Mutually Numb

The fresh breeze felt good on my face – like a new and clean outlook on life. I rocked slightly back and forth in my hammock, letting the subtle motions calm my nerves. The sky was a perfect shade of blue; there weren’t too many clouds in the sky, but just enough so that the sun wasn’t over bearing. I lightly licked my lips, tasting the crisp air. Sometimes it was just nice to take a day all to yourself; to sit somewhere with only your thoughts and think. It is comforting to be deep in thought, but not have your mind set on one thing. I have been lying in this hammock for almost 3 hours now, and my mind hasn’t stopped wandering. Most of the time was spent making up scenarios – mainly about what would come in the future. I often what would become of Aimie when she grew up: What kind of man would she marry, if she would turn out successful, and how life would treat her. I guess this isn’t really the type of pondering a normal person does, but I’m a mother – let me worry a little bit.

I was very glad that Ruki asked to take Aimie for the day; it let me have this stress-free time. I felt horrible for enjoying myself this much, but I figured that I’d beat myself up about it later. Maybe I should bring up more of these father-daughter days to Ruki; I could definitely relax like this every now and again. Especially on a day as beautiful as this – it felt as if nothing was wrong. I had no cares and not a worry in the world. I guess Kai was right, everything was going to be okay.

However, just as fast as things are built up, they can be broken down. In a single motion, my pleasant thoughts were swept away and the beautiful skies seemed to turn a shade of gray. Waves of paranoia seemed to drown me in my small paradise. All of this happened because of one thing; one small, miniscule thing: I was human. The human mind loves to venture off into places it knows it shouldn’t out of sheer curiosity. Ruki crept his way into my mind – not in the usual way of him just being Aimie’s father – but of him being the male figure in both my daughter’s life and mine. I had the perfect image in my head of what everything would be like; everybody was happy, Aimie didn’t need to be jumping from house to house, and Ruki actually liked me for who I was, not because he had to.

The thoughts were too much to handle right now; I already dealt with myself too much yesterday – not that talking with Kai didn’t help. Since my thoughts were already a little overbearing for me, I decided that I’d leave my small hammock and go out and do something. Going into the city was always a good way to distract myself, there was always so much going on. And besides, I wouldn’t mind a few drinks, I knew a couple of good bars in the city.

~~~ ~~~ ~~~

I knew that I should be going home around now; I knew that I should stop drinking, and I knew that I shouldn’t be where I was right now. Did I listen to myself or do any of this? No. Did I care? No. Okay, maybe a little bit – I should be stopping over at Ruki’s like my daughter had asked and spending time with them – but the drinks are what kept my mind off of that. They were like an instant distractor from all of my problems; I hadn’t drunk like this since Aimie was born, I never had the time to do it. But now seeing that I was free (or at least felt like it), I was able to actually enjoy myself.

There really weren’t many people in the bar – 10 PM on a Thursday night was never really a hot time to go out drinking. The few people that were here were very hospitable to me, probably because I was the only girl here. I knew the same mishap wouldn’t happen again, none of the men here were good looking anyway.

A new set of drinks for me appeared in front of me and a new man walked into the bar and sat himself down aside me. I guess I was wrong when I said that none of the men in here weren’t good looking – he was incredibly, incredibly handsome. He smiled over at me and placed money on the counter to pay for my drinks. That was more than enough to get me to start a conversation with him. Too bad I couldn’t use one of Claire’s famous drunk pickup lines; the attractive dark haired man next to me initiated conversation.

“What’s a girl like you doing out at a bar like this?” I guess both of us had really cheesy conversation starters. Great minds do think alike.

“I just needed a day to relax,” I tried to say as nonchalantly and not-drunk sounding as possible. I realized my efforts were in vain as soon as the man next to me grinned and chuckled.

“Don’t we all? By the way, I’m Toshiya.”

“Claire.” I said with a smirk, taking another sip of my drink.

