by Andra Brynn
“You need a hot shower,” Daniel says. “We can’t stay in these wet pants. I’ll run the wet stuff through the dryer, okay?”
I nod. That sounds good to me. A flamethrower aimed right at my face sounds good to me right now. Everything sounds good to me. I want to turn on the oven and sit in front of it, letting it bathe me in its heat, or stick my hands over the stove, letting the red-hot coils thaw my fingers out.
“Come on,” he says. He holds out a hand, and I take it. As though I weigh nothing at all, he pulls me to my feet, and I stand in the middle of his living room, shivering. He gestures that I follow him and I do, wrapping my arms around myself. He enters his bedroom.
My head is a jumble, I am a ball of nerves. Outside the wind picks up, throwing snow against the window so fiercely it sounds like rain. I slip through the door.
Daniel’s bedroom is like the rest of the house. Austere. But the queen-sized bed is, surprisingly, unmade. Soft gray sheets crumple under a black comforter, and there are far more pillows on it than one man needs. Nothing hangs on the walls... except for a set of holes above the bed. A vacancy left by the crucifix now relocated to the living room. An open grave.
“Here.”
I turn to see Daniel standing in the bathroom off to my right. The light is warm and yellow, spilling out into the cold, unilluminated bedroom.
His shoulders stiff, he invites me inside the bathroom, and, my heart picking up the pace, I follow.
There’s a tub on my left, and two sinks on my right, and directly in front of me is a narrow door leading to a small walk-in closet. Daniel disappears into the closet, then reappears as he turns on the light.
“I think I have some kind of pants you could wear,” he says. “If you don’t mind tripping over the cuffs.”
“I don’t mind,” I say, almost too quickly. “I wear men’s clothes all the time.”
He looks at me strangely. “You do?”
“They’re always cheaper.”
As though against his will, his mouth quirks. “Right. I sometimes forget what it was like to be a penniless undergrad.”
“Or a penniless anything,” I say.
He turns and begins to root around in the closet. “What do you mean?”
I shrug. “I’m pretty penniless regardless of my student status.”
He pauses and frowns. “You are?”
“Yeah. I mean, why do you think I don’t own a bowl?”
For a long moment Daniel watches me, and his face is shuttered. “I figured you spent that money on alcohol.”
I press my lips together. “Maybe. Everyone has needs.”
He doesn’t answer that, just pulls a set of towels and a pair of pajama bottoms out of the closet.
“Here,” he says, handing them to me, “take a quick shower and warm up. We’ll decide what to do when we’re warm.”
Then he leaves the bathroom.
I look at myself in the mirror, and suddenly I feel very much in my own skin, very much here and now. Thoughts of the future have flown away, and I am stuck in my body, on a path whose ending is unknown, but that has been laid out in front of me long before I ever stepped onto it.
I turn on the hot water and take off my clothes, letting them fall where they may, rebelling against the austerity of the bathroom. It looks like a hotel, as if no one lives here. It makes me think of the old Pharaoh tombs, full of things that would never be used.
I hop into the shower and let it warm me before hopping back out again. My naked body flashes at me from the mirror, all skin and fat and muscle and bone. Blood rushes under the skin. My mortality stares back at me. I put on the pajama pants Daniel gave me and have to cinch them in tight to keep them on my hips, and they fall far past my toes, but refuse to stay cuffed. In the end, I just step on them. I pull my sweatshirt back on and step out of the bathroom.
Daniel is sitting on the bed, reading a Bible.
Of course.
“Bathroom’s vacant,” I tell him. “I’m gonna go watch TV and raid your pantry.”
He just nods and I slip past him into the living room.
The light in the kitchen is on, harshly illuminating the room, reflecting in the glass of the windows, and I have to inch the door to the balcony open to see if the snow has let up.
It hasn’t.
