“Straight home!” Eric calls after her, serious as hell.
I nod at him. “This happens often then?”
“You have no idea.”
Eric lives on the second floor, apartment 2D. It has a heavy wooden door that sucks air when he pushes it open. The apartment is dark, lit only by the moonlight coming through the big loft windows that are bare of curtains. It smells vaguely of baked bread when we walk in.
Eric throws his things by the door, and flicks on the overhead lights.
The apartment is an industrial loft that I fall in love with instantly. It’s all one big room, in essence, separated into sections by clever furniture placement. It has high ceilings with wooden beams and exposed brick. The kitchen is to the left of the front door, the living room directly to the right, separated by a couch and coffee table.
“Sorry about the mess.” Eric says, moving toward the kitchen to clear a plate and coffee cup from the table, picking up things as he goes. “I haven’t been home since yesterday morning.”
I cautiously enter the apartment, letting the door click closed behind me.
“You can put your things by the couch over the there,” he says, opening the windows by the sink, lifting himself up to his toes to reach the handle.
“Do you live here by yourself?” I move toward the couch. The light from the kitchen doesn’t reach far enough into the living room, so the apartment is half lit and half in shadow. Eric is in the light, washed in colour, and I am somewhere in the darkness, keeping the shadows company.
There is a rumpled throw on the couch, and a few beer bottles on the table. I set my suitcase down and stand in the middle of the room, doing nothing.
“Yeah, it’s a one-bedroom so...” he says, his sentence trailing off into nothingness. He comes over to where I’m standing and collects the bottles, looking out for other things that don’t fit.
“It’s gorgeous,” I say, still taking in with awe the beauty of the place. I can feel the air changing from the cool breeze coming in from the night.
“Yeah? They did some renovating a few years ago so I can’t take all the credit for it.” He smiles. “I like it here.”
“Where do you sleep?”
“Right through there.” He points to a sliding metal door that I hadn’t noticed. “You can check it out if you want. The bathroom’s in there too.”
“No, I’m okay, thanks.” I don’t know what he’s into, but I wouldn’t want a stranger peeking through my bedroom. I get the impression that Eric isn’t the sort of person to worry about that sort of thing.
“Abby, please sit down. You’re making me uncomfortable.”
Eric starts to rummage around in his fridge, shifting things around. I sit down on the couch, stiff bodied, not sure if I can touch anything. “Do you want anything to eat? I don’t have much. I need to do some shopping but I have some pizza slices that are a couple of days old.”
I decline the pizza but ask for a glass of water. He brings me a bottle that cracks when I open it. It’s cold and delicious.
“So where have you been for the last two days?”
“Huh?” he says, sitting down.
“You said that you haven’t been home since yesterday morning.”
“Oh, right. Well, yesterday I was at work until two pm, and then went to my second job until eight, and had some drinks with a friend of mine. I crashed at his place until I had to get back to the coffee shop.”
“You have two jobs?”
He shrugs. “I need to if I want to be able to afford this place.”
“So you’re not just a barista?”
He laughs. I look into my lap. “Some days all I am is a barista.” He gets up from the couch and stands over me. He walks over to the windows that look over the street and peers out. “I have plans to do better things, of course, but sometimes I’m just so tired I want to sleep for a year.” He is speaking to the window, and I wish I could see his face. “Sometimes I feel so alive it’s like I can never really die. Other times I feel like I’m waiting for something that is never going to happen.”
I hadn’t expected this from him. This entire time he’s been trying to convince me that there’s something to live for, and now he seems to be exhausted by the whole thing, just like me.
I can’t think of anything to say, so for a moment there is silence between us, the only sounds drifting in from outside, soft background noise.
“I want to show you something.” Eric says, turning back toward me. “Come with me.”
He leads me out of the apartment, past the last unit at the very end of the corridor. He pushes through the door to the stairwell, holding it open for me. I follow him, waiting for him to take the lead, to reveal where we’re going. We take four flights up to the rooftop. By the time we make it to the top, I am winded. Eric seems to be doing fine, so I suppose he does this often.
“You were looking for access to a rooftop,” he says, gesturing to the expanse of the buildings uppermost level. “Here you have it.”
I glance at him, wondering what he’s planning. The air is cooler up here, so I take in deep breaths to revitalize my lungs. Every inhale is a choice.
The rooftop is desolate, the air vents the only things to look at. Eric has walked to a few feet away from the ledge, his shadow cowering at his feet.
“It used to be really nice up here. We had potted trees and a flower garden and all that stuff. There used to be lights up here to until one year when Rudy from 3F lit illegal fireworks and almost burned us all to hell. It was Fourth of July and he was drunk off his ass. He’s the reason no one comes up here anymore.”
I look at him through the darkness. “So why are we up here?”
“Come over here.” He says, beckoning me with a nod of his head. I approach cautiously. “You can’t see much of the stars, this being LA and all, but it still is something.”
I look out over the rooftop. From our vantage point, the neighbourhood stretches and glows beneath us. Streetlights dance in the distance. I feel like the building is swaying, but maybe it’s just me. My eyes can’t take it in fast enough. I am high and free, and the moon is right there, like if I reach out far enough I can touch it with my fingertips.
