Mutually Numb

“Thank you for the help, Aimie.” I said as I got up off of the couch and let go of my daughter’s hand.

“Where are you going now mommy? I still want to play!” She picked at the hem of her shirt and looked me in the eyes with the biggest smile on her face. “I miss playing with you!”

“Honey, right now Mommy is feeling tired. I need to take my medicine, and that makes me sleepy.” I rubbed my hand across the top of her head slowly. I grabbed the edge of the sofa to guide me to the bedroom slowly.

“You take many pills…” Aimie said while putting her finger on her chin to think, “Doesn’t taking them all make you full?”

I laughed a little bit and let out a wheeze. “They aren’t like a meal, baby, they have special things in them that make me feel better.” I bit my lip as I reached the end of the sofa. Now I had to make it across the hallway to the kitchen all by myself before I had something else to grab on to.

“So they’re like little superheroes inside of you!” Aimie said while running around the room making a whoosh sound.

Using Aimie’s running as confidence, I took my hand off of the sofa, took a deep breath and ventured into the vast space that is the middle of the living room. I made a few shaky steps before another figure came running into the room.

“Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?” Ash retorted from another room

“It’s not important, it’s already happened.” Ruki replied stomping down the hallway, towards me.

He stopped directly in front of me, about to hit me.

I stood there like a deer in headlights. I was guilty. I knew I wasn’t allowed to walk on my own. I could never hide my guilt very well.

“Claire!” Ruki yelled, obviously very annoyed already. “You know you’re not supposed to walk without help,” he scolded me like a toddler, “and Aimie doesn’t count as help.” he said while looking at her, who had now calmed down and was sitting on the couch again, watching cartoons.

“Y-yeah, I know…. But I don’t want help…” I stuttered. I was scared, he looked enraged already. I didn’t want him to push me over or hit me.

“It doesn’t matter what you want! You need to stay off your feet for right now. It isn’t healthy for your muscles to put this much stress on them!” He growled.

Ash almost ran into the back of Ruki, still yelling about something. I was focused on my own problem now – I was stuck in the middle of the room with no way out and my knees were starting to buckle. Now, it was only a matter of willpower. If I staggered the littlest bit out of balance, I would tumble to the floor.

Ash gasped and stopped yelling. “Are you okay, honey?”

“She’s fine Ash, she just needs to stop being so defiant.” Ruki answered for me.

I glared at Ruki with blank eyes. Just at that moment, my legs began to shake like a newborn fawn learning how to walk, and I knew I was destined to hit the floor. Ruki scooped me up before I hit and threw me back in the bedroom; there were only a few remaining feet until I was there anyway. Ash followed behind, hoping to see what was going on, and possibly continue the fight. We are both similar in that we need to get the last word in.

Ruki dumped the myriad of pills on his hand. He put my weekly pill organizer back onto the nightstand. All of the tiny slots for each day were crammed with pills, we could barely close them.

He handed me the pills and a glass of water that had been on my nightstand since last night. “Here, you need to take these. It’s 6 o’clock. You can’t miss the time, it’s vital that these are all consecutive.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I rolled my eyes and took a few large gulps of water with the putrid pills. I puckered my face at the mix of lemon, seaweed, cough medicine, and plastic flavor that the pills left in my mouth.

Leaning against the doorway, Ash tapped her foot, waiting for Ruki to return. Since the opportunity was here, I figured I might as well figure out what was going on. Maybe it was a relationship problem that wasn’t my business, but I was about to make it mine. I’m a member of this family too, damn it.

I gagged and coughed after taking such a large dose of water and solids. Ruki rested his hand on my back to help me to stop coughing.

“So, what was the ordeal that happened earlier?” I curtly asked. “You guys almost knocked me over.” I tried to make it sounds as non-invasive as possible, but it was hard since it was completely one hundred percent invasive.

Ash jumped on the opportunity like an animal pouncing on its prey. “Ruki neglected to tell me about his parents coming to visit today.”

I almost spit out water that wasn’t in my mouth. I looked to him with huge eyes. “What?” I asked, my mouth still open. “I haven’t even met your parents and we have a kid together.”

Ash raised her eyebrows and smugly looked over at the man being attacked.

“I got the call not that long ago, they are stopping by unannounced. They never told me in advance, so I couldn’t tell you in advance!” He tried to keep his voice as low as possible, but that fell through near the end.

“A day or two notice would have been nice.” Ash rolled her eyes again and picked at her cuticles. She knows she won this argument.

Now I was completely concerned with another topic. It wasn’t about their problems or their stupid relationship, it was about Ruki’s parent’s coming over. And I am as sick as a dog and look like shit. I don’t even think his parents know about what happened to me, he hasn’t been keeping them in the loop very often. We aren’t even together, but I am a big part in his life whether he wants me to be or not. His parents didn’t like me in the first place since we had a kid together so soon and unexpected. I guess this is just adding onto the bill of my misfortunes.

“Ruki,” I started, more nervous than I had been in a long time, “What do I do now? Your parents are visiting and…” I looked around the room in panic, my eyes starting to well up with tears, “look at me! They never liked me in the first place!” I gritted my teeth to keep more tears from coming out. I was scared. I was utterly horrified.

Ash sat down next to me, realizing the petty fight didn’t even matter anymore. “Claire, they should understand. You have been to the hospital, you got out of multiple surgeries, and you have gone through so much. They should understand your health issues.” She ran her hand on the covers that used to be hers and Ruki’s before he moved me into this room. I felt guilty about it sometimes, but after a few more minutes I didn’t care too much. I deserved this room. This man has put me through so much shit. Why did I still love him and want something between us?

