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It shouldn’t be a laughing matter that Tasha can still fit in the cabinet beneath the kitchen sink. It shouldn’t be, but it is.
Though not her favorite hiding place back in the day, James still found her in there more than once. Sobbing more than once. Threatening to drink bleach more than once.
She’s still a little stoned as she pushes aside the trash bin and the Windex to curl up among the pipes. The slow beat of Missio still thrums in her ears, and scarlet fireworks burst and melt on the insides of her eyelids.
Tasha lies down on her side and laughs quietly to herself. No one’s going to find her here. Not for a few hours, at least, and by that time, she’ll be sober or dead, and either will be an improvement.
James is gone for the evening, gone out with somebody named Sam to some veterans’ affairs something or other. It’s weird. It’s not like him to acknowledge that he’s served at all. It’s a good step for him, Tasha knows, but she doesn’t like seeing the change in him, even if at this point it’s only hypothetical.
A wash of medicinal sweetness play’s at the back of Tasha’s throat. It’s the last of the little red pills, liquefied, and unsure of what tract they ought to take for expulsion. She swallows hard, hoping to get away this round without being sick again. She already barfed in Maria’s car not long after she fell under. She’s still hoping that if she’s quiet, Steve will stay under the impression that she’s out with Maria. That is, until James comes home and inevitably breaks the spell.
In a way, Tasha wants him to. No, scratch that, she definitely wants him to. It’s not that she wants to be rescued, exactly, but she wants her big brother. She wants him on his own time, though. Not by her phone call, and certainly not by Steve’s. So she hides.
Tasha breathes deeply to tamp down the sick feeling that’s moving backward from her mouth to her gut. She takes a deep breath of poorly scented air and wonders vaguely how a mouthful of Comet might add or subtract from her current misery. She’s halfway squirmed around to reach the green can of cleanser on the other side of her thighs when a slurry of stickiness begins to spill down her chin.
“Fuck,” Tasha hisses, swiping at her face with one hand and fumbling for the trash can with the other. A smattering of wet coffee grounds falls into her lap as she tilts the bin at the right angle to slide beneath her chin. “Ugh,” she groans, sputtering involuntarily before the thick liquid can choke her.
Tasha’s face feels hot, and for a moment, the cabinet feels too small. But as soon as she spits, everything seems fine again. She gasps for breath for a moment, then feels her jaw begin to tremble as her body prepares to hork again.
Tasha shuts her eyes. The red flashes fade into orange as her stomach rumbles and she heaves. It’s almost as if she can feel herself sobering up by the second, as every drop of the drug rushes up her veins and out of her mouth. She supposes she knew it was a possible outcome, but it’s not the one she wanted. The can of Comet topples next to her knee, and the astringent releases a cloud of gritty dust into the air. An eye-watering sneeze cuts off Tasha’s stream of vomit, and something, either her hand or her shoe, thumps against the cabinet door.
She’s about to let loose with another curse word, but instead some long-repressed instinct makes Tasha slap her hand over her sticky mouth, her heart beating in her throat. She’s lost her train of thought, but the gist remains. Be quiet. And stay put.
“The hell?” says a voice. A deep voice. One that’s familiar, yet hard to place, and not one she particularly wants to hear. It takes a solid minute of mental fumbling for her to remember not only who Steve is, but also why she’s hiding. He’s not bad. He’s just inconvenient.
Steve’s footsteps found the kitchen. He makes the verbal equivalent of a shrug and seems to be on the point of leaving when Tasha’s gut makes a disgusting noise, a wet belch combined with a dramatic heave. “Not again,” she moans with what little breath remains, then she spits the dregs into the bin she hasn’t realized she’s hugging to her chest.
“Ok… Huh.” There’s a tepid knock on the door of the cupboard. “Anybody, uh, anybody home?”
Tasha spits again. “No.”
“Ok. Um.” The door opens a crack, and Steve’s big fingers slide around the corner to keep it from slamming. “You sure?”
“Yeah?” Tasha croaks.
