Six Feet Under (Mad Love Duet Book 1)

by Whitney Barbetti

  But there was no pretending when it came to how I felt for Six, for what had happened between us. I knew he loved me, because even though I liked pretending to ignore him from time to time, there was no denying that some part of what I felt was echoed within him, too.

  I was unsettled. When he was in town, Six slept at my apartment most nights. When he wasn’t traveling, we were doing jobs together, subconsciously making plans together, building a semblance of normalcy between us.

  But I resented him. I resented that he kept quietly replacing my goldfish, as if he expected that I wouldn't be able to deal with the death of my own fucking pet fish. He was unburdening me before guilt could even make itself at home. I resented the love I finally, silently, acknowledged for him, resented how needy it made me.

  Mostly, I resented how completely inadequate my love made me feel. Six could heal my wounds, give me a job, maintain the roof over my head, feed me dinner. What could I do? Nothing but give him love that was two parts fucked up and one part honest.

  “Smells like cigarettes in here.” He eyed me carefully.

  “I didn’t quit, if that’s what you’re implying.”

  “I didn’t ask you to.” His eyes narrowed. “Been running?”

  It was much harder to lie to him when he was looking at me under the microscope. So I shrugged noncommittally.

  He gave me a kiss and a plate of food and said, “I need to shower.”

  When the water started to run in the bathroom, I pulled out the bag I kept hidden, the bag I'd bought a few days earlier with my smuggled bills and made a line on the smooth top of Six's table, snorting it quickly and wiping the table down to hide any evidence of what I'd done. I chased it with a pill I'd bummed off of Jerry, something small and blue, but guaranteed to quiet the voices in my head.

  By the time he came out of the bathroom, I was covered up to my elbows in a dozen colors of paint. He came up behind me, admiring what I was doing. I was high, but I still knew that when his body had shifted, that when his head dipped a fraction, he'd realized I was no longer sober.

  “You're under the influence,” he sighed. I ignored the way his disappointment pinched my heart.

  “I am,” I confirmed, my head nodding frantically. I dragged my fingers through an amalgamation of color and pulled my hand down the canvas. His fingers grasped my chin, pulling me, trying to get me to look at him. I resisted fruitlessly, as it took little effort for him to turn me around.

  He framed my face with his hands, callouses digging into my cheekbones. “What is it this time, Mira?”

  You love me.

  I know you do.

  Tell me you love me, tell me, tell me.

  I'm alone and I need you to tell me you love me.

  The voices in my head were louder, not quieter, after ingesting the pill.

  “Tell me you love me,” I blurted out.

  I expected him to be shocked. I expected denial. But I got something else. “I won't.”

  The room was bright, Technicolor in my madness. “Tell me.” The cocaine flew through my system, causing me to fall against him, causing me to giggle.

  “I won't.”

  I pushed him, shoving him against the wall. “Tell me.” I coughed hard against his chest, clutching his shirt with tight fists. “Tell me,” I said again, louder, but my voice was fractured. My fists became tighter, angrier. I pulled one hand back and hit him in the chest, hard. “Tell me, Goddamn it!” I yelled.

  I hit him again, and though some part of my subconscious knew it was wrong, I couldn't stop. Over and over, I hit him until his hands closed around my wrists and he quietly said, “Stop.”

  “I know you do.” I felt my lips spread as my eyes closed halfway.

  “Then why do you want me to say it?”

  Because I'm alone.

  Because I don't want you to love me.

  Because I love you.

  Because everything hurts.

  I hummed against his chest for a moment. I held on to him, dizzy as I tried to capture one of the thoughts blooming rapid fire in my head. “Because I don't want to be alone.”

  I am so alone.

  I am unlovable.

  I am unwanted.

  “Shut up!” I screamed, gripping my head in my hands, directing my frustrations at the voices in my head. “Shut up! Shut up!” My throat ached, my head hurt, my fists felt like I'd pummeled a steel wall. I pulled back from his chest and then slammed my head into him, shoving him back a few steps. His hands clutched my upper arms.

