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She looked down at the car key in her hand, wondered if she would ever muster up the courage to put it in the ignition, wondered if she’d be able to turn it over. Three shallow breaths later, her shiny blue car’s engine came to life.
Kudos to me.
The radio was forever turned off. All the talking, the shouting, the singing, the beats, the melodies seemed to have as a sole objective to make her brain cells explode. It felt vaguely ironic to her that every time she heard the lack of music, the little voice inside her head whispered toneless lyrics:
Words like violence break the silence
Come crashing in, into my little world
Painful to me, pierce right through me
Can't you understand?
Not the rest of the song, of course. The rest reminded her of what she had lost.
The Albuquerque skyline began to turn a red-orange.
She’d volunteered to take on the permanent night shift ever since… Kleinman Radiology Centre was a highbrow private clinic by day, but they’d agreed to take on the overflow of Lovelace’s ER by night. Community service. To make management feel less bad about the patient screening and exorbitant fees during waking hours. “Buying karma”, she’d heard or read somewhere. Not that she took the graveyard shift out of the kindness of her heart. There wasn’t a lot left since… But hardly any colleagues to enter into actual conversations with and most patients either too drugged up, too drunk or too sedated to need any cheerful comfort. Her boss didn’t try to change her mind and she didn’t need to pretend anymore. 10 nights of work, 4 days off. No one else would agree. 10 nights of keeping it together, 4 days breaking down. She looked at the grocery bag on the passenger seat, she felt the tightness of her pants. Years of paying attention to every calorie, of trying to look perfect and slim and fit, but it didn’t matter anymore did it…
She wished she’d lived further away from work. The last curb before their street appeared all too quickly. What was she going to do for four days and nights. The house would still be clean now, she’d needed almost the full ten days to get rid of the mess this time.
I won’t let it get out of control like that anymore.
She saw the unfamiliar car parked in their street.
Maybe it’s someone breaking into our house. Maybe he’ll shoot me.
She got out of the car. Almost forgot the food. She forced herself to turn around and get it, she knew otherwise she wouldn’t get out of the house anymore. With her purse and keys in one hand and the grocery bag in the other, she walked up to the front door.
She startled. And in the process amazed herself by feeling an emotion that wasn’t sadness or indifference. Surprise. It had been a while.
He wasn’t even hiding. Just sitting with his arms wrapped around his knees and his head resting on top of them. He lifted his head and looked up at her and she wasn’t sure who… somewhere in her brain his features rang a bell… who was this guy, why did she get a sense of familiarity looking at someone who seemed to come from another world than hers. His hair was dirty and plastered to his head and forehead, his clothes were rags and too big for an emaciated body.
“I know I have no right to be here.” A half-whisper in a raw voice.
Jesse Pinkman.
Jesse Pinkman was sitting in front of her door a good six months after he’d driven off with Hank and his partner to catch the big bad wolf. And all four of them had vanished without a trace.
“I need to… I need to tell you about your husband, Mrs. Schrader.”
She wanted him to stop talking. She didn’t want to think about Hank. She’d thought about him endlessly for exhausting days and sleepless nights. No, he didn’t have a right to come here and speak to her and be alive.
She lifted her finger in a sort of vague shush sign, dropped her grocery bag and walked into the house. She hadn’t closed the door.
Jesse didn’t know whether Marie had left the door open on purpose or not. What was he thinking, expecting to just walk up to her and unload the guilt he’d been feeling for months about getting yet another two people killed. Why didn’t he just run? He’d driven out of the compound and headed straight to the Schrader house, why’d he do that? He scrambled to his feet, ignoring the pain they had made sure was constantly threatening to overwhelm him. Keep him just alive enough to be able to function, but nothing close to feeling he was a human being. He picked up the bag and stepped hesitantly into the living room. A wave of memories flooded his brain: arriving here in a subdued panic, hardly being able to breathe through his anger, listening to Hank’s soothing voice saying they would catch Mr. White, that his help was crucial, knowing very well this was the DEA Agent talking, not someone who actually cared about him losing the last bit of sanity he had left; mindlessly accepting the shitload of sleeping pills Hank fed him ‘cause at least they’d make his mind stop churning; waking up confused and being infinitely grateful for Ms. Schrader giving him a cup of coffee, a gesture of kindness, something normal. He didn’t want to think about when agents Schrader and Gomez had him sit down to talk, going into detail about every single horrible thing he’d participated in for the last two years. He shivered and steadied himself against the dining table. Ignored the pain that shot through his left arm. How many times had they broken it, he wondered. He’d have to work 10 times as hard the next days, transferring all the chemicals to smaller containers he was actually able to carry with one arm. Cold sweat ran down his spine and a wave of nausea was engulfing him, he knew he was about to pass out, when he realized this was a new pain.
