Fic: We’ll Never Sleep (God Knows We’ll Try) (1/5)
We’ll Never Sleep (God Knows We’ll Try)
Part One
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When she opens her eyes, she tries to focus, to see.
The day is bright, bold - the color of the sky washed out but sharp, sure, saturated against the fluff of white, the clouds that move too fast with the winds up the coast; a reminder of the core of things, the heart of them: neither fleeting nor flimsy, the inescapable bulk of just living, simply being.
Because the world, Juliet thinks, is heavy. It’s heavy by nature. It’s just the way things are.
But somehow, as she lives and breathes, the space between heartbeats where gravity means nothing and her entire being shucks off its weight; in that singular, sacred moment, the world is also lighter.
For the first time in weeks -- months, maybe -- she unfolds her sunglasses and balances the frames against the bridge of her nose; it doesn’t make any sense, she knows that, but for some reason, the universe - her universe -- seems brighter, freer. For once, the universe feels like it’s on her side.
She unscrews the cap on her Aquafina bottle with delicate, dizzy spins; resists the urge to call Rachel, just to hear the giddy joy that’ll be in her sister’s voice, just to let it seep deeper into her own skin, mingle with the butterflies in her stomach as she breathes, just breathes -- swallows lukewarm water like the nectar of the gods and keeps an eye out for Edmund as she tries to figure out just what he hopes to say.
And there’s a part of her -- the part that never went away -- that wants him to look at her and see what he’s missing when she tells him the news, tells him that her sister is pregnant because she was persistent, because she was patient.
Because she’s goddamn brilliant, and Edmund Burke was too much of an idiot to see what he had, to know what he’d lost.
She’s not delusional, though. She knows he’ll look at her, smile that dumbfounded, pinched sort of smile he always gives when anyone other than himself does something astounding, and ask when she plans to have an article drafted, detailing her findings. She’s not delusional; but she’s hopeful -- hopeful as she winds her hair around her knuckle with merry-go-round twists, like cotton candy on a stick, spun sweet and golden in the summer sun -- that time can turn backward and decisions can be remade and maybe, even if nothing can be fixed, Ed will look at her the way he used to, the way she remembers. Just once.
When he walks out of the facility, she’s on her feet in an instant, looking to intercept him before the door so much as closes behind him.
She has him in her sights when she hits something warm, solid, heavy -- when she’s stumbling backwards for lack of balance and catching herself on the heels of her palms as she hits the ground.
“Oh, god,” a voice comes from above her, and she has to squint to see more than a lean, clean-cut silhouette; her sunglasses are gone.
“I’m sorry,” says the man -- because it is a man, a brunette with strong features and sharp eyes and a deep, smooth voice that casts warmth even where his outline casts a shadow. He reaches down to help her up and she blinks at his hand for a moment before she lets him haul her to her feet, his grip strong against the skinned flesh where she’d skidded on the concrete. “Are you okay?”
She dusts herself off and cracks her neck. “I’m fine.”
“You’re sure?” he asks, running a frenzied hand over her shoulders as if touching could tell him the truth that she might be hiding; and maybe it does, because he seems to take her word for it when she smiles and nods for emphasis.
He pauses for a moment, seems to take her in from the neck up, and it’s a strange sensation, the intense scrutiny that’s over in a second, that’s broken, but resonates after it’s gone.
“Can I buy you a drink?” he asks, a little sudden, and with a quirk of the lips that betrays practice, routine -- a common line; the sparkle in his eyes, though, she knows is hard to fake. “Convince you not to sue?”
She laughs a little, not sure whether to be insulted or flattered. “No, thanks.” She lets the words fall, drop from her lips and shine like the sun behind her smile. “It’s fine.”
She walks away, and notices her Maui Jims on the ground a few feet from her. As she crouches to retrieve them, she sees Edmund approaching the crosswalk, cellphone curled against his palm, the mouthpiece angled away from his cheek -- she can tell by his body language that he’s talking to his mother.
She takes a deep breath and prepares to say what she’s come to say, to tell him, to see what he does - she’s hopeful, but not delusional. She can do this.
She slides her shades on and starts walking before she loses her nerve, relying on momentum to see her through to the finish; her sunglasses aren’t even scratched.
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She doesn’t know why she insists on staying for Edmund’s funeral or why it matters.
But she tells Mr. Alpert that she needs more time, needs to think about his offer, needs to grieve. For as adamant as he’d been, he’s surprisingly gracious -- tells her to take her time, but to keep in mind that the women she’d be helping need her skills, and that the longer she waits, the longer she leaves them to suffer. To die.
Of course, it’s not in so many words, but the basic gist is clear.
She’s wearing a black skirt that she swears still smells like the last wake she wore it to. She files past the family she’d once stood among, exchanging awkward pleasantries and condolences that sound tired and trite: I’m sorry this happened, I’m sorry for your loss, I’m sorry.
I’m sorry.
They’re all staring at her with red eyes -- though not as red as her own -- and she has to look away as she approaches the body, has to dab at the corners of her eyes and stare listlessly at the garden of flower arrangements blossoming behind her ex-grandmother-in-law’s hunched head. She scans the cards, recognizing a few names, a few institutions. A particularly bright, but tasteful spray of bleeding hearts, hyacinths and marigolds catches her eye and stirs her, at first, before it drops like lead in her stomach. She knows what flowers mean.
The card, she finds, only makes matters worse:
Deepest Condolences, Mittelos Bioscience
And her mind goes, without her consent, to the dark places -- remembers the jagged pieces and the missing shards, the blood and the bones at odd, unseemly counterpoints, and...
And she wished for this. Asked for it. Said it allowed without thinking, without knowing, without meaning; she’d said the words.
When she comes upon the casket, barely seeing the stiff pallor of the man she used to love, her lungs start to burn and her eyes start to sting and she knows she has to get out of there.
She did this.
She tries for the corner room with the pastries and the coffee -- typical comfort food for the masses in mourning -- but the cloying sweetness, the smell of cigar smoke that pervades is heady, blinding, and she has to retreat.
She’s alone on the terrace of the establishment, save for two elderly gentlemen she doesn’t recognize -- who look like Edmund’s mother, in the face -- and she breathes; just breathes like it’s the hardest thing, a shameful thing. She’s watching the sky like it has the answers, like it can whisper to her in the kind of sacred tongues that will make sense of everything, when nothing in her world makes any sense.
Her chest feels tight and constricted, like something bigger than her is pressing down. She brings a palm to her chest, but can’t make out the individual beats in the flutter of her heart, and she feels dizzy for a dangerous second, leans against the siding of the building and fans herself a bit, tries to come back down and steady herself, but the innocent shadows of her sinful hands blocking the sun, casting the dark; she sighs, feels the air press hard at the hollow of her throat, the exhale strangling for one blissful, fleeting moment where she gets to dream, gets to drown. And the coastal air, it’s sweet -- and it turns her stomach, prickles behind her eyelids, and she can feel her heartbeat in her temples as she staves off tears that she doesn’t understand; that taste like salt and heat and guilt on her tongue without ever falling; never falling.
She turns, stares, sees the people through the windows: the fixed frowns that aren’t quite frowns -- the ones who laugh with misty eyes as they recall something silly, something stupid, so stupid, about Ed when he’d been young. When laughter had mattered.
She swallows hard, can’t get past the way her throat tightens, closes, chokes; her hands are gripped around her keys before she’s leaving, and all she can think -- beyond all the things she cannot think -- is that she didn’t sign the guestbook when she first walked in.
