breath, her eyes red with rage. I look at her hands in little fists on the table. I want to touch her, to apologize, but I stay put. “Look, I know you don't want to get hurt. I get that you're afraid I'll think less of you or whatever and that's why you keep all of this shit to yourself but I won't. I'll be your friend, your absolute best friend, if you let me. I'm not one of the bad guys. I want to help you carry the ring, dude.”
I sniff and choke on a giggle, “Oh Sam.”
The food comes and we start eating in silence. I take a deep breath, “It started with a chair”.
We both laugh, too loud, too bright, too real.
“You already know how we met. That night I slept at Avon’s because I was too wasted to go home and yes, part of me didn't want to say goodbye to him. He was fun, you know, silly and intelligent and interesting and he kept trying to make me laugh. He didn't have to try too hard but I could see he wanted to please me. I liked that. Anyway, Avon put me on the blue bedroom. I was too drunk to sleep and I could hear the party still going on downstairs, some people were even in the apartment's living room doing lines of coke or playing charades, who knows. I couldn't sleep and I guess I was half wanting him to knock on my door. He did. What I keep saying is true, we never did it, but he kissed me that night. I pretended I was sleeping. I don't know why. I wanted him to kiss me, badly. I don't remember half the things we talked about because I kept staring at his lips, his hands punching the air as he spoke, and all I thought was shut up and kiss me. We fell silent for a long while and he did, a little chaste peck on my lips, that was it. Maybe I wanted to prolong our thing? We were going to the same university. I wanted to be his friend first. I was afraid that if we did it he wouldn't want to please me anymore. I saw how the girls pinned for him and he wanted me, apparently.” I stop to light a cigarette “I woke up super thirsty. He was still asleep so I crept out of the blue bedroom and found Avon making pancakes. He looked at me like we had been friends for years, I loved that. He gave me a glass of milk and I helped him cut some fruit — strawberries, bananas and kiwis. Mary woke up, she was wearing a red night gown and bunny rabbit slippers, her hair a complete delicious maze, those green eyes glowing through the leftovers of makeup. She was the most beautiful woman I've ever seen. Mary and Joseph were living in the apartment at the time, saving up money to move out of the country. We ate and laughed, reminiscing about the night before, and then she asked if we knew when Satan had left. I blushed a little before telling them he was still sleeping. And I guess that was really the moment when it all began.”
“Why?” Kim asks.
“Well, because he never slept. Like, ever. Mary ran to the blue bedroom and came back with her jaw on the floor. They stopped looking at me like I was a friend. She asked me “Who are you?” I didn't understand what I had done and it took awhile for someone to explain it to me. Avon got the weed, Mary woke up Joseph, who hugged me as soon as he saw me, and we all sat on the living room. Joseph asked me what were my intentions with Satan. I laughed because I thought he was joking. But he wasn't.” I bite my lip “Satan really is like a son to him. I shrugged, embarrassed and confused and a little worried my new friends were all insane. Joseph said “We need to know if you're in this, if we can trust you. If it's worth it”.
A small frown creases her brow “But you had just met him.”
“Yeah, exactly. And I told them that; I said I liked Satan but, for fuck’s sake, I didn’t even know his real name.”
“But wait, why wouldn’t he sleep?”
“It has to do with his mother. It’s not my place to tell.”
Kim nods looking down. I can see her putting every piece of the puzzle together before looking back at me like she has just discovered the fourth secret, “He still doesn’t sleep.”
“No,” I sigh “Not without me.”
“Fuck, Aurora.” Her shoulders fall a little “So you’ve been basically donating your bed for this guy out of what? Pity?”
“More like guilt, actually.”
“Guilt? From what you’ve been telling me he had this problem before you came along.”
“Yes. But I haven’t told you everything.”
Kim reaches across the table for my hand and holds it tightly.
“I told them I’d like to go home. That, if something ought to happen, it would be between Satan and I and we were both adults. That’s when Hades arrived at the apartment.”
“I thought he was Satan’s nemesis?”
