Pre-Grey's: something else that might have fallen to Mark in Derek's absence.
Yes I've Been Black
Three nearly indistinguishable service plazas on I-95. Battered red plastic tables out front, beckoning yellow arches, standing carts lined with cheap sunglasses and tin coffee travelers. Inside it smells of the same salty grease as all the others, dirty tile floor dusted with stray receipts and crumpled paper napkins.
"Bathroom," she says when they're barely past Stamford.
That's the first one.
It's the only word she'll say, small face set and white and angry in the backseat. Addison is staring out the passenger side window when she says it, as Mark's aging sedan eats up mile after mile of Fairfield County. He saw the way her hand tightened on the door handle as they passed Greenwich. "You okay?" he'd whispered and she'd just tilted her head, checked on the slouching figure behind them.
"Bathroom," Amy croaks and he swings the steering wheel hard to the right, climbs the swirling incline to the grubby little grouping of buildings. It's a small one with a dirt-smudged stone path.
"I'm going in with you." Addison stands her ground, voice quivering hardly at all. Amy doesn't say anything. Just looks right through her and sweeps into the ladies' room. Mothers and children brush past him as he waits, chattering or silent, coughing or laughing. He hears someone vomit. A woman shoots him a dark look, half curious and half accusatory as he lingers outside the restroom. He checks his watch, neck sweating.
He feels clumsy and awkward and how the fuck did we get here? because he's not sure when he signed on for dragging his best friend's baby sister to rehab, not certain why he's husband and brother all in one today. Back in New York Derek's slicing open a skull; everything's antiseptic clean and sterile. Welcome to Connecticut, the mud-spattered blue and white road sign said. He's already forgotten the governor's name and nothing is clean here anyway.
Addison trails Amy from the bathroom, suggests food in a small voice. They have to eat. Then they're loaded down with greasy paper bags of salty fat, sweating paper cups of flat dark soda like everyone else at the rest stop, like normal people who are going to Boston or college or the beach. Nothing about this is normal, everything is fucked up, and Amy hunches over like an old woman, bends double when she bites into the cheap meat, moaning. Addison is at her side in a second, rubbing her back and trying to take her in her ams, but Amy shoves her away. Mark hovers again, blocking them both from prying eyes, stupid orange and yellow fast food bags dangling from impotent fingers.
"It's okay, Amy, you're okay," Addison chants quietly. He recognizes her tone. (She's lying.)
X
"Bathroom," she says again, scarcely past Norwalk.
"Again?" he questions and she doesn't respond. He pulls with a sigh into the plaza that's just like the others. Pretends to study the map of the eastern seaboard tacked to the wall, protected behind a thick sheet of scratched glass. Someone's carved the word fuck just south of Philadelphia.
Addison follows her into the ladies' room. They could be anywhere. He stands sentry outside, arms folded, listens helplessly to the whir of the dryers and the flush of the toilets. The soles of his shoes slide just a little on the floor; he tries not to think about why.
"Better?" he asks Amy as she slinks out of the wide doorway, a crumpled tissue in her hand. She turns fierce red-rimmed eyes on him and says nothing.
"Water." Addison presses two bottles into his hands. "We need to keep her hydrated. Are you thirsty, Amy?"
"Fuck off," Amy says conversationally.
A woman juggling two toddlers looks over disapprovingly.
"Amy-" he reaches for her shoulder but she jerks away, starts heading for the car and they have no choice but to follow.
They stand in detente around the doors for twenty seconds, maybe, but it feels like hours. Then Amy yanks the door open and folds herself back into a pretzel. The car is small, the air is tight, like he can't even open his mouth as wide as he needs.
Addison touches his hand lightly as he starts the car. "We're almost there," she says softly in a tone he knows well. (She's lying.)
X
"Bathroom," she says again when they're nearly in New Haven. The grey spires of the university lurk past the water.
"We just pulled over." His voice is gruff to his own ears. They warned him, when he agreed:
Are you sure you can handle this?
"Bathroom," she repeats, high and mocking, and he wonders if this skinny sullen creature, all waxy skin and huge angry eyes, can really be the sweet child he knew, the tenderhearted teen.
"You can wait."
"Bathroom!"
She'll try to distract you. She'll try anything not to get here.
"You just went, Amy. You can wait another few miles."
"Fine. I'll just piss right here on the seat." It's the most she's spoken since reluctantly folding her shrunken body into the car that feels smaller with each passing mile.
He sees Addison wince slightly at the language and hopes Amy didn't see it. Hopes she won't rise. Remembers her screaming, spoiled motherfucking princess, you could never understand, don't you fucking say you understand. Nancy had left for the hospital and Derek had left for good, left it to the others to tell Amy where she was going. I hate you, we all hate you, Amy had shrieked until she was hoarse, venting her rage at her sister-in-law. I hate you, she screamed until they sedated her. Derek wasn't there so it fell to Mark to put his arm around a trembling Addison, whisper she doesn't mean it, she's sick, you know she doesn't mean it. Addison didn't shed a tear until they took Amy away and then she cried so hard he was only half sure she could breathe. She meant it.
But Addison showed up for the drive anyway, jeans and fur lined boots against the early November chill, blustery pink cheeks under shadowed eyes.
"I won't go with you," Amy snapped, shrill with petulance and pain. "I'm not getting into the car."
Addison fixed her with a sharp glare. "It's us or a fucking padded wagon, Amy."
And Amy grabbed at the backdoor handle without another word.
"I'm not a princess," Addison whispered to Mark before sliding into the car, holding her trembling chin high.
Why are you so angry at Addison? he asked, not expecting her to answer. She's always been on your side.
Maybe that's why, Amy said.
A sudden acrid odor fills the car.
