The day was shot. It was too late, that gray dead late afternoon time when things seemed hopeless. Even the coffee wasn't working. He still felt enervated.
"You shouldn't be drinking coffee," Joey said as Craig raised the coffee cup to his lips. His eyes widened over the edge of the cup.
"Joey, I'm in grade 12. I think I can drink coffee,"
Joey smiled a little and shook his head, and Craig thought he was looking older lately, the lines around his eyes were a little deeper. He thought of his mother and his dad, both of them frozen in time, frozen at ages that made sense to him. He couldn't get used to Joey getting old.
Still, the dead time dragged on and Craig watched the gloom gather in the corners, the light dim outside and the streetlights flicker on. Looked at the flecks of coffee grounds and sugar sludge at the bottom of his coffee cup and Joey suggested pizza for dinner again.
Angie was somewhere, Girl Scouts or ice skating or piano, Craig had stopped keeping track of her activities. He put his feet up on the coffee table and leaned his head against his hand, watched Joey speed dial the pizza place.
Caitlin was gone, Ashley was gone. Joey dated from time to time, his usual type, too. Young, skinny/curvy, deeply tan, long black hair. Like his mother, Craig thought, except his mother had been older than Joey. She'd been coming up in his thoughts more and more.
He didn't really want the pizza but ate two slices anyway. Joey asked him if he was remembering his medication and Craig cringed at the question, said yeah quickly and changed the subject.
"I guess I'm gonna go in the garage," Craig said, tossing his pizza crusts into the trash. Joey nodded at him, cracking open his bottle of wine. He seemed to drink a little more now that Caitlin was in L.A. And he never watched any Kevin Smith movies.
The garage was always cold, for some reason. Craig shivered, pulled on his faded jean jacket. The guitar sat propped in a corner, gleaming dully. He regarded it, not really wanting to play it. Not really wanting to do anything. He kept replaying the scene at The Dot when Spinner spilled it that Ashley dumped him. Spinner. Jesus. How could Ellie do that to him?
He did pick up the guitar, strummed some chords, fiddled with some melodies, and it soothed him. The tap at the door didn't register for a while. But he heard it, tap tap tap, and he set the guitar down in the same corner, answered the door.
"Ellie," he said dully, opening the door and turning away from her. She looked good, dark make-up, smooth shiny red hair, her clothes toned down from the costume like outfits she used to wear.
"Hi, Craig,"
He sat down heavily on the couch, wouldn't look at her.
"C'mon, Craig, don't be this way," she said, trying to get him to look at her. He heard the pleading in her voice.
"C'mon, nothing, Ellie! How could you do that to me? I mean, you told everyone Ash dumped me. You told Spinner," He was still turned away from her.
"Alright, look. You shouldn't be mad at me. I'm not the one who dumped you. It was Ashley. So don't take this out on me,"
He stood up fast, walked across the room. Head down, eyes narrowed, looking out the window.
"You should have told me," he said, crossing his arms.
"So maybe I wanted to protect you-" she started to say, her funny little gold eyes almost filling with tears. He whipped his head around, swallowed hard.
"Ellie, I don't need you to protect me! Okay, I'm not so…broken…or needy, or whatever. You should have just told me. Instead you tell Paige and Marco and fucking Spinner-"
"Ashley should have been the one to tell you," Ellie bit the edge of one fingernail. Her nails were painted black, just a little hint of her gothic past.
"Yeah, but you knew! Ellie, you knew, so you should have told me,"
Ellie shook her head, a few tears slid down her cheek.
"I just can't win with you, Craig. What do you want me to do? Go back in time and tell you? Okay, maybe I should have told you, maybe. But you know now, so deal with it," She turned on her heel and left, the door shutting behind her as she pulled it in one smooth motion. Craig stood in the center of the room and watched her go.
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Ellie sat in the booth at the pizza place, an uneaten slice of pepperoni in front of her. She leaned her head on Marco's shoulder and sniffled. From time to time she would bury her face in his shoulder. He patted her head every so often and tried not to drip any of his pizza sauce or toppings on her.
"He's so mad at me," she said. Marco shook his head.
"He's mad at Ashley. But you're the one who's here,"
"It isn't fair. It's just, I can't compete with Ashley. He's hopelessly in love with her. I should just give up on him," Marco finished up his slice, licked his fingertips, wiped his lips with a napkin.
"It would be easier. Craig's kind of…"
"Kind of what?" Ellie lifted her head up, glanced at the swinging green covered lights that hung over every booth.
"Kind of not good at relationships,"
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Ellie sat at the one bar in town that would serve her drinks. The bouncer at this bar would just smile at her, stamp her hand. But she was close to 19, getting closer every day. What was the big deal? And she ordered serious drinks, manhattens with southern comfort, martinis with Bombay sapphire gin. She'd sip and sip, feeling the worry and the sharp hurt that Craig was causing her erode as the toxins made their way through her blood stream and to her brain. Her mother non-withstanding. So her mother drank to dull the pain of her father leaving and whatever other pain with the twisted roots she felt and dealt with. Ellie didn't know, didn't know her mother really at all, but she felt that maybe she was beginning to understand her. A little more, anyway.
As she drank she thought that maybe the pain Craig was causing her was starting to outweigh any pleasure she got from this twisted little co-dependent relationship. What was she to him? Some other fucked up person in group? Someone who could understand having difficult parents and a diagnosable problem? He used her. He didn't value her for herself, only for what she could do for him. She dug out the olive from the bottom of her drink, bloated and choked with alcohol. Sometimes she hated Craig Manning.