Hot Mess. Emily Belden

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СКАЧАТЬ myself Benji’s the prize, and it goes away.

      Standing at the kitchen counter, I write out three checks, stamp the envelopes and tuck them into my purse. Even though he’s clean now, the entire internet and everyone I know tells me I should be paranoid about a possible relapse, the provocation of which can come from anywhere. Spare cash lying around, compounded by a bad day or, I don’t know, a teaspoon of baking soda spilled on the counter, can lead to disaster. So I’ve learned to worry that if I pay these bills online, Benji will figure out a way to reroute the money somewhere it doesn’t belong, which is why I’ll personally be delivering these checks to a mailbox before setting foot into my office this morning. No one tells you what it’s like to live with a drug addict, but the trick, apparently, is that you can never be too careful.

      “You going to work?” he groggily asks from his side of the bed.

      Perhaps it’s just early, but the question rubs me the wrong way. He makes it sound like I have a choice, like it’s feasible that I’m on my way to grab picture frames at World Market or something. It’s 7:45 in the morning. Where the hell else would I be going?

      “Yup.”

      “Love you,” he says, getting up to kiss me and pull me in for a tight hug. The smell of stale cigarettes lingers in the patchy start of a dark brown beard. He’s either out of razors and waiting for me to notice so I pick some up on my way home, or he’s sporting a new, burlier look. Whatever the case may be, I don’t mind it. I let the smell take me back to another place and time; namely, the bar where we first met and first made out.

      The fluttering feeling in my gut comes back in force, the strangeness and danger and possibility of him swirling together in my heart and mind. In these moments, I experience a high of my own that makes so much of what I’m struggling with fall away. Debt might be high and resources low, but when he crushes me to his chest this way, it’s all good. A man who loves me is enveloping me in his arms. And I am all in. In retrospect, I have been from the moment we first met.

      “Love you, too,” I say back, calm and sweet, though what I really want to say is, “Maybe I should stay home and fuck?” Then I think, why don’t we? Sex has always been the perfect equalizer for us. No matter how frustrated I can get by day-to-day life with Benji, in the bedroom it all melts away.

      I glance over at the clock to see just what I’m working with. It’s enough time to unzip his pants and blow him. Oddly enough, giving him head does it for me as much as it turns him on. Seeing him utterly tantalized by something only I am capable of doing is probably how he feels when he’s putting the perfect sear on a piece of halibut as I wait for my plate at the table.

      A few moans and groans later and the deed is done. I freshen up in the bathroom and hear him say, “Babe? Can I borrow twenty bucks to cab it to Randolph Street?”

      Whatever tender moment I thought we’d just shared ends abruptly with the financial ask.

      “How about I leave you my bus pass?” Bargain with me, pal. Please.

      “I can’t exactly roll up to this meeting with Angela on a city bus. And I can’t risk being late because I had to take six different routes all over this fucking city. It’s impossible to get to the West Loop from here on public trans. You know that.”

      He’s pitching it as if he’s interviewing for a job at the Board of Trade. I thought it was just coffee with some fan?

      “Then text me when you want to go and I’ll order you an Uber. I have a credit.”

      “You’re so obsessed about money stuff sometimes,” he says. He’s correctly identified my hesitation to give him what he wants, so he’s going for the hard sell. “But when I have a very important business meeting that could take care of you and me for a really, really long time, I can’t get twenty bucks to make sure I’m there on time. I seriously don’t understand you, Allie. I really don’t.”

      Here it goes. The temper tantrum. Sometimes dating Benji is like raising an unpredictable teenager. One minute, we’re best friends. The next, he’s pissed I won’t let him ride his bike by himself to the movies. It’s hard to play mom with a guy you really enjoy fucking—and trust me, there’s no fetish there. I’ve explored it.

      Still, I wonder, how is he so good at making it seem like I’m the one who’s so goddamn—

      “You’re just being selfish,” he says offhandedly. I want to castrate him with his own paring knife. I’m not an ATM machine, for crying out loud. I’m his girlfriend.

      “Benji. I literally do not have any cash on me. You—we spent it all at Republic.” It’s the truth.

      “Well, then, I’ll walk downstairs with you and we’ll stop at the bank on the corner. It’s not that hard. And we can even get Starbucks before you head in to work.”

      A Starbucks date with your bae before work sounds so romantic and cheeky. The ironic thing here is that when he kisses me goodbye and sends me off to show up fifteen minutes late to work with a vanilla latte in hand, he really doesn’t have a clue what I do. He knows I tweet about cotton swabs but whether or not this is my dream job, how long I’ve been working there, who my coworkers are, what the watercooler drama is...those are all things that never come up. It’s almost painful how indifferent he is about the details of my career, but then I remember there probably isn’t room for two at the top. And right now, and most likely always, what Benji’s got cooking matters much more, and to many more, than my day-to-day.

      “Fine, but let’s go. We need to hurry,” I concede.

      On the elevator ride down, I think about what We can get Starbucks really means—that I’ll be buying for the both of us. But as a recovering addict, Benji’s two green-lit vices are cigarettes and caffeine—neither of which he seems to get enough of. At least three times a week, Benji wakes up in the middle of the night and brews a pot in my little kitchen. It’s like he’s a prisoner to the hankering. I almost feel bad for him. At least it’s better—and cheaper—than blow.

      * * *

      Hey @AllieSimon...you need to come pick your boy up lol, read the tweet from someone I eventually figured out was a coworker at his old restaurant. I wasn’t sure on what planet something like this warranted a “lol,” but the kid uploaded a picture of Benji curled up in the fetal position, passed out by a Dumpster. Good god, I thought.

      This took place before Benji had announced to the world that we were an item, and it was my first clue that maybe our rendezvous wasn’t so secret after all. How this kitchen worker knew to tag me in a tweet like that was equal parts unsettling and flattering.

      I ignored my phone the rest of the day, denying that this could actually be my responsibility (no, really...we’re just fucking. Call someone else!). But at around midnight, a text that woke me up became a text I couldn’t pass over.

      Can I come over? Please? Need 2 C U.

      He needed to see me. And regardless of the circumstances, I liked the way that sounded and said yes.

      When he stumbled into my unit, shaking and pale, I immediately settled him onto my couch and wrapped him in a blanket. I asked him what the hell happened, but the details were fuzzy. I’m not sure if he was being vague to spare me, or because he couldn’t recall all the gory specifics.

      “Are you high? Can you at least tell me that?” I begged for more information.

      “No. СКАЧАТЬ