Six Feet Under (Mad Love Duet Book 1)

by Whitney Barbetti

  “I need milk for my coffee, Mira.” She heaved an impatient breath like she was talking to a four-year-old.

  I climbed up off the floor and walked to the closet, grabbing my electrical-taped tennis shoes and the socks I’d stuffed inside them from the day before. When I held my hand out for money, my mother waved me off with her cigarette, scattering ash everywhere.

  “Tell Larry I’ll pay him later,” she said, not seeming to notice that I was still wearing pajamas, or, if she did, she didn’t care.

  The wind whipped my hair roughly into my eyes. For the first five minutes of the walk, I cursed her for making me walk to the grocery store in the cold, on the holiday. This didn’t seem right. Because I knew if it was normal, I’d gladly share the story of my Thanksgiving break with my friends at school.

  But I never did. I listened to their stories about going to grandma’s house, selecting a Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving, and eating enough pie to make their stomachs hurt. I didn’t know much about other families besides what the kids at school told me, but the families on the television seemed to share a closeness that we did not.

  “Hey, girlie,” Larry greeted me, his prickled jaw and greasy face split into a smile as soon as I walked into the store. I forced a smile and ducked down one of the aisles, toward the dairy case, and grabbed the half gallon of milk.

  I set the milk on the counter and looked at Larry with the face of a girl consistently apologizing for her mother. “Mom says she’ll pay you later,” I said, my chest heaving from being uncomfortable in his presence, being uncomfortable assuming that he would let my mother pay for this later, like it was on loan.

  Larry had a toothpick in his mouth and his lips were wet as he leaned forward, bringing his distinct body odor into my breathing space. “She will, will she?”

  The question was odd. I’d just said she would. I only nodded and took hold of the handle of the bottle. I pulled it, but his meaty, greasy palm rested on mine, stopping me.

  Who had sweaty hands in winter? I wondered.

  “Tell your mom she will pay,” he said, his gaze hot on me, his eyes searching. I felt his scrutiny like an unwelcome touch and jerked the milk away from him, scurrying out of the store without a second glance.

  And just like that, this Thanksgiving was a repeat of the one before. And the one before that.

  I came out of the memory like it was a dream that ended abruptly. I lifted my eyes, connecting first with Elaine and second with Six, who held my gaze steady, who squeezed my leg under the table.

  The silence made me uncomfortable, heavy with sadness. I knew my mother wasn't going to win any awards. When most kids made noodle necklaces at school for Mother’s Day, I carried mine home, "accidentally" dropping it and then "accidentally" stepping on it, because if I'd brought it home intact, it would have made its way to the garbage without a second glance anyway. I’d rather be the one to destroy it, than watch her do it.

  I was a product of my mother, not her carbon copy, but a watered-down version, my genes half-mixed with those of my father, whoever the hell he was.

  Luckily for me, and unlike my mother, I'd learned that squirting out a kid or two of my own would be detrimental to society.

  I picked up the fork and grinned, my smile saccharine; a kind of sweet that was scary. “Sorry,” I said, to break the silence.

  Six didn’t smile; his lips didn’t even twitch. He knew—I could see it plain as day in his eyes—that I’d been thinking of my mom. And he wanted me to tell him. Maybe not now, but eventually.

  But I didn’t want his pity. I didn’t want him to look at me differently. I was just getting used to the ways he looked at me now and if that changed…I’d change.

  I stared at Six, waiting for him to stop staring at me. His eyes finally flicked to his mom’s and said, “The electrical repair will have to wait until after Christmas. I’ll be gone.”

  My eyes met his levelly. This was the first I was hearing of him not being here for Christmas.

  I guessed I wasn’t the only one keeping secrets.

  When we made it back to the house, Six was quiet for a bit. I wondered which one of us would break the quiet first, for him to ask about what was in my eyes at his mom’s dinner, for me to ask him why he hadn’t mentioned he’d be gone for Christmas.

  But he didn’t say a word, and neither did I…for a while.

