ELEVEN
Lenny
No.
Nonononononono.
I couldn't quite process any thought.
I couldn't fucking think at all.
I charged past my mother into my sister's room, ripping the privacy curtain to the side.
And finding an empty bed.
Oh, God.
This couldn't be happening.
This couldn't...
"You said six months. Six months passed."
"Three fucking days ago!" I screamed. Yes, screamed. Top of my lungs, likely startling everyone on the floor.
"You're being dramatic, Lenore. She was dead the day they brought her in. You just kept her alive because you wanted to."
"You selfish bitch!" I yelled, hand going to my chest that felt like a swirling black hole, sucking everything inside, creating a deeper void. The tears stung at the back of my eyes, horrifying even in my despair. "I didn't get to say good... I didn't get to say anything."
God.
I couldn't breathe.
I couldn't...
"Lenny, please," the nurse tried, putting a hand at my shoulder, trying to offer comfort.
I lurched away, not knowing what I was doing, where I was going, but flying out of there, then down the stairs, not wanting to be stuck in an elevator while I shattered into a million little pieces.
Letha was gone.
Gone.
I didn't get to tell her I loved her.
I didn't get to say goodbye.
I didn't get to hold her hand when she drifted away.
I didn't get to be there.
I don't know how I drove. I don't even remember how I got to my car. I wasn't sure how I was able to see when tears flooded my eyes so relentlessly that my shirt was damp, sticking to my skin, chilling me to the bone.
I don't even remember waiting for the gate to be opened for me - or who did it.
The next thing I was aware of was pulling my car right up to the front door, not even cutting the engine, throwing open my side door, then falling to my knees right beside my car.
"Oh shit," I heard hissed before I heard boots running, a door slamming.
God, it hurt.
I didn't even have words to describe the crumbling, empty feeling in my chest, the acute piercing, the burning in my lungs that refused to hold any air.
There was a door and boots again, several sets.
Hunched over, I couldn't see.
But I heard him.
The person I came to without even thinking of it.
"Lenny?" his voice called, sounding as horrified as I felt.
There was a dying animal noise that filled my ears, and it took me a long second to realize it came from me as I curled further forward, trying to hold myself together.
There was hardly even a pause before I felt arms slide under my legs, then my lower back, before I felt myself held against a strong chest, lifted, then carried.
I turned my face into his soft shirt, soaking his through as I had done my own. My hands curled into his shoulders, holding on too hard, I knew, but couldn't force my fingers to loosen their hold.
"What is everyone running—" Adler's voice called then stopped as he, I imagined, took in my sobbing, broken self. "Oh, fuck," he hissed as Edison led me away.
A door slammed.
Edison lowered himself down onto the bed.
His one arm held me tight.
The other stroked places reassuringly - my hair, my back, my neck - as I sobbed - loudly, uncontrollably.
He didn't shush me.
He didn't tell me it was okay.
I guess maybe a part of him knew that it wasn't, that saying so would cheapen how I was feeling.
He was just - as he had once promised - there for me.
He let me purge it until the skin on my face felt burned raw from tears, until the shirt beneath my face was soaked, until my eyes were so swollen that I suddenly felt tired even though I was sure the last thing in the world I would ever be able to do again was sleep.
But later, and I wasn't sure how much later it was, it felt like years, that was exactly what happened.
And I didn't wake up until a long, long time later, and only then because Edison was shaking me, almost violently.
"No," I hissed, trying to curl away from his hold.
"You have to get up."
His voice was soft, sweet, almost pleading.
But I was just sharp edges protecting the nothing inside.
"Fuck off."
There was a small exhale as he sat down on the edge of the bed, hand sinking into my hip, dragging me back onto my back.
"It's been twelve hours, Lenny. You need to get up. Eat. Drink. Talk to me."
"I don't want to talk. And I'm not hungry or thirsty."
"I'm sorry about your sister."
Something inside snapped at that, shooting me upward in the bed, shock flooding my system as I impatiently shoved hair out of my face, looking at Edison through small, pained eyes, a headache jackhammering in my temples. "How..."
"Your phone kept ringing in your car. Cy brought it to me. I answered. It was the hospital asking about the arrangements." I shot forward at that, trying to grab my phone, desperate to get back to them, to tell them not to release the body on my mother's word. To wait for me. I would not drop the ball again. I would not let her turn my amazing fucking sister's funeral into a dog and pony show. I wasn't going to let her cheapen her memory. Her, the woman who spent her life hating the amazing, beautiful, sweet, and wonderful person that had been Letha.