James must’ve told him about her quirks, or some of them at least. He isn’t demanding she come out, and for that Tasha’s grateful.
“Did you throw up in there?” One of Steve’s blue eyes appears in the crack.
Tasha wants to poke it, but she decides she’s tired. Trembly too. She might miss her target. “Hm.”
“Do you, uh, need help cleaning up?” Steve’s eye moves to the line of spilled Comet. “You weren’t eating that, were you?”
“Fuck, no.” Tasha chooses not to tell him that she would’ve if she could’ve. He’s just trying to help, but Steve’s laying his righteousness on a little thick.
“You want out?” Steve opens the door another inch and offers his hand.
“Nope.”
“You want me to call–”
“Nope.” Tasha’s lip trembles. She hopes she’s going to be sick again and not about to start crying.
“How’d you get in there, anyway?” Steve looks perplexed. And somewhat impressed.
“Origami,” Tasha replies sarcastically, the word a little blurred around the edges.
“Ok,” Steve says again, this time with a slight smile. It fades almost immediately, though. “Is something wrong?”
Tasha’s eyes choose that moment to start leaking. She tries to feign a gag as cover, but it turns real as soon as she positions herself back over the bin. She doesn’t want to explain it, and she can’t, really. Nothing in particular is wrong, except that she’s coming down from a high that wasn’t that good to begin with. But that barely counts.
No, nothing is wrong. It’s just that everything feels all wrong, her body too loose, the apartment too big, too easy to get lost in. Hence her current position.
When she finishes clearing her mouth, Tasha realizes she still hasn’t answered the question. She can’t remember what the question was, but there was definitely a question.
“Um…?” She tries, resting her temple on the sharp corner of the trash can.
But just then there’s the sound of a key in a lock and the door opening and the gruff words, “Keep it bolted, why don’t ya?”
Steve breathes an enormous sigh of relief. “I’ll be right back,” he says. “You want this open or closed?”
Tasha yanks the cabinet door from Steve’s hand with all the strength her shaky grip can muster.
“Ok, then.”
Tasha hears him stand up and begin to interrupt James’s continued complaints about locking the door. She glances at the spilled line of Comet again, wondering how quickly death will come upon her, but the thought is cut short when the cabinet door opens again. All the way this time.
James crouches in front of her, his face half concerned and half annoyed. He leans forward and peers into her eyes for a moment, then hooks one finger into the rim of the bin and pulls it toward himself to glance at the contents.
“How many this time?” He asks, his tone pointedly absent of the exasperation Tasha expects to hear.
“I don’t know. Fifty?”
“‘S better than last time,” James says with a shrug. “Come’ere.”
He opens the cabinet door and grabs Tasha around the waist. Powdered cleanser scatters like snow onto the kitchen tile as he gently yanks her out and into his lap.
Tasha turns to bury her head in his shoulder, mostly because she doesn’t feel up to letting her eyes adjust to the change in lighting. And a bit because she needs the warmth of him, the smell of him, that reminds her of home. Because for all intents and purposes, he is her home.
“It’s alright,” James murmurs in her ear. “Now, bed? Or bathroom?”
“Bed,” Tasha sighs. She’s suddenly exhausted, nearly too tired to move.
“Ok, then.” James scoops her up and smoothly maneuvers them both off the floor. His prosthetic arm is hard against the small of her back, but she trusts his grip all the same. “Bed it is.”
The ride down the hall turns her stomach again, but relief comes in the form of a soft mattress and a fleece blanket. It takes a moment to register that she’s not in her own cold cotton twin sheets, but in his bed. His and Steve’s.
“Here?” Tasha whispers, trying to focus her glassy eyes on his face. He’s hers, even with too many noses.
“Yes, here.” James flops down beside her and inserts his warm flesh arm beneath her shoulders. “Where else?”
“I don’t know…” Tasha trails off, almost halfway asleep already. “Not here…?”
“No,” James says, firmly, but still with an audible smile. “Definitely here.”