The Poison in Your Blood

We’ve been lying together in my bed for what seems like forever and honestly I think I’m about as content as I’ve ever been. We agreed we’d call this a relationship and try and work around his…issue…and just have a relationship. I told him so long as he never murders anybody while I’m around I can go along with that idea.

That was like, a week ago, and between his house and my apartment I’m basically with him all the time. We spent Christmas together at his house. I put up a big tree and forced him to decorate the living room and it was all very cute and maybe a little short notice but incredibly fun. I made a ham, and we invited Madison over and the three of us hung around the fire place and ate and drank champagne and hot chocolate. After she went home and it was just me and him we went to bed and I’m pretty sure he went out after I fell asleep to take care of his business.

I also, rather stupidly, quit my job at Pine and Joe’s recording studio. It was for what seemed like a good reason at the time. Mr. Pine, one of the owners, and royal douche bag, who is also the biggest chauvinist pig I’ve ever met, called me baby cakes and smacked me on the ass. Joe on the other hand didn’t think that was cool, but by then I’d already thrown a folder full of paper work at Mr. Pine and called him a disgusting excuse for a human. But it’s not a big deal, Madison gave me a kind of job for her cosmetics business and it’s started to take off recently.

I never got my firebird out of impound. I went to pick it up, but when I saw the layers of graffiti it accumulated between being abandon in a parking lot for a week and then sitting in a downtown impound yard for another couple weeks I decided I didn’t want it back and told the nice lady at the window that it wasn’t my car after all. Austin has since bought me a new car much to my protest.

Now we are lying in my bed in the darkness. We of course had some really crazy sex and now I’m feeling a little sleepy and a lot content. It’s nice to have somebody in my life that cares about me and wants to be around me. I look up at him and I stretch my body out a little bit. “I want to know about you,” I say.

“Lana,” he sighs. “Can’t we just enjoy each other?”

“I haven’t asked you any questions since that one night. Besides, I’m not talking about vampire stuff. I’ll ask you more about that another time. I want to know about you and who you are.”

“Why don’t you tell me about you? You’ve asked me a lot of questions in the month we’ve known each other,” he says and starts absently messing with my hair. I close my eyes and take a breath and I’m flooded by his scent and I love it. He always smells so good.

“There isn’t a lot to know about me,” I say.

“I’d be willing to bet there is a lot to you that you don’t admit too. What’s your favorite movie?”

“Gone with the Wind,” I say without missing a beat. He pauses and I’m sure he’s laughing at me. Jonathan laughed at me when I told him that. He laughed out loud and went on for an hour about how strange it was a girl my age would pick that for her favorite movie. It hurt my feelings deeply.

“That’s a good one,” Austin says after a minute. “I’ve only seen it once, a long time ago.”

I look up at him with surprise and he smiles slightly in the darkness. It feels so good to have him here with me. Piggy is lying on the end of the bed curled up by our feet. He has no problem with Austin, which is more than I can say for my neighbor’s dog. Minnie the pit bull freaked right the fuck out when she saw Austin and me walking to my door this evening. She started out barking and as we got closer it went to growling and carrying on with the teeth and the whole deal. Mrs. Brewer of course took this as a sign to dislike my boyfriend and insisted I stay outside a moment to assist her with something. Once I was alone with her she whispered that she was just across the hall if I needed any help and she’d even let me use her phone to call the police. Not one of my better moments with my neighbors.

“We could watch it, I have it on blu-ray,” I say with a smile. He laughs.

“Anytime you want, babe,” he says and kisses the top of my head. I press myself against him and take in a deep breath. “Tell me about yourself, Lana.”

“I’m telling you there is nothing to know,” I say.

“What kind of childhood did you have?”

“A normal one,” I say. I can feel him frown and I laugh before rising up and kissing him on his jaw.

“You drive me crazy.”

“I had a basic childhood. I was an only child, so I was spoiled completely rotten by both my parents and all my grandparents. I can’t think of a time when I was a kid when I didn’t have everything I wanted right when I wanted it. My parents loved me so much…” I have to take a minute to regain myself. My parents have both been gone for 13 years but I miss them each more than I can express even now.

“They passed away…” he says in a calming voice and I nod against his chest, feeling tears welling up in my eyes at the memory.

“My grandma, my mother’s mother, was sick. She had pneumonia or something, I don’t remember exactly now. But she was so sick she couldn’t take care of herself. My mom of course had to go and take care of her mother and my dad was going for emotional support. But they didn’t want to take me. They didn’t want to pull me out of school for an indefinite amount of time and they didn’t want me to have to see my grandma so sick and probably dying.” I take a deep breath and blow it out softly. “I was 15 at the time. I went with a friend to drop them off at the airport and I remember my mother holding me tightly at the terminal. She was so beautiful, even when she was stressed out and tired she was gorgeous. She held me and she said she’d call me as soon as they made it to grandma’s house and she’d keep me informed of everything that was going on and what not.”