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She doesn’t pay any mind to where she’s going, where her feet are taking her; her mind is elsewhere, and she can’t afford to dwell, doesn’t have the will to bring it back to the here and now just yet. She doesn’t spare much attention to the dull roar behind her thoughts as she walks into the bar. It’s a small, crowded establishment that she’d had to enter on more than one occasion to drag Ed home on a Sunday night, lest a hangover keep him from work in the morning.
The air she breathes tastes acrid, acidic, and it burns her already-raw throat, making it hard to order her tequila -- something cheap and dirty that sears the feeling away on the first shot and stings with each successive drop, saturating her slowly to the point of incapacity, of implosion; again, again until she drowns.
The neon glow of vintage bar signs -- only half of the brews in lights matching those on tap -- and it figures, she thinks bitterly, picking at her cuticles as she waits for her drink: life’s a whole fucking sequence of pretty packaging and false advertising.
She leans against the counter. The angle is awkward and unpleasant; the edge digs into her chest as she slouches, shivers, pinching her skin when she reaches across the bar and motions for more -- and even as she can only smell bar sugar and the sharp scent of fruit wafting from the line of vodkas at the wall beyond, she catches the stale stench, the formaldehyde in the beer on tap, and she smells cedar, pine; something old in the peeling, aged wood her toes push against -- she inhales it, can’t expel it, and it rolls in her stomach like a tidal wave, angry and quick, and she thinks she might vomit then and there, so she takes the glass and tips it against her lips with a quick flick of her wrist, lets the agony swirl in her head, down her esophagus instead.
She coughs like a lightweight as she swallows bile down quick, slumps again into the stool, legs spread and askew, and she’s dizzy, angry -- everything hurts, and she just wants to go home, go home and wake up where nothing is different, and the world makes fucking sense.
She doesn’t know how long the man at her side -- tall, strong, dark, and handsome enough, she suspects, even without the greasing of the booze -- watches her without her notice; she only pays him any mind when he decides to lean in close enough that she brushes elbows with him when she lifts her glass. She only gives him a second glance when he speaks, apparently to her.
“You’ll forgive me for saying you look a little worse for wear,” he says with a soft smile, and for all she can’t see straight, for all she should know better, she thinks she reads concern in his eyes, like he might care just a little that she’s alone and toppling over her own shoes.
“You should probably slow down,” he says, and Juliet can smell the alcohol on him, too - whiskey, and it’s old, strong. Her eyes feel strained, bloodshot; a Pixies song is playing in the background, and she’s only just holding back tears.
Slowing down’s the last thing she needs.
So she orders them both another, and he shuts the fuck up until the words coming out of his mouth make less sense, and mean more.
“Do you ever just,” and his eyes glaze so that the red fluorescents in the Budweiser sign shine opaque in his eyes, clears as he blinks, nothing to do with the glass in his hands. The way his chest expands against the soft silk of his shirt steals the air that clings to the corners of the room, makes it hard to breathe, to be. “Do you ever think about your life,” he pauses, lifts the lip of his scotch to his mouth, swallows with a shudder of his Adam’s apple, like it’s just as uncertain, just as uneasy as the stutter in his voice; “and just say... this isn’t it?”
His lips shine with the burn of ice and alcohol, slick against the skin, and she thinks about lying, thinks better of it.
“Every single day.”
He downs what’s left of his drink, and there’s a pact there, a solidarity, so she does the same. “Another round,” he murmurs like it’s an affirmation, like has meaning -- his hair dangling in front of his face as he gestures to the both of them; his vowels slurring, though she’s shocked she can still tell.
They stay until last call -- by which point neither of them are talking much, their tongues too loose and their lips too stung; she lets secondhand nicotine smooth down the frays of her nerves as she slowly wanders out of the bar, the man’s hand at her waist -- for direction and balance. She never asked his name, she realizes through a fog, and she kind of wants to, except she doesn’t; it’s a bit late for that, now.
“You can go,” she says suddenly -- doesn’t expect the words when they tumble from her mouth -- and it takes too long, the syllables heavy against her lazy tongue; “Thanks for, for...” she drawls, points, gestures, flails; breathes. “That.”
“Hey,” he murmurs, almost hums, his hand darting out to catch her arm as she turns -- only she isn’t turning, just... moving, because everything is tilting and spinning, and it feels right to be swept along with the momentum of it all, the surge before the fall. “You’re headed in my direction,” he breathes, slow, like it’s a chore. “Let me walk with you.” She doesn’t look at him, doesn’t acknowledge the offer for what it is, what it might be.
“World’s a harsh kinda place,” he adds, not all there, eyes far away; “no reason not to help each other on the way.”
She looks at him, eyes glazed and the light brutal, piercing as it hits his features, casts them in relief; kissing him seems like a wonderful idea, and it hurts to contemplate it longer than for that perfect, swelling instant, so she doesn’t think. Only wants.
He’s too far gone to stop her, she can tell when the streetlamp glows against his pupils and there’s a weight in the pit of her stomach that tells her they’re both beyond the point of saying no.
The danger in that, though, doesn’t register -- the moonlight waxes, and it’s less that she doesn’t think, so much that now she simply can’t.
So she simply leans, careful to keep her balance, and tastes instead.
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She barely sees the route they take, barely notices when it veers off path toward places unknown -- doesn’t remember that this stranger had absolutely no idea where she lives. She can’t smell past the smoke from the bar on her skin, can’t taste past both their last drinks turning stale, mingling on her tongue. She can’t feel past the ache, and the lingering guilt that there may be one less soul in this world because of her own selfish needs -- a guilt and an ache that dampen to a moan when his hand brushes her on the way, and it keeps her feet from freezing, her knees from giving out. She can’t see where this is going, but she can guess; she already knows the tang of regret, bitter at the back of her throat, and she figures she’s already too far gone to worry much about making it worse, digging her hole any deeper; there’s no point arguing between the circles of hell, when it’s all fire and ash, either way.
So she doesn’t gag at the acid that creeps up and tries to choke her, doesn’t taste the warning that laps against her teeth. She doesn’t heed the shiver, the shudder that tickles her spine for what it’s worth, what it means; and if she feels the racing of her heart, sharp and quick, laced with fear, she pretends that she doesn’t, and it’s enough.
She hears things, though; hears everything.
She hears the key turn in the lock, the stark click of heels she’s owned for years, worn and scuffed at the toes, hitting rough and unforgiving concrete, then carpet; the house seems sparse, sterile from the glimpse she catches before he turns to her with eyes hungrier than the devil for her soul, and she wonders for a moment -- a moment, and no more -- why he’s here; if he’s as out of place as his accent in the heat outside, the heat that inches in between them where they stand.
She hears the way his breath leaves his lungs in a quick, violent sort of hurry, like it’s trying to get somewhere, like it’s already ahead of itself as the swell of her chest brushes innocent, shameless against the flat plane of his pecs. His neck bows, and his lips come closer, and she’s desperately aware of the sound of her heart, of the quick-fire gallop of its rhythm as his mouth misses hers, teases lower at the line of her clavicle, teeth scraping swift and subtle, unrefined against the jut of bone, the flush of skin.
She hears the tension, or what was left of it, snap like plastic, shatter like glass as her hands reach for his waist; hears the steady, frantic, angry drone of her pulse urging her on, urging her to stop, to nip here, moan -- fuck -- palm there, fingertips grappling, desperate at the fly of his Dockers, the buckle of his belt. The pull, the tear of the hem of her blouse is drowned out by the sharp inhales of breath, the feathery, billowing rustle of it alighting on the hardwood floors silenced as he backs her into the wall, as she shivers at the sudden cold, feels her nipples harden in the cups of her bra as she leans hard against him on the impact until she can feel his give against her curves, his lines against her gaps.
