March 13, 2006
I Want Half
Alexis gripped tight onto her pillow. She tried to hold back a terrible coughing fit, but she lost the war. She looked up at the ceiling and decided to count leaping frogs to keep her liquids down. Throwing up was never her forte.
"I feel so terrible for you right now." Ric sympathized as he stepped out of the kitchen with a steaming bowl of chicken soup and placed it on her nightstand. The smell of the broth interrupted her need to count. How didn't he know she couldn't stand processed soups?
"Alexis, what possessed you to stay out in the rain?"
Alexis buried her face even deeper into the pillow worried that her delusional state of mind would cause her to slip.
"I just want you to stop talking and go away." She barely let the words fall from her mouth. Her voice breaking into a small whine like a child bidding for her mother.
"Why you gotta be so harsh?"
"Why are you still here?"
"I'm just trying to help."
"I'm on my deathbed. Let me die in peace Ric."
"You have the flu Alexis. You're not dying. What about a shot of Jack? That'll help."
Ric walked over to the bar and poured a shot of Jack Daniels. Alexis buried her body even further under the covers. He turned to hand her the glass, but found nothing but a covered lump of her figure bundled in the middle of the bed.
"Alexis meet Jack."
"Alexis and Jack can't be friends! Go away Ric!"
"Ok. Ok. I'll go. I love you My Dear."
"I love me too." She said finally finding some humor in her close to loopy state of mind.
Alexis caught her daydream with a crayon in her hand and coloring what should've been a purple dinosaur an angry shade of black. The knock at her door further breaks her from her mindless coloring spell. She answers to Sonny holding a single stemmed red rose.
"Am I dying?" She asks.
Sonny looks at her slightly confused. "Uh. No. I was just told that girls like flowers."
"I hate flowers. Like really hate them. I purposely don't give them water because I hate them. Diamonds are a girl's best friend."
"How did you know I stole this from someone's gravestone?"
"It was either that or Home Depot." She adds.
"Well I couldn't have you buying your own flowers. That's just not right."
Alexis takes her rose with a smile and lets Sonny in. She wonders to herself if she should break the mood with questions of Kevin's discovery.
"Are you planning to read Dante's Inferno?" She asks hoping to draw something from him.
"Nah. I hate that book. I told Brookie to get Cliff's Notes."
"She can't do that Sonny. She'll fail."
"No she won't. She's smart like her mother."
"I guess that's why you like her so much huh? Lois." Alexis inquires with a curious rise of her brow.
"Yea. Alexis, Lois and I aren't getting married."
"You're not? Did she reject you?"
"Well. I never proposed. People just misinterpreted. I just asked her out. How it came out that we were getting married, I don't know. I blame Brenda."
"It's usually easy to blame her huh?" Alexis nods.
"Yea. She's far."
Alexis laughs. "Do you remember when you caught me about to do Lorenzo?"
"Huh?" Sonny questions.
They practically ran down the doors of the elevator to reach their final destination. Alexis yanked Lorenzo towards her apartment, but he resisted her pull.
"No! Natasha! We're going in my apartment."
Lorenzo pulled her in the direction of his door, but she pulled back.
"We can't go in your apartment Lorenzo. What if Ric or Zander shows up?"
"Well which is worse? Ric or Zander? Or Ric or Zander or Sonny?"
"Sonny is not making a trip to the city. We're at odds at the moment."
Alexis noticed Lorenzo fidgeting like an impatient child.
"Natasha, just pick!"
The doors of the elevator started to open. Alexis immediately made a choice.
"Your apartment!" She exclaimed as they both rushed to get on the other side of Lorenzo's door.
Once inside, Lorenzo wasted no time to peel practically every inch of clothing from his body. Alexis found herself a bit taken aback by the haste of his actions.
"You're so anxious." She observed causing him to stop and take a deep breath.
"Sorry Natasha. I'm typically a romantic, but not today."
Alexis slapped her hand across his mouth and forced them both to listen. She recognized the voice outside the door knocking on her door across the hall.
"Oh my God. It's Sonny."
"Thought you said he wouldn't be coming to the city."
"Shut-up."
Alexis turned from Lorenzo and fixed her disheveled clothing. She opened the door to Sonny's shock to find her appear behind him. He smiled, but it quickly turned to confusion after Lorenzo inadvertently decided to stumble into the hall practically naked. Sonny pointed towards Lorenzo with hope that his hand gestures were enough to get some answers.
"Sonny. What are you doing here?" Alexis questioned him in between breaths in need of something to breathe in.
Sonny could barely speak so he chose to stare at Lorenzo attached to the doorframe.
"She's a tiger in the sack Lorenzo. Watch out for her." Sonny chuckled.
"Not necessary Sonny." Alexis admonished with arms crossed tightly.
Sonny mocked Alexis by rubbing his hands across his body and chanting in a Paulalike fashion. "You make me feel like the Amazon's running between my thighs."
