Wilder by Andrew Simonet

Author:Andrew Simonet
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)

TWELVE

Meili talked on the phone long into the night. I slept on the couch, intending to get up and ask what she was learning. But my belly was full, I had just had the most amazing sex of my life, and when was the last time I’d slept? Occasionally the phone rang, and every time, I thought: Manny’s gonna be mad.

At some incredibly late hour, I stumbled into the bedroom and passed out.

I woke in the morning with my arm under Meili’s head. She grimaced and rolled away.

The kitchen was bright and messy. Meili had made macaroni and cheese and eaten a lot of ice cream. The table had papers on it, phone numbers, Chinese characters, some circled with question marks. I was relieved that Meili seemed to be a slob. Less pressure.

I happily cleaned. I washed Meili’s dishes, took out the trash, stacked up her papers, threw out the old phone cards, wiped out the refrigerator, and chipped some dried barbecue sauce off the counter.

At eleven, I put on music, boiled water for tea, and toasted two English muffins. I didn’t have any butter, so I put on cream cheese from two takeout packets I found in the refrigerator door. They smelled fine.

I brought Meili breakfast in bed, or rather, breakfast on mattress, since I didn’t have a bed.

“Morning, sunshine. It’s tea time.”

She sat up, face puffy, eyes squinting in the sunlight. I remembered Manny said I should cover the windows.

She was off balance, unsure. She sat against the wall and looked around, not seeing anything.

“Are you OK?” I asked, laying the plate down beside her.

She nodded but didn’t smile. I’d never seen her this off. I’d seen her pissed, distant, exasperated, trashed, but never frightened, always solidly where she was. Now, she was floating.

I handed her the tea. She took a sip and grimaced. “No sugar,” she said, not to me, not to anyone.

“I’ll get some,” I said, hoping she hadn’t used it all last night.

I came back with four sugar packets, and Meili was lying down, face in the pillow. She was … hiccupping? Every few seconds, her back trembled like a cough.

I put my hand on her shoulder, and she recoiled. “Is everything alright?” I asked, maybe the stupidest thing I’d ever said.

I wanted her to say: “Yeah, everything’s fucking peachy cause I’m hiding out here and I have no idea what’s going to happen,” etc., etc.

Instead, she said, “Leave me alone.” It was quick, cold, purely instructional.

I went to curl in next to her. I wanted to hold her while she cried. But she lifted her head and barked, “Leave me alone!”

There was an animal fear in her voice, a survival instinct that didn’t know me or care to know me.

I walked out as she went back to the pillow, the tiny convulsions faster now.

I poured a glass of milk and sat at the kitchen table. Meili occasionally let out a sob I could hear through the wall. I sat there, heart pounding, dizzy with the feeling that this was so wrong.

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