Into Abeyance

Lia dragged her suitcase towards the living room and then she stopped: Rose was standing there, a rose-printed dress just above her bony knees. She had a frown upon her face, her nose slightly crumpled.

“What’s up with the face?”

Lia asked as she stared at her friend. Her converse high tops, ripped black leggings and over-sized ‘The Cranberries’ shirt contrasting with her friend’s conservative dressing.

“I don’t think you should go...”

Rose started in that soothing voice of her, taking swift paces towards Lia and wrapping her arms around her thin body.

“I saw you when you had just returned from your home, Lia, and it wasn’t a pretty picture. You were a wreck, and it was then that you had your most stupid and suicidal moments. You can’t go back. You-“

“Don’t even tell me I’m going to die, Rose. This is getting highly repetitive. For the thousandth time, I am dying. Don’t you get it? I have nothing to loose! I have to freaking face my damned demons before I get blown from the face of the earth!”

Lia groaned, unwrapping Rose’s pale arms from her shoulders.

“Now, I really have to go if I want to make it to the noon’s bus.”

Rose stood up reluctantly and turned around to fetch something. She handed Lia a thick, white box.

“What’s this?”

“The pills you ordered yesterday night to Central. They came in when you were in the shower.”

“Thanks.”

Lia stuffed them in her black purse full of studs and buttons and wrapped her long fingers around the beaten suitcase’s handle.

“Shouldn’t you call work and tell them?”

Rose asked Lia as she went nearer and nearer to the door. Lia shook her head slightly,

“I had asked for vacations. A few months given my condition. Boss agreed.”

“So you still have hopes? I’m sure you’ll survive if you take those pills, Lia! You’re going to be good, and everything will be okay again!”

Lia turned around and gave Rose an skeptical look,

“I’m quite sure I won’t be walking through this door again, Rose. I can feel it. Anyway...thanks for everything. You’ve always been a...a good friend.”

Lia mumbled as her hand went to the door’s handle and turned it. Rose stayed where she was, her eyes cast down, tears about to roll down.

“I wish you the best...I might call.”

Lia said, pulling the suitcase with her. Rose sat on the couch, the sun and the shadows playing hide and seek behind her, making her hair look as if it was on fire, she nodded once without looking up. Lia sighed and closed the door behind her.
Lia wrapped her arms around the suitcase as she carefully went down the wooden staircase that didn’t look its proper color but a humid, mushy green instead. Lia never touched it. On this side of the building the sun never shone, they recurred to white lights on the ceiling, half of which were dangling from loose wires. Lia’s color reception was down to blues, greens, and black and she hated it. She tried her best to walk down the slippery stairs without tripping.
Finally she was out of her old building, the sun shinning on her face. The music of the city mixed with the constant tap tap of her feet against the floor and the rickety rack of her suitcase. She went down the eerie subway staircase and stood next to the men and woman in suits and ties with small black suitcases and polished shoes and stilettos. They made her want to gag.
As soon as the subway stopped she eagerly made her way to the seats none of this Central people approved, the seats from the old graffiti and poster days, the ones where for some reason (no matter how many times the people in charge of the maintenance of the subway tried) always seemed to have a malfunctioning light.
Lia felt safe there, she didn’t feel so out of place. A dark-skinned boy a few odd years younger than her sat opposite her with earplugs in and tapping his feet against the floor. It sounded like what the drums from a punk rock band would have to Lia, but maybe her mind was just making assumptions.
Lia took the prescription from her purse and read the pill per hour ratio: One pill after every meal.

Had she had breakfast today?
Yes. Peanut Butter and cheese tortillas.

She took the white box from her purse and popped one of the wine red pills without thinking. She took a sip from her fun flask to properly down it.

Well, maybe it was the proper way.

She told herself as she savored the taste of vodka against her mouth. She put the fun flask away and zipped up her purse.

“You have LSD?”
A voice asked her softly. She looked up to the boy, his face was still down, his foot was still tapping the beat. She must be hallucinating.

“I said, do you have LSD blondie?”

This time Lia was able to catch the boy’s lips moving. She laughed,

“Do I look like a drug addict?”

She asked, a bit louder than she intended. A few heads turned her way, a few mumbled comments.
The boy looked up at her enough so she could see his glare.

“Do you have or not?”

“I don’t, kid. If I had I wouldn’t give you any.”

“I have money.”

He assured her. A smile was painted on Lia’s lips.

“Oh, I bet.”

