Freshwater(42)

Back at her apartment, Ada broke open disposable razors to get to their flimsy blades. She cut her arm next to the old scars and watched the thin red lines form, the leaking full drops that suspended from her skin until she flicked them up with her tongue. She threw glasses against the wall and they shattered into thousands of fragments shining with angry points, a better future than being whole. It was all so much better than the grief.

When she sat in the marble with me, we looked more identical than we ever had, so close that Saint Vincent excluded himself from our conversation. Ada and I were drunk on homemade margaritas, using empty milk bottles as glasses.

“I’ve never understood,” she said, “back when I was little, why Yshwa wouldn’t come down to hold me, you know?”

“Oh, I know this one,” I said, closing my eyes to feel the softness in my blood. “Because he’s a useless asshole.”

She ignored me. “Especially when he knew that I didn’t have anyone else.” Ada didn’t sound sad, just matter-of-fact.

I relaxed all my limbs. “I know.”

“But I’m older now,” she continued.

“Correct.”

“Okay, but listen, As?ghara.” She leaned forward and I opened my eyes to look at her. “Now that I’m older, right, why won’t he just kill me in my sleep?”

She pushed some hair out of her face and sat back. I wanted to tell her Yshwa was always going to disappoint her, but I took a sip of my drink instead. She could figure that out herself.

“It’s basically the same thing,” she said. “I didn’t have anyone to hold me and now I don’t have anyone to kill me. You’d think he’d come through on at least one of these points.”

“That’s not true,” I said, and I leaned out to put my hand on her arm. “I’ll kill you any day you want.”

We stared at each other for a moment, then burst out laughing because we both knew I meant it. After our laughter died away, Ada and I leaned our backs against the marble and sighed together.

“Do you think about Soren a lot?” she asked.

I frowned. “Not really.” I shifted my head to look at her. “You nko?”

Ada nodded. “I was thinking how this year makes it five years since you arrived,” she said. “And then I was thinking of Ewan and I was remembering that night, in the fall, remember? When Ewan had come back and Soren was watching us.”

“Ohhhh fuck, yeah. I remember. The house down the hill, that time when we were in Denis’s room smoking.”

“Yup. He used to ring that little bell when the joints were ready, remember? And then he’d play, like, Lauryn Hill or Hot Chip.”

I laughed. “And Axel was there beating everyone at rock-paper-scissors. Everyone! It didn’t make any fucking sense, he was so good at it.”

Ada smiled, but she was thinking of Soren. “And then he came in and started talking to me, saying how I never used to smoke or drink, that he didn’t want to think that I’d started now because of what he did. Can you imagine?”

“No, no, but you know what I loved?” I was giggling as I remembered. “Ewan tapped your shoulder and handed you the blunt, and you just looked at Soren like he was nothing, took it, and turned away from him. Finish.”

“His face! He just walked out of the room.” Ada was giggling now too. “Was that you or me?” she asked.

I shrugged and drank from my bottle. “Same difference.”

“Oh my god, and remember the e-mail he sent a few months later?”

I made my voice high and whiny to mimic him. “‘I never loved you. I was just missing my girlfriend.’”

Ada scoffed. “As if it mattered at that point.”

“Eh, he was just trying to get to you.”

Ada tilted her bottle up and pouted at me. “It’s empty.”

I reached over to touch the glass, and it filled back up with pink slush.

“What’s that?”

“Strawberry this time,” I said, and Ada laughed.

“This is why I keep you around.”

I elbowed her and we drank in silence for a bit. “How come you’re thinking about Soren?” I asked.

Ada sighed. “I’m pissed, I guess. It feels like he took something from me. I couldn’t even be normal with Ewan. Like, what kind of wife can’t make love to her own husband?”

I flinched. “Can we just say ‘fuck’? You know how I feel about calling it that.”

“You know what I mean. Have emotional sex.”

“We did have emotional sex,” I countered. “There were a lot of emotions involved in our fucking, thank you very much.”

“Not that kind of emotion. I meant like tenderness.”

I flinched again. “Seriously, Ada, or I’ll take your drink away.”

She laughed. “Okay, okay. You’re fucking weird.” A pause, and then she changed the subject. “Sometimes when I think about you, I can see you standing right next to me and it’s like we’re twins.”

I gave her a look. “You know we’re identical, right?”

She shushed me with her hand. “Except, when you’re standing next to me, you’re all covered in blood.”

I drank some more. “That seems accurate.”