Re: Venetian penthouse: Sam & Cris
Él eso no le gustó. Fucked up. He wasn't fucked up. He wasn't suffering from some traumatic breakdown. He wasn't flat or expressionless, he wasn't hollow. He wasn't non-functioning. He wasn't in shock, speechless, palm over the bullet wound in his shoulder like war was new. He wasn't any number of whatever other words shrinks liked to use when they did that thing where they put you into whatever DSM box, some label chosen at random from a thick book, like a globe spun and a finger braking it, this is where we're gonna go—this is what you are. He just... felt... deep, everything carving into him, down to the wood of his spine, and it was constant, a barrage, a salvo. He was flawed, and he said his confessions like everyone else, behind a shutter. But he wasn't fucked up.—It had been bad. Damnation on the first day of Lent. A man dead, wearing his victim's face. And, logically, Cris knew you didn't come out of this kind of thing unscathed. So, fine, he was scathed. Da igual. But, he wasn't fucked up, and that vest behind him was unblemished and untouched.
He wasn't fine, but él iba a estar. He didn't have any vice to fall into or wagon to fall off of.
Cris didn't stop the once-over of palms and fingertips. He didn't stop Sam as she circled behind him. He sat there, useless, on his knees, a dead man's blood eking between thready fibers beneath him, and he turned his head, profile cut black, as he listened, trying to pick words out of watery sobs.
A black line etched between brows at I talked to Neil and it grew with the tumble of words, throb of sob, and the absolute fucking devastation of Sam's voice behind him. The horror of guilt blistered and split deep inside Cris. He turned on his knees to face the girl, and he stood, tugging her up with him as best he could, her weight negligible to his need.—And if he got her up, he moved with her to the bed, and he crawled onto thick blankets after her, and he wound around her, cracked glass protecting the shattered.
Tears leaked silent onto the pillow and he breathed in the scent of her hair at the nape of her neck. He didn't get, until that moment, his nose was pressing into the spot he'd aimed the muzzle of Neil's pistol. And his silence broke. On his side in that bed, Cris felt like a little kid, like he was crying snot and tears like the world was ending because he'd been trapped and watched Padre smashed Mamá's face against the crucifix that hung by the kitchen table. He felt like a 20-year-old, some punk kid with his backwards cap still on and dry blood on his clothes, a crumpled up note in his hand that acted as his heart, happiness written out on it and wadded up.—He felt for Sam too. She was probably putting it all together, and it made an ugly, ugly picture. Another sort of rape, coming together in pieces. She felt guilty for Joey, she felt guilty for all of it—Micah too, when it all came back—, and if Neil had said something about getting a drink, no doubt she felt guilty for that too—like it was her fault every time his lips touched a bottle.
He needed to be strong, for Sam's sake, the way he had for his mom, way back when Viejo ate his gun, but just for a minute, he let himself feel it all. She needed someone right now, someone who could explain what happened without scaring her more, and someone who could take her tears, not add to them.
Cris steeled himself. He reached, soft, to brush away wetness from her pale cheeks. He couldn't see what he was doing, so it was slow and gentle. He pushed hair out of her face. His fingers caressed over the pulse in her throat, over the pump of blood through veins, and he took a deep breath and curled tighter around Sam.
"Yeah, mami. He did." By some miracle or through some feat of force, his voice came out even. "I dunno if you remember what else he did. But, he..." Here Cris faltered. "...deserved what he got. He wouldn'ta stopped. Neil pulled the trigger. Pero... todos nosotros lo hacíamos. We got you from the hospital. Then Louis... he went after Micah. The guy shot at us. He... looked like you. His wish or somethin', messed up. We all knew it wasn't you, but—he looked like you." The repetition was stupid but it came out anyway. Cris dug his nose deeper into the thicket of Sam's hair.