She hears the pin-drop of the button that comes loose from its thread as she pulls greedy, selfish, until she can see the barest peek of chest hair, and her hands are sloppy, messy as she unbuttons the rest of his shirt, slipping it blind from his shoulders while his lips suck at the pulse hammering at her throat, drinking the rhythm like wine. She breathes in loud against his hair, smells Axe and salt and the smoke of the bar mixed with the smoke on his tongue -- cheap cigarettes against Cuban cigars, and she suddenly realizes with a surge of warmth in the pit of her stomach that this is something different, something new.
Something terrifying. Something like the last taste of life before death. Or maybe after death. She isn’t sure.
She wraps her legs around him, hears the creak of her joints like a firecracker, like the rustle of silk beneath the ways her chest heaves, her lungs burn, her knees bracing, curling around his hips, the skin of her thighs slick with sweat and catching, pulling against the varnished maple, polish oak, granite next to the refrigerator as the line of her spine slips, smacks hard against cold metal sends shivers counterpoint to the ones spreading out from her core, hot and wet between her legs.
She can hear the ice maker grinding out cubes between the thump of her heart against her ribs, between the shaky rush of waves, of breath between lips too swollen, too smooth, laced with grief and wanton need like sweet poison, like divine retribution for the kind of sins she’s only ever dreamt of making her own.
His fingers dance beneath her skirt, play at the lines of her panties like his caress alone might move them, move her; and it does, long before he hooks a patient finger close between the pull of elastic and the stretch of her skin, tugs them down to her knees. They’re around her ankles in an instant as the pads of his fingers tease at her opening, cool and thick against the fire stirring in her veins, and she can hear the hum of electricity from within and without, she can feel weightless as the world comes crashing down.
She murmurs secrets she doesn’t know, words she can’t understand; she can only hear them, their echos, their residue, and when the lights die, surge, explode and perish behind eyes that want to see but can’t, won’t watch what it is she’s doing, what she’s making of herself -- unmaking of herself; when the universe goes dark again and she shudders in the comedown, she can hear nothing.
She can feel his breath against her shoulder-blade, though; his eyelashes sharp, drawing tiny lines between her freckles; the tenting in his boxers, where she’d only managed to get the zipper down on his pants, and before she can move to return the attention, something seems to snap in him; his eyes wide and clear for an instant as his fingers still, before the haze returns, fever-bright and almost mad.
He eases her down without preamble, and she can hear the heavy fall of her feet on the tile, like the wake of infinity, eternity, crashing upon her like the hand of the Almighty; she glances to the door she’d entered through, the choice she’d never even thought to make before this hellish, blissful night. She glances to the door adjacent, cracked-open enough to see a glow, to see the promise of the stars that live elsewhere, that have abandoned this place, this inferno.
She doesn’t pause to think, to wonder, to fight the urge to run, and maybe that’s the clincher, what sends bile up her throat and softness through her chest, out against her skin as she runs an open palm against the bare flesh of his arm; she’s a different woman in this instant, in this space between breaths, than she was in the last. Than she was a minute ago, an hour ago, a day ago, than she’s ever been before.
Than she’ll ever be again.
She hears the groan of old mattress springs that have known too many nameless, faceless encounters like this, have held up beneath enough naked bodies and racing hearts to know that this was fleeting, to protest before bleeding back into the ether, into the world that existed beyond this night.
The world, and the people they were within it.
The room feels alive, violent around her, and she can almost hear the way it whispers, tears her down as she frays at the seams with every thrust, every slap of flesh on unfamiliar flesh, and she can’t tell whether she’s crying, or if it’s just the sweat dripping from her hairline when she taste salt on her lips, on his when he comes up for air and kisses her rough, like this matters more than a quick pity fuck for the sad girl at the bar.
She cannot believe that she’s been reduced to the sad fucking girl at the end of the sad fucking bar.
Except that she can. She can absolutely believe it.
She watches, still, hears the tear of the wrapper as he rolls a condom over his hardened length; his hands gather at her back and lift her into him as he slides into her and she gasps, eyes clenched shut as she tries, succeeds in losing herself in the way he thrusts, the way she clenches, groans around him -- the curve of his neck, the jut of his chin as his head tosses back. They find a generic sort of rhythm -- nothing fancy or certain, nothing perfect or pleasing, but it scratches an inch they’re both desperate to satisfy, and so the sensation of it is heightened, trembling between their thighs and reaching fever pitch as they slam together with the wet slap of flesh on flesh.
She hears the way his breath hisses, catches between clenched teeth, feels the hot rush of him as he peaks and spills like the heavens in mourning, and suddenly she knows what’s different about the taste of tears.
She’s glad for the darkness, now; the moonlight, though, she resents.
He collapses on her, pulls out with his hips, but keeps his torso lined against hers, pressed hard; the underwire of her still-hooked bra digs hard against her rib. He doesn’t say anything, and her mouth’s too dry to speak; she hears his breath rush heavy, steady, and then slow as he drifts, and she feels everything in her tighten, feels nausea build in her stomach, where his thighs spread around her, his soft cock trapped between them; and Jesus, she feels as used as Edmund had ever made her feel, in life or in death.
And it’s her fault; it’s her fucking fault.
She doesn’t remember how she gets out, how she gets home; that fact alone drives her close to tears. She drops her keys three times trying to get into her place, her hands are shaking so badly; she scrapes the paint off her front door in missing the keyhole, for the salt in her eyes.
She sleeps on the couch that night, too sullied for her own sheets.
The morning comes sooner than she can bear; she doesn’t pull the blinds with the dawn, and she doesn’t go back for the service. She’d thought, at first, that she would need the closure; in truth, over the buzzing in her ears and the throbbing in her head, it’s best she stays away.
For years, Edmund had made her feel worthless, and yet, six feet underground, she’s finally managed to sink lower than even him.
Maybe one day, she’ll visit the grave.
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Of all the countless things that amaze Juliet about her sister, she’s never gotten over the fact that no matter what was happening -- no matter what she was running from, hiding from -- Rachel never failed to make her feel loved, feel safe. The world was just a nightmare, and if she blinked long enough, hard enough, it would disappear for good.
It takes her until the next day to drag herself from her house and slip the spare key from the molding around Rachel’s door. The apartment is deserted, and Juliet allows herself to fall upon the sofa without consideration for the papers and unopened mail she sends flying from the end table in her wake; she moans against the cushion, breathes in the scent of home that lingers around the perfume her sister wears -- the perfume their mother always wore -- and lets the fabric collect what stray tears she has left as she drifts off to a restless, dead sort of sleep without room for recovery, or for dreams.
When she does wake, it’s with the kind of start that sends her whole body into the kind of strain that seizes and clenches in her chest as she takes a heavy breath. She rolls over onto her side, wary of the edge of the couch, and she blinks to clear the fog from her eyes; the bright spot of neon green just above her, stuck against the ledge of the side table, slowly takes form, angles, the words emerging on the Post-It from a haze:
Didn’t want to wake you. Bringing back lunch. ~R
With a groan, she snatches the note from its place and sits up straight, with some effort, scrubbing her face violently with the heels of her palms in a futile attempt to rouse herself, to take the edge off of... everything. She glances around, sees unloaded bags of groceries littering the island in the kitchen, and rises unsteadily to her feet, shuffling in to put the food away in hopes of doing something productive, mundane; to take her mind off of the things that hadn’t been blurred away by the hangover she was still feeling, beyond all reason.