"Damn it!" Addison snaps, turning on Mark. "Why didn't you pull over?"
He does pull over then, brake screeching shoulder slamming fast, Addison crying out with fear as they skid onto the shoulder.
"What the fuck?" He yanks the backdoor open, grabs a shrinking Amy by one arm and drags her from the car. There's a spreading stain on her jeans, an odorous puddle on the seat, an out of place grin on her pale face, lips bloodied from biting. Unable to stop himself, he shakes her. Her chin snaps back, lids slamming open and shut on expressionless eyes.
"Mark, no!" Addison is pulling at his sleeve and he bats her off. "Stop, Mark, she's sick, she can't help it!"
"She can help it!" he yells. Finally they're fucking outside and he can open his mouth like he's wanted to and "She can fucking help it!"
She's tiny under his hands. He could break her if she wasn't already doing a fucking good job of it on her own. "Goddamn it!" he shouts in harmony with the car horns on the highway. He releases her and she crumples, Addison barely catching her, enfolding her in her arms.
Amy cries.
Addison rocks her.
Mark slams his hand onto the hood of the car.
He slams it again. It's hot but he forces himself to feel it right to the brink of pain, then over it. God, he's an asshole. He lights a cigarette he forgot he was carrying, lets the smoke drown out the other smells, blames the tar for the tightening in his throat.
Cars going the other direction bear down toward them with just a strip of grassy embankment separating them. He wishes he were going the other direction too. Going anywhere else. Choked whimpers worm their way into his ears. He wants to ignore them. His life would be easier if he could.
"I'm sorry, Amy, okay?" It still sounds like anger but it's the best he can do. "I'm sorry."
"Please take me back. Please take me back," Amy chants. Her voice is tiny and tinny and he can't take it anymore. He grabs them both, pulls them together into his chest. Amy's skull slams his collarbone as Addison's head knocks his chin back and he welcomes this pain, holds tighter.
"We can't go back," he mutters, and Amy's a limpet against him, wet with tears and other fluids, too slippery to hold onto. "We can't."
"But I want to," she sobs.
They stand in a tight knot of three on the shoulder, cars whizzing by in either directions, close enough to blow clouds of hair in his face, first dark and then red.
"I want to go home," Amy whimpers.
"Soon, baby," Addison soothes. Mark feels the pressure and release of her freeing a hand from between them to stroke Amy's tangled hair. "You'll be home soon." He knows her tone. (She's lying.)
X
Amy's half-asleep when he puts her back in the car, fragile and damp like a newly-hatched bird. Addison spreads a seven-hundred dollar jacket across the back seat without a word, cushioning Amy from the pungently wet leather. She sits in the back seat next to her for this last leg of the trip, holds Amy's head in her lap.
When finally they park in front of the low stone complex, the scattered green lawns, Amy doesn't move. Mark has to carry her out of the car. She doesn't fight him, not really. Passive resistance. "Look how pretty it is here," Addison parrots weakly, voice cracking. "See all the trees, and - " Amy doesn't even open her eyes.
"This is very normal," the man with the clipboard assures them and Mark almost laughs, almost fucking laughs because there is nothing normal about today. His arms are full of the limp half-detoxed body of his best friend's fucked up little sister and his best friend's white-faced mascara-streaked wife is clutching possessively at both of them. They've driven miles and years of highway. All three of them smell of urine and potato grease, stale coffee and dank rest stop bathrooms. Addison is crying, the ugly spittle sobs of someone who can't help herself and yet all he wants to do is kiss away her tears. If this is normal then his life is more fucked up than he thought, and that's saying something.
Amy comes alive when they try to take her, scratching like an angry cat, hissing and spitting and Addison cries harder. "Please, Amy, please cooperate, it's okay, please Amy, please just cooperate," Addison bleats until Mark's hand itches to slap the words from her mouth. They pry Amy from his arms and Addison goes silent and Mark digs his fingers into the thighs of his jeans, furious and embarrassed.
Then they're strapping her down and she's fighting hard, stretching a bony arm toward them. Mark has to grab Addison as she tries to reach back.
"Let them handle it. They know what they're doing. It's okay. Let them handle it," it's his turn to chant now. This is what pain does or maybe it's addiction or both, makes them speak in bursts of sugary-sick platitudes, over and over until they have no meaning.
"Amy!" Addison cries, trying to wrench free from Mark's arms and he yanks her back, maybe a little harder than necessary, crushes her to his chest.
"Stop it," he snaps. "Just stop it."
She's sobbing so hard that his own collar is wet with tears. His own face. And she's wiping the moisture from his cheeks, cooing to him like he's the one who's crying.
"This is very typical," the man with the clipboard says in a tone of clipped reassurance. Mark swallows the urge to strike him. They're exhausted and they smell and they don't respond. "We're taking her in now," he says. "You can call the main office in two weeks."
"Addie! I'm sorry, Addie, please!" Amy is still fighting the straps as they wheel her away and he's crying now, doesn't pretend he's not, until Addison's red hair is wet and they're the only ones standing in the patchy flagstone courtyard. When she hiccups in his crushing embrace, he feels every vibration.
"I wanted to say goodbye," she sobs. He lets her go just to gather her up again, comforting this time instead of restraining, rocks her quietly in the maple-lined dusk. She was right: the trees are pretty. She cries into his leather jacket and he's overwhelmed with nausea and sinking truth and fear.
"I'm sorry." He rocks her, frost-born mud squelching around the toes of his sneakers. A couple passes them by without a second glance. Maybe they are normal, here. "Addison, I'm sorry."
"I forgive you," she mumbles into his shirt and he wishes he didn't know her tone. (She's lying.)
Feedback warmly welcomed. Title (of course) from Amy Winehouse's Rehab.