Crossover Fan Fiction ❯ Monday Morning ❯ And It's Hard To Say How I Feel Today... ( Chapter 4 )

Monday Morning

And It's Hard To Say How I Feel Today…

 

Slowly…slowly, life attempted to go back to normal. Eventually, Max found that she could go to school, and somehow bite her lip and hold back her tears when she saw Meg's empty locker near hers. Eventually, Kim discovered that she could keep her household together just the same, minus the random interruptions by a certain brunette, bounding in with a pizza box and some chick flicks. InuYasha and Kaiba found that they would go to work and everything was still the same, as if people hadn't noticed the loss of life that had occurred a few months before.

There were changes however. Subtle ones as well as enormous ones. Her absence, obviously. But then there was the fact that Jack never slept in their bed anymore…he took capnaps on the couch in the living room, never sleeping through the night. How suddenly pictures that Meg would have never allowed see the light of day, but everyone else saw the beauty of were put up around every one of their homes. How now along with his compass at his belt, Jack also had the silver locket he'd given her, the chain too small and delicate to fit around his neck. Instead, he now had her rings…her wedding ring, and the promise ring he'd given her…threaded through a long chain and hanging around his neck, a way to carry her along with him always.

There was the fact that Jack hardly talked as much anymore. And there were the flowers that were constantly upon Meg's grave, always new, blossoming ones, even when the ground froze and she was covered with a blanket of clean snow.

 

Putting flowers on your grave, to show that I still care…

 

It was nearly Christmas now. In Max and InuYasha's apartment, they'd managed to set up a small Christmas tree, but neither felt like celebrating. None of them did.

It was evening now. Max sat alone in the apartment, InuYasha not back from work yet. The sun had long since set, and snow was falling softly outside the window, yet Maxine had stopped appreciating its beauty, knowing full well that it was only adding to the freezing snow on top of Meg's helpless body in the graveyard. She couldn't seem to get away from thoughts like these.

Knowing full well that InuYasha wouldn't be home until late, Max sat in the glow of the lights on the Christmas tree, getting as perfectly messed up as she could. Crack, rum, vodka…anything that she could get her hands on. The room was full of the stench of alcohol, but she knew that if she sprayed some Febreeze or something before she went to bed, InuYasha would be none the wiser. She'd done it enough times before.

Yes, Max was finding her reprieve from the pain of losing one of her best friends through drugs and alcohol, a dangerous addiction and a dangerous combination…but she didn't care. Anything to numb the pain. It kept her from the dark thoughts, the painful memories of a laughing, smiling Meg, knowing that she'd never hear her laugh again.

 

Have to try…to break free from the thoughts in my mind…

 

The apartment was filled with acrid-smelling smoke, poisonous to the lungs and watering for the eyes. Max didn't care. All that mattered to her was that the stuff she smoked, the things she drank, managed to numb the loss of losing her best friend and true sister. It wasn't even comforting to know that she had Kim left…because she knew that in the end, she'd have to lose Kim too, and it was more than she could bear. She seemed to have missed the idea that she should be clinging to Kim with all her might, spending time with each other before the ultimate end.

Instead, she chose to be numb to it all.

Max took a long drink of her rum, wiping her lips in a very unladylike fashion with the back of her hand, before leaning back into the couch pillows, her face half-illuminated by the multi-coloured Christmas lights on the tree, that were a million times more cheerful than she'd felt in a long while.

Deep down, she knew that she probably shouldn't have been complaining about her own pain. Kim was hurting too, and InuYasha and Kaiba, though probably not as much as she and her sister were. And then there was Jack…she knew for a fact that he'd set nothing up for Christmas, and refused to turn lights on anymore…she understood. The light of his life was gone, and he was determined to live in the dark until he could be with her again. The rum loving, party-going pirate who had brought Meg so much joy and love hardly smiled anymore, and never laughed. If only those back in the Caribbean could see him now…they'd never be able to recognize the hollow person he'd become.

Taking a drag of her cigarette, then adding the smoke to the haze of the air in the apartment, Max knew exactly how he felt. There was no comfort to be found anymore. There was only pain, and a terrible sense of loss.

She examined the cigarette in her hand. The end was imprinted with the black lipstick she wore, and was almost finished. She tossed it angrily into the ashtray. Everything got her angry nowadays, it seemed. Ever since…

 

And missing you is something that I thought I'd never have to do…

 

Furious at herself for letting the pain wash over her again, she grabbed a new, unopened bottle of vodka and ripped the cap off like a madwoman. She needed to stay numb. She'd never be sober again. To be sober was to feel pain.

 

It was real late that night when the gentle click of the key in the lock announced InuYasha's homecoming. When he entered the apartment, it was to choking smoke that instantly wafted out into the hallway, filling it with a gray haze. He could see the cheerful lights of the Christmas tree, and a small lump on the couch, buried in pillows, surrounded by scattered vodka bottles and two overflowing ashtrays, which contained more things than just cigarettes.

“Max,” he said, almost harshly, stunned. “What the fuck did you do?!”

She barely even moved, and her voice came like a hoarse grunt. “N-Nothin'.”

“Bullshit!” He crossed the room, tossing his keys onto the table and moving to the couch, lifting her up to look at him by the front of her t-shirt. Examining her face, he found that her eyes were unfocused and huge, she was shaking, and was pale. He dropped her back onto the soft pillows, pretty close to being completely disgusted. “You're drunk. Stoned and drunk. You're going to get yourself killed like this.”

Her voice came out slurred. “'Least I'll be wif her.”

He nearly thundered, so great was his worry-turned-rage. “Who? Meg? She's dead Max! Dead. Nothing you do, no matter how fucked up you get, will ever bring her back!”

She could barely understand him, barely even hear him. There was a hazy wall that kept her away from the outside world, but she could barely function enough to care. Besides, this is what she'd wanted. With that wall there, there was no more pain, no more sorrow.

He didn't understand. Didn't understand what she was going through.

But he kept talking. “Don't you think the rest of us aren't hurting? Don't you think we miss her? Don't you think that Jack is suffering a hell of a lot more than you are? She wouldn't have WANTED you to be like this Max, now that she's gone.”

She was able to hear that, at least, and could grunt out a reply. “She didn't want to go t'all.”

He grabbed her shoulders, forcing her to sit up and look at him, kneeling down in the debris of her bottles and cigarettes beside the couch. “She may not have wanted to, but if she had to go, she had to go, and she would want you to live your life for her Max! For fuck's sakes, make her PROUD of you!”

Max didn't listen. Didn't care. Nothing mattered except that nothing was going to be the same again. She swayed for a moment, and then fell over, passed out for the night. Pale and worried that she may have just taken enough drugs and booze to kill herself, InuYasha sat beside her with the old off-white phone in his lap the whole night, staring down at her, counting the seconds between each breath.

This had hit them hard. And he didn't know which of them was actually going to recover.

 

 

[[Song lyrics:

Gone Away by Offspring

Pale by Within Temptation

Monday Morning by Prozac]]