I bite my lip and go stand in the middle of the living room, trying not to jump out of my skin when Daniel turns the shower on again. The water rushes through the pipes, a soothing, whooshing sound, and I force myself to sit down on the love seat instead of pace the floor. Because I don’t know what else to do, I pick up the remote and begin to flip through channels, looking for the local news.
Blizzard, they are saying. Stay indoors.
Well. That is not going to make Daniel very happy. Nor me, come to think of it. I look down at the loveseat and wonder just how uncomfortable it will be to spend the night on it.
I tuck my cold feet under myself and try not to think about the long night ahead. I don’t sleep well on loveseats. Couches, yes, but if my feet are constantly falling off the end of something or I’m forced into a corner, my body rebels and I can’t go under for longer than an hour or so. Which is one of the many reasons I like to slip out of the twin beds I usually fuck in and head home without saying sayonara. I’m just too tired to deal with anyone else upon waking.
In the bathroom the shower shuts off, and I stare resolutely at the television set, willing myself to not think of anything much except how brilliantly red the newscaster lady’s lips are. Someone really went all out on the lipstick for her. Or she’s a vampire. Vampires have ruddy lips, or so the old Slavic folklore says.
My stomach growls and I start at the sound. I frown down at my body—always demanding things like sleep and sustenance, which, as far as I’m concerned, are just wastes of time—but I heave myself off the loveseat anyway. I know it’s probably rude to help myself to Daniel’s larder, but seeing as how I’m probably going to be stuck here for a while I’ll be withdrawing from it sooner or later. I pad into the kitchen and open the pantry.
Not much. Bachelor chow. Peanut butter. Some bread. Cereal. Soups. An elderly can of peaches. And, strangely, marshmallow fluff. I smile and pull it out.
When Daniel finally emerges from his room, dressed in another pair of pajama pants and a sweatshirt, I am in the kitchen, smiling at him.
He is immediately wary, which makes me laugh, because even though we’ve only known each other for about two weeks, he already knows me so very well. “What did you do?” he asks.
I hold up two plates, upon which sit that heavenly combination of bread, peanut butter, and marshmallow fluff. “I made fluffernutters,” I say.
He raises his eyebrows. “Fluffernutters?”
I sigh. “Yes. Fluffernutters. Why else would you have a jar of marshmallow fluff in your pantry if you didn’t like fluffernutters?”
“For ice cream,” he says.
“Okay,” I concede, “that is also an acceptable application of marshmallow fluff. But here, you’ll love this. I’d eat these every day if I could.” In fact, I did eat them every day for at least two weeks back during my freshman year. Among the true joys of being on one’s own is the ability to eat whatever you want whenever you want. And I never got a stomachache like my mother always predicted.
I hand him a plate and he takes it, looking at the sandwich doubtfully. “Is this... healthy?” he asks me.
“No,” I tell him. “This is the sort of thing ten year old kids pack in their backpacks when they run away from home. You know, toothbrush, toothpaste, six pairs of underwear, and a couple of fluffernutters, in case you get hungry on the road.”
He picks up the sandwich, and then, with what I consider to be an admirable amount of faith, takes a bite.
I wait expectantly as he chews, and when he swallows I lean in for the verdict.
“That,” he says, “is actually pretty good. But it could use some milk.”
“I’m way ahead of you,�
�� I tell him, and hand him a small tumbler of milk. There was only half a gallon in the refrigerator and I didn’t want to use too much of it. Just enough to wash down the sandwiches.
He takes it gratefully and throws back a mouthful. “So,” he says, his eyes flicking over to the still flashing television, “anything interesting on?”
“We’re stuck in the middle of a blizzard,” I say. “A freak blizzard the likes of which has not been seen since the state was founded blah blah blah or whatever. Lots of snow. Stay indoors.”
“Yeah,” he says. “I was afraid that would happen.”
“No worries,” I tell him. “I don’t eat much and I am quiet as a mouse.”
The look on his face could be politely termed incredulous. “Uh-huh.”
