Rooms
by Elliott L.
I push the key into the lock, twist hard and step into the creaking. My mom stands with her back to me. Her fluffy head blocks out my view of the clicking toaster oven, but I know she is making cheese on toast, not only from the smell filling the room but because that is all she ever makes.
"Hey."
Her body jerks as she turns to face me. "Oh," she says, "hello there."
I search through the fridge even though the thought of food makes me nauseous. The sticky feeling of staying up too late clings to my skin and a bitter aftertaste fills the spaces between my teeth. A mix of green apple soda and oversleeping press against my tongue, dry and sticky.
"There's toast," says my mom.
"That's okay." I reach past her to get a glass from the cupboard. I never eat toast.
"Right," she says. A half-laugh shakes her words. "I keep forgetting. Which one are you again?"
I run my hand under the tap and wait for the water to cool. When I've filled the glass and turned off the tap, I say, "How is she doing?"
My mom sighs. The sound is practiced, elaborate, almost satirical. Mimicked from The Young and the Restless, the only show she ever watches.
"She's still sleeping," she says.
I say, "Do you know when her appointment is yet?"
"Dad's looking into it."
"It's just, I really think it would be good if she got in as soon as possible."
My mom says "Mm." The toaster oven dings and with one jolt of her hand she slides the hot toast onto a plate. She blows on it, raises the food to her mouth with her thumb and index finger, stiff as a bird claw and barely touching the charcoaly crust. She takes a bite and chews. Chews. Chews. Swallow, "How's Jen?"
"Good."
"Shouldn't be worried about you two gallivanting around all night?"
"No, it was good." I dump the rest of my water down the sink. "I'm gonna shower, my hair feels so gross."
.
I spend too long in the shower, frothing shampoo through my hair and scrubbing my skin with almond-scented soap. I sit with my knees folded up and let the water fall on me, eyes closed to keep my contacts from burning. I don't step out into the cold air until the water itself becomes even colder. Then I spend too long getting dressed, sitting in my room in a damp towel, staring into the colour-specked black of my closet while my laptop plays Nine Inch Nails, The Beginning of the End on repeat to wake me up.
It's three o'clock by the time I've worked up the energy to get my jeans and t-shirt on. This is what summer does to me. A once-a-week job in landscaping does little to break up the lethargy, so I developed some hobbies. Which would probably help if I actually did them.
I click off the music. Grab my brushes off the table, head upstairs to wash the chunks of pigment off the bristles.
.
I paint in the basement beside the washing machine. The floor rattles against my socks, but I'm hardly ever interrupted. At least, not in person. My sister's room is directly above me, which means I get a pretty clear impression what kind of day she's having. More often than not, those days involve saying fuck a lot and banging on the walls.
Actually, the basement's not that special. I'm pretty sure you can hear her from any part of the house.
I arrange my brushes, set out a glass for washing them and mug, on the other side, for a drink. Different styles of drinking implements because, yes, I have mixed them up before. I set the canvas flat on top of the deep freeze and begin sketching out an outline. Big swatches of water, to be filled in with seafoam and near-black purple; I'll attempt at a wavering quality and if that fails, a mosaic of coloured specks. Then sand, in the midground. Dabbed on thick and gritty with a sponge (note: find sponge). And on the beach, three figures -
pause. Find myself biting into the end of my pencil. The wood crunches softly beneath my canines. I try again, an outline of legs, erase. Erase. Draw a vague circle, cordon off a white space to later fill with people. Bite the pencil again and run my tongue over the piney wood. I've already marked it as my own, anyway.
I move to open iTunes, but stop before I reach the computer. The washing machine cycles to a stop, and the room is so quiet my ears hum.
.
I thwack the side of my hand against her door, three times. Press my ear to the wood. Say her name. No sound except a whirr, which is either her computer or the echo of my bloodflow - is that right, that the sound in your ears is blood? I don't understand how that could make a noise.
Whatever the case, I twist the handle and push myself inside.
