Six Feet Under (Mad Love Duet Book 1)

by Whitney Barbetti

  Sounds from the kitchen caused me to remember I wasn’t alone. I padded across the cool floors until I saw Six, leaned over the sink, tapping the goldfish tank. There was an empty pan on the stove, two plates on the counter, and two full mugs of coffee beside him.

  It was a replay of the night I’d first woken up to him in my home, but this time I wasn’t trying to beat him with a bottle of liquor and he actually looked … cozy.

  “What are you doing?”

  He straightened, but not in a hurried way, as he turned to me. “Feeding Henry.”

  I pointed at the pan on the stove and raised an eyebrow.

  “Making breakfast.”

  “I don’t need breakfast.”

  It felt like an invasion, having him here, having him so … domestic in my space. Sex was one thing. This was … something else. Something unwelcome.

  I couldn’t let this become a thing, a permanent thing, that we’d both regret. Not fucking up the job I’d done for Six had been an anomaly. Screwing up was inevitable—but it would affect me more than him.

  He rubbed his lips together and his brow furrowed as he took me in. I realized then, it was probably hard to take me seriously, with my wild hair and my oversized tee with the faceless bandmates. But I held my spine straight anyway.

  “You should eat.”

  “Oh, really? What else should I do, mom?”

  “Have I upset you?”

  “Yes. No.” The voices were warring with my own thoughts in my head. The voices wanted him here. I did not. And if the fact that I believed there existed two opposing voices in my head didn’t mean he should get the hell away from me, nothing would. “I don’t want you here.”

  “You welcomed me in last night?”

  I lifted a shoulder. “Yeah, so? I wanted a fuck. And so did you,” I added when he looked pissed off at my frankness. “Don’t pretend you came here for anything other than a quick fuck, Six. We’re both not that stupid.”

  “Are you a mind reader now?”

  I laughed humorlessly. “I can barely handle the warring thoughts in my own head, how can I handle another’s?” At the question in his eyes, I spread my arms apart. “Yeah, that’s right. I’m crazy. In the head. Like, certifiably crazy. I hear voices. I do stupid shit that I know I shouldn’t, but that doesn’t stop me, does it?” I stopped abruptly, pissed for unloading that on him. I hardly ever let anyone peek into what went on behind my eyes.

  “Is that why you’re a drug addict?”

  “Get out.” I pointed at my door.

  “Why? I’m not telling you something you don’t already know about yourself.”

  “I know I’m an addict. But I do not want to talk about it. Not with you. Not ever.”

  “You don’t have to talk about it.” He sighed and braced his fists on the counter top. “I’m just going to make you breakfast, and then I’ll leave.”

  “I don’t want breakfast.”

  “Not even motherfucking bacon and eggs?”

  “Get out!” I said, hating myself for being such a royal bitch and hating him for making me feel like one. “You think you can come in here, give me a job, some money, bang my brains out, and then make me breakfast like we’re something we’re not? We’re not friends. We’re not anything. You don’t know me, because if you did, you’d know the last thing I would want is this.” I waved my hand at the coffee, the plates, the pan. It wasn’t the things themselves, but the comfort Six took in being in my home that offended me. I didn’t want him to get comfortable in my space when he’d never be comfortable with me.

  “You didn’t mind it the night someone beat you up.”

  “That was different.”

  “How?”

  “Well,” I began, knowing my tone was patronizing. “We weren’t fucking then.”

  “We’re not fucking now.”

  “But we did.”

  “Let me get this straight.” He leveled me with his gaze. “It was fine to make you breakfast as a stranger who’d dressed you while you were unconscious, but now that we’ve—as you’ve so eloquently put—fucked, breakfast is off-limits.”

  “You’re making what you did for me sound dirty.” I scratched at the skin on the inside of my wrists. “You were helping me.”

  “So it’s okay for you to accept help—even though it puts you in a weaker position. But when we’re on an even playing field, it’s suddenly not okay?”

  When he twisted the situation up the way he was, I felt at a loss for explaining myself. “Don’t talk to me like I’m stupid.”