She alphabetizes the cereals and arranges the cheeses in the refrigerator drawer by region, orders the salad dressings in the door by how full and how fattening they are before she decides that sitting back on the couch might be her best bet. She draws shapes with her fingers against the worn suede of the sofa, fingertips tracing hearts and stars and spirals that mean nothing -- everything. They are so much more sinister in her mind than they have any right to be -- all corners and points, endless coiling chasms and split centers that leave jagged halves. She flattens her palms against them, frowning as she rubs them clean in one fell swoop; if only all things were so easily undone.
It’s too quiet, she thinks; too quiet. She’d come here to get away, true, but she’d come here to be with Rachel, and she bites her lip against the sudden well of emotions that threatens to burst from her chest at the petulant, desperate, needy sensation of simply wanting her sister there to make everything okay.
Because Rachel always fixed things, always kept her whole and on her feet, even when she was about to crumble. God made sure there were two of us, she’d always say, stroking Juliet’s hair and tucking the rebellious bits, the strays, behind her ear with delicate care, with an understanding that transcended everything she knew. So we’d never have to be brave on our own.
She leans farther into the arm of the couch, more dependent on its support. Her eyes fall onto Rachel’s modest DVD collection, just a few discs here and there amidst worn cassettes in their battered cardboard sleeves. She shuffles over to the shelf aimlessly, at first, but sees the first one, pink and black and white, and she can’t fight the little smile that warms her, numbs the shame and the hurt and the sore, throbbing reminder of everything, as she runs her fingertips over the lettering of the title, the smooth plastic of the case’s spine. She doesn’t think twice before snapping the case open and sliding it into the player below the television.
She dozes and drifts, comes to just as Julia Roberts picks apart a croissant and jabbers on with her mouth open; bites through a pancake that flops through the spaces between her fingers, Juliet hears the doorknob turn, the latch release -- she smells the tang of horseradish and mustard that only her favorite deli manages just so before Rachel’s head pops through the doorway.
Rachel opens her mouth to say something as she closes the door behind her, but her eyes trail to the television as the scene changes, and Richard Gere crowds the frame.
“Ooo,” she lets out in a low sort of hum as she swings the bag in her hands with a little flourish. “That bad, huh?”
Juliet chuckles wetly, wiping at her reddened face -- raw with the imprint of her sleeve against her cheek -- with the neck of her shirt as Rachel walks toward her, the ritual of it second nature by now, like an instinct: they’d watched this together at their aunt’s house when the divorce got nasty, had weathered heartbreaks and hardships until the VHS tape had worn out, stretched until the picture was grainy and the dialogue strained. When Juliet had first found out that Edmund was cheating on her, Rachel had held her as she cried, fed her ice cream and hummed the film’s signature song in her ear like it’d been written for Juliet alone: pretty woman. After her first chemo session, Juliet had moved in with her sister for the worst of the treatments, keeping the disc in the player as she let it run from start to finish, over and over, through many a sleepless night.
This is their movie.
“I got you pastrami and provolone.” She reaches from behind to hand Juliet the plastic-wrapped sub, but doesn’t sit back down; simply stands at Juliet’s back, leaning down against the couch, rubbing comforting circles into the curve of her neck, the jut of her shoulder blades; “though if I’d known things were this ugly, I’d have gotten you the ham and cheddar, too.”
Juliet smiles at that -- leans in to Rachel’s hand on her shoulder; lets her cheek trap the touch at her neckline and presses her lips to her older sister’s knuckles; grateful. Rachel reaches around to squeeze her opposite arm reassuringly, flipping the palm against her face to stroke tenderly down Juliet’s jaw as she draws her closer, bends down to kiss at Juliet’s forehead, the tip of her nose dragging slow through matted, sweaty locks as she just holds Juliet near, lets them both be for a moment; necessary. Still.
“I’ll make us some tea,” she breaks the silence after a beat, kissing the top of Juliet’s head as she straightens and retreats to the kettle that never leaves the stove, leaving Juliet with the distraction of celluloid and her own thoughts. Watching the film this time, she’s seeing less of the fairytale and more of the filth than she’s ever noticed, ever cared to see; the seedy underbelly that hits too close to home after... after.
“Does the Celestial Seasonings box say anything of note?” she calls out, suddenly a little desperate to affirm she isn’t alone.
There’s a shuffle, the crunch of the packet of teabags inside as she flips the box, and Juliet smiles, because she does love her sister, so much. “We are the causes of our own suffering,” Rachel’s voice floats in a deep falsetto that doesn’t quite work with her natural pitch, would make it that much more amusing, if Juliet was in the mood to catch the humor -- if the words didn’t pierce reality with quite so much sting. “Coming to us courtesy of the Awakened One himself: The Buddha.”
She fights a cynical snort, for fear of the tightness in her throat turning it into a sob. “Wise words.”
She can smell the brew strengthen into a humid haze behind her, tendrils looming closer as Rachel carries two mugs into the living room, leaves their cups to steep on the coffee table at their feet. Juliet reaches for the nearest remote, but it’s one for the movie, not the television volume; she groans at the recollection that Rachel’s never gotten rid of a controller in her entire life, and Juliet will have to sort the nondescript collection of them in the end table drawer in order to find what she’s after.
The crackle of Rachel unwrapping her meal rasps counterpoint to the clank of plastic as Juliet mills through RCA, Toshiba, Sony remotes from the early 90s onward -- some of these had to be from Rachel’s college days, and she can’t help but roll her eyes at her sister’s mild hoarding tendencies as she searches for something that looks new. She doesn’t expect the bulky cardboard box her fingers find shoved near the back of the drawer, behind the manuals and some stray coasters.
She slides it to the front, over the rubbery buttons of too many useless controllers, and barely has to see the Widmore logo before she recognizes exactly what’s in her hands.
“Is this?” she asks half a question that already has an answer; lifts the box, shakes it carefully in Rachel’s direction -- watches as too many emotions flicker across her sister’s features in too few seconds as she sees what Juliet is holding.
“Umm, yeah.” The words are muffled around a bite of her lunch, as her cheeks redden and she sets her sandwich aside. “I kept it.” She reaches out, and Juliet relinquishes her hold on the pregnancy test without a moment’s pause, the open end of it bending at the flaps. “I’d put it there, after I showed it to you,” and Juliet remembers it, like yesterday -- the relief of it; happiness, for an instant, like she’d never know before. “Because it was out of the way, but kind of close.” She clears her throat, turns the box in her hand but doesn’t look inside. “I guess I just never got around to moving it, with everything...”
She trails off, and she blinks too quickly; the tears that gather in her eyes won’t fall, Juliet knows, but there’s an unmistakable pang that trills in her nonetheless at the sight of them. “Is that really weird?” Rachel asks, and she sounds small; Juliet breathes deep, and knows, like something innate, what to do.
God made sure there were two of us so we’d never have to be brave on our own.
“No.” And the single word is short, certain; there’s no more feeling in it than there needs to be to convey it as undisputed truth. She leans into Rachel’s shoulder -- a casual sort of contact that lasts only a second -- a show of solidarity that isn’t overly sentimental, but that Juliet can see makes all the difference, as Rachel’s eyes begin to clear and her lips relax into a contented sort of smile.
“That's not weird.” Juliet leans forward over the coffee table and takes a bite of her food to hide the spread of her own little grin; she lets her hand settle on Rachel’s knee and squeeze to say the things that words can’t manage.
And suddenly, for all the turmoil in her -- all the weight that’s bearing down -- the world doesn’t seem quite so bleak, after all.