Had been.
God, the pain was enough to make me have to curl forward again.
"It's okay, I told them that you would call them back in the morning with a plan," he told me, his hand closing over mine on the phone. "She said that in light of what happened, they will make sure you are the one who handles the arrangements."
I owed them something.
Those nurses.
Someday when I wasn't pieces on the ground - if ever that stopped - I owed them a thank you for all that they had done.
"Lenny, what happened?"
I couldn't.
I couldn't do it.
I couldn't go into all the details.
I couldn't even stay upright.
I pulled back, lowering down on my side, facing away from him. "She took her off life support without letting me say goodbye."
I expected the tears to come again.
But my eyes remained stubbornly dry.
Empty, that was what I was.
Empty even of tears.
Just a hollow shell.
I wasn't aware of much, save for the wall I stared at. I assumed Edison came and went.
At some point, I went to sleep.
When I woke up again, Edison was in bed beside me, fast asleep.
I inched out of bed myself, feeling like a zombie as I moved through his room, then into the hall, and out to the common room where Cyrus and Cash were sitting, sharing a few beers.
"Honey, you need something?" Cash asked, voice telling me that he knew.
I would have been upset about that if I hadn't shown up absolutely losing my shit, and therefore making them ask questions that Edison had to answer.
"My keys," I said, my voice as hollow as I felt.
"I don't think—" Cyrus started to object.
"I'm not asking," I snapped.
"You heard her," Pagan said from behind me, making me jump as he moved past me to go behind the bar, and fish out my keys. "We aren't her captors. She can go if she needs to go."
He handed me the keys, and the nod I gave him was as close to thanks as I could manage.
I didn't say anything else, felt like there was a fist lodged in my throat, making it impossible, so I didn't even try.
I went outside, found my car, and did what I hadn't been able to stop thinking of since the second my eyes opened.
I needed to go home.
So I did.
And then I dug up all the hiding places, pulling out her ballerina box, and what was left of the tea set from her childhood, the exact cups that I had tattooed on my hip.
Letha, she had the teapot on her back.
I had jokingly said when we packed the damn set up to move her into her newest apartment that they were like us. She was so full that she poured over and filled up my empty.
That was when we decided to get the tattoos.
Now, well, mine felt oddly appropriate, didn't it?
I was just empty.
With nothing to ever fill me back up again.
I cradled that teacup to my chest, curling down on my side on the unyielding, ugly floor.
The cold had worked its way through my body, making me shiver hard when my door opened. Actually, maybe I had even left it open. I didn't know. All I did know is that I heard familiar boots, then saw knees as Edison knelt down beside me.
His hand moved out, touching the delicate children's teacup.
"I wanted to tell her about you," I told him, not sure where the words were coming from since my brain felt numb and empty. I guess, maybe, it was coming from somewhere else. My heart. My soul. "When I was going to see her today, I was excited to finally tell her. She would have loved that information, if she was awake. I just... I don't know. I like talking to her like she was. Liked," I clarified, feeling another stab.
She was going to become a past tense.
That was never going to stop hurting.
"But when I got there, my mom had already pulled her life support. She had no right," I added, feeling a bit of the rage bubble up. "I was the one there for her, protecting her from our mother all her life, making sure she got given back to Jake to protect her from the jackass my mom was married to who felt me up in my sleep."
A hand that had landed on my thigh reassuringly suddenly tightened hard.
"He what?"
"That wasn't the point," I brushed it off. "I was the one at her bedside every week, calling in experts."
I didn't want to believe the first doctor's opinion, that she was dead already, that I should just pull the plug. I had called in for a second opinion where I was told that the first doctor was, essentially, a moron. You had to give the brain a chance to heal. He said that in his opinion, everyone should be given six months to let the swelling go down so all the tests could be more conclusive.
That was why I had been counting down the six months, hoping for slow improvement.
Unfortunately, it got clearer and clearer that Letha was not going to be one of the lucky ones.
But that was my choice to make.
Me.
Who was there at her side.
Who had painted her nails, only to take it back off each time because the nurses needed to keep an eye in case anything went blue. I brushed her hair. I talked to her. I made sure the TV was on Animal Planet or HGTV because that was what she liked.
