She lets out a shrill, shrill scream, and I turn around to see her all collapsed in the dirt, wailing her goddamn head off.
There’s a sick, guilty feeling inside me, seeing her like this, and all at once I wish I’d never said anything.
“Fuck,” I say, sighing—walking back over to her and crouching down on the balls of my feet. “Fuck, I’m sorry. I do love you. I’m not meaning to hurt you. It’s just that I get frustrated with you being so negative all the time. It’s like every time we try to have fun it becomes some big problem. And, honestly, I feel like you’re constantly criticizing me. Like everything I want to do is stupid or something. But I don’t want to be fighting like this. I don’t want to fight at all. Let’s just try ’n’ have some fun together, okay? I know we can have fun together again.”
She stands up, and I see her eyes go all narrow, and then she shoves me about as hard as she can.
“Goddamn you!” she screams. “God-fucking-damn you. How can you say that? You’re the one who’s been acting all different ever since we got here—wanting to go out all the time—making all these new friends. You’re so pathetic. I was the one who was there for you when you had nothing. I was the only one who would even talk to you. And now you’re too good for me. Fuck you. I’m done. I’m fucking done.”
She stomps back toward the car, and I follow on after her, my head hung down.
“I know,” I tell her, speaking all slow and soft. “I know, you’re right. I have been feeling different and, uh, I don’t know why. It’s like I can’t help it. Something is going on with me. I don’t know what it is. I’m not meaning to act like this.”
She keeps walking and not looking back. “Bullshit. That’s bullshit. You’re just a pathetic human being. That’s all it is. You’re weak. Without me you’d have nothing. You need me, Nic. You need me.”
My face goes flushed at that.
Tears burning.
Sickness in every part of me.
“I know I do,” I whisper even more quietly. “I know I need you. I can’t live on my own. I’m a total failure. You’re right. Let’s just go home now.”
I jog up next to her and try to put my hand on her back, but she jerks away.
We walk the rest of the way in silence.
It’s maybe twenty minutes later as we’re driving back to the apartment that my phone starts vibrating like I’ve got a new text message. Of course, like the idiot that I am, I left my phone right in the center console, so Sue Ellen picks it up and flips it open and I can’t say anything to stop her, ’cause I don’t want to seem suspicious.
There’s a full minute of absolute quiet before she suddenly erupts, throwing the phone forcefully onto the floor and screaming, “Let me out! Let me out right now!” She starts to open the door, even though I’m going, like, fifty miles per hour on the PCH, and pretends to try ’n’ fling her body out. I swerve wildly, taking the bait, reaching over to grab her as if she were actually capable of doing it—which I know she isn’t.
I do, though. I grab on to her and pull her toward me and straighten out the car and yell, “Fuck. Jesus Christ. Fuck.”
She turns her attention to hitting the shit out of me.
“How could you? How could you be in contact with that pathetic, old, awful woman?”
“Who?” I ask stupidly.
“She says she ‘loves you.’ What the hell is that? How could you be talking to her again? Jesus, you are so pathetic.”
“What?” I say. “What? What?”
“Zelda, you asshole. Zelda, Zelda. And look, what a surprise, she says here she relapsed again. What is she, forty years old now? You two deserve each other, you really do.”
And then she starts crying again and then she starts hitting me and then she starts screaming and telling me over and over that she wants to go home.
So I drive her.
In a way, I feel almost relieved being caught like this. It forces my hand, you know? It forces me to act. I could’ve gone on forever taking it and taking it and never making a final decision. This is good… maybe… I don’t know.
And more than anything else, I guess, I can’t help thinking about Zelda.
She’s relapsed.
Fuck.
Why is it we both can’t get this shit?
She’s relapsed, and I’ve been relapsing for the past two years. We’re on these parallel paths of self-destruction. Sue Ellen is right. I am pathetic.
When we get back to the apartment, Sue Ellen is full of questions for me, of course. She paces back and forth across the imitation hardwood floor, shouting and demanding to know when and why I started talking to Zelda again, whether I’ve gone to see her, why I’m such a hopeless piece of shit.
“God, you are such a failure,” she says. “You think you can make it without me? Ha. You can’t make it without me. You and her are gonna start shooting up again, and then you’ll OD and die, and the only people who’ll come to your funeral are your mom and dad. No one else cares about you. They all think you’re a selfish loser. You think Russell actually likes you? You think these people in LA give a shit about you? The only reason they invite you to stuff is because you got published. They aren’t your real friends. They like you because you’re a writer and you’ve been on TV. They are all whores just feeding off you. But then, you should know all about that, since
