Everything - Larry Stylinson

TWO: WEST END GIRLS

   By the time the dim sun has slinked behind high rises and dusty clouds, I've drifted into a restless sleep that has me feeling as if I'm falling every few minutes. My entire body flinches, ready for an impact that won't come. I like sleeping drunk. I like the feeling of swaying in place, feeling the heaviness of my being sinking deeper and deeper until it feels as if I've been swallowed up by the Earth that tends to usually spit me out. It's like riding a rollercoaster, or floating in circles on a swing carousel. My fingertips separate from my fingers, my smile rises off of my face. The hungover sleep is the opposite. Dreadful. Boring. Dense like a rock, not water or sand. When my weight crushes into the world not because it's making room for me, but because there's nowhere else for my blatant body to rot.

At some point, I rolled onto the remote and accidentally shot up the volume of the TV. The blaring noise whips me awake with wide eyes as I attempt to blink away sleep to see the washy faces on the screen. I'm disoriented, and sweaty, and breathing kinda fast and everything feels like alot and not anything at all. However, any confusion that plagues me quickly snaps away when I hear his voice blasting through the speakers. His half smile on the screen, his hair wiped across his face in a way that pisses me off so much I want nothing more than to slap him so hard it flies off. He's talking bullshit, I can always tell when he's making stuff up. Or, I thought I could. I thought we had a connection where if management gave him a script I'd be able to read between the lines. I thought I knew him. I thought we knew each other. I thought we had a special understanding that allowed us to transcend past all the stupid rules we had where we communicated through only silent eyes and hidden touches. Now I've come to realize all of that was a projection of the swirling longing in my head, that my openness to him was never received as a holy gift but as an embarrassing secret, dirty like blackmail, to take advantage of.

God, I hated him. I hated him so much. I could be sick with how much I despised him for what he did to me. For a while, after everything, there was nothing inside of me besides a gaping hole of suffocating sadness, but I rubbed that raw until it switched to a burning anger that bubbled up like boiling plastic when I thought of the way his smile lines deepend as he laughed. Without thinking, I throw the remote at the TV. It concaves where it's hit, flashing off and erupting into a spiderweb of purple and green lines surrounding the dent. Whatever. I'll text someone to order me a new one later.

Still pissed off, I trudge upstairs, allowing myself to stomp a little on each step. I swing open the door to my bedroom. The walls are all a gray that's practically white, decorated with black and white photos in expensive frames that I couldn't care less about. My sheets and airy comforter are tangled as one, hanging off the corner of my king size bed like a waterfall. I walk across the shagged rug to the only place I really spent any meaningful time in this place: my walk in closet. It's packed from the floors to the ceilings with every texture, color, and cut of fabric. An explosion of silks and furs and rough denims and soft wools. I have lines of shelves built for only my shoes, which ranged from sparkling, golden to sleek black boots with only the whisper of a heel. The sparkling recessed lights cast a gentle glow that bathes the space in a warm, gilded hue, reflecting off engraved silver buttons and mithril rings. To my left, racks of shirts are pushed into one heap of luxury, flowing from deep, sultry reds to soft blush pinks, delicate chiffons brushing against the heavier satins as I pass by. The mirrored vanity glints from the corner, laden with an array of high-end perfumes in glass bottles that glimmer like the jewel-studded details on the necklace haphazardly laying on the floor.

Against one wall, a series of glass-fronted drawers reveals an endless collection of accessories. Rows of delicate necklaces lie in their own velvet-lined compartments, alongside rings that sparkle with precious stones and cuffs brushed in a radiant kiss. Scarves in every fabric drape like ribbons, melt like water, from deep emerald velvet hangers. The air is tinged with a faint hint of the cedar lining of my drawers weaved together with sharp perfumes and sturdy colongoes.