"I'm going to bed." Lorenzo gave up on his chance slamming his door on the both of them.
Sonny straightened up with a laugh, looked at her for a quick minute, and walked back towards the elevator and pressed madly on the buttons.
"Sonny, are you going to tell Ric?"
"No. I don't care what happens to you and Ric. But if I can somehow make you look unfit, I can at least have half of Kristina."
"Half? Half? Sonny, you can't half a child."
"Half Alexis. I want half."
The elevator finally opened. Sonny stepped in and disappeared to her relief.
Alexis notices Sonny not completely sold on her switch of mood. "I'm sorry. I was just trying to lighten the conversation."
"I didn't realize it wasn't light."
"Did you seriously get this flower from a gravestone?"
"Well yea. Kind of. I went to visit my mother and I thought of you."
"So you decided to share her flowers. I'm flattered." Alexis gives him her signature dimpled smile.
"She didn't need all of them. I think she would have approved…of you…in some capacity."
"Well considering how much you adore you mother, I'm even more flattered."
Sonny flashes her a look of suspicion. "What do you want? You're being really nice to me."
Alexis almost asks her question begging to be answered, but she notices his eyes and the fading red from lack of sleep. She begins to forget how to even breech the subject. From the corner of her eye, she notices the blue bear made with care positioned on the couch and practically staring in her direction.
"I should go visit Ricky but I'm swamped and it's Viola's week off." She quickly remembers.
"I'll watch Kristina. But I can't try your cases." He offers to her with a weak smile.
Alexis starts to grab her coat. "I'll take you up on that. You should read…her…" She catches herself from finishing her sentence.
"A story? Which one? No word on Africa book?" He questions.
"No. Nothing on Africa book. Stefan's on it. I can always count on him."
"I don't understand Alexis. Why aren't you telling Ric you're pregnant?" Lorenzo asked in wonder the morning after they set up camp by the merry-go-round.
"I'm going to tell him. Just not right now. Like today. Maybe tomorrow. Or next week."
Lorenzo looked at his watch and sipped his coffee. "Don't wait too long. I'm not one to keep secrets and squeezing into your wardrobe has its limits."
"I've got what? Three months? Chill out."
"Just keep in mind that Ric is good friend of mine."
"And he's a friend of mine too, but I'm finding that we're not compatible. We both have egos that reach beyond the heavens so we always end up getting on each other's damn nerves."
"Did you get along with Sonny?"
"Yea. He listened me and I listened to him. He knew when to talk and he knew when to shut-up. Kind of like you." Alexis looked at Lorenzo intrigued.
"Stop flirting. I'm already taken Dear."
"Oh really? What's her name?" Alexis asked.
"Natasha." He stated boldly with a nervous smirk.
Alexis walks through the barely lit cemetery trying to squash harboring the superficial fears of death drawn from cheesy TBS flicks she finds herself watching at wee hours of night. She tries to visit him often, but she wondered if there'd come a time when she'll forget about him. She always left it up to Kevin to remind her that the little tyke existed even if it were only for a week.
There always had to be a crisis surrounding the birth of her children. But in this case she almost lost both of them, Kristina and Ricky; partially at the fault of Sonny. But she had to figure which she hated the most, Ric constantly blaming Sonny and making her privy to every confrontation or her own feelings of blame. She often chose to side with Sonny if only to prove Ric wrong and show she was capable of forgiveness unlike the both of them.
She squeezes tight onto the teddy bear from big sister to little angel brother and kneels down on the cold, wet ground near his headstone. There wasn't a ceremony; at least not one that she could remember attending. Ric did something in their son's honor, but she could barely move from her bed in intensive care, crippled by the combination of carrying the child in vain and further finding out that she had to cherish every moment that her life had left to offer. It was then that she got to know Natasha. It was then she started to understand why Lorenzo would never let her forget about that deeper, audacious part of her soul. She wouldn't have made it out of the hospital without her.
She never knows what to say to Ricky trying to keep in mind that he barely had the chance to open his eyes. But he did for her. They were the first and last words spoken from a son to his mother.
"Is it warm where you are Baby?" She looks around herself to make sure they are alone and her talking to the headstone isn't an unheard of activity in those parts
"I just wanna know what to pack when I come to live with you." She couldn't believe she said it. It was the first time she finally acknowledged her destiny delivered to her by a stiff, cold doctor in an equally stiff white coat. Natasha had told Alexis to keep it to herself and put it in the back of her mind.
Words from one human being to another meant nothing more than the paper they were written on. "The doctor is full of himself." Natasha said to Alexis like it was a broken record.
But things started to change when Ric's spirit crept by her bed at night and she could practically feel his hand touch her hair. Or Lorenzo's boyish laughter filled her ears when she woke up in the morning. She knew why they were there. She wasn't crazy. They were her angels promising to stay by her side until the end.
"Feeling Love" by Paula Cole