One week later
DARKNESS!
IMPRISONING ME!
ALL THAT I SEE!
ABSOLUTE HORROR!
I CANNOT LIVE!
I CANNOT DIE!
TRAPPED IN MYSELF!
BODY MY HOLDING CEEEEELLLL!
Emily pried one eye open, then grumbled under her breath as she pulled her blanket over her head.
LANDMINE!
HAS TAKEN MY SIGHT!
TAKEN MY SPEECH!
TAKEN MY HEARING!
TAKEN MY ARMS!
TAKEN MY LEGS!
TAKEN MY SOUL!
LEFT ME WITH LIFE IN HELLLLLL!
"Oh for Christ's sake…" Emily picked up one of her slippers from beside her bed and hurled it at her bedroom door. It banged off the wood with a thunk and a resounding rattle.
The music stopped. "Sorry!" Jess' muffled voice echoed from the guest bedroom.
Emily rolled her eyes. Much as she tried, unfortunately, she found she couldn't make herself be truly mad about this sort of thing. Jess had brought so much life to her boring home. Her morning routine was now accompanied by the musical stylings of Jessica and her apparently-undying love of heavy metal, and that was something Emily reluctantly accepted. Of course, she'd be lying if she said it wasn't a shock to her system – she was still accustomed to having absolutely everything precisely her own way. But the price of having everything her way had been utter solitude. And she didn't want to be alone anymore.
Another song started up, much quieter this time. Emily decided to just get up. A glance at her alarm clock told her it was six-fifteen in the morning. If previous mornings were any indication, Jess had probably been up since four or five. She'd mentioned to Emily that she struggled to stay asleep at night, but she was constantly falling asleep during various times of the day. A quick internet search had informed Emily that this was a common problem among users.
Sometimes she'd hear Jess creeping through the house in the middle of the night as well. Upon asking her about it, Jess had confessed that sometimes a dose before bed didn't carry her through until morning. She'd awaken to the start of withdrawals and have to re-dose in the middle of the night.
They'd yet to make any real progress in that regard. Thankfully Jess was being good about her needles – Emily had not found a single one lying about in the past week. However, apparently while Emily had been at work on Thursday Jess' roommate Alicia had stopped by and an "exchange" had been made. The thought of a drug deal going on in her own house, especially while she wasn't even there, made Emily a bit nauseous. She'd made Jessica promise in the future to either conduct it while Emily was around to watch the house, or to at least give her warning the day it was going to happen so she could conceal any valuables. She was considering installing security cameras too, just in case. Who knew what these strangers could be taking from her house? Like Matt had said, they were desperate.
She could hear the start of a new song as she stepped into her bathroom and turned the shower on. All throughout her shower she could hear Jess quietly singing along to the music. Her small, pure voice starkly contrasted the gritty male vocalists she was accompanying. It wasn't an unpleasant sound, even if Emily wasn't wild about metal.
She couldn't help but smile just the tiniest bit as she thought back on the first time she'd been exposed to Jessica's eclectic musical taste. When she was with Emily or the other girls she'd partake in "typical" tween girl music, pop and hip-hop and whatever was on the Top 40 radio stations. Then one time when Emily was over Jess' house she'd discovered a stack of heavy-, death-, and black metal CDs piled beside Jess' pink Hello Kitty radio. That was when Jessica had told her about her Super Cool Uncle Eric, who used to play in an amateur thrash metal band and introduced her to the genre when she was a little girl. Emily had met Uncle Eric a few times. She remembered him as being very scary-looking. Jessica, of course, wasn't intimidated by him at all. Emily still held a vivid mental snapshot of the time she'd seen Uncle Eric, with his long, wild hair, in his sleeveless Slayer tee that exposed all of his arm tattoos, walking hand-in-hand with his young niece, who was wearing a pink and white spring dress and had her hair in cutesy pigtails tied with purple bows.
The memory got her to wondering if any of Jess' family knew what she was going through now. She hadn't mentioned even her parents since arriving at Emily's house.
This body
This body holding me
Be my reminder here that I am not alone in
This body
This body holding me
Feeling eternal
All this pain is an illusion
Em had heard this song before. It seemed to be on frequent rotation in Jess' playlist.
