9. Carpet Burn

I laid out on my back on the living room floor, breathing in the old, musky smell of the carpet with closed eyes and no desire whatsoever to move. There was nothing waiting that needed my immediate attention (besides stupid horny Craig who always needed my "attention"), and the room was so warm. Not to forget that my body was numb and aching and ravaged, soothed slightly by the plush carpet against my skin.

I allowed my eyelids to flicker open, just in time for something to flutter down and land on my bare chest.

A twenty dollar bill. How kind.

My lips found it in themselves to softly, hazily form Craig's name, hand reaching limply up to grasp at the money.

"Stubborn bitch," came the reply. Craig stepped into my view, sitting beside me as he pulled his jacket on without a shirt. I might have destroyed that. "I'm broke, you know that."

"Mn, then get somebody else t'fuck you, Christ," I managed to retort sleepily. "Clyde'll screw a fine ass li' yours. Or Ke-"

Craig became deathly still and tense.

Well, it was an innocent slip of the tongue. I had tried to talk about Kenny with him, and he still (after five days) blandly insisted that Kenny would rise from the dead like he usually did. But then, why was he so angry? He never cared when Kenny died, so what was this passionate rage?

Maybe he actually believed me when I told him my point of view-of course, with his screwed up sense of pride and his general insensitivity and stubbornness, he'd never admit it. Maybe.

Maybe Kenny was dead. Dead like any normal person who wasn't immortal.

My fingers mangled the formerly crisp bill, subconscious and unknowing with minds of their own like every other fucking part of me. I felt like screaming-with what, I didn't know. I was just so…there was so much energy, negative energy, building up and-and then what?

Leaking out slowly? Bursting forth in a fit of rage? Staying in bottled up, contained? Would it flow steadily outward, not stopping when we thought it would at all, drowning Craig and I?

Craig looked away.

Silent.

Stoic.

Static, and still, and nothing!

We were both just nothing. Absolutely nothing.

That inexplicable anger began welling inside me again, starting in the pit of my stomach, making me feel that dread, that nausea clambering up into my chest, constricting, and rising into my throat, catching, stopping my breathing.

Out through my mouth in a jumbled sentence that made no sense whatsoever, something I blurted before I could comprehend the gravity of the simple statement.

"I love you."

My mouth went dry, my face white.

Craig stared at me. Nothing.

No more than what I expected. There was nothing I could say either to that blank blue gray stare. He was dead as Kenny.

Seriously, 'Oh yeah, sorry, man, I was possessed by the devil.'

'I mispronounced something'.

'That means hello in Swedish'.

'That was just the TV, not me.'

You're delusional.

You're perfect, only I can't believe I'm even thinking that because you're not, and oh, I hate you! Fuck!

I lay there in silent turmoil, raging internally at my quite notable stupidity.

Jesus H. Christ.

Mary and Joseph and everything holy, I'm fucked.

And finally, after that-that impenetrable silence, that nothingness, a word.

"Okay."

God, couldn't he actually say something? Besides, oh, that's nice, Kyle, continue to have a lovely day here in hell. I sat up, crushing the twenty dollar note between anxious fingertips, feeling more completely exposed than I ever had in front of Craig.

Tight-lipped, I looked around for my clothes, painfully embarrassed like I was instead sitting on a lighted stage being watched by thousands of prying, disapproving eyes. Like everybody could see me where I was, a stark-naked mess, confessing things. Like, things that were a huge fucking deal but were probably not even true. And everyone looking at the display of patheticness with Craig's face, and that same expression-blank but not, like the pity and amusement cancelled each other out and left him completely indifferent. The people's eyes were all glazed and still, neck relaxed, not supporting the head but still rigid, dead, their toes just above the ground.

And they were all not just watching me, but judging me. Laughing at me. Resenting me, mocking me, pitying me!

He stood up, face still devoid of all anything. "Well, I'd better be going now, so…see you later. If…you know." His eyes flicked to the twenty in the sweating grasp of my fingers like nothing the fuck that happened, having the nerve to just say okay bye now screw you later, hun. "Bye."

And he left.

And that was all.