SIX
MASON
I’m out of vodka. I’m out of whiskey. I’m out of tequila. There are a couple of beers left in the fridge, but beer isn’t going to cut it right now. I need something strong. Strong enough to take the edge off for a start. And once the edge is nicely dulled, it’d be great to throw back some more liquor until I can’t remember my own name. That’s the real end goal here. I don’t want to know myself. I want to become strangers with my pain again. I want to be distanced from it, and not ‘other side of the country’ distant, either. I want to be ‘other side of the galaxy’ distant.
I want to forget.
The apartment’s cold. I haven’t paid the gas bill, so the heating stopped working at some point, I’m not sure when. The thing about being drunk most of the time is that you don’t always feel the cold, so I could have been sitting in uncomfortably chilly conditions for days now, weeks even, and I simply haven’t noticed. I can hear the gentle, persistent hum of the fridge, so the electricity hasn’t been shut off. Yet.
There are empty pizza boxes and cartons of rotting Chinese food perched on every available counter. The sink is full of dirty dishes, and the trashcan is overflowing and starting to stink. I don’t give a shit about any of that stuff, though. I sit in the old, tatty armchair I used to read to Millie in every night, her tiny body braced against mine as I told her to turn the pages of whatever book we were reading for the fifteenth time. I sit there and I stare at the stack of boxes piled up in the corner of the room. There are only four of them. Four small boxes, taped closed and gathering dust.
All of her things are inside those boxes. All of her clothes. All of her books. All of her toys. All of her drawings and her pre-school reports and her medical records. I threw every scrap of paper and cloth related to my sister into those cardboard boxes and I taped them closed, placed them one on top of the other behind the door, and I’ve sat here and stared at them every day since.
I’m supposed to start work at the gym tomorrow. I’m supposed to show up there at eight in the morning and open the place for Zeth, but I can’t see it happening. Honestly, I already know what I’m going to do tonight; the likelihood of me seeing any of the AM hours is slim to none. I sit and I stare at the boxes for another fifteen minutes, then I get up out of the armchair, grab my coat, and leave the apartment.
There’s a liquor store five blocks away. Should still be open. I pull up the hood on my jacket and stuff my hands deep into my pockets as I start walking. It’s the end of autumn, almost spring, but Seattle is still cold, still cloudy, still buffeted by wind most days. I barely even notice the outside elements, though. I’m wet, soaked to the skin by a fine rain, by the time I cross the final street, rounding the corner to Abe’s Fine Wine and Liquor Store. The place is lit up, yellow light pouring out onto the dark street, and there are people inside, talking at the cash register.
Thank the lord the place is still open. I would have had to go to a bar to drink otherwise, and I’m not in the mood to get shit faced in public. I push the door open, and the place is instantly too bright, too loud, too hot, too overwhelming.
“Hey!”
I head toward the back of the store, to where the bottles of whiskey are kept in a locked glass cabinet.
“Hey! Asshole!”
I turn around, and the overweight guy behind the counter is staring right at me. He shakes his head, his brow furrowed. “No hoods, man. You come in, you gotta take down your hood.”
“Sorry.” I push back my hood and I grin, baring my teeth at him. He doesn’t seem very impressed by my obviously hostile action. He’s probably reaching for the baseball bat he undoubtedly keeps stashed behind the register there with him at all times, preparing himself because I ‘look like trouble.’ I do look like trouble. I am trouble. If anyone looks sideways at me right now, I’m liable to start swinging before they can even open their mouths.
I pick out which bottle of whiskey I want, and I wave the clerk over. He simply grunts when I point out what I want to buy, and opens up the thick sliding glass door on the cabinet only enough to remove the bottle from the shelf before he’s quickly locking the cabinet back up again. He doesn’t hand over the bottle to me; he clutches it tightly to his chest.
