Chaos Lives in Everything - 41. Chapter 41

Rebecca sat by Twig’s bedside and watched him sleep. The blood had been cleaned off of his face but his face was still covered in black blotchy bruises. Melanie was back at the hotel catching up on more sleep.

Watching Twig, Rebecca realized something: When you loved someone you never stopped truly loving them, even when your heart belonged to someone else. Such was the case with Twig and Melanie. Her heart belonged to Melanie but she still loved Twig. Once her heart had belonged to Twig and she supposed a small piece of it still did.

With Twig it had never been a question of whether or not he loved Rebecca; Rebecca knew that he did. The hell that he had put himself through to warn her in time was testament of that. If he hadn’t cared then Rebecca and Melanie might very well be dead right now. It was just that he loved his street drugs more. He was a sinking ship and Rebecca would have gone with him. That was why she’d left him in the end. And it had hurt, it truly did. The ironic thing was that she had almost done the same thing; she had almost dragged Melanie down with her. The only difference was that Melanie was still around.

She remembered walking along the beach at the pier and imagine what it would be like if they were to get married. She remembered thinking, If he would just ask me I would say yes. She remembered touching her belly and wondering what it would be like to have a human being growing there. But in her heart she’d known that would never happen. Because when he was riding the needle as he liked to call it, it was as if she was a ghost; it was as if she didn’t exist. And she didn’t want to live like a ghost. If it hadn’t been for all of the nights that she’d woken up in the night because he’d pissed the bed, or woken up in the middle of the morning to smell his vomit, or the two or three times that he’d been rushed to the hospital in an ambulance because he’d overdosed, if he had just seen her and acknowledged that she had stuck around when she didn’t think she could stick around any longer, then she would have stayed.

Love is such a strange thing, she thought.

As if he could hear her thought echoing through the chamber of his skull, Twig stirred and opened his eyes. He looked at her with eyes that were completely sober. She could not remember the last time she’d seen him sober.

“Hey,” he croaked.

She smiled. “Hey.”

“Water,” he mumbled unintelligibly.

“Huh?”

He pointed at the styrofoam cup sitting on the table; it had a straw sticking out of the top. “Water.”

“Oh yeah-sorry.” Feeling like an idiot, Rebecca grabbed the cup off the table. She scooted the chair closer to the bed and brought the straw to his lips. He sucked at it with lips that looked like pink shriveled strips of bacon. He gulped at it quickly, eyes closed.

“Slowly,” she said, pulling the cup back. “Slowly.”

He smiled at her again. She’d forgotten how sweet he looked when he smiled. “I remember you used to sit next to me just like you are now those times that I ran out of money and had to go cold turkey,” he said. “Before we got to fighting real bad. Before you left. You would sit with me all night and run your fingers through my hair and sing songs. Do you remember.”

She remembered how hopeless she’d felt in those moments. Twig would get the shivers and say things that didn’t make sense. Sometimes singing helped even though she wasn’t a good singer. Sometimes he would fall asleep within a few minutes of her singing. She would sing lullabies or whatever few hymns she could remember from the Bible. Even when she was at her angriest at him, so angry that she thought she might burst into a supernova and take the whole world with her, she had never told him about those feelings.

Rebecca smiled, hoping that it hid the ache her heart felt. “Yeah. I remember.”

“You were so good to me,” he said. “So good. I know you pushed me away. I know you hate me. And I don’t blame you for hating me, because I didn’t treat you the way that you deserve.”

She shook her head. “I don’t hate you. There’s nothing that you could do that could make me heat you.”

“Where’s Melanie?”

“She’s back at the motel sleeping.”

“Are you and she…?”

“Together? Yes.”

“Is she good to you?”

“Yes, better than I deserve.”

“No.” Twig shook his head vehemently. “You deserve the best. I hope that she treats you a million times better than I did.”

Rebecca couldn’t help but giggle. “You are being so corny right now.”

“I’m being serious,” he said indignantly and she knew that she’d hurt his feeling.

“Shhh.” She pressed a finger to his lips, silencing him. “I know, I’m sorry. You can say the sweetest things sometimes. That was one of the reasons why I fell for you. When you were clean you could be so romantic. If you had just given up the drugs, go to a rehab center, gotten clean, straightened your life out, I would have married you.”

“And I would have proposed. I should have proposed. But me getting clean, you know that’s not possible. I’m going to die because of it.”

This time Rebecca could not keep the tears out of her eyes. “I know.”

Sniffling, she stood up.

“Where are you going?” he said.

“I have to go home. There’s some unfinished business that I have to attend to.”

“But Bajork’s dead. You killed him.”

“I know.”

“So stay here.”

“I’m sorry, I made someone a promise.” By someone she meant Skold. Silently add, Because unlike you, Twig, when I say that I’m going to do something I do it. My word means everything to me because everything else pales to it.

“Then at least take the car,” he said. “The keys are still in the car. Just don’t forget about me.”

She kissed him softly on the lips. “That’s impossible. I could never forget about you.”

And that was the truth.

In watching Melanie sleep Rebecca forgot that the cab was waiting for them outside. Melanie breathed peacefully, an arm tossed carelessly over her chest. She looked so at peace that it almost seemed cruel to wake her up.

Rebecca shook her gently and called her name twice. Melanie opened her eyes and sat up. “What?” she said sleepily.

Rebecca gave her a guilty smile. “Sorry to wake you but the cab’s waiting outside.”

Melanie nodded as if this was something she already knew. “How’s Twig? Did you see him at the hospital?”

“Yeah I saw him. He’ll be fine.” For now anyway, she thought warily.

“I didn’t even realize that you’d left,” Melanie said, reaching for her shoes. “I would have gone with you, you know?”

“I know. But I wanted to let you sleep.”

Melanie looked at Rebecca thoughtfully. “I know this is an obvious question but you and he used to be together, right?”

“We did,” Rebecca said stiffly.

“What happened?”

Rebecca could not keep the bitterness out of her voice or eyes. “He loved his needles more.”

Understanding dawned on Melanie’s face. Her cheeks flushed in shame. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”

“That’s okay.” Rebecca smiled at her to show it was okay even though it really wasn’t. The fact that she had left Twig would always be a sore reminder that she had failed him in the end. “We better get going. The cab’s waiting for us.”

Rebecca thought that she would never be so glad to see Twig’s Gremlin sitting in the driveway. But she was glad, very glad.

She had just enough cash on her to cover the cab fare. She couldn’t tell if she was shaking from cold or excitement at the thought of going home. She wanted to get away from Dimitri’s parents’ cabin, wanted to be back in familiar territory. She wanted to forget about this night (and maybe a few others as well if she was being honest with herself).

She handed the key to Melanie and they got in the car. For several minutes they had to huddle inside and wait for the engine to heat up; the air condition rattled and took its sweet ass time coming out with the warm air.

“I h-hope D-Dimitri and h-her parents w-won’t be too pissed a-about the cabin,” Rebecca said, trying to distract herself from the fact that she was freezing to death. Her teeth chattered together making her face appear as if it was vibrating.

“W-well if they do t-then they c-can s-send me the fuh-fucking bill,” Melanie said. “Fuh-fuck it. We’re getting o-out of here.”

She put the Gremlin in reverse and backed out of the driveway carefully. Before long they were trundling down the road at twenty miles an hour. It would take them forever to reach Roc City at this point but it didn’t matter. As long as they were heading in the direction of the city that was fine. Of home.