“I am. And I am an excellent houseguest. I will always watch what you want to watch on TV, I am somewhat consistent about putting my dishes away, and I’ll only use your toothbrush if I get your permission first.”
“Bianca,” Daniel says, “sometimes I can’t tell if you’re joking or if you’re serious.”
“What’s the difference?” I ask.
“With you? Hard to say.”
I grin at him. “Want to watch the television tell us how fucked we are?”
“Yes,” Daniel says. “I want to see it myself. But first I’m turning the heat up. Might as well, now that we’re both here and I’m not just depriving myself.”
I watch as he crosses to the thermostat. “You don’t keep it cold in here out of some religious stricture, do you?”
He smiles. “Only because I’m practicing for my vow of poverty.”
The heater kicks on and I look up at the ceiling, smiling when I find the nearest register. I go and stand in the stream of hot air pouring out while Daniel switches his attention to the television. “Yup,” he says after about five minutes, “we’re stuck here.”
“At least we have enough fluffernutters to see us through the week,” I say.
“Good Lord,” he says. “A week?” I’m sure we can get you home tomorrow.”
Tomorrow? I think. I don’t want to go home tomorrow. I want to stay here, shooting the shit and eating fluffernutters. I don’t want to be finding out what my shitty grades are. I want to pretend, for just a little while longer, that I am safe and sound.
“We’ll just have to see,” I tell him. “Eat your fluffernutter or no dessert.”
“This practically is dessert,” he counters.
“Eat your fluffernutter, or no meal.”
“Well, I suppose when you put it that way, it’s hard to say no.” And he grins at me as he stuffs half the sandwich down his throat.
For a while we watch the television tell us what is happening right outside the window, but after the fifth shot of a reporter getting buried alive in snow, Daniel turns off the television. “Modern journalism is a wasteland,” he says.
“All journalism has always been a wasteland,” I say.
“You may be right. I’m not the history major.”
I smirk into my glass of milk. “At last, my degree comes in handy: being a pedantic shithead. I am going to be so much fun at parties after I graduate. If I graduate.”
“You’ll graduate,” Daniel says, and he says it with such ease that I wonder if he doesn’t have some special insight into the future that eludes me.
“How do you know?”
“I don’t,” he says. “I just choose to believe it’s true until such a time as it is definitively proven to not be true at all. If you get poor midterm grades, you can ask your professors about extra credit assignments. If they won’t give you extra credit, beg them. You could also cry.” He snorts. “I actually knew one guy back at MassArt who never even completed his senior project, but he’d been asking for extensions on his work the entire time he was at school, so when he asked for an extension on his senior project the deadline just sort of extended past matriculation. He got his degree and all was well. I guess.”
“That’s just wrong,” I say. “But might be effective. I could at least beg. I’m good at begging.” I wonder if I could put my slut super powers to use, but then brush the thought aside. That would probably get me suspended or kicked out. The opposite of good.
“I don’t think you’ll need to beg your way through your classes,” Daniel says.
“Yeah, but how do you know?”
He gives me a smirk, and suddenly I am suspicious. “Daniel... what do you know that you aren’t telling me?”
“Not much,” he says. “Only I got called in to fill in for Father O’Reilly’s class, and it never occurred to you that he might ask me to help him grade his midterms?”
The blood drains from my face. “Did I pass?” I demand. “Did I get an A?”
“Ethical conduct prevents me from revealing that information directly to you,” he says.
“Daniel!” I’m going to hit him. I look around for an object that would be suitable for smacking that smirk off his face. I grab a pillow from the loveseat and hold it high over my head. “Tell me!”
“I can’t!” He laughs, holding his hand up as though to shield himself, and I am boiling mad. I hit him with the pillow.
“Tell me!”
“I can’t!” He’s laughing so hard he’s doubled over, and my only consolation is that he probably wouldn’t be laughing so hard if I flunked my Holocaust midterm. Which is one down, three to go.
I hit him with the pillow a couple more times, just to get my tension out, until he finally grabs it and wrests it out of my hands with a yank so vicious that I squeak and fall into him.