“Be up on the counter for you when you’re ready to pay,” he says curtly. Fucking cunt. As if I’m going to steal a bottle of whiskey. I’m a violent, volatile human being right now, but I’m hardly at the point when I’m stooping to steal right from under his nose.
I’m disheveled and bleary-eyed, though. I have dark bruises on my face. I obviously haven’t been taking very good care of myself, so I can see why he might be suspicious of me. I don’t bother buying ice. Ice will only water down the alcohol. I settle up with the clerk, then I carry the bottle outside and I consider opening up the brown paper bag immediately so I can take a few healthy gulps before I head back in the direction of home, but I manage to stop myself. I manage to keep myself in che—”
“Mason?”
My heart stutters to a full stop. Looking up, I see the woman standing only a few feet away from me and I nearly throw up on the spot.
Kaya Rayne.
She’s wearing that Parka of hers, the fur all tufty and wet from the rain, her cropped, short blonde hair curling a little, damp-looking and all over the place. She’s standing next to some douche bag wearing a varsity letterman jacket of all things, his arm slung around her shoulders. He’s covered in tattoos, his bottom lip pierced along with his eyebrow, and the very first thing I do, the very first, is I imagine fish-hooking the motherfucker and tearing the metal straight out of his face.
“Mason. Jesus,” Kaya whispers. “What the hell?” She looks stunned. I mean, I don’t really blame her. I look like dog shit. I haven’t shaved in well over two weeks. I’ve gone beyond the fashionable stubble phase and moved directly into the unkempt vagrant phase. With my split lip and the fading black eye I’m currently sporting, I can picture how fucked up I look. I see it the pity in Kaya’s eyes and I want to curl up and fucking die. I can’t do that, though. I’ve been trying to do that for the past month and it doesn’t work. So instead I flash Kaya and her letterman date my most winning smile, bowing deeply to them both.
“Kaya. Long time no see. Sorry to catch you off guard while you’re out, minding your own business, enjoying what must be a positively fucking thrilling date.”
“Mason.” There’s a warning in Kaya’s tone. Her date with the piercings is frowning, stepping forward, shoulders already rising, his jaw locked.
“Hey, man. You got some kind of problem?”
I look at him for a second, then I look at Kaya. My mouth opens, but I can’t seem to form any words. What would I even say? Yeah, I have some kind of problem. It’s a really big fucking problem actually. My sister is dead, and now all I want to do is die myself, but I just can’t seem to get the job done. Care to help a brother out?
My voice catches in my throat. A weird, wet rasping sound follows, and then I’m laughing. I’m fucking laughing. I sound hysterical, like I’ve lost my goddamn mind. I listen to myself, shocked and entertained by the madness that catches at my own ears. I tip my head back, close my eyes, and I roar with laughter.
“Justin. I’m sorry. Why don’t you go and see your dad. I think…I think my friend needs help.”
Justin. Letterman kid’s name is Justin. Of course it fucking is. I howl with the ridiculousness of it all.
“I’m not leaving you here with this guy,” Justin says. I can hear the fight already forming in his voice, resolve settling into the gaps between his words. He wants to smash his fist into my face. He wants to show her what a big man he is by defending her from this lunatic, this lunatic being me. What a perfect way to prove his worth to her, by putting a threatening idiot on his ass, humiliating him, making him look small. It’s something I might have done once upon a time. If my parents hadn’t died, if I hadn’t been left to take care of Millie, I could easily have been some fucking punk walking down a street in Seattle right now, still boasting about my glory days in high school, throwing left hooks to impress a girl.
How ugly.
“It’s okay. He’s fine. He’s not going to hurt me. He…fuck, his sister just died.” She says the last part under her breath like I won’t hear her, but she might as well be screaming it from the motherfucking rooftops. I stop laughing and I open my eyes.
I can handle the look of sorrow on Kaya’s face, but the look Justin’s wearing right now? The disgust? I can’t fucking handle that. I can’t tolerate being looked at like that by another human being right now. I launch myself at him, snarling, and suddenly everything’s a blur. I drop the bottle I’m holding, and the sound of shattering glass fills the air.