He looked down at the knife in his stomach and up to Marie’s cold stare.
It was when she saw terrified tears pouring out of his piercing blue eyes, that she snapped out of the trance.
What am I doing? This isn’t me. Not me. I’m not like thém. I don’t do this. Why don’t I want to know?
He started collapsing and Marie found herself helping him laying down. She ran to the kitchen to get a towel and pressed it down on the wound. She was relieved to see that there wasn’t all that much blood. An old kitchen knife. If she’d really needed to fend off a burglar it wouldn’t have been much in the way of defense. Jesse grunted and started to move beneath her hands.
“Try not to move too much, I need to keep pressure on the wound.”
He mumbled something incomprehensible.
This is completely absurd. I stab him and then act like his nurse. He must think I’m out of my mind. Crazy. Psychotic. Lost. Why don’t I want to know?
Jesse couldn’t understand why her hands were on him and they didn’t want to hurt him anymore. Stabbing him, he hadn’t expected, fuck, it stung, but it made sense. Now he couldn’t take his eyes off her touch that tried to make it better. Of course. She needed to know. He ignored her advice and tried to sit up.
“S’allright… doesn’t hurt…”
Fuck, it did hurt, he was tired of feeling battered all the time, if he could just close his eyes for one minute…
Marie took the time to look at him. He was different from when he’d been at their house before and at the same time not. Despite the scruffy beard he looked younger. Despite the fact that he’d been at rock bottom already, he looked more broken. Scars that hadn’t been there told a story she didn’t want to listen to yet.
“He came back… he shot them all, all of ‘em, Jack, he got him, he didn’t want him to shoot your husband, Mrs. Schrader…”
She put a finger on his lips.
Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!
She lifted up his bloody shirt. And noted she was the last in line of many who’d taken their frustrations out on the boy. Again she felt the need to fix it, to fix him.
It’s not like it’s gonna fix you, you know that?
She went to get the first aid box she’d diligently put together over the years with items she was sure Kleinman wouldn’t miss and found what she was looking for.
Jesse shivered as the cold metal of the scissors cutting open his shirt touched his skin. But he didn’t say anything. He let her go on. He let her lead him to the bathroom, waited wordlessly as she let the water run, didn’t resist when she took off his shoes, his socks, pulled down his pants. He stepped into the bath and closed his eyes and she cleaned of all the dirt, the blood, the sweat… She can’t see I’m crying, with all the water she can’t see, can she…
I’m not hurting him more, I can’t possibly hurt him more, he’s not crying because of that, why don’t I cry anymore, why can’t I cry anymore? Why am I dead and he isn’t?
His fingers turned all wrinkly like the times his mom forgot about him in the bath and let him play for so long, until the water was cold and his lips were blue and he still didn’t want to get out ‘cause that’s the kind of kid he was and they’d be relieved he didn’t do anything stupid for once except maybe flood the bathroom, and boy they weren’t happy about that, but he’d had fun in his pretend boat, being a pretend pirate and he hadn’t bothered them for a straight hour. Marie had rubbed and cleaned and soothed him so long there wasn’t anything left to wash away and had resorted to stroking his hair as he’d laid down his head on the side of the tub.
“Jesse? You want to get out?”
“Hmmm…”
He moved anyway. She wrapped a towel over his shoulders and went to get clothes that might fit him. A mismatch of things Junior left and a “Central Perk” t-shirt from that time they went to D.C. but for no apparent reason found a shop dedicated entirely to that show Hank watched with her despite not getting or appreciating the jokes. She’d liked it on him. It looked gigantic on Jesse.
She led him to the guest bedroom he’d recognize for sure.
“Do you think you can sleep?”
“Mrs. Schrader…”
Not yet. I need to not know just yet.
“We’ll talk later, Jesse, try to get some rest…”
He slept for 16h straight and she didn’t understand why she went to check on him so often and didn’t understand how she’d managed to fall asleep beside him without any of the help she’d used non-stop for the last 6 months.
He woke up and just stared around the room. There weren’t any pictures anymore. Just a big-ass rock on the nightstand. He got out of the bed hesitantly and wandered through the hall.
“Coffee?”
“Yeah…”
“Still black?”
“You want me to tell my story? Just start from the beginning?”
Anything you can remember.