I take a step closer. My shin brushes the ledge. I feel Eric move closer to me. If I jump, will he try to stop me? Will he reach out too late, grab a hold of nothing, and watch me fall?
I shut my eyes against the image. The earth hums. My heart pounds in my chest. I think to myself that I might be able to do it. It would be over in only a few minutes. I would be over. I could leap right into invisibility.
I open my eyes and look over the edge to the street below. The alleyway is dark. Only shadows await me. My eyes sting with tears. My breathing becomes audible, laboured and intense. “I’m going to die out here,” I say, the words floating in the air between us. I turn to look at Eric finally. “This is it for me.”
Panic flashes in his eyes. He moves slowly, as if not to spook me. “It doesn’t have to be,” he whispers. He reaches for my hand, fingers settling around my wrist. “You don’t have to jump.”
I can tell by the way he’s looking at me that he wouldn’t let go if I did jump. The grip on my wrist is getting tighter. He would fight. He would go down with me.
I exhale a million frustrations. “What’s going to happen to me?”
Eric speaks softly to me. “You don’t have to have a plan yet.”
“I can’t stay like this.”
“Give yourself some time,” he says, his voice softer than I’ve heard before. “I know this can’t be easy for you.” His fingers are still there, wrapped around my wrist. “I know you must be tired.”
I sway on my feet. I want to fall into his arms, to give myself up to him. I don’t know if I am prepared to do that, prepared for all that would follow.
“I’m not getting off this rooftop without you.”
I find the strength to reach for his hand, the one around my wrist, and take a hold of it.
I peel his fingers off one at a time, which he doesn’t protest about. Our hands tremble together. I don’t know which one of us is shaking more.
When we are back inside, Eric transforms the sleeper couch into a bed in under four minutes. He disappears into his room, where I can hear cupboards being opened and closed, and he returns with sheets, pillows and a blanket bundled in his arms.
“You don’t have to do all this.”
“I’ve been told that the sofa bed is pretty comfortable, but if you want you can take my bed and I’ll sleep here?”
I wave my hand at him. “No, this is fine. Really. Thank you.”
“No problem.” He makes sure everything is fine one last time and then switches on the TV. The news channel is on, and I see that it’s almost one in the morning. “Um...you can watch TV if you’d like. I’m a heavy sleeper so you don’t have to worry about noise.” He looks around for anything else he might have forgotten. “If you want to use the bathroom, just sneak by, I probably won’t hear you.”
Eric moves to the front door and switches the kitchen light off, and we are left standing in the glow of the TV.
“It’s been a very long day,” he says. “I would love to stay up and talk with you...”
I shake my head, waving him off. “You don’t have to worry about me.”
Eric presses his lips together and walks toward his bedroom. He pauses at the doorway, and then turns to me. “I didn’t lock the door. I’m not keeping you hostage. You’re free to go. But if you leave, I will call the police. I don’t know how they will find you, but I’m going to do my very best to at least try.”
I lower my eyes from his, try to look anywhere else.
“I’ll be in my room. If you need anything, you can come get me.”
I look up, and he is still standing there, looking at me.
“I really hope you don’t go anywhere, Abernathy. Goodnight.”
“’Night.”
I can’t see into his bedroom from the couch, but I can hear him. He seems to just be getting ready for bed, like normal. The TV flickers images across his walls, light bouncing off the windows. I stare at Eric’s front door for a very long time. My knees vibrate with the need to want to move, to leave, to get the hell out. I am ready to run away. I don’t know where I would run to. Back to the motel? Then what?
I close my eyes and breathe, counting to ten, then twenty, until the urge to disappear dissipates. I switch off the TV and look out onto the street; neighbouring houses all dark now, moonlight covering everything.
At some point I return to the couch, thinking of Benjamin, and fall asleep.
A Brief History Lesson – 2 Years Ago
After matriculating high school, I got accepted to The University of the Western Cape to study English. Ben was already a student there doing his second year of law, so my transition was quick and fairly painless, and because we lived close to campus I drove there every morning and got on with my life.
Three things happened during my first few months at university. 1) I fell for a boy named Aiden, who was very cute despite his large head and the tendency to get very drunk on weekends. We spent most of our free time hunting down empty tutorial rooms that we used to kiss in until our lips got numb and then eventually study for our respective exams or finish our essays. This lasted for about three weeks, until he made a disparaging remark about Steve Carell in Dan in Real Life. Unbeknownst to Aiden, that was one of my favourite movies of all time. I broke up with him a day later.
2) Ben, upon hearing the news that his father had cheated on his mother numerous times during their nineteen years of marriage, became so enraged that he punched his father so hard in the mouth that he knocked out a back molar. After a contrite apology to both his parents, Ben moved out of his childhood home and into a small flat that overlooked a shopping mall. His parents stayed together, for reasons Ben never explained to me, and he still went home every week for Sunday lunch.
