Another sleepless night. A week had passed since the night Jesse broke into the kitchen, but not much had changed since then. Charlie left for work, and Jesse spent the day holed up in the house, avoiding the outside world, the curtains pulled tight to ward off any sunlight that dared to sneak its way in. She left early and came back late, usually with take out in hand. She tried her best to make small talk and when Jesse didn't reply she just continued talking, not bothering to wait for a reply.
Most nights, he cleared the dishes while Charlie changed out of her work clothes an striped off her makeup, transforming back to the girl he fell in love with when he was seventeen. They watched movies or TV until Charlie got tired, and Jesse played along, going to bed when she did, but not actually sleeping until she left for work the next morning.
He heard Charlie rinse out her coffee cup and slowly made his way to the bathroom. As he suspected a few days after arriving, new Charlie was medicated; there was a stock of the little brownish-yellow prescriptions in her medicine cabinet. Zoloft and Xanax and Ambien and a couple other long tedious names he couldn't decipher. On particularly sleepless nights, he stole a Xanax and an Ambien and slept most of the day away.
Today was a day that Jesse wanted to sleep away. Last night, every time he closed his eyes he saw Andrea. He stared at his reflection in the bathroom mirror: bloodshot eyes, scars still slowing healing, and a scraggly beard. Jesse didn't know the person staring back at him; he closed his eyes tightly, rubbing his hands over his face to prevent punching the mirror and shattering it.
He ran his hands over his face, took a deep breath, and opened the mirror. Instead of the friendly, translucent brown bottles, Jesse found a bright green post-it note: "We're sorry, the medication you seek is currently out of stock. If you'd like to refill this prescription...GET YOUR OWN."
"Dammit." Jesse thought, closing the mirror and resting his head against it.
"If you want drugs," Charlie said, "then go to the therapist like I've been telling you to." She obviously had deviated from her normal work routine once she realized Jesse was pilfering from her supply. She was leaning in the doorway, her arms crossed and staring straight at him.
"I don't need therapy."
"Right, that's why you can't sleep. Because you're perfectly fine."
"If you're so big on therapy, you fucking go!" Jesse yelled back, gripping the sides of the sink tightly. Feeling the anger building in his chest, he squeezed his eyes shut to steady himself.
"I do go, dumbass!" Charlie hissed back, dropping her arms to her sides and balling her fists, her neck stretched out towards him aggressively.
"Can you just drop it, ok, just this once just...just drop it."
Jesse could practically see the steam billowing from Charlie's ear as she thought of what to say next. "Fine," she said in a tone that revealed it was not fine, "but you need to get out of this house, you won't even leave the back porch."
"Yeah, and where am I supposed to go, huh?"
"Get a job."
"A job," Jesse scoffed. "Yeah, ok. I'll get a job."
"It's part of your probation and I know a guy-"
"-of course you do," Jesse interjected rolling his eyes, and slumping against the wall.
"-I know a guy that will give you a job."
"Doin' what?"
"He owns a hardware store, you'll probably stock shelves-"
"Ha! A hardware store, perfect," he replied leaning forward to stretch.
"How much trouble can you get in at a hardware store."
Jesse got up and walked over to where Charlie was standing; she wavered slightly, backing up a step. "The first time I cooked meth with Mr. White," he said, his face barely an inch from hers, "we got all our supplies at a hardware store."
The color drained out of Charlie's face at mention of Mr. White, but she recovered quickly. "Good, then you'll know what to look for. You can tip off the DEA. Get your probation reduced-"
"I'm not a snitch," Jesse said with disgust. "I can get my own job, on my own, without any help." Jesse continued, brushing past Charlie and to his room.
"Good luck," Charlie said, walking down the stairs. "I hear there's really great market for high school graduates, with no work history, saving in illicit drug trades."
It was her fault, it was all her fault. Charlie pushed him when he obviously wasn't ready, but she hoped having something to do every day would help him sleep at night. Maybe a job would give him something to focus on (and a reason to leave the house) and curb his nightmares.
But she'd obviously been wrong. Jeff, who volunteers at the community center with Charlie, hooked Jesse up with a job at his hardware store. Today was Jesse's first day, and three hours after his shift started, Charlie unceremoniously excused herself from a meeting, peeled out of the parking lot, and blew five red lights on her way to the store.
"Aisle six," Jeff said, pointing her towards where she assumed Jesse was. "You got here fast-"
"Thanks," she replied, cutting him off and nearly falling on her ass as her feet flew across the worn store floor tiles. After skidding to a cartoon-like stop just past six, Charlie backpedaled and found Jesse, curled in a ball, hands clasped around his head, bulging eyes staring ahead as he rocked back and forth nervously. His pricing gun had been dropped haphazardly to the floor, tape spooling out from the barrel.
"Jesse?" Charlie said tentatively, taking a step closer. Jesse said nothing, and didn't look up.
"Jess?" she repeated, a few inches from him at that point. Bending down, Charlie placed a hand hesitantly on Jesse's shoulder. Jesse froze, then shook his head violently and shrugged her hand off of his body.
Charlie retreated across the aisle, sighing as she slid down to the floor, knees tucked up to her chest. "I'm here when you want to talk, Pinky," she said quietly.
"Mom, look, I just can't tonight...work, I told you I have to work...maybe tomorrow, ok? ...I gotta go." Charlie kept glancing nervously over at Jesse as she drove, but Jesse kept staring ahead, unphased by her concern. Three and half hours after Marie Schrader walked into the hardware store, Charlie managed to convince Jesse to get up off the floor, and carted him off to a therapist (who like everyone else, seemed to "owe her a favor"). He'd sent Jesse home with a bottle full of pills (well, he gave those to Charlie) and set up another appointment for next week, one Jesse knew he had no choice but to keep since it immediately followed Charlie's appointment with the doctor.
At least if his probation officer showed up, he had a doctor's note to explain the stolen prescription medications still working their way out of his body.
"My husband's body spent months in the dessert covered by sand, and here you are...working in aisle six of the hardware store." Not even the pills could banish Marie's only words to him, or the look on her face when she recognized Jesse. They didn't upset him, exactly, but the words echoed around his head over and over again as he blankly stared out the window. He vaguely recognized this feeling: he was too drugged up to care.
As his forehead slid against the cool glass of the passenger side window, he wondered, based on the cache of pills in the bathroom, if this was how Charlie felt all the time. Here, but not really. Alive, but not living. Awake, but absentminded. The sun was setting, and as they drove past the main strip in town, the store front lights became more vivid, and blurred in front of his eyes.
"So...Chinese?" Charlie asked, loudly, forcing Jesse out of his stupor.
"Huh?" he replied, shaking his head slightly to banish the neon colors invading his vision.
"Dinner," Charlie said, waving her hand at him and pulling into the parking lot of their favorite Chinese restaurant. "I don't feel like cooking; you up for Chinese?"
"Chinese, yeah, sure," Jesse agreed flatly, "Chinese."