who i am.
The blood drips in twos, tiny but splashing nonetheless, covering her cream tiles with blots of red.
Yuri mutters an obscenity and grabs toilet paper, putting it under her nose.
“Why do you have only one jar of Nutella? That’s not nearly enough for-The hell happened to you?”
Yuri’s fingers feel the warm liquid permeating through and she moves down the roll of toilet paper to stuff more under her nose.
“Nose bleed.”
“You’re not even-here.” Tiffany grabs the crown of Yuri’s head and moves it forward from it’s tilted back position. “Now pinch below the bridge of your nose. Yea, like that. Hold it.” She looks at her watch to make sure Yuri does it for ten minutes.
They don’t speak for half of the ten minutes, Tiffany leaning against the sliding door of the shower stall and Yuri on the toilet, with wads of bloody toilet paper in her lap.
“You’re not going to ask me why I got the nosebleed?” Yuri inquires nasally, mouth smirking because all of this was a great, big joke.
Their eyes meet and it’s a conversation in itself, though Tiffany’s not sure Yuri’s listening. When Yuri looks down moments after, slumping shamefully, Tiffany remains stoic. She knows her drugs, and she knows nosebleeds are only one of many symptoms of coke abuse. Symptoms she would have spotted long ago.
Tiffany hates this position as the responsible adult; it was always the other way around. But like all things Tiffany was faced with, she did them in stride. She wet some clean toilet paper and wiped up the already dried blood on the floor.
“Your girlfriend should be doing this.”
“Well the position is open.”
The floor is spotless once more.
“I’m not qualified.”
“Nah, I’m sure Jessica would write you a glowing letter of recommendation. I mean, you guys have had, what, at least six relationships? And she keeps coming back for more.”
Tiffany would’ve hit her if it were anyone else. Besides, Tiffany knew of much better ways to cause some pain.
“At least she comes back.”
“Crawling on her knees if you wanted to, probably. You still into that?”
It isn’t the words that stun Tiffany because guys have said things to her even hardcore porn stars would blush at; it’s who’s saying them. This was Yuri; wide-eyed Yuri meeting her on the bleachers because Tiffany did filthy things behind them and Yuri deserved better. Yuri who would pick her up when she was too high or drunk and drive with one hand on the handle bar because the other was secured around her arm.
That might’ve been another person altogether and for the first time, despite the wreckage of the past two years, it’s only now that Yuri looks too much like someone from Tiffany’s past and no one from her future.
Forgiveness did not come simply to Tiffany. She held grudges. She burned vengeance until the smoke smothered any love, no matter how strong.
Tiffany takes Yuri’s face gently, her smile sinister and Yuri wants to cry because she’s seen every one of Tiffany’s smiles. Or so she thought.
“You keep burning them bridges, baby.”
There were no slamming doors or angry stomping Tiffany was known for in her fits of anger. Instead, Yuri had to accustom herself to what she’d been hating for months and was desperately trying to relieve-the emptiness of her mind and the hollow beat of her heart that ricocheted through it.
*
That night Yuri awoke three times. The first was when a guy and girl she’d hang out with at clubs started arguing. The second had her coughing and subsequently vomiting all over her pillows. The third was nauseating and harsh, violent shakes jolting her to a jarring and unnecessary consciousness.
“I’m so sorry, Tiffany. I didn’t mean it, I’m so sorry. So sorry.”
Hands pulled her up though her body struggled to comply. Feet and shoulders heavy, she manages to get to the bathroom, falling only once.
“It’s not Tiffany. Just stay still.”
Fabric is pulled from her. A shirt across her face and over her head, leaving the remnants of her own sick on her nose and forehead. Jeans getting tugged and tugged under her ass and from her ankles.
“Can you get into the shower?”
Yuri crawls forward before crashing, tiles cooling her and keeping the nausea at bay. It’s the last time she’ll drink, the last time.
There’s tugging again, her arm practically being pulled from her shoulder and it’d hurt if she wasn’t so drunk. Everything always ends up hurting later though.
She gets propped up, forehead lolling against the wall and when the water hits her she yelps at the cold. For a second her body is sober but her mind can’t catch up and sends her back into intoxication. The water helps, cold and merciless, her numbed drunken state depleting into shivers and dry heaving.
