Who Elise narrative. What: Suicide attempt, alter change. Where: Elise's suite. When: RECENT confusing timeline. Warnings Suicide.
The sun rose twice since the benefit, and Elise watched both occasions with the lukewarm French press in one hand and the bottle of Verpoorten in the other. A coffee mug was balanced on the sill between her drawn knees and Elise alternated the strong coffee with the German liqueur until both the press and the bottle were spent. While this had became a tradition of the past two days, the afternoons would prove most dissimilar.
Where the day before had consisted primarily of rifling through her record collection and arguing with the voice in her head(who was equally drunk) over the serious lack of Sex Pistols and Iggy Pop in her life, there had also been a long drawn bath(milk, lavender honey, and some fresh rose petals brought to slaughter in the water) and a series of delirious naps taken in spontaneous hiding spots around the condo. The roses had been from her agent, with a card expressing his disappointment that he had to hear about her being taken out by security from a Billy K concert. The card was short and sweet, with a scripted reminder at the bottom that she should grow up and get to work before he got tired of her. A lot of people did, she recalled.
The second day was more of the same, naps taken in wardrobes and beneath dining room tables with those long and draping tablecloths. Places that the guard on duty had to scour in order to find her, as they did every hour on the hour. It amused her because it irritated them. Then there was the journals, and once the Verpooten was gone, she moved onto French vodka with a sour expression. Cheap American beer would have been preferred, but the concierge in the lobby had a limited selection for delivery.
Maybe the journal was a mistake. She'd been lighthearted initially, with birthday wishes and sexual innuendo at the unsuspecting. Then there he was, and it wasn't just him. It was never just Billy, but conversations seemed to emerge out of nowhere about him, and the past was nothing she'd ever enjoyed recalling. Sentiment was difficult, softheartedness felt more like a knife than anything these nights and so what if she preferred to be angry? If she preferred to scream and break things and be hated? It was easier to handle than the gentle, uncertain little comments. At least Lin made it easy. Ex-lover or not, she couldn't take him seriously.. but it was Billy that left her uncertain of dodge or jab.
So she drank more. She could hear the guard tonight laughing, on face time with his girlfriend or his mistress. Not his wife. She'd seen too many conversations with wives to know that they did not pull laughs from the throat and softspoken mm sounds of thoughtfulness that Elise saw through like panes of glass. The loneliness was overwhelming quite suddenly. So what if she that was so wrong, the apple so far from the tree? She'd always been different, she remembered. Maybe there was something wrong with her.. that she wasn't meant to be successful, or happy, or suspended in love. It wasn't an entirely depressing thought, but a numbing one. Strange in that she finally wandered away from the laptop and strolled the monotonous robot steps through the rooms. She felt rather than saw the guard glance up at her, clearing his throat to pause the conversation with his handheld phone.
"I'm going to work," Elise said with a cottony gesture to the bedroom-converted-darkroom. She had to smile on her way through that door, though. It seemed a little funny right then that her English could be so flawless when she chose for it to be so. After all, she'd lived in the States for long enough. She could vacate the accent and the slip-ups when she wanted to, she just rarely did. Let her have her purity in that impurity. Let her have just that.
Flipping on the lights, the dark room was flooded red. The sinks were soon flush with water and developing chemicals while Elise went about detaching dry photographs from their clothespinned lines strung around the room. Simple shots that she'd taken upon first arriving to the city. Casinos at night, lots of showgirls in various states of emotional duress, fountains and the men that dug through them for a handful of coins. Those photographs found stacks before she moved onto the rolls of older film. Years of personal things left undeveloped until now.
From the water she pulled images from a hundred lives once lived. Her awkward expression while she straightened her graduation cap. Dozens of her adopted parents. Some of her early stuff that had been forgotten. A car on fire. Her own toes half-caught in a slant of sunlight. A church full of people saying the Our Father, one little boy glancing up with a toothy grin that said he knew she was doing something wrong while everyone else bowed their heads. Billy. His laugh half pressed into a pillow. Hands on a guitar, still him. His irritated sideglance when she'd taken one photo too far.
Elise hung them up piece by piece, clipping the developments into place while she considered how thirsty she suddenly was. She'd left the vodka in the living room, and maybe that was foolish but venturing out of the darkroom felt daunting. Then even the darkroom felt daunting. With her eyes closed and her knuckles clenched against the steel counter, she took a few hard breaths to try and make it go away.
But it didn't. So she picked up the plastic vat of developer and took three deep swigs from its chemical burn. Then back to gripping the counter while she heaved, turned and choked and tried not to vomit. The world tilted, her insides burned, and when she slipped to the ground, the darkroom was truly dark. Like every other time, it hadn't been because of him or because of even her. It wasn't about the past few days, or the girl in her apartment, or anything. It wasn't about anything, she swore.
It was only because she didn't want to feel like this again.