  “Snap out of it, Mira,” he ordered, shaking me. “You can't talk to me like this when your head is on a cloud of coke.”

  Not just coke.

  Something else.

  I shook my head, back and forth, over and over, giggles erupting and spreading like a tickle throughout my body. I felt simultaneously restless and taut, like a guitar string plucked and stilled, plucked and stilled. My fingers slid down his chest and I plucked at my shirt like a guitar. “Play me,” I whispered, eyelids nearly closed. “You're a cellist.”

  His hands gripped my face, forcing me to face him. “Open your godddamn eyes,” he said.

  Something about the way he said it forced me to open them. I raised my chin, felt his fingers tighten on my face. “I'm not someone you can fix.” I tried to add punch to my words, but instead the words poured from my mouth like water, slurred together in a current of lazy lips and tongue.

  “I don't want to fix you.” He blew out a breath, warming my skin. “I know you don't want that.”

  I don't want you.

  I want you so badly.

  I don't want you.

  Please leave me.

  Please don't leave.

  Stay.

  “Six.” My voice sounded weak even to me. I swallowed. “I don't want you.”

  I waited for him to pull away. Instead, his hands slid past my cheeks and into my hair as he brought his face closer.

  “You're under the influence,” he repeated, his lips a breath from mine. “And you're full of shit.” He was angry.

  I nodded, my lips curving. “I hate me. You hate me.” My hands moved of their own volition, making vague circles in the air. “Full circle,” I said. The word ‘circle’ slithered in my head, an echo of sssss. My circles changed to the eight Six had told me about. “Look—that infinity symbol. Whatever you called it.”

  My eyes slid closed, but I felt him cradle my skull and pinch my ears. “Wake up, Mira. What did you take?”

  Shaking my head, I tried to pull away from him. “A pill.”

  “How much was it?”

  I pressed my finger to my thumb tight in illustration and with a laugh I said, “Just a baby amount.”

  “Jesus Christ. I'm sure it was more than that.” His arm swooped down and I was suddenly being carried down the hallway, into my bathroom. He dropped me to the floor and jerked my head back.

  “Don't,” I whispered, even as I felt his fingers force my mouth open. I struggled against him. “No,” I garbled around his fingers, feeling the first wave of vomit come up when his fingers met the back of my tongue.

  Over and over I vomited, until my stomach stopped spasming and my jaw refused to shut, sore from exertion. I lay my head on the edge of the toilet seat as Six mopped my face with a warm washcloth, cleaning my face and soothing me.

  “I'm sorry,” I said softly. I didn't want to be sorry. But I was so, so tired and so sick of myself and my head. I opened one eye and met his. His eyes were narrowed, sweat sprinkled in droplets along his hairline. He was normally so stoic, so impassive. But something cracked on his face, allowing me a peek. “What's wrong?” I closed my eyes.

  I’m what’s wrong.

  Pulling the washcloth from my face, he sighed and rose up onto his feet to rinse it and squeeze out the excess water. My eyes couldn't lift high enough to see his face, so I closed them again, feeling spent and empty. “Why do you do this, Mira?”

  I yawned, turned my face to the toilet seat. “Ge
t high?”

  “Hurt me.” The washcloth smoothed over my face. “Why do you hurt me?”

  “To prove I can.” It was partly true. Half the times I used around Six were to hurt him, because that's what I did.

  “Well, you can.”

  I swallowed, tasting bile, and then blew out a breath. “You shouldn't love me.”

  “It's too late for that.”

  Silence. Even the voices in my head seemed to obey the silence. “Then leave me.” Before I leave you.

  “I can't.” The washcloth left my face. “This is not an ending. Not for us.”

  In the middle of the night I woke up in a sweat. The room was dark save for the glow pouring in through my bedroom door.

  The floor was freezing when I walked across it, which caused me to quicken my steps. Six was sitting at the table, elbow braced on the flat top and forehead in his hand.

  “Six.”

  He turned, taking me in. “You’re awake.”

  I nodded.

