}}}Kaitlyn. 2013. Los Angeles, California. West L.A.}}}}}}}}}
Have you ever gone on a vacation or something for a few weeks, then came back to your own house and found it smelled kind of funny? Maybe not bad, necessarily, but it’s a noticeable odor. It takes you a few hours to get used to it, and then you won’t smell it again until you leave for another good length of time.
My apartment smelled of pretzels and tequila. To my recollection, I hadn’t had either in here in a long time. I had no idea where the smell came from, but it was strangely comforting. Every time I smelled it and thought what the hell is that? my mind filled in the answer: home.
I took in my belongings with fresh eyes. I memorized every inch of them, all too aware they could be taken away again in an instant. My mismatched thrift store mugs, still set out to dry on the kitchen towel by the sink. My pile o’ jeans, hunched in the hallway between the living room and bedroom. My ceramic owl toothbrush holder. My gargantuan, extravagantly comfortable bed.
It filled every inch of my room with memory foam goodness. My big, pillowy down comforter was bundled up into a little Kaitlyn nest in the far corner. I kicked off my shoes, crawled into my favorite part of every day, pulled the door shut behind me, and made myself into the smallest ball possible. I did nothing but breathe bed-smell and value every inch of its contact with my body. Weeks of scratchy motel sheets, formless airy pillows, strangers fucking overhead or fighting next door, and now, to be back in my most private den of comfort, I just couldn’t help it.
I started crying.
It began as a happy cry, my body overwhelmed by pure endorphins. Then it became one of relief, as all the binding stress wrapped around me began to loosen. Then it took a wrong turn and became a deep, wracking sob of stupid self pity.
Why the hell am I involved in this? Why me? I just wanted to race cars and see movie sets and—
No, that’s not even it. I didn’t want those things. Jackie wanted those things for me. I wanted to … I wanted to …
Okay, so I don’t know what I wanted to do. I wasn’t happy waiting tables in Barstow, where everybody knew every inch of your business; I wasn’t happy waiting tables in L.A., where everybody follows up the question “what do you do?” with the question “okay, but what do you really do?” I went along with Jackie when she moved to L.A. because she was my only friend—my only connection to any living thing, really—and that made her home. Then came L.A. and improv classes and yoga and Jackie shining with the light of purpose fulfilled while I sat there like a lump. Wondering what was for me.
And now, I had my answer.
Marco, the former teen heartthrob that wanted to eat my insides. Faceless goons that did his twisted bidding. Hulking black monsters that melted flesh like butter. Static-screaming angels that simplified the algorithms of humanity just to keep an uncaring universe turning.
Jackie was meant to live a hip and bohemian life in Los Angeles, networking with minor celebrities and doing sketch comedy. I was meant to battle a multidimensional parasite and its attendant cult at the expense of my self and, most likely, my life.
I feel like I got the slightly shorter end of the stick here, Jackie.
And with that, the tears shut off like a switch.
I’m being stupid. Selfish. Sullen. Like a kid that doesn’t get what they want at Christmas so they start yelling at Grandma. That’s not me, and it’s not helping.
I wiped my runny mascara on my bedsheets.
Why not? I don’t sleep anymore. Won’t be needing my comfort nest ever again.
I sat up and stared blankly out my window, looking down toward the bottom of the hill—the bodega and the taco cart, the Mexican family that ran the donut shop sitting on their stoop, laughing and barbecuing.
Not for you. Not anymore.
I giggled bitterly to myself.
There was a knock at my door. From the other side, Jackie said, “K? You all right in there? It sounded like you were crying.…”
I leaned over to twist the knob, and let the door creak open on its own. When it did, Jackie saw the streaked, puffy mess of my face and frowned. She didn’t come in from the hallway. There was literally not an inch of standing space in my bedroom—it was fully consumed by the massive bed—so to “come in” would be de facto cuddling, and I guess she wasn’t up for a snuggle. Instead, she awkwardly sat at the border of my mattress and twisted to face me.
“What’s up?” she said.
I laughed.
“That’s such an inadequate question, Jackie.”
“I know, I’m sorry,” she said. She looked at me with platitudinous eyes.
“And that’s such an inadequate response.”
“Look, I know what you’re going through but there’s no need to take it out on—”
“You … know what I’m going through?” I barked out an ugly laugh. “Nobody has ever known what I’m going through. I don’t know what I’m going through.”
“But you have friends who are here for you.…”
“Oh, cool,” I said, giving Jackie a big thumbs-up. “The power of friendship will surely see me through any challenge!”
I expected her to snap back at me, but instead she mimed spreading out a rainbow with her hands and sang the old “The More You Know” PSA jingle.
I laughed, earnestly this time, and that shut me right down. Even when I’m being a total bitch, Jackie makes me laugh.
“I’m sorry,” I said, and scooted across the bed toward her. “I’m just so … I don’t know if tired is the right word. Weary, maybe. I’ve been running on nothing but momentum for weeks now, and this is the first time I’ve had to stop, even for a second. Everything caught up to me.”
