Posts (page 2)
Luciana Vega, the mysterious mother of Marius fucking Vega, is coming to visit in the near future. It could be tomorrow or in a week or in two, he didn't specify and I didn't ask due to total nervosa. But I do feel, I feel that something big is about to happen; it may or may not be related, I'm unsure. I haven't been socializing as much outside the circle of his home this past week or several, too involved with that inner circle of children, lover, then observing his people. Most of my own business, I've handled over the phone.
I have a new diary, or have had since somewhere in February, and I haven't been burning the pages yet. At times, I think it cannot be so safe for me to keep a personal memoir like this but it means a lot to me when I do. The last time I kept a log, Aden read it and I felt — I don't know, violated, even if I presume he did it for good reasons. But I'm a creature of hope, I guess, and I have the hope that it won't happen again because I need somewhere to purge or to make notes so I don't forget things.
I want to at least try to settle some things before his mother arrives, so I'll be very busy today and so on until she arrives, I'm sure. Maybe it's dumb of me but once she's here, I know that I'll probably strive to be around her as much as possible — to know her, see if she can like me or what I can find out about the family just by being near her, maybe even learn how to be the future matriarch of a family like this in case it happens that I become that one day.
A lot of calls to make.
It's as it should be. I think—but somewhere all this choice becomes not-choice, maybe. As involved as I am in the familial sense, I feel there's only so much distance that I can put between the two of us. But I want this; secondary: he wants this. So it should be possible, shouldn't it? Otherwise, it could bleed out like it did when he interfered for whatever reason he had at the time, bleed out on Marius. I don't want that.
It's been awhile since I've had the hill-house man's blood in my veins, that cold dark sweat. It hurts, some. I wonder how Marié is; haven't seen her since she was ordered back to them. I find that I don't miss having her around, but I'll call her sometime soon, her or him.
And I'll have to talk to Bjorn soon too, but not until I speak to his brother, admit that I've been sending him on these wild goose chases—maybe.
Is nothing sacred to him—untouchable, safe? I wanted to write him an angry letter but that would be evidence, an article of proof that he could later on twist somehow to wield against me. I thought things with all of us were all right, that we were making it easier, but he just messed it all up like it didn't matter -- because it doesn't matter to him, nothing matters, not even his own Mercie.
If the situation were reversed, if we were them and they had been us, I would be so mortified if I knew what my brother was doing after I had died; but who knows, I don't know what happens after you die, I don't remember that part. All I remember is before and after, even if the before came back to me in harrowing slivers, one flash at a time.
I didn't correct him when Marius implied that it was good that I didn't remember, because for what? The notion that I don't remember probably comforts him if nothing else. Is that considered a lie? What would the point in him knowing that I know be? Would he want me to talk about what happened to me? Jett never expected me to talk about the thing in Chicago that broke us and we never talked about it, I only discussed it once. With Torie, once.
I don't want to ever talk about what happened the night that I died, not with anyone—not Aden, not Marius, not Mina, not Patrick, not Torie, no one. As far as I'm concerned, I was dead and then I wasn't dead and that's the end of the story.
Aden just pissed me off. It upset Marius that he did that with Luciana, and if it bothers Marius, it bothers me. It also upset me because I can tell how much he cares about his mother, and these are rich people, modern aristocracy even. Growing up on welfare and building an empire on being a rockstar, a sex symbol, a criminal and a killer and a whore -- I just don't see how she'll want me for Marius, I don't see how she could approve of me and I want that without wanting to want that, I don't want anything to mess us up.
I don't want to want the approval of another woman. I wanted that from my own mother for long enough and just look what that did to me when it never came.
I'm stupid because I thought he cared, I thought that Aden cared in some way, even if it was little, about me. I thought we shared things that meant something. And I'd almost think he's mad at me for sharing the dreams with Marius, but I can't convince myself of that and maybe that's because I see things through Vega-tinted lenses now.