  He was outside, on his phone, walking Griffin around the front yard. None of the windows on the main floor would open—they’d long ago been painted permanently shut. I wondered if that’s why he was out there—so I couldn’t hear him or to whomever he was speaking with. The back yard was fenced in, giving Griffin more room to run around. It would’ve been a better place for her, so she could be unleashed. But instead, Six paced out front—not quite on our property but more on the sidewalk. More than once, he glanced toward the house, but I stood far enough from the windows so he couldn’t see me.

  Who was he talking to, and about what?

  You.

  You.

  You.

  I shook my head as if I could toss the voice out. For a long time, the voices had silenced so much that I believed them to be a figment of my imagination, heightened when I did drugs or drank alcohol. It made it easier for me to stay sober, knowing that I was much clearer without consuming things that highly altered my mood, substances that amplified those voices.

  But doubt and disbelief were just as dangerous to my mental well-being. And in my head, doubt was brewing.

  Why hadn’t Six told me he’d be gone for Christmas? We’d spent every Christmas together since meeting and now he was going to be gone. Why?

  I tried not to think of Cora/Andra, a girl who had made me more than a little jealous a time or two, because of her hold over Six. I understood Six’s connection to her dead mother, but it was hard for me to understand having someone in your life as long as Six had Cora/Andra in his.

  Maybe I could understand it better if I met her. If I could see how she and Six were together. He was so stoic with almost everyone—sometimes I tricked myself into believing he softened for me alone. If he was soft with Andra, too, would I feel differently about him?

  The front door opened with a creak, and then the heavy thud of Griffin’s feet sounded on the floor. My back was to Six as he came in, but I heard his approach anyway.

  I put the last pie dish into the sink and allowed it to soak, along with the flour-caked knives when I turned around to face him. He tucked his cell phone in his pocket and pulled the trash bag out of the can, his jaw clenched and his eyes stormy as they looked everywhere but right at me.

  I wanted to ask him a ton of things, but I also wanted to be the holdout. I wanted him to wonder more than I did.

  But when he came back in after taking the trash out, I asked, “Who were you talking to?” It wasn’t as pressing to me as the Christmas issue, but I wanted to start small.

  “I’ll explain in a bit,” he said tightly.

  I narrowed my eyes and dipped my hands into the hot water. It was almost too hot for comfort, but it was a good kind of hurt.

  He walked into the living room and turned on the television. I wasn’t satisfied with his answer, however. “What do you mean you’ll explain in a bit?” I drifted my hand over the rim of the pie plate in the water. “Like how you explained that you’ll be gone at Christmas?”

  I looked over my shoulder, watched his back stiffen. He was looking at his phone, not at the television he’d turned on. “I’m sorry I didn’t bring it up sooner,” he said quietly, his head bent.

  It made me irrationally angry that he was already apologizing. I couldn’t tell if he actually meant it, or if he was trying to diffuse a fight before it could begin. “You brought it up at the end of dinner like I was supposed to know about it already.”

  “Sorry.”

  “You keep saying that.”

  I watched him shrug.

  My hand in the sink closed around a metal handle to something,
clenching and unclenching. I just needed something to hold onto, something to keep me still. Something to keep me present, to keep me from running away.

  “Where are you going to be at Christmas?”

  “Colorado.”

  “With Cora?”

  That time, Six looked at me. There was warning in his eyes. “You mean Andra.”

  Whatever. It was a stupid name either way. And it was stupid that he was going to be gone. “Is that where you’re going to be?”

  “Yes.” I watched the muscles in his jaw seize up. “Is that a problem or something?”

  “It wasn’t until you kept it from me.”

  “I’m telling you now.”

  I blew out a breath of frustrated air. “You’re impossible sometimes, do you know that?”

  “You’re upset.”

  “No shit.” He was so calm, his voice even. I wasn’t trying to start a fight, but it pissed me off that he wasn’t pushing me the way I was pushing him. It wasn’t fair that I wanted him to push me about my mom, because I didn’t want to talk about her anyway. But I wanted him to fight the way he always wanted me to. “Why Christmas?”