Ruki looked over at Ash with a skeptical face. “They aren’t exactly the most accepting people on the planet. Even when it comes to logical things like this. Why do you think I don’t talk to them much?”

I turned my head to Ruki with a raised eyebrow.

He rolled his eyes. “Okay, maybe I was a really rebellious and horrible teenager too, but they never got better either.”

“So? That doesn’t answer my question… what do I do? It isn’t like they can ignore me. My daughter is here, I need help with everything, and now you don’t want me out of your sight,” I said glaring at the man next to me, “So it’s going to be hard to hide me.”

“We don’t want to hide you, Claire.” Ruki sighed, closing his eyes.

“Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad!” Aimie yelled from the living room.

He silently got up and walked to our daughter in the other room. “Yes? What is it?” I could still hear their muffled conversation through his apartment’s thin walls.

Ash awkwardly ran her hands over the bed covers again, smoothing wrinkles and them making them again. We were both eavesdropping, neither of us said a word.

“Somebody is at the door. I heard a knock!”

“Already? I thought they said they were going to be here at 7:30.”

The door clicked open and the house fell silent. There were no introductions, no greetings, and no words at all. I could only feel the air between Ash and me, and it was so thick I could cut it with a knife.

I gulped loudly and it rung in the quiet room.

“Who are you?” Ruki inquired

“Don’t you remember me from the hospital?” Another man’s voice was at the door.

“No, could you tell me why you’re here?” He seemed very disinterested

The man let out a soft chuckle. “I’m Toshiya, we met before Claire was released. I figured I would drop by, I’m a good friend of hers. Well, recently, I’ve been kind of bad since I haven’t visited her yet.”

Ruki remained silent for a few moments before agreeing, still very disgruntled.

“She’s in here.” He explained. You could hear his voice get louder with every syllable he spat out. The door creaked open and Toshiya’s smiling face cut the tension.

“I’m so glad you finally came to see me.” I beamed. I wasn’t mad at him for the whole incident at his house; when I first woke up, I promised myself I wouldn’t hold any grudges from the past. I was welcome to hold new ones, but I was starting fresh. Curiosity, however, wasn’t off the plate. I moved my body forward to hug him, but the pain stopped me. It was apparent in everyone’s faces because Toshiya and Ash both tried to fidget with me so it would work. We ended up having a small grandma hug, but that was perfect for me. “I thought you weren’t going to visit me.”

“What? I came to visit when you were in the hospital! Maybe you didn’t know.” He laughed at the humor he found in the dark situation.

I let a smile make its way onto my face as well.

“Here Claire,” Ash said as she got up to stand next to Toshiya, “Let’s get you out of this clammy room for now. We can all talk in the living room! There’s more room in there anyway.” She and Toshiya both worked at picking me up, but Ash’s help was in vain considering Toshiya was holding all of me and Ash was standing by.

As we walked into the living room, I saw Ruki’s demeanor change from grumpy to completely ill-humored. I had never seen it happen that fast.

Toshiya placed me onto the couch I was just on. He sat next to me and Ash on the adjacent couch. She left enough room for Ruki to sit down, but he probably wasn’t going anywhere near us. He waited on the sidelines, leaning against the kitchen counter.

Toshiya reached to the end table behind him and revealed he had also bought me a small assortment of flowers wrapped in a pink velvet bow.

“It’s wrong to visit a girl and not bring her something.” He grinned and handed me the beautiful bouquet.

I smelled the flowers and felt their stems in my hands. “You really didn’t need to do this, thank you so much.” Some of the scent hit me the wrong way and I coughed and hacked into my shoulder. I looked up and apologized silently.

“You’re so sweet,” Ash cooed, “How did you two become such good friends?”

“We met one day while Claire was out. She was having a relaxing day, and we happened to bump into each other. We kept in contact for a bit, but when she dropped off the grid, curiosity got the best of me. I was devastated to hear the news. Especially since I could barely visit due to my hectic schedule.”

I could feel Ruki’s harsh words hitting us from the kitchen. He wasn’t saying anything either, but I knew him well enough to know what he was thinking.

“What have you been up to that kept you so busy? It seems crazy to have such a crammed schedule.” Ash and Toshiya were mainly keeping the conversation flowing, I was happy to not be a part of it right now. I loved talking to the two of them, they were kind, but I wasn’t in the mood for it right now. My throat hurt, my head felt wheezy and I didn’t feel like explaining everything all over again. It isn’t his fault that he wasn’t already completely informed, but it wasn’t my job to tell everyone my entire biography.

In the midst of their riveting conversation, another knock came to the door. Aimie came running out of her room, excited to meet her grandparents for the first time. She had only talked to them on the phone before.

I looked down at what I was wearing for a second, and realized I looked worse than before. I was in a tank top and pajama shorts. My hair was up in a bun so that it was out of my face, hid most of my bald spots, but I could still sleep comfortably without taking it down. I was crazy skinny still, I looked anorexic (Ruki still did too, but nobody wanted to tell him). My skin was pasty white, I had scars all over my body and my veins were an odd purple color beneath my paper skin. To tack another thing to the list, I looked like I was on drugs because my pupils were still messed up and my eyes were red from almost crying earlier.

But, I had to be as excited about this as Aimie was, I didn’t want to ruin this for her.

I took a deep breath and looked up as Ruki let his parents into his apartment. I could feel his mother’s glance from the second she walked in.

I really wish my medicine would kick in and put me to sleep right about now.