in love with a (strict machine)

[star studded]

"Hullo?" Music was playing, but he couldn't seem to find the source. Someone was singing along, and it was only when he heard Lucy's footsteps (everyone walked differently, and hers were a firm and determined sort of march) that he spoke to anyone in particular.

"Where is everyone?"

"I've been livin' just to see you smiiiile, every once in awhiiiile. Heeeeey, Asher." Lucy intercepted the British ecstatic with a lopsided grin and a little stumble-step. From multiple nights of picking up the girls from bars in the middle of the city, he knew what was going on almost immediately. The stout, short glass of Jack Daniels she balanced in her hand, was also a dead giveaway.

"Are yew drunk?"

"Of course!"

"Is Lani here?" If one was drunk, the other had to be hammered somewhere else. It was just a rule. They were trashed in pairs. A healthy bonding experience, of course, wasn't it? He convinced himself that it had to be.

"Nope. She and Charlie went.. I dunno, out. You know, I never liked Jack until I met Charlie, he reaaaaally turned me onto it." She waved a loose hand in a lazy circle as if to indicate some sort of physical sarcasm in that statement.

"When did yew start drinking?" He was assessing her almost immediately, the paranoid boy attempting to discover if she had been pounding it back for hours, or if she was just casually drunk, and would wake in the morning with a headache rather than in a hospital bed.

"I dunno! Lili's got this huuuuge cabinet, Asher, you.. should see it! It's like.. heavenly." She laughed at her own lame humor, lurching forward a moment, just to have Asher brace her arms.

"Yew.. should sit down."

"YOU should sit down!" She nudged a finger at him before taking another swallow of her drink, no ice. However, she allowed him to turn her around and guide her back into the living room where some record blared angrily. He turned the volume down and sat her on the couch, next to the bottle that she had drained a decent amount from. Asher sighed a moment, and examined the contents remaining. Lucy snagged it from him, her hand gripping the neck before she refilled her glass.

"I don't think that yew.. should.."

"Oh, relax.. I'm a big girl. You want a drink?" She waggled the bottle from him, and he eyed it suspiciously.

"I'm not very interested in Jack Daniels. I'm more of a wine person. Or brandy.." He tried to make justifications for it, but she was still thrusting the bottle towards him.

"One pull won't kill you, Christ. Live a little." She was the second person that week to say that to him, and it was like being double dared. Despite the obvious slur in her voice, he took her words seriously, yanking the bottle from her delicate grasp and dragging it directly to wary lips, a mouthful swallowed with one of those harsh winces.

"It burns, my goodness.."

"Means it's workin'." Lucy had far from abandoned her glass, but was currently fumbling with cigarettes and a match, striking the head against flint to fill the air around them with the sharp smell of sulfur. Before he could really enjoy it, it was replaced with a harsher scent from her exhale.

"Where did Lili and River go?" His voice was gravel from trying to sate the burn it had inflicted on vocal cords. Lucy's shoulders shrugged limply, and for a moment, he realized how small she really was. Not as thin as the first time he had met her, but still a tiny thing. He thought that maybe, if he applied enough pressure, he could break her arm with his hands. It was probably just an illusion.

"To visit some.. aunt, or something? I dunno, said they'd be back late.." She took a moment to pause as she subsided some sort of involuntary spasm, a hiccup that she swallowed back down. A hand lifted to itch lazily at the back of her neck, and he took a moment to slide into realization.

"How long have yew been alone?"

"Couple hours, I dunno.. where'd you go?"

"Mass." He hadn't been all week, and he had missed Sunday morning's because of the flight in, so he figured he might as well attend some sort of a service. He owed it to himself, to keep himself slightly balanced amidst all of this luxury and fun. "Why didn't yew go out with anyone?"

"Didn't want to."

"Yew could have come to church with me."

"You didn't ask."

Asher took a breath, attempting to sort it through for a moment, but he couldn't seem to make any sense out of all the jumbled static. He just knew he felt responsible for something that hadn't happened in the first place. Curious eyes watched as Lucy drained the second glass he had seen in her hand. She reached for the bottle.

"No." It was stern, and he was snatching it before she could. "Are yew alright?"

