Ch9
Crystal stayed home for a total of three months. By this time, the peak of summer had long gone and the small town of Seattle had grown cold. Her home life was back to normal as it were, and back to the simple commodities that made her life as miserable as it was. The urge to back out on the road was so present within her. Sometimes, in the middle of the day, she would stare out the window and watch the edge of summer trickle away into the past. Gigi had long gone, and now all the remined was a distant memory of a girl she once knew. Gigi was fine, probably. The worst part of the whole ordeal was that Gigi could take her music and move on from this, but Crystal could not. She was left to mope. Left to hurt. Left alone, which was not uncommon when it came to Gigi.
Jan stayed when she could. This was difficult considering all of a sudden, Crystal was back at her parents and living in their constant watch. There was no concrete indication that there was truth to her statement, but Crystal imagined they all wanted to know what happened over the short summer she was gone. There was nothing absolute. Just the occasional look, the slight comment, the stiffness of paranoia that suffocated her as she ascended the stairs. It was terrifying. She wanted to tell them. It practically seethed within her bones, burned at the very bottom of her stomach. If they knew, Crystal would have to relive every painful event, every sleepless night, every single second she felt the atmosphere inside that bus begin to kill her. It became a kind of cancer, and now it was more than that. Now it was a secret. Jan had also dabbled in love. In the time Crystal was absent, she started to see a young boy who owned a grocery store down the street from her small apartment. He was nice enough, tall, and dark. He was handsome, and couldn’t do enough for Jan. He knew Crystal was overly depressed, and no good for the girl. Crystal didn’t like him. She hated to imagine he was all she had when Crystal was on the road, but this was the absolute inequivalve truth of the matter. No matter whether or not Jan loved Crystal at her core for who she was, it would never compete with what was the reality.
It had been three months since Crystal had left. Three months of emptiness had made her cold, and her insides were ridden with forgiveness. Every day was the same. She awoke saddened that once again her eyes were open and she was to face the world in it’s deceased state. Jan rolled over next to her, and looked at her place face sinking into the pillow.
“How are you?”
“I’m dying.” Crystal professed, huffing enough air to move the hair from her face. “Something inside me is dead and it’s rotting me inside out.”
Jan winced gently in the pretentious effort of it all, but reached over to touch her friends face in the gentle morning. A shred of light slithered between her eyes, and the girl cupped her friends jaw, admiring her matted lashes and tear stained face. It had been three months.
“You are the love of my life.” She proposed.
Crystal’s bottom lip quivered as she curled up into a ball on Jan’s chest. Her heart beat was slow, and cautious. Not dissimilar to that of Jackie, the morning she left for the first time.
“I don’t belong here, Jan.” She replied. “Lately I feel like I don’t belong anywhere.”
“You are so dramatic, Crystal.” She sighed. One hand draped gently over the phone beside the bed. Oliver was calling, and Jan pulled it to her face to answer.
“Hello.”
“I’m with Crystal.”
“Crystal Crystal Crystal.” He laughed, partially apathetic but more so overly concluded regarding the whole issue. “People will say you are lovers. I should say the same.”
“Shut up.” She laughed, turning to lie on her side.
“You know the big house down the road from your complex?” He asked.
“Yes.”
“Well, it sold today.”
“It did?”
“Yes, that one and the one directly across the river from it. Apparently, they were both paid for in cash, can you imagine that?”
“No I can’t.” Jan cast another look on Crystal’s frail body carving it’s own shape into the mattress. She was thinking of everything she gave up to be sat right where she was. “I don’t think any of us will ever see that type of money.”
“You should come away with me, Jan. I could make that kind of money in two months and we wouldn’t have to answer to anyone.”
“No.” She replied, immediately. “I will never leave Crystal.”
No one said anything between them for good while whilst they all endured what seemed like repentance. Crystal knew she was no good for Jan, Jan knew she was no good for Oliver, and Oliver knew the two girls would wreak havoc over his life. It was like a spiritual trespassing was upon them and all parties should have left it alone long ago.
