Dangerous Light

Picking her beer bottle up from her dresser, Athena continues to drop folded clothes into a tall cardboard box.

“So, you’re just going back to Thunder Bay?”

Nodding, Athena drops a handful of shirts into the box and holds her beer bottle to her shoulder. “Yep. My dad’s still up there, so I’ll just be moving back home.”

“And that’s what you really wanna do?”

Athena shrugs, taking another sip of her beer. “Do I want to?” she asks dropping a few pairs of jeans into the box, “no. But, it’s pretty much my only option as of right now.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Sidney says, sitting with his back against the headboard of the bed, flipping through a photo album. “I think you’ve got more options.”

“Like California,” Athena muses aloud, throwing more clothes into the box, “which is not really an option for me. Living with my mother… is just not an option for me. I mean, I could stay here,” she picks up a couple of shirts and turns to the box, “but I’d hate it.” The shirts land with a thud in the box.

After a long pause, Sidney looks up from the photo album. “I think you’re limiting yourself.”

Smirking, Athena finishes off her third bottle of beer, “I think that you think a lot, Sidney.”

Looking back at the photo album, Sidney smiles to and shakes his head.

“So,” Athena sets her bottle down on her nightstand, collapsing onto the opposite side of her bed, “you think I’m limiting myself. What options do you suggest I consider, then?”

Sidney shrugs, “whatever you want to do. If you wanna go to college, go enroll. You’re still young enough to do whatever you want.”

“Honestly,” Athena rubs her nose and shrugs, “I don’t know what I wanna do. I don’t know where I wanna live or go.”

“So, you’re running back to safety.”

She shrugs, “if you can even call it that.”

“So, you’re going back because…?”

With a meek shrug, Athena rests her hands on her stomach. “Because I know it’ll be there. I mean,” Athena’s speech is lightly slurred, “if today hadn’t happened, I’d contemplate going to Pittsburgh, but that’s no longer an option.”

“Why not?” Sidney is significantly more composed than Athena, with his slight beer buzz.

She shrugs, “I honestly don’t know when the next time I’ll be speaking to Jordan is.”

“You two are seriously not speaking to one another?”

Athena shakes her head, “nope.”

Sidney silently shakes his head.

“What?”

His voice is quiet, “nothing.”

“No,” Athena shakes her head, “say.”

With an audible sigh, Sidney picks at the label on his nursed beer bottle, “you two are supposed to be best friends and you’re gonna stop speaking because you’re spending time with your mother?”

Lazily, Athena shrugs her shoulders. “Quite frankly, that’s not my problem. Jordan is the only one who has a problem with it, so he can deal with it on his own.”

Sidney smirks, pulling back slightly. “This is a whole new attitude. Are you sure you’re feeling alright?”

“I’m drunk,” Athena sighs, closing her eyes. “And I dunno how I feel.”

Stifling a laugh, Sidney nods. “Anybody ever tell you you’re a lightweight?”

“Everybody who’s ever had the… the privilege of seeing me drunk.” Athena gently hiccups during and after speaking.

“At least you know,” Sidney smiles and chuckles.

“Don’t laugh at me,” Athena whispers, “that’s not very nice.”

“I’m not laughing at you,” the smile on Sidney’s face is unfaltering.

Nodding, Athena waves her hand lazily. “Yeah, yeah. You’re a meanie, Sidney Crosby.”

“I can’t help it that I find it amusing that you can only drink, like, four beers.”

Slowly allowing her eyes to open, Athena nods and speaks quietly, “just turn the lights off and go to sleep.”

“You want me to sleep in here?”

“Well, the couch isn’t exactly comfortable for sleeping. So just lay down and sleep, okay?”

Sidney goes to laugh again, setting his bottle on the makeshift coaster on the empty nightstand on his side of the bed.

“Shhh,” Athena mumbles, her eyes peacefully closed.



“You’re up early,” Athena does not even turn away from the stove when she speaks.

Sidney slides into a seat at the kitchen table, carefully watching Athena standing in front of the stove, poking a spatula into a pan. “I wasn’t expecting you to be awake yet.”

“You gonna try and sneak out on me?” Athena smirks, her voice slightly different than it had been the night before.

Sidney sits up a bit straight, “what’s wrong with your voice?”

Looking away from the pan, Athena’s eyebrows furrow. “What’re you talking about?”

Her mouth appears to be swollen, ever so slightly.

“Your voice sounds different,” Sidney says quietly, head resting on his hand.

“Oh,” she turns back to the pan, “yeah.”

After a moment of silence, Sidney speaks up, “you alright?”

“Yeah,” she nods, smirking.

Smiling, Sidney watches as she flips something in the pan and listens to the food hiss lightly. “Then why are you talking with a lisp?”

Turning toward Sidney, Athena rests one of her manicured hands on the counter and the other on the curve of her hip. “Promise you won’t laugh?”