He just doesn't care in the slightest, does he? Nothing matters, not even his own sister because just look at him. I don't matter and Marius doesn't matter and his nephew doesn't matter and his aunt doesn't matter. I wanted to talk to him about something, something big, but now I don't think that I can because he's completely untrustworthy. He'll only use it later to hurt me, he can't keep secrets, he can't even keep his mouth shut about something as private, as personal, as Prince.
It surprises me a little that it hurts me, genuinely hurts me, and I want to knock his door down so that I can scream at him, so that I can ask him what the fuck his problem is, but even that wouldn't even make me feel better because I know it would do nothing, I know it would not matter. I don't know what I'll do. I don't know that there's anything that I can do.
Just hate him, all over again, and wish there was nothing that held the hate together.
Rome is Burning Tonight
"Rev 22:20 (4:20 Mix)" — Puscifer, Don't Shoot the Messenger EP
"9 Crimes" — Damien Rice, 9
"I'll Take You On" — Howie Day, Stop All the World Now
"The Outsider" — A Perfect Circle, Thirteenth Step
"Would?" — Alice in Chains, Dirt
"Vicarious" — Tool, 10,000 Days
"The Denial Twist" — The White Stripes, Get Behind Me Satan
"Obstacle 1" — Interpol, Turn on the Bright Lights
"Crazy on You" — Heart, Dreamboat Annie
"I Know" — Placebo, Placebo
"Fell on Black Days" — Soundgarden, Superunknown
"Time is Running Out" — Muse, Absolution
Memoirs of the Magdalena
"Red Dress" — TV on the Radio, Dear Science
"All The Pretty Faces" — The Killers, Sawdust
"I'll Believe in Anything" — Wolf Parade, Apologies to the Queen Mary
"Poker Face" — Lady Gaga, The Fame
"This Picture" — Placebo, Sleeping With Ghosts
"I Put a Spell on You" — Marilyn Manson, Smells Like Children (Screamin' Jay Hawkins Cover)
"Helter Skelter" — The Beatles, The White Album
"Change (In the House of Flies)" — Deftones, White Pony
"Go With the Flow" — Queens of the Stone Age, Songs for the Deaf
"Plush" — Stone Temple Pilots, Core
Fuck Fair EP
"Like a Boy" — Ciara, The Evolution
"Smack That" — Akon feat. Eminem, Konvicted
"Party Like a Rockstar" — Shop Boyz, Rockstar Mentality
"Eye" — The Smashing Pumpkins, Lost Highway Soundtrack
a tragedienne's bruise blossoms EP
"Mr. Jones" — Counting Crows, August & Everything After
"Sad Beautiful World" — Sparklehorse, vivadixiesubermarinetransmissionplot
"Awkward Game" — Gabriella Cilmi, Lessons to Be Learned
"Forget Her" — Jeff Buckley, Grace: Legacy Edition
"Roads" — Portishead, Dummy
B-Sides from Babylon
"Heart-Shaped Box" — Nirvana, In Utero
"Doll Parts" — Hole, Live Through This
"Secret" — The Pierces, Thirteen Tales of Love and Revenge
"Burn My Shadow" — UNKLE feat. Ian Astbury, War Stories
Mina,
It took me over a week to even find your letter—it's not like I live at that shit hole bar, I'm special entertainment. You should send future letters to Marius Vega's estate, the kids and I moved in with Big Daddy. For now, at least. It's hard for me to say most things are permanent, you know? You can be disappointed if you think that way. Things can surprise you and I've never liked surprises unless it's something very, very expensive such as diamonds.
I might be this month's flavor, you know? I might not be what he thinks I am. He might not even really see me at all. He might not love me once I love him back. It's a rule that I always had so I'm not completely sure why I'm breaking it now—you know, not love back, not care about the outcome, not be attached. You do that and nine out of ten times, they'll keep loving you, and the one time won't matter because you don't care.
I'm happy for now, but I think we both know happiness is just what fills the space between the heartache rollercoasters. Can you imagine a happiness that lasts? I wonder sometimes if it's even scientifically possible. I prefer melancholy because the drop is never too far down, but a particularly violent shatter after an intermission of happiness can be a little more devastating than I like.
