Page 53 of Maid in America

She nodded.

“One or two?” he asked.

Chastity pulled away and put some of the solvents back in the pail. “I have… bipolar two. Just got the diagnosis about a month ago. I was going to a counselor at the college for a bit, and she sent me to a psychiatrist. Next thing you know, I have this label that I can’t ever get rid of and a list of medications I’m supposed to take.”

“Good.”

“No. I won’t do it.” Chastity whipped her head to face him.

“Wait, what? Why not?”

“I’m not going to be some kind ofzombiejust to make everyone else’s lives easier. Have you ever felt real mania, Barrett? They’re… amazing. I want to savor every second of those highs that Ican. I don’t want to just float through lifeemotionless. I wouldn’t beme.”

Barrett stayed silent for a moment. Nodding.

“You knew I was weird, right? Well, now you know why.”

He stepped toward her. “First of all, I like weird. No, I fuckingloveweird. Second, there is nothing wrong with being different. Look, my Gam-Gam always told me to think about people like a field of flowers. How boring it would be if they were all the same?”

She smiled a little. “Gam-Gam sounds pretty kick ass.”

“She’s the best. My parents died in a motorcycle accident when I was nine. Mom was riding on the back. Some lady in a soccer van didn’t see them. Turned right into their lane. Clipped the front wheel and sent them over the edge of a raised part of the highway.”

“Jesus. I’m so sorry.”

“It was bad. Closed caskets for both of them. Still have a newspaper clipping somewhere of the mangled bike. Lady inthe soccer van didn’t even know what happened til the next day when the cops tracked her down.”

“I’m so sorry, Barrett.”

“My Gam-Gam and Gee-Paw raised my brother and I. For the most part, despite it all, she held it together. Stayed real positive. When I got older, I was the spitting image of my father, like a doppelganger almost. Gee-Paw had a hard time even looking at me. He died last year. Now it’s just me, Gam-Gam, and my idiot brother, Dusty.”

“What’s Dusty like? I mean, besides being an idiot.”

“He’s older. Has a wife and two little girls who,thankfully,take after their mom. He owns a little house in the ’burbs with a Homeowner’s Association that tells them how tall their grass is allowed to be. You’ve seen my place. That kind of structure is pretty much my worst nightmare.”

She nodded, rubbing the sole of her untied Vans against a black stain on the carpet.

“I can’t live a life like that. One where I feel dead and alive at the same time, living the same routine day after day, same co-workers telling you the same jokes, same meatloaf nights and taco Tuesdays, same ol’ missionary position.”

“Hey, don’t you dare knock the missionary position…” she joked, moving closer to him.

“Speaking of missionary position…” He wrapped his hands softly around her waist.

She looked at her watch and purred, “Mmmm. No can do, handsome. I have to be at work in a half an hour.”

“Okay.” He backed away, fighting his smile and picking up two bags of trash by the door. “I should probably head out, too. Got a hot date tonight anyway.”

“Oh yeah? What’s ol’ Gam-Gam making y’all for dinner?”

He laughed, shoulders sagging that she’d ruined the punchline. “She’s been on a tilapia kick lately, if youmustknow.”

Chastity smiled and headed toward the front door with his pail of supplies. It was only then that she noticed words written in Sharpie, ‘There was once a hole here, but now it’s gone.’A red circle was drawn where a peephole would go.

Yup, the last tenants were definitely on some heavy drugs…

Chastity opened the door for him, took one of the bags out of his hands, and replaced it with the handle of his supply bucket. “I’ll take this one down when I leave.”

He shook his head and grinned. “Stubborn.”

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