Yolk(102)

I check the time. Absurdly it’s just 8:30 in the evening, of a day that seems to have so many days nested into it. I dump my bag and shoes.

“I have to talk to you,” I begin.

She sits up as I take my place on the love seat.

“Wait,” she says, and tosses a foil package from the coffee table onto my lap. “If this is serious, you have to wear one too. I have another ten minutes.”

I pick up the envelope. It features a tasteful macro shot of flora with dew droplets on it. I flip the pink packet over to read the back.

“Wait, this one has actual stem cells in it?” I ask her, picturing microscopic bits of fetus. “Is that legal?”

“Apparently snail serum is passé,” she says, shrugging. “This is the hot new shit.”

“Can I just have five minutes and then I’ll put it on?” I’ve been practicing my speech the whole way over.

Her masked face nixes it.

I tear the package to extract the slimy white parcel and unfold it. Gingerly so I don’t drip on the couch or on my clothes. I carefully peel the mask off its plastic backing and position it onto my face, matching it up to my hairline. It’s cold and unpleasantly wet. I dock the holes over my eyes, nose, and mouth, pulling errant strands of hair out from under it.

“You got to wipe the remaining serum onto your neck and hands,” she instructs. “This shit is like twenty bucks a pop. Everyone’s using it post-op. It promotes healing.”

“Wait,” I tell her, reaching for another pink packet. “Open your robe for a second.”

Once I get the mask unfolded, I slap it onto her belly.

“Holy!” exclaims June with a laugh in her throat. “It’s fucking cold.”

“Can’t hurt.” Maybe it will absorb deep inside her. The face on June’s torso looks up at me as her slimy pancake face looks down.

“So, what were you going to tell me?” June tightens the fuzzy belt of her robe.

“I need a place to stay.”

“Yeah, dingus, I know,” she says. “You’ve been literally living with me for almost a month.”

“Yeah, but…”

June picks at the edge of her mask and peels it off. Her face is slick, her baby hairs clinging to her forehead.

I reach for mine, but she sucks her teeth in reproach. “You have at least another fifteen.”

I peel it off anyway and hold it in my hands. Warmed by my face, the wetness makes it feel vaguely alive. “I’ll put it back on,” I tell her. “I just need to actually see you.”

“Okay.”

“I have to move out of my apartment.”

“Also, to file under, ‘criminally obvious.’?”

“June!”

“I’m sorry,” she says, eyes wide with impatience. “I’m waiting for the part I don’t know.”

“Well,” I barrel on. “It’s filled with roaches, there’s sometimes no water at all for days, and the heat’s going to kill me if the cold doesn’t. You asked me a long time ago if I was on the lease.” I shoot a sidelong glance at her neck roll. “Anyway, I’m not. It’s an illegal sublet and I’ve tried to make it work, but I failed. I can’t do it. I’m a huge fuckup and I left for good and I need to stay with you for a while.”

“Okay,” she says evenly. “How long would you need?”

“Two months.”

“Is that a real number or is it the longest you figured you could get away with asking for?”

Fuck, she knows me so well. “The second one.”

“You can stay here as long as you want,” she says. “But you have to do something for me.”

She reaches under her robe, plucks the face mask off her tummy, and flings it onto the coffee table.

“You need to quit doing the shit you’re doing,” she says quietly, crossing her arms.

The inky horrible feeling drops over me again.

“What are you talking…”

“Stop,” she says, raising her hand. “You can’t lie to me if you’re going to live here. I know when you leave. When you go back to your apartment and what you do. And if you can’t do it there, you’re going to do it here. So we have to talk about it.”

“June,” I plead. The morning’s shame rises up in me like bile. I close my eyes.

I sense June approaching as the cushion next to me dips. When she reaches for my hand, I look down at it. Her palm is warm, smaller than mine, and covers my knuckles like a shell.

“I’ve seen them,” she says softly. My sister’s eyes shine with a tenderness I can’t bear. “The bags of stuff. In high school, I kept finding so many of them in your room at home. Food wrappers, boxes, all those wadded-up pieces of toilet paper. The Ziploc bags…”

“Stop.”

“I’ve seen it, Jayjay.”

“June, please.”

“I’ve seen the bags of vomit under your bed.”

I recall the warmth of the plastic pouches, heavy in my palms. I’d never meant to leave them there. Bags are my last option. They were only for when she was in the bathroom or if I’m having a really rough go and I can’t get out of bed. I must disgust her.