Some time later, after finally dragging yourself through a shower, you're back on the couch and you find yourself staring at a red loading screen. You don't really care enough to back track to find the last documentary that you remember watching, so you just restart episode forty-something from the beginning. When you took a look at your email this morning, Netflix had alerted you to the fact that a new episode was up and ready to watch. Which was nice, because you knew you were catching up to the end of the series but it also made you wonder what in the hell you're doing with your time that some robot thinks it needs to let you know that you that you should run back to the television ASAP. Which gets you thinking some more, because that robot really didn't need to waste its time on you because you've become a permanent fixture in front of the TV. Christ almighty, why are you wasting so much time doing nothing? No. No, no, you're recovering. That's what you're doing. Not a waste, you convince yourself, you are not wasting anything. You focus back on the show and find out that your internal debate wasted up the intro, and you're right in the middle of the badly constructed "historically accurate" recount of some true story that you've never heard of before.
After this morning's events, you find yourself even more anxious than normal in your wait for Sam to get back home, because you think that maybe you should talk about how the morning went to shit. You know that you should be talking more about, well, everything, but you can never figure out how to start. Or even how to prompt Sam to maybe start for you. There's also the fact that you would rather not talk about anything to begin with. That doesn't seem healthy. You assume that that's what people mean when they talk about bottling stuff up. Though you've not noticed Sam trying to bring anything up herself, with the exception of comforting you, but that isn't really a conversation you figure. Your fuck up with the knife might be a starting point. Faux kitchen threats used to be common, but never before have you held a knife at Sam in quite that manner, and never before has she frozen quite the way she did the moment you had that knife up. You drift off into thought, memorizing some specific topics to bring up.
You've been twitching and bouncing nervously since you started down this line of thought, and when you suddenly notice, you look down and your goddamn hand is at your goddamn stomach again. "What the hell is the deal with this unconscious obsession with my wound?" is now one of the topics at the top of your list. This is going to be good for you. You're gonna get some of this out and it's going to be good for Sam because it's going to do the same for her. You glance down at your hands, which are now a safe distance from the hole in your side. Satisfied with your list and satisfied with your hands you decide to go back to doculand. Episode forty-something is near it's end, which isn't a big deal because not only did you figure some stuff out, you also can rewatch it whenever you want. The credits roll, and as they do, you contemplate getting up for a snack or a drink. Not worth it, you decide and look up just in time to see the countdown to episode forty-six. Good timing. You have an idea of where you need to start rewatching now. As always, you slightly zone out while the opening plays, because with the exception of a few cuts of different footage it's the same thing every time and apparently that's the point where your brain numbs up out of apathy. But then something flashes on the screen that you swear you've seen before, or something vaguely similar at the very least. And then another clip does the same. You will your brain to go to work a minute or so before it's been conditioned to and it does so just as the title card flashes on the screen. Under the name of this atrocious series, the episode number and title are listed and everything on the screen blurs except for the word "YAMATAI". You're still listening to the narrator though, and after you hear his introduction to the replication of the true events that occurred on an island thought to be non-existent, your right hand reaches for your side while your left flies to the remote to smash at the power button.
After you take a few seconds to regulate your breathing, you sit in the now silent room wondering what the hell you just saw. Neither Jonah nor Reyes would have okayed anything like that, and Sam, even though you show no interest, always runs anything related to media by you before she makes any commitments. As your brain rapidly fires through situations, you reach back to the remote to get the TV going again because you have to make sure you didn't just imagine that. When you hit play you hear the name of the ship, the names of your friends, and your own name. Your free hand makes it's way under the paisley and starts scratching at the bloody bits of the sofa. When you notice, you retract your hand as if you've just touched burning coals and hiss out expletives. The show is quieted again and the remote is dropped. When you look down, you see that your hands are covered in blood, you feel pain radiating from the area where the stitches that you've currently forgotten about are, and the fucking sofa, the fucking sofa has blood all over it and you have to get rid of it. You need to do something about it, but you need to clean yourself up first.