Her body trembles for what feels like forever. She gets dried with the rough edges of a towel and is transported to bed after countless tripping and spinning rooms.
Then it gets quiet and she cries in fear, unsure of the cause but visceral to her bones that had not yet stopped trembling.
“Please stay. Don’t leave me alone, don’t go.”
The warmth of a body steadies her, brings the furious storm to a cloudy overcast-still gray, but calmer. She sleeps in handfuls of minutes, waking from nightmares that had no plot or setting, only gruesome feelings, and falling back asleep in hopes of a clearer, better reality.
*
Unfamiliar wafts of food stir Yuri from the messy sleeping she had been doing the whole night. Food that smells nutritious and warm, not the gas station sandwiches and high sugar coffees she passes as breakfast. Although her body is worn from the vomiting and it’s possible her stomach might not keep the food down, it succumbs to the thought of a hot meal and energy.
The apartment was fairly new, and so was the kitchen, but Yuri had an entire reel of memories just like the one now when she stepped out of the bedroom. Tiffany was sitting on the countertop, brown hair back in a ponytail, glasses on and a tank top she must’ve pulled from Yuri’s drawer. She was reading a book Yuri would always assume was for school, or research or some upcoming experiment but sometimes it’d be the collection of poems Yuri gave to her once as a gift. The stovetop was a mess, of course, sink piled with dishes and pans but food was ready and bread was toasted and it’d be delicious.
Yuri quietly took a seat on the barstool in front of the full plate while Tiffany kept reading. Her legs would swing as she read, only stopping momentarily when she came across something that confused her but then resuming shortly after comprehension.
It felt nice. Yuri hadn’t had many glimpses of her past since her break with Yoona. Even before their breakup. Yuri wanted to keep it this way for as long as she could and so ate in silence. But the feelings didn’t last. As the seconds ticked by Yuri couldn’t just stack away the piles of problems she’d been having, the tension from their fight-yuri felt it all around her and it made her lose her appetite.
“Thanks for the food,” she mumbled, her voice horribly hoarse, like her bad decisions were finally catching up to it.
Tiffany finished her avocado half and threw the skin into the trashcan next to her.
“Also, thanks for coming back and helping me. What I said…I can’t tell you how sorry I am. I didn’t mean any of it.”
Tiffany slid off the counter. She pulled her glasses up, her bangs along with them, clearing her face from hair. She wasn’t wearing any makeup, looking too pretty for this early in the morning. “I didn’t come back last night.”
There was remoteness to Tiffany’s voice that broke Yuri’s heart. She had hurt Tiffany. She had hurt the one person Yuri had left.
*
Yuri finds her in the bathroom, just as she throws back some pills, chasing them down with water straight from the tap.
Nana’s gaze was a combination of hazed and sharp; who knew what counteracting drug cocktails she’d been taking to fuck up her brain signals.
It was impossible that this girl was who helped Yuri last night. This wasting human that couldn’t even take care of herself.
Who was she to judge, though?
“Were you at my apartment last night?”
Nana’s lips develop a lazy grin, eyes swimming off to whatever imaginary reality she concocted. Yuri looked away; it was starting to become painful seeing Nana in this state.
“Maybe. Why, were you dreaming of me?”
Maybe she did. Maybe whatever hell she went through last night was a consequence of her relationship with Nana.
“Oh Yuri, don’t give me that look. Like a wounded puppy.”
Yuri hardened; she fisted her hands and felt her jaw clench and click.
“You’re mistaken.” All at once her patience for Nana’s perpetual inebriation faded away somewhere, gone from her memory and she had no idea why she put up with it for so long. “Call me when you’re sober.”
Nana starts singing the song as Yuri heads out and one day it would’ve been charming, now it’s just sad.
*
Tiffany hadn’t admitted to helping Yuri because it was some form of punishment. She knew it was going to kill Yuri not knowing and not being able to return the offer or thank the person. That’s the kind of person Yuri was. Unfortunately.
The front door regains Tiffany’s attention and the person who walks in has Jessica’s stature and somewhat of her face but it’s not her.
“Who the hell are you?” Tiffany barks, like the person who had the key and was entering the apartment legally was the one who was misplaced here.
