Impish

CHAPTER 21: PIZZA DINNER

The door opens. The room fills with the scent of grease and Roux's favorite sandalwood and peach cologne. I can hear the tinny echo of whatever they're listening to with both earbuds in. I think it's that true crime podcast again, but that's just a suspicion.

I sit up to look at them. My head hurts. I can't tell if it's because my sinuses are spent or because of dehydration. Maybe there's another reason I haven't thought of, but I think it's one of those two. I manage to ignore it. "Hey."

"Hey." They kick the door closed with one boot-clad heel and set what they carry on the hotel room's desk, between the lamp and the complimentary Bible nobody has bothered to touch. "I got pizza and a discount cookie cake. Tonight, we feast like kings."

I try not to wince when they say that. I'm not sure why. "Do we have plates?"

"Do we need that?"

"I guess not."

The two of us sit on the edge of the bed with the television on, playing some Lifetime movie neither of us have heard of or care about. It serves as background noise for the sound of loud chewing. The pizza is warm and pocked with pools of orange grease. The cheese comes off in long, stringy clumps that cause me to get thick red streaks of pizza sauce all over my face and hands.

While we eat, Roux tells me about their day. They went swimming, they said, then hung out under the bridge for a few hours. They finally got the chance to read that book they packed, the one about queer history in the United States.

"It was kind of a boring day, to be honest," they say around a mouthful of thin, crunchy crust, "but it was also kind of nice. I've spent so much time in the car I almost forgot what the sun felt like. The grass was nice, when I could find it. There was some cool art down there, too. Wanna see?"

I push down everything rising in me and nod. "Hell yeah. Show me."

I take a bite of my pizza as they navigate through their camera roll. They pull up images of spray paint on concrete in bright, vibrant colors and intense metallics. Some things are just names and dates, and inscriptions of young lovers wanting to immortalize themselves on walls of stones in tunnels and small secluded places full of gravel and broken glass. Others are true works of art. Still others are political messages. The inscription "Protect Trans Kids" is painted with a little pink, blue, and white flag over what used to be a blacked-out void. An endorsement of Donald Trump is painted over, covered by flowers. The word FUCK towers over it in large blocky letters like a skyscraper, pressing down on that sentiment.

My favorite, though, is the seventh picture in Roux's camera roll. It's a spiraling, sprawling piece that several people added to: a portrait of a Black girl surrounded by so many different things that branch out from the halo around her head. Cities and lines and patterns and landscapes all radiate from her like she is the sun.

This picture snaps me out of it. I desperately want to create. Isn't that what this is? A collaboration between so many people that resulted in the creation of something so wonderful and new? It brings a happy, poignant tear to my eye and I put my soggy face into Roux's shoulder. I try to make it clear that I am smiling, that I am okay, that these are not my earlier bitter, angry tears, and that this is not some sort of breakdown.

"What happened to you?" they wonder, looking at me in concern and confusion. Roux rests their phone on their bare left knee. "What did Doug do to you?"

I laugh bitterly, involuntarily. "I told you. He lied, Roux. He lied to me. You were right. I said it before, I know, but you were right."

I tell them about everything that happened, everything I learned, every little thing I theorized about, that I wasn't sure about. The entire time, they run a hand through my hair. They know I like that. Roux knows that it calms me. They know how to make me less angry. And maybe that's what I need-- someone to keep me here and grounded. Maybe the other side of my rage is the overwhelming calm my loved ones know how to invoke. There's a comfort in thinking that.