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6:16 PM. JULY 29th, 2018
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THREE months later...
This had been the third time of the week that I was hurling violently into the toilet while my boyfriend held my hair back. I think we both knew what was going on but both of us were too scared to admit anything so I suppose we'll wait until it really needs to be brought up. Oh god, here it comes again and this time it smells like alcohol even though I haven't had any in the past few weeks. Luke says that me puking all the time was due to that, so he "hid" all of my hard earned booze (we both know that I could easily find it but I won't be that aggravating). My hypothesis was that the stench of death that still wavered throughout my janky apartment was what was making me sick all the time. There was still flakes of ash that him and I both stopped trying to get out of the crevices of the walls.
Messily grabbing the last few squares of toilet papers (reminder to get more), I wiped my mouth in hopes that there would be no more vile liquids exiting my mouth today. Turning over, I found that we were just staring at each other. The words we wanted to say just staying inside of our stupid heads. It stayed like that for a few minutes but I decided to get up and walk right past him and went straight to the closet grabbing a wrinkled white shirt, that damn faded black leather jacket, and . . . a dirty pair of jeans because someone forgot to do laundry this week. I got dressed as Luke made his morning coffee. I finally exited the room with dirty clothing piled on my hands up to my chin and dropped it at his feet.
"Get it done, big guy.", I demanded as I went to sit down in front of a blank computer screen waiting to be activated, so I pressed that magic button and waited (impatiently) for it to turn on.
"Jess, you can't-"
"Excuse me?", yeah, last I checked, people don't tell me what I can and can't do, and he sure as hell is not going to start that with me, "My apartment, my rules. Do the damn laundry, Luke.". Yes! This stupid computer has finally decided to come back into my life. Alright, spam, definitely not dealing with that nut job, interesting, ah, maybe-
"Jess! That's not what I'm talking about! I'll do the damn laundry babe!", he yelled at me walking forward to my desk and then closed my laptop aggressively.
"What the hell Luke?! What's your fucking problem?!" I screamed back. What was-oh no. No, no, no. He is not going to bring this up right now. I cannot deal with this. Jesus christ, could we just never bring it up. Can it just not be a thing?
"You know what it is, and I'm not going to argue about it with you.", that's probably a good idea, "I'm gonna leave for a bit, but remember you have to...clean the bathroom.", I didn't say anything. Not even a snarky "bye", nothing. Clean the bathroom? But I thought he already did. Or maybe he just found a used tampon (because you can't flush those things down our toilet or it gets clogged real bad) and chickened out. That's not that surprising, but I guess my job can wait for now to take a half hour to make the bathroom less nasty. Getting the Lysol and a grungy washcloth, I entered what I thought would have been a mess, but actually was real life hitting me hard in the face: a pregnancy test with a note that read:
Jess, we both know how this is gonna turn out, so just take it. I'll be here for you.
-
THE New York breeze slapped my face as I curled up against a garbage dumpster in an alleyway with the few others in the same situation as me. Rosie sat next to me eating a broken granola bar that she had found a few feet away from us. Johnny laid on a piece of cardboard shaking just like the rest of us, and then there was the unnamed boy that sat there with cold eyes staring at the rough ground. All of our parents had turned to ash, and we didn't want to go to some foster home, so we ran and ended up here: alone, but together.
"Hey Ellie, want some?" Rosie looked at me offering the last piece of her food. I shook my head since I really wasn't hungry. She was so nice...and pretty too. At night, her singing voice would all lull us to sleep, since that was her gift, just like I had mine, and the other two boys. Too bad none of them could help food appear out of nowhere. That would be convenient.
Johnny woke up screaming which caused Rosie to walk over to try and comfort him. "Hey, it's okay. We're here, Johnny boy.". She told me that nickname was from a book called The Outsiders that I had never heard of before. Rosie loved her books, but she loved helping people even more making her the older sister of the group despite her being the youngest (younger than me by a few months) of the group. Johnny calmed down though and went back to sleep triggering a snarky remark from the boy who refused to be named.
"What a baby.", he scoffed causing her and I both to roll our eyes, "We all went through the same thing. We're not bawling our eyes out."
"Jeez, Mr. mystery guy, people handle things differently. Who knows, we might all end up acting like him in the next week or hour. Stop judging dude.", Rosie took the words right out of my mouth. She was right. I mean, I haven't cried since that day. I just haven't had the energy to properly mourn. None of us have except Johnny. What a lucky guy...
"Whatever, Rosie. I'm hitting the hay. Enjoy your crappy granola bar.", well at least he shut up for now. When we heard him snore we burst out giggling. These were the happiest moments of the past months. The times where we could laugh, or even just smile. It made us feel like the world wasn't so bad after all.
Once she dozed off, I began to pray like my mother did when she thought I was asleep. I prayed for him to come back, my dad that is. I prayed for all of our parents to come back to us. I prayed for this hell to stop, and for all to be normal again. That was a wish, but it was one worth praying on.
