Mischa got the other girl a glass of water. While Lacey sat up to drink, Misch squeezed in right next to her and wrapped her arms around her friend's shoulders.
“Nobody is perfect, Lace. No couple. No one,” Misch stressed.
“When I got pregnant,” Lacey started whispering, “I was so happy. I'm awful, but I thought 'Ha! We did something before The Mikes, before Mischa and Mikey. I'm finally gonna be the perfect one'.”
“Wow, Lacey, I had no idea,” Mischa was genuinely shocked.
“But I wish I'd known. I wish you would've talked to me. I wish I could've …,” Lacey's voice trailed off.
“No one could have stopped me, Lace,” Misch told her.
“No. I wish I could've gone with you.”
After Lacey calmed down, they moved to the bedroom. Had an old fashioned slumber party. She had resisted since moving home, but Misch figured if any night called for it, it was that one, and she put on the long sleeve shirt that had belonged to Tal. The only physical thing of him she had left. His smell had long since disappeared, she'd washed it several times, but she liked to think she could feel him when she was wearing it.
Lacey explained that things were not well in her own marriage, but for different reasons. Bob was a heavy drinker. Lacey was an enabler. Everyone knew this, it wasn't a secret, per se, it just wasn't talked about openly.
Lacey didn't want to cheat on Bob, but she figured it had taken strength for Mischa to do what she had done. Lacey wanted that kind of strength.
She wanted to leave her husband.
It wasn't much, but Mischa offered her home. The couch was a fold out, and it would do till Lacey could find a place of her own for her and her daughter. Lacey thanked her. Practically blessed her.
When the other woman fell asleep, Mischa stared up at the ceiling. Huh. Strength. She never thought of what she'd done as being strong. She thought of it as cowardly. As weak. As cruel and thoughtless and self-centered.
But if someone could actually benefit from her fucked up mistake, then maybe she wasn't such a horrible person after all.
See, Tal? I'm getting better already.
~Is Everyone Hiding Something!?~
“Where is my shoe?”
“Milk!”
“Just a second.”
“Seriously! I just had it!”
“MILK!”
“I said, just a second!”
“I'm so fu-, er, ahhhh, -dging … so fudging late already, I need my fudging shoe.”
“MILK! MILK! MILK! MILK!”
“I SAID JUST A SECOND!”
Mischa was glad she could help her friend out, she really was, but after a month of living with Lacey and her almost-two-years-old daughter, she was ready to shoot herself. She had thought that the little girl would stay with her daddy.
Turned out little girl's daddy was a frickin' douchebag.
Mischa finally located her shoe, hiding under three baby blankets and four stuffed animals. While the screaming continued, Misch slipped on her shoe and skipped out the door, hurrying out to the bus stop.
She had been given more classes to instruct at the studio. It was nice. No, it was great. She told herself that repeatedly. She had wanted to start dancing again, and now she was finally dancing. All was right with the world.
But it didn't feel right.
Mike still wouldn't answer the phone. All communication was done through lawyers. She still hadn't gotten any of her savings back. Her mother was unthawing, but not at a very quick rate. Her father plodded along, same as always.
And Mischa just existed. She got up, she went to the studio, she danced for eight hours, she went home. She got up, she went to the studio, she danced for eight hours, she went home. Rinse and repeat. The weekends she spent at the apartment, just chilling with the girls.
I depress myself.
When she got back from work that night, she expected more of the same, but was in for a surprise. No one was home when she got there. The sofa bed had been put away. The place had been tidied up. She walked around slowly, almost suspiciously. Then her phone dinged with a message, and it was Lacey explaining that they were having dinner with her parents. She would be out late, might even stay the night at their house.
Freedom!
Mischa took out a pint of ice cream and dug into it, all while sipping Baileys straight from the bottle. When the sugar became too much, she went down the street and got an unhealthy amount of Chinese food. Ate her weight in chow mein.
She was beginning to regret her choice of how to spend the evening when someone knocked at her door.
Did Lacey forget her key?
“Thank god you're here, I may have to be rolled into the -,” she started as she opened the door. But she stopped in mid-sentence. In mid-breath. In mid-existence.
“Hi,” Mike said simply.
She burst out crying. Just zero to sob, in nothing flat.
It's been so long.
He ushered her into the apartment. Sat her on the couch before rifling through her fridge. He poured a shot of vodka into the bottom of a tumbler and handed it to her. After she knocked it back, he automatically poured her another.
He still knows me.
“I'm … sorry, it's just … been a long … long time,” she stuttered, trying to catch her breath.
“Yeah, I know. I needed time. A lot of time,” he sighed.
“Of course you did.”
“I've been seeing a therapist,” he threw out there.
“That's great. Good for you, Mike.”