I did all that.
It was me who should have been with her when she went.
For her, because I had always been there for her, because she would have wanted me there for her in the end.
And for me.
Because I needed that closure.
I needed to be able to let go, to say goodbye.
Maybe it was selfish to keep her suspended like I did.
Naive even.
I just wanted to make sure.
I couldn't think of a worse thing in the world than unplugging her just before she was going to make a turn for the better.
"This was hers?" he asked, touching the cup, too delicate and girly against his wide hand.
"Yeah. She loved tea parties."
"And took ballet?" he asked gesturing toward the music box.
"She was really good too," I told him. "She taught classes on the weekends just for fun."
"Is this her diary?"
"Don't," I snapped grabbing it out of his hand, pulling it to my chest.
"I wasn't going to read it, love," he said, shaking his head as he moved to sit beside the mess of me on the floor.
"She usually told me everything," I heard myself say.
"Usually?"
"She told me about him," I agreed, needing to tell it, needing to share it. It had been threatening to break me for half a year. "She was so excited because he was mature and settled, not some fuckboy like the rest of the guys her age." His hand moved to my hip, gently stroking up and down my thigh. "She told me about where he took her, what his family was like, how much Jake - her dad - liked him. She didn't tell me about all the other shit."
"What other shit?"
"The shit that she knew would make me drive over to his place, and cut off his balls with a very dull butter knife."
Thin as she was, he called her fat, he demanded she lose weight, or he would leave her.
He made her approve her outings with her friends and - apparently - me.
He criticized her housework, her career path, her clothing, her makeup, her hair, her style in bed.
And that was just in the first three months.
The diary entries took a turn toward the dark around then as well, though whenever she saw me, all I saw was my usual Letha. If there was even a hint of the self-loathing that was inside her diary, I would have known, I would have demanded to know what was going on. And once I did, I would have handled it.
Nothing I do pleases him. It seems like the more I try, the angrier he gets.
He jumped off of me, grabbed me by my hair - hard enough that I found a chunk of it on the floor after - and forced me down on my knees, telling me that if I couldn't fuck him right, then he was just going to fuck my mouth instead. I'd never had a man do what he did to me before. He yanked back my head, then thrust into my mouth, his cock gagging me until spit and cum were coming out my nose, until my throat was raw and swollen from the assault, until tears were streaming down my cheeks. Only then was it over. Then he stroked my cheek and told me how good I was, how much he loved that I loved his cock in my mouth.
He slapped me today. He swore it would never happen again. It happened again, but I shrank his favorite football jersey.
The blame just kept getting more and more intense as her self-worth dropped.
"She actually claimed that she thought she deserved it when he split her lip because she had been talking too much."
"Fucking asshole," Edison growled, sounding somehow as angry about it as I felt when I learned it.
Nothing I ever do is good enough. I guess I will never be good enough. Why do I even keep trying?
"That was her last entry. A suicide note of sorts."
A 'swan dive' sounds so peaceful, doesn't it?
"That's why she was in a coma," Edison concluded. "She jumped."
My stomach dropped at the memory of that call, the words that made absolutely no sense.
I had seen her three days before.
She had forced me to take a selfie with her, smiling as big as ever, knowing how much I hated selfies.
My sister would never have wanted to kill herself.
Except she did.
She did, and I didn't know.
You never usually do.
That was what the shrink at the hospital tried to tell me.
People, women especially, are really good at hiding their depression. They don't want to burden anyone else.
She didn't want to burden me.
"It wasn't your fault, Lenny," Edison said, seeming to read the train of my thoughts.
"I should have seen the..."
"Sometimes there are no signs. Sometimes people are really good at hiding them. Or were never low enough to do it until right before they do it. You couldn't have known. Even if you had, that doesn't mean you could have stopped it."
"She's gone," I heard myself say, feeling the loss of it, the emptiness, the void that would always be in my life.
Who was I going to talk about men with?
Who was I going to spend holidays with?
Who was going to tell me that they saw through me, they knew I wasn't the bitter, guarded, smart-mouthed bitch I pretended to be?
Who was... God, who the hell did I have left? What the hell did I even have left?
"Lenny," Edison's voice called, reaching out to snag my chin when I didn't look at him. "I know you're hurting and confused and don't feel like it, but you need to eat something. Then you need to get into bed."