"I'm drunk, Asher, not dying." Lucy watched as he stood with the bottle, replacing the cap and wandering to slide it back into place in Lili's liquor cabient. When he returned, she had repositioned herself, her head in her hands, elbows stabbing the flats of thin, bare thighs.

"Do yew drink a lot when you're alone, Lucy?"

"What are you, a travelling AA sponsor?" Her words were snapped but they brushed off of him. He had learned, through random incidents, that the drunk were not the most sensitive, or the most gracious people.

"No. Just a friend."

"I don't drink a lot."

Again, fists knotted in frustration. Why couldn't he sift through her speech and pick the lies out? He could do it to anyone else in this household, except maybe River, but the rainbow boy didn't seem like anyone who would convincingly lie. Sinking back onto the couch beside her, he swallowed harshly, head tipping towards her.

"Is something wrong? Yew look upset."

"Just a headache. What about you?"

Asher's eyes were wide with confusion, his head shaking. "I.. I'm fine, why?"

"You've been talking to me a lot lately. I don't need.. you know, a keeper, or .. or a babysitter, or.."

"I know."

"Charlie thinks I do."

"Now, that's not true.."

"No. It is. He thinks he can't leave me alone for two seconds without me.. having some sort of crisis, or .. getting upset. He thinks I pick fights with him for the sake of having something to yell about, he thinks I'm just.. just a miserable person who wants to make everyone around her miserable." Asher's hands were folded calmly in his lap as her swollen slur of a voice grew lower and more cunning. He blinked a few times, searching through a rolodex of reactions and reasons, because somewhere, he had to have something that he could use.

"Well, are yew? Do yew want to make everyone around yew unhappy?" He used the same voice he used on children in the library, but his subject matter was much more imperative than where the books about bugs or butterflies were.

"No. I just don't like it.."

"Like what?" He could feel it this time, because it took longer than most people to form that whatever it was between them. Mental bridge. Emotional line of transit. He was begging, pleading with her with all the silent methods he knew how to employ, just to be able to transfer it. He wanted to understand in the way that only he could.

Her voice snapped something viably and completely into place. "Being the only one. Being alone."

He nodded a moment, as if he had come to some sort of understanding with her, unspoken and unable to remain silent.

"Do yew play gin?"

"No."

"Come on, I'll teach yew how."

[star studded]

She had a one in three chance. Thirty-three point three percent. The odds were stacked against her, but sometimes the risk just had to be taken. Fingers that wrapped around the reciever of the phone were clenched tightly. She should have been crossing them, hoping that her father picked up, and not his ghastly creature of a wife. Her mother was a wrecking ball, obliterating the walls of their family, but at the same time Lucille was well aware that she had been the one kicking over whatever her mother left standing. Her sister was just an annoyance. She was a road block of perfection, talent and more hatred than a girl should harbor.

"Hello?" Fuck. It was Lauren in all of her mid-afternoon glory.

"Put Dad on the phone." Lucy kept herself as calm as she could manage, folding legs up underneath her on the couch that wasn't hers. A calling card was fumbled between fingers. Wasting minutes.

"What do you want?" Lauren's voice was a sharp, familiar bite.

"Just put him on."

"Didn't I tell you that you weren't to call here unless I'm out of town?"

"Put your husband on the phone, Lauren." Keeping calm was a necessity, considering she was almost positive that Lili was wandering somewhere around here, she hadn't heard Lani and Asher leave, and Charlie and River were watching television in the other room in some Sunday afternoon adapted-to-television-movie ritual.

"Don't give me orders."

"Put him on the fucking phone!"

The line went dead with a click and dead, hollow silence. If had been her phone at home she would have launched it across the room in order to ensure that it smashed into a million different pieces. Instead, she clicked the line dead as well, hanging it back on the cradle.

Buried under blankets and sheets pulled over her head and bunched around her, she screeched her fool proof scream into a pillow, her throat burning and lungs aching at the violence of it all.

Somewhere in the house, Asher was beginning to feel the onset of a nagging headache.

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I am drowning,
there is no sign of land;
you are coming down with me,
hand in unlovable hand.

In my life,
I hope you lie
and tell everyone I was a good wife.