“Mason, no!” Kaya shouts something else, but my ears are filled with water or cotton wool or something because everything is muffled and sounds so far away. I focus on Justin’s clenched jaw. I’m gonna knock the arrogant motherfucker off his feet. I’m gonna put him down. My fist connects, and Kaya’s date reels back, staggering away from me. Satisfaction floods me, but it’s fleeting. Less than a second later, the guy’s charging at me, his own fist raised, and he’s hollering through bared teeth. I see his punch coming. I watch as his body twists and pivots. I see the cold fury in his eyes, and I track his knuckles as they head straight toward my face. There’s plenty of time for me to react, to duck and strike up, then sidestep and lash out myself, but I don’t. I resign myself to what comes next. He took my hit. I’ll take his. I’ll trade him blow for blow until one of us is bloody and unconscious. Let the cards fall where they may. I drop my hands, not even defending myself.
His hit is like a bomb going off inside my skull. Bright explosions of light tear through my head. My ears are instantly ringing. I haven’t braced myself, ready to absorb the shock of the hit, so my whole body jars. My feet are suddenly no longer beneath me. I’m tumbling, falling, spinning, the lights of Abe’s Fine Wine and Liquor Store flashing like a goddamn disco ball, burning into my retinas as I fall to the ground. The back of my head hits the ground hard, and my vision dims, everything fading. I don’t lose black out…but it’s close.
“Mason. Fuck, Mason, what the hell is wrong with you?” Kaya’s face is blurry as she sinks down onto her knees, leaning over me. She oscillates, one second nothing more than a soft, blonde and pink smudge, to sharply in focus and very, very angry. Her hands are on me, feeling my head. “Have you lost your fucking mind?” she snaps.
“Yes. Yeah, I think…I actually have.” I sound groggy. Punch drunk. My tongue feels thick in my mouth, like a piece of overcooked meat. Kaya casts an irritated glance over her shoulder.
“We’re done for the night. I’m going to make sure he gets home okay. I’ll call you in the morning.”
Justin’s voice is filled with disbelief. “What? You’re staying with him? Fuck, Kaya, you saw what happened. He came at me first.”
“And I told you his sister has just died,” she fires back angrily. “Where the fuck is your compassion?”
“Compassion?” By the sounds of it, compassion isn’t a term Justin is all that familiar with. “Whatever. Fuck. I guess I’ll see you around.”
******
It takes a long time to get back to the apartment. My head is swimming, and Kaya’s tiny. I can’t lean on her for support, so it takes a considerable amount of time to stumble and weave my way back home under my own steam. The whole way back, Kaya walks beside me with her hands in the pockets of her Parka, not saying anything. The journey up the five flights of stairs to my place is long and laborious. I think I’m going to puke at one point—there’s a damn good chance I have a concussion—but I grit my teeth and breath through it, leaning against the graffiti’d wall until the urge passes.
Kaya takes my keys from me and opens the door. “Holy shit, Mase.” These are the first words she’s said to me since the front of the liquor store, and shame finally floods me. My place is a disgrace. There’s no two ways about it: I’ve been living like an animal since the funeral, and it hasn’t mattered because I’ve been the only one here to see it. Now that Kaya’s seeing the mess I’ve made of the place, I find myself wishing I’d taken the time to clean up a little.
“I know,” I say quietly. “House keeping hasn’t been by in a couple of days.”
She gapes as she takes in the scene before her. I walk around her and sink into the armchair, groaning when my head begins to buzz. Kaya kicks the door closed and stands for a minute, apparently processing her thoughts, then she disappears into the kitchen. When she returns, she’s holding a glass of water in one hand and two pills in the other.
“Here. Take these. They’ll help with the headache. And…everything else.”