  “Because she’s like family to me.”

  And I wasn’t. “So you’re going alone?” I unclenched the utensil in my hand and felt it drop to the bottom of the sink. I hadn’t needed psychoanalyzing for this—the root of my issue was that Six only introduced me to his mother—never anyone else in his life. And now he was spending a holiday away from me, with someone who was like family to him, but I still didn’t know this person. And she didn’t know me.

  “Of course I am.”

  Oof. If my hands hadn’t been forearms deep in the water, I would’ve pressed them against my chest. It was as if he wasn’t even listening to what he was saying to me. Six was usually so attuned to me, so why wasn’t he now? Was it the phone call?

  “Who called you?” I asked again.

  He sighed and turned off the television he wasn’t even watching. “Do you really want to do this tonight, Mira?”

  “Do what?” My hand searched the bottom of the sink for the utensil in vain. Stupid fucking deep sink.

  “I’m afraid if I tell you who was on the phone, you’ll fly off the handle.”

  “Why would you think that?” I asked, hand still searching.

  He gave a short laugh. “Right. Because you’ve never flown off the handle before.”

  I closed my eyes and my fingers found metal. “Who was it?”

  “It was a friend I have on the force.” He stood and faced me. “Your mom’s looking for you. Welfare check.”

  I didn’t realize how tightly I was squeezing the utensil until I felt that sharp bite on my palm, across the pads of my fingers. Shock caused my face to go white. Shock from the pain and the relief it gave me immediately, and shock from the mention of my mother.

  Pulling my hand out of the water, I said, “She is?”

  I stared down at my hand, the angry red line spackled with soap bubbles and watery flour. I’d closed around the sharp part of one of the knives I’d placed in the sink. There was a cut diagonally across my forefinger, middle finger, and palm.

  It’d been so long since I’d last cut. I hadn’t needed that release. I blinked at it, dumbfounded. I’d cut myself so many times in the past as a means to an end of pain. This was the first time I’d cut and focused more on the pain than the relief.

  “Mira?”

  I didn’t register Six’s presence until he was beside me, pulling my palm full out of the water.

  In an instant, that line between his eyes formed as he stared at the cut I’d made. “Mira,” he said again, softer, sadder.

  Fuck. “It was an accident,” I said. “You surprised me. I haven’t heard from my mom in forever. It was surprising that she wanted to get in touch with me.” My words flooded out in a rush, a bleed from one to the next. But they had a robotic quality to them, as if I was functioning in autopilot.

  He placed his fingers outside the cut and pressed. I knew he was checking how deep it was, but the line between his eyes grew deeper. “This is deep.”

  I pulled my palm away and ran it under cool water from the faucet. “It’s fine.” Grabbing paper towels, I tried not to look at him. I knew what he was thinking. He thought I’d done this on purpose. I wadded up the paper towels and formed a fist around it, to stop the bleeding. “It was an accident,” I repeated.

  “Let me bandage it.”

  “No.” I didn’t want him looking at me like that, like I was someone to mend. He’d looked at me as a broken woman when we first met. But then love had gotten in the way, and he’d looked at me with love. I didn’t want him to look at me with pity, with remorse. “It’s fine.”

  “Mira,” he said, softer, despite the louder volume of my voice.

  “Six.” I waited until he was meeting my eyes. “It is fine.” I huffed out a breath when the stinging started in my palm. “So, I have to get in touch with my mom then?” Perfect way to cap off such a shitty day, I thought.

  “I’ve got the number. But maybe now isn’t the best time. We can wait.”

  “If she called the cops to check on me, maybe she doesn’t want to wait.”

  Six closed in on me, cornering me in the kitchen. “She can wait, though.” His eyes flicked to my hand and shame filled my belly. He didn’t believe me. He thought I’d hurt myself on purpose. And he thought by calling my mom, I might hurt myself again.

  “Give me the number, Six,” I said in short, even tones. I didn’t want to have to prove that I was okay enough to make the call. I wanted him to believe me, to see it in my eyes.