But yeah, I'm happy and I love. Attempting to find some sort of handhold so that I have something to hang on to when the floor falls out this time around, haha. Bath was kind of boring but I had a lot of sex and that part wasn't boring at all.
I will also state for the record that I would not have thrown a glass at that cop's head if he had not been on the porch, practically yelling to everyone about what a whore I was. I mean, have a little class, you know? I've only had sex with one man for at least ten months now and that's not even my record. I have kids. It seemed kind of disrespectful to them, too, you know? But I'm being a 'good girl' and I'm keeping distance between the two of us, so that should settle your concerns on the issue.
You and Patrick seem closer than I remember. What's the story on that?
Is what over? Have you had any problems I should know about? I want to settle whatever concerns that you might have, but nothing is ever completely over. The less you know about it, the better. I should never have said anything to you to start with. I'm sorry for that.
We're women in a man's world. We'll probably never be completely free until we're dead, until we're over and it's someone else's turn to dance around in the chains that we tried to make look like diamond jewelry instead of clumsy iron. Better a kind master, better the velvet glove. Better the pampered slave than the revolutionary—those tend to end up burned at the stake. I'll burn, one day. Just not today. Or just maybe I'll be the one with the matches. I'm not a fortune-teller.
I'll protect you if my demons become yours but sometimes it's best to keep things in the closet. Don't open Pandora's box, Mina. It's not worth it. And my children need their momma. There are certain things that people don't need to know about, things that aren't natural, things not for us but if we touch them, they become ours forever (or we become theirs.) If things have been quiet for you, just be glad. Just be content with that.
When I see you next, I'm sure Bath will have absolutely nothing to do with the conversation we have—but I prefer it that way. I've never really had the patience for small talk. I hope you're well. You mention so little about yourself. Next time, remedy that or I'll stop writing. I don't need you in my audience. I just need you in my corner.
Sincerely,
Jill
P.S. I am thinking about signing on to make a cameo in a couple music videos, so you better wait. I think the value of my autograph might just go up soon.
Aah, look at all the lonely people.
Aah, look at all the lonely people.
Eleanor Rigby picks up the rice in the church
where a wedding has been—lives in a dream,
waits at the window, wearing the face
that she keeps in a jar by the door.
Who is it for?
All the lonely people, where do they all come from?
All the lonely people, where do they all belong?
Father McKenzie writing the words of a sermon
that no one will hear—no one comes near.
Look at him working, darning his socks
in the night when there's nobody there.
What does he care?
All the lonely people, where do they all come from?
All the lonely people, where do they all belong?
Aah, look at all the lonely people.
Aah, look at all the lonely people.
Eleanor Rigby died in the church and was
buried along with her name—nobody came.
Father McKenzie, wiping the dirt from his hands
as he walks from the grave—no one was saved.
All the lonely people, where do they all come from?
All the lonely people, where do they all belong?
[The Beatles]
Here comes the sun, here comes the sun
and I say it's all right.
Little
darling, it's been a long, cold, lonely winter.
Little darling, it feels like
years since it's been here.
Here comes the sun, here comes the sun
and I
say it's all right.
Here comes the sun—and she noticed it on tentative
flower petals, the myriad of a Dutch painter's colors coming together to create
one lush shade fringed by the shadow of a tall tree embroidered in wrought iron
filigree, small winged insects filling the air where the previous months had
seen nothing but a particularly cold, unfriendly stillness. Nature's constancy
drew an interesting parallel to man's unpredictable spirit, the usually
unnoticed cruelty of a parent's ignorance (so diminutive an aspect, so easily
missed by lovers who tangled their fingers together like white and beige
ribbons, saw nothing but each other -- oh, to be so blind.)
Torie had been filming at the interval where the unclean man entered the children's private beachlike domain, castles unable to hold themselves together without the wet salt of the sea and buckets upended, toys half-buried. A compact camcorder, display open, faintly lowered so that she could observe without the interference between the two figures and her keenly leveled stare—though it still captured the image of the balloon descending, returning toward the earth instead of continuing to float up toward the silver-dappled blue-green (like eyes, her eyes caged in by darkly dripping lashes) of the spring sky, and her soft jaw unhinged, a reflex.
