Watch You Work The Room [1/1]

.infinity.
   
    Pete thinks that it’s always been like this. He used to catch himself at that, remind himself that he used to sleep in a van, on his side, fingers curled against carpet. He stopped catching himself a long time ago though. Now he’s constantly falling for his own bullshit, forgetting how in the mornings his knuckles used to catch a spark of static, ready and waiting for the first person who touched him.
   
    Now the only sparks Pete catches are the flashes of cameras, constant and blinding. 

    Pete’s positive he’s always been standing in this spot, working the corner between here and there, striking a pose and waiting for someone to pick him up and take him down one way or the other. He forgets the feel of being full of something other than pills, face up, sparks sticking along his spine, leaving patches of skin where his shirt rode up burned.

    Worst of all, Pete honestly believes that he’s going to feel like this forever.


.on.

    He can get out now, at will, and he does it often. Because it’s better, watching from above, than seeing it firsthand. It’s not numb, but it’s easy.

    It’s easy to turn it on and lie back, everything moving like automatic, waltzing. Not counting, but ingrained from years of practice, one two three, one two three, one two three,  and pivot, switch partners, repeat.

    It’s easier, listening to his voice, than saying the words: “-other line, I’ll call back. Bye, Patrick,” pivot, switch, “Hey, Ashlee,” and repeat.

   
.high.

    He doesn’t remember the details of the first time, or the second time, or the third. What he remembers is the eighth.

    His nose bled.

    Pete doesn’t wipe it, lets it run down, along the creases of his mouth (frown lines) and off the edge of his chin. Pete doesn’t know it’s there; he can feel the place where his muscles connect to the underside of his skin, but not where his skin connects to nerves.

    Instead he just falls back, onto the bed, where he can no longer feel the scratch of the polyester comforter that he had complained about earlier and is mildly surprised to see drops of red roll across his cheek.

    He imagines that if he was watching himself in a movie, this sequence would be all in shades of slow motion. But actually, for the first time in a long time, he can’t get out of himself to look down, and it’s not nice, per se, but it’s different, which ought to be almost as good.

    He’s spent so much time wishing to numb himself down, but it’s just that his skin feels heavy and tight against his body, too much, so that he doesn’t want to move at all, for fear of a tear in his casing. Instead he uses his peripheral vision; there’s a girl, naked and blond, in the corner of his eye.

    He hears singing then, coming from her, but swear to God, it’s in Patrick’s voice. It’s something soothing, the words sweet and beckoning, like nothing he’s ever put in Patrick’s mouth.

    And it’s so nice, the way he’s hitting all those notes that ever made Pete want to rip out his own heart, and he will this time; he’s going to rip himself open, because he has to roll over. It’s gunna bust all his seams, but he needs to see Patrick’s eyes, needs to figure out how he knew what to sing.

    He’s about to die, Pete can feel it in the wounds where his skin is splitting, along his spine, down his forearms and the undersides of his feet.

    He’s about to die with the wrong blond at his side, as it turns out, no song save her soft, whining sleep noises.

    He remembers the eighth time, because it was also the last.