“Yeah, yeah,” he says with a roll of his eyes as we start to lower it on the box spring.
He’s smiling though, and I know it’s because Mark is secretly looking forward to the five of us sharing a bed again. We all got very used to it toward the end there, so much so we stopped getting separate rooms when we’d stay at hotels, and sleeping that way became a comfort none of us knew we needed. It’ll be a matter of time, probably hours, before Nanny Vee brings up something that pisses Markus off and when she does, he’ll happily hop into this brand new bed even if he pretends he doesn’t want to.
“You couldn’t have had the delivery guys bring it up here?”
I stop mid grunt and stare at Mark like he grew an extra head, my eyes shifting to Norm who’s looking at us with wide eyes and a slack jaw, then finally to Pete who drops the suitcases he’s moving around before raising his hands in surrender, then back to the big bear hopefully yanking my chain.
“Are you being serious right now?”
Mark smirks at me before dropping his side of the mattress. “Of course not. I know exactly who I’m talking to and how thethought alone has your skin crawling. Just thought I’d spice things up before I gave myself a hernia moving this shit.”
Ass.
He knows, just like everyone else in this loft, the idea of havingstrangerstouching anything I’m going to sleep on makes me physically ill. I’m definitely that guy who gets to a hotel and strips the bed before getting settled in.
I’m also the guy who brings his own sheets and cleaning supplies so I can make sure any room I stay in is as clean as it could be, and I’m not sleeping on any foreign substances or materials. Playing all over the country multiple times also means touring its hotel rooms and needless to say, me and my OCD almost quit after I found what had to be jizz in the ice bucket at the very first one we hit.
Major fucking yuck.
This bed really is heavy as fuck, though. Totally worth the hard labor, my legs are going to be thrilled to have the option to stretch out without literally kicking Norm out of bed or hanging off the end while we sleep. And yeah, it’ll be good for our sexcapades, too.
After the special delivery that came in the form of a dismembered cat, things kind of came to a head.Again.
Leonor came downstairs, took one look at us, and she knew things were about to get messy. Which they did.
All hell broke loose honestly because even Mark couldn’t make things light or level enough to keep the peace, and my rational thoughts vacated once I realized the cat was leaking on the coffee table.
I demanded we all move in immediately for her safety, and man, it didn’t go as planned.
What’s crazy about all of it is the fact thatnoneof us were completely on the same page.
Leonor was definitely in denial, fighting us tooth and nail over the severity of the situation and how it didn’t require any of us moving in with her. And while the four of us agreed it absolutely did, we couldn’t agree on some of the smaller details or specifics on things. Mainly because we all know how our girl is when it comes to telling her what to do and invading her bubble.
It actually got so bad that we had to take a break and head to our respective corners for a while.
Code for Leo got pissed and marched upstairs to lock herself in the bathroom, Pete went out on the balcony and smoked about thirty cigarettes. Mark left and drove around the surrounding neighborhood for about a half hour, and Norm just sat in the hallway outside the apartment pouting. I did what I always do, and waited for Leonor.
I parked my big ass on the floor up against the wall right outside the bathroom door and waited not so patiently for our girl to come out. Then I unintentionally scared the shit out of her when she did, which led to another explosion.
One where she got incredibly vulnerable about being scared after she calmed down.
Leo and I sat against her wall for a long time, talking through a lot of what she was feeling, a lot of what all of us were feeling, but somehow never circled back to the root of things. We hashed out our feelings about her isolation, talked about how it’s ok to be afraid as well as the differences in how we coped with it before versus how we can now.
My OCDs got completely out of hand for a while after the attack, and I started having small panic attacks but only for the first year or so, and reiterating that to Leo seemed to help her get more comfortable in the conversation. She even shared she had hundreds of notebooks hidden under the floorboards in her living room from the only strategy she felt like she could use to handle things.
Apparently one of her doctors suggested dream journaling early on but she didn’t just stop at dreams. Leo wrote down every thought, every feeling, every memory, and every nightmare that ran through her head right up until we showed up at her apartment almost two months ago. And she told me she’d been writing songs.
Which of course made me want to call the guys in for a family meeting and start laying tracks, but she’s definitely not ready for that. Leonor did agree that maybe we should all start going to therapy together since all of us do or did do it individually, but we never actually touched onwhy.
I’m convinced it’s because things will be too real if Leo says any of it out loud. She’s going to have to though, we all are because if we keep dancing around the fact that we each have trauma and baggage from that awful night, we are never going to heal or get through this new shit all in one piece. And there’s a good chance letting things go unspoken will bring on another explosion.
One we might not be able to come back from.
But the talk we had was good overall, really good when it comes to Leo starting to accept that she still deserves to be happy despite still feeling so much guilt for so many things. I’m glad we’re getting there but it’s clear that Leonor is one event away from succumbing to those dark feelings, and that’s why I’m so hellbent on making sure we get everything out in the open.
She needs to hear everything the four of us went through and why we were willing to do it, how we wouldn’t change one thing about it even if it’s been the hardest thing any of us experienced. And they need to hear Leo’s side of things for the same reason. It needs to happen, and I’m not going to rest until our life is as perfect as it was before the attack because this chapter, this new phase? It’s going to be so much fucking better as long as all fiveof us accept it, and facing every part of the reality we share is a huge factor in that.
After we were done talking about the heavy and realized the boys weren’t coming up to join us yet, we took a shower. A completely non-sexy shower that was probably more intimate than sex would have made it, then went down to wait for them.