She did not believe the first time around so she had
to press a button, rewind the footage before she snapped it shut in pale hands
that had not seen the sunlight so clearly in a chorus of long, brittle months.
Instead tried to follow his direction subtly at first, quick-paced steps on
ballet shoes with their smart ankle-clasps, daffodil hem of her slim dress sent
to ruffle in the breeze—both natural and man-made from the quickened
speed of the chase.
Little
darling, it seems like years since it's been clear.
Here comes the sun, here
comes the sun
and I say it's all right.
It's all right.
I won't let this happen as cold-blooded as I've pretended to be, as cold-blooded as I can be—can't let this happen because I love Zion, love Elle. I think that I knew from the start, there is no choice for me. Julien asked me under that weeping willow if Thanatos reversed all the death in me, and I think that it must because instead of continuing to harden, even the heart of me is in reverse. It flowers, it expands. Coming undone, devolving to evolve.
I love, and I love, and I love so much; this girl who knew nothing of love, is still clumsy with the entire concept, is not sure that love is love or what love feels like (tastes like) or how much love I've experienced. Love is so complicated, so falsified—how it fades for someone but lasts forever with certain people, creeps deep into you, shakes you up in ways that leave bruises that just won't fade no matter how much time passes.
Love is not linear. Love has degrees. It can be mysterious, violent, irreparable, irrevocable, transferable, fleeting, eternal, soft, tender, animalistic, possessive, generous. It has at least a thousand faces—and at least a hundred more emotions that attempt to masquerade as it, so well that it's hard to tell the difference once you've shattered once or twice. I'm breakable still; still malleable.
I still decide the doors that I open and the doors that I close, but I cannot unfailingly rescind. I have the audacity to love everlastingly (now and then), even me, even disregarded. It won't always have the same answer, the exact definition or conditions, and sometimes, no conditions whatsoever, sometimes.
Now remembering the comb with the broken teeth. Gentle, it was so careful in my curl-tangled hair, he learned to put the other hand on my crown as he hesitantly pulled it through. He held my hand so that I could sing—when singing was new, and the concept of being free was new, this lovely pipe dream that I saved the most true parts of my heart for. Protected me, believed in me, loved me. And saw me: clumsily black-ringleted, broken-winged, striving to stand, dreaming of flying, would allow me crawl up into his bed if the nightmares shook me hard enough.
I can't forget how his arm draped over my waist, furled, held me close, the smell of his chest and my nose bent there; cannot forget what it was like to be his little girl, little Jill who did not care about anything except being safe, being in his shadow where she was, alive only when he smiled at her and the sun was on her. Can't even remember what it was like being Daddy's, only what it felt like not to be, to be Sam's. And though we never touched our mouths together, the sin-feeling scorched me each time our fingers twined together like strings someone else would weave, my whole heart would jump, tremble-throb, and in those days all I ever learned of love was—
I did not have it anywhere else, that life was a frightening darkness that was so much larger than I was, that I could not have it even if I could feel it, that I must not ever show it and that I was wrong for feeling it but I would not be wrong by doing it except alone, all alone, love like a dark secret that no one else could know, not even him. When he died, that hurt the most because I didn't know if he knew. Could not tell him anymore, I love you and Did you know? and You were my whole life, what is life now, this life without? So it's a double-edged shame that cuts deep both ways, this shame of having it in me and this shame of never sharing it, never telling anyone, never telling him.
As a child, I learned that some people will just never love you back—no matter how quiet I was, no matter how well I behaved, no matter how hard I tried to earn it, because mother would never love me. I learned that love will abandon you, just like Daddy did. I learned that love was something to be ashamed of, like my love for my brother. Love hurt me and it hurt me deep, it annihilated all the innocence and it disgraced me, so it terrified me for a long, long time.
