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The Phenergan has worn off.
Xander has been in the theatre for one hour and fifteen minutes, and during that time, Mac picked Mum up; Chloe has come with a coffee and gone, but she’ll be back to check on me; the Butcher men have left to find Bronson who is still AWOL; and I’ve refused to move from my chair in the waiting room outside his hospital room.
My feet are up on the chair, my arms form a protective band around my knees, and I squeeze them in tight.
I’ve been breathing, of that, I’m sure. Each inhale strains, waning from large shudders to quick shallow pulses, depending on the daydream my mind creates.
Stacey and Clay’s fiancé—the blinged-out butterfly girl—joined me somewhere after Chloe left but before the Butcher Brothers did.
The three of us sit in a kind of triangle with two seats separating us, the distance allowing us privacy from each other. Isolation for our grief. It’s awkward.
"I'm Fawn,” Butterfly Girl says to me, twirling her long blonde hair around her finger, which is an odd habit for a society girl. We are taught to not fidget.
I half smile. “Kaya.”
Her eyes shift around the room in time with her bouncing left leg.
Was she close to Xander?
How close?
“Jesus, I really wish Cassidy was here,” she says. “She always knows how to start a conversation and just… like, make things comfortable."
Stacey stares ahead, her unfocused brown eyes a vortex of sorrow and sadness. But she adds, "It’s too late for her daughter. Kelly will be in bed.” Her voice is monotone.
“Yeah,” Fawn acknowledges, but still reaching, keen to spark an interaction. “I’ve got a lot to learn about kids.” She touches her lower stomach. “Seven months away.”
“And Stone, too. Shoshanna’s son… It’s too late,” Stacey states plainly, and the discomfort only thickens during these forced words.
Let’s not try.
Silence is nice.
We know him.
Not each other.
“You know Xander was the first person to ever be nice to me.” Fawn braves the topic, her eyes scanning us, hoping we will take the hook and open up. “Here, I mean. The first person here. In this part of town.”
Stacey blinks into the distance. “That sounds like him.”
It does.
Fawn’s leg stops bouncing. “He’s really wise.”
He is.
“He's always been that way,” Stacey adds, still detached, her armour held together by the distance she places between us. I understand that.
She has this long past with him…
Finally, I force my mouth open and say, “And intense.”
“Yeah. Super intense,” Fawn agrees. “Tell us about him, Stacey. How long have you known him?”
She asked Stacey.
Of course, she did.