  In the end, I wasn’t sure if he did believe me, but he gave it to me anyway.

  I pulled out my flip phone and dialed, making a beeline for the backyard. I didn’t want Six watching me as I made that call, I didn’t want him processing each facial expression on my face and hypothesizing what that meant, what I’d do.

  “Hello?” It’d been at least three years since I’d last spoken to her, but that trill of her voice still made me think of who she’d been when I was her child. Money from her rich husbands had put a gloss over her, but deep down she was still the same woman who’d tried to kill us both by driving off a bridge once.

  “It’s me.” There were a number of ways I could have greeted her, but calling her any variation of mother wasn’t one I cared to use then.

  “Oh, Mirabela. Good. I’ve been worried about you.”

  I tapped my feet into the hard dirt. “Yep, well, you can stop worrying. I’m still alive, believe it or not.”

  “I haven’t heard from you in a few months, so I wasn’t sure.”

  Pinching the bridge of my nose I said, “Years, mother. Years.”

  “Why do you always feel the need to correct me? I say I’m worried about you, and you turn it around into something wrong I’ve done. You delight in pointing out my mistakes, don’t you?”

  She did a good job herself, just living. But I didn’t say that. That’s not something she would have accepted from me. “Okay, well, I’m just calling to say you can call off the hounds. I’m alive and well.”

  “I’ve sent a few letters to you, but you haven’t replied.”

  The last time I’d spoken to her had been while I still lived at my old apartment. “I’ve moved.”

  “Oh. Well, what’s your address?”

  “Don’t sweat it. I’ve got a handle on things.” My hand squeezed the ball of paper towels. I thought of Six but refused to tell her a single thing about him. Not just because I didn’t want her to know my business, but because Six deserved some kind of protection from her. My mother may have looked better than she did when I was a child, but in the heart of that fancy exterior was a cold, uncaring woman.

  “But what if I want to send you a letter? I could send you money.”

  A few years before, I would have jumped at the chance to receive money from her. “No, I’m okay.”

  “Are you? You sound a litt
le shaky. I called the major hospitals in the area, to see if you’d ended up there.”

  I dug the toe of my shoe harder into the dirt. “Believe it or not, I’m not dead from an overdose.”

  She was quiet for a moment. “You make me sound like I’d prefer that you were.”

  But didn’t she? Maybe on some level she cared about me, but I think mostly she felt like I was a burden to her, someone else to take care of. Someone to support. In her mind, sending me money from time to time was her atonement for the sins of her motherhood. “I’m not doing drugs, I’m not drinking. I’m going to go now.”

  “Aren’t you going to wish me a Happy Thanksgiving? Don’t you care what I’ve been doing?”

  Nope. “Happy Thanksgiving. Got to go, goodbye.”

  I snapped the lid closed and turned the ringer off so if she called back I wouldn’t have to hear it.

  I opened my fist and pulled the paper towel away from the cut, wincing at the stinging. The cool air outside made it feel slightly better, so I flexed my fist over and over to allow more air to coat it.

  Inside, Six was watching me from the window. Pressing the paper towel to the cut, I went back inside.

  “Let me see your hand,” he said, holding his out.

  “No, I told you it’s fine.”

  “Mira.”

  “Six.” I glared daggers at him. Why wasn’t he asking me about my mom? Why wasn’t he asking about what had happened at Thanksgiving? Why wasn’t he asking anything? He only cared about my hand. Was that all he could handle of me, right now, or ever? My physical injuries? Not what made me tick?

  “If you’re not going to let me look at your hand, you should at least clean it. I have supplies upstairs, in the bathroom closet.”

  “Fine.” I made a move to go upstairs and then stopped. “Does Andra,” I asked, emphasizing her name, “know about me?”

  “Know what?” It was an answer in and of itself, but I tortured myself further.

  “Does she know I exist?”

  He surprised me. “Does your mom know I exist?”

  I didn’t answer him then but turned and went upstairs. The thing Six didn’t understand was that keeping Six’s presence from my mom was protecting him.