I have a math test I'm going to fail tomorrow. Whatever.
I strongly suggest you listen to the song 'Braille' by Regina Spektor while reading this.
"What are you doing?"
His voice is quiet and comes somewhere from the door. She's staring at the ceiling and the light is blinding her and so when she finally sits up and looks at him there are patches of yellow all over him that contrast oddly with his black jeans and shirt. He never really got over the Goth phase, but she guesses that's to be expected, all things considered.
"Counting."
"Counting what?"
"Stretch marks."
He doesn't laugh- he doesn't find it funny. "Any new ones?"
She knows what he's asking and she shakes her head. "I'm right on schedule."
This isn't what he wants to hear and so he scowls and she thinks of how it seems to suit him. "She's crying."
"Who?" As if there was anyone else it could be.
"Allison. Who else would it be?"
His voice is bitter and she traces her hands over her (empty) stomach and thinks, yes, who else would it be?
She wonders what it would be like, carrying a child inside of her that wasn't his.
She can't even imagine it.
"Will you take care of her?"
"I always take care of her."
"She's your daughter, too."
His eyes are blank and she knows what he's thinking even if he would never dare say it.
No, she's not.
She came to see him four days after he had died.
Please. Can't you... can't you bring him back?
He could remember the days when he was desperate for his sister, when he searched through the Labyrinth for a soul to exchange. He never really got over that and he knows that she will never be the same but he can't do it.
She'll get over it.
I can't. I'm sorry, I know it's hard, but... the dead are meant to stay dead.
Her eyes burn and he can imagine the words flying around in her head, hypocrite.
He saved your life, time and time again.
Does she think he isn't torn up about his death, too? He wants to yell at her but instead he just says, with a calmness he didn't know he possessed, the dead are meant to stay dead.
He was never meant to die!
Her voice claws at his ears.
He'll go to Elysium. He does a poor job of trying to comfort her but there's a hole in his chest, too.
Is that supposed to make me feel any better?
He wants her out. He wants her to go away. But at the same time he wants to bury his head in her hair and sob, but she's not strong. Not now. Ironically, he was probably the only one strong enough to survive through his death.
I'm sorry.
The look she gives him lets him know she would much rather it be him.
"Shh... shh, Allie, shh, stop crying, stop crying, for the gods sakes, stop crying... please?"
It's been fourteen months and he still isn't any better at this. He never will be, he figures. He wasn't made to be a father but that doesn't stop him from trying to put his own child in a crib right next to this one.
He's trying to claim her.
"Allison, I beg you, please. Stop. Seriously."
She doesn't stop crying but she starts to drool on his shirt and he holds her away from him with a snarl.
"Really?"
She stops all of a sudden and stares at him, sea-green eyes blinking slowly.
Sometimes, he really hates this baby's eyes.
Talk to him.
He sighs. Please don't bring this up again.
You called your sister.
And if you recall, she didn't come to see me.
He'll come to see me.
How do you know?
He loves me.
Loved you.
She slaps him across the face and his eyes water and he glares at her. What do you want me to do?
You KNOW what I want you to do.
I can't do that! He's dead and you need to accept that because no matter what I do he isn't coming back. Even if I call him, even if he comes, he'll still be dead.
She's crying now and he feels like an asshole.
I hate you.
Then leave. He thinks it, but he doesn't say it.
He's terrified she'll listen to him.
"She's asleep."
She's still lying on the goddamn floor. "Thank you."
"I don't even think she knows your face."
"Of course she does. I'm her mother."
"Are you?"
She's held her daughter, sang her goodnight, kissed her and blown raspberries on her stomach and dressed her in frilly outfits that he's sure the baby hates as much as she does but she does it anyway because that's what mother's do, apparently.
But not once, in fourteen months, as she looked her child in the eye.
"Are you coming to bed?"
"Does it matter?"
"I want you to come to bed."
"I'm right on schedule. Does it matter?"
"I want you to come to bed!" He shouts this time but she doesn't flinch. "You're my-" What in Hades was she? She was living in his house and he was raising her fucking child but all they shared was a bed and meaningless kisses and the joining of bodies without the joining of souls.
