Ten Below ZeroTen Below Zero(5)

Me: That’s stealing.

Everett: Nope. I paid for your drink and fourteen limes and the bartender asked if I was your boyfriend and I told him yes.

Me: That’s lying.

Everett: Yep.

The annoyance within me flared to a burn. And yet, something about this amused me.

Me: I did not have fourteen limes.

Everett: Well, that’s how many I was charged for. And I didn’t lie about that part.

Me: Oh, and you are not my boyfriend.

Everett: Thanks for clarifying. You’ve still not answered my question.

Me: No, I don’t want it back. Please, buy yourself something pretty at Tiffany’s. On me.

Everett: Wow, ten minutes of conversation and you can read me like a book.

Me: I don’t think it was ten minutes of conversation.

Everett: Are you always this contrary?

Me: I’m not contrary.

I settled back into my bed. The side of my lip twitched again. It was the oddest sensation.

Everett: Do you always run like a bat out of hell from bars?

Me: I always run from strange men.

Everett: Meet me for breakfast tomorrow. You can repay me for the fourteen limes with a greasy breakfast fit for a hangover. Wear tennis shoes, so you can run away with more grace this time.

Me: I’ll wear heels.

Everett: Of course you will. Schmidt’s. 9 a.m.

Me: Fine.

My reply was reluctant. Did I really want to have breakfast with him? I weighed the pros and cons and decided I would. More out of curiosity than anything else. He couldn’t be as scary in daylight. He’d stand out, in black. Like a cartoon character.

Another text came through.

Jasmine: Can you come pick us up?

She’d included an address. My annoyance flared up again. I suddenly remembered I was wearing her dress. I wasn’t going to change.

I showed up to the unsuspecting house fifteen minutes later. I’d thrown my puke speckled hair into a bun and had washed my face and brushed my teeth before leaving the apartment. Jasmine and Carly were sitting on the curb, in the dark. Carly was alternating between barfing in the street and hiccupping. I assumed the latter was causing the former. I sighed and opened the door to the backseat, pulling a grocery bag from the floor and hastily handing it to Carly. Jasmine was more sober than usual and eyed me carefully after we’d settled Carly into the seat.

“Is that my dress?” she asked, accusation thick in her voice.

“It is,” I confirmed, belting Carly in. I stood back onto the curb and looked at Jasmine with challenge, willing her to say something, anything. She squinted at me in the dark, as if she couldn’t figure me out.

In the end, she shrugged. “You can have it.”

“Good,” I answered. “Because I’m pretty sure there’s puke on it.”



The alarm clock blared at 8:30 a.m. but I was already awake. After returning from picking up Carly and Jasmine earlier, I’d fallen into the shower and numbly scrubbed off the puke. It was how I dealt with situations that brought up unwelcome memories. I turned my mind off. A therapist had told me it was common for those who had been through traumatic experiences to block the memories, to make themselves numb to avoid feeling.

The problem was, I didn’t have to make myself numb. I just was. My brain swam in Novocain. I walked through life, straying from potentially dangerous situations. If I was even the slightest uncomfortable, there was no question of fight or flight. I’d always fly. I didn’t care, I didn’t let myself soak up anything. I relished the numbness.

I was emotionally bankrupt. That’s what a therapist had told me, when I told her how little I felt. Emotions were always vague, fleeting little things. I felt them in small spurts, similar to how one might feel a drop of water hit their skin and wonder if it would start raining. Except for me, it never rained.

So why did I agree to join Everett for breakfast? I wasn’t sure. Not even in the slightest.

I walked into the bathroom and turned on the light, squinting a bit as the fluorescents chased away the dark. I’d slept poorly, though that wasn’t unusual. I didn’t care much for sleep. I found no solace, no rest, in sleep.

I started brushing my teeth when I looked up. My reflection told a story of a pale-skinned girl, with circles under her eyes so dark they looked like bruises. My hair was a frizzy mess from laying on it while wet. With my free hand, I gathered up the hair and left the toothbrush in my mouth to enable my other hand to tie the mess into a bun on top of my head.

When I departed my room, Carly was in the kitchen making scrambled eggs.

“Hey,” she said while piling eggs on a plate.

“You’re up early.” It was my usual greeting. Though I much preferred Carly to Jasmine, I still wouldn’t say we were close in any sense.

Carly gulped a glass of orange juice, nodding. She was wearing an oversized tee that hung to her thighs. “I feel surprisingly good after last night.” I recalled all the puke and then was reminded that my car was likely a mess. Carly flipped her black hair over her shoulder and looked at me quizzically. “What’s that look for?”

“My car is a mess.” The mild annoyance crept in. Annoyance and I were quite familiar with each other. Especially when it came to my feelings for puke all over my upholstery.

Carly’s face fell. “Oh, shit, I’m sorry. I’ll clean it up after breakfast.”