DISCLAIMER: The characters are from the TV show Extreme Ghostbusters and are not created by me and are not my property. No money is being made from this. The capital of France is Paris. Sheep spelled backwards is peehs. I bought a shitload of candy today and my ass is expanding as I chew. Amen.
***
Hazy with sleep, Kylie reached across the bed and grasped only air. Her eyes fluttered open, confirming: empty. Over the rumpled blanket she saw that the bedroom door was open, and something cold and cracked fell out the bottom of her heart. She pushed herself to a sitting position, and saw him by the window, smoking a cigarette, already dressed. A small sigh of relief, a silent admission of stupidity and weakness to herself. Mentally she told herself to get a grip. Her excuse was I'm out of it if I don't get my coffee in the morning.
Eduardo turned from the window when he heard her shift on the bed. Kylie stared back at him from huge dark eyes, silent. They regarded each other for a few seconds, as he watched the fear in her eyes subside to embarrassment. He grinned cheekily. You were scared I left you? the grin needled. Kylie broke the stare and looked down at the sheets.
"Bad dream?" Eduardo asked.
No. "Yeah." She wanted him to leave. She was relieved he was here and she wanted him to leave. She could take it. Did he think she couldn't? Go on, thought Kylie. I'm prepared this time and I won't break down. I'll prove it, because I am strong.
"What about?"
"What?"
"What was the dream about?"
She only stared at him dumbly. Coffee, she told herself. Eduardo saw she wasn't going to answer at all.
Kylie pulled the blanket over her breasts and moved back against the headboard, clearing her throat self-conscious. Eduardo took in her actions with mild amusement. Nothing I haven't seen before, he would've said to her, if Eduardo weren't so sure a slap would shortly follow. Maybe this is the part where the romance fades, he thought. Not that he was a big believer in romance. He just didn't like the way this felt anymore, with Kylie, and wondered how much longer it would last. Her makeup had smeared during the night, a caricature of kindergoths. He saw the streaks of dark gray on the pillows and the sheets.
Eduardo wished for the day to be over and done with. Nights were always better. You can't see anything in such dark, of course, but you don't need to. You navigate with hands, touches and whispers, the soft incomprehensible noises you make when words are unimportant. In the morning your sight is returned. You're able to see over the gray dirty city outside the window, and you imagine you can see the bland blue sky above the smog. You touch your skin and wonder why it feels so coarse. You smoke a cigarerette and it tastes bitter. It's better than nothing. You blow the smoke out the window and watch it dissipate, wondering what to do when she finally wakes up. Eduardo gazed at Kylie, small and naked under the sheets, and wondered.
"You shouldn't smoke, you know," said Kylie, because she didn't know what else to say.
Something sarcastic materialized at the tip of his tongue, but Eduardo blew it out formless and quiet with the cigarette smoke. It wasn't worth it. Instead, he put out the cigarette and left the butt on the windowsill. Eduardo walked round to the side of the bed, tipped her chin, and kissed her. He tasted bitter and acrid, but Kylie didn't push him away.
"I've got to go to class now," he said, and left the room. Kylie sat still, mesmerized by the sound of his footsteps.
Outside, a squad car drove by, the siren wail floating through her open window, intertwined with the chill and dank smell of a city between seasons. The trees were bare but winter was tardy, and the weather encouraged no one to go outside. He could've had the courtesy to close the window, she thought but instead of closing it herself Kylie sunk deeper into the covers. When the siren faded, the apartment was silent.
***
Eduardo moved in with her only a week ago, knocking down every wall of credible argument with bull-headed stubbornness.
"Isn't that what couples do anyway?" he insisted. "They shack up together, so things'll be easier. Like I pay half the rent and cook on weekends, and shit like that."
That was the stupidest thing Kylie had heard in a long time and she told him this. She told him he didn't have a proper job to help pay the rent anyway. She told him he couldn't cook anything but hot water, and even then he'd need help.
Eduardo shrugged and reverted back to his primary argument: "What's the big deal?"
Kylie lost the argument somehow.
When she drove to Carlos's to help him move, there was shouting inside the house; hurtful accusatory things spat out in an amalgamation of English, Spanish, and the secret language siblings inevitably develop, no matter how much they despised each other. She stood staring at the cracked wood of the front door, listening to the curses bouncing off equally tough hides. The next step for her, of course, would be to ring the doorbell. For some reason she couldn't bring herself to perform the correct movements. She felt awkward intruding such fervor, even if an intrusion was exactly what they needed right now. You can't eavesdrop forever, she told herself. You can't even understand Spanish.
She rang the doorbell.
"That's probably your girlfriend now, huh?" Carlos said. "Good fucking luck to her. Good riddance to you."