"I want you to come to bed," he says quieter. She studies the ceiling and he can imagine that she's seeing patterns in the bumps, reading words he'll never be able to understand.
"I'll come to bed," she says in a voice slightly louder than a whisper.
The first time he kisses her, her lips are hard.
Hard and dry.
Everything about her is hard. Her lips and her eyes and her hands on his chest (pushing him? No, not pushing, pulling him. Pulling him closer) and her hips. Everything is hard but he kisses her anyway and she kisses him back, her stomach between them like an unwanted third wheel.
The next time he kisses her, she's already moved in and there are boxes in his living room filled with useless shit and this time she's soft.
Soft and wet. Probably from the tears coursing down her cheeks.
He's not naive enough to think they're from happiness.
She gets changed and he watches her. His eyes follow her shoulders to her breasts to her naval to those stretch marks she was counting to her legs and her panties and her toenails, painted green.
Always painted green.
And he knows that even though she sleeps beside him almost every night and even though he's been buried inside of her and even though he's grunted her name and his has escaped her lips in a breathy whisper she has never belonged to him and she never will.
She puts on an old Camp shirt and a pair of shorts that look like his. They all hang loose on her, hiding that body that isn't his.
He sleeps in his jeans and she complains that they rub against her bare legs so he takes them off sometime in the night.
Her hair gets in his face and he can't help but smell it, but no, of course her hair doesn't smell like the ocean.
Impossible.
Why are you with me?
If he expects a declaration of love he's sorely mistaken because she just stares at her feet. He thinks it might be that she's waiting for him to cave and talk to him. To pour Coca-Cola and dump a Happy Meal in a hole and call him to them and watch as she tries to make love to a ghost.
I'm never going to do it. He wouldn't come anyway.
She keeps on staring at her feet but then finally she looks up and looks him in the eye.
The baby is coming. Take me to the hospital, please.
Three days later she's available to him again and when she comes to bed she takes his hands in hers and wraps herself in them. His hands trace those curves that aren't his (they're not hers, either) and he can read her body like a book. He's probably a chapter, if that.
The rest of the book is about the ocean.
He kisses her and her lips are neither hard nor soft nor wet nor dry. They're just lips. Just lips on lips and her tongue is just a tongue and her breasts are just breasts. Her hands removing his pants are just hands and that tangle of curls between her legs is just a tangle of curls. Nothing more nothing less. They don't belong to anyone (living).
There is nothing romantic at all about it but he kisses her neck anyway and damn, her hands are cold. She's warm, though. Unbelievably warm.
Her eyes stay open the entire time. He leans his head on her forehead as he pushes and she stares at him and her lips mouth words he doesn't know.
He doesn't want to know.
Is it a boy?
Are you the father? You should come in the delivery room. You should be there.
No, I'm not the father. Is it a boy?
The nurse is confused and she looks back into the room where all he can hear is screaming. Er, no, it's not a boy. It's a girl. Why? Did you have a boy's name picked out?
As sick as it is he almost wants to smile and he doesn't hear her question.
What will her name be? She asks again.
I don't care, he says.
Twenty five days later she walks into the room where he is rocking Allison and looks at the two of them.
"I got my period today."
He wants to curse but Allison is falling asleep and the gods know that's a rare occurrence. Instead he glares down at the infant in his arms and thinks how unfair it is that one time could produce this child but he could buried inside her to the hilt time and time again and all he got was a month's worth of blood.
He stares down at Allison and his eyes stare back up at him and he stands up and walks over to her. She studies him wearily and he holds the child, her child, in front of her.
"Look at your child."
She aims her gaze at her baby's stomach. He shakes his head.
"Look at your child."
"I am."
"Look at your child."
Allison starts to cry and he's reminded of the ocean, the fucking ocean, gods, he hates the ocean.
She raises her eyes to her child's and a wave (no, not a goddamn wave, enough with the ocean) of pain washes over her features and he's so sick of her missing him.
"He was supposed to be invincible," she whispers in a broken voice as the baby cries between them.
"Nobody's fucking invincible," he snaps.