Then I had children. I became a mother, that source of cold terror and emptiness, but I decided that I would do all that I could differently. At times I failed and then—I would triumph, I would succeed, and nothing had ever touched me so deeply, so irreversibly, as knowing there was a rightness in this, that I could do right at least somewhere and where better to do right than with the children?
I am not constantly correct, I will never be the best mother in the world, but I am unerringly loving, devoted, and faithful to their cause. A cause that demands they will have their childhood, just one more bedtime story and ponies and I'll let them ruin their dinner with ice cream at least three times a week. That I will never not love them, that I will never not be their champion, that I will not abide by monsters in their closets, that it does not matter what they do or who they become, I will always be their mother. I will always love them.
Carl Jung wrote: "Nothing has a stronger influence psychologically on their environment, and especially on their children, than the unlived life of the parent." And I live, have lived, and while not everyone sees the correctness in this living of mine, all that I can do is make the most out of the life that was given directly to me. I must learn. I must experience. I must fail so that I can appreciate the times that I prevail.
I've had love before, I've known love, but never quite like with Marius. It's transforming, transformative I've noticed, it can evolve and it can flower even through a bitter winter. I don't even know that it's love-love because love-love is so complicated, so seemingly impossible to decipher, but it feels like coming home after being lost for an interminable amount of time. It wasn't my choice anymore. I loved Aden when I first loved him—but the love I had for Aden, I can't describe it. It's like something that I've written before; here, this.
"I think that it started a long time ago but the last knots of who I used to be came unraveled about a year ago. I slept through white smoke-bouquets of cocaine, threaded my fingers along the spine of despair and started making love to every one of my own demons within an unbreakable cage of silent shame. I went from stone to ivory to ice to glass until the consistency of who I was dripped down through the cracks, so slowly that I only sometimes noticed the erosion. Somewhere along the line, I think a lot of us just started to fall apart—though I never wanted to admit that I was, too, that sometime last year, my head sank under the surface of the water, that the undertow caught my ankles in quiet fists and dragged me away. All the drugs & all the (absence of) love & all the small breaks along the shadowed path of losing yourself."
I felt like Aden and I were there, together, once—that we were mourning all the loss, all the heartache, all the fractured innocence that I now wonder if it wasn't ours, not just mine alone. All salt-wet with shared despair and this broken love for the still-innocent in me, in her, attempting to glue ourselves together in the beds that we made so that the cracks didn't look so deep. A sick, limping little thing of love. I didn't want to want Marius, didn't want to notice how we would resonate together, don't think that I ever did or ever would apologize for it—not to anyone, because all I had ever wanted was someone like him, and he came so late (and I didn't know how to cope with that), but I know it's where I belong.
I had his crest tattooed on me, to represent this supernaturally responsive sort of love of mine for him—because I don't think that I can ever really tell him though I've tried, could never express it coherently, not even here in these awkward little pages. He knows about the Amor Vincit Omnia on my hip, sees it all the time, but this one I hide.
A tiny black brand, a perfect replica, my little secret, just under the downy dark hairline at my nape. I think now that I could have found a better place for it, maybe behind the ear, so that I wasn't worried that he would find when he's behind me, fisting all of my hair—but I fight that grasp, pretend like it's part of the fun, and I have so much hair that he would be hard-pressed to ever find it.
It means that I'll never be able to wear all of it up now, not unless I want him to see it and I don't. It's like doodling a boy's name in your notebook during grade school, it's a private personal thing. It's for me, not for him, it'd be fairly embarrassing to share something like this because we don't make real promises to each other. I can do other things to show him that I want to be here, that all of this means a lot to me, like clutter up his fancy bedroom with telltale physical slivers of me. I'm doing it a little at a time, upsetting the symmetry of his king's chamber with traces of my unruliness: I am diligent, calculated.
A few pairs of panties strewn absentmindedly over the small altar table at the end of his massive bed—dark fringed satin with the ass missing, soft red crêpe with a Leavers lace insert, a skimpy lavender tulle piece. Djarums (black ones since I'm bored with Gauloise now), half-empty and forgotten, multicolored Bic lighters collected from local gas stations. An expensive camcorder, suggestive. On his nightstand, the La Perla handcuffs that are bondage-thick leather cuffs with precious crystal detail, the matching leash too narrow to fit anyone's throat but mine; keys, cellphone, overspilled jewelry that is not confined by boxes. Incense. Cocaine. Pot. If a maid straightens it, I do it all over again. His closet invaded with my clothes, one svelte article at a time.