By the time you realize that the bandage that you somehow got a hold of and wrapped around your middle is absolutely pointless, your hands are red and wrinkled from being under hot water for the past ten minutes. The water is still running as your wet hands pull at the bandage and then your shirt, under which the wound you swear was just open and festering is now stitched up and partially healed. You drop the bandage when you realize it's wet from water, and not blood. The water pouring from the faucet is finally stopped, and you look up from the sink, meeting your own eyes in the mirror. Your reflection looks as lost and bewildered as you feel. Not wanting to look at that, you decide to go look at something else that you'd prefer to avert your eyes from as well. But you find yourself ripping that godforsaken blanket from the sofa anyway. And yeah, there's blood soaked into the cushions, not as much as you thought there was, but it's still there and it needs to leave. You start to enact the first plan that you come up with immediately.
When Sam arrives home a few hours later, you don't hear her ritually loud entrance. You don't hear her calling your name from the living room. You don't hear her calling your name from the laundry room, more urgently this time. You don't even hear when she enters your room behind you, where you've been sat in front of your laptop since what Sam just witnessed had occurred. "Lara?" You think you've heard something but, against your better judgement, you ignore it and keep scrolling through the thousands of results that Google has provided you after you typed a single word and then clicked search.
Sam is still standing behind you, a few steps away, trying to see what's on your screen over your shoulder. She takes a step forward and when you still don't react, she tries your name one more time. For some reason, the tone of it catches your attention and you finally turn in your chair to face her. You're genuinely confused and ask her how long she's been home for. She doesn't say anything for a moment, and instead leans sideways so she can finally see past you to your screen. When she sees all the open tabs, and what's displayed on all of them, she softens completely. "Oh, Lara." Now that she knows you're aware of her she wastes no time in coming to your side and dropping down to meet you at eye level. "Lara, what happened?"
And it's not completely that you don't want to talk about it, it's more that you're still so obsessed with your plan (which you've realized is terrible, but that's not relevant right now) that you need to finish with it before you can do anything else. Ignoring her question, you reply by inquiring about what colour she'd prefer. She says she doesn't care but you know better than that and you talk over whatever it is that she's trying to say to you and ask again. This time she doesn't lie to you, but instead stays silent and slowly closes your laptop, sending all the sofas you had bookmarked to sleep. You turn back to open it again, but her hand snaps up on top of the lid, and then on top of your hand, which she slowly pulls down so she can hold it with your other one. Your eyes follow your hand and when they see her hands holding yours, you look up to her face. "Lara?" It's more of a question than an actual statement of your name and you pull your bottom lip between your teeth and nod at her. "Can you come out the room with me?" You answer in the affirmative, though barely loud enough to be heard, and she stands up and tugs lightly on your hands. You take the cue and follow her, away from virtual sofas, and back to your own. Which now probably looks like the scene of a crime to not only you.
Sam still doesn't straight up ask you anything specific. She simply keeps hold of one of your hands and looks around the area. "Will you tell me what happened?" You would, if you had any semblance of a logical explanation for the bottles thrown around in a desperate attempt to find a container of bleach. If you had an explanation for the discarded bottle laying open on the ground. And you would definitely tell her if you had an explanation for the contents of said bottle being splashed all over your stain, and as a result of your frenzy, haphazardly all over the rest of the sofa as well as the carpet surrounding it. But you don't, so you just pull your hand free and sit down on the least bleached bit of it. "It had a bloodstain," is all that you state. She sits beside you, where the bleach is still probably wet, and probably ruins her pants.
"Yeah, it did. But it did last night, and this morning as well." She follows your gaze around as you try to avoid hers.
For whatever reason, it made sense at the time. You try to think back and figure out what made you think this was the brilliant solution to… something that wasn't really a problem? Why did you suddenly freak out about it? "I was covered in blood." You try to help her understand.
