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I sense the dread-heaping.
I laced our fingers and held my head.
Choking silence-creeping.
One of Jakes unfinished songs. He never named it, but wrote the lyrics in a notebook he borrowed from me and told me to keep it. He wanted to let it set for a while so he could think about the rhyme scheme.
Maybe it was going to be a ballad or his own song, separate from Analog Controller. It might have been the first single on his solo album. I'll never know because it remains forever unfinished. Like his promising career.
Like his life.
The thought makes my insides curl and twist in devastating knots. The depth of my need to find him is so real, it's almost surreal.
I dreamed that Jake was sitting at the foot of my bed, singing and playing his black acoustic guitar. He didn't look at me. His mouth was moving and I heard that song, but he wouldn't talk to me or look my way.
There is no rhyme or reason clever enough to turn this wrong thing to right. Sometimes I feel like the only person in the world who knows what it's like to lose the truest of true loves. Well, maybe Juliet knows, she never did get her happy ending with Romeo.
I sit up and turn on my clock radio and take my position on the floor for some morning stretches, determined. Not because I care about being limber or anything-only because I've got this one thing left to do and I'm going to do it right and stretching helps sharpen my mind.
As I finish my morning routine, breakfast arrives through the slot on the door. I take the tray and set it aside.
When the guard's scratchy voice calls to me from the open doorway, I see Avery poking her head in from the hall. She's wearing a big, stupid smile that makes me hate her a little more.
"Good morning!" She calls to me, waiving like an old friend who's spotted me in the middle of her Sunday morning stroll. My first instinct is to spit on that moronic grin, but I just ignore her. With Avery less is always best.
Avery watches, waiting. "Let me guess-you're still ignoring me?"
I won't look her way.
"I'll see you later, then." She waltzes down the corridor as I'm led out. Right before she turns the corner towards the community room, I assume to brag that she can go wherever the hell she wants, her middle finger flies up at me.
My first instinct is to laugh, but damn, there's nothing funny about it. Why the hell does she care what I do or say? She gets to remain unaffected no matter what happens to me. I just have to keep pretending like she doesn't exist.
+++
When I am finally back in place, back in my horrible metal chair, safely restrained to the frame, I take a deep breath.
As soon as my lawyer waltzes in with his signature long jacket, and settles down with his pen and pad, asking how I slept last night. I mumble something sarcastic about how thick and wonderfully soft the beds are and he graces me with a horrible smile.
Tight Bun and Quiet Man take their seats, each one scratching a pen to paper, asking me more stupid questions about Avery; wanting to know if I've seen her and what she was doing. I answer no to everything, anxious to get through the ritual.
Before I have a chance to start an orderly is buzzed into our small room. She's wearing the typical badge and navy blue scrubs. She's got dark chocolate skin. Her hair is unnaturally straight and pulled back into a twist, held in place by a wide barrette.
I don't have to look at the contents of the half-size plastic tray in her hands; I know why she's here. This is a dance I do every day, though my partner varies from day to day.
The tray holds three small paper cups. No one has to say, "Open." I just do it and tilt my head back so she can dump the contents of the first two cups into my mouth. My pills. Next, she holds out the third cup, waiting.
I keep my hands at my sides, though I could reach up with one if I wanted to. I'm restrained by a lap belt and one wrist harness. They've been letting me keep one hand free. Still, I never reach for anyone or anything, because I see how it makes the guards nervous. So, I wait for her to set the cup on the table in front of me. When she has taken her step back, I raise the cup to my mouth and swallow the tap water inside, washing down my prescribed medications.
Once the door has shut behind her, and we four are once again the only people in the room, I am asked to begin where I left off yesterday. But I feel the need to remind them of something:
"What happened chronologically is insignificant. It's how I saw it that matters." It's the one point that seems to stick. "My choices have always been dictated by my perception."
And then, I pick up near where I left off . . .
+++
I'd been bulldozed by another migraine over the following weekend and had missed spending time with Jake. The store where he worked was only a half-mile from my trailer park, in one of Carlisles' only strip-malls. There were two at the time: one for family shopping, complete with Movie Theater. The one I was heading for had a selection of small shops-the busiest of which was Carlisle's Largest Hardware Store.
