Words Apart: A Novel by Lilac Sigan

Author:Lilac Sigan [Sigan, Lilac]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-02-18T00:00:00+00:00

To: Sheera and Michael <[email protected]>

From: Sheera and Michael <[email protected]>

January 31, 2016 at 8:31 p.m.

Subject: Have you seen my special power? Cash reward promised

You know how sometimes you have to step outside of your body and look at your life from the outside? I think it happened to me today. Or maybe I just managed to unravel a little knot in the jumble and separate a couple of threads.

Erik got out of the hospital. At our morning roundup, Moni told everyone. I couldn’t decide whether I was happy or sad, but I felt a little uncomfortable so Julia and I said we’d go visit him on our lunch break. Erik lives pretty close, and Avi said he’d join us. So we got some takeout pasta from the Italian restaurant downstairs and drove over to Erik’s. The scent of focaccia saturated the air in the car, I felt like tearing off a bite but was afraid of the faces Julia would make, and Avi went on and on about the show. Any progress with a host? He asked, and I avoided the question, so as not to reveal the disastrous meeting with Agent Asshole. But Avi wouldn’t let it go. Come on, move it up already, once Moni gives me a green light I’m all over it with endorsements. Avi is really cute, and I do love him, but I always have to remind myself that if he needed to, he’d not only sell his soul to the devil, but toss his mother into the deal, as in buy one get one free.

When Erik opened the door I was shocked. For a minute he didn’t seem like the same person. It looked as though he’d lost at least 20 pounds. His pants bunched up around the belt that was struggling to hold them up, his eyes looked sunken, he was barefoot so he suddenly seemed smaller, and for the first time since I’d known him, he wasn’t trying to inflate his chest and was just standing there normally.

When we went inside, I was struck by a sharp sour smell that hovered in his apartment, and held back a wave of nausea. Actually, it was more than just nausea – it hurt, as if someone had punched me in the stomach. And another weird thing happened. When I saw him like that, I really felt sorry for him. As if all at once I realized that when he lay on the creaky hospital bed like a rotten potato, I kept thinking business as usual. I was sure he was pretending and imagined him standing in front of me with all his antagonism, feeling that I had to fight back with everything I had. But there was nothing to fight against. His entire being radiated weakness, as if he’d left himself somehow, releasing all hold. I’ve never seen anything like that in him before, and it really confused me. It was supposed to have made me feel good, but it really didn’t. I have

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