“Can you at least come with me?” He said. “We can go and look at the houses. I want to know what kind of playboy billionaire lives there now and if he might let me in on the secret to his millions.”
“You are a fool.” She laughed back to him, knowing he was already in his car and starting the ignition to come over. “I’ll see you in ten.”
“See you then. I love you.”
“Same.”
When the phone was placed quickly back on charge, Jan sat up and tossed her hair around in the mirror.
“Oliver and I are going to look at the big houses down by the river.”
“Why?”
“This town is so small, what else is there to do?”
“You’re right.” Crystal did not turn around. “Take some pictures for me, will you?”
“Oh, come with us please.” The taller girl spoke, turning around in a vivid glance of yearning. “Please. I can count the amount of times you’ve left the house these past few months on one finger.”
“I don’t want to go anywhere; I am not fit enough to see anyone.”
“You and your drama.” Jan almost laughed; it was practically comedic how depressed she was. It was like watching a scorned lover from a Shakespeare play. “Please come with me. It would mean a lot to me and it would only be for an hour or so then you can go right back to moping.”
“I’m not moping, Jan, I’m depressed.”
“Then you can get right back to being depressed!” The girl leapt out of the bed and ran around to stand by the girl. Her eyes were as blue and as gentle as day as they reflected from the pale white of the curtains. Her face was low, and her body small, but there was nothing in the world that could have made her less beautiful.
“I know it’s tough, but you’ll get through this, okay?”
“I’m scared I won’t.” The brunette teared up slightly, and then took her place by the window. She was still dressed from three days ago when Jan had first came over and there was a slight wince of sadness in every corner of the room as it filled up with her.
“He’s here.”
“Who?”
“Oliver.” Crystal came, undoing the latch of the window to reach down and pull up the ledge. By the time Oliver had arrived, the sun had clouded over horribly. The whole world was miserable. If her life was written, Crystal imagined, this would be the part where her heart was being broken, and the wonderful world of touring with a band would be having it’s effects efficiently. Pathetic fallacy, she imagined. Pathetic was the right word. Oliver had stood at the window, his canvas shirt blowing in the wind, and his sunglasses perched on his head. Oliver was European. The way he talked, the way he acted, and the love he professed forward to everyone around him was so different to what Crystal knew. Perhaps Europeans were like that. Perhaps her expectations were low.
“Hello, Crystal!” He yelled up. “How strange that we should keep meeting like this. How are you feeling?”
“Still awful.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” He cupped his hands around his mouth to shout further and caught Jan’s attention. She ran down without air to greet him and collapsed into his arms in a way that made Crystal miserable. Her head rested on the marble of the windowpane, feeling so unbelievably heavy, and just like that, it began to rain. Heavy droplets clouded Oliver as he ushered Jan into the car and signalled for Crystal to come down.
“Please, you’ll be making our day.”
“I can’t.” The small girl replied. “It’s raining.”
“Of course, it’s raining!” He yelled back. “It’s not summer anymore, Crystal.”
Jan’s face looked at her, sullen and sunken, through the rainy window. It was bouncing off the hood of the car and fogging up the interior but Crystal could just about make her eyes. They needed her right now just as she had always needed them.
“Give my five minutes, I’ll meet you in the car!” She yelled, and sped down the stairs to grab an umbrella and meet them in the car.
The car seemed to brim with the sadness inside. It was as if there was simply not enough space to hold it all. At any minute, the seams were going to burst and the deep upset was going to pour out onto streets in an act of supreme gore. How strange Crystal thought it was that all of this seemed to happen inside of her. It felt like the whole world.
The car, which was a new model Chevrolet was what Crystal somewhat imagined hell to be like. There was small chit chat among the couple, and gentle kisses. A song that perhaps she knew once upon a time. They both chain smoked out the window to drown out the feeling of that car jolting beneath them. Many say that the sadness can be cured in fresh air, much like a wound. That it will simply heal it over and that it will bring a period of happiness and joy for life. Crystal only felt heavier. She felt as though her soul was full of stones, and that she was simply dragging around something not quite living. Her hand could be shaken, and her mouth could move and talk in depressing soliloquys, but Crystal had died a long time ago. There was nothing remaining of her now.
