“Yeah? Should I be frightened?”
I want to tease him more, but I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed. Like everything has hit me at once, and my years of sleepless nights seem to be hitting me hard. I feel so tired, but I don’t want to sleep. I don’t want to see her face. I don’t want to be told what a monster I am.
“You look exhausted,” Ellison says.
“Oh? I feel fine.”
His eyebrow lifts. “Are you lying to me?”
“Lies are just truths that aren’t true.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“Exactly that.”
He throws me a look.
When we get home, I head to the couch where I plan to sit until Ellison falls asleep, and then I will sit on the roof even though there’s no longer anyone out here to hurt him.
Ellison turns on the movie we’d started yesterday and I wish he’d kiss me or we could fuck or do something to distract my mind, but he initiates none of it. And I feel like after what he said yesterday, it isn’t my right to try.
Around ten, I’m struggling to keep my eyes open and decide that I need to do something else to wake me up.
“Go to bed,” Ellison says.
“I’m not tired.”
“You’re like a toddler who has their eyes closed while declaring, ‘I don’t need a nap!’”
“Because I don’t.”
“Do you need me to tuck you in like you’re a toddler?”
Now this idea interests me. “I sure do.”
“Go get ready for bed and I’ll tuck you in.”
“Did your mother ever tuck you in?”
“Oh hell no. My mother only ever peeked in at us to make sure we weren’t up to some shit. This one time my brother tried playing his Game Boy and my mother caught him, so she ripped all of the electronics and cords out of our rooms. We had to ‘check out’ the cords anytime we wanted to use a device.”
“I didn’t know you have a brother,” I say.
“Yeah.”
“I sure hope he didn’t ram a stick up his ass like your mother has.”
“Get ready for bed.”
“I feel like when I met you, that stick was right up there… you’ve done well removing it. We could also say that I removed it for you.”
“I will kick your ass into the new year if you don’t get ready for bed.”
“Yeah? Well, I’ll sic my ferret on you,” I say as I aim Pocket Lint at him.
He cusses me out a bit—mostly about how the last time I did this, his car was wrecked—while the ferret latches on to his sleeve and is prepared to never let go. I let go of the ferret, holding my hands under her in case she releases her grip. She dangles from Ellison’s sleeve as he stares at me.
“She’s going in the trash.”