The pills are white with little pink speckles in them, and have a V stamped into their sides. Vicodin. I don’t have any Vicodin, have never had any in the house, not after both my parents took so many of the damn things back when I was a teenager. They’re not part of the cocktail of drugs Millie left behind, which means they have to be Kaya’s. She must have been carrying them with her in her purse or something. I look up at her, my head tilted to one side.
“Don’t look at me like that, you asshole. You’re the one with blood pouring out of his head right now, not me. Take the damn pills. Now.”
I’d argue with her, but I feel like shit. I take the pills and place them on my tongue, then I take the water and chug it from the glass, choking on the cold liquid as it floods my throat.
Things get hazy for a while. I’m aware of Kaya moving around the apartment, saying things to me. I’m aware that I respond to her here and there, but I feel completely and utterly outside of myself. I must pass out altogether, because I wake some time later, my heart beating slow and hard, thum thum thum, all over my body, pain singing in every cell and molecule I possess, and cool dawn light is pouring in through the living room windows. Kaya is asleep on the sofa opposite me, and the entire apartment is spotless. The place smells like Lysol and disinfectant, mixed in with something floral.
I wince as I try and sit forward in the armchair. Goddamn, I hurt. I hurt everywhere. Justin only hit me the once, but I seem to have managed to find someone willing to beat my ass black and blue every night for the past week now, and I’m finally paying the price. Everything aches. Everything feels stiff. It’s almost impossible to move.
Kaya stirs, her eyes opening. She watches me silently as I shift myself forward so that my ass is perched on the edge of the chair.
“You didn’t have to clean,” I say. My voice is hoarse. Even speaking hurts.
“Well, it didn’t look like you were planning on doing it any time soon,” she replies. Sitting up slowly, she holds her hand against her face, covering her right eye as she yawns. She stretches like a cat, then gets to her feet. She holds out her hand to me. “You’re the last thing in this place that needs scrubbing,” she says. “Come on. I’ve been waiting for you to wake up.”
“I can manage. Thank you. Thank you for all of this. You can go home now.”
Her shoulders slump. She sighs. “Like hell I can. If I leave right now, you’re going to sit in that chair and rot. You know it’s true. Plus I’ll probably never see you again. It’s not as if you’re very good at answering phone calls, is it? You’re really bad at answering your front door, too.”
These are poorly veiled digs. Every day for two weeks after the funeral, she called me and came to the apartment. She brought me food. She wanted to know if I was alive. She was worried, and she was panicked. I refused to see or speak to her. I left her Tupperware containers of food right where she left them in the hallway next to the door until I started tripping over them when I snuck out at night to buy more booze, and I started throwing them directly into the trash.
When I don’t accept her hand, Kaya reaches down and takes hold of mine, pulling at me, growling under her breath. “You’re such a shit, Mason. You think you’ve cornered the market on grief? You think you’re the only person who’s ever experienced loss? Damnit, let me help you or you’re going to fall. Mas—urgh. Okay. Have it your way.”
I’m shaky on my feet, but I manage to get up without her. She herds me toward the bathroom. She’s cleaned in here, too. I try not to look at the area of cracked tile to the left of the bath, where I used to sit and hold Millie when she wasn’t feeling well. I’ve avoided coming in here as much as possible. I can’t avoid it now, though, with Kaya blocking the doorway, arms folded across her body.
“Do you need me to help you?” she asks.
“No. I’m fine.” Slowly, I take hold of the hem of my blood stained t-shirt, and I try and lift it over my head. It’s impossible, though. A sharp pain lances through my ribcage, blinding me for a second, and I can’t help but hiss.
Kaya mutters something softly. The next thing I know, she’s taking hold of my shirt and she’s using a pair of narrow steel scissors to cut through it. I watch her hands as she carefully shears through the material, and I hold my breath. She works slowly, moving with purpose as the blades of the scissors move higher and higher, until she reaches the neck of the shirt and cuts right through it, exposing my bare chest.
