Girl in Pieces

It’s late when Linus drops me off in front of the building. The street is quiet, the liquor store closed for the night. I shut my eyes when we passed Twelfth Street. I didn’t want to risk looking out and seeing his robin’s-egg-blue house.

The foyer light is dim, but the first thing I notice is that the railing and floor have been repainted a light peach color; the entry door is a fresh, crisp white. The hallway smells like lilacs, clean; the walls have been painted a quiet, light blue. I approach the door to my apartment. I can hear music from the room and my heart sinks. Leonard must have already rented the apartment. Did he save any of my things? Maybe he put them in boxes in the basement. But where’s Blue? And where am I supposed to go? My heart starts to beat very fast. As I turn to go, the door inches open.

The bruises on Blue’s face are fading, but the ring around her eye is still swollen and purple-yellow. There are red lines with small dots left over from the stitches.

Blue breathes in relief. “Charlie. I’m so glad to see you.” She opens the door wider. “Are you talking? Are you okay? I thought you might go back to being quiet for a while.”

The room is neat as a pin, no more ashtrays, and there is a new, plain wood dresser to hold Blue’s clothes. The linoleum has been ripped up and the wood beneath it sanded and painted a rose color. I realize that the linoleum would have been soiled from my blood; I feel a surge of guilt. Blue bends to run a hand across the wood. “Fir,” she says softly. My slashed futon has been replaced with a double bed covered with a fluffy, inviting comforter. Blue has installed plain metal shelves in the kitchen and filled them with stacks of pink dishes and cups, jars of sauces and jams, cans of food, crackers. Another thick shelf sports a microwave. A shower curtain with a map of the world hangs from the ceiling around the tub. A cloth curtain with irises surrounds the toilet.

“I like it here,” she says with a shy smile.

Blue has made the apartment more of a home in six weeks than I did in the six months I was here.

On the card table, a painstaking project: Blue has been taping together the contents of my ripped sketchbook and the torn Land Camera photographs of Ellis and me. Some of the pieces are tiny; Wendy was very thorough.

Blue stutters. “It—it was Jen S. She called me after you left for work, about Louisa, and, Jesus, Charlie, I just lost it. I found Riley and we went to that girl’s house. I just wanted to get high, you know? I didn’t…I didn’t know it was going to be that stuff, but I couldn’t stop myself. Jesus, Charlie, did you know about him?”

The little crystalline bags. The plastic smell the first morning I came to wake him up. I look at Blue and start to cry. Her eyes widen in alarm. “Charlie, what?”

I tell her I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, but that I lied, that I bought drugs for Riley, that everything was horrible, and that I was drowning, and that I don’t want to be underwater anymore.

Blue shakes her head violently. “I’m out, Charlie. I’m really done. I’m not gonna do that stuff anymore. I promise. I like it here. It’s fucking nice, this town. My God, the sun.”

I press my forehead against the wall, suddenly exhausted all over again, emptied, now that I’m back.

She says, “That person I was at Creeley, that wasn’t really me. Sometimes with people, you just become something, like, your role happens to you, instead of you choosing it. I let that happen when I got here. I let it slip over me, even though I didn’t want to. I don’t…I’m not that, Charlie. I want to be friends. I think we could help each other. I like you so much.”

Her hand on my back is warm through my shirt.

“I don’t want to be Louisa,” she whispers. “I don’t want to die. I don’t want to be that, ever. Help me not be that and I’ll help you.”

I believe her. She says my name. She says Louisa’s, over and over. We cry like that, for hours, together, me against the wall, Blue pressed to my back. Holding each other, like you’re supposed to.