  “I’m not saying you’re stupid; I’m saying you’re irrational.”

  I hated him even more for throwing my patronizing tone back at me. Hated him for making my crazy so very apparent. “Yeah, I’m irrational. I’m crazy, remember?” I threw up my hands, and knew my eyes were wild with it. “So get out.”

  When he didn’t budge, I stalked to where my coat was and pulled out his gold lighter. “Here.” I threw it at him, and he caught it without even looking. “There. Now I’ve got nothing of yours. You’re free to leave.”

  He set the lighter down on the counter, and I stalked over to him, snatched it up and pressed it hard against his chest. The solid wall of muscle that separated his skin from his ribs protected him from me, which only angered me more. “Take it,” I said through clenched teeth.

  He sighed, turned off the burner on the stove, and gave one last glance at my fish before he walked out of my apartment.

  I sunk down to the floor, breathing in and out faster than my chest could handle.

  6

  It’d been six days since I’d last heard from Six. And the entire time, I’d tried to keep the guilt of kicking him out from eating me alive.

  On that sixth day, there was a small, padded envelope sitting atop a few bills. I quickly disregarded the latter and ripped open the former. Inside was a hundred-dollar bill and … the lighter. I dropped it into my palm and then flicked it on. He’d refilled it.

  At the bottom of the envelope was a note.

  Here’s an advance on your next job. - Six

  “So loquacious,” I murmured to myself, pocketing the money and the lighter. I couldn’t lie—I was relieved to have the note. Relieved to have money again. Relieved to hear from Six. Relieved that I hadn’t fucked it all up like I’d expected.

  I let myself into my apartment, dropping the bills into the trash and fingering the Benjamin in my pocket when my home phone rang.

  I glared at it as its shrill tone echoed through my apartment. There could only be one person calling me, because the very fact that she was able to get through meant she'd paid my bill. As she always did.

  I let it ring and ring until it hit the answering machine and smiled to myself when the bleat of her sigh rang through. In her most insufferable voice, she said, “Mirabela, I know you're there. You're either high or being a little bitch, and frankly—I'm not sure which version of those two I'd prefer.”

  I smiled to myself and sat, cross-legged on the ground, picking at the nail polish that had begun to chip from my fingers.

  “I'll call you back in five minutes. I expect you to answer, if you know what's good for you.”

  At that, I laughed and fell backward onto the floor. I was in no hurry to obey my mother, not ever, so I made myself obnoxiously comfortable on the hardwood.

  “If you don't answer, I'll cut you off. I mean it this time. Nothing. Do you hear that, Mirabela? Nothing.”

  “Nothing,” I echoed loudly, with as much nonchalance as I possessed. But I wasn't unaffected. Sure, I'd helped Six and he'd helped me in return, but I wasn't able to support myself, long-term, on one single Benjamin. When I heard the clunk of her hanging up the receiver, I sighed—an echo of her own sigh.

  I mustered up the energy to get up when I remembered the bottle of vodka in my freezer. I'd need a bit of that before I suffered through a phone call with the woman who'd shoved me from her vagina like the alien she thought I was twenty-three years prior.


  I didn't have any clean glasses, which wasn't terribly shocking since I owned just three, so I grabbed a mug, some Dollar Store find, likely, judging by the cartoon “#1 Grandma” in hot pink coloring glazed across the front, and tipped the ice-cold vodka out.

  Henry did a loop in his cloudy tank as if he was unsubtly shouting, “Feed me!” so I poured in what was probably too much food across the top and watched him chase the colored flakes with wild abandon. I tapped on his bowl, seeing how similar I was to my fifty-cent goldfish, desperate for sustenance, but living in what felt like a prison. I wasn't sure who had it easier—Henry, whose prison encompassed him or I, whose prison lived in my head.

  The shrill ring of the phone startled me enough that I shook my mug full of vodka, splashing bits all over my counter. I swore under my breath as I rubbed my thumb through a puddle of vodka and then slurped it up off of my skin before waiting until the third ring, just before the fourth and final one, to pick up my phone.