“Me? Who the hell are you? Jess, who is this bitch?”
From somewhere down the hall, Jessica’s voice replies.
“What? And language, Krys.”
“There’s some chick in here.”
Jessica appears, heaving out an annoyed sigh as she drops grocery bags in the apartment.
“You picked a bad time, Tiffany.”
But Tiffany isn’t listening. The unknown girl is staring at her in a way so eerily familiar…
“You never told me you had spawned a demon child.”
“Child? I’m her sister, you moron.” Krystal turns to Jessica. “You really need new friends.”
Most people would take the social cue to leave, but Krystal plops herself on the couch in front of them, like they were a circus act, there to entertain her. It gets Tiffany so angry, sister or not, she wants to boot Krystal back to whatever hole she crawled out from.
Jessica takes Tiffany by the arm to her room, though Tiffany’s anger doesn’t settle. It never does lately. It sits below the surface, making her so callous people whom she could fool with pretty smiles were starting to be aware of her awful attitude.
“Tell me honestly. Do your parents know they’ve been housing the anti-Christ?” Tiffany asks.
“I’ll talk to her about keeping the name calling to behind your back, sorry.”
“Thank you,” Tiffany exclaimed.
Jessica peeks to see if Krystal is paying attention. Krystal is scrolling through her phone but jessica closes the door until it’s almost shut just in case.
“Did you need something?”
“Your face,” Tiffany says morosely, truthfully.
Jessica cocks an eyebrow. “What?”
Tiffany rolls her eyes and turns away, biting at her tongue so hard it’ll hurt for the rest of the day.
“Your face, your mom; you suck at bad 90s comeback jokes.”
“Maybe because they’re bad.”
Tiffany walks to the windowsill and puts her forehead to the pane. “Yea, I never really got into them either.”
She doesn’t hear Jessica walk over to her, and almost jumps when she feels the girl’s hand on her back.
“I miss y-”
Tiffany moves away from jessica’s hand and her words, making her stomach twist.
“Don’t say that. Don’t say stupid things like that.”
Jessica keeps her hand midair, completely confused and a little hurt with how disgusted tiffany looks.
“Stupid? How is saying I miss you stupid?”
“Because what I am supposed to do with that?”
“You’re not supposed to do anything with it!” Jessica catches herself raising her voice and she lowers it, just as angry. “It’s how I feel, tiffany, I’m letting you know how I feel.”
One thing tiffany couldn’t shake was how she fed off other people. If someone was calm, there was a greater chance she would be too. But all tiffany can feel right now is how angry Jessica is and she doesn’t what to do with it but give it right back.
“That’s super and everything but I can’t change how you feel,” Tiffany says, mocking Jessica. It’s a step too far.
“Get out.”
This was all yuri’s fault. That idiot was ruining her own life and ruining tiffany’s in the process. And this argument could be settled so easily. So fucking easily. but offering an apology almost sounds as good as jumping into a pool of cow pies.
“just-” tiffany groans and pins Jessica to do the door, slamming it close. Jessica’s breathing hitches in surprise and tiffany kisses her. When Jessica flips them, tiffany’s back hits the door a little too hard and Jessica kisses the pained gasp from her.
“Jess, there’s a Friends marathon, let’s do that drinking game where we take a shot for every time Ross is a fuck boy!”
Tiffany pauses, their mouths still touching. “so is that where your bartending career began? With tv sitcom drinking games?”
Jessica smiles, practically melts like a damn idiot into tiffany, already forgetting their argument. “actually it started much younger, with cartoon drinking games.” She backs up a step, to give tiffany room she doesn’t want. The last thing tiffany wants is more space between them. “do you wanna join?”
“sure. You guys get a head start, we can’t all have the tolerance of a jung.”
Jessica eyes her for a moment, they should talk, because they always do this, and it solves nothing, but krystal yells for her again (“hurry up, I’m drunk already!”) and Jessica makes a mental note to talk about this at a later time.
It takes tiffany a minute to gather her head, her fingers pushing into her eye sockets to blur the thought of yuri. This was better. Jessica was better.
One more time.
Jessica was better.
Maybe she’d convince herself.
*