Grey City Rhapsody

IX: Under the Bridge

Ash jerked awake violently when her ears and mouth were suddenly submerged in freezing water. Her brain struggled to register the cold water around her, leeching her heat with every passing second. As she was scrambling to climb out of the slick porcelain prison, calloused hands gripped her forearms and helped her to her feet. She swallowed at least a half a pint of water and nearly choked on the ice in it. 

She shook and shivered in his arms as Nick wrapped a towel around her soaked shirt and hugged her close. The contact couldn't warm her fast enough, it felt. 

"What the f-f-fuck," she muttered, her chattering teeth nearly sinking into her vibrating tongue until it recoiled to safety. Her numb fingers curled firmly like claws and her feet stiffly planted themselves in the icy lagoon beneath her. 

"Sweetie, you were lying unconscious on the floor. I thought you were dead 'til I touched you— your forehead felt like a hot stove... what the heck happened?" 

She silently scrambled for whatever memories she could recall of the night, not that she could have talked with his bruising grip leaving next to no room for her lungs to expand.

"I should have brought you in last night, honey, I'm so, so sorry."

"N-no, Nick, I'm not... I'm not s-s-sick. This has nothing to do with you." Her argument tapered to a stop. Peeling her away from his now damp chest, he held her shoulders at arm's length and rubbed them lightly.

"Then what is it?" 

Ash slipped easily out from under his hands, stepped out of the tub and made her way to her adjacent bedroom. Along the short trip, she spotted her father parked motionless in the doorway of the master bedroom. Even in the darkness of the early morning, he appeared to be torn between getting involved and staying out of the way, but as he glanced passed his daughter presumably at his lover, he quickly retreated to the safety of the other room.

Ash quickly found the half-empty bottle hidden in her nightstand drawer and nervously thrust it into Nick's hands. He looked between her and the bottle so many times she wished she was still out cold. The way he clutched the mostly empty container, she was surprised the orange plastic didn't crack under the pressure. A sharp breath and a heavy sigh later, Nick looked like a bomb with a jammed clock.

"They... gave you pills?" 

Ash found the strength to nod, even as her legs faltered and threw her heavily onto the untouched bed covers. She had been injured during a training session. Some new recruit had fired a live round into her leg, shattering her femur and crippling her for 8 months. She'd been pissed but escaped the incident without a limp somehow. The thought of the recruit's bleach white face still curled her lip pleasantly, but for now, she suppressed the urge to smile in favor of frowning for Nick's sake. 

"They're mostly sugar, I'm weaning myself off of them." She shuffled her feet a little. "Down to half a pill a day. I must have forgotten to take it yesterday; the withdrawals are a real bitch."

Nick looked like he wanted to say something, but thought better of it and plopped himself beside her atop the ancient quilt. His fingers tapped arrhythmically against the denim of his jeans and his mouth floundered a while for words. 

"I just..." he started. "I just want what's best for you. I don't want you to go through what I did before I met your dad." 

"I know." Ash laced her cool, pruned fingers with his warm, dry ones. 

"Alright," Nick got to his feet and headed for the door. "Put on some dry clothes and come down for breakfast." 

With the door finally closed, she began the enduring struggle of peeling off tight, wet clothes. She managed to get her jeans to her knees before giving up and working off her upper garments instead. Ash waddled closer to the nightstand and rummaged for a bra and matching underwear. Settling for an earthy green she quickly clothed her sensitive tips and tried the pants again. Some pushing and pulling action later her legs were freed. 

Ash settled for letting her legs dry a bit and picked out a loose pair of sweats and a tee shirt before resting on the floor next to the bed with the clothes neatly folded in her lap. Her eyes begged to be closed as the sleep from last night had been restless, but she couldn't afford to add to her growing collection of half-remembered night terrors. The woman remembered a ghostly presence in a park playground, a black cat, and a hazy alleyway. Words escaped her, but she felt no fear this time, only uncertainty. Aside from that, nothing else resurfaced except the memory of fear. Ash was startled from her ruminating when something crashed into the glass of the door to the balcony. She quickly slipped on her sweats and took a look around outside but found nothing. Returning to the door, the oily imprint of a small bird on the upper corner of the glass. No blood or body could be found, so she assumed it had flown away. 

By the time Ash entered the kitchen, her mouth was watering and her stomach twisted in knots over the smells of bacon, eggs, and potatoes. Nick had already set out a plate for her and himself, and was now making a third plate and took it into the direction of the basement entrance.

The woman made another plate and put hers on a back burner to run the new one to her brother, where ever he was. She hadn't spoken to him since they had arrived and only saw him as early as the previous night. She had a question she needed to run by him since seeing her father. She checked the living room and the front porch but found no one. She knew he wouldn't still be in his room, he was always an early riser. It wasn't until she checked the garage that she found him lying under the truck body, an old skateboard beneath him and tools scattered everywhere. 

"Food." Ash kicked his boots with her slippers. "Eat," she commanded. For once, he did exactly as he was told.

"Set it down, I don't like you handing me things," Mikhael said. 

"OK, Howard Hughes, have it your way." 

"Remember that time you tried to hand me a coffee in seventh grade?" 

"... Point taken." As soon as she unburdened herself with the plate, Ash picked up a stray wrench and flipped it in her hands absentmindedly. 

A spoonful later and Mikhael was scarfing the food down. Like a starving man he nearly chipped a tooth shoving the fork into his gullet. Finally, Mikey set the empty plate down and looked up to see his sister still watching him. "Where's yours?" 

"Inside at the table where it belongs, you animal."

Mikey shook his head and smiled, but said nothing.

"I don't think I can do this," Ash blurted. There wasn't a better way to say it. Mikhael just sighed and stood from the dirt to face her. He held her shoulders in his hands with no clue that he was giving the woman a sense of déjà vu. 

"Ash, it's now or never. If you wait too long... you may never get to say the things that you need to say to him. Wait, and you'll lose the last chance you have to make a few good memories with dad. Please, don't spend the rest of your life wondering what could have been." 

She wanted so desperately to argue, to be dragged kicking and screaming into the fight, but the full moons that had replaced his eyes and the numbness in her shoulders told her to acquiesce. His conviction and desperation rubbed off on her for once. She nodded and smiled, hoping to coax her brother into mirroring her. She was not disappointed. His arms dropped to his side, and he bent to collect a stray wrench. "So, I assume you've already talked to him," Ash said.  

He blinked up at her. "Yeah, yesterday. While you were unpacking, I went straight to him, and we talked." 

She hummed lightly. "How did it go?" Ash wiped her slick palms on her warm, purple sweats and crossed her arms over her chest. He didn't answer right away, instead he stooped further to collect more of the tools scattered everywhere and packed them meticulously into the rusty red box. 

"It had a real rocky start, but I feel like we came to an understanding," he said. 

Relief washed through her like a cool drink. Enough relief to shake her legs and drop her clumsily onto the tall stack of folded lawn chairs. "Can I count on you for moral support, little brother? Like, hide in the closet or under a desk?" 

"No Ash, this is just something you're going to have to do on your own." So much for the brief calm. Her heart was picking up speed again. 

"And don't tell him I told you to talk to him. Don't even mention me at all, or it won't sound... you know, sincere. I'm heading to the store for some supplies. Fucking rental company gave us the shittiest truck in the lot." With that, he climbed into the truck and was struggling to get the engine to flip over when Ash left.