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Forty-one
Conner
I can’t sleep.
Which makes sense, really. I slept for seven straight hours last night. By all rights, I shouldn’t sleep again until sometime next week. It usually doesn’t bother me this much. Most nights I use the time to do me. I read. Work on my boards. Listen to music. Hack the Pentagon.
At the moment, I’m contemplating knocking myself out with a hammer because I can’t concentrate on any of those things. All I can think about is Henley. All my brain wants to do is rerun every word she ever said to me. Every time she touched me. Every time she hurt me.
In a desperate bid for sanity, I finish patching up the Windstar and shoot a text to its single mom owner, telling her it’s ready for an early pick-up. What I don’t tell her is that her hunk of junk isn’t on its last leg anymore. It’s a zombie at this point. Officially dead but still running. The next time it takes a shit on her will be the last time. She might get another week or two out of it if she’s lucky.
She waitresses the 12pm-5am shift at Benny’s so I get a quick reply.
Tina: Thanks! I don’t
know what I do without you.
Me: It’s all good.
Tina: Tess was here. Her
friend left me a HUGE tip.
Henley. I can imagine her pulling out a huge wad of cash from her designer bag. Flipping a stack of bills onto the table like they were nothing more than a wad of used tissues. I don’t know why it makes me so mad, but it does, thinking about her running around the neighborhood, throwing cash around like its nothing. Probably because to her, it is.
Me: She’s loaded. Take
the money and run.
Tina: She seemed really
nice. It was good to see Tess
with someone besides you. ;)
She meant it as a joke, but it still stings. I know that hanging out with me all the time isn’t good for her. Tess needs real friends. Other women she can talk to about things she can’t talk to me about.
Namely the fact that even after what he did to her, she’s still in love with my asshole brother. Cari fit the bill nicely until she up and took off on us. She’s been gone for going on six months now and is showing no signs of coming home.
Me: Your car is parked out front.
keys are under the seat.
I toss the phone onto my workbench without waiting for a reply.
Upstairs, I turn on some music and pour myself a drink before carrying it into my bedroom. It’s not really a bedroom because I don’t own a bed. It’s the room I keep my crazy in.
It’s also the place where Henley happens to be, standing outside the room’s only window.
I stare at her without moving because she can’t be real. She can’t be here. Not really. I’m imagining her. I’m seeing things. Sometimes I do. Sometimes, when it’s been too long between sleeps, I see shit. Things I want to see. Things I don’t. So, yeah—I’ve hallucinated Henley before. But I’m fully rested, and she’s still standing outside my second-story window, less than ten feet away from me.
I’m not sure how long I stand there staring at her through the window, trying to decide if she’s real or not but it’s long enough to prompt her to frown. “Conner, this fire escape is falling apart. I’m not sure how long it’s going to hold up.”
I cross the room and slide the window up on its track “It’s five o’clock in the morning.”
“I know.” She grins at me, hair loose. Cheeks flushed from the crisp, early morning air. “Can I come in?”
I don’t answer. I just back away from the window to give her room to crawl through it. “Why are you here?” I say as soon as she’s in and she straightens to look at me.