“Crystal?” Jan spoke, mouth half full.
“Yes?”
“Should I turn this off?”
Crystal looked towards her, watching the forest part out of the screen of the car. A song was playing over the radio. The song. The sweet French words, the deepness of the voice. It all came back in floods of lust, and powerful emotion. Nothing could be worse, and in the same breath, nothing could be better.
“No.” She sighed. “Every radio station is playing it. I don’t want to feel nothing about it. She is doing very well for herself. Pass me a cigarette.”
Jan passed the one she had lit into Crystal’s fingers, doing as she was told.
“You’re a better woman than she is, Cris. She’s rotten, and you are much better by far.”
“I’m sure she would say the same about us.”
“You know why you’re sad, Crystal?” Oliver barked, suddenly. “Do you want to know why? It’s because you don’t care for yourself enough. Sylvia Plath said so herself.”
“Oh, did she now?” She was apathetic.
“Yes. She’s the epitome of female depression, isn’t she? She said all you need sometimes is a hot bath and maybe that’s what you need, too.”
“Sylvia Plath is dead, Oliver.”
Silence for what felt like forever.
“Look!” Oliver exclaimed, coming up on the builds. “They’re beautiful!”
The houses were the old Walton types. Both large and a gentle shade of beige and blue, and both facing each other across a small stream crossable only by a small bridge directly in the centre. Both houses surrounded themselves by long white porches that wrapped around the whole house, encompassing the shrubbery that grew beneath. The small town had been admiring the houses for years, it seemed so surreal they should be the home for living beings. They seemed antique almost.
“God, it’s raining so hard I can barely see.” Oliver slipped his car into a lower gear and he ran down the muddy hills and tried to stay out of the way of the building. In the distance, a figure stood tall and lean on the grand porch of the house on the right, and did not take their eyes off the vehicle until it came to a halt and Oliver made himself known.
“Excuse me!” He yelled, but the figure did not hear him over the pounding rain. “Hey! Excuse me! We’re here to say hello to the owner.”
Jan and Crystal watched with the utmost caution as the young boy tried to lurch forward and lost his footing on the muddy hill. His limp body tumbled down and came crashing into the door of the basement with a loud, wet, thud.
The figure seemed to take off towards him as Jan and Crystal ran together, clutching onto the umbrella Crystal had so kindly stolen from her father, calling Oliver’s name as they ran. When they found him, he was huddled at the foot of the house covered in rain and mud and nursing a small wound on his forehead.
“Oh, Oliver, you’re so stupid.” Jan reached down to help before the creature leapt over the porch railings after them.
“I saw the whole thing, is he okay?” A familiar voice spoke. “It looked like quite a nasty fall.”
Crystal begin to feel her soul welling up inside her body. It was the pain that is felt in the bridge of the nose before it is felt anywhere else, and seems like the most painful thing in the world at the time. She was stood there. Gigi. Taller and thinner but still herself, standing next to Crystal under the umbrella. The girl beneath her looked up at her, a little covered in the rain and mascara dripping from her lashes.
“Crystal.” She smiled, dissipating all the shyness from her manor. “I thought I’d never see you again! You look wonderful!”
“Gigi…” Her voice trailed off. There was shock and there was pain but there was also an insane amount of joy that thrilled her. Seeing Gigi again was filing a space that seemed to have always been empty.
“And Jan!” The girl spoke loudly again. “You look great! You’ve grown so much since last time we spoke.
“As have you.” Jan stood slowly and reached out for Gigi’s hand which was being held out in the rain. “You live here?”
“I do now. I’m just moving my things in today. It’s been quite a challenge but I’ve had lots of help.” She spoke before reaching out to help Oliver up off the floor.
“You must be Jan’s boyfriend.”
