Found Missing

I can't think. I can't focus and I can't put my mind to anything because whatever I do becomes a product of him. I'm standing in a dimly lit hall; filled with generated fog and cigarette smoke. My pen still becomes a plastic pulp between my teeth and I'm supposed to thrive off the live music because it is what I've chosen to invest my time in, but the lyrics and the melodies are drowned by the crowd and I can't find the ability to glamorize any of it.

'What's the point.' I scribble, thwarted by my own drabness, and I leave to find the only thing able to occupy my mind space.

*

"How was work?"

I sigh, dumping my bag on Gerard's floor and flopping backwards onto his unmade bed. His eyes flicker in my direction for a second; paintbrush handle bitten endearingly between his front teeth, a half glass of something placed on his desk. He, on the other hand, is seemingly unfazed. If anything, his brain has clocked into overdrive. If I were the jealous type I'd be a crude shade of envy by now.

"Let's just say it looks like making coffee will be my forte forever." I shrug, scraping my hair back. "I'm sure something will come to me eventually."

"It will." Gerard says, leaving his paintbrush in its jar of water. "Patience is a virtue."

I watch the blue paint spiral and cloud through the water; dark ink veins slowly growing to the top of the jar. I watch Gerard; black hair in jagged strands across his face and that damn devious grin. He crawls over me and leaves kisses that taste like tequila; a work of art himself.

"There's no wonder I can't concentrate." I murmur into his lips. "You need to get out of my head."

It's entirely true, although not as fairy-tale as I'd like to make out. Most of the time I feel like I'm choosing to absorb myself in him and it isn't healthy. Most of the time my thoughts are negative, consumed by guilt and my own confusion, that is until I watch him move the hair from his eyes and then I'm positive that every oppressing doubt is worth it just to see him smile like he does.

"Honey, I'm afraid I can't help that." He murmurs back, that devious grin just about ready to eat me alive. "I like your hair back, by the way." He tucks a stray behind my ear, drawing his fingers down and over my jaw. "You should have it back more often."

I tremble under his touch, his voice, his breath, and I hate him for it.

"Anyway," He says, carelessly compared to before, flipping back onto his mattress beside me. "Where did you go last night?"
"Last night?" I wonder aloud, almost forgetting the argument I'd had with Martha's grave stone.

"I woke up and you weren't here." He says, grinning still. "If I'm really that bad you could have just said so..."
"Oh, it wasn't that." I tell him through a sigh of sour laughter. "I just needed some air. I couldn't sleep."
"It was late, you should know better."
"I'm not scared, Gerard, and I'm not stupid, either."

He raises his brows at this. "Do you think Martha was stupid?" He asks after a moment.
"I didn't say that."
"She was only a couple years older than you, Elfie." He reminds me. "You should be careful." His grin falls stern, and all of a sudden I feel like a child; scolded for disengaging her fathers hand in a busy shopping mall. "I'm sorry." I hear myself mutter.

He rolls his eyes and wrinkles his nose and he's back; sarcastic temperaments and that grin I cannot resit. We stay awake until tomorrow starts. He pokes holes through my fishnets and explains to me why the girl in his art always seems so sad. I wait until his voice turns heavy with sleep and his knees are hooked firmly behind the back of mine.

"Do you really care that much?" I ask quietly, confident that I've been forgiven for leaving him last night in such negligent behavior. "You really care about me?"

Gerard frowns, hazel eyes telling me something I can't quite discern, cautiously smoldering behind his lips pressed firmly to my cheekbone. He has this way, he does this thing of answering me without speaking; riddles, touches, a look, sometimes nothing at all, and it drives me crazy. Crazy in the best possible way, I suppose. Pessimism has only ever left me a caustic person. I guess that, maybe, I should try to appreciate what blessings tragedy has left me with.

I watch Gerard struggle to stay awake, his black lashes fluttering under the weight of tequila and that perfect nose pressed to my temple. He is becoming something I've found missing in nothing; the part of me I've been searching blindly for since arriving in America.

It terrifies me; to know that I have the capability of loving something so much, with the experience that it could be destroyed in seconds.

*

I flinch, scolding water blistering my thumb too many times today. "Shit." I throw my flannel at the coffee machine, as if it wanted to burn me, and hold my hand under the cold faucet.

"Having a bad day already? It's not even noon yet." The girl at the counter says, frail hands quivering around the change pressed in her palm. "Yea, I guess." I turn to face her properly and offer a smile. "I didn't see you waiting, what can I get for you?"

She can't be much older than me, I can tell this by the way she holds herself, although the hollow in her cheeks make her look more feeble than she'd like to know. "Just decaff please," She smiles back, crinkles under her grey eyes. "No sugar."

She pays for her order, staring hard at the name badge pinned to my apron. I pass her the cup, wondering what the words are she's debating to speak. She opens her mouth once, shuts it, and opens it again. "You're Elfaine." She blurts at last. I frown and laugh. "Well, that's what my name badge says."
"You were Martha's friend."

My laughter dies. "Yes..."
The girl swallows, pale skin turning somehow more white beneath her fire hair. "I..." She starts, "I think..." She swallows again, licks her lips. "I need to-"
"I haven't got the patience for this today." I tell her. "If you want to offer your condolences, or whatever, just get on with it because-"
"I know Vince."

She spills her statement so quickly I'm barely able to understand it. I blink, wide eyed and startled. "You... what?"

"I know Vince." She repeats, unhurried this time, still reluctant. "I know everything, Elfaine. I know what happened."