"I need to go online and figure out..."
Ugh.
I couldn't even say it.
It raked through my brain with ragged nails to even think it.
Make the arrangements.
For her funeral.
How could you even focus on something like that so soon?
How could I pick a casket?
How could I decide what she would want to be buried in?
"There will be time for that," Edison told me, reaching up to grab a blanket off the couch, draping it over me.
I liked that.
I was aware of it enough to appreciate how he didn't force me to grieve like he wanted me to, like it was acceptable to. If I needed to stare at the wall, he let me stare at the wall.
If I needed to sprawl on the floor clutching a teacup like a security blanket, he got down there with me, covered me up, and just let it be.
"Toast?" he asked, "Think bread is about all you keep in this place."
"There's ramen," I heard myself say as if from far away, hearing it like through a tunnel.
"Don't figure your stomach is up for that much MSG right now," he said, moving to stand. He came back a few minutes later, putting down a plate of two slices of bread, slightly browned - which was a miracle since my toaster generally offered two options, warm bread or charcoal bricks - and two bottles, one of gin, and one of iced tea. "Which one are you feeling?"
As an answer, I unscrewed the top of the iced tea, leaning awkwardly upon my forearm, chugging it half down, then reaching to fill the rest of it with the gin.
He took the bottle back when I was done, moving to put it back in the kitchen cabinet. "Just one," he told me. "Then toast and sleep. Don't drown it in alcohol. That never ends well."
I said nothing but I could see the merits to both ideas.
On one hand, oblivion. On the other, ending up like those pathetic saps at Meryl's who I always made fun of.
Then again, what the hell could it matter if I did?
I had no one left to matter to. No one was going to care if I fell into a bottle.
But even when I finished my drink, I didn't push up, go across the room, and fill it to the brim with something that could take the edge off the sharp corners of grief.
Maybe for the simple reason that I knew Edison was there, watching. He wouldn't stop me. He wasn't that kind. But somehow his possible disapproval kept my ass on the floor.
I pushed up to a seated position, reaching for a slice of toast even though the idea of food made the gin slosh around in my stomach. I managed about a slice before I gave up, pushing the plate away, pulling the blanket closer around myself as my hand stroked over the music box absentmindedly.
I hadn't opened it.
As odd as that was.
I had read her diary, but not opened her box to see what was inside.
I guess maybe the diary provided answers.
The music box didn't offer the same.
My finger snagged the indent in the wood, pulling upward.
The little ballerina popped up. There was no music. And she didn't dance.
She was more like a pretty guard dog, protecting Letha's little stash.
And what did she store here, in this box that meant the world to her?
A ring her father got her for her sixteenth birthday that she was always upset about because her fingers grew too fat to fit, but she couldn't have resized because of the inscription he had inside.
And that ring was sitting on a pile of pictures.
Printed from her phone. Endless selfies she conned me into over the years.
There were dozens of them.
The top one was the one from just days before she was so unhappy that she thought death was better than continuing to go on.
And I couldn't see it, not even now, not even knowing what I knew now about what had been happening, where her mind had been.
It wasn't there.
She was just Letha.
Smiling, brilliant, beautiful Letha.
She never smiled again.
She never would.
That was what did it, what broke the dam that had kept the tears at bay all day.
That was when Edison crossed to me again, stopped giving me the space he thought I wanted.
"She was beautiful," he told me as he took the pictures from my fingers, tucking them away, then pulling me to his chest.
Was.
She was beautiful.
I hated tenses.
I had hardly ever been aware of them before.
But now I hated them.
She could never just be something again
She would always be a was.
"Come on," he said even as he slowly got to his feet, dragging me up to sit on his lap on the couch, holding me close.
"I don't want to pick out a casket," I admitted, burying my face in his neck. "I don't want to pick out times and dates and things to be read. Or what she wants to be buried in. Or what fucking food to serve to people who will come to pay respects even though they barely knew her. And I don't ever want to see my fucking mother again."
"Okay, love," he agreed, stroking my hair, pressing his lips into it as well. "Well, you don't have to do any of that tonight, okay? So let's not think about it. Alright?"
He made it sound easy.
I knew it wouldn't be easy.
And I knew that when I woke up, I would have to deal with all of it.
But somehow, with his arms around me, his solid chest against me, his voice in my ear, I thought maybe I could give it a try.
I could trust him.