Our mom decorated both our rooms when we were little. I repainted mine back in my goth year, first black and then deep blue when that made me claustrophobic. My sister's still looks the same, though. Tangerine paint, a row of stuffed frogs and bunnies peering down google-eyed from a shelf above her flower-patterned bedsheets - an interesting contrast to the bundle of ratty hoodies huddled on top of the sheets, a black laptop balanced on her knees and a can of Diet Coke clutched to her chest. Pale fingers force craters into the metal. The only part of her that could fit the decor of the room is her knitted pink hat, and even that's frizzed-out and looks like it smells bad, her unwashed hair stuffed under the wool, bulging out the fabric like tumours.
"Hey," I say. She stares at the screen, eyelids low. She pokes at the keyboard with the hand that's not holding the Coke. "You should answer when people talk. Like, at your door. Or they could barge in on you when you're changing or something." When I get nervous I just keep saying words, regardless of whether they make any sense for the situation. My sister continues her slow typing, and I can't say I blame her.
"Who are you talking to?" I say. I walk towards her bed, try to see over her shoulder. She shifts her back towards the wall (not quite leaning on it - she never quite leans on anything anymore. Before she started wearing a billion hoodies all the time, I could see the points of her spine press against the back of her shirt. I thought she looked like a lizard, then immediately felt guilty for thinking that.)
She defies my expectations and answers. "A friend." She sounds pissed off, but I can never tell anymore.
"What kind of friend?" I work hard to keep my words slow, high. Not accusatory.
"The kind I'd rather talk to than you."
I let myself stop trying so hard. "You know I'm sixteen, right? Just because you look older -"
"Screw off, I know I look old." Her voice is changed too. There's a growl under the surface of her words.
"I didn't mean it as an insult -"
"No one ever does."
I should leave the room, right now. I should leave the room and let my sister stand here, typing on her keyboard and talking to the mirror my mom always threatens to take away. The conversation would be exactly the same; it always is. I could actually get something productive done.
But something, some kind of older-sister-dominance-bullshit, makes me stand there and ask, for the billionth time, "Who else says stuff?"
She chews the metal tab of her soda and I have the urge to slap it out of her hand, tell her she's going to screw up her teeth. "People at school." The metal crackles and echoes. Twang.
"Which people?"
"Everyone." Twang. The growl is gone from her voice, the usual monotone back. Twang crunch.
"Do Jessy and Rhianne say stuff?"
"Jessy and Rhianne are tools."
"I thought you were friends."
"We are."
"Do you diss all your friends when they're not around?
"Yep." Crunch crack. She spits two fragments of the tab into the can, further squeezes the metal until the can is twisted and deflated.
While she's distracted by her teenage misery, I sneak a glance at the screen. Colourful figures fire bursts of energy at each other on a green plain. She twists the screen away from me again, but not fast enough. "Are you playing Warcraft?"
"Uh huh."
She gives up scrambling away from my gaze. I watch as the bursts of energy pass between an ugly figure with a club and a pointy-eared blond man, until the lumpy guy falls over. The blond man walks around the field, taking the camera view with him.
"Why are you staring at me."
I say, "I'm watching the wizard guy."
"That's a blood elf."
"Oh." I nod as though that means something to me.
"Are you gonna leave now?"
I shrug, then remember she isn't looking at me. "If you don't want to talk."
"I don't."
I stand in the hall for a while, looking at the picture on the other side of the door. A piece of cardboard painted green, fall leaves glued on and my sister's name spelled out in awkward orange brushstrokes.
.
I paint a base layer on the water, decide it looks too solid, have to wait until it dries to fix it. I eat a bowl of chex and make camomile tea. My mom's on the phone in the next room, words unclear but choked up. I wonder who she is talking to, decide it's unlikely to make a difference. Put on my headphones but skip each song before it reaches the end.
I make a sound like "uch" and walk back towards the door.
She answers when I knock this time. "What now?"
I go inside - when we were kids, we had an agreement that each other's rooms were off-limits unless mom was upset. I decide that rule still applies. I say, "I forgot to say what I came to ask you in the first place." She's still on the computer, though she's migrated over to her desk. "You know when we were kids, how Mom would take us to the beach?"
"Okay."
"It was that time, when I was reading the fourth Harry Potter book and Mom bought us KFC. And we weren't allowed to swim in the water because of, like, seagulls."
"What's that have to do with the water?"
"Their crap, like, toxified it."
She laughs. "I did not know that could happen."
"Apparently it can. So anyway, do you know how old we were when that happened?"
"That's not really something I'd remember. And why do you need to know?"
