awake all night if it took that long. The nap helped that.

"You're going to put the shorts apart while you're still in them at this rate, sweetcheeks," he says quietly.

I look up at him, his face is jovial and not in any way concerned about the state of his shorts. All I'm really doing is fiddling with the string of the hem that's coming undone, and pulling off the pilled fabric. He's not mad, I think he's just trying to stop me from sending myself into cardiac arrest. I think this is one of the times I'm not meant to tell him to fuck off and that he can take his own damn short back then. That seems like an inappropriate reaction.