That prompts her to look down to your side, which is currently free of any sort of stain. She's confused, you can see it in her eyes. "Sweetie, it was an accident. You can't- well, I don't actually know what you were trying to accomplish here, but you can't dwell on it. You popped your stitches, it happens to people all the time, and I still don't understand why you didn't call me, but you didn't have to do, um, this?" The sentence turns into a question because she still doesn't get it, and is gently trying to push you to explain.
The worst part is that you don't get it either, so instead of even attempting an explanation, you start to tell her about how you measured the spot you wrecked on the carpet, and how if you rearrange a bit, most of the sofas that you thought she'd like would probably cover the mess. You also tell her that you could just replace the carpet too, that wouldn't be a big problem, you keep getting money for all these interviews that she's been dealing with for you, (which you suddenly realize is something that seems very, very wrong) that you could very much afford to replace it if that was better. You could even fully redecorate at that point, if she wanted to, and you'd let her pick everything out and she could match the rug to the sofa and all of a sudden you hear your name. Your name, which she's been saying repeatedly to try and get your attention since you began rambling about carpets and sofas. The ramble comes to a full stop the first time you actually fully register her saying it.
She has that look on her face again, the one from that punches you in the gut for some reason that you can't explain, and you still don't know what it means. "Breathe. Slow down, sweetie. Take a breath." You do. "Okay. I'm going to go order a pizza, and then do you think we can maybe talk about this room as it currently is, and not as it might be in the future?"
Once again, the look and her tone breaks you a bit and your head drops to your hands and the apologetic mantra is back. "I'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry, Sam. I'm sorry. I don't know what I was doing, again." She doesn't pick up on the fact that you said "again", or if she does, she ignores it. You're grateful for that because you didn't mean for that to slip out and right now is probably the worst time explain that you kind of but not really intentionally ripped out your stitches, although you didn't know you were doing it. "I fucked up again. I don't- I'm sorry-"
She cuts you off at that fourth sorry, makes you promise to stop saying it, and as a precaution, lifts the hem of your shirt to check your side before she gets up to find a pizza menu. You don't know what the hell you're going to tell her, and you don't know what you should talk about. You've not only forgotten everything you put on your mental list earlier today, you've completely forgotten that you even had a list. You figure that you'll just go along with whatever she wants, even if you have to make some stuff up. As you hear her dialling, you search for the remote, mindless distraction a welcome idea. When you find it, you press the power button and your thumb automatically goes to the rectangular Netflix button near the bottom. Just as the welcome screen finishes loading, it goes back to what you were watching, as you never properly turned it off. Within seconds, Sam walks back into the room and the estimated pizza arrival time dies on her tongue as she processes what has just finished buffering on the screen.
"What the fuck is this?"
Ah. Yes. That's right.
Your beloved, trashy, unlicensed documentary series.
The forty-sixth episode of it, to be perfectly exact.
You let it keep running in the background as you lean back in your spot, trying to catch Sam's attention over the back of the sofa. Looking at her upside down, you keep watching her, waiting for her to look down at you. Now that you remember this rubbish, you think you might be able to explain everything slightly better.
However, despite your best efforts to get an explanation going, it doesn't ever happen. Sam's been pacing around the room dialling phone numbers and yelling at the poor souls who've answered ever since she snatched the remote out of your hand to get more info on who created the documentary series. You figure you might as well let her go at it, since you already took your turn to lose your shit earlier today. You're not really sure what to do while she's climbing phone trees, yelling louder the closer she gets to the top of each. The room around you is in a bit of a mess, which is not new information, but you take some time to get a proper look at what you've done. It's actually not so bad from where you're sitting, so you get up and back up a few steps to take in the entire scene. You start by looking to your left, where the bleach bottle is laying on its side. The carpet under the mouth of it is deeply bleached from where small amounts of liquid are still dripping. You sweep right a tad and you're looking at the sofa. Maybe you can pass it off as some sort of tie-dyed look. It's splattered with bleached spots, obviously, but there are also bits where the bleach didn't touch it. And some bits where you completely missed the blood. Plus some spots where the bleach didn't completely remove your blood, and a few where it just made the blood go a funny colour. Yeah, no. You'll just buy a new one, but in a calm, sane manner. You pan to the right again and Mr. Clean is staring up at you from the floor, along with various other mascots. You didn't even know you had so many cleaning supplies, but seeing most of them scattered in a pattern leading from the laundry makes them easier to count. You occupy yourself by counting them and you only hit twelve before you're interrupted by the doorbell.