He tightens his grip on me as tears fall from my eyes onto his chest. “You don’t have to tell me, Lana,” he says in a reassuring tone.

“But I do have to,” I say in a whisper. “Because in 13 years I’ve never really told anybody.” There is a pause before he nods his head once and I take in a shaking breath. “I watched them get to their terminal gate and I waved goodbye. That was the last time I saw my parents. Our family friend took me home and said she’d be by the next day to check in with me and I went into our house. I remember waiting by the phone all night for my mother to call and let me know they’d made it to my grandma’s house. She lived in New Mexico, the flight shouldn’t have taken long. But I waited all night by the phone, and around 2 or 3 in the morning I was worried to death about them. I was crying and so worried they’d forgotten to call me or that something had happened.”

I’ve never told anybody this story before. Even Madison only knows a condensed version of it. So to let it all out is both terrifying and liberating. Liberating because now some of the load is taken off my chest. He runs his hand over my hair and down my back and I shake once with a sob.

“It wasn’t until the next morning that the phone rang. I had fallen asleep on the sofa with the phone on the coffee table so I sprung into action at the sound of it ringing and answered on the second ring. It was somebody I’d never heard before and he introduced himself as Officer Mike Hullens. I remember like it was yesterday, the sound of his voice had me shaking. He asked if he was speaking to Lana Davis and I nodded my head because I couldn’t quite make the words come out yet. Then I realized he couldn’t see me and I had to answer. Once I confirmed it was me he said in the nicest voice he could manage, ‘Miss Davis I’m sorry to inform you that there has been an accident. The plane went down about an hour away from its destination and unfortunately there were no survivors.’”

I have to stop so I can cry for a minute and he’s holding me tightly around my shoulders, trying hard to calm me. I cry for a few seconds and take a deep gulping breath. “Lana, you can stop whenever you need to.”

“I need to tell you, because I need to let go,” I whisper. There is a pause and then he nods once. “At first I couldn’t believe my ears. I was sure it was a wrong number or something, they surely were looking for a different Lana Davis. Then he said ‘I’m sorry, your parents, Sarah and Richard Davis were found among the debris. Just know that they didn’t feel any pain.’ I lost control, I sobbed so violently I threw up and I threw the phone across the room. There is a good three month period right after they died that is a huge blur of time and space. I remember the funeral and that I wore a black dress and I sobbed on my mother’s coffin for nearly an hour before they pried me away and gave me some kind of pill. The pill made me feel weird and like everything was just some kind of dream. I spent some time in foster care, like about a month, before my mom’s friend, the lady that took her to the airport, legally adopted me. She did it so I could stay with somebody I knew and trusted until I was 18 and she never ever tried to be my mother. She just gave me a place to live and food. She was a great great lady. I still talk to her on a regular basis, she lives in Arizona now.”

“Why didn’t you have Christmas with her?”

“I haven’t seen her in some time. I always want to make my way out to where she is and spend some time with her. But I was working and it’s a long trip. We’ve always just known that it’s hard for me to get out there and see her. She understands.”

“Maybe we should take a trip and see this great lady,” Austin says.

I think about it for a minute. I haven’t seen Blair in close to a year. If it weren’t for Blair I’d probably have spent my last three years of childhood in foster care and would have ended up a lot worse off than I did. She is the only reason I made it through high school. I was a complete wreck for a long long time after I lost my parents, but Blair was there with me through it all. She had one son, he was older than me by two years and when I moved in he was less than excited. But after a while even he helped me through the worst time of my life.

“I will have to call her and see when a good time will be. I never thought about it,” I say. “She’s always asking me when I’m going to bring a man to meet her.” I laugh then and I’m surprised when he laughs too. It takes me back to a similar conversation with Jonathan where he was less than excited by the idea of going to meet my adoptive mother. That trip never ended up happening and it wasn’t long after that that I decided I’d rather just be friends with him.

“Sounds like a lot of fun,” he says and I snuggle against him.

“She has a dog though,” I say.

He laughs then and puts his arm around my shoulders. “That’s okay, the only one who will have the problem is the dog. I don’t know why dogs hate me so much. They can probably tell that I’m a danger to their humans.” He laughs a light laugh and I try to laugh with him. I’m not quiet used to that part of him yet, and I think in a way I never will be.

“Maybe you can do me a favor and tear out her husband’s throat,” I say only half way kidding. Blair’s husband Fred was the biggest asshole I ever knew in my life. She married him after she adopted me when I was about 17 and he did a lot of shifty things I never really shared with anybody.

“I don’t know that she would appreciate that.”

