DAMAGED

KAT

I waited for the door to click shut. I was a monster. We were vinegar and vinegar everywhere but the places he had pressed into my naked body. In those places we had been music, not symphonies but rough passionate garage music. I climbed out of the cocoon of warmth and found my way into the shower. The water beat down on the exhaustion that turned my muscles useless. I would have cried but I had stopped hating these parts of myself when I realized they weren't changing, not for love or the idea of it. I thought of his face the second before he tripped me. He looked so worn down. I was mad at him, for leaving me in the restaurant and for suggesting an awful idea that I played along with. I thought of his eyes empty and gone at the table, sitting across from me but a million miles away. I wanted to yell at him but I was on the ground before any words came out. When he apologized I was over it, as simple as that.

I pulled an old ratty band shirt on and some leggings before I crawled back into the burrow of blankets I had left. I closed my eyes and all I saw was flashes of his face, the sound his breath made when ragged, the humming that obliterated my consciousness when I had thought it already shattered. I twisted into the blankets deeper but it was there in the background of my thoughts while I fell asleep, a song on repeat.

***

The pounding on the door was like a knife into my brain. My head was swimming in the fog leftover from the sleeping pill I had taken in the middle of the night. The restlessness had been incurable, my whole body a touch memory. I groaned into the thin streams of sunlight coming through the shades I had not drawn tightly enough. I was going to kill him; it was always him interrupting my thoughts, my sleep, and my personal silences. I crawled out of the once burrow now a tunnel of pillows, blankets, and sheets. The sleep was there, clinging to my eyelids but I rubbed my eyes free of it before cracking open the door. It was a just a hand holding my favorite cup in the world. I smiled at the green and white container that held salvation from the gods.

"So did he find you?" Harper pushed her way past me while I scalded my tongue in an effort to appease the caffeine withdrawals. I nodded and sat down in one of the chairs that sat around the small table in the corner.

"You should have seen his face when I opened the door in a sheet toga with Everett bouncing up and down in the background in his boxers. It was priceless." She shook her head at the scene replaying in her mind.

"West Coast or East Coast last night?" I asked figuring the answer would be west. It was always west in her room.

"2pac baby. You know I only represent the best coast. Everett gets Biggie. We both ignore Diddy but share Snoop and Dre. We both let Eazy rest in peace without us murdering his legacy." I laughed so hard my coffee shook over and out of the cup. Their naked parties were becoming the stuff of legends, the feisty punk drummer girl and the folky acoustic balladeer throwing down rap battles in next to nothing at every town we hit. I usually went so I could chime in for 2pac. Harper stopped talking and looked around, taking in the destruction. My bed was normal but the scattered dress and undergarments did not fit my organized nature.

"Well, this is a zero in shocking and a 10 on Joe's scale of "WTF were you thinking Katastrophe Hale? Although, I think he set himself up for it this time. He was so tired he let his guard down again. Oh well, is it worth the months of long gazes and running away from the inevitable blow ups that are coming?" Her voice hadn't lost its perk but her sharp edges were showing. I glared at her while sipping my coffee slowly. Was it worth it? I thought of how hard my back was pressed to the wall, his odd questions about kissing. The humming.

"Yeah. It was worth it." She choked on her tea. We were opposites that way.

"You never admit when you like someone. Did he slam your head into the headboard a few times?" Her tone was full blown disbelief. I knocked on the wall behind me and raised my eyebrows. I felt a small twinge that I held back in my relationships so much that there was even things I did not share with her, all these years and I wasn't an open book with anyone.