Page 15 of Wicked Things
“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 puthimdown. 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.”
“AndItoldyouhis 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.