For the briefest of moments, I am in his lap, my face pressed against his rock-hard stomach, his muscular thighs beneath my hands, and the scent of him fills my head. His flesh beneath the flannel of his pajama pants is burning hot.
I recover quickly, shoving against him and rearing back. I grab another pillow off the loveseat in the hopes that he won’t see my flaming face.
“Stop!” he says. “Mercy.”
He’s lying on the floor, the shove I gave him to right myself having tipped him over. He stares up at me, and I suddenly realize what I must look like to him, a woman on her knees beside him, her arms over her head, her breasts jutting out and her face flushed. If it weren’t for the couch cushion in my hands, I could be giving him a floor show.
I sit back on my heels and glare at him, just to know I’m not happy with the teasing, and he grins at me. “Let me just say this: if you write as well for your other classes and have the same grasp of the material, I don’t think you’re going to have a problem.”
I blink. “But what if I don’t?” I say. “What if all I know about is the problem of evil and how shitty everything is? That class is practically a blow-off class.”
He sighs. “God, Bianca. For about five seconds there you were in danger of acting like a normal girl. Good to see you just won’t let happiness keep you down.”
Now I really am angry with him. “Fuck you,” I say. “For a moment there I thought you didn’t have a huge stick up your ass.”
He sits up. “I don’t.”
“You do. You just want to make me normal and happy so you can pat yourself on the back and feel like you’ve done a good thing in this world.”
“I want to make you happy because then you would be happy,” he counters. “You know what I thought when I saw you puking all over the floor of my class?”
“That I looked like a drowned rat?”
“That you looked like someone who was drowning in misery.” He scowls. “Is it so bad that I want you to be happy instead of sad?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Yeah, it is. Because you don’t know anything about why I’m sad.”
“Because you won’t tell me.”
“And because when you first saw me and thought, ‘oh no, she’s so sad,’ you didn’t care about me. You cared about putting a notch in your God-belt.”
His face grows thunderous, so dark that a tiny sliver if fear slips under my sk
in. “Now who doesn’t know anything?” he says.
I don’t know what to say to him, but my eyes flit to the crucifix on the wall, and he follows my gaze.
“Ah,” he says. “I see. You think people only want to help you so they feel good about themselves. So they can get into heaven or something.”
“Everyone is out for themselves,” I tell him. “If you don’t know that by now, I don’t know what to tell you.”
He watches me for another long moment, and I stare back at him, defiantly. There’s a burgeoning rage inside me and I don’t know if I’m mad at Daniel or mad at everyone else in the world.
Poor girl, so tragic, so bad, poor girl, so dreadful, so sad...
But people are always judging, even when they express sympathy.
“I don’t need you to tell me I’m fucked up,” I say. “I know that well enough on my own.”
He sighs, exasperated. “I wasn’t trying to tell you that you’re fucked up. I’m just wondering why you can’t let yourself hope for anything.”
I shake my head, staring at him. “It’s really none of your business,” I say, “and I wouldn’t tell you anyway, even if I wanted to. You’re too nice and you wouldn’t understand.”
“Why wouldn’t I understand?”
I stand up. “There are places you can only understand if you go there. But you can’t come back from them. So just be happy you aren’t me.”
I glance at the clock on the DVR. It’s only nine, but I’m exhausted. The tension of the day has seeped through me, and it seems like this morning happened a long, long time ago. “I need to lie down,” I say, not looking at him.
For a long moment, Daniel doesn’t say anything. Then he stands up, too, and says, “Just a second. I need to grab some blankets and a pillow.”
I nod. A night on the loveseat it is, then. I’ve been worse, slept in worse places, felt worse about it. No big deal.
But when Daniel comes out of his room, blankets and pillow in hand, he says, “Okay, you can go in, now.”
I blink at him. “What?”
The ghost of a smile touches his face. “You didn’t think I was going to make you sleep on the couch, did you?”