My iPod switches on shuffle and blares �Paranoid Android� into my scarf and I jump. This is the song of Tim�s disintegration, of his collapse. I have to get over there.
So I walk. It is not the wisest relationship decision I have ever made, but in a way Tim was the least wise relationship decision I have ever made and he made me feel happy. So in a weird, sideways way, I think that walking might make me happy, too.
It doesn�t. I walk all the way to his house, and then climb a near-frozen tree praying for the branches not to collapse, and I scramble onto his sill and bang on the window with lots of strength, perched halfway on the window and half on the maple. I grin, and he barely lets me in. I radiate body heat, embarrassingly, and remove hat and scarf. I am not wearing a coat. He stares, blandly and asks if I still think he is a fag. The question is not a question. It is a bullet, and I dive.
No.
He blinks six or seven times and tosses a blanket at me.
You look cold.
Thanks.
I wrap myself like a cube of sushi, and he sits down and offers to bring back everything that we didn�t get to finish, that he�ll just cut himself off from Alison (making me think: umbilical cord, but Alison is barely 18 and not into babies.). I don�t know what to say.
He keeps on talking about hanging out again and missing how we used to talk, and I still don�t know what to say. In fact, I can�t say: it feels like my mouth is stuck together with the kind of thin skin that makes chapped lips chap. I pull at it and it sticks to my fingers, like a cheap horror movie. And there is blood mixed in there, too. I continue to pull, and it�s like I�m unraveling my face. Teeth and sinew and flesh are not spared, but I can�t stop pulling because I still can�t talk. I continue to pull, the thin muscle I clench tightly is like a piece of string. And then there is no face left but I pull harder and then I�ve got no neck either.
The gore grows steadily more intense, and Tim sits and stares.
And I wake up on the bus with a jerk and the fucking driver�s different now. Older dude, with a cowboy hat and severely Republican clothing. He says, �Trina? Your house, doll!� and I grumble my way off the bus, gathering my stuff and sweeping out the doors. I get in the house, slam my stuff on the floor and swear off sleep forever.