Re: Motel 77: Cris & Sam
She knew he was right about Meredith's narcissism. She knew. She'd called the redhead on it, yeah? She knew. "She only sees herself in the mirror," she said, and it wasn't sense, not really, but to the girl who'd been seeing distorted images in panes of glass, it made sense." She glanced at his hand when he said it wasn't her, that it was his, something he was working through. It was the first time she noticed it, yeah? How done he sounded. Like a towel still being wrung free of water once it was already long dry, and like maybe he didn't have anything to give. And she got it. She'd read the shit Penny wrote. She'd seen him the night after Meredith. She knew he needed stuff, and her stuff on top was just more and more and more. She knew that. She was completely fucking aware of her own overwhelming issues, and she signed in and out of therapy three times a week on disability's dime, because she knew she was so fucked up she couldn't function right.
She knew. She got it. He needed ok, yeah? She saw it at that bar. He needed vibrant, and he needed ok, and she could only bring that with a bottle and a needle right now. And this shit? This wasn't helping him, and he was only going to walk away feeling like he'd failed her, and she'd just fuck him up more. He wanted her better. She wanted to talk, and she couldn't give him better. She'd pretended. She'd tried. She'd fucked it up.
And he was different once he gave up. She knew that now too, lying there beneath those sheets with blown out blue eyes and regrets that could flood the room and leave it briny as they both drowned. And being the one to make shit better, that was what she did. It was what Lou tried to do. Shane, too. It was just who she was, and it was in her veins, and it was in her blood, and she didn't know how to turn it off. Which made it even more fucking frustrating when she couldn't help ANYONE.
He held his breath, quit breathing, and she could see the glint of pink against the back of his teeth. She'd said something wrong, but she wasn't sure what. Powder-clarity, it was a weird creation, and it was spikes and valleys. She knew, certainty, that she'd fucked up, but she couldn't reel the words back in, and she couldn't even remember the order she'd strung them together in, so she couldn't untangle them like earbud cords. The tangle was there, and she could trace it on his face; she didn't, because she was sure the wires would freak him the fuck out, but she could.
Instead, she rolled, and she touched his face, and his fingers were warm where hers with cold and sick. She stared at him, and he talked, asking if he was a selfish cunt. Her fingers touched his lips, and her fingertips traced there, around the corners and edges of his wide mouth, like her calloused fingertips were brushes clumped with paint, and like he was some traceable canvas. But he wasn't, and the words that came from his mouth sounded tired, helpless, useless, like being here, like this was dragging him down even further into the water that splashed grime and cold against her inside. "You're not selfish, papi. You're not fucking selfish."