Fix by J. Mann (highly illogical behavior .TXT) 📕

are left. Though of course I know how many are left. Exactly how many. Not enough.

An emptiness fills me… if that is even possible, to be filled by nothing.

“She didn’t need it,” he repeats. Although that sentence doesn’t comfort me the way it did two minutes ago.

Why was the hand something we could share, but not the surgery?

The Surgery

That morning felt

more like I was starring

in a movie

of my life, not actually

living it.

I couldn’t stop

narrating

myself.

“Take a shower, Eve.

Scrub with special soap, Eve.

Brush your teeth, Eve.

Don’t swallow any water, Eve.”

Worried that if I didn’t

announce the next move

out loud, I

might not make it.

“Sure you don’t need the bathroom

one more time?” my mother

asked, as she turned to

lock the door.

I shuddered.

Out of all the physical horrors

leading up to this day,

the enema had been

by far

the worst.

You’d think they would have figured out

a better way to get

that done.

I was empty. And I

felt empty,

for more reasons than the

graphically violent last few hours

I’d spent in the bathroom.

Because the fact was

whenever I had imagined

this moment in my life,

and I had imagined this moment

many times,

Lidia was with me.

“Got your bag?” my mother asked.

She could see it in my hand,

but I knew she

just needed to say something.

“Yeah.”

I could see my breath

on the way to the car, but I didn’t

feel the cold. I didn’t feel

anything.

I don’t remember the drive, parking,

or the walk through the hospital—just the

nurse who checked me in.

Name?

Birthday?

Allergies?

Smoker?

I had smoked.

One time.

At Junlin Yu’s party last summer

with Thomas Aquinas.

We’d shared it. First his lips

sucking on it. Then mine. Then

his, again.

“We’re cool now, Eve,” he’d joked when we’d

finished. And I laughed. Because it felt

true. We were cool.

Later that night, Lidia smelled it on me and asked,

“Did you smoke?” And I’d said

no. Not because she’d care if I’d smoked

but because she’d care that I’d smoked…

without her.

When the nurse

asked if I smoked,

I lied

again.

It wasn’t until I was

alone in the room

changing into a soft blue gown that my

chest began to

throb with fear.

Was the nicotine

lingering in my lungs?

Would it affect

the surgery?

A second nurse

brought me to a room,

told me to relax,

have a seat.

I didn’t relax, but

I didn’t sit.

Instead, I paced the

little room, knocking into

plugs and wires and

plastic medical devices. Like I’d lost

all sense of spatial judgment, like I couldn’t

be sure I was actually

there.

The room seemed to be shrinking, the walls

closed in around me,

and I became pretty positive

that the cigarette meant everything.

The door swung open.

“Eve Abbott.”

It was Dr. Sowah, followed by a

crowd dressed in scrubs.

“I smoked a cigarette last summer,”

I blurted.

He chuckled.

He was always chuckling.

It slowed my heart rate,

his chuckling.

“Ready?” he asked.

I didn’t answer.

My arm felt warm.

Then my face.

The room began to retreat

into my eyes.

“You are going to get

sleepy,” said a voice,

but I was already

sleepy. And moving.

My mother. In a hall.

Cold.

So cold. Though

Lidia is there

holding me. Under the bright

lights. It hadn’t happened yet.

None of it had happened yet.

The Real One

You hugged me

too long.

I let you.

Both of us ignoring the mob of

New Year’s Day shoppers

streaming by.

When you finally pulled back,

your face was a blur. Like

the blood pumping through my head

was pumping it past my eyes.

“Bathing suit shopping,”

you said.

“No, Lid.”

“Yes! A bikini. It’s what you’ve

always wanted.”

“Lidia.”

I couldn’t move.

I couldn’t make myself move.

“Come on, Eve,” you begged.

I was about to give in when

he came out of nowhere. Jumping

between us, and making the joke that

you looked tough, and

that I should listen.

He was talking to me.

But he was looking at you.

Of course, his true joke was

that you didn’t look tough—

your slender body

lost in the oversize hoodie.

But the joke was on him, because you

were tough. You’d always been

tough.

Just as you were about to give him

the classic Lidia cold shoulder—a

practiced move used on the ever-growing

number of flirting outsiders—he noticed

the fedora.

“May I?” he asked.

Caught off guard,

you nodded.

Gently, he lifted the hat from your head and

placed it at an angle on his own,

posing with

a grin.

A grin that moved both his cheeks

far to the sides of his face and wrinkled his brow.

A grin that held nothing back.

You stood

staring at that grin,

static electricity floating

strands of your long dark hair toward

the atrium of the mall.

“Keep it,” you said.

He looked straight into your eyes,

that grin still

solidly in place, and

suggested he borrow it.

“Until next Saturday.”

It was a date.

He was making a date with you.

And you

said yes.

His name was Jayden.

Jayden of the grin. And

Jayden of the grin had a friend.

Nick.

Though neither Jayden nor you

asked if this was something

I’d agree to.

Maybe—seeing me twisted and braced, he

assumed I’d agree. Because

what other options did I have?

Whatever he thought—you made the date.

For the movies.

For the both of us.

“Lidia,” I said, the second

he was gone. Instantly,

pissing you off.

Lidia.

Just your name.

But what you assumed

I’d meant by it

was apparent.

You just made a date

with someone who does not know

you have one hand.

And yes,

I admit it.

I did mean this.

But I also meant

You just made me a date

with someone who does not know

I’m twisted as fuck.

The Human Form

CAREFULLY, SO CAREFULLY, I PUSH DOWN ON THE KNIFE. The white pill underneath divides in two with a click… and a bit of fine dust, which I press my finger into and stick in my mouth before I set up the next one.

“It’s a good plan,” she says. “And now when your physical therapist comes, you can tell her you’re down to half your regular dose.”

“Exactly, Lid!” I cry.

It is a good plan, cutting my Roxy in half, doubling my stash, regardless of the fact that it’s my only plan. For right now, it makes me feel better.

I position the knife’s blade in the little nook of another Roxy and apply gentle pressure. The clink of steel meeting the wood of the cutting board is so satisfying—the single pill springing apart into two neat little pieces is like the art of collage, dismantling something old to create something new.

“When I’m done,” I tell her, “I’m going to stick