She had kept it relatively handy. The trick to hiding things was to stick them in places that those you lived with would never look. Below the sink, she reached for a blue and pink box, prying the cardboard open and retrieving the small orange bottle with the label scratched out. It was placed on the edge of the sink in lackadaisical contemplation, her legs stretched out as she drew from a crouch to a stand, hands hooking on the rim of porcelain so she could examine her face in the mirror-reflection. Not much different than every other day. The only glaring difference was the red pigment that had surfaced in her cheeks, the glaze of her eyes and the bloodshot harrowed look. She was going to chalk that up to the now empty bottle of Jack Daniels that she left downstairs in her wake of self-destruction.

With less grace than she had imagined she'd have, her hand wrapped the white top of the bottle and yanked it off. Inside, the little red pills were slightly sparse. She shook them out into her palm, a finger pointing at each one as she mentally counted. Six. Just six. She wasn't sure if it would be enough, considering she couldn't remember just how much of her drug of choice each pill had packed away in it. Two at a time, without a wash of water, she swallowed.

As alcohol and diazepam mixed, she realized she didn't feel much. There was no immediate rush or lull of emotions, there was no buzzing high. Seating herself on the edge of the bathtub, she figured she'd give it time. She was enjoying the silence of it all. The slow buzz of the overhead light, the gentle brush of a breeze outside the window. She could hear the slow thuds of her own pulse, the rush of each slow inhale and exhale. She swore she could hear the contraction and release of each muscle as she drew her legs to try and stand. The door had been left unlocked.

A blood rush forced her to sit back down against the ledge. Leave it unlocked, then.

Hands were held out in front of her and she watched as they jittered and shook. Ataxia was setting in, she noticed, as her fingers clenched and unclenched. She tried to make a fist, and it wasn't seeming to work as quickly as she would have liked. She had to do this now, or she was going to lose the ability to do it somewhere in the quest to not feel it.

She had reasons. She had plenty of reasons, but if one began to think about the reasons, one would lose sight of the task at hand. Her mind was eerily clear of everything except coordinating the conscious movements of her body. Which was becoming harder and harder as each moment ticked past.

She could hear the second hand on her watch. Wasn't that interesting?

Charlie's boxcutter had been procured from the top drawer in his dresser, something he thoughtlessly snagged each morning on the way to work. The small switch on the side was moved up once, twice, until the blade was showing itself. It was clean and glimmering. Moving as best she could, she sunk off of the ledge of the bathtub and kneeled on the floor, her arms extended over the bath. The least she could do was keep the mess contained.

Her head swam dizzily, and occasionally it lolled without her willing it to do so. She had maybe minutes before she dropped into unconsciousness, and that was an undesirable effect of these things. Blinking through involuntary rivers of saline, she was attempting to figure out the easiest way. Which hand was stronger, which one shook less? Her right hand held the black handle of the boxcutter, and with the strength she had left, she used it to slash a diagonal line from the left side of the heel of her hand along the full length of her wrist.

The effects of the valium had made her languid and lazy, therefore the cut didn't gush like she had hoped. It merely reddened before exuding a slight trickle of alcohol and drug-thinned blood. She'd have to try again, and deeper this time.

She wouldn't manage it. Her head fell, temple clunking the side of the tub lightly, the boxcutter clattering noisily against the porcelain.

[star studded]

Something jarred the lazy sleep she had sucked herself into, her head struck sideways, her eyes fluttering open. Why was it so bright? Had she slept in too late? The pang in her head and stomach spoke to her in hangover, and she had the sudden urge to vomit. Someone was holding her and shaking her. That was not helping. She attempted to swat them away and tell them to fuck off, but all she managed was a slurred mumble and a weak wave of her hand. She'd sleep, for just a few more minutes.

The second time she woke, it was to an uncomfortable, terrible feeling. There was something in her throat, and she gagged on it almost immediately upon consciously feeling it there. Limbs flailed, legs kicking, arms swatting everyone who was hunched over her out of the way as she folded herself over the side of the bathtub to empty the contents of her stomach. The noise was terrible, this room was too small. She had not been in her bed. How the hell did she get in the bathroom? There was no time to ponder this, her stomach lurching once more, and the acidic burn of vomit stripping her throat bare. Someone was touching her shoulder and trying to pry her away when she felt she was finished, and they were being pushed at by feeble arms. She was tired. She wanted to sleep, and she would.

