25. “Space”We connected only for the time that we were recording or talking about music. After that, there was nothing. Maybe someone would start a conversation and try to keep things alive, but that soon stopped. Again, we were just pretending to be nice to each other.
Jay was having a hard time with it because Ryan had not neglected to take his alcohol and any time there was a break, there he’d be, chugging some beer or doing something else to point out to Jay that he could drink while Jay couldn’t. I found out that Jay had been drinking enough while he was supposedly quitting that he had staved off withdrawal...so now he was caught up in a complete and utter breakdown.
It wasn’t like I was having an easy time of it either. Amir had brought some scissors and a huge book of cut-out paper-dolls that he pulled out whenever I was in the room. The constant snipping and then the fact that I knew he was doing it to deliberately get at me made me that much more determined not to succumb to his wiles.
I sat on the bed and watched Jay shiver in the corner. He had grabbed a blanket and wrapped it around himself to ward off the chill that seemed to have settled in his body. He sat by the window and smoked, letting the tendrils float to the ceiling and mingle with the paint. Any light that was more than the bare minimum hurt his eyes, so he wore his sunglasses nearly constantly. Everyone walked carefully around him, sensing that he could snap at any moment. He leaned his head against the wall and sighed, closing his eyes for the first time in the last twenty- four hours. Sleeping pills had exacted their toll. I watched him until I was sure that he was totally asleep. Took the cigarette out of his hand and put it out gently, kissing his forehead. Then I crept out to see what everyone else was doing.Ryan and Amir were playing a very complicated drinking game where they just drank everything in sight. Paige was sitting by the bay window and playing around with his hair. Ryan had convinced him that it looked much better as a mohawk than the way it used to be. I personally didn’t like it, but there was little that I could do to influence his life anymore.
I sat down across from him and sighed, staring out at the artificial forest that surrounded the house. We were far enough away from civilization that it took twenty or so minutes to reach stores and strip malls, close enough that it wasn’t claustrophobic. The green of the trees filled Paige’s eyes and he took a quick glance at me, then at Ryan and Amir who were giggling hysterically and letting it deteriorate into frantic kisses. I remained focused on the forest. There were regular trees with leaves and all that shit, leaves that were either just growing or trying to die. In the midst of all that was a pine tree, a scraggly thing that was marked around the trunk for destruction. The yellow tape fluttered in the breeze...I wanted to go and rip it away.
“Bobby?” Paige whispered. I opened my eyes and looked at him. “How is he doing?”
I stared at him for a moment. His emotions seemed to be genuine, but how could I know if he was going to use it against Jay? “What makes you think there’s something wrong with him?”
Paige sighed and shook his head. “Jay usually isn’t this reclusive...” he said. “I mean, I know you guys think that we hate you, but Jay was my friend. I still care if he’s feeling bad.”
“‘Was’ your friend? He isn’t still your friend?”
“I can’t call him my friend anymore, especially after what he did to me...what you guys did to me. I’m only here for Orgy.” There was a small pause as he wiped at his nose for a second. “So how is Jay?”
“He’s asleep now. So if you could keep them quiet...” I gestured to Ryan and Amir who were now practically naked and halfway to orgasm. Paige stared at them and sighed.
“I should have stuck with just one lover, two is one too many.” he sighed.
“I feel so sorry for you.” I said, making an innocent face. He shook his head sadly.
“It’s so weird how much you’ve changed. You wouldn’t have been this sarcastic before.”
I sighed and got up. “Maybe I was always like this but I didn’t have any reason to voice it before.”
Paige grabbed my arm for a second. “Tell me if Jay gets any worse. He tried to go cold turkey before and ended up scalding himself in the bathtub trying to get warm.” I nodded and went back upstairs.
I tried to open the door as quietly as possible, but he still started awake and huddled down deeper against the wall. Walked closer and pulled the fabric away from his face. His eyes behind the sunglasses were unfocused and heavy-lidded, the foundation he had applied to keep everyone else from knowing how little he had been able to sleep was fading. He sighed and closed them again.“How are you feeling?” I asked, even though I knew he would either start whining, which he had developed a sudden desire to do, or try to pretend that he felt better than he actually did.
“Like shit.” I guess that was a happy medium. “Are you sure I can’t just have a glass of something?” he asked, eyes wide and pleading. I wanted to give in, I thought that I should give in. But I didn’t.
Instead I sat next to him and let him lie on my shoulder. “Yes, I’m sure.” I put my arm around him and sighed. “We’re going cold together, remember?” He nodded, starting to shiver again.
“Why can’t all withdrawals be the same?” he whispered. I sighed. In truth I had been battling the urge to just cut ever since I had slipped. Once I entered that spiked pit again I just wanted to stay there, impaling myself over and over again on the points of pleasure. Pleasure that turned to blissful pain. Maybe I should tell him that. But I didn’t want him to worry about anything other than himself. “You’re not freezing.” His hand went up under my shirt, a sharp prick of chill against my scars. “So warm...” he purred.
“Come on, let’s go to bed, okay? Then we can both be warm.” I suggested, helping him to his shaky feet. Fell asleep boiling because he kept on piling on blankets to stop the chills that wracked his body.
Amir was cutting out the 1920s fashion series, taking difficult small cuts between the folds of paper to bring out the full flapper goodness. I watched him, watched the scissors more than anything else actually. They glinted in the light, shiny silvery, biting steel, these had orange handles too. They could have been the ones from home if I hadn’t known that we had destroyed them and then buried the pieces in some random park.The grandmother’s frumpy outfit, complete with jaunty hat, was almost complete. Amir laid the puce colored pieces of paper on the table and then started to work on the next one. There were a series of cuts that needed to be made in a narrow space and Amir was having a little bit of trouble with it. His fingers kept on getting dangerously close to the closing blades. Then he opened his mouth. “You know Bobby, I could let you use these for a little bit.” He stopped cutting and put the scissors down on the table between us. My eyes wouldn’t and couldn’t look away. “I mean, I’m sure that we could just pretend that anything you did with them was already there.”
I stared at him coolly. “I made a promise.”
“Jay’s just a little bit too out of it to notice more cuts, isn’t he? I mean, he barely even knows what day it is.” He pushed the scissors closer. “All you’d have to do is...”
“Is what?” Too eager, didn’t think, oh shit.
He smiled smugly. “You’d just have to do a little something for me.” His hands went to his chest and he rubbed them over his nipples sensually.
“I’m not that desperate. If I ever needed to cut that badly I think I would try something else.” I said, getting up and leaving the room.
When I went up the stairs I heard Jay whining and Ryan’s harsh voice. Oh fuck! I ran to their room and saw Jay kneeling in front of Ryan. “Please, just one can...” he sobbed, rubbing his face on Ryan’s feet. “You brought fucking cases, surely one can isn’t too much to ask?!”Ryan’s face was stone and he shook his head. “You know what the price is.”
Jay looked up at him and bit down on his lip, tears springing up. “I can’t cheat on Bobby.”
“Just think of it this way...you need to get down off alcohol gradually, and you could make this last for days. I’m not going to tell Bobby.” Ryan’s eyes, however, said that he would. Jay grabbed fistfuls of hair in his hands and looked like he was considering it.
“Ryan, what the fuck are you doing!” I snapped, stepping into the room.