“I do.”
The boy groaned. He showed her a couple of a hundred bills that he took from the front pocket of his backpack and then stuffed them quickly back. Now that she saw it closely, that pocket seemed to have more of those bills.

“Oh, now we’re talking.”

Lia grinned, she took her suitcase and purse with her and sat beside the now smiling boy. She tipped his chin towards her. Her gray eyes met hazel orbs.

“Look, honey. First rule: never look too eager. Second rule: never show the money until the last moment. Third rule: never ever show where the money is and less if there is a hint there’s more. Fourth rule: Always go with as less clothes possible and no backpack nor personal items of sorts. Just crumpled money on a front pocket. Always the front, where you can have it under your sight. There are many many more but I don’t feel like explaining. But you have to know one more thing, never go after someone you think has drugs. Go after someone with a reputation of dealing good, unadulterated shit. And never buy them directly from them. Oh and one more thing. Chances are, you’ll get killed by someone inside or outside the business faster than the drug will. Got it?”

The child’s eyes widened with every word. He shook his face away from Lia and stared at the floor.

“And no, I don’t fucking do LSD, it’s fucking horrid and it’s not worth that hang over.”

Lia snapped, then returned to her seat, smirking at the little boy who was now trembling. She had been soft on him, he was definitely not going to last long in the drug biz, she would bet anyone. Lia wondered if she had ever looked so fragile. She shook her head.

Fucked up, yes. But fragile? Trembling, shaking and crying in front of someone else? In front of a complete stranger? Not a chance.

* * *

Lia carefully walked away from the subway and took a pretty expensive taxi to the train station. After a few hours, the sun quickly swallowed by a thick mist she ended up in her town’s thrashed train station. She took in her surroundings and sighed: it was what she had expected. She dragged her suitcase along the desolated streets: it was too late for the morning trains and too early for the kids so start drinking in the railroads. She stopped for one second to smell the air: and the cold air struck her face lightly bringing the salty smell into her nostrils. She smiled and for one second she was a small little girl, hair flying everywhere, hand tangled around Steve’s slightly bigger one as they ran towards the sea in bathing suits and a small bucket.
She shook the memory away and walked away from the roads that would lead her into the center of the town. Instead, she out skirted it and walked towards the motels area. She chose the Pearl In the Shell, a rather long two-story wood building with washed huckleberry blue walls. The second-story hallways were balcony-like and had been white a long time ago. Despise the rather careless overall impression Lia had always had a soft spot for the Pearl in the Shell. She strutted to the counter and smiled at the old man behind the counter.

“I’d like a room, please.”

She said as politely as she could muster without giving the man a glance.

“Lia?”

The man before her asked. Lia turned around and searched the old man’s face: there stood Marty, hairless and with a few more wrinkles, a broad smile upon his face.

“Oh, it is you!”

He beamed, enveloping her in a bone-breaking hug.

“Hey Marty!!

She responded, wrapping her arms around the old man.

“You city girl, I didn’t think I’d ever see you again! My memory could deceive me, but weren’t you the one that bellowed a couple of odd years ago that you wouldn’t ever set foot again in this wretched town?”
Lia gave him a sheepish smile as they untangled from the hug.

“I have some business here, so...”
Marty gave her a knowing smile and held out a key for her,

“Room 12 on the second floor, Lia. It’s the best one there is. How long will you stay?

“I’m still not sure...A week? Depends on how things work out...”

Marty grinned.

“I’d give you a help with that suitcase of yours but my back has never been the same since I fell from the dock last summer...”

“It’s okay, I have it...See you.”

“See you, kid.”

* * *

Lia looked at her surroundings: small window on the left of the room that lead to the hallway, an old cheap wood closet on the wall opposite to the door, a bed with sheets with a few stitches clearly done by someone with no experience whatsoever with a needle but clean nonetheless against the far right wall with a cheap and small nightstand on the right of the bed, a small TV in front of the bed and the tiniest light blue bathroom on the TV’s left.
Lia opened the suitcase and threw out another shirt.

Should I shower? Do I smell?

She asked herself, promptly raising her right arm, exposing her armpit and giving it a quick sniff.

God, a quick shower wouldn’t do me bad...

She stripped without a second thought and stepped into the claustrophobic bathroom, pulling the transparent plastic curtain close behind her and turning the handle to receive icy cold water smack on the face. She cursed as she trembled under the potent stream of water.

Of course it was cold. The water was always cold at this time of the day. Somethings would never change, even if she did.