Before I knew it, Toshiya and I were really hitting it off. He was pleasant to talk to, and had interesting things to say. Turns out, he was part of another band too, he was in Dir en grey. Neither of us brought up anything personal, but it still seemed like we had dug deeper into each other than what we presented.

Before I knew it, both Toshiya and I were rather tipsy, and were so loud I could tell everyone else was staring. In the midst of one of our conversations, my phone began to buzz in my pocket. I turned my phone screen on and my heart sunk seeing that I had 9 missed calls from Ruki.

Toshiya looked up at me, “What’s wrong?” he asked with a questioning face.

I didn’t really know to explain it, so I didn’t. “Nothing, I just have a bunch of missed calls from a friend. Do you mind if I call him back?”

Toshiya smiled and told me to go off and call whoever I needed to.

I walked over to the far corner of the bar where there was virtually nobody. Inhaling deeply, I pressed re-dial, and called Ruki’s cellphone. He picked up on the second ring.

“Claire?”

“Yes?” I stuttered out

“Where on earth are you? You were supposed to stop by here hours ago. Aimie is worried sick, and you aren’t at your apartment.”

“Oh…” I thought for a moment; I didn’t realize that I stayed out this late, “I had a nice relaxing day, and I guess that I lost track of the time.” I let out a small, nervous laugh

He sighed, “Claire…” There was a small break in conversation, “Are you drunk?”

How could he tell? I’ve been trying my best to sound as sober as possible, I didn’t think that I had that much to drink. I still had yet to respond, and Ruki was on the other line waiting. I could tell that he was pissed – and it always scared me when he was like that. I never knew what he would do, because we had never gotten into a real fight.

I could tell that he was trying to regain his composure. “Look, I’ll come over and pick you up, since it is already midnight, and you definitely aren’t safe to drive home.”

I told him the name and address of where I was at, and we both hung up. I scuffled my way back to my seat, where Toshiya was patiently waiting; twirling a toothpick in his glass.

He flicked his head up, “Oh, hey! Did everything work out okay?”

I let out a big sigh. “Yeah, my friend is just really worried, so he’s going to be coming to pick me up shortly.”

Toshiya made an over-exaggerated frown and chuckled to himself while I let a small smile leak out again. “Here,” he said, tearing a small piece of a napkin off. He took out a pen and scribbled something down onto the napkin, and slid it towards me. “I had a nice time talking to you, and I hope to see you again sometime soon. Call me whenever you can see me again, okay?” he gave me a small wink, “And hopefully your friend won’t interrupt us next time.”

I giggled and looked over him, placing the napkin into my pocket. “I had a great time with you too, Toshiya. I’ll call you as soon as I can.”

“You sure you don’t want to have just one more drink?” He asked as he pulled out enough money for another round

“No… I would like to, but I really can’t. My friend is already pissed at me enough, and I actually shouldn’t have been here tonight.”

“Well, that sure is one strict friend you have there.” He softly chuckled

“Yeah, it’s a complicated friendship.”

And with that being said, I walked – as best I could without tripping – out of the bar and onto the curb of the street to wait. There were a lot more cars than expected to be out at midnight – but I was by far the only person on the sidewalk. If it weren’t for the cars passing by, I would have thought that there was nobody else on earth. The tires made soft ripples in the left over puddles from the afternoon’s rain.

Amongst the cars driving by, a very familiar silver one pulled up to the curb. The window was rolled down, and Ruki popped his head out. We locked eyes, and he nodded his head for me to get into the passenger’s seat.

Ruki kept his eyes on the road while we were driving, but still succeeded in yelling at me effectively. “Claire! What the fuck? You promised Aimie that you’d be at the house, not out getting drunk!”

I sunk down in my seat, feeling ashamed in myself.

“What possessed you that you needed to go out and get hammered? You were perfectly fine the other day! We both know that Aimie is a lot of work; I hardly have any time to myself. When I took our daughter out today, I was giving you free time; I thought you needed it. I didn’t think that free time meant go out and get drunk to you!”