“Yes, thank you.” He brushed himself off. Crystal could not help but be embarrassed, and had it been three months ago, Gigi would have known how to handle such an encounter. Right now, she was comforting and beautiful, kind and reserved. She knew exactly what to say. It was humbling.
“My name is Oliver.” He spoke again.
“Oliver. It’s nice to meet you, Oliver. Jan is a wonderful woman, you’re really a lucky guy.”
“You don’t have to tell me.” The boy spoke, taken aback by his fall too much to interact with the woman. He knew immediately why she had captivated by Crystal and understood why, even after three months of yearning, nothing was better. Gigi was always the kind of girl to ruin lives.
“You all look wet.” Gigi laughed when it had been silent too long. “I can’t remember the last time it rained and we were together.”
“I can.” Crystal confessed. She remembered the evening so well. That phone on the highway, and the brilliance of the successful career. It had been so traumatic that she would remember it for the rest of her life. Gigi wanted to take her in her arms right that instant and have her as was. Soaking wet and messy or high and dry. She wanted whatever version of Crystal wanted her back.
“You should all come inside.” Was spoken aloud. “I think I have something for Oliver’s cut and the least I could do is offer you tea.”
There was not much furniture in Gigi’s home, but all the ceilings were high and the windows grand and tall. It was everything the three residents could have ever imagined it would be. It even had dark floors and coloured walls that dripped in elegance and money. It was weird to see Gigi as she was. Rich. The girl stood at her grand spiral staircase for a second before slipping behind it and grappling at some bandages for Oliver, and then leading through the group through a small candle-lit hallway to reach a great sitting room full of boxes and a lit log fire. They all stood in its warm glow looking at the great standard of the room and not believing how much money could be made from beautiful music.
Crystal’s favourite feature was the giant window that spread the entire length of the back wall by the fire. From there, the other house just across the river could be viewed in its full glory. There was even a window in the other home that was exactly the same that Crystal had never noticed. They were exactly the same, but so far apart. For many hours, each sat on a separate box and talked about all the times they had had back on the bus and how they had gone through so much before anything had even started. Crystal even laughed at some of the things Gigi said. The affair, the band, the sex, the fights all seemed fair game to her.
`’And then I brought her back here.” Finished off the long story in a giggle, taking a sip of the wine that had been poured for all of them from a long bottle by the fire. “How have you been, Crystal?”
“I’m okay. You?”
“I’ve been pretty good.” Gigi replied. “I’ve been dying to talk to you the entire time you were gone.”
“And the girls?”
“Equally as good. We miss you a lot, especially Heidi. You’ll have to drive up and see us more often.”
“Us?” Crystal grew curious.
“We’ve all moved in here together, as bands do, you know?”
“And you think you’ll be okay with that?”
“It will have to be.” Gigi gave another laugh.
Silence.
“Jan.” The taller girl came again. “I hope you don’t hate me for all the time of yours I wasted. I would spend many lifetimes making up my atrocities if I could.”
“You did waste a lot of time.” She laughed. “But no one can hate you, Gigi. It’s like we’re all attached to you somehow.”
“God, how I wish you were. Then, you would never have to leave me at all.”
It was suddenly three months ago and everything was good again. Crystal was happy and never wanted the night to end, whilst Gigi was falling in love all over again. Life was going, and love would surely follow. How could it not?
“I really have missed you, Crystal.” Was whispered at one point as the smaller girl moved closer to sit next to her old lover.
“I have missed you, too.”
Crystal rested her tired head on Gigi’s knee where it was closest to the fire and closer to her lover. There was a strange feeling of calm, but always the feeling of terror that came to being so close to Gigi’s grasp. She had had her once, and this had been fine, but it was no longer like it was back then. Everything was changing and they had to change with it.
Oliver had not said much all evening but decided now was the time.
“You’re an incredible host, Gigi.” He stood. “I feel I’ve wasted so much time not knowing you.”
“You’re leaving so soon?”