The pizza. While you were waiting for Sam to settle down, you completely forgot about the pizza. Your memory seems to be a bit dodgy lately, but that's something for another time (if you remember it). You consider just grabbing a few bills and sliding them out through the doorframe but you don't know where your wallet is, and when you motion at Sam to catch her attention, she digs out a credit card and tosses it at you, all without removing her phone from her ear. Before you open the door, you take a quick glance behind you and silently bless whoever designed your flat, because you can't really see much inside of the house from the door. You swing the door open and the pizza guy is suddenly treated to the sweet, sweet sound of one side of a heated argument. He does a good job hiding whatever he's thinking as he takes the card from your hand to swipe it in his portable debit machine. As you punch in numbers, you notice him looking behind you at the few detergent bottles visible from his vantage point. Halfway through the transaction you notice for the first time that you yourself are also lightly splattered with bleach. Okay, maybe you can convince people the hoodie is meant to be pebbled. When Sam lets out a long string of rather rude words, Pizza Guy starts looking up and around at the sky. You "accidentally" cancel the transaction before it can finish processing, apologize for blunder, and then leave a much more generous tip than you had initially inputted. After he leaves, you patiently wait behind Sam until she finishes the call that she's currently occupied with. When she does, you gently pry the phone from her hand.
The fact that Sam pretty easily figured out what set you off coupled with the avoidance that you've both seemed to have agreed to has led to you not really having to do much explaining after all. The two of you are now sitting together on the couch, in front of a blank TV and a cold pizza. Sam's voice is a little raw from her numerous phone calls, and the ass of her pants is indeed ruined. She's curled into your side and her fists are clenched in your spotted hoodie. You're sitting in what was your bloodstain, which, for some reason, isn't bothering you at the moment. Despite the situation, cuddling with Sam on the couch is making things feel relatively normal. Of course, you've got a ton of thoughts running through your head and when you look at her, you can tell that Sam does too.
Turns out you were both thinking the same thing as the word "I'm" comes out of her mouth a second before it does yours. You follow up by echoing the "sorry" that follows. You look down at her, and she pulls away from you in order to meet your gaze. You don't understand what she's apologizing for, and by the look she's giving you, you figure she's thinking the same thing.
She stays silent as you start to speak, but instead of addressing the twin sorries, you go back to the morning. "Sam? I was thinking a little during breakfast this morning," You pause to try and find better words. You don't, and end up telling her what you told yourself. "I think that maybe. Uh, well, maybe we might be a little more. Maybe a little," you suck in a breath and finish the sentence in a jittery slur, "morefuckedupthanwe'readmitting." She had dropped back down against you while you struggled with what needed to be said, but now she's looking up at you with that expression that you couldn't decipher before. You think you have an idea now.
Her face doesn't change as she reaches up and boops your nose. "Yup."
there's a degree of difficulty in dealing with me, from my haunted past comes a daunting task of living through memories
Ah, delicious denial, a lovely double dose of knowing and unknowing.
Unrelated note: My soundtrack while writing, for no related reason has been the playlist Do It Better by ann.i.e on 8tracks. Go check it out. For one that I've been binge listening to that is a little more related, try See the Sun by shadocoon.
Look forward to: The Conversation