Master Post // Part Two
Part One
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When she opens her eyes, she tries to focus, to see.
The day is bright, bold - the color of the sky washed out but sharp, sure, saturated against the fluff of white, the clouds that move too fast with the winds up the coast; a reminder of the core of things, the heart of them: neither fleeting nor flimsy, the inescapable bulk of just living, simply being.
Because the world, Juliet thinks, is heavy. It’s heavy by nature. It’s just the way things are.
But somehow, as she lives and breathes, the space between heartbeats where gravity means nothing and her entire being shucks off its weight; in that singular, sacred moment, the world is also lighter.
For the first time in weeks -- months, maybe -- she unfolds her sunglasses and balances the frames against the bridge of her nose; it doesn’t make any sense, she knows that, but for some reason, the universe - her universe -- seems brighter, freer. For once, the universe feels like it’s on her side.
She unscrews the cap on her Aquafina bottle with delicate, dizzy spins; resists the urge to call Rachel, just to hear the giddy joy that’ll be in her sister’s voice, just to let it seep deeper into her own skin, mingle with the butterflies in her stomach as she breathes, just breathes -- swallows lukewarm water like the nectar of the gods and keeps an eye out for Edmund as she tries to figure out just what he hopes to say.
And there’s a part of her -- the part that never went away -- that wants him to look at her and see what he’s missing when she tells him the news, tells him that her sister is pregnant because she was persistent, because she was patient.
Because she’s goddamn brilliant, and Edmund Burke was too much of an idiot to see what he had, to know what he’d lost.
She’s not delusional, though. She knows he’ll look at her, smile that dumbfounded, pinched sort of smile he always gives when anyone other than himself does something astounding, and ask when she plans to have an article drafted, detailing her findings. She’s not delusional; but she’s hopeful -- hopeful as she winds her hair around her knuckle with merry-go-round twists, like cotton candy on a stick, spun sweet and golden in the summer sun -- that time can turn backward and decisions can be remade and maybe, even if nothing can be fixed, Ed will look at her the way he used to, the way she remembers. Just once.
When he walks out of the facility, she’s on her feet in an instant, looking to intercept him before the door so much as closes behind him.
She has him in her sights when she hits something warm, solid, heavy -- when she’s stumbling backwards for lack of balance and catching herself on the heels of her palms as she hits the ground.
“Oh, god,” a voice comes from above her, and she has to squint to see more than a lean, clean-cut silhouette; her sunglasses are gone.
“I’m sorry,” says the man -- because it is a man, a brunette with strong features and sharp eyes and a deep, smooth voice that casts warmth even where his outline casts a shadow. He reaches down to help her up and she blinks at his hand for a moment before she lets him haul her to her feet, his grip strong against the skinned flesh where she’d skidded on the concrete. “Are you okay?”
She dusts herself off and cracks her neck. “I’m fine.”
“You’re sure?” he asks, running a frenzied hand over her shoulders as if touching could tell him the truth that she might be hiding; and maybe it does, because he seems to take her word for it when she smiles and nods for emphasis.
He pauses for a moment, seems to take her in from the neck up, and it’s a strange sensation, the intense scrutiny that’s over in a second, that’s broken, but resonates after it’s gone.
“Can I buy you a drink?” he asks, a little sudden, and with a quirk of the lips that betrays practice, routine -- a common line; the sparkle in his eyes, though, she knows is hard to fake. “Convince you not to sue?”
She laughs a little, not sure whether to be insulted or flattered. “No, thanks.” She lets the words fall, drop from her lips and shine like the sun behind her smile. “It’s fine.”
She walks away, and notices her Maui Jims on the ground a few feet from her. As she crouches to retrieve them, she sees Edmund approaching the crosswalk, cellphone curled against his palm, the mouthpiece angled away from his cheek -- she can tell by his body language that he’s talking to his mother.
She takes a deep breath and prepares to say what she’s come to say, to tell him, to see what he does - she’s hopeful, but not delusional. She can do this.
She slides her shades on and starts walking before she loses her nerve, relying on momentum to see her through to the finish; her sunglasses aren’t even scratched.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
She doesn’t know why she insists on staying for Edmund’s funeral or why it matters.
But she tells Mr. Alpert that she needs more time, needs to think about his offer, needs to grieve. For as adamant as he’d been, he’s surprisingly gracious -- tells her to take her time, but to keep in mind that the women she’d be helping need her skills, and that the longer she waits, the longer she leaves them to suffer. To die.
Of course, it’s not in so many words, but the basic gist is clear.
She’s wearing a black skirt that she swears still smells like the last wake she wore it to. She files past the family she’d once stood among, exchanging awkward pleasantries and condolences that sound tired and trite: I’m sorry this happened, I’m sorry for your loss, I’m sorry.
I’m sorry.
They’re all staring at her with red eyes -- though not as red as her own -- and she has to look away as she approaches the body, has to dab at the corners of her eyes and stare listlessly at the garden of flower arrangements blossoming behind her ex-grandmother-in-law’s hunched head. She scans the cards, recognizing a few names, a few institutions. A particularly bright, but tasteful spray of bleeding hearts, hyacinths and marigolds catches her eye and stirs her, at first, before it drops like lead in her stomach. She knows what flowers mean.
The card, she finds, only makes matters worse:
Deepest Condolences, Mittelos Bioscience
And her mind goes, without her consent, to the dark places -- remembers the jagged pieces and the missing shards, the blood and the bones at odd, unseemly counterpoints, and...
And she wished for this. Asked for it. Said it allowed without thinking, without knowing, without meaning; she’d said the words.
When she comes upon the casket, barely seeing the stiff pallor of the man she used to love, her lungs start to burn and her eyes start to sting and she knows she has to get out of there.
She did this.
She tries for the corner room with the pastries and the coffee -- typical comfort food for the masses in mourning -- but the cloying sweetness, the smell of cigar smoke that pervades is heady, blinding, and she has to retreat.
She’s alone on the terrace of the establishment, save for two elderly gentlemen she doesn’t recognize -- who look like Edmund’s mother, in the face -- and she breathes; just breathes like it’s the hardest thing, a shameful thing. She’s watching the sky like it has the answers, like it can whisper to her in the kind of sacred tongues that will make sense of everything, when nothing in her world makes any sense.
Her chest feels tight and constricted, like something bigger than her is pressing down. She brings a palm to her chest, but can’t make out the individual beats in the flutter of her heart, and she feels dizzy for a dangerous second, leans against the siding of the building and fans herself a bit, tries to come back down and steady herself, but the innocent shadows of her sinful hands blocking the sun, casting the dark; she sighs, feels the air press hard at the hollow of her throat, the exhale strangling for one blissful, fleeting moment where she gets to dream, gets to drown. And the coastal air, it’s sweet -- and it turns her stomach, prickles behind her eyelids, and she can feel her heartbeat in her temples as she staves off tears that she doesn’t understand; that taste like salt and heat and guilt on her tongue without ever falling; never falling.
She turns, stares, sees the people through the windows: the fixed frowns that aren’t quite frowns -- the ones who laugh with misty eyes as they recall something silly, something stupid, so stupid, about Ed when he’d been young. When laughter had mattered.
She swallows hard, can’t get past the way her throat tightens, closes, chokes; her hands are gripped around her keys before she’s leaving, and all she can think -- beyond all the things she cannot think -- is that she didn’t sign the guestbook when she first walked in.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
She doesn’t pay any mind to where she’s going, where her feet are taking her; her mind is elsewhere, and she can’t afford to dwell, doesn’t have the will to bring it back to the here and now just yet. She doesn’t spare much attention to the dull roar behind her thoughts as she walks into the bar. It’s a small, crowded establishment that she’d had to enter on more than one occasion to drag Ed home on a Sunday night, lest a hangover keep him from work in the morning.