She slides the shirt from my body, down over my arms, allowing it to fall to the floor, her gaze traveling over my bruised and battered flesh. Her eyes beginning to fill, shining brightly with emotion.
“Don’t. Don’t fucking do that,” I tell her.
She dashes her tears away with the back of her hand, shaking her head as if to clear it. “Alright. Fine. I won’t.” Her words are clipped. Hurt. Her hands work quickly, unfastening my belt buckle, then my pants. She pushes them down, pulling them from my body, right leg first, then left. My shoes and socks are already gone; she must have removed those while I was sleeping.
I stand in front of her, naked as the day I was born, and our eyes meet. A vast sea of pain passes between us in the frozen moments that follow. She’s angry with me. Angry that I didn’t let her help me a month ago. She’s angry that I’ve allowed myself to be hurt so badly. She’s angry that I’m still trying to push her away, even now.
And I’m angry, because…
I can’t even say it. Not even in my head.
She turns on the water, grimacing when she puts her hand beneath powerful surge of water that bursts out of the showerhead. I already know it’s cold. Freezing cold. No gas, after all. She shakes her head, about to turn off the water again, but I place my hand over hers, stopping her. “Don’t. I need it. It’ll do me good.”
The next few minutes are brutal. I stand under the frigid, freezing water, shivering, my teeth clenched together so hard it feels like they’re about to shatter any second, and Kaya washes me. I let her do it. It’s quicker this way. Less chance of me slipping and breaking my own fucking neck or something. My dick shrinks to about a third of its normal size and damn near tries to retract back inside my body, but I don’t care. Kaya isn’t even looking, anyway; she works with clinical precision, cleaning my body without any embarrassment. Last, she massages some shampoo into my hair and scrubs hard. I tolerate the discomfort of the water and the soap stinging my eyes, because it feels strangely good to have someone touching me. Some form of human contact that isn’t actually causing me pain.
I didn’t think I’d want it. I didn’t think I’d need it. But by the time Kaya is done rinsing the suds from my hair, I’m silently crying. She doesn’t mention it. There’s no judgment or recrimination in her eyes. She simply does what she needs to do, and I let the tears streak down my face.
My tears flow freely as I allow her to dry me, and they continue to come as she sits me down and shaves me with steady, extremely careful hands. I put on clean clothes, and she guides me to my bedroom, where she’s put fresh sheets on my bed. She climbs in first, fully clothed, and waits there with a challenge in her eyes, daring me to say something to her, to ask her what she thinks she’s doing.
I don’t. I climb into the bed, and she puts her arm around me, so that my head is on her chest, and she lightly strokes my hair. I’ve never done this with a girl before. In my living memory, I can’t actually recall being held in this way by anyone, let alone a woman. Let alone a tiny, five foot two woman. It feels… I can’t even describe how it feels. Despite her size, Kaya as an immeasurable strength to her that makes this somehow feel…normal.
“I get it, you know,” she whispers. “I do. I know that you hate me.”
God.
I close my eyes.
“You hate me, because you were with me. She needed you, and you weren’t at home where you were meant to be, because I talked you into staying with me. She needed you. She was dying, and you weren’t by her side. You were fucking me instead. So I understand, Mason. And it’s okay. It’s okay for you to hate me. I’m strong. I can love you enough for the both of us, until you’re ready to feel something else again.”
My eyes begin to sting once more. She says all of this so easily, like my anger toward her isn’t a vile, awful, spiky thing inside me that is constantly twisting and turning, making me feel gutted out and hollow. She sees it. She can feel it. I’ve been trying to push it down, to stamp it out altogether for the longest time now, but no matter how hard I try, I just can’t seem to make it happen.
My feelings make no sense whatsoever. None. And yet, I feel fucking robbed. I didn’t get to say goodbye to my sister. I didn’t get to hold her as she died, the way Kaya is holding me now. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forgive myself or her for that.