The lengthy song was just ending by the time Emily was finished with her shower. As she was toweling off Jess started another song. This one was completely indecipherable – just drums and screaming. Emily tuned it out as she selected her outfit for the day.
After getting dressed, she knocked on Jessica's bedroom door. Her ears relished in sweet relief as the screaming paused. "Jess, do you want breakfast yet?"
"Eh, I don't know," came Jessica's response through the door.
"Well I'm about to go make it. So eat now or lose out."
She knew if she didn't give her an ultimatum Jess would just stall until the normal time window for eating breakfast had passed. Apparently she had barely eaten while living in her apartment. Emily was trying to ensure she got on a regular eating schedule. With any luck, she hoped it might help to take Jessica's mind somewhat off her "other" cravings.
"Okay, okay." Light footsteps padded inside the room. Moments later Jessica opened the door. She was dressed in a slouchy t-shirt and short shorts. A step up from the bra and underwear she usually sported. She offered Emily a small smile. "Hi. Sorry about the music earlier. I hope it wasn't too loud after that."
"I can't believe you never grew out of that crap," Emily replied.
"Crap?" Jess drew back theatrically. "And what do you listen to these days?"
"Good stuff." Emily hoped Jess realized she was teasing. Thankfully Jessica alleviated that fear by playfully smacking Emily on the arm and making a faux-offended huff at her.
"Let's go make breakfast, bitch." Jess seized Em by the arm and practically dragged her down the hallway. "I'm feeling pancakes today."
As Emily allowed herself to be dragged by Jess, she momentarily reflected on how easily they'd fallen right back into their old patterns. Despite living under Emily's roof on Emily's dime, Jessica had all but taken over in the house. That was the way their friendship had always been. Jessica shone like the sun, a beacon that all living creatures seemed drawn toward. She led the way and commanded total attention without even having to work for it. Comparing Emily to the moon in such an analogy would probably be an overstatement – she was more like an insignificant chunk of space debris that had somehow been scooped up and yanked into orbit around her radiant best friend.
Part of her had always envied Jess' seemingly-effortless ability to win people over. Emily would've killed to possess even a scrap of her charisma. With so many others drawn to Jess, Emily used to constantly wonder, why me? Why was Emily Jess' designated best friend? They weren't alike in every way. They weren't alike in most ways. Constant fear of replacement had driven Emily to adopt a sort of submissive underling role in their friendship. She managed to convince herself that it was the only way Jess would continue to find use for her, and that anything less than utter acquiescence would result in her only true friend abandoning her.
The worst two nights of her life had been indirectly caused by those fears. She followed Jessica into everything. Even things that ended up getting people hurt…and killed.
Even though she had little such fear now, she still found herself falling into step behind, rather than beside, Jessica. And that was not what either of them needed right now. Jessica especially did not need an opinionless minion – she needed someone who was willing to take charge and help her get her life back on track. Em knew that.
Jessica opened a cabinet and began laying out silverware and plates for the two of them. Emily grabbed the box of pancake mix she'd picked up at the store (per Jessica's request), and some eggs and milk from her fridge. It was a little strange to see the fridge stocked with food these days. Usually Em just bought exactly what she needed and nothing more. However, since she was trying to keep Jess eating, she'd decided to stock up a little.
The kitchen as a whole was no longer a dead giveaway that she was a lonely bachelorette.
She retrieved a skillet from her cookware cabinet and set it on the stove. "You wanna break the eggs and stuff?" she asked. "There should be a mixing bowl in one of the overhead cabinets."
A moment later Jess appeared at her side with a bowl. Emily gestured to the counter. Jessica set it down there.
"Okay, so you've cracked eggs before, right?"
Jess hesitated.
"…You haven't?"
"Maybe like, once or twice, a long time ago," she murmured. "I don't really have things like that in my apartment. Mostly I just eat, like, stuff I can order online. Eggs don't ship very well."
Emily rubbed her chin. "Okay. Then how about you grease the pan and I'll break the eggs." She nodded to an aerosol can a few feet from the stovetop. Jess picked it up and eagerly sprayed the inside of the skillet.