"I was going to paint it."
She looks away from her computer, tilts her head at me. "The bird shit?"
"No, like the beach and stuff. And us."
She laughs again. I should probably be relieved, but I'm not; I hate how she changes like this. I hate not knowing whether I'll be her friend or just another annoyance who Doesn't Understand. I hate not knowing if something's wrong or if she's just messing with me.
She says, "If you can edit out the bird shit, can't you just make up our ages?"
I say, "I just wanted to know."
She looks at me a few moments longer. Her eyes are more open than before. They look almost too big for her face, but maybe I'm just not used to seeing them. She turns back to her computer and begins mashing buttons.
"So you don't remember?" I say.
"Nope. And if you don't remember, wouldn't I have been like, two?"
"Yeah, I guess."
As I close the door, she calls, "Google 'year of toxic bird shit!'" before exploding into laughter.
.
I lie on my bed on top of the covers, attempting to read the battered copy of Fight Club Jen left me. When I lie on my front, my arms go numb from leaning on them. When I lie on my back, the light from the ceiling doesn't reach the pages. After twenty minutes, I've done more shifting around than reading, and when I do manage to read, my brain doesn't fit the words together into meaning.
I text Jen, You're lucky you don't have siblings.
After another twenty minutes of staring at the stucco and imagining what Jen did to the poor book to produce the white branches of wrinkles spreading across the cover or the kleenex-like texture of the pages, my phone buzzes loud enough that I yelp. what happened? Jen says. sorry im at work might not text fast.
That's okay, I write. Nothing happened really, she's mad at me for no reason again.
that sucks :/
Yeah it does. Idk what I'm supposed to do.
maybe you shouldnt worry, its not your fault anyway so i don't think you could fix it.
I type, I guess, I just hate feeling so useless. I backspace over the second part of the sentence. Write, How is work? instead.
A delay, then buzz: someone left a parrot
?
they donated it
To value village?
ya. we have to sell the parrot now.
That's allowed?
it keeps biting people we named it shark.
Good luck selling Shark.
When she doesn't reply, I send another text: Please don't get eaten by parrots.
Still no reply. The sound of a vacuum howls through the ceiling. I put my headphones back on and manage to distract myself with German techno until the banging on my door starts.
My mom smells like disinfectant, which is never a good sign. The edges of her eyes are red and something about her skin is changed. Her blue veins and pointy bones somehow more clear.
"Come," she says. "We're cleaning." Her voice is thick and phlegmy. I think that's what ruined the allure of angst for me - there's nothing artistic about her sadness. She just sounds like she's going to throw up.
My music is clicked off, but I pretend not to hear her. Sometimes, when she's like this, she gets distracted and goes away.
"Come," she says again. "Up."
I consider my options and decide going along with this is probably my best chance not to get yelled at. "What do you want me to clean?"
"Get the hallways," she says. "I can't believe how much crap we have, you and your sister are going to have to start pulling your weight around here -"
I'm dragging the vacuum up the stairs before she can finish.
.
The hallway is already clean, but I go over it again anyway. Then I empty the dishwasher and clean my room. This isn't an attempt to get on her good side - nothing I could do right now is going to mean much to her. But sometimes when she's like this she breaks things, and I don't want to loose my stuff or have to crawl around on my knees picking bits of ceramic off the kitchen floor.
And before you ask, no she doesn't hit us. We're not abused, so stop thinking that. We're not afraid of her, and she doesn't want to hurt us, and no she hasn't been drinking. She doesn't fight with my dad - or she does, but he doesn't fight back. No, we haven't talked to her about it. Yeah, I told the guy at the distress centre, that's a good idea, I'll talk to her in the morning. Thanks. Bye. Yeah, that helps a lot. Thanks. Bye.
I never talk to her about it. She's fine, she's always fine, the next morning. I want to forget just as much as she does.
My mom stands in the living room, folding and unfolding laundry, the same towel over and over.
.
In my room again, I'm at my desk glaring at the painting. Consider erasing the figures, decide the landscape is too plain without them. The sense of scale is what makes the scene interesting.
The chimes on my door tinkle as my dad sticks his head in the room. "Is pizza okay for dinner?"
"Yeah," I say.
"Pizza and salad?"
"Sounds good."
"Do you know what happened to make Mom upset?"
