Lucy

She sits awake some nights and wonders. But not in the bedroom, for it is small and occupied and not conducive to wondering. She lies there for the allotted amount of time, staring at the hairline crack in the ceiling, the one that unsettles her when it's dark. It's never been filled. No one minds it in the daytime, when worries are less useful. Then, when his breathing is steady and his hands are still, she shifts slowly off of the mattress and onto the floor, dodging squeaky boards and walking on the outside of her feet, like an Indian, like she's seven again. That's how she knows it's alright to slip away. Because she feels seven and not seventeen.

Outside, on the small balcony attached to their kitchen, she lights incense and plays with the smoke. It tangles when left alone, but she sorts it with a few waves of her fingers, like a small child's hair. The night-bugs, cicadas and moths and big, green beetles, buzz around her as she closes her eyes and wonders again if she's a bad person.

It's such a subjective term, 'bad person,' she tells herself, even though she knows that this argument is crap. I mean, when you say bad, you could mean anything from your Irish Catholic grandmother's idea of bad to Charles Manson bad. But that's the worst thing about having a conversation with herself. She can't use (or rather, utilize) her dual degree in English and 20th century literature (or rather, wordy bullshit). She can't dodge the question and go of on a tangent. Well, she can, but it's not particularly effective, because there is only one of her, and she knows what she means by bad (and that people who are Charles Manson bad are typically referred to as "murderers" to do away with the need for distinction).

Well, she revs up warily, if you asked most people, I would probably get a fairly positive response. I mean, they'd have their complaints, of course. Everybody has complaints about everybody. But I think that the consensus would be, yes, good.

But then she has to wonder how much of what they know is real and how much of it, exactly, is layering and creative placement. Because there's always something. No matter what she does. There are always so many little failures, especially with him. She tells him her feelings, that she loves him, like she's supposed to, but no matter how true it is, she can't kill that tiny, persistant animal that squirms uncomfortably in her chest every time she does. She tries to be as kind to him as he is to her, but moments still exist in which she wants to wound him. She goes to sleep next to him and wakes up there, too, but she finds herself screwing someone else in the middle of the night. Her control only goes so deep, and it kills her.

So what is she, really? Kind and loving, or a decent approximation of the two? Committed, or just well-trained? Does consensus matter when what they see is just a white sheet, draped over the ugly crime scene to appease and comfort?

She can't decide anymore. So she stops moving. She stops breathing. Uninterrupted, the smoke wraps around her, caressing her shoulders. She closes her eyes and listens. But the promised realization never comes.