“I get it, K.” She wrapped her arm around my back and laid her head on my shoulder. “If you’d asked me what the weirdest, scariest thing in the world was two months ago, I probably would’ve said Danzig. Now it’s like we’re trapped in a nightmare world. I wish I could say something comforting to you but … well, we saw how that worked out just now.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “It helps to know somebody else is as screwed as I am.”
“Ha, well, I’m not quite there yet. I haven’t started hallucinating space whales.”
I pulled away from her so I could see her face.
“What do you mean, hallucinate?” I asked.
“What do you mean, what do I mean?” She pulled away a little herself.
“You think I hallucinated all of that? Jackie, that was real. It was showing me something…”
“You still think that? K, I figured if we got you out of the sun, got you someplace to unwind, you’d reset back to normal.…”
“I am normal! Or as close as I get anymore. Jackie, it’s seriously important that you believe me about this.”
“So you’re still going to follow through with this crazy fucking plan?” she said, and pushed off from the bed. She frowned down at me from the hallway. “You’re still going after another angel?”
“It’s the only way to—”
“Fuck that!” Jackie’s voice cracked when she yelled. “Look around, there’s nobody here! Marco is dead. His little cult scattered to the wind. Nobody is looking for us. We won. We’re out! Let’s just go back to living.”
“It’s not over. Marco was nothing to these things—less than nothing. There are so many more and they’ll never stop, unless we stop them.”
“Ease up on this ‘we,’ stuff, K. Back in Mexico, I told you I was with you until the end. Well, here it is: the end. I’m with you. I’m not with you starting it all up again because you got heatstroke while meditating in the desert and talked to Shamu the fucking astronaut.”
I tried to rev up my anger, but I’d already started and stopped too many times. I couldn’t muster the energy.
“I’m not going to keep begging you to stay,” I said, my voice flat.
“Nobody asked you to—no, you know what?” Jackie ran her hands through her hair, blew out all her breath. “We’re tired, we’re stressed, we shouldn’t be doing this right now. I love you, K. I do. We’ve got some shit to talk about, though, all right? And I think we both need a little time to be normal first.”
I smiled weakly.
“So, I’m going to go and check in on my parents. They’re used to me disappearing for a while, and even occasionally maxing out Dad’s credit card—but they generally expect a visit afterward and some kind of explanation. Plus, I just really need to go to a nice, big house right now, sit on a couch that costs more than my car, eat some overpriced Whole Foods kale chips, and watch like sixteen hours of reality TV.”
I nodded. Jackie’s parents had followed her from Barstow (yes, they were that kind of parents), where they’d owned like half the town. They lived in an intimidating mansion out in Brentwood. I could sure understand wanting to be there, instead of here.
“Hey, say something?” Jackie said. She reached out and touched me on the shoulder.
“Something,” I said. It didn’t even get a chuckle. “No, seriously. That’s good. You take a break, Jackie. You deserve it. In fact, I’m going to see if I can convince Carey to take off for a while so I can have a ridiculously long shower without worrying about him peeking through the keyhole.”
“Okay, I’ll be back tomorrow—probably kinda late. Promise me you two won’t do anything … space-whale related until then?”
“I promise,” I said.
She squeezed my shoulder, and I squeezed her hand, then she turned to leave. I could hear Carey snoring out on the living room couch. I was thinking of ways to wake him up politely, when Jackie slammed the door behind her as hard as she could.
You’re the best, girl.
“Whu fuggin’ Jeezis.” Carey flailed and mumbled in sleep-addled confusion.
I’d been sharing hotel rooms with the guy for weeks. I knew he’d drop right back to sleep in a matter of seconds unless I moved fast. I jumped up from the bed and hit the ground running. I slid into the living room—socks coasting across smooth wood—and screamed, “CAREY! EMERGENCY!”
He made more half-conscious noises of concern.
I stepped forward and slapped him across the back of the head.
“What?! Damn it, I’m up. What?”
“We’re out of alcohol.”
His eyes went wide.
“No, you had all those bottles above the fridge before,” he pleaded.
“Yeah, but you drained them all before we left, remember? Except for the flavored vodka. You poured that down the sink.”
“That’s right. Did you ever thank me for that?”
I rolled my eyes at him.
“Look, I’ll front you some cash for beer if you do something for me.”
“Okay, but we’ll have to stick to oral unless you have a condom,” he said, with total sincerity.
“Not even if you looked like Christian Bale and smelled like freshly baked cookies,” I said. “I’ll throw down for the beer if you stay gone for a few hours. I need some alone time.”
“Ah, I gotcha,” he said, and winked. “You want me to pick up replacement batteries too, for the ones you run down?”
“Jesus, shut up. The offer is going once, going twice…”
“Hey! I didn’t say no! I’ll go,” he said, stumbling to his feet. He held his hand out in front of me like an expectant toddler.
I went to the cabinet by the back door and pulled down my lucky cat bank. I forget what he’s called. I think it’s a Japanese thing—little cartoon kitty smiling with one paw in the air. I unscrewed his head and brought the body over to Carey. I showed him the inside, filled with quarters.