"No."
"How long has she been like this?"
"A few hours."
He touches the back of his wispy hair. "Okay." Then he says, "Can you please go talk to your sister?"
"What's she doing?"
He gives a single laugh. More of an inhale, really. "Who knows. But I'd rather she not be on her own."
"Can't you go talk to her?"
"Dear, I'd really appreciate it if you did this."
I snap my pencil down on the table and push past him up the stairs.
.
I don't knock this time.
"Is Mom still crazy?"
"She's not crazy," I say. "Dad wanted me to talk to you."
"About what?"
"I don't know."
"Oh."
"How's the game?"
"I stopped playing a while ago."
"Oh. So, what are you doing now?"
"Nothing really."
I sit on her bed while she sits on her computer chair. "Are you, uh, gonna come to dinner today?"
"Probably not."
"It will make Mom worse if you don't come to dinner."
"What are we having?"
"Pizza."
She laughs. "Right."
"Seriously, nothing's going to happen if you eat it."
"I'm not eating pizza."
"They'll make you go to the hospital again."
"Fuck you."
"Hey -"
"Seriously, fuck you. I - go. This isn't your room."
"Mel, I didn't mean -"
"Get out of my room!"
I hear her flop down on the bed behind me. The steady slam of pillow-punching. A voice down the hall says, "She doesn't want to talk to you either?"
"Yeah, apparently not."
I sit down on the couch beside my mom. Jerry Springer's dating show is on, sending out mind-numbing rays. She doesn't smell like disinfectant anymore. She curls up on her side and when I ask if she wants a blanket she says yes. We share a quilt from the bin under the tv.
"What am I going to do, Laura?"
"I don't know."
"Are all teenagers like this?"
"I don't know."
"I love you, you know."
"I know. I love you too."
"You were so easy. I didn't thank you enough for that."
"It's okay."
She touches the back of my hand, moves her papery thumb up and down on the back. I want to move away, but I don't. Her eyes are wet, but she doesn't cry.
"I just want her to be alright."
"She will be," I say.
A sob bursts out of her throat and she says, "Shit." Changes the channel to a comedy with characters I've never seen before. The laugh track washes over us but I don't hear the jokes.
.
Jen still hasn't texted back. I lie on my bed and look at the walls. Navy blue and undecorated.
.
I knock. "I'm sorry." Knock again. "Can I come in?"
No answer. Step inside. Say again, "I'm sorry."
Mel looks at me from under her pink hat. Doesn't say anything.
"That was a shitty thing for me to say. I was just upset."
No answer.
"Dad's, uh, trying to make you an appointment."
"It won't help," she says.
"Maybe it will."
"No."
"Will you please try it?"
"I'll try it."
"Thanks."
"It's." She stops. She takes off the hat and pushes her hands through her dyed red hair. Strands of it come out, decorating her hands with too-tight rings. "What?" she says.
"Nothing. What were you going to say?"
"Nothing."
She looks over at her desk, at a pile of science-fiction books I've never heard of. Big red letters and spaceships on the covers. I'm about to leave before I get yelled at again, when she says, "I fucking hate the hospital."
"I think most people do."
"It's different for me."
I sit down on the edge of her bed. When she doesn't kick me, I'm relieved at having judged correctly. "You won't have to go there again."
"You don't know that."
"You'll get better."
She sits up, folds her legs into a pointy pretzel. She keeps looking at me, and I'm not sure what she wants. I make myself look back. The inside of my head feels cold and empty.
Then she looks down and says, "There was this woman last time, in the waiting room. And she kept falling, but like, on purpose. Just kind of threw herself."
"Ow."
"She kept screaming. Like, she knew she didn't want to, but she kept doing it."
"That's horrible."
"Yeah."
"Mel." She pokes her finger in and out of a hole of her jeans. "Mel," I say louder.
"Yeah."
"You're not like that, you know. You're not - there's nothing wrong with you."
She continues to poke at the hole.
I hug her, say, "You'll be okay."
She doesn't answer.
I search the walls of the orange room, trying to place the sound, a start and stop of air. My sister shivers, first a couple times, but then she doesn't stop. I realize she's crying.
"It's okay," I say again. She holds on to me. Her grip is surprising, coming from arms all drained of muscle, swallowed in the cotton of her sleeves.