He really was livid – I had never heard him yell at me like this before. I promised myself that I wouldn’t cry in front of him, I at least wanted that much dignity. I felt confident in my actions in my head, but I didn’t have any way to justify them. “Sorry…” I managed to mutter out.

All I heard from Ruki was a grunt as a response. We drove in silence for a while, while I thought of ways to kill myself in my head. I wasn’t necessarily being serious, but right now wouldn’t be a bad time to die.

“Look,” he started, “I’m really tired and Aimie is already put to sleep at my house. You can just sleep on the couch there tonight; I don’t want to drive another 20 minutes to your apartment. You can explain to her why you didn’t come over in the morning.”

It felt like he was scolding me as if I was a child. I sucked in my pride and kept my mouth shut, because we were almost at Ruki’s house – I wanted to make sure that I had a place to sleep tonight, at least.

When we entered his apartment, he threw down a few pillows and blankets onto his living room couch. He left me to fix them into a bed as he went into his bedroom. All that was left was me, my shame, and the horrible, horrible headache that I had. I fixed the couch so that it looked as homely as possible – I’ve never slept over at his house before. Usually Aimie begs him to spend the night at my house.

After I felt content with the couch bed, I decided I’d rummage through Ruki’s cabinets looking for some Tylenol. My headache seemed to be getting worse, and the Tylenol was nowhere in sight; I have been looking for it for over twenty minutes. I sighed and figured that I would need to ask Ruki about this. There was no way that I could sleep like this – it felt like somebody was cutting my head open with a hacksaw.

I slightly cracked open his door, and peered inside. He was sitting on his bed in his underwear and a t-shirt, watching TV. He didn’t seem to notice me, though. I guess that meant I had to walk in all the way.

“Ruki…” I softly said

He looked up, not looking nearly as angry as before.

I was fumbling with the bottom of my shirt and stuttering – I don’t know why I was so nervous. “Do you know where the Tylenol is? I have a really bad headache.”

“Yeah, hold on.” He said while turning off his TV and heading to his bathroom. I guess I should have thought to look there. Then again, I guess I never really did make the smartest choices while I was drunk.

I sat down on his bed and waited for him to return. There was a lot of rummaging and bottle clanking in his bathroom; I never would have thought that he had so many products. My fingers lightly traced patterns on his bedspread to ease my nerves.

He handed me two small red pills and a glass of water. I nodded my head and said thank you, taking the pills as soon as I could.

“Hey,” I looked up at Ruki as he started to speak, “I’m sorry that I blew up on you in the car. I mean, I’m still a little irked that you’d go out and get drunk and be so irresponsible, but you didn’t deserve a blow that harsh.” He sat down on the bed next to me.

“I’m sorry as well… I was just so stressed out that I needed to get away from everything; and, well, I guess I took it a step too far.” I was starting to shake, so I bit my lip to help ease the nerves again. I started to taste blood at one point.

Ruki leaned over and hugged me tightly. “It’s fine, we all have our days where we mess up. I know that I’ve made plenty of mistakes as being a father. I guess you’re just catching up to me now.” He quietly chuckled to himself.

He brought his hand up to my face and stroked his thumb along my jawline. I was still biting my lip, and I could tell he knew how nervous I was.

“You don’t need to sleep on the couch out in the living room, Uruha always complains about how uncomfortable it is. I can tell you aren’t feeling the best, so you can sleep for the night in here if you’d like.”

I said thank you and gave Ruki a big smile. Within a few minutes, we were both settled into the bed – I was still wearing my clothes, but everything ached and I was so tired that I didn’t care. Ruki laid his arm around my side as we slept face to face. It felt nice to be here with him, but I still wasn’t entirely sure what to think of the entire situation. That night, I fell asleep happy and slept soundly with my hand inside my pocket on Toshiya’s phone number – just reminding myself that it was still there.