Smiling, Sidney nods, “I’ll try my best.”

“You gotta promise.”

Trying to contain his laughter when she lisps out the word “promise”, Sidney nods, “I promise.”

Smiling wide, Athena’s lips pull back over her straight, white teeth. Across her top teeth is a small metal bar and across the bottom row is a nearly invisible, seemingly rubber, bar.

“You have a retainer,” Sidney could easily see it from across the room, nodding.

Turning back to the pan, Athena nods. “Yep. I have for years and I still talk funny.”

“And you thought I’d laugh at you?”

Shrugging, Athena fishes something out of the pan and places it on a plate. “I guess I’m just used to people laughing at me for it. I got made of fun of,” Athena pauses to put another piece of what looks to be toast in the pan, “a lot, in middle school and the beginning of high school for it.”

Sidney watches as she gently rubs her temples, “you got a headache?”

“Yeah,” she speaks quietly. “I shouldn’t have drunk last night.”

In agreement, Sidney silently nods.

“Thanks for staying with me, by the way. I was kind of expecting you to leave once you knew that I was out for the count.” She picks up a plate from the counter and sets a fork on the blue plate. Walking over to the table, she sets the dish of French toast down in front of Sidney, “I’m glad you didn’t though.”

Sidney watches as Athena walks back across the kitchen.

Her voice pulls him from his thoughts, “milk, orange juice, water…?”

“Milk’s fine,” Sidney nods rather quickly.

Pouring two glasses of milk, Athena walks one over to Sidney and quickly finishes making her French toast. Before sitting down across the table from him, Athena digs into the pocket of her plaid pajama pants to pull out two small, black containers.

“What’s that?” Sidney inquires, taking a bite of the French toast.

Sitting down, Athena opens one of the containers. “I can’t eat with these things in.”

Sidney watches as she uses one hand to hold a paper towel over the bottom portion of her face, and sets one of the black containers on her lap. Quickly, she switches the containers and removes the napkin from her face.

In a cheesy fashion, Athena smiles. “That was rude, I’m sorry.”

Sidney shakes his head, “that wasn’t rude at all. It’s just retainers.”

Taking a bite of her French toast, Athena closes her eyes and slowly chews her food. After washing the bite down with a sip of milk, she looks across the table. “Wanna know a secret?”

Sidney stops eating, “sure.”

“You have to promise not to laugh.”

“Why do you always think I’m gonna laugh at you?” The question comes across as serious as Sidney means for it to.

Flushing, Athena bows her head slightly, “because it’s kind of embarrassing.”

“I doubt it’s that embarrassing, and if it was, why would you want to tell me?”

“I just feel like I should be honest,” Athena sighs. “I don’t just wear a retainer.”

Sidney smirks, knowing his guess is completely wrong, “false teeth?”

Snickering, Athena shakes her head. “More like a mouth guard.”

“A mouth guard?” Sidney resists the urge to put his fork down.

Athena moves her hands around her face, “it’s not a full blown mouth guard like you guys wear. It’s thinner, though, and like, parts of the mouth guard. It’s so I don’t grind my teeth.”

Sidney’s voice is freakishly quiet as he leans forward slowly, “a mouth guard?”

“Why are you having that kind of reaction?” Athena leans back slightly.

Smirking, Sidney holds his hand out. “Let me see it.”

“No!” Athena shakes her head. “You saw it when it was in my mouth. It was the clear one, on my bottom teeth.”

“I’m not gonna touch it,” Sidney laughs, “I just wanna see it.”

Athena looks at him as she puts her hand on one of the containers, “this is so embarrassing.”

“They actually make these things,” Sidney mutters to himself as he abandons his fork and slowly opens the container and leaving it on the table. “It is like a mouth guard. Wow,” he pulls back slightly, “and you wear that to sleep.”

Tucking some hair behind her ears, Athena nods. “I had only been grinding my teeth for about a month when my orthodontist suggested I get one of those. Saved my back molars,” she takes a small bite of French toast.

With a sigh, Sidney closes the container and smirks, “well, you now have bragging rights as the first person I’ve ever known to wear a mouth guard to sleep.”

Wiping her mouth with a napkin, Athena nods and stands up from the table to make her way to the counter. Picking up a small white bottle, she pops the top and pours a few white pills into her hands, her lips pull into a smirk, “I can now say my life is complete.”

Sidney chuckles as the young woman pops an aspirin into her mouth.

Washing the pill down with a sip of her glass of milk, Athena slides back into her seat. "So, you're leaving in, what, two days? What do you wanna do today?"

"How did you know that we don't leave for another day and a half?" Sidney subtly corrects the young woman, while questioning her.

"Jordan told me before I dropped him off at the hotel yesterday. I think he's expecting me to apologize before then, but I don't think I have anything to apologize for, you know?" The young woman waves the thoughts away, like a gnat. "Anyway, what do you want to do that you haven't done yet?"