The custom-made hatbox silhouetted in obsidian silk-faille I've hidden under his (our?, no, not quite yet but—) bed where I store the most precious things: wedding ring from Jett not Zion because I returned those; the first flyer ever printed for a Traffic Sex show out in Chicago framed in sterling; a picture of me and Scotty Mathison after a show drinking cheap beers and flipping off the camera; the first article that Rolling Stone ever issued about my music and my first cover spread; baby pictures of Scottie in our first apartment; the first concert ticket after I went solo; baby pictures of Sylvie while on tour in Europe; pictures of Scottie and Sylvie and me that Dad took our last Christmas together; a couple of old polaroids a friend of ours took of Sam, the two of us together, the three of us, musketeers with Caleb; me and Jett, me and Torie, me and Dad, Dad and Scottie pictures; pictures of old bandmates, Willow and Canaan (married now, I think) and Strem (dead) and Brennan (probably still in his mother's basement), pictures of other famous musicians, Gabriel Sharp, Millicent Grim, Leighton Lusk at The Sacrifice Club and some of the crowd at The Morgue; the gossip article they printed about me and Aden, the videotape of me and Marius at Club Eden that Mina gave me; mostly pictures, pictures everywhere.
A tarnished locket, the first tooth that Scottie ever lost, the diamonds from Vega. These are my real treasures, these small captured memories—important landmarks or accomplishments, and the people that have changed my life; to open this hatbox would be like unfastening the soul, I only do it to put something inside these days. The big boots that look like something out of a graphic novel, my infamous custom New Rocks, along the wall. Glocks in his dresser, unloaded but velvet-wrapped with their clips; throwing knives and special garters manufactured to sheathe them. This is me. Infiltrating holy space.
This love means second chances exist. This love means I've run away once, I won't do it twice—he would have to throw me out with his bare hands. This love means that I will keep trying, that I don't have to explain to another child why their parents don't live together (or why they don't even know Daddy like my Scottie.) God willing, so to speak though I don't have it in me to be religious, or knock on wood. This love means I want even if I didn't choose because I think he knew I was his even when I was his cousin's; how he persevered so patiently, knowing.
This love means hold on tight and I'm still scared but I'm right here, Daddy. Just trust me, trust me, this is going to be one hell of a ride. If it's not for forever, still, you made yourself a forever inside me. How did you do that?
____
Mama, please stop crying, I can't stand the sound;
your pain is painful and it's tearing me down.
I hear glasses breaking as I sit up in my bed.
I told Dad you didn't mean those nasty things you said.
You fight about money, about me and my brother—
and this I come home to, this is my shelter.
It ain't easy growing up in World War III,
never knowing what love could be, you'll see.
I don't want love to destroy me like it has done my family.
Can we work it out? Can we be a family?
I promise I'll be better, Mommy, I'll do anything.
Can we work it out? Can we be a family?
I promise I'll be better, Daddy, please don't leave.
Daddy, please stop yelling, I can't stand the sound;
make Mama stop crying 'cause I need you around.
My mama, she loves you no matter what she says,
it's true. I know that she hurts you, but remember
I love you too.
I ran away today, ran from the noise, ran away.
Don't want to go back to that place,
but don't have no choice, no way.
It ain't easy growing up in World War III,
never knowing what love could be, well I've seen—
I don't want love to destroy me like it did my family.
Can we work it out? Can we be a family?
I promise I'll be better, Mommy, I'll do anything.
Can we work it out? Can we be a family?
I promise I'll be better, Daddy, please don't leave.
In our family portrait, we look pretty happy.
Let's play pretend, let's act like it comes naturally.
Daddy, don't leave.
Daddy, don't leave.
Daddy, don't leave.
Turn around please.
