Ruby Red Marionette

twentyfour | jezebel

Isaiah and I didn't speak after I left. 

In fact, I didn't see him after I left. I went roaming the city; there was no anxiety or suicidal thoughts. Not this time. This time, I went roaming because if I stood still, I feared that I'd do something. I wouldn't be able to wait for the night after to make a decision and I would do something drastic, something life-threatening - to myself, to someone else, or to something else.

No one else saw the storm when I walked. They smiled and laughed and talked amongst each other as if there wasn't a large, black, ugly mix of clouds and lightning in the sky that would seize us at any moment. But, then again, of course they couldn't see it—it wasn't their storm.

Isaiah came home around eleven, two hours after me. I asked him where he'd been, and he told me that he was helping my mother's employees move everything out of the building. I then asked if Yvette helped also, and he told me that Yvette left immediately after I did. The look that followed meant that not only did she leave, but she left disturbed, and he was upset that I'd caused it. 

This short dialogue and the look on his face were the only interaction we shared last night. 

Now, this morning, something magnificent has happened. I went into the living room after I woke up to find that Isaiah was no longer on the couch. He left me a note saying that he had a job interview today, but there was a surprise for me in the kitchen. I hesitated before going in; there was a piece of popcorn still stuck in between my teeth from yesterday and I lost my fake nose ring. In other words, I wasn't in the mood for games. But I thought about the look on Isaiah's face yesterday, the genuine concern he showed for poor, fragile Yvette's well-being and the disappointment in my behavior. I owed him. I always would. 

I left the living room with his note and went into the kitchen. There was nothing special. I opened the fridge to find nothing, and same for the cabinets. I was about to read the note again to see if I'd missed a clue when I saw something. Rather, I saw the lack of something. The large pots of water on the stove were gone. I looked at the faucet; there was another note, tied to the faucet by a turquoise ribbon. 

I got paid to move those boxes at the studio. - Zay

He did get paid to do the moving, and the fruits of his labor forced an embarrassingly wide smile onto my face—I turned the knobs, and water came out. 

Water. 

                                                           ~~~

A paid water bill meant that I could take a proper shower. A paid water bill meant that I could wash my face and brush my teeth (the piece of popcorn was now gone) thoroughly. A paid water bill meant that I could actually cook myself some breakfast instead of eating liquorice and cupcakes. 

It meant that in the midst of these strange, dangerous times, I was granted a little bit more comfort. 

I spent the day alone in my underwear. At seven o'clock I began to get dressed. 

No thought went into what I wore or what my hair looked like. No thought was allowed to go into it, anyway. I'd given myself an hour to get to Knoxville, and it would probably take a half hour more to get there. But I was in no rush; I only arranged to meet with the others because I had to. If the choice was mine, I would pack a bag and never come back to Tennessee. 

Just after I boarded the train, I felt an uncomfortable moisture in my southern area. I thought about it for a while, about the fact that my period wasn't due for another two weeks and nothing around here could have possibly aroused me to that degree, and then I remembered the postoperative pamphlet. I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the window. For a moment, as I drowned out the soft conversations of the others on this train, I wanted to cry. I wanted to let the darkness of this winter night and the sad, nostalgic comfort that riding on this train brought me, strip me of my emotional shield and break me down to tears. I wanted to give up all the hard work I'd done to numb myself for all these years just for this one moment, just to cry about the fact that I was bleeding due to an abortion I got three days ago and I was on my way to a cemetery to meet people to discuss the consequences of us running away from a dead body.