Like You Better Dead

4

I almost escape the apartment without running into Lance, but just as I reach the front door, he emerges from the hallway. He isn't dressed and his hair is messily untouched, but he still makes his way toward me. He offers a small smile, one which doesn't reach his tired eyes, one I don't know how to return.

"Good, I wanted to catch you before you left for work," he says, still approaching me, as I linger awkwardly beside the door. I want to just leave so I don't have to force conversation with him after last night, so I don't have to come to terms with what Lance thinks of me or the way I come across to people. I want to leave those thoughts locked in the back of my mind for as long as I can since I tired them last night after another restless, disturbed sleep. I don't want to face them again now. Especially not to Lance.

He notices my lack of a response, because his smile drops and he stops moving. I don't know why Lance cares so much — he doesn't owe me anything, our relationship doesn't even mean anything. Yet all of a sudden, Lance is bothering to speak to me, make an effort with me. But why, if it's all because he pities me? Why would he care if he talks to me, if I know how he really sees me? Why do I matter to him now, when I've never interested him before?

"I'm sorry about how last night went," Lance tells me, sounding earnest. His true sincerity, however, is as always, up for debate. Does he mean what he's saying, or is he just following the most polite of procedures? "I just want you to know that whatever Gigi was rambling off about wasn't true," he assures me, adding a quick, half-hearted grin, "I've never mentioned anything about rabbits."

Hot embarrassment floods my cheeks, providing enough warmth to layer sweat on my skin. My stomach drops and my heart begins hammering intensely, so loudly in my ears my fingers begin to shake at the pain of it all. "It's fine, really," I'm saying, hearing my voice from what feels like miles away underwater, the pressure against my eardrums only thickening with each pound in my chest.

"Okay, good," Lance says, but he doesn't look convinced, or pleased in the slightest. His forehead is wrinkled with contemplation, his eyes still fixed directly on me in a calculating way. What he's looking for, I don't know, but his lack of relief tells me that he hasn't found it yet. "It's just if you think I said something like that... Well, I just don't want you thinking bad things about me."

Funny. I don't want him thinking that about me.

"It's fine, Lance. We're just roommates, anyhow," I'm telling him, not sure if what I'm saying is escaping from a place of vengeance or honest desire to let him pity me less. "What you share with your friends is none of my business."

"Okay, Cadence," he says softly, apologetically, defeatedly — while I have to stand and take more of his pity. "Just know that I'm sorry. I wanted you to have maybe, well, fun last night, since things have been a little stressful for you lately. And frankly, I think I just added to the stress."

"I appreciate the gesture," I reply through barely gritted teeth, annoyance somehow seeping into my thoughts at the realization that all the sudden kindness from Lance is some pity project, some random sense of responsibility he feels. "But don't worry about it. Really. I have to get to work. I'll, um, see you later."

Lance doesn't say anything as I leave, and the moment I close the door and block myself off into the hallway, I let out a sigh of relief. Of irritation. I don't want to think about Gigi, about Lance, about ever seeing either of them again — I just want it all to go away. I don't want to feel this stuck, trapped in that apartment where I'm ridiculed and made fun of and pitied. No appeal resides in the thoughts circling my mind, the endless circuits of tireless reminders of my lonely, pathetic life. People think I'm a freak. That I'm some sad creature struggling along in life, because of what? I'm a little different? A little less rich than some, a little less of a trend? A little more tainted, a little more touched by things they don't even try to understand about me?