  “And how do you feel?”

  I mentally did inventory. “Okay, I guess.”

  “Good.” He nodded and stood. Calmly, he walked toward the door and slid his coat on.

  “Are you leaving?”

  He wouldn’t look at me. “Yes.”

  How was it that a word so small could make my knees so very weak? He was leaving. I’d barely acknowledged my feelings for him, and he was about to leave. I couldn’t even open my mouth to say a word before he was gone.

  My back fell against the frame of my bedroom door and then gravity pulled my body down until I was in crumbles, splayed on the ground.

  He was gone.

  Maybe it was for the best, I tried to tell myself. I was poison, leeching my way into him. I had nothing to offer, because there was no part of me that wanted to give myself up to any man.

  Or, at least, that’s what I’d always believed. Before Six.

  Go to him.

  “No.” I don’t know why I ever bothered to defy the voices. They whispered, and I obeyed.

  I turned to the kitchen, watching new Henry swimming in his tank happily. “Good luck living a long life,” I told him, but my voice was hoarse.

  I didn’t feel like I could stand up then. It was as if I’d been underwater, holding my breath for so long that I no longer had it in me to fight my way to the surface.

  I knew I’d disappointed him greatly. I’d barely managed to keep my shit together for a couple days after he’d left.

  I snagged my sweatshirt off the back of the chair and slid it over my head, as if it could warm me the way Six could.

  My hands found their way into the kangaroo pocket and came out with the little baggie that held two more pills. I shook them into my palm, stared at them, rolled them around with my thumb. I could take another one. I hadn’t really gotten to experience the first one’s full effect, not since Six made me puke it out.

  Why do you hurt me?

  To prove I can.

  Shit. That’s what I was, a real piece of shit.

  I brought my hand to my mouth but hesitated before putting the pill between my lips. Was this what I wanted? To choose these unknown little balls of bullshit over Six?

  Go to him, the voice repeated.

  I never went to Six. I was the one who waited for him to come to me. That’s who we were. But was that who I wanted us to always be?

  I cursed him for coming into my life, for making my emotions more complex, layered, deeper than the surface. Before, my anger was straightforward. After meeting him, my anger was bred from a place of wanting and the wanting came from deep-seeded love.

  Mother fucker. I was shit and he was a mother fucker.

  With a resigned sigh, I pulled myself to standing and dropped the pills in my sink. Before I could reach into the garbage disposal and pull them out, I turned the water on and flipped the switch for the disposal. With a few metallic crunches, they were gone.

  I pulled on some jeans that were loose on my hips. I rolled the top hem and tucked the gold lighter and cigarettes into my kangaroo pocket. I was swapping one addiction for another, but I had a feeling that Six would tolerate this one better.

  I shoved my sockless feet into boots and trampled out of my apartment, before pausing at the landing and remembering I hadn’t locked the door.

  I locked the damn door, because Six would want me to.

  And then I left, bound for his apartment, hoping I wouldn’t get lost on the way.

  16

  I only got lost once on the way there. It was the middle of the night, after all, and Six’s apartment was tucked in the hollows of a dark street. He lived clear on the other side of Golden Gate Park, in Inner Richmond, an area that looked too nice to hock a loogie onto the sidewalk. It wasn’t the swankiest place, but it stood in sharp contrast to my dump of a neighborhood, and the plaster that regularly crumbled off my walls.

  It was cold though, especially without the artificial warmth from street lights.

  I didn’t know if Six would even let me in.

  His flat took up the top half of the house, with one lone, sad tree in the front of it, relegated to a tiny patch of grass that looked out of place with all the concrete that surrounded it.

  The entire top floor was dark, except for one small corner window. I tried to remember the layout of his apartment, but I hadn’t seen much beyond the main living area to know which part of the house that occupied.

  The home beside his was covered in scaffolding across the front, and I was half tempted to climb up it and peek into Six’s windows. That’s what he’d expect from me. He wouldn’t expect me to knock on his door like a normal person.