After carefully cracking the two eggs, Emily pulled a whisk from her silverware drawer and prepared to mix everything together in the bowl.
Their culinary handiwork was less-than-stellar, but it got the job done. They were pancakes.
"So what's on the agenda for today?" Emily served a heaping stack onto Jessica's plate, then piled on some whipped cream and blueberries. Jess made a slight face at the berries – she had argued for butter and syrup, but Emily insisted berries were healthier, and so they'd compromised with healthy blueberries and sugary whipped cream.
"I have a session with a client at 3. He paid for forty-five minutes, which is long for that sort of thing…and expensive." Jess waggled her eyebrows. "Other than that, I don't really have any plans."
"Maybe you can look into finding a new counselor."
Jess immediately closed off. Unfazed, Emily waited for a response.
"I don't like counseling," Jess said. "I can't tell them what I've actually been through, so when I tell them about the monsters outside they think I'm really crazy."
On some level, Emily understood. They'd all struggled with counselors after The Incident. Emily's mother had pushed her to try just one session, but after sitting in silence for the entirety of said session the counselor had told her mother that Emily was "uncooperative". Offended, her mother never made her go back.
"There's gotta be someone out there who could help you," she said anyway. "Maybe try looking for people who are more open-minded about, you know, that kind of stuff. I'm sure we could find some new-age-y counselor somewhere who would believe us. Even if you just have to have online sessions with them or something."
Jess groaned under her breath. "Fine. I'll look. I probably won't find anybody I like, though."
"Find a few people, at least, and show them to me."
Jess sighed, but she wore a wry smile. "Yes, ma'am."
"God, not that again."
"Sorry, I can't help it. I think it's the suit."
Emily rolled her eyes, self-consciously adjusting her blazer.
Jess' amused smile remained even as she took her first bite of pancake. "These are good, by the way." She spoke with a full mouth, the way one would while in the company of someone with whom one felt absolutely comfortable.
"Nice table manners, skank." Emily responded in kind. A chunk of blueberry fell out of her mouth and landed in a puddle of whipped cream on her plate.
Jessica broke out in a grin. "Cute."
"Fuck off."
"So why are you all dressed up today anyway?" Jess asked. "It's a damn Saturday."
"I don't know, can't I just want to look nice, even on a weekend?"
"Wait, is it for…moi?" She pointed to herself, feigning bashfulness. "Oh Emily, that's so sweet! But you don't need to wear a ladysuit to impress me. I thought you were cute in those Chococat PJs you used to wear to our sleepovers."
"How do you even remember that?"
"I have my ways."
Emily took another bite of her pancakes. "Well just for the record, it's not for you. It's for myself. I just like looking nice."
"Uh-huh. Okay."
"Seriously, don't flatter yourself."
Jessica giggled. "Too late."
They finished their breakfast quietly. Emily feigned annoyance at Jessica's teasing. Every so often Jess would catch her eye and make a face at her. Emily tried to maintain a stone face, but her averted eyes and her hand in front of her mouth made it all too obvious that she was trying not to laugh.
This was their sixth breakfast together since Jess had moved in. Emily had initially only planned on her staying for a few weeks, just long enough to get accustomed to a better environment, so that when she returned to her apartment she realized how much better she could have it if she got clean and saved for a nicer place. But Emily was liking their routine. She was enjoying Jessica's company, and the thought of her moving back out and leaving Em alone again spawned a cold heaviness in the pit of her stomach.
Save for Mike, who was almost certainly alone by choice, everyone around her had a family now. Sam had Sarah, Ashley had Chris and their two sons, Matt, well he didn't seem to be in the best situation, but he had someone. What did Emily have? A cat, a bunch of expensive furniture she mostly never used, and a house full of silence. Waking up to Metallica may not have been something she actively enjoyed, but it was better than waking up to nothing at all.
"You know, Jess," she said after a long silence, "you can stay here as long as you want."
Jessica set her fork down, this time actually bothering to chew and swallow before she answered. "Thank you. I won't stay any longer than I have to, though. I don't want to be a burden."
"You're never a burden." Emily's response came so quick she practically cut Jess off. "Ever."
Jess nodded to herself. "Thanks. I like being here."