  “Hello,” I said in a voice that was unconvincingly sleepy.

  “Mirabela.”

  I scrunched up my nose whenever she said that. Four-syllable names were a workout for the mouth. “Mother.”

  She sighed again, and my mind flashed to her funeral and what I'd choose to have inscribed on her grave:

  Here lies Lala Christy

  Daughter of the Emotionless

  Mother When Convenient

  Ex-Wife x 3

  Crazy

  Sighed a Lot

  “Mirabela,” she repeated, as if she liked reminding herself of the full-mouthed name she gave her daughter when her own first name consisted of merely two letters, repeated. Mother's parents were Slavic, the exact opposite of chatty—which explained my mother's name—and unsurprisingly, about as warm as the vodka in my hands. I tossed back a gulp of it as she continued. “What are you doing?”

  “Do you want the honest answer, or the one that will please you?”

  I waited for her answering sigh and was rewarded just seconds later. I'd need a tally sheet to keep track of each time she sighed during our conversation, I knew. It was a good day when I got her up in the double digits. “Are you taking your medication?” I had to blink, as if fluttering my eyelids would bring forth the image I was searching for. Meds. What meds was she talking about?

  Then, in stunning clarity, the pretty pink pills came to mind. “The lithium? No, I'm not.”

  “You have to,” she urged. “The doctor was adamant. Look, I didn't want to take my medication either when the doctor prescribed it. But look at me now! You're just like me. You need it.” That line was enough for me to cut her off, but it took a few seconds of blind shock for me to learn to use my voice again, as she continued, “You need to control your manic episodes, especially when I'm so far away—”

  “Hold on,” I stopped her, holding up my hand. “For one—that doc was a quack and gave me a dozen different medications. And two? You've been far away my whole life. Don't act like you suddenly care. And three, and most fucking importantly, I am not you. Should any child ever be cursed to have me as a mother, I would never, ever let them feel any fear—especially not the fear of their own mother.”

  Anger coursed through me, hot like a flame rippling up my skin. I picked up my mug and tossed more back before setting it down on the counter with more force than necessary. I wiped the back of my hand across my mouth and was about to hang up on her when she spoke again. “I don't deserve that.” Her voice had taken on a pitying tone and if I didn't know her as well as I unfortunately did, I might feel the slightest twinge of remorse. But after growing up under this woman's roof, the right side of my face constantly reddened by her slaps and my ears ringing from her screams, I had not an ounce of remorse left in me.

  “I didn't deserve a mother who spent my childhood alternating between screaming at me and neglecting me.” I ran my tongue across my teeth, taking in whatever little licks of vodka I had left in my mouth, and continued. “I don't know if I preferred you slapping me during your alcohol-fueled tantrums or forgetting I existed. Right now, I'd prefer the latter.”

  “You're so melodramatic, always have been.” I could practically see her spit from hundreds of miles away. “I just finished paying your hospital bill from the last time you overdosed.”

  “I didn't ask you to,” I told her, but this was my mother's way of 'stepping up' in the mother department. Mira makes a mess and Lala cleans it up. It was my mother's favorite narrative.

  “Couldn't you have sliced your wrists instead of getting your stomach pumped?” Ah, there was the disgust I knew so well. I could practically feel her spit through the phone. “Do you know how much more expensive it is to pay for a gastric suction over a few sutures?”

  “I'm sorry to inconvenience you,” I said bitterly. My eyes fell to the scars along my wrist, and the one scab from the last time I'd cut. “I'll do better next time.”

  But I wouldn’t. I was used to being a disappointment. Failure was inevitable.

  My mother’s voice became a distant echo as my thoughts turned to Six. Doing the job for him was the first time, in a long time, that I hadn’t failed when someone was counting on me.

  “Oh, don't be an idiot, Mirabela. It's not hard to not do drugs, you know.”

  “Maybe I should just be an alcoholic, like you.”