  I let myself into the entry of his home and climbed the creaky stairs to the top floor. There was a light flickering at the end of the hall and one lone door near the landing. The whole floor smelled of pancakes and my stomach growled. I’d never touched the plate of food Six had left for me at my apartment.

  I raised my fist to knock and then was two seconds away from running down the stairs and out of the house. I shouldn’t be here. This was taking a big step for us both. I was here because I wanted to be with Six, knowing full well that he could turn me away. It was a reversal of how we’d been for the last year; Six always coming to my place, and me kicking him out.

  Knock.

  And I did.

  My blood roared in my ears, like a billion horses. I waited. And waited. And the door remained shut.

  I stepped back and looked at the floor under the door. There was a muted glow coming from beneath the door, and it was uninterrupted—which meant Six wasn’t standing on the other side, looking at me through the peephole.

  He was probably already asleep. Maybe if I hadn’t gotten lost on the way, I’d have made it here in time. I knocked again, undeterred, mostly because I didn’t relish the idea of walking all the way back to my apartment in the dark. Six had a car to get around. I had two wobbly legs, so the fact that I’d made the trek to Richmond at all was impressive. That’s what I told myself.

  The door didn’t open, and no shadow crossed underneath the door.

  “Fuck.”

  My legs were crying out for some kind of relief, so I sunk down to a cross-legged position and set my back against the wall beside his door. I dipped my fingers under the bottom of the door. There was a substantial gap there, enough for nearly my entire hand to fit. But that wouldn’t do me any good.

  I sighed loudly and stretched my legs out. I was going to be here a while, at least until my legs didn’t feel like cooked spaghetti.

  I lit a cigarette and closed the lighter lid, then opened it again and let the flame lick the air as I took the first puff. I loved how it reflected against the gold and rubbed my finger over all the small sparkles.

  I was overly warm from the walk over to his flat and now being in his warm building, so I pulled off my sweatshirt and laid it on the ground beside me. When I realized I was without any suitable substitute for an ash tray, I carefully fl
icked my ashes onto the sleeve, hoping they wouldn’t burn a hole through it. I didn’t have an emotional attachment to the sweatshirt; it boasted some college—or, I assumed it was a college—I’d never heard of. But it was completely intact, without any holes or loose threads on the sleeves. Sweatshirts like that were hard to come by at the thrift store.

  Under my ass I felt a rumble and barely had time to prepare myself when the door opened.

  He was tired, I could tell. But still, he had that beautiful hardness that was so him. And his eyes were soft when he looked at me. When he just looked at me wordlessly, I said, “Hi.”

  “It’s late.”

  It wasn’t the greeting I expected, but I didn’t blame him for his surliness. “I’m sorry,” I told him.

  “Are you?”

  “I am. I’ve been here for practically an hour, waiting.”

  “An hour?”

  I nodded solemnly.

  “It’s been fifteen minutes, tops.”

  I blinked. “You heard me knocking? And you didn’t answer?”

  “I wanted to see what you’d do. See if you’d give up.”

  I nodded and then realized the end of my cigarette was almost burnt to the filter. I didn’t have any way to stab it out.

  “Here,” Six said and plucked it from my hands before I could offer it to him. He leaned inside his flat and then his head reappeared. “So?”

  Well, there went any hope that he was going to make this easy on me.

  “I’m sure that wasn’t the welcome home you were expecting.”

  “First of all, I don’t expect much from you.”

  Ooof. That hit in the center of my chest.

  “Because I can’t,” he continued. “You’re an enigma; a challenge. I don’t have expectations because you’re unpredictable.”

  That softened the blow a little.

  “But the few I do have include you, at the very least, taking care of yourself. That’s all I want from you, Mira.”

  “For the moment,” I added. People always wanted more than I could give.

  “I’m in this with you. I know you’re selfish, I know you’re reckless. I expect that. But I’d very much like to not have to force you to vomit up the garbage you regularly ingest. I don’t want to be your caretaker; I want to be your equal.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m fucking exhausted, and I don’t feel like doing this right now.”