Eduardo replied in biting Spanish, and the shouting match continued. Kylie waited on the porch, wishing she brought a jacket with her. The sky was inky black when it was just supposed to be twilight. She folded her arms in front of her and tried not shiver.
"What you doin' tonight, chica?" someone shouted behind her. He revved his car and laughed as his buddies echoed him and traded high-fives. "Why en't you talkin', huh? Yer mama din't teach you no manners, bitch?"
"If anyone ever talked to me like that, Grandma Rose, I'll beat them up so bad."
Gentle chuckles. "You do that, Kylie."
Grandma Rose's words segued into harsh obnoxious laughter. Kylie dug her nails into her skin.
"Yo, bitch, you deaf or sumpin'?"
"Why're they talkin' like that to her, Grandma? Why isn't she doin' anything?"
Why did they see me? Why did have to choose me? Why me?
Kylie rang the doorbell again.
"Oh! She's trying to get away, Charlie! You better go and get her before she runs away, man."
"We just tryin' to say hello, chica. Where your manners?"
The sound of a car door opening. Kylie pressed the doorbell again, twice.
"I heard you!" Carlos shouted from inside. "Christ!"
"Hey, don't fucking talk to her like that, buddy!" said Eduardo.
And behind her, coming closer: "You need to be taught some manners."
OPEN THE MOTHERFUCKING DOOR, her mind screamed.
The door banged open. Kylie jumped. Carlos, red-faced and glowering, seemed to fill the doorway. "You trying to break my doorbell?"
"No," Kylie replied. Her voice sounded smaller than she wanted, and she hated it. "Sorry." She cleared her throat and tried again: she tried narrowing her eyes and looking away, imitating aloofness. There. She wasn't helpless. She wasn't weak. She could prove it, too. If she got another chance, she'd prove it.
"Kylie?" said Eduardo from the living room. "I'll be out in a minute."
"You'll be out now," Carlos corrected. He faced her. "Good luck to you."
"Yeah," she said. "I heard."
She heard the footsteps behind her hesitate, hesitant whispers.
Carlos easily looked over her head. "What the hell \you assholes doin' in front of my house?"
"Nothin', guy!" one of them exclaimed. "We was just hangin'."
"Hang somewhere else before I call the cops."
"Alright! Jesus."
More footsteps, car door slamming shut, the rev of the engine as the car pulled away. Kylie bit her lip and looked at her feet.
Carlos looked her up and down. "Hey, you're the Ghostbuster girl, aren't you? You work with him?"
"Yeah."
He grunted and rolled his eyes.
Kylie tried to look relaxed. She had nothing to worry about anyway. Carlos would never hurt her. Of course not. He was the Model Family Man. He was a cop, he had a loving wife, he played catch with his son on evenings and went to all his baseball matches. Anybody in their right mind would know Eduardo was the black sheep. Eduardo was the guy to watch out for.
She peered over Carlos's shoulder, but Eduardo wasn't in her line of vision.
Carlos turned his back and walked out of the living room. "I want you gone by the time I come back, bro."
Kylie stepped into the house.
"Sorry about that, babe," Eduardo muttered. His belongings fitted inside a suitcase and a box just short of being fair-sized.
Babe. Kylie didn't know whether to smile or cringe, especially after what just happened. She used to think she wasn't the kind of girl who'd like being called babe, or chick, or anything like that. But she thought she ought to be used to it by now, in the good way and bad way. The girls who take the women's studies course at the university say that they shouldn't have to take that kind of shit from anyone, but sometimes it was just easier to just grit your teeth and walk away.
Kylie glanced around Carlos's living room and wondered if it was too improbable that one day her own living room would one day look like this: permanent, lived-in, homey. Maybe one day her living room would also give strangers - intruders – this kind of stinging wistfulness. One day her living room would exude the smug elitism coveting its own cozy history that the intruder was not a part of, and therefore this stranger had no right to be there. Sometimes Kylie felt like a stranger in her own apartment, a temporary thing in transit. She almost learned to accept this as normal.
She hasn't been called babe or things like that in the good way for a long time. It wasn't a "Nice rack, babe" kind of thing anymore now. Not with Eduardo. Babe. She rolled the word over in her mind as she helped Eduardo with his stuff. He called her babe. How did that make someone half of what they are? But if they are half, then that meant there was another half. This was where the Impossible Math came in, the one everyone secretly wished would come into their lives and turn things upside down. In this math, one plus one still equals one, and two minus one equals half.
Silly Kylie, she reprimanded as they began to drive down a dark and silent street. Stop fooling yourself. Of course this will fall apart. This isn't forever. This, of course, prompted a mental image of her wedding day. Kylie, dressed in flowing white, in silk and satin, would be heartbreakingly beautiful. Everyone would think so. She was the star. Oh no, she would say, this isn't just about me. This is about love, about the both of us. The only problem was the groom, who had a blurry face. Sometimes it looked like Eduardo, but mostly it was a blur, a reflection in a fogged-up mirror. It would also rain rose petals on her wedding day. She saw this clearly in her mind.