The air she breathes tastes acrid, acidic, and it burns her already-raw throat, making it hard to order her tequila -- something cheap and dirty that sears the feeling away on the first shot and stings with each successive drop, saturating her slowly to the point of incapacity, of implosion; again, again until she drowns.
The neon glow of vintage bar signs -- only half of the brews in lights matching those on tap -- and it figures, she thinks bitterly, picking at her cuticles as she waits for her drink: life’s a whole fucking sequence of pretty packaging and false advertising.
She leans against the counter. The angle is awkward and unpleasant; the edge digs into her chest as she slouches, shivers, pinching her skin when she reaches across the bar and motions for more -- and even as she can only smell bar sugar and the sharp scent of fruit wafting from the line of vodkas at the wall beyond, she catches the stale stench, the formaldehyde in the beer on tap, and she smells cedar, pine; something old in the peeling, aged wood her toes push against -- she inhales it, can’t expel it, and it rolls in her stomach like a tidal wave, angry and quick, and she thinks she might vomit then and there, so she takes the glass and tips it against her lips with a quick flick of her wrist, lets the agony swirl in her head, down her esophagus instead.
She coughs like a lightweight as she swallows bile down quick, slumps again into the stool, legs spread and askew, and she’s dizzy, angry -- everything hurts, and she just wants to go home, go home and wake up where nothing is different, and the world makes fucking sense.
She doesn’t know how long the man at her side -- tall, strong, dark, and handsome enough, she suspects, even without the greasing of the booze -- watches her without her notice; she only pays him any mind when he decides to lean in close enough that she brushes elbows with him when she lifts her glass. She only gives him a second glance when he speaks, apparently to her.
“You’ll forgive me for saying you look a little worse for wear,” he says with a soft smile, and for all she can’t see straight, for all she should know better, she thinks she reads concern in his eyes, like he might care just a little that she’s alone and toppling over her own shoes.
“You should probably slow down,” he says, and Juliet can smell the alcohol on him, too - whiskey, and it’s old, strong. Her eyes feel strained, bloodshot; a Pixies song is playing in the background, and she’s only just holding back tears.
Slowing down’s the last thing she needs.
So she orders them both another, and he shuts the fuck up until the words coming out of his mouth make less sense, and mean more.
“Do you ever just,” and his eyes glaze so that the red fluorescents in the Budweiser sign shine opaque in his eyes, clears as he blinks, nothing to do with the glass in his hands. The way his chest expands against the soft silk of his shirt steals the air that clings to the corners of the room, makes it hard to breathe, to be. “Do you ever think about your life,” he pauses, lifts the lip of his scotch to his mouth, swallows with a shudder of his Adam’s apple, like it’s just as uncertain, just as uneasy as the stutter in his voice; “and just say... this isn’t it?”
His lips shine with the burn of ice and alcohol, slick against the skin, and she thinks about lying, thinks better of it.
“Every single day.”
He downs what’s left of his drink, and there’s a pact there, a solidarity, so she does the same. “Another round,” he murmurs like it’s an affirmation, like has meaning -- his hair dangling in front of his face as he gestures to the both of them; his vowels slurring, though she’s shocked she can still tell.
They stay until last call -- by which point neither of them are talking much, their tongues too loose and their lips too stung; she lets secondhand nicotine smooth down the frays of her nerves as she slowly wanders out of the bar, the man’s hand at her waist -- for direction and balance. She never asked his name, she realizes through a fog, and she kind of wants to, except she doesn’t; it’s a bit late for that, now.
“You can go,” she says suddenly -- doesn’t expect the words when they tumble from her mouth -- and it takes too long, the syllables heavy against her lazy tongue; “Thanks for, for...” she drawls, points, gestures, flails; breathes. “That.”
“Hey,” he murmurs, almost hums, his hand darting out to catch her arm as she turns -- only she isn’t turning, just... moving, because everything is tilting and spinning, and it feels right to be swept along with the momentum of it all, the surge before the fall. “You’re headed in my direction,” he breathes, slow, like it’s a chore. “Let me walk with you.” She doesn’t look at him, doesn’t acknowledge the offer for what it is, what it might be.
“World’s a harsh kinda place,” he adds, not all there, eyes far away; “no reason not to help each other on the way.”
She looks at him, eyes glazed and the light brutal, piercing as it hits his features, casts them in relief; kissing him seems like a wonderful idea, and it hurts to contemplate it longer than for that perfect, swelling instant, so she doesn’t think. Only wants.
He’s too far gone to stop her, she can tell when the streetlamp glows against his pupils and there’s a weight in the pit of her stomach that tells her they’re both beyond the point of saying no.
The danger in that, though, doesn’t register -- the moonlight waxes, and it’s less that she doesn’t think, so much that now she simply can’t.
So she simply leans, careful to keep her balance, and tastes instead.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
She barely sees the route they take, barely notices when it veers off path toward places unknown -- doesn’t remember that this stranger had absolutely no idea where she lives. She can’t smell past the smoke from the bar on her skin, can’t taste past both their last drinks turning stale, mingling on her tongue. She can’t feel past the ache, and the lingering guilt that there may be one less soul in this world because of her own selfish needs -- a guilt and an ache that dampen to a moan when his hand brushes her on the way, and it keeps her feet from freezing, her knees from giving out. She can’t see where this is going, but she can guess; she already knows the tang of regret, bitter at the back of her throat, and she figures she’s already too far gone to worry much about making it worse, digging her hole any deeper; there’s no point arguing between the circles of hell, when it’s all fire and ash, either way.
So she doesn’t gag at the acid that creeps up and tries to choke her, doesn’t taste the warning that laps against her teeth. She doesn’t heed the shiver, the shudder that tickles her spine for what it’s worth, what it means; and if she feels the racing of her heart, sharp and quick, laced with fear, she pretends that she doesn’t, and it’s enough.
She hears things, though; hears everything.
She hears the key turn in the lock, the stark click of heels she’s owned for years, worn and scuffed at the toes, hitting rough and unforgiving concrete, then carpet; the house seems sparse, sterile from the glimpse she catches before he turns to her with eyes hungrier than the devil for her soul, and she wonders for a moment -- a moment, and no more -- why he’s here; if he’s as out of place as his accent in the heat outside, the heat that inches in between them where they stand.
She hears the way his breath leaves his lungs in a quick, violent sort of hurry, like it’s trying to get somewhere, like it’s already ahead of itself as the swell of her chest brushes innocent, shameless against the flat plane of his pecs. His neck bows, and his lips come closer, and she’s desperately aware of the sound of her heart, of the quick-fire gallop of its rhythm as his mouth misses hers, teases lower at the line of her clavicle, teeth scraping swift and subtle, unrefined against the jut of bone, the flush of skin.
She hears the tension, or what was left of it, snap like plastic, shatter like glass as her hands reach for his waist; hears the steady, frantic, angry drone of her pulse urging her on, urging her to stop, to nip here, moan -- fuck -- palm there, fingertips grappling, desperate at the fly of his Dockers, the buckle of his belt. The pull, the tear of the hem of her blouse is drowned out by the sharp inhales of breath, the feathery, billowing rustle of it alighting on the hardwood floors silenced as he backs her into the wall, as she shivers at the sudden cold, feels her nipples harden in the cups of her bra as she leans hard against him on the impact until she can feel his give against her curves, his lines against her gaps.