Third time's the charm. This time she woke with a fright, air rocketing into her lungs like a drowning man's first gasp of air after expelling seawater. Her spine was folded in a painful arch, her heart hammering in her ears, and someone tending to a needle prick in her arm. Her eyes darted around dangerously to examine features and faces in an attempt to find someone she recognized. There was no one. The people hunched over her were all in uniform, each wearing a pair of latex gloves like her blood was the plague. This frightened her, and immediately she was swinging and trying to lurch off of the gurney she had been placed on. The adrenaline-surged weakling was still unsuccessful, pinned back down with shouts and soothing words. A hand smoothed over her forehead, some kindly nurse attempting to get her to hush. She screamed louder instead.

The hospital room was drab and boring. She wanted to know where she was. The emergency room? The psych ward? Why didn't she have a roommate? Why wasn't there anyone in there with her?

A nurse, or doctor, or someone surfaced from the bowels of the hallway, the door clicking closed behind him.

"Your husband is waiting.. can I send him in?"

No.

Lucy's chin dipped silently, an affirmative nod before the man disappeared again.

[star studded]

Her room was an array of mismatched and vibrant colors. A purple and orange giraffe. A pink and silver boa. White and blue sheets, a blue-flickering television. A leftover cupcake sat propped on the bedside table with her crooked princess crown. That didn't seem to quell much of the unrest she had within her. Glancing at the clock, she knew it was a late hour. Nearly one in the morning. But her mental roladex was already flicking off numbers of people that she knew would be awake at this time. She knew plenty of people she could call and chat with for hours.

At the same time that Lani was smoothing out River's sheets for his sleepover, Lucy was holding the phone in her hand, contemplating the numbers she could dial. One kept repeating in her mind.

Carefully, fingers pressed the oversized buttons in a pattern she had only dialed a few times before. The one to her own home.

[star studded]

Heaven knows, I'm not that girl...

She packed quietly while her room was empty. Clothes and trinkets that Lani had brought over were tucked quietly away in the duffel bag provided, a sparkling tiara and a silly pink boa amidst clothes and necessary things. Bag was quickly zipped as closed as possible, her hands propped loosely against the strap as she waited. Everything glittered, the ring on her finger, the piece of tiara and shimmery boa that peeked from the part of the zipper that wouldn't seal. It was visually what she wanted. A spark. Something to set her on fire so that she could ash herself completely and reform.

To start again. Wouldn't that be wonderful. Wouldn't that be perfect. Where was the wizard and magic wand to rewind and start all over again. Now, rather than the blank expressions and apathetic shrugs that she desired, she could read everyone's concern and disappointment, she could feel their fear. It was only fun when she was destroying herself. Tearing down the people around her was terrible, an awful sort of feeling that had no satisfaction. At least, not this time.

Fingers stretched to wrap around the small drawer knob on the side table, pulling a drawer open to stare at the contents inside. Informational packets, a stapled profile, glossy paper and brochures. A list of names and credentials. In a shuffle and scrape, the papers were removed, flipped through quickly, and left to hang limply in her hand. Eyes shifted from the garbage to her bag and back again. Two roads diverged.

Free hand lifted, brushing blonde from her face in a nervous shake, the papers tossed to sprawl over the immaculately made bed. They fluttered silently and fell still, leaving her to peer out the small window at the blue, sunny day. This was a simple decision. It had two possibilities. She could change, or she could stay the same, and face the consequences of each.

Charlie barely looked at her. River was cautious when he stepped around her. Lani was fighting back questions and frustrations. Asher was just helplessly puzzled. Those were the states of being now , and if things stayed the same, they would only intensify with time and whatever pranks pulled.

She didn't know what would happen if things changed. She didn't know how they would change. She didn't know where these people would be when everything altered in whatever direction they were apt to twist in.

But anything had to be better than this.

Hurriedly, she rolled papers and brochures together into a small tube, shoving it into the open flap of her bag.

[star studded]

Therapy had gone from novel and interesting to boring and a pain. She was attempting to find new and fun ways to irritate her therapist, a middle-aged woman with mousy hair and thick-framed glasses that made her look hip in a very beatnik, cynical way. Lucy liked to assume various come-hither poses on the couch, sprawled on her stomach with feet in the air, knees bent, chewing on nails that never really grew as long as they should. Innocent and wide-eyed, answering the questions with the shotgun-fire of her replies, forward and flooring.