3) I stopped making plans. When I was younger, I used to look forward to things weeks, even months, in advance. Christmas. Camping trips I took with my parents every summer. Birthday parties. I’d make plans to go to movies, or food markets, or the beach. But gradually, I stopped wanting to go out, to be part of something. Ben was the only person I could stand to be around. I had trouble foreseeing anything past a day or two. My interest in most things waned.
If anyone noticed it happening, no one said anything. I withdrew into myself, so much more than usual. That should have been the first warning sign.
I passed all my classes and was quite proud of myself for about a week. When the holidays came around, I didn’t know what to do with myself. Ben and I waited out the rest of the year in each other’s company. By the end of that year, something quite significant happened to both of us. For Ben, it was around the time he met Nina, his future wife. For me, it was discovering that, unequivocally, I wasn’t okay at all.
Chapter Three
I wake up on a strange couch early the next morning, exhausted all the way into my bones.
My brain takes a while to compute the change. The light is all wrong. It’s too harsh, too unforgiving. It is everywhere.
I lift myself into a seated position, my shoulders still heavy and aching. For a millisecond, I don’t remember where I am, what I’ve done, dreams flittering out and away from me.
Eric emerges from his bedroom like an apparition from another life. He is barefoot, dressed in a grey T-shirt and pyjama bottoms. A lingering scent of toothpaste follows him.
“Morning,” he says, nonchalant.
I blink at him a few times. “Morning.” My mouth tastes like an overused ashtray. “I thought I dreamt it.”
Eric stops next to the sleeper couch. “Dreamt what?”
I squint up at him. “You.”
He smirks. “Did you sleep okay? You look exhausted.”
I can tell that my face is still puffy with sleep. I am conscious of the fact that I probably look all sorts of awful while Eric – in the bright light of the new day – looks disarmingly good. His hair is still a bit messed up from sleep, random pieces sticking up at odd angles.
I mumble something about the bed being okay, while trying to release myself from the blanket.
“I’ll put on some coffee,” he says, and sweeps into the kitchen.
The living room is airy – Eric had failed to shut the windows last night – and the breeze drifting through cools my skin and dries the sweat on the back of my neck.
“By the way,” Eric says, running water into the sink and scratching around in his lower cabinetry. “Thank you for not killing me in my sleep. I really appreciate it.”
I am amused, but only offer him a weak smile.
“The bathroom is free. The shower is clean. I put out some fresh soap and a towel. You can make use of it while I make breakfast.”
I win my battle with the duvet, and stand up from the couch, finding my footing in the strange apartment.
“Eric...”
“Yeah,” he says, not looking my way. He fills the coffee machine with ground coffee beans and water, all with the skill of someone who does it often. I can see his shoulder blades working beneath his T-shirt.
“Eric.”
“Yeah?” He stops what he’s doing and turns to face me.
I want to tell him that he’s a good person, that letting me stay at his house when he didn’t even know me was an incredibly nice thing to do. I want to tell him that for the first time since arriving in California, I feel like it’s a really good place to be, not just a means to an end. I want to tell him that he looks good in his T-shirt. And although all of this is true, I want to tell him that I have an agenda of my own, that breakfast is the last thing on my mind. I want to tell him that he should let me go.
Instead, what I hear coming from my mouth is this. “At the very least you should let me cook breakfast.”
Eric smiles and shakes his head. “Absolutely not. You are my guest. And you shall not cook.”
He starts pulling things off the shelf above the stove. “Seriously. Go shower. Get cleaned up and I will have everything ready by the time you are finished. Unless you’re one of those people who take two-minute showers. Then you are likely to only get toast.”
I lug my suitcase through Eric’s bedroom. It is much like I expected. His bed is halfway made, the covers still rumpled and the pillow still holding the indentation of his head. He has a nightstand with a lamp and an alarm clock. There is one solitary window above the bed, with no curtains. The room smells of him. It’s a good, calming smell.
In the bathroom, I rummage around in my suitcase for clean clothes, and settle for a knee-length maroon dress and black cardigan. Needless to say I hadn’t packed much, and I am already running out of clean clothes.
I expect to find Eric in the kitchen when I’m finished, but there is no one in the apartment. The silence is so startling that I think I’ve missed something, like maybe the end of the world. I walk over to the kitchen table, towel to the ends of my hair to catch the last of the water droplets. There are plates on the table, and various jars and bottles from the fridge. Slices of tomato lay on the cutting board, juice bleeding into the striations of the knife marks. The coffee machine is gurgling away.
I find a note on the sink, in sharp scribbled handwriting. Sorry, no eggs. He’d written. Gone to the corner mart to pick some up. I hold the note in my hand, staring at it like it’s a note from my lover who’s just told me he’s leaving me. I am mesmerised.
There is a sudden knock on the door, jerking me out of my trance. I think that it must be Eric, having forgotten his keys or disabled with arms full of grocery bags, even though he was only supposed to buy eggs.
I pull the heavy door open, still scrunching at the ends of my hair with the towel. A woman in her mid-twenties is at the door, looking surprised to see me, her smile fading rapidly and her eyebrows rising up into her hairline.
A Sky Full of Stars Page 4