Cricket: Ember's Story

Coward

After my visit with Cricket, my sleep is full of fever-induced nightmares. Most of them involve me leaving the baby in the trash, walking away but then regretting it a day or so later and trying to go back and find him. A variety of scenarios plays out; not being able to get back into the bathroom, getting back in but finding the trashcan emptied, seeing someone else taking him right before I can get there, finding him and having to determine if he's somehow still alive. Each dream is full of sheer panic and desperation, and I wake up with my face all wet with tears.

Jesse thinks I'm crying because I'm sick with the flu. I let him. It's simple, and somehow comforting, when he tells me it'll be okay and he'll help me feel all better, when he moves my hair to the side and kisses the back of my neck. Like I have nothing to worry about except making him believe that.

The first thing I do when I wake up the next morning is take both of our temperatures. I'm 102. Jesse is 100. All I want in the world is to go back to sleep. My energy is sapped, and I can barely summon the strength it takes to get out of the sleeping bag and search for some NyQuil to knock myself out again.

"Why don't you want your baby no more?"

I jump and whirl around. The angry, accusing voice belongs to Gus, of all people, like me giving up on Cricket is a personal blow to him. He's standing in the kitchen doorway, shirtless, hugging his stuffed dog, still sick and shivering. His big brown eyes are blazing with either fever or anger, I can't tell.

"What's it to you?" I ask hoarsely.

I don't even know how he knows. He must have heard me talking to Hex about how my visit went yesterday. It's the last thing I need right now.

"I just wanna know why," Gus says.

"It's none of your business."

"There has to be a reason. Why don't you want him no more?"

"It's not that I don't want him, Mouse," I say, stifling a cough.

"So what is it?"

I sigh and throw up a hand. "He deserves better than me."

"That's a cop out."

"What do you know about it?"

"Nothin'. 'Cept that's a cop out, and you're a coward."

Gus rarely speaks to anyone like this. Maybe that's why it gets to me so much. When Jesse says cruel things to me, I barely feel it. When it comes from someone like Gus, well, it makes you take a good hard look at yourself.

I cough so hard I almost puke, and my body aches like one big bruise. I swallow the NyQuil I came in here to find and push past Gus.

"You can call me whatever you want when you know what this is like," I say.

Back at our sleeping bag, Jesse is being all sweet to me and looking helpless. My heart softens towards him once again. He makes me melt like candle wax.

"Ember..." he whispers weakly.

"It's okay, baby," I say, smoothing his sweaty hair back. "Don't talk."

"You're the best girlfriend. I really love you."

I coax him into taking a sip of medicine.

"Shh... Jesse. Don't talk anymore."

"If I die before you..."

"Stop."

"Don't leave me there," he says fearfully. "Don't leave me in the dark."

I can't promise him anything, so I just kiss his forehead.

"Fix me a hit?" he asks.

The life of a junkie. I sigh and start preparing the syringe. Adam, too, is still hitting that meth pipe despite burning up with fever. The meth makes it much worse, sends his body temperature skyrocketing.