"What is it that you want from Charlie?" Dr. Elissa Larson had that flat, annoying sort of voice that made Lucy think of a myriad of different stand up comediennes, her sighs always timed in correctly with her questions.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean what do you want from him?"

"Sex. Fashion advice. Food. I don't cook, but he does. Let's see. Uhh, it'd be nice if he cleaned the bathroom once in awhile, but I suppose he does his share of shit around the house. Did I mention sex? I like that a lot, and we just don't seem to be filling our quota lately. Maybe I should start wearing lower cut tops.."

"Your sex life is suffering?"

Lucy just stared at her like she was insane, fingers itching for a cigarette to hold condescendingly. "Define suffering. I'm sure as hell not suffering when we.."

"Has the frequency decreased since you tried to kill yourself?" The blatant disregard that Dr. Larson had for her sometimes made her blink in shock. She shifted in her seat, craning over the notepad she had, and adjusting glasses before glancing back up.

"No. Should it have?"

"I'm not sure. What else do you want from him? Besides sex and food."

"I don't fucking know." She reshifted on the couch, rolling to her spine and stretching arms over her head, her spine arching suggestively. Elissa paid no mind, but plodded along, sighing to herself. Lucy was going to start counting how many times she could make the good doctor sigh in exasperation.

"Does Charlie get mad at you?"

"Shit, we fight all the time."

"I didn't ask that, I asked if he got mad at you."

"No. Never."

"Never?"

"Nope. I mean, don't get me wrong, I do my best to piss him off sometimes. Well, I used to, but I sorta gave up on that. It doesn't work. I could fuck half of the city and he'd just shrug and tell me that it was okay, don't do it again, just try to be better. If I tell him I'm making an effort, he takes my word for it. Most of the time I am, but.. sometimes it's just too easy to just say 'yeah, yeah, whatever, I'm trying', and he'll fuck off and get off my back."

Elissa peered up at her again, arms folding over her desk and tipping her chin in Lucy's direction. "Do you think your marriage is in jeopardy?"

"No. Why should I? He's not going anywhere."

"Do you think what you do has any real impact on him?"

Lucy took a moment to think about this. Sure, there were things she did that made him react. Like when she made him cupcakes and he smiled, or when she threw a pillow at him and he swatted it away. Those were the reactions she was used to. Anything volatile or exciting came from somewhere else. Marco. Sam. Ashton. Sometimes it would be nice to hear him yell back at her when she pressed the right buttons. Sometimes it would be nice to know that her bullshit would not be tolerated.

"I don't know."

Elissa's head nodded slowly, her pen scratching quickly across paper.

[star studded]

<center>Taped to the refridgerator door, sharpie marker on construction paper.</center>



<font color="#A7A49B" size="1">[ August 30, 2004 11:09 PM: Message edited by: everything static ]</font>

[star studded]

The customers had come and gone, leaving closing staff only, and still she wandered around the rows and aisles of merchandise in a nervous pace. Hands wrung together, fingers stiff and aching from gripping the phone so hard before. How long had it been? She couldn't quite tell. Watching as flourescent lights flicked off row by row like toppling dominos, she brushed briskly past the manager as she ducked behind the counter once more.

"You're still here? You were supposed to leave a half an hour ago."

"I know, I had some stuff to do." Her throat cleared as they were left in dim work-light and the silence after the muzak was killed. Nerves shook through a usually stone-still voice, and her fingers wrapped around the phone behind the desk. "Can I use this?" She brought the receiver to her ear anyway, peeking over her shoulder at the manager as he walked in the other direction.

"Sure. Don't take too long."

"I won't." Fingers already dialed a programmed number that rang and rang. There was no answer at her house, assuming that was where Charlie had called from before to leave a cryptic and pained message. It didn't make sense. Things like that didn't happen anymore. Those were days past.

Hanging the phone up, she moved to shrug her purse off of her arm and dig fingers through it in search of a small blue book filled with phone numbers, some essential, some useless, and some newly printed in. With the new number found, she punched it in carefully, waiting and waiting for an answer. The one she recieved came in the sound of a familiar recorded voice.