She hears the pin-drop of the button that comes loose from its thread as she pulls greedy, selfish, until she can see the barest peek of chest hair, and her hands are sloppy, messy as she unbuttons the rest of his shirt, slipping it blind from his shoulders while his lips suck at the pulse hammering at her throat, drinking the rhythm like wine. She breathes in loud against his hair, smells Axe and salt and the smoke of the bar mixed with the smoke on his tongue -- cheap cigarettes against Cuban cigars, and she suddenly realizes with a surge of warmth in the pit of her stomach that this is something different, something new.
Something terrifying. Something like the last taste of life before death. Or maybe after death. She isn’t sure.
She wraps her legs around him, hears the creak of her joints like a firecracker, like the rustle of silk beneath the ways her chest heaves, her lungs burn, her knees bracing, curling around his hips, the skin of her thighs slick with sweat and catching, pulling against the varnished maple, polish oak, granite next to the refrigerator as the line of her spine slips, smacks hard against cold metal sends shivers counterpoint to the ones spreading out from her core, hot and wet between her legs.
She can hear the ice maker grinding out cubes between the thump of her heart against her ribs, between the shaky rush of waves, of breath between lips too swollen, too smooth, laced with grief and wanton need like sweet poison, like divine retribution for the kind of sins she’s only ever dreamt of making her own.
His fingers dance beneath her skirt, play at the lines of her panties like his caress alone might move them, move her; and it does, long before he hooks a patient finger close between the pull of elastic and the stretch of her skin, tugs them down to her knees. They’re around her ankles in an instant as the pads of his fingers tease at her opening, cool and thick against the fire stirring in her veins, and she can hear the hum of electricity from within and without, she can feel weightless as the world comes crashing down.
She murmurs secrets she doesn’t know, words she can’t understand; she can only hear them, their echos, their residue, and when the lights die, surge, explode and perish behind eyes that want to see but can’t, won’t watch what it is she’s doing, what she’s making of herself -- unmaking of herself; when the universe goes dark again and she shudders in the comedown, she can hear nothing.
She can feel his breath against her shoulder-blade, though; his eyelashes sharp, drawing tiny lines between her freckles; the tenting in his boxers, where she’d only managed to get the zipper down on his pants, and before she can move to return the attention, something seems to snap in him; his eyes wide and clear for an instant as his fingers still, before the haze returns, fever-bright and almost mad.
He eases her down without preamble, and she can hear the heavy fall of her feet on the tile, like the wake of infinity, eternity, crashing upon her like the hand of the Almighty; she glances to the door she’d entered through, the choice she’d never even thought to make before this hellish, blissful night. She glances to the door adjacent, cracked-open enough to see a glow, to see the promise of the stars that live elsewhere, that have abandoned this place, this inferno.
She doesn’t pause to think, to wonder, to fight the urge to run, and maybe that’s the clincher, what sends bile up her throat and softness through her chest, out against her skin as she runs an open palm against the bare flesh of his arm; she’s a different woman in this instant, in this space between breaths, than she was in the last. Than she was a minute ago, an hour ago, a day ago, than she’s ever been before.
Than she’ll ever be again.
She hears the groan of old mattress springs that have known too many nameless, faceless encounters like this, have held up beneath enough naked bodies and racing hearts to know that this was fleeting, to protest before bleeding back into the ether, into the world that existed beyond this night.
The world, and the people they were within it.
The room feels alive, violent around her, and she can almost hear the way it whispers, tears her down as she frays at the seams with every thrust, every slap of flesh on unfamiliar flesh, and she can’t tell whether she’s crying, or if it’s just the sweat dripping from her hairline when she taste salt on her lips, on his when he comes up for air and kisses her rough, like this matters more than a quick pity fuck for the sad girl at the bar.
She cannot believe that she’s been reduced to the sad fucking girl at the end of the sad fucking bar.
Except that she can. She can absolutely believe it.
She watches, still, hears the tear of the wrapper as he rolls a condom over his hardened length; his hands gather at her back and lift her into him as he slides into her and she gasps, eyes clenched shut as she tries, succeeds in losing herself in the way he thrusts, the way she clenches, groans around him -- the curve of his neck, the jut of his chin as his head tosses back. They find a generic sort of rhythm -- nothing fancy or certain, nothing perfect or pleasing, but it scratches an inch they’re both desperate to satisfy, and so the sensation of it is heightened, trembling between their thighs and reaching fever pitch as they slam together with the wet slap of flesh on flesh.
She hears the way his breath hisses, catches between clenched teeth, feels the hot rush of him as he peaks and spills like the heavens in mourning, and suddenly she knows what’s different about the taste of tears.
She’s glad for the darkness, now; the moonlight, though, she resents.
He collapses on her, pulls out with his hips, but keeps his torso lined against hers, pressed hard; the underwire of her still-hooked bra digs hard against her rib. He doesn’t say anything, and her mouth’s too dry to speak; she hears his breath rush heavy, steady, and then slow as he drifts, and she feels everything in her tighten, feels nausea build in her stomach, where his thighs spread around her, his soft cock trapped between them; and Jesus, she feels as used as Edmund had ever made her feel, in life or in death.
And it’s her fault; it’s her fucking fault.
She doesn’t remember how she gets out, how she gets home; that fact alone drives her close to tears. She drops her keys three times trying to get into her place, her hands are shaking so badly; she scrapes the paint off her front door in missing the keyhole, for the salt in her eyes.
She sleeps on the couch that night, too sullied for her own sheets.
The morning comes sooner than she can bear; she doesn’t pull the blinds with the dawn, and she doesn’t go back for the service. She’d thought, at first, that she would need the closure; in truth, over the buzzing in her ears and the throbbing in her head, it’s best she stays away.
For years, Edmund had made her feel worthless, and yet, six feet underground, she’s finally managed to sink lower than even him.
Maybe one day, she’ll visit the grave.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Of all the countless things that amaze Juliet about her sister, she’s never gotten over the fact that no matter what was happening -- no matter what she was running from, hiding from -- Rachel never failed to make her feel loved, feel safe. The world was just a nightmare, and if she blinked long enough, hard enough, it would disappear for good.
It takes her until the next day to drag herself from her house and slip the spare key from the molding around Rachel’s door. The apartment is deserted, and Juliet allows herself to fall upon the sofa without consideration for the papers and unopened mail she sends flying from the end table in her wake; she moans against the cushion, breathes in the scent of home that lingers around the perfume her sister wears -- the perfume their mother always wore -- and lets the fabric collect what stray tears she has left as she drifts off to a restless, dead sort of sleep without room for recovery, or for dreams.
When she does wake, it’s with the kind of start that sends her whole body into the kind of strain that seizes and clenches in her chest as she takes a heavy breath. She rolls over onto her side, wary of the edge of the couch, and she blinks to clear the fog from her eyes; the bright spot of neon green just above her, stuck against the ledge of the side table, slowly takes form, angles, the words emerging on the Post-It from a haze:
Didn’t want to wake you. Bringing back lunch. ~R
With a groan, she snatches the note from its place and sits up straight, with some effort, scrubbing her face violently with the heels of her palms in a futile attempt to rouse herself, to take the edge off of... everything. She glances around, sees unloaded bags of groceries littering the island in the kitchen, and rises unsteadily to her feet, shuffling in to put the food away in hopes of doing something productive, mundane; to take her mind off of the things that hadn’t been blurred away by the hangover she was still feeling, beyond all reason.