“It’s getting pretty late out and Crystal’s parents will want her home.” Oliver lowered his hand to collect the girl off the floor. How sad it would have been to let her wallow in her own delusions any longer than she had to.
“It’s been great seeing all of you, then.” Gigi got to her feet. “I hope you can come back and look at the place when it’s decorated.”
“I’m sure we will.” Jan pleaded nicely.
“Wait in the car.” Crystal uttered.
“What?”
“Just wait in the car, please?” She repeated. “I should be out soon, this won’t take long.”
The couples said their goodbyes and gave their thanks before ushering down the long hall and leaving the star-crossed lovers alone in their own privacy once again. This was the worst of the evening. It was silent, and they were simply staring at each other from across the room.
“It’s been wondeful to see you, Crystal.” The silence broke sooner rather than later. “I’ve….well, I’ve really enjoyed myself.”
At this statement, Crystal leapt up and into Gigi’s arms, sobering and blubbering like a child. The taller girl was taken aback, but understood immediately.
“Oh, Crystal.” She came, holding the girl up. “I’ve missed you so much. I was hoping you’d come back to me and you did. You came back to me”
“Why did you move here?! Why did you have to torture me like this?!” Crystal sniffled and shook her head.
“I moved here for you!” The girls voice shook with emotion, trembling at every syllable. “This city feels like you, it belongs to you. I can feel you everywhere. Can’t you see that?”
“I was just starting to get over you, Gigi!” She yelled. “I can’t just have you barging in on my life every time I try to start fresh somewhere, okay? It doesn’t work that way!”
“I couldn’t live without you, I had to be near you.”
In frantic sobs and heavy breaths, Crystal began kissing Gigi’s gentle face and enveloping herself into the girl. They had always been attached, and now they were entangled. It would take a whole lifetime before Crystal could feel free of Gigi again.
“I don’t want to leave you again, Crystal.” Gigi whispered. “Let me make love to you right here.”
“No.” She whimpered. “It just isn’t the right time.”
“Please, Crystal.” Gigi’s voice was low and serious; full of longing and dread for being lonely again. “I have loved you for such a long time and I want to be with you again.”
Crystal turned away from the girl, still crying and attempting to console herself. She loved Gigi, this was true. However, she did not love Gigi for any commodity that would afford love, but instead because she had no choice. She could love Gigi for the rest of her life or she could die trying to be sane again.
“I’m sorry, Crystal.”
“It’s alright.”
“Crystal, look at me.” The brunette did as she was told. She was always most beautiful and obedient when she was broken. “I want you to have the house across the river. You and Jan can live there, Oliver can even come if he likes. God knows I won’t use it.”
“I can’t take your house, Gigi, I can barely take your money.”
“You could have my life if you wanted it.” She said, in a moment of intensity. “I just want you close to me, Crystal. I can deal with you not being my girlfriend, but I can’t go without you as my friend. Let me do this for you.”
“I would never be able to repay you.”
“Crystal, I am indebted to you.” Gigi coughed her words once more. She did not wish to cry in front of the girl but seemed to have no other choice.
“I will take your house.” She mumbled eventually. “but I want nothing more to do with you. You and I will be neighbours and nothing more.”
“Thank you.” She spoke, relived. “Thank you so much. Heidi will be so happy. I think she’s in love with you.”
It was awful how their whole dynamic had changed in the space of two or so hours. Crystal had found Gigi as nothing more than a figment of pain and now they should be living in the same complex, separated only by a stream of water when once they had been many years apart. Crystal approached once more to take Gigi in her arms.
“You’ve always shown up at just the right time.”
She was gone within ten minutes, and Gigi had found herself alone again as she was often. She was alone often these days. What she had done in the spur of ten minutes last summer had taken her away from everyone she ever loved. Still, she had a vision. In her dreams, she was watching from the window on a sunny day and Crystal was putting washing on a line. Her perfume would fill the air outside. Crystal would catch Gigi’s eye and they would wave at each other knowing no more bad blood existed between them. The girl lay back against the boxes of her old life and smiled; she was happy with her vision.