Impulsively, Emily reached across the table and laid her hand atop one of Jessica's. Jess' cheeks warmed to just the slightest shade of pink.
"Let's do something together," Emily said.
"I thought you were gonna run errands today?"
"I can do them later. Or tomorrow."
Jess pursed her lips. "Are you sure?"
"One-hundred percent."
Jessica slowly eased back into her usual smile. "Okay. Let's do something, then."
"Ohh…look how beautiful it is." Jess sat cross-legged on the sofa with her laptop on her lap. Emily was beside her, looking over her shoulder as Jess perused the Google Images results of pictures of various foreign countries. Her comment was in regard to a picture of Paris. "I'd love to visit France someday."
"You could. There's a whole world out there for you to see." Emily didn't want to preach, but she'd take any opportunity to plant a seed of determination within Jessica.
Jess enlarged a picture of a beach. "Ooh, that's apparently a beach in Spain. It looks so nice."
"Maybe someday we can take a trip through Europe. We could do it as a group – I bet Sam would love that kind of thing."
Jess closed the image and sighed. "You could go. I probably never will."
"You think that right now." Emily reached over and touched a picture of a bright green pasture. It was taken in Ireland. "I've always wanted to visit Ireland. My dad's side is from there."
"Oh yeah. I always forget you're part Irish."
They looked at a few more pictures. Then Jess closed the browser. Her head was low, and Emily noticed her eyes looked a little wet. "H-hey, don't cry." Emily laid an awkward hand on Jessica's shoulder. She had never been good at consoling people.
Jess shrugged her off. "Sorry." Her voice cracked a little. "Just, I know I'll never be able to do things other people can do. Things I used to be able to do. Between the junk and the hallucinations nobody would want to deal with being with me in a foreign country."
"That's…not true. And you haven't been having any hallucinations lately, have you?"
Jess avoided eye contact with her. "I have them every day, Em. I don't see the world the same way you do."
"Huh?" The answer caught Emily off guard. "What do you mean?"
"Well for one, sometimes I think you're in my room with a knife, trying to kill me."
Emily's eyes widened. "I would never–"
"I know. That's how I manage to live my life around them. I tell myself there's no way they could possibly be real." She swallowed. "But that doesn't mean I don't have them pretty much every single day, and that they don't mess with my life."
Emily faltered. "Jess, I – I had no idea. Is there any way to alleviate them? Maybe not cure them, but at least something…"
Jessica shrugged her bony shoulders. "I have no idea."
"That's why you need a counselor." Emily pulled her legs up onto the couch like Jess had done. "After we're done hanging out we should look for one together."
"Okay, fine." She closed her laptop and nudged Emily. "But let's do something else first. I have plenty of time before my three o'clock client."
"Ahahaha!" Jess waved the laser pointer wildly. She erupted with laughter as Rin darted back and forth, skidding across the marble floor as she attempted to grab at the red dot. "Get it, Rin! Get it!"
Emily watched with a smug smile as Jess tormented her poor cat. It was for the best – Rin needed the exercise anyway. At one point Jess swept the laser up the living room wall. To her astonishment Rin ran at the wall, then clawed her way straight up it. She made it almost to the ceiling before half-jumping, half-falling back to the floor. This spurred such a fit of laughter from Jessica that she lost her balance and fell backwards on her butt. Even on the floor she was still laughing.
"Jeez, Jess." Emily offered Jessica her hand. "You're almost as entertaining to watch as the damn cat."
As soon as Em helped her up Jess was right back at it. Both she and Rin dashed through the house like madwomen, Jess wielding the mighty pointer. They disappeared out into the hallway.
Emily folded her arms, waiting. It took about ten seconds.
CRASH!
Massaging her temples, Em called out, "What was that?"
"Nothing…!" Jess mumbled something to herself. Emily heard her pick something up.
With a sigh, Em braced herself and walked out into the hall. "Oh my God."
Jessica stood beside one of the small tables that, prior to Jess picking it back up after knocking it over, had once held an abstract glass sculpture. One half of a needlessly pricey set. The sculpture itself was in about a million pieces on the floor.
Rin was hiding under the table. Jess' eyes flicked from her to Emily. "Should I be hiding, too?"
