Something cold and dank and blacker than anything I’ve ever known settled in my bones while standing in that room listening to that thing tell the story of what he did. And try as she might, all of my friend’s natural light and warmth hasn’t been able to so much as pierce it in the two weeks we’ve been back here in small-town upstate New York.
Sighing in frustration and resignation, Sunday swings her legs down and sits up, perching on the edge of the couch like an exotic bird. An angel amid the desperation permeating my small studio apartment.
“You need sleep, Stell. It’s three o’clock in the morning. C’mon.” Grabbing my wrist firmly, she gets to her feet and waits for me to follow suit. Knowing she’ll just stand there and glare at me until I give in, I unfold my legs from beneath me. Ignoring the pins and needles in my feet, I let her tug me over to the familiar swaybacked bed. With a gentle push on my shoulders, she forces me onto the mattress, and I curl on my left side, slipping my cold hands under the lumpy pillow. Sunday clucks her tongue like a mother hen and tucks the thin blanket around me.
Switching off the small lamp that stands guard on the wobbly nightstand, she moves by the glow of the streetlights outside to the other side of the bed. The bedframe shakes and then settles as she climbs in beside me and presses her back to mine in a show of silent comfort.
Long after she’s asleep, I lie awake, unmoving, haunted by secrets and possibilities, and the words of a man too evil to be real. Except he was real. It all was. A tear traces it’s lazy, crooked path from the corner of my eye across the bridge of my nose and down my cheek. I feel it dry in a salty streak before it can drip on to the white pillowcase cradling my weary head.
No tears, Bradleigh. If that dam breaks, we’ll all drown in the sea of my shattered heart, and I won’t give that vile man the satisfaction.
My eyes finally close, and I drift off into a fragmented half-sleep. In my dreams, a beautiful tattooed boy waits on the other side of a chasm that grows wider by the day, its depths full of razor-sharp words and shards of broken hope.
“Ow! Shit! Fuck! Shitfuck!” The expletives firing from the tiny bathroom can only mean one thing. My ass sits cross-legged in the center of my bed, sinking into the small permanent dip in the mattress as I sip what passes for my coffee and wait patiently.
“Seriously, Stell. That bathroom is a hazard. Who the hell crams all that shit into a room that small?” Sunday emerges wrapped in a towel that’s seen better days, her long hair dripping on the carpet as she hops on one foot and holds the other in her hands.
She has a shower every day, and every day she misjudges how close the toilet is to the edge of the tub. When she gets out, she ends up kicking the side of the dingey white porcelain toilet. Hard. Putting her foot down, she gingerly hobbles over to the bed and presents her freshly bashed toes for my inspection. I make a show of leaning over and getting a good look at them, hemming and hawing, then sit back to deliver my diagnosis with the most serious face I can muster.
“Miss Easton, I’m sorry, but it seems we have only one option here. We’ll have to amputate at the neck.” I hide a half-smile in my coffee mug. Huffing with mock indignation and trying not to laugh, she throws herself down on the bed beside me.
“Oh, thank God. It’s about time you made the morning coffee.” She grabs the mug from my hand before I can stop her, taking a big mouthful and abruptly spitting it back into the cup while making choking noises.
“That is not coffee. That is battery acid.” Grimacing, she holds the now spitty coffee mug back out to me. “Seriously, that is the worst thing I have ever tasted, and I’ve eaten my mother’s cooking. How do you still have taste buds?” Using the edge of her towel, she scrubs her tongue comically.
“It’s caffeine,” I shrug dismissively. “I’ve never been very good at making coffee for some reason.” Standing up, I take the mug from her outstretched hand and head to the scratched stainless-steel kitchen sink to dump the offending liquid. Before I can pour a fresh one for myself, Sunday’s pouting face is beside me at the counter, and I heave out a dramatic sigh, knowing what she’s after. “You want to go to The Juneberry.”
“Can we? Pleeeease?” She flutters her eyelashes at me, all innocent-like. “Sally makes the best French toast and the coffee there won’t strip paint or traumatize me for life.”
“Sunday Grace, you are what we call ‘high maintenance’ around here,” I tease. Knowing she’s won, she pumps her fist before whipping off her towel and throwing it over my face as she beelines for the bathroom stark naked. “For the record, you are by far the weirdest friend I’ve ever had,” I yell. Balling up the still wet towel, I toss it into the cracked plastic laundry basket on my way to the closet.
“I am the best friend you’ve ever had!” she fires back, with a mouth full of her toothbrush by the sounds of it.
She’s not wrong on that.
Focusing on the closet in front of me, my shoulders sag. When we left Folkestone, I haphazardly threw clothes and toiletries into my bags, leaving random things back in the closet at Tweedvale. Faced with my mismatched options here, I find a pair of mildly ripped skinny jeans and tug them on. Pawing through a small pile of sweaters and tops, I decide on an oversized black sweatshirt with the neck cut out, so it slides down and hangs comfortably off one shoulder. After I finish changing, we trade spots so she can find something to wear, and I can brush my teeth in peace.
Jesus. Sunday’s right—I do need sleep.
Taking a harder look at myself than I have since we landed in New York, I can see how pale my skin has become and that my cheekbones are a little more prominent than they were a few weeks ago. More than anything though, my eyes are what startle me. Violet-blue pools reflecting a sorrow so deep I can’t see the bottom anymore. Choosing to ignore that for now, I give my cheeks a few quick pinches to get some circulation going. I’m gliding on a little cherry-red lip gloss when a groan rises from the living room.
“Oh my God, I’m starrrrrrrrving.”
Running my hands quickly through my dark hair, I suck in a deep breath and go to check on my breakfast-deprived friend. I roll my eyes and shake my head as I take in Sunday draped over the couch. Her eyes are squinched shut, with the back of one hand pressed dramatically to her forehead and the other dangling to the floor.
“Good lord, woman. Have you suddenly got a case of the vapors or something?” I ask, the corners of my mouth lifting slightly. She cracks one eyelid open and peers suspiciously at me.
“I don’t know what that is, but if it means we finally get to go and feed me, then yes, that’s exactly what I have,” she says.
“Come on, weirdo. Let’s go eat before you waste away to nothing.”
We take the back way to the diner so I can stop and check on Mr. Ambrose, and he can flirt shamelessly with Sunday. While I was away, Sally made sure to take the kind old man something for lunch every day, so I know he was getting at least one regular meal. Still, he looks a little slower and a little thinner to me now.
Watching him with my best friend, I marvel at their easy banter and the care she shows toward him. Care that I’ve never seen directed his way by anybody other than myself and Sally. I tried my damndest for a full year to convince him to let me buy him new shoes, but he always refused. Five minutes after meeting Sunday, he agreed to go to Goodwill with her and let her buy him a whole new outfit and a backpack. She has an innate ability to make people instantly comfortable, and sometimes, even charm them into doing things they might not normally do.