Between Two Lungs

Jordan's stay in New York had expired and he left to return to his job. Mae sighed to herself as she sat at her desk, sketching his portrait in charcoal. She wanted to remember every nuance of his face, from his adorable crooked smile to his fierce blue eyes. He went back to Pittsburgh and left her with countless memories of the two of them between the sheets, love bites on her neck and bruising on her inner thighs.

When she was around Jordan, she felt different. She didn't need to pop pills to be happy--she had him. And now she feared that since he was gone, she would fall back into the same patterns once again. And for the first time in her life, she didn't want that to happen.

A knock came on her door. Mae put the drawing of Jordan aside and went over to answer it, pulling her hoodie closer to her body. The heater was still on the fritz, only working every once in a while. And that day, as the temperature dropped to thirty degrees Farenheit, it decided to quit.

"Oh...hi, Marc," she said, stepping aside to let him in. "What are you doing here?"

"Jordan left, I see?" he commented, looking around the apartment. The couch bed was still made up. Jordan had left the day before, but Mae had been sleeping there, absorbing his scent, trying her best to keep the memories fresh in her mind.

"Yeah, yesterday," she answered.

Marc looked down at her. "You slept with him, didn't you?"

Mae bit her lip and did her best to keep her hickeys out of sight. "So what if I did?"

"Jesus," Marc grunted, shaking his head. "Why, Mae?"

"Marc, it's not like you and I are dating," she pointed out. "I'm just someone you like to sleep with whenever you come home from road trips with the team or whenever you need to get laid. We've established that already, and I'm fine with it. You can't tell me now, that after three years of us dealing with each other, that you have a problem with me being with another guy."

"I have a problem if that guy happens to be my younger brother," Marc stated. "How many times did the two of you have sex?"

"I don't have to tell you that!" Mae exclaimed. "That's none of your business!"

Marc sighed. Finally, he said, "Would it be my business if I asked you to be my girlfriend?"

Mae froze. "What?"

"You heard me," Marc replied. "I want you to be my girlfriend."

"Marc, I--"

"Let me just say something first before you reject me, okay?" Marc said, holding his hands up to halt Mae's words. "I really like you, Mae. A lot. Ever since the first time we met, I knew that there was something different about you. And I know that you don't want a relationship, but after three years of being together without really being together...it's just getting old. I want us to have a chance, Mae."

Mae finally found her voice. "Marc..."

"Just think about it, okay?" he said, lightly kissing her on the cheek. "Call me later." Then he walked back out the door.

After Marc left, Mae paced her apartment, not knowing what to do. She had gone through a whole pack of cigarettes trying to think, but nothing was working.

She kept asking herself the same question: Why was Marc doing this now? What was the catalyst? What in the time that she had known him made him finally confess his feelings?

The answer was clear in her mind.

Jordan.

Jordan had come into her life and was slowly starting to replace him. Marc wanted her back. He wanted the attention to be back on him, for him to be her best friend, not his little brother. He didn't want to be replaced, so his solution was to keep her near him at all times.

Mae didn't know how to feel about it. She wanted to forget, if only for a while. She crouched down beside the couch and reached underneath, expecting to feel the plastic bag that contained her stash waiting for her alongside the dust bunnies.

What she didn't expect was to find...nothing.

Mae's heart pounded between her lungs, making it hard for her to breathe. She pushed the couch aside, even though the mattress was still out. She moved it over about three feet, and nothing was there.

The pills, the acid--they were gone.

"Mother fucker, he knew," she mumbled, gripping onto the roots of her hair as she suppressed a scream. "He knew, and he fucking took them!"

Mae stormed across her apartment in a rage. She flipped over the coffee table and ripped the sheets off the mattress. She had been lied to. The memories of her and Jordan together felt filthy in her mind. She wanted to get every piece of him out of her life. She ran to her desk and ripped up the portrait she drew of him.

"Why did he sleep with me if he knew about everything? Why did I ever trust him?" she sobbed, collapsing to the ground. "Why was I so fucking gullible?"

Mae thought back to before they had sex. The way Jordan was acting around her, the tenseness...of course he knew. He found them as soon as he got into the apartment. But he had sex with her anyway, more than once. The question kept nagging at her. Why did he sleep with her even after he knew about the drugs?

Mae picked up her phone and dialed Marc's number.

"Yes?"

"Alright," she said quietly, trying to mask the fact that she had just been crying. "I'll be your girlfriend."

Before Marc could reply, she hung up on him and burst out of her apartment. Her legs carried her up the stairs to where Gary lived. She pounded on the front door with both fists, desperately hoping that he was home and that he had what she needed.

It didn't take long for him to slide the door open.

"What's up, little lady?" he asked, leaning against the door frame with a cigarette hanging limply between his lips.

"I need something," she said.

"Want some more E?" he asked, jerking a thumb into the depths of his apartment. "Because I thought that last time, I gave you more than enough to last you until after the Christmas holidays."

"No," she muttered, shaking her head. "I need something stronger than that."

Gary grinned and ushered her inside, puffing out a large cloud of smoke from his lungs. "I've got just the thing."