She alphabetizes the cereals and arranges the cheeses in the refrigerator drawer by region, orders the salad dressings in the door by how full and how fattening they are before she decides that sitting back on the couch might be her best bet. She draws shapes with her fingers against the worn suede of the sofa, fingertips tracing hearts and stars and spirals that mean nothing -- everything. They are so much more sinister in her mind than they have any right to be -- all corners and points, endless coiling chasms and split centers that leave jagged halves. She flattens her palms against them, frowning as she rubs them clean in one fell swoop; if only all things were so easily undone.
It’s too quiet, she thinks; too quiet. She’d come here to get away, true, but she’d come here to be with Rachel, and she bites her lip against the sudden well of emotions that threatens to burst from her chest at the petulant, desperate, needy sensation of simply wanting her sister there to make everything okay.
Because Rachel always fixed things, always kept her whole and on her feet, even when she was about to crumble. God made sure there were two of us, she’d always say, stroking Juliet’s hair and tucking the rebellious bits, the strays, behind her ear with delicate care, with an understanding that transcended everything she knew. So we’d never have to be brave on our own.
She leans farther into the arm of the couch, more dependent on its support. Her eyes fall onto Rachel’s modest DVD collection, just a few discs here and there amidst worn cassettes in their battered cardboard sleeves. She shuffles over to the shelf aimlessly, at first, but sees the first one, pink and black and white, and she can’t fight the little smile that warms her, numbs the shame and the hurt and the sore, throbbing reminder of everything, as she runs her fingertips over the lettering of the title, the smooth plastic of the case’s spine. She doesn’t think twice before snapping the case open and sliding it into the player below the television.
She dozes and drifts, comes to just as Julia Roberts picks apart a croissant and jabbers on with her mouth open; bites through a pancake that flops through the spaces between her fingers, Juliet hears the doorknob turn, the latch release -- she smells the tang of horseradish and mustard that only her favorite deli manages just so before Rachel’s head pops through the doorway.
Rachel opens her mouth to say something as she closes the door behind her, but her eyes trail to the television as the scene changes, and Richard Gere crowds the frame.
“Ooo,” she lets out in a low sort of hum as she swings the bag in her hands with a little flourish. “That bad, huh?”
Juliet chuckles wetly, wiping at her reddened face -- raw with the imprint of her sleeve against her cheek -- with the neck of her shirt as Rachel walks toward her, the ritual of it second nature by now, like an instinct: they’d watched this together at their aunt’s house when the divorce got nasty, had weathered heartbreaks and hardships until the VHS tape had worn out, stretched until the picture was grainy and the dialogue strained. When Juliet had first found out that Edmund was cheating on her, Rachel had held her as she cried, fed her ice cream and hummed the film’s signature song in her ear like it’d been written for Juliet alone: pretty woman. After her first chemo session, Juliet had moved in with her sister for the worst of the treatments, keeping the disc in the player as she let it run from start to finish, over and over, through many a sleepless night.
This is their movie.
“I got you pastrami and provolone.” She reaches from behind to hand Juliet the plastic-wrapped sub, but doesn’t sit back down; simply stands at Juliet’s back, leaning down against the couch, rubbing comforting circles into the curve of her neck, the jut of her shoulder blades; “though if I’d known things were this ugly, I’d have gotten you the ham and cheddar, too.”
Juliet smiles at that -- leans in to Rachel’s hand on her shoulder; lets her cheek trap the touch at her neckline and presses her lips to her older sister’s knuckles; grateful. Rachel reaches around to squeeze her opposite arm reassuringly, flipping the palm against her face to stroke tenderly down Juliet’s jaw as she draws her closer, bends down to kiss at Juliet’s forehead, the tip of her nose dragging slow through matted, sweaty locks as she just holds Juliet near, lets them both be for a moment; necessary. Still.
“I’ll make us some tea,” she breaks the silence after a beat, kissing the top of Juliet’s head as she straightens and retreats to the kettle that never leaves the stove, leaving Juliet with the distraction of celluloid and her own thoughts. Watching the film this time, she’s seeing less of the fairytale and more of the filth than she’s ever noticed, ever cared to see; the seedy underbelly that hits too close to home after... after.
“Does the Celestial Seasonings box say anything of note?” she calls out, suddenly a little desperate to affirm she isn’t alone.
There’s a shuffle, the crunch of the packet of teabags inside as she flips the box, and Juliet smiles, because she does love her sister, so much. “We are the causes of our own suffering,” Rachel’s voice floats in a deep falsetto that doesn’t quite work with her natural pitch, would make it that much more amusing, if Juliet was in the mood to catch the humor -- if the words didn’t pierce reality with quite so much sting. “Coming to us courtesy of the Awakened One himself: The Buddha.”
She fights a cynical snort, for fear of the tightness in her throat turning it into a sob. “Wise words.”
She can smell the brew strengthen into a humid haze behind her, tendrils looming closer as Rachel carries two mugs into the living room, leaves their cups to steep on the coffee table at their feet. Juliet reaches for the nearest remote, but it’s one for the movie, not the television volume; she groans at the recollection that Rachel’s never gotten rid of a controller in her entire life, and Juliet will have to sort the nondescript collection of them in the end table drawer in order to find what she’s after.
The crackle of Rachel unwrapping her meal rasps counterpoint to the clank of plastic as Juliet mills through RCA, Toshiba, Sony remotes from the early 90s onward -- some of these had to be from Rachel’s college days, and she can’t help but roll her eyes at her sister’s mild hoarding tendencies as she searches for something that looks new. She doesn’t expect the bulky cardboard box her fingers find shoved near the back of the drawer, behind the manuals and some stray coasters.
She slides it to the front, over the rubbery buttons of too many useless controllers, and barely has to see the Widmore logo before she recognizes exactly what’s in her hands.
“Is this?” she asks half a question that already has an answer; lifts the box, shakes it carefully in Rachel’s direction -- watches as too many emotions flicker across her sister’s features in too few seconds as she sees what Juliet is holding.
“Umm, yeah.” The words are muffled around a bite of her lunch, as her cheeks redden and she sets her sandwich aside. “I kept it.” She reaches out, and Juliet relinquishes her hold on the pregnancy test without a moment’s pause, the open end of it bending at the flaps. “I’d put it there, after I showed it to you,” and Juliet remembers it, like yesterday -- the relief of it; happiness, for an instant, like she’d never know before. “Because it was out of the way, but kind of close.” She clears her throat, turns the box in her hand but doesn’t look inside. “I guess I just never got around to moving it, with everything...”
She trails off, and she blinks too quickly; the tears that gather in her eyes won’t fall, Juliet knows, but there’s an unmistakable pang that trills in her nonetheless at the sight of them. “Is that really weird?” Rachel asks, and she sounds small; Juliet breathes deep, and knows, like something innate, what to do.
God made sure there were two of us so we’d never have to be brave on our own.
“No.” And the single word is short, certain; there’s no more feeling in it than there needs to be to convey it as undisputed truth. She leans into Rachel’s shoulder -- a casual sort of contact that lasts only a second -- a show of solidarity that isn’t overly sentimental, but that Juliet can see makes all the difference, as Rachel’s eyes begin to clear and her lips relax into a contented sort of smile.
“That's not weird.” Juliet leans forward over the coffee table and takes a bite of her food to hide the spread of her own little grin; she lets her hand settle on Rachel’s knee and squeeze to say the things that words can’t manage.
And suddenly, for all the turmoil in her -- all the weight that’s bearing down -- the world doesn’t seem quite so bleak, after all.
Master Post // Part Two