Page 121 of Ominous: Part 1
“You’re going to,” I tell her, my eyes locked on hers. “With me. Whenever you’re ready. I promise, I’ll make it good for you.”
* * *
She standsat the balcony of my room, storms still lingering from earlier today. It’s hot, and in the distance, more heat lightning, and heavy clouds over the moon promise rain. It seems, with us together, it’s always raining. I don’t believe in signs or superstitions, not really and not like she does, but I kind of like most of our time together is spent with water.
I lean back in the outdoor chair, my feet propped on the stool as I reach for the rolled joint on the glass table beside me, snagging the green lighter at the same time. I hold both up, joint in my mouth as I flick the lighter, inhaling and watching the tip grow orange in the darkness.
The wind blows, sailing the gray smoke toward Eden, standing on the bottom rung of the deck, her arms crossed over the railing.
She must catch the scent of marijuana, because she turns her head to me, my shirt on her body rippling with the weather, hugging her small breasts. I can barely see her shorts, but as she twists around to smile at me, I see the shape of her ass, and I wonder if I’ll ever get over it.
Like, how is it even fucking real?
“It’s going to rain again,” she says as I take another pull from the joint, grateful for the college dropout in my neighborhood whose parents are too ashamed to kick him out, lest he be found wandering the streets and a banker or a lawyer or a mayor recognizes him as the King’s son.
I turn my head to exhale, eyes on the darkening clouds. Thunder rumbles, and the air feels thick. Charged. The sweet taste of weed lingers on my tongue, eclipsing the taste of Eden, and I’ll just have to kiss more of her before we go to bed, whenever that’ll be.
“Good,” I tell her, facing her again, the joint between my fingers like a cigarette. “I like to sleep to the sound of rain.”
She studies me a moment, feet still stuck between the railings, her eyes on my own. In my bedroom, behind the sliding glass door, pale blue lights strung up along my ceiling are the only glow around us, save for the lit end of my joint.
So, I know she can’t see the circles under my eyes, but she still says, “You don’t look like you sleep much.” There’s something of concern threaded through her voice.
It softens my immediate reaction, which is annoyance. I don’t want to talk about why I don’t sleep, mainly because I don’t know why. My brain is always jumping to the next thing, spinning wildness and violence and thoughts I can’t have come true. When I lie down, it rushes at me, too fast, boredom creeping into my skin, under my nails like a splinter.
I have to get up and move or the yearning for self-destruction is nearly enough to make me tremble. At Montford, they gave me drugs.
They helped, sometimes.
But they made me let my guard down.
Again, I think of bleach, closets, and razorblades. If I could describe Montford in three words, it would be those, but they’d make sense to no one but the other patients. Maybe one of the staff, too.
I don’t think about that because there’s no point.
“Does it bother you?” I ask Eden, instead of explaining any of this. It wouldn’t make sense to her because it doesn’t make fucking sense to me. And maybe worse than confusion, she might feel compelled to stay up all night on the phone with me, texting back and forth, supplying me with entertainment when we’re apart. There are a thousand reasons I don’t want that, not least of all, my surprising concern for her well-being.
Sleep is essential to health.
Those who don’t get enough know it very well.
It’s a vicious cycle, compounding and whipping up my problems into a tornado instead of a strong wind.
“No,” she whispers, “but I wish you could.”
I take another inhale from the joint, wanting the light feeling in my head. It doesn’t help me sleep. It doesn’t really help me with much, except quieting some of the frantic brutality in my brain. “Maybe tonight I will.”
She half smiles. I can’t really read the expression in her eyes, but if I had to guess, it might be something like hesitancy. “Maybe so,” she says.
“Come closer to me,” I tell her, “you’re too far away.”
Three feet, it’s too much.
Another crackle of thunder. This time, a cloud-to-ground strike of lightning in the distance, brightening the sky in violet, just for a moment.
Eden doesn’t even startle. She just hops off the railing of the balcony, her hips swaying as she walks toward me. I widen my knees, giving her room, but she doesn’t sit.
She only watches me get high, and as I exhale through my nose, I extend the joint to her. “You want some?”
