Confidant & Playlist

15. Unthinkable

June 2013

A muffled hum of plastic against wood disturbs my sleep. I attempt to ignore the sound but it continues. Slightly irritated; I blindly reach for my phone on my side table. Refusing to wake fully with my eyes still closed, I put in my pass-code and hit the answer button. "Hello?" I say with soft yawn.

"Lace..." there's a brief pause. "Come to my place." The request comes embedded in a slur; the inflection on on the first word sounds pained. I begin rubbing my eyes to clear them. He doesn't sound like he always does. A slight sense of panic begins in my chest.

"Bruno, what's the matter What happened?" I whisper in an effort not to wake Angel fast asleep in his bed or Bia in the crib mere feet away from me. She shifts but doesn't wake, he doesn't move a muscle. I shift to a sitting position at the edge of my bed.

"I...I just need you here with me Lace..." he says. "Please...just..." then in the background I hear a glass shatter against the wood floor. He swears under his breath and hisses in pain.

"Bruno!" I call put but he doesn't answer. The clattering of his phone hitting the floor comes then the line goes dead. I push on my J's, tie the draw string of my sweatpants and pull on a hoodie over my tank top. I catch a bus and take it over to Bruno's. When I arrive I knock and he answers immediately. A ragged Bruno greets me with a soundless nod as he leans up against the door frame. He wears a wrinkled old band tee, a flannel, dark jeans and socks.

"Lace." His face and eyes are red. The heavy, sickly sweet scent of whiskey rides on his breath. His place is a mess. On the island is an open bottle of whiskey, a glass half full and a small puddle of spilled liquid. Nearby there's shards of another glass and its assumed contents on the floor. The coffee table in the living room is overturned; the four wooden legs stick up in the air. He staggers drunkenly toward me and rests his head in my shoulder. "I miss you." He reaches up with his left hand and takes my pendant in his fingertips. "You're wearing it," he says with his words staggered. I take the pendant from him and drop it into my shirt. "You really do like it." He smiles a half a sort of sad smile. I disregard his words and lead him over to his couch and have him take a seat there. Just then in the dim lap light, I notice that his hand is bleeding. I go to his bathroom and get first-aid kit from under the sink; I take it back to the living room and squat down in front of Bruno.

"You know I can't stay here with you." I pull on some gloves, use a sponge and some rubbing alcohol to clean the cut that sits in the center of palm. He winces and attempts to pull his hand away but I hold onto it and wrap gauze around the wound. "Where's Jessica?"

"Jessica?" her name comes in the form of a question as though he is confused about what I'm asking.

"Yeah Jessica, your girlfriend." the sound of her title still cuts the roof of my mouth; I'm still surprised a single name could make me nauseous. My stomach flips and I swallow hard. "She should be here with you."

"Her? She doesn't understand anything about me. I left her." He says throwing his foot against one of the legs of the coffee table, it shakes with the sudden contact but quickly settles.

"What doesn't she understand?"

"Me. She doesn't understand me. I just wanted to stay in and listen to my mom's old music and just relax but she kept nagging me about wanting to go out, saying that getting my mind off of my mom would make me feel better." His raised tone disappears as quickly as it came. "I want to talk to you Lace, you understand me."

"You... you need something to drink that's not alcohol," I say walking from along side the couch to the kitchen where I pour a glass of water. "Come drink this." He stands obediently though drunkenly and joins me at the island; he then lifts the glass and drinks half of the water. I watch him carefully. He has had a lot more then he normally does, even his stance is different careless. "B, look at me." He lifts his eyes to the same level as mine. "You can't expect the relationship you have with her to work if you don't talk and tell her how you feel, she can't read your mind." He looks down then right back in my eyes.