Emily stared down at the broken thing. "You broke my thing."
"I'm so sorry, Em. I was just, I was running after Rin, and my socks slipped and I couldn't stop in time, and–"
Emily wandered over to the table that held the matching piece on the opposite side of the hall. "Now it's not symmetrical. It doesn't look right."
"I'm so, so sorry. I – I'll save up the money to replace it. How much was it?"
Em gingerly picked up the remaining sculpture. She'd purchased the set at an art auction back when she'd first moved into her new house. The only reason she'd bid on the odd pieces was because some guy there had really wanted them. His enthusiasm somehow made them more appealing, and Emily knew then that she had to have them.
She didn't even like modern art.
Emily ran one hand over the smooth surface of the glass. Then she threw it down as hard as she could. The thing smashed into a thousand glistening shards on the marble floor.
Both Jess and Rin startled at the loud noise. "There," Em said calmly. "Now it's symmetrical again."
Jessica stared down at the mess of glass by their feet. Her eyes, wide with disbelief, slowly lifted to Emily.
"You gave me permission to mess shit up in my house, remember?"
"Oh yeah…I did!" Jessica's apologetic pout instantly vanished. Em could practically see her trading her halo for her usual pair of horns. "Are you gonna break any more stuff?"
"I don't know. Should I?"
"Well if you do I'm not gonna help – I don't want any blame once you come to your senses. But I'll gladly watch."
Emily looked around at all the shattered glass. God, why did I do that. In the moment it had felt liberating, and she wasn't going to miss those ugly reminders of her pettiness, but now she just had to clean it all up. Being a responsible adult sucked.
Rin picked her way over the glass and high-tailed it back into the living room. Emily sighed. "Forget it. I'll just clean this mess up."
"I'll help." Jess stepped cautiously over the glass. "Where do you keep your broom and dustpan?"
Forty-five minutes later the glass shards were swept and thrown away and the tiniest bits were vacuumed up. Emily dumped them all in the outside trash.
Jessica, after apologizing a few more times for good measure, had eventually disappeared into her room. That was shortly before 3 o'clock. Em realized she must have been getting ready for her "appointment".
She couldn't shake her disgust at the thought of pervy men using Jess to jack off. Jess claimed not to mind it. She said it gave her a sense of power over them, using her "feminine wiles" to take their money and give them nothing physical in return. But in her more vulnerable moments she occasionally mentioned how their words – it was apparently par for the course for them to call her a slut, a whore, and a bimbo among other, sometimes worse things – stayed with her long after the session was over.
Jessica didn't deserve to be called those things. And those disgusting men didn't deserve to even look at Jess, much less treat her like shit while doing so.
She overheard Jess giggling as she passed the guest bedroom. The door was open a crack, Em realized. Against her better judgment, she leaned over and peeked inside.
Jess lay across the guest bed with her laptop open. There was no face on the screen – just a gray placeholder avatar – but she could make out a male voice addressing Jessica.
Jess giggled again, flopping onto her back like a cat waiting to have its belly rubbed. She was already down to her bra and underwear. The man then murmured something else. Jess sat back up. "Sorry," she replied in a breezy, ditzy voice that was not her own. "How's this?"
She knelt in front of the laptop. In a slow, sensual gesture she reached around and unhooked her bra, then slipped it down her arms and dropped it to the bedspread. Emily's angle shielded her from a full view, but she could see Jess lick the tips of her first two fingers and then rub them in slow circles presumably around her nipples. As she did so, she moaned lightly and gyrated her hips against the bed.
I should leave her alone. Emily took a small step back, but her eyes were still fixed on her best friend. Jessica ran her hands down her stomach, then caressed the inside of her thighs. A low, sexy growl emerged from deep in her throat as she teased her anonymous client.
Emily felt a surge of emotion course through her. This cowardly fuck didn't deserve Jessica. No man did. Her hands involuntarily balled into fists, her nails chewing the flesh of her palms. She bit her lip.
At one point Jessica tossed her hair over her shoulder. For the moment her head was turned her eyes locked briefly with Emily's.
Emily stumbled back from the door. Not sure what else to do, she fled.
