Never Cover up What We Did With a Dress

We drove home in silence I was glad to have. I couldn’t bear to talk about Lily or her illness or if she’d ever get better. Manson sat beside me, looking out the window at the night-coated city. What seemed like days was only three hours of us being in the hospital. When we left, and as I drove us both home, I felt despondent and detached from the world, like I wasn’t really there.

“Are you okay?” Manson asked as we walked into the apartment. He held my hand and I let him. I had officially forgiven him, because I realised that I needed him. I needed him so much.

I nodded and wrapped my left arm around his waist, not wanting to cloud him with my pain because I knew he was dealing with his own.

When I got inside the apartment I had to swallow back fresh, harsh sobs. I could smell Lily, and I could see some of her toys on the floor. I wasn’t sure why I was being so emotional, she wasn’t dead. I said this to Manson.

“You’re upset because she’s everything to you,” he said.

“That’s not entirely true though.” I whispered.

He kissed me on the forehead and helped me into our bedroom.

“She’s your first child. You knew her longer and closer than me or anyone else. She is …” he sighed. “It’s obvious why you’re not taking this very well.”

“But you’re the same.” I said quietly, “and you’re not crying at every memory of her.”

“You’re her mother.”

I gave up arguing, I was much too tired to worry about who was being affected more. I knew that I loved her and I always would. She was my daughter, my first daughter, and that bond between us was unbreakable, even if it was such a short period of time since I had known her.

Manson sat on the bed and sighed once again, running a clammy hand across his face. I watched him from the doorway, taking in his smudged black eyes and full coloured lips. I loved him with all my heart, and in some part it scared me. I went to sit next to him. This whole time I had known him, only twice had I seen him break down in hysterics. Once when our neighbour molested him and killed his dog, and once when he moved to Florida, because he was leaving me behind. Tonight was the third time. Each time had something in common. I would hold him, and let him cry into me, but never would I kiss him or do anything remotely intimate in the romantic sense. Tonight was an exception of that. He cried into me and I held him and kissed his forehead and told him to be strong. Strangely enough, seeing him cry in the way he was didn’t scare me. It never had. I wondered what his fans would think to see him utterly broken, utterly vulnerable from the pain of tragedy.

After around twenty minutes he stopped, and sniffed, and laughed at himself.

“I’m sorry about that baby.” He told me. “I don’t really know what came over me.”

“That’s okay.” I said, feeling totally numbed. “I am going to have a shower.”

He nodded and I went off into the bathroom, undressing myself slowly and quietly moaning when the calming water hit my body. I am not certain exactly how long I had been under the water, but I knew the skin on my fingers had become scrunched and wrinkled. I dried myself off and went into the bedroom. Manson was lying in his side of the bed, his eyes opened and staring at a spot in front of him. It worried me to see him so still and alone.

I got dressed and slipped under the covers beside him. Immediately my arms wrapped around his exposed waist and I slid closer to him as I closed my eyes, my cheek against the skin on his back. He spun around eventually and held me against his chest and I cried. I cried for Lily, but I cried more so for the pain that everything had caused, the rate in which my life had started to disintegrate.

____________________________________________________________

The next morning I woke with no one beside me. I sighed. Turning around and spreading myself around the bed, I fell asleep again, unable to face the world.

I woke again when Manson entered at around four in the afternoon.

“Baby, shouldn’t you get up now?” He asked. “It’s like four.”

I groaned and rolled over, my eyes only shutting once I heard him sigh in worry and the door close behind him.

I woke once again when Manson came in with some soup and a glass of water, placing it beside me. He sat on the bed next to me and played with my hair, twirling it around his finger and smoothing it back again.

“You’ve been sleeping all day.” He said. “You should have this.”

“I’m tired.” I whispered.

“I know.” He replied, and he kissed me on the forehead before I turned around and fell asleep again.

This cycle repeated for at least five days. Manson had visited Lily and urged me to come with him, but I just couldn’t handle it. On the sixth morning, Manson finally decided to wake me up. My eyes barely opened, I felt weighed down, pressured, numb, like I was underwater, not responding to this place, this person, this life that was around me.

“Ches, you have to get up today.” He said.

“Why?” I whispered into the pillow, turning over so my face was hidden from him.

“Please.” He said, his voice slightly cracking.

It was then that I realised Manson was sad because I didn’t get out of bed. Never did I think that my inability to face the world would hurt him. I turned around and took in his face – every fold of aging pain, every miniscule detail, searching for evidence of exactly how much this whole situation had affected and upset him.

“Okay.” I mumbled.

His face changed significantly, but I couldn’t see a clear sign of emotion. He didn’t smile and his eyes didn’t sparkle. I got out of my bed.

It felt as though I was entering a foreign world when I stepped outside. It was the apartment I had loved so much… and yet to me it felt different now.

“I think you should visit her today.” Manson said as I sat on the couch.

I wrapped the blanket that was next to me around my body, burying my face in it’s soft fibres. I closed my eyes, hugging my knees up to my chest and sighing heavily.

“I don’t want to.” I said quietly.

He sighed and sat close to me on the couch. I fell into him as he wrapped his arm around me.

“Why not?” He whispered.

I swallowed and thought for a moment. Why didn’t I? Was I trying to numb myself to the fact that Lily wasn’t okay? Could I just not be bothered dragging myself back to that horrible, distant place?

“I’m scared.” I replied.

“Of what?”

“Of finally realising she’s not okay.” I whispered, and my voice began to quiver on the verge of tears. “What if we lose her, Manson?”

He didn’t reply. Instead the grip he had me in tightened and he let me turn my face into his chest and cry. I knew she was so far from okay that I had a reason to be worried. What would I do if she was… gone? Would Manson and I survive the grief and stress? Why couldn’t I just smile and deal with the fact that people get sick and Lily just happened to be the one? Why couldn’t I stay positive and tell myself she’d be okay?

I don’t know how long it was before I stopped crying, but once I did Manson held my hand a guided me into the bathroom. I followed him and stood on the cold tiles as he closed the door behind us. When his back was turned from me, I looked deeply at myself in the mirror. I almost started crying again when I saw how… empty I looked. Manson turned back to me and I ignored the thoughts that were flashing through my mind. I looked up at him and into his eyes, and suddenly I was overwhelmed with the need to hold him. I wrapped my arms around his body and pushed my lips to his. When he began to kiss me back, I jumped up and wrapped my legs around his hips, my arms around his neck. Manson guided me over to the cabinet sink and rested me there whilst staying in the position we were in. My fingers slowly moved from his neck down to the hem of his t-shirt. I twisted the material around in my fingers, not sure what I should do. Manson kissed me deeper and I began to pull the shirt above his head. Manson stopped.

“Wait… what are you doing?”

“I want to.” I said.

“Now?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because… I don’t know, I just feel like I want to.”

I leant up and began kissing him again. I could feel the hesitance in his reply, and I knew he was sceptical as to how vulnerable I was. I wasn’t vulnerable, I needed it from him.

I lifted his shirt over his head and held onto the warm skin of his back. I continued to kiss him as he slid my shirt over my head. I wrapped my legs tighter around his hips and kissed him deeper, feeling his erection hard against my thigh. I slid my legs down and started to unbutton his jeans.

“No, wait…” He moaned, his eyes closed tightly.

I looked at him, sitting back against the wall and panting slightly.

“What is it?”

“Are you sure you… want to… right now? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“Ches…”

“Please Manson.” I whispered against his chest.

He looked at me, as if deciding if I were strong enough. He smiled, and then leaned down and kissed me once again, and my heart warmed as I accepted the feeling of being loved.