“Not so much back then. Satan didn’t approve of Hades’ lifestyle, which is sort of ironic since it’s how he has been living for the past couple of years, but Hades is Mary’s little brother, two years younger, two years older than me. I was eighteen and he was twenty. And he was gorgeous, like, Apollo levels of gorgeous. He offered to take me home and I was like yeah, boy, take me anywhere.”
Kim covers her laugh with the hand I was holding back, “I totally felt that last night when I saw him.”
“You did? Well, it’s the Hades' effect. He offered to take me home. In his car he had only one tape, Elliott Smith’s Roman Candle. Unlike Satan he talked and moved in a contained, almost weaponized way; there was no hurry, no concern, no fear. He knew who he was but with little arrogance.” I find myself smiling ruefully at the memory “I don't think I stood at chance.”
“You fell for him.”
“I fell for what I could see myself being next to him. When Hades dropped me off at home he asked if I would be at Paraíso's that night. I said maybe. He smiled and waved goodbye.”
“And did you go?”
“I wanted to see them, all of them, even though Joseph and Mary had freaked me out a little. When I got there they were nowhere to be found. I asked Avon about it and he said it was too early. I nursed a beer for maybe half and hour before Hades showed up. We drank, we talked, we danced. We actually slow danced to Pavement's We Dance. My arms around his neck, the whole deal.”
Kim tilts her head and awes.
“I know. And that was it, all of the sudden I was living all these precious moments, all these straight out of dream diaries snippets, and I wanted more. I wanted the boy who would show up the next day and drive me home and take care of me.”
“So you chose Hades. And, let me guess, Satan didn't take it well.”
“I don't know. He never spoke of that night again. Mary seemed happy that I was with Hades and we would all hang out, day after day, and Satan sat there next to us as Hades wrapped his arms around me and parted my lips with his tongue.” I take a sip of coke, mouth dry, and fight back tears “One night, months later, a little before Mary and Joseph left the country, Satan and I found ourselves in the blue bedroom again. Hades wasn't in town, he was up north visiting family, and I didn't feel like going home so I crashed at Paraíso's. Satan was really wasted. Everybody else had gone to bed and I felt bad that he was still so wired and alone so I invited him in and said we could talk each other to sleep. And that's what we did.”
Kim breathes out smoke, “Shit.”
“For them it couldn't be a coincidence. Mary was the one to tell me about Satan's condition, how he had been treated for insomnia for years, seen a variety of psychiatrists and therapists; how most pills would turn him into a zombie and how he stopped taking them all together. I was like a herbal tea. Oriental medicine, new age bull. A different kind of poison. I worked.”
“You were also sleeping with someone else.” She deadpans.
“Exactly. But, as it turned out, Hades was also sleeping, as in fucking, with lots of someone elses. It hurt but it wasn't terrible. We had safe sex and it wasn't like I was madly in love with him. We broke it off.”
“I'm sorry, dude. Men are such fucking assholes. Did Satan step in?”
“No. Despite Mary and Joseph insisting that he loved me he never showed it. Friendly affection, sure. School brought us closer together, I would see him every day and we eventually became good friends. One day he didn't show up for classes. Next day, another no show. By the third da
y I found out he was in the hospital. Sleep deprivation, hallucinations, etc.”
“He never asked me to sleep with him. I was the one who called him to my bed. When he didn't sleep with me huge black shadows under his eyes would start showing up, his hands would shake, he would have dissociate episodes where he didn't feel like his body belonged to him. It was awful. Have you heard of fatal familial insomnia?”
Kim shakes her head, “No.”
“I read about it when he was in the hospital. Patients can go six to nine months without sleep, during which time they develop dementia and become unresponsive. Death follows.”
don't let the hurdle fail so be the girl you loved
“You can do this,” Kim says, coming to rest her chin on my shoulder. “We're going to get you out of this fucking mess.” She wraps her arms around me and I lean my temple against the top of her head for a moment, covering her linked fingers with one of my hands.
The only way out is running away.
We wait together for the trams and as soon as we get to her place I fall asleep.