“Seriously? Change?” he asked.
“Seriously? Like you’re too proud?” I countered. “It’s my laundry money. More than enough.”
“All right, all right,” he said, and took the cat bank from me.
He headed for the door, then paused with his hand on the knob. He turned back toward me.
“You gonna leave this unlocked for me to ‘accidentally’ walk in on something?”
I flipped him off. He laughed, and stepped out. He left the door open. I sighed and closed it behind him, then set every lock I had. Just to be safe, I double-checked the back door and all the windows, too. I stood in the middle of my quiet living room, all alone and with nothing to do for the first time in as long as I could remember.
So… what now?
I thought about watching TV, playing internet, reading a book—it all seemed so trivial.
Shower first, I guess, then I’ll figure it out from there …
I headed to the bathroom, paused at the door, and glanced down at the storage containers that supported my bed. The middle one held socks, underwear, a clothes steamer, various odds and ends, and my vibrator. Since Carey had put the idea in my head already, it had been—Jesus, months.
* * *
I showered until the hot water ran out, toweled myself off, and crawled into my nest naked. I came twice, and only stopped there because I figured I should eat something. I slipped into my ratty pajamas—pilled fleece sweats and a baggy, hole-riddled Guns N’ Roses T-shirt left over from an ex-boyfriend—and plundered my kitchen. Nothing in the fridge would be good, for sure, and I didn’t even wanna trust the freezer in case there had been a power outage or something while I was gone. But the pantry held two cans of SpaghettiOs, and that sounded strangely appealing. My go-to comfort food. I should have been starving, but faced with the reality of eating, I just … wasn’t. The front door rattled hard, and I heard a thump.
“Aw, damn it,” Carey yelled, from outside.
There was never a good time for Carey, but I’d enjoyed the hell out of my recuperation period and was okay with the idea of company. I padded over to the door and flicked the locks open. Carey took one look at my ensemble and dropped all pretense at lusting after me. He pushed past and made straight for the kitchen. I could hear him shoving things aside to make room for the beer, then the sound of cardboard tearing, and the pop-hiss of a can being opened. He came out holding two beers—one open, one not. He sat down at my tiny dining room table and drained one of the cans completely, his knobby Adam’s apple bobbing up and down with every chug. When it was empty he set it down on the table, cracked the next one, and took a sip.
Only when he finished that one did he get up, grab two more, and set one in front of me. I raised my eyebrows at him. He waggled his at me. I shrugged and pulled the tab. We sat like that for another few minutes without saying anything.
“You enjoy your alone time?” he finally said, with feigned interest.
I shrugged.
“So … universe cubes and space whales, huh?” Carey said. I could hear the laugh in it.
“Damn it, it wasn’t an actual cube, or an actual whale. I said it was more like a metaphor for … uh…”
I gave up. I knew I’d lost Carey at “metaphor.”
He sat quietly, sipping his beer and staring out the back door. There was nothing interesting out there: two mismatched thrift store folding chairs, an IKEA table, and an old Persian rug growing mold spots. The little patio was completely fenced in against the access path that ran behind the building.
“Okay, you don’t believe me,” I tried again. “That’s fine, but—”
“I didn’t say that.” He looked me straight in the eye. “I believe you. I’ve seen what you can do since taking that first angel. You’re connected to something bigger, that’s obvious. I wasn’t thinking about whether or not to believe your story. I was thinking about how to find another angel.”
“R-really?” After my conversation with Jackie, I just figured it was going to be Kaitlyn against the rest of the rational world. “Any ideas?”
“Just one, and I’ll be honest: It’s fucking terrible.”
I laughed. He didn’t.
“No, really,” Carey elaborated, no mirth to his tone. “It’s bad. It’s dangerous, morally bankrupt, and something I find personally fucking detestable. If I had any other leads whatsoever, no matter how bad they were, I would jump on them like a hobo on a pint of Mad Dog before pursuing this one.”
“Wow, uh … what is it?”
“I can’t say yet.” Carey saw me start to protest and held his hand up. “That’s how bad it is. If I told you about it, you’d stop me, and then we’d be nowhere. I just need you to say it. Say you’re absolutely sure that the only way forward is to find another angel as soon as possible.”
I chewed on my lip.
Was I sure about the visions? Really sure? Jackie could be right. It could be heatstroke or sleep deprivation or something. I didn’t think I was feeling the effects of several weeks of restless nights, but maybe it was taking some hidden toll.…
No.
I can feel it in my chest: a sort of fullness, puffing me up when I should be deflating. I’ve never felt that before, but I know what it is: purpose. This is right. The vision is real.
“I’m absolutely sure,” I said.
“Fuck,” Carey said.
He pushed back from the table and went to the kitchen. He banged around in the fridge, and emerged with two beers in each hand and one tucked in his waistband.
“I’ll be back later tonight,” he said. “But if I’m not, assume I died horribly and never stop running.”
“You’re being dramatic,” I said.
“I’m really not,” he said, and stomped out the door.
I got up and got myself another beer, too.