Remember that the night you left,
you took my shining star.
Daddy, don't leave.
Daddy, don't leave.
Daddy, don't leave.
Don't leave us here alone.
Mom will be nicer.
I'll be so much better, I'll tell my brother.
Oh, I won't spill the milk at dinner.
I'll be so much better, I'll do everything right.
I'll be your little girl forever.
Torie called to let me know she wrecked the Mazda again and that it wasn't her fault this time. It kind of stressed me out, though, to be honest. I'm so protective of her, I am, the only sister I'll probably ever have but I'm not accustomed to sisters so she's like my child, my little girl even if our age doesn't seem so far apart.
I look younger than I am—and her eyes haven't seen the kinds of things that mine have. She's still sort of sweet, still pure as far as I know in the most biblical sense because her 'art' always meant more to her than boys. And I think, I think she's felt like she lives under my shadow, has ever since I found Daddy's new house and I knocked on that door to remind him of the things he left behind as I left my son behind, with him, when I couldn't take care of him anymore, not safely. She's small, so much smaller because she's more quiet than I am. Gentle, little.
And I know, I know that it has to be hard for her, living under my shadow, because it's a big shadow—I know that during prep school, as soon as they knew who she was, all of those little 'friends' of hers just wanted to know about me, they wanted to know if she could get autographs or concert tickets, this girl who has this celebrity sister that's larger than life. I knew and she knew.
She's lovely to look at, so lovely, but she's not as beautiful as I am even though we seem to share so much of ourselves in our looks. And I wonder if it made her lonely when I showed up, that her mother had died years ago and now her father spent so much more of his energy toward me—attempting to make up for lost time and/or rife with shame, wanting to fix, wanting to make better, I'm sorry, baby, I'm so sorry.
So I'm sorry that I overshadow her nine out of ten times and she's sorry that she had the Dad she seems to know that I needed, that I wanted.
I don't think she talks to anyone the way she talks to me but from the start, she's interfering carefully, so carefully, with everything like she wants to fix me. Guilt-stricken, for me being left all alone and her having Dad. But she's not a fixer, not really, she's a watcher. She observes, and she studies, and she accepts the world around her for whatever it is at whatever moment—she's just not like other people who want to push their own ideas about things on the world itself, and I love that about her, I love that about her so much.
And she tells me, on the phone, that this man does not want to call the police. I understand that, fine, did they exchange insurance information? And she says no, not to be mad at her, but this man was 'off' and since their cars ended up in the drive of my bar (I don't want her there, I don't think she realizes how dangerous that place is, I have to tell her that I do not want her there ever again and I'm a little anxious when I say it so Marius looks over at me, the phonecall woke both of us up, and I wave my hand a little, letting him know everything's all right), he tells her they should have a drink and 'discuss' it.
I know as soon as she says that, this is not a man that she needs to be around, not ever, this is a dangerous man, and I am not happy—I even have to wonder if it's Aden and my stomach twists, so I ask what his name was or what he looked like, and I feel better afterward knowing that it wasn't Aden. Or any of the other predators I know until I think if this isn't a predator that I know—my stomach drops—then I don't know anything about this man and I don't like that either.
She tells me that he wrote her a blank check for the damages to the car, that she had to call a tow truck but not to worry, she's all right, maybe just some whiplash. I told her not to cash that check, tear it up or burn it or whatever, I'll pay for everything, that I know I sound mad but I'm not.
And suddenly, I'm very tired, it doesn't matter how hot I think Marius is when he's all naked like that. When I'm off the phone, all I want to do is sleep, just sleep, so I curl up on Marius and that's what I do.
This man even offers her a ride in his Audi that was still drivable apparently, unlike the Mazda. Luckily, Torie is smarter than that and even I know this.
I don't want to think about needing to go to that bar to pick up the mail someone left for me there, I don't want to talk about the decisions that I've made about that Zion thing, all I want is another dreamless sleep and I want my baby sister to stay the fuck on her campus, to stay the fuck away from that bar and from things that could hurt her so I don't have to put more unnecessary blood on my hands.
