“She’s not real, Jenna,” he says. “Kate is not a real fucking person. She’s just you, Jenna.”
Chapter 3
I am reeling from this conversation with Devin. Everything he says I know, but I don’t appreciate hearing about it right now. Yes, I’m bat shit insane. Yes, Kate comes into my life when I need her. I need her now. Devin is making me feel pain, and he isn’t letting me see Kate right now. I am about to cry but am interrupted by a camouflaged man putting a bowl of steaming hot noodly soup in front of me and Devin. “You enjoy now,” he barks with a thick Vietnamese accent and walks away. Instead of crying, I eat. I realize it’s been over two days since I’d had any food and I down the entire bowl ferociously while Devin just stares at me and sips. “Jesus, Jenna,” he says. “You’re not taking care of yourself.”
“Don’t lecture me, Devin,” I say. “Besides, do you want me to go back on my meds or do you want me to eat? Because we both know I can’t do both.” There’s actually a longer list of things I can’t do while medicated other than eating. Pooping, having sex, leaving the apartment, opening my mouth without looking like a St Bernard and waking up are just a few of the gems I can name off the top of my head. Either way, medicated or crazy, I’m a hot mess.
Devin scrunches up his face which is his ridiculous way of indicating that he’s in deep thought. It really looks more like he’s constipated. “You’re moving in with me,” he finally says.
I shake my head furiously. “No, not that. I need my space.” It sounds lame, I know. Devin sees right through it. “I’m just…it makes me think about…”
He nods and gives me a look that cuts me off, knowing what I can’t say to him. Living with Devin would remind me of darker days, when we lived with our dad, and then with our mom and Frank. The second part was fine, but the beginning of the story wasn’t a time I have ever decided to remember fondly. When I do, Kate comes around. She is the block between what happened in my past and me remembering. She prevents all of it from coming to the surface and drowns my past inside of the deep well I’ve managed to stuff it inside. I like it there, because I have a feeling I’d be even more screwed up if I ever brought it up to surface.
“Hey,” Devin says reaching for my hand, interrupting my broodings. “It’ll be okay. We’ll get through the funeral together. Then we’ll find you a new doctor and some medication that won’t make it impossible for you to function. Okay?” I shrug, feeling numb and just wanting to placate him for now. I know I should be touched by Devin’s devotion to me, but the reality is that I’m so fucked up that I shouldn’t even be in public. The truth is I’d have killed myself years ago if it wouldn’t ruin Devin’s life. And Devin has something to offer the world while I only dance in a cage and make rich people complain about paying for my healthcare.
When we were kids living with our mother and Frank, Devin got arrested a lot for tagging. I remember one time Frank drove Devin over to a wall under a bridge that he had gotten caught tagging one night by the cops. I was in the car, because our mom was probably home in bed after a long night of falling asleep at the bar she worked at where she spent more money than she made. Devin was there for community service, and when Frank pulled the car up to the wall, he was in shock.
“You did that, Devin?” Frank asked. Devin looked down at his hands and nodded. Frank had pretty much chewed him out to the point where Devin almost cried. And Devin never cried. Frank stared at the wall and then at Devin for a long time. Finally, Devin got out of the car and went to go paint over the wall in an orange vest so that the world would know he had done something to piss off the law.
I remember it vividly. It was a huge green and black dragon, wings spread, fire bursting all around, that made me ache, and I don’t know why it made me feel that way. He used orange, red, purple and blue and the dragon looked as though it were bursting through the wall, breaking free. It was beautiful and amazing, just like everything Devin has ever created with a brush and a surface.
Frank and I didn’t go home after we dropped Devin off. Instead, we went to an art supply store and Frank asked one of the employees there to help us find paints, brushes and canvas. When Devin came home that night, he found his new art materials waiting for him and could hardly believe it.
“I figured if we bought you art supplies you wouldn’t have to go around stealing spray paint and defacing public property,” Frank said to Devin. Devin looked grateful, and though we aren’t outwardly affectionate very often in our family, Devin looked like he could have hugged Frank, but Frank made sure to walk out of the room before that could happen. He was a stoic ex-Marine who didn’t really enjoy things like smiling, hugging or talking about feelings. My mother once told me when I was fourteen and probably not at an appropriate age to hear it that Frank pretty much just liked to “fuck and fish, and ain’t no water bed so I guess all he can do is fuck with me”. She was charming. The most affection we ever got out of Frank was a pat on the head or a display of understanding and respect like the one he gave Devin that day. Ironically, years of spray painting at night left Devin with an inability to paint or draw in full light, so he either worked outside on our back porch at night, often not sleeping before school the next day, or in the cold winter months he worked by candlelight inside. Electric light indoors, Devin said, didn’t supply the right type of ambiance. I am interrupted in my memories and I see Kate standing at the window, watching Devin and I finish our meal. She looks annoyed, as though I’ve made her wait all this time. I don’t really know how she feels about Devin because she doesn’t interact with him very much, or hasn’t in a long time.