"River, it's Lucy. Listen, if you get this tonight, I'm going to Lani's to see if she's around. Charlie called me, something's wrong, I don't know what. If you want to call there, or.. I don't know, I don't even know if she's home yet. I'll call you from wherever I end up and tell you where to reach me, if you want me to come by and get you or.. no, my cell phone. My cell phone's on, call that. It's dying, but.. yeah. I don't know. I don't know what's going on. I'm headed to Lani's, and I'll call you back in a few."

Frantically speed-spoken, she inhaled again and hung up the phone, scrambling for her keys in her purse. Gripping them in an iron fist, she made a beeline for the door, and towards where the car was parked. Lovely. Wonderful. Black heels stomped angrily against the parking lot pavement and she sank into the driver's side of the car, key jammed in ignition.

Her head was a jumble of confusion and question, and she could feel the heavy pulling of panic in her chest and stomach. Remember. We needed a plan, a goal, a desitnation. Where was she headed again?

She'd figure it out when she got there.

[star studded]

There had been one too many visits to this place in her lifetime, she concluded. Having driven right past Lani's and right towards home, it was a shocking site to see it in devilish, licking flames. There wasn't as much horror as she had anticipated. There wasn't anger or sadness or concern for the things being consumed in flame. Her clothes, her designs, her new machine, all her letters, River's artwork, Charlie's book, her window seat with the carved poetry, her sheets, her pillows, the mattress with the dent of Charlie's side still pressed into it when he wasn't even there anymore. There was just the sense of "Oh. So this is what comes next. So this is the next obstacle. So this is the next hurdle. So this is what we are to make due with now. So this is where our lives are taking us."

Now she was lingering in the waiting room of the hospital, wrapped in the black Adidas track-jacket left in the car's backseat. Charlie's, of course. One present bought for him that was salvaged by a chance slip of memory. What did she have? What was left? Glancing in her purse, she pulled out her wallet and started to thumb through linen green bills. Twenty, forty, sixty.. counting them off in her head like change for another customer. About two hundred dollars and some change. Her identification. Her cell phone.

It didn't matter what was left. It didn't matter what had been spared. What items, what things they'd be able to drag from the shipwreck of their home. What mattered was that her cell phone ring with River's room number spread across the screen. What mattered was that someone in a white coat come in there and tell her that it was alright to go in and see her husband, who was probably a mess of stitches and hoarse from smoke inhalation.

Harrowed and pale, she shook a hand through the mess of dishwater blonde hair that she had let down. It was freezing in this place. Turn down the fucking air conditioner.

What would she do about the store? All the plans? She'd make them over again. She'd just start over. Most of her things were already at the store anyway. Nothing too terribly valuable was lost. Clothes? She'd get new ones. She'd replace them. Think of it as a shopping spree. Furniture? A house? No. They couldn't afford another house. An apartment. Not The Apartment, but an apartment. She had come to hate The Apartment and the person she was when she was in it. She had gone from missing it and loving it to wishing she could forget it as easily as she forgot everything else that had made her that ugly, forgettable person.

Charlie? What would she do about Charlie? How was he? Not only physically, but how was he going to cope with this loss? How was he going to handle this upset? How was she going to convince him that this wasn't his fault, or his doing, and that there was nothing he could do to prevent it?

Who had it been? Marco? Ruben? She didn't care. She didn't care. They'd move. Again. No one would find them, their number would go unlisted. They'd be fine. This had been the final death blow, the one last thing needed as their punishment for whatever. They'd leave them alone now, she was certain of it.

She hoped. God, she hoped.

She wanted a cigarette, but smoking was against any and all hospital policy, and there was no way she'd go outside. She wanted company. Who could she call? River was still unreachable, after the fourteen hundred messages left. Fuck. Lani? No, no need to call her just yet. Tomorrow, when all was worked out, the dust settled. Then she'd call. But now, right now, when she felt taut and pulled thin, who could she call for comfort?

Fingers pressed glowing buttons and she drew the phone to her ear. Green eyes watched the muted television across the room, the children over in the corner resting soundly in cramped chairs, the woman with her hands folded in prayer.

The line clicked to life and a voice echoed a groggy hello into her ear. She fumbled with the need to speak, her voice a ragged crack of static.

"Daddy?"