“We could make it look like somebody else did it,” I say and look up at him. He smiles but he doesn’t seem as amused as I’d hoped. But then again, I was about 70% serious. I think he notices because he turns to face me.

“What happened?” he asks.

“It’s a story for another day,” I whisper. “I’ve cried enough tonight. Why don’t we order some food, I’m starving.”

“Okay, babe,” he says but I can still see the look of concern even in the dark. I sit up and let the blankets off my chest and turn on the light. I don’t look at him while I dial the Chinese place up the street for delivery. I order way more food than I need and then I hang up and sit there for a few minutes feeling bad and a little uncomfortable. I think I opened up a door I should have left locked.

We spend the rest of the night talking about little things. Cats and why dogs hate him and what he’s thinking about for his next solo album. Things I never thought I’d have the pleasure of talking about with him. It takes me a minute to remember that I met him because I was a fan and happened to get lucky. I eat straight from the box and leave the food on my night table even though I know I should put it away. When I finally fall asleep I feel him leave the bed. It wakes me when the front door shuts, but I know he’ll be back before morning so I don’t feel bad.

It isn’t until the next morning when I’m woken up by my phone ringing loudly that I’m irritated. I answer it with a bitter “hello” and then my heart stops beating in my chest.

“Hello, Lana,” he says and it’s that accent. That beautiful Irish accent and I’m stopped cold and in so many ways it pisses me the fuck off.

“Jonathan,” I say.

“How are you this morning?” he asks. I can feel Austin behind me and I want to hang up the phone and ignore him. Every time I hear his voice all the bad feelings raise up in me again and I’m trapped. I’m stuck in this feeling and I hate everything about it.

“I’m busy,” I say. There is a pause.

“You’ve been busy a lot, Lana,” he says. “I’ve wanted to take a chance to catch up. It’s been such a long time since we’ve really seen each other. I’m in Los Angeles right now. Maybe we could get lunch.”

“I told you, Jon…” I say. “I’m in a relationship.”

“Just as old friends,” he says. I bite on my lip and look over my shoulder at Austin. I cringe a little and look back away from him. Sometimes he doesn’t do a great job cleaning up after he eats.

“I’ll call you back,” I say to Jonathan. “I would like to catch up, but things get complicated Jon.” There is a long pause and I don’t know how I feel about it.

“I never thought what we had was complicated. I thought we were clear the whole time. Because you let your feelings get the better of you it got complicated for you, Lana,” he says. This kind of pisses me off.

“I don’t know then if I would like to see you after all, since I let my feelings get in the way. What the fuck was I supposed to do, Jon? You called me up in the middle of the night fucking drunk going on about everything you were going through. You put it all on me, the only way I could stand that was to fall in love with you!” I scream and I have tears in my eyes.

“Listen, Lana, I wanted to see you as a friend this afternoon. If you are free feel free to call me back and we’ll set up a place and time. But this isn’t about feelings or who loves who or who doesn’t. When we had our relationship it was clear that romance was not high on the list.”

“It may have been clear to you,” I say and wipe tears away from my eyes.

“Lana, why must you make things difficult?”

“Because, I wanted so much more from you, Jon. And now I’ve found somebody who gives me all the things you didn’t but you won’t leave me be. You are in the back of my mind all the time, there, hurting me again and again.” I feel Austin’s arm around my waist and he pulls me against his chest. “Maybe we should plan for another day.”

“You make that choice, I’ve got to go.” He hangs up before I have a chance to say anything. I’m so mad right now my eyes are stinging with tears and I’m shaking. I throw the phone across the room then.

“He’s a fucking asshole! Fuck I hate him!” I scream.

“Calm down babe,” I hear Austin say softly.

“It’s not that easy,” I cry. “He has been fucking playing a game with me for years. He fucked me and fucked me and fucked me, emotionally and otherwise and he’s still fucking me and I can’t get him out of my head.” Austin kisses the behind my ear and smoothes my hair with his hand.

“I’m here, Lana,” he says. “I’m not playing any games with you. I promise.”

“I know,” I say. “I’m sorry.”

“Maybe I can tear out his throat for you,” he says then and smiles. I laugh with him then and he kisses me on my mouth. The fact that his mouth still has blood on it doesn’t bother me now, because at least he actually cares about me and isn’t trying to fuck around with my head like Jonathan always did.

“Maybe you can,” I say. “Why don’t we go out and get come pancakes?”

“I don’t eat pancakes, Lana,” he says.

“But I do, and you can sit there and drink coffee and plan who you are going to eat for breakfast,” I say with a smile. He laughs. “But you might wash your face first.”

“Alright, we can do that.” We get up and dressed and I leave my phone lying in pieces on the floor. The last thing I want to do is talk to Jonathan again today, so maybe it’s better if I just don’t talk to anybody. I’ll just go out to breakfast with my boyfriend, who loves me.