Work Text:
Edgar had not noticed anything different about The Girlfriend, that morning. He had not spared her more than the usual, cursory glance when she appeared at Michael’s side. It was muscle memory at this point. He looked at her to see the glint of suspicion in her dark eyes. It was the same as when he would peer up at the black mould, cascading down the kitchen wall. Just seeing that it was still there. And, because he looked for nothing else, he had not noticed how her wide, wet eyes had dulled. How wilted she appeared, compared to how she would always stiffen and twitch, restlessly, in the presence of Alan and himself. Even as they were driven to the movie theatre, and the drone of Michael’s concerned questioning irritated him and made his jaw lock tight, her well-being was not even a flicker in his mind.
Yet, when her saw her crumple in on herself at the pick n’ mix stand, understanding bloomed where he thought no question had been asked. He had reached across her for a cup, holding his breath so as not to smell the patchouli on her, when she let out a thin whine. Had he not been right beside her, he might not have heard it over the throb of the foyer. He had not touched her, but he thought he could feel her undulating against him like a punctured air bed. He looked down and saw her groping at her meagre belly, suddenly bending over his arm like a sea sick passenger over the rail of a ferry. She whined again and it caught, wetly in her throat, as if she were about to cry. Then, she dropped her cup of candy and lurched away from him, disappearing off into the bustle of moviegoers.
There was blood on the floor. A spatter of black dots, blotting the glittering tiles with the scattered candies. Edgar watched one soak into a foam shrimp and turn it red. Is she stupid? He wondered, staring over the sea of people at the glowing, frocked figure above the women’s bathroom. Or did she forget what bleeding was like when she was...?
The bulky, cotton pad tucked inside his jacket juddered with the thump of his heart. He searched around him for Alan, and found him tucked between the pick n’ mix and the popcorn stand, looking back him with the same questions mirrored in his eyes. Before he could change his mind, or wonder why he had made it up in the first place, Edgar tipped his head minutely back, in the direction The Girlfriend had fled. Alan pressed his lips together, nervously, but gave the affirmative nod. They both eyed Michael and Sam, and little Eddie Munster, standing together in ignorance at the ice cream counter, as Edgar hopped over the mess of blood and candy, and hurried towards the bathroom.
He arrived in time to find The Girlfriend hanging off the dispenser, trying to shake it. She must not have had any change. When she heard Edgar come in, she peeked out at him from under her heavy curls, the way he had seen cats peek at him from beneath parked cars. Her teeth were bared, and her eyes as oily and black as the clots of blood, rolling down her bare ankles.
“What are you doing in here?!” She tried to hiss at him, but her tears choked her.
Edgar’s stomach churned with the realisation of what he was doing. There was only two questions she could have been asking, then. What he wanted, because he never wanted anything from her, or what he was doing in the girl’s bathroom, because she did not know. It did not matter, because instinct made him reach for the collar of his shirt and yank it aside, baring his shoulder and showing her the thin, grey strap of his sports bra. He saw her look at it, and he saw her glare at it, then at him. He was not sure whether she was confused about what it meant, or angry at him for what it meant. He decided that did not matter, either, he just wanted to leave.
He let his collar ping back into place and fumbled for the inner pocket of his jacket. He found the sanitary pad he carried for emergencies, silently reassuring himself he would not need it today. Though it would have been simpler to hand it to her, he craned up on his toes and slammed it on top of the dispenser. He did not spare another look at her apparent disdain. In his haste, he forgot his own strength and wrenched the door open with a force that sent it crashing against the tiled wall. The noise sent him scurrying from the room like some little rodent.
Alan had been smart enough not to hang around right outside the bathroom door for him. Sam was aware of what Edgar was, but Michael and Eddie Munster might not have realised, and Edgar was not sure if he wanted them to, yet. Later, he would wonder what it mattered if The Girlfriend knew, what she could possibly do with it. But right now, Edgar felt like he was carrying a kettle bell in his belly, as if he should not have handed over that pad so willingly. Many a time he had flashed his bra strap to strangers, pulled his shirt taut to show the fullness of his chest, but having done so much for The Girlfriend suddenly felt so disgustingly intimate it made him sweat.
He did not have time to fill Alan in, before Sam announced they should get seated early to watch the previews. As they headed through the corridor, Alan took hold of Edgar’s damp hand and squeezed it hard. He did not let go, even when they had settled down in the darkness of the theatre. His fingers pulsed around Edgar’s, like a beat for his heart to follow, grounding him in that dark, not letting him draw terrible visions out of it. Michael slid over to Sam as the screen lit up and whispered something about going to get Star some painkillers, and that they should stay together.
The previews had finished by the time he and The Girlfriend returned, and Edgar had adjusted to the brightness of the screen and let go of his brother’s hand. In the light of the movie’s opening, The Girlfriend looked as ghostly and distant as everyone else in the theatre, and here Edgar could pretend that the moment in the bathroom had never happened. By the time he came out, he might even believe it. As she shuffled between the seats, her hand in Michael’s as Edgar’s had been in Alan’s, she caught his eye. No more than a cursory glance, muscle memory, but this time, Edgar did not find what he was looking for. She looked so blank, she might not have been looking at him, at all. There was no gleam in her eyes, except the reflection of the screen. Pinpricks of white light in glass. Star looked at him as she might anyone else in that great room. Like the normal kind of stranger. The unfamiliarity caught him off guard, and not knowing if she saw it, he offered her the smallest nod of acknowledgment.