Kylie nearly missed a red light and stomped on the brake, barely escaping a collision with a Peugot. The owner called her an unfavorable name. A hand shot out of its open window, one finger raised.
"Yeah, fuck you too, buddy!" Eduardo yelled out the window, then turned to Kylie. "What the hell was that? Watch the road, Ky."
"I'm tired," she said by way of lame explanation. "I've had a long day."
"Oh yeah, all that reading obscure cult books trying to bring the dead back to life, huh?" Eduardo snorted.
Kylie gritted her teeth. "Something like that."
"You know, maybe the dead like being dead and we shouldn't bug them, huh?"
"True, because the living bug the fuck out of each other enough, right?" she snapped.
There was a pause, then his hand was on her leg. "Hey, I'm sorry. I'm still pissed off at my brother and, uh… and I shouldn't be taking it out on you. Okay? Kylie?"
"Fine."
"I mean, I know how much you miss your grandma-"
"Shut up, Eduardo," said Kylie. "Just shut up. Okay?"
Stop fooling yourself, Kylie.
They drove.
***
Today she had no morning classes and was still naked when the morning was almost over. She stared at things. The ceiling. The wall. The novel on her bedside table she'd made no progress on since Eduardo moved in. She started thinking about things, as usual, and as usual, she wished she didn't. She thought too much. It flowed naturally, a tide constantly washing in and knocking her off balance. It took her more effort to be blank. Kylie wondered if everyone was like this.
She thought of how Eduardo's hands felt on her body.
She thought that maybe the dead did like being dead, and attempts to contact them would not only be fruitless, but an intrusion of their privacy.
She thought maybe Grandma Rose would make an exception for her. Wouldn't she? Wouldn't she?
She wondered if it was too late to change her major.
She wondered Pagan would so horribly mind if meals weren't on time today.
She thought of Roland and Garrett. Where would they be now? What were they doing?
She thought of Eduardo again.
And then, Kylie thought about Kylie. This was always the point where things start to go downhill.
***
The morning after the first night, Kylie accidentally woke Eduardo when she came back to the bedroom after a shower, wrapped in a towel.
"Woah," Eduardo said when he saw her.
"What?"
"You look different."
She smiled. "Yeah?"
"Yeah." He lied on his side, regarding her with comic intensity. "Your hair's… hair spray-less."
Kylie laughed.
"And you're wearing no makeup," he said. Eduardo pushed himself out of bed and walked to her. "Oh my god, I think it's the first time I've seen you without all that goop on your face."
"And how do I look goopless?" she asked teasingly.
Eduardo raised both eyebrows, stuck out his bottom lip, and nodded like an art critic. "Nice."
"Nice?" said Kylie, feigning indignity. "Is that all I get?"
"Hmm…" He put both hands on her shoulders and spun her from side to side, examining her from all angles. She chuckled, amused.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"Correcting myself," he said, and his hands slipped down her shoulders, down her sides, and dislodged the towel to the floor. "You are, in fact, very nice."
Eduardo kissed her then, and the shower proved to be pointless.
***
Kylie managed to force herself out of bed to take a shower. Before she stepped into the stall, she looked at her reflection in the full-length mirror. No, she wasn't ugly after all. She always thought she was when she was younger, because none of the boys liked her and most of the girls didn't want to be her friend. Now Kylie saw why someone would want to be her other half, if only temporarily. One plus one equals one. So there was really nothing wrong with her. Right? She stepped into the shower stall and turned the water on full blast.
***
The first time they slept together, she had been the one in control, and she knew it. Eduardo had been the shy one, the one shifting glances and blushing. Only a few weeks before did a late night at the firehouse after a bust, with only Egon and Janine downstairs, bring certain things to the surface over a bowl of stale popcorn and the meandering nature of late-night conversations.
Suddenly they were in Kylie's apartment and she was smiling as Eduardo mumbled inconsequential things and kept his eyes on anything that wasn't her. Kylie kissed him and pushed him into the bedroom. She hadn't been scared at all.
Over time it changed. She didn't know if this was normal or not. She felt like it was her strings being pulled on by Eduardo now, that she was the one in his hand. Kylie hasn't been in a relationship for a while, but she was pretty sure it wasn't supposed to be a power struggle. A warm glow began to blossom in her stomach; a golden flower edged the dark reds of fear. What if it all fell apart?
Stop fooling yourself, Kylie.
She put on a pot of coffee for herself and set Pagan's food out on the floor, then sat at the kitchen table and stared outside the window. You're thinking too much again, she reminded herself, and wished she could leave it at that.