  “I am not an alcoholic. You may play me for the villain, but you're the one fucking everything up.”

  I set the phone on the counter and curled my fingers into fists tightly, my nails pressing into my palm. I wasn't prone to violence often, but my mother was like a hair trigger on my rage. I actually believed she enjoyed seeing the effect she had on me, even though we'd gone years without seeing one another in person.

  Hearing her voice echo off the counter, I ground my teeth and picked up the receiver. “Why did you call me?” My voice held none of the anger I felt but sounded rather dull. I wasn't a great actress when my emotions were heightened, but the biggest punishment I could bestow upon my mother would be indifference.

  “I was calling to see if you needed anything,” she said with more than mild disdain. “Besides a better attitude, which you're clearly lacking.”

  I bit the inside of my cheek and tried to tell myself to hang up on her. But the hundred bucks burning a hole in my pocket wouldn't last me through the weekend, and I was down to just schnapps in the fridge for alcohol. “I could use money,” I finally said, even though it felt like I was making a deal with the devil.

  I squeezed my eyes shut, ashamed for succumbing to her offer, when she said, “I'll send some along this week. Don't waste it on drugs unless they're prescription.”

  This was the game my mother and I played. She called every month or so to remind me of the burden I was on her conscience and I fought back with my version—the real version—of a childhood in a house run by a woman suffering from untreated bipolar disorder. She'd remind me of how unfair/unkind/selfish/melodramatic I was and then she'd try to buy my temporary peace with the offer of financial help. And then we'd both pretend I wouldn't use that money for nefarious purposes.

  “Great,” I told her, already imagining her next words in the script we practiced so frequently.

  “I'll call next month and check up on you,” she said, and I mimed each word. “Try to be a little grateful next time.” This was a deviation from the script, one that had my cooling blood starting to fire up again.

  “You know,” I said, my voice dripping honey, “you can fuck off. Stuff yourself with the money you were going to send me—I know it's the only thing that makes you happy anyway.”

  I heard her sharp intake of breath and braced myself. “Of course it is! Because I have a fuck up failure of a daughter. It's really a testament to your complete ineptitude as a human that you haven't managed to successfully kill yourself yet.”

  “Well, I'm sorry,” I spat. I squeezed the handle of the mug hard, threatening to break it. “Death would be my only freedom from you. And trust
me, I've tried.”

  “Try harder.” The phone went flat, and I dropped it at the same time that I threw my mug into the sink. Like a grenade going off, pieces of porcelain splintered across the counter.

  In my veins surged a hatred that had been awakened by her vitriol, and the boiling rage was pressing against my skin like a balloon being blown up far past its limits. The need to breathe was so intense, so blindingly necessary, and the voices so overpowering to cut, cut, cut, that before I had a second to think, I picked up a sliver of sharp porcelain and dragged it quick and hard across my arm. Three times. Slice, slice, slice.

  The sliver fell to the ground and I slid down beside it, watching with a sick satisfaction as red poured from my arm, pooling in the creases of my palm. The pressure was gone, replaced with relief, as if opening up my skin had allowed everything to empty from the darker parts of my head.

  I sat on the floor for a long time, watching the blood slow to a trickle as the clotting protected me from bleeding too much. Trails of red slid down opposite sides of my arm, staining the worn linoleum of my kitchen floor. The moment my head was completely clear, and my heart had slowed to normal, a brisk rap on the door echoed across my apartment.

  I blinked rapidly, as if the haze of relief had put me in a trance and I was just now awakening.

  “Mira.”

  Six. I sucked in a harsh breath, like one would when coming up for air, and then stood, grabbing the kitchen towel he'd left the day he'd been at my apartment, and I wrapped it tightly around my arm. Not to stop the bleeding, because it had long since slowed, but to hide what I'd done. Whatever relief I'd collected from cutting, I was still completely aware that it wasn't normal to cause oneself harm.

  As I cautiously walked toward the door, I snagged a sweater off the top of my laundry basket and pulled it over my head, dropping the towel immediately after my arms were covered.