Saturday, November 26th

75.)

I had to bake something. I simply had to. If I didn't, I would pull at my fingers or scratch at my arms or jump into the stupid ocean again. I didn't want to make my problems other people's problems. I didn't want to hide stuff and shut down or hurt anybody. You know what doesn't hurt anybody? Chocolate chip blondies.

Blossom had good dreams that night. She dreamed about space elevators and city planning and cute women in short skirts and diapers celebrating her accomplishments. They certainly weren't the kind of dreams that people might have expected of her, but they were the sort she most enjoyed. And she knew, going to sleep, that she would either wake up to the sunlight streaming in the window, or she'd wake up to the sounds of Amy's ever-present anxiety responses.

As the coin flipped in the universe's metaphysical domain, it landed on heads.

She woke up to the sounds of baking.

"I did sleep!"

Blossom had spent an indeterminate amount of time getting me away from the oven. I was still wrapping my head around everything. I tried really hard not to slip too far into the whole baking thing, but there were ten plates of blondies and another tray in the oven. Fuck.

"I did sleep," I said again, defending myself. Why? She wasn't attacking me. It just really felt like it. Fuck fuck.

"I did sleep, and I got up, and I didn't wanna go swimming again, so this was my only option! Unless you want me to hurt myself! Is that what you want?" I knew she didn't. I didn't even want to say that. Fuck fuck fuck.

"Shh, shh, hey, cupcake, it's cool, it's cool, you're alright babes, you're cool. You're not in any trouble, shh shh shh."

Blossom put her hand to Amy's cheek, and smiled the kind of smile that nobody ought to be capable of mustering so soon after waking up: bright and radiant and almost iridescent. There were some things not lost on her, like the fact that Amy was more responsive than normal, and that she noticed Blossom's existence. And that she was still wearing her night time diaper. It was good. It was progress.

I slapped Blossom's hand away because I was mad at her for literally no reason at all. Because she interrupted my routine? My routine was stupid! I wasn't doing anything anyway, and I already had three blondies, and I was already fat and ugly enough.

But Blossom put her hand on my cheek again anyway. I pushed her off me, but she didn't move very much. She was tall and strong. I was small and round and weak. Small and weak.

Blossom brushed tears off my cheeks. I didn't even know when I started crying. I wasn't sobbing or bawling or anything; just stray tears. My stomach and my chest hurt.

"I'd like to hug you, now. Is that okay, cupcake? It's okay to say no, and it's okay to say no and then to say yes. All roads lead to chill, babes. You're doing fine." Blossom was still partially asleep, but she was doing okay at dragging herself out of that mire for Amanda's sake.

"I... I dunno..." I looked back at the kitchen, but it didn't seem so important anymore. Blossom's hand on my cheek... all the things I said. I kept saying the wrong things. Guilt was filling me up like the tank on the back of a toilet. I felt like I was going to throw up.

"You don't need to know. You don't need to be okay. It's okay to not be okay."

Blossom didn't want to take the initiative without permission, but she did so anyway. She wrapped her arms around Amy and cuddled her, although she was prepared to be thrown off at any time.

I didn't throw her off. I let her hug me, and after a while, I hugged her back. When she finally let me go, I wasn't feeling so disparate. I felt like I was all in one place again, but all of me was bad. Like I was rolled around the world like a huge Katamari ball but I only picked up trash and grime. And now I was here.

"I'm sorry," I tried, but even that felt fake. If I was sorry, I would try harder.

"I forgive you and absolve you of all sins, both real and imaginary. Whatever you feel you wanna apologize for, it's cool. I forgive you."

Blossom used to be a 'why are you apologizing?' kind of girl. Here, in that moment at least, she was an 'okay, I forgive you' girl instead. Arguing didn't make sense.

Blossom sat me down on the couch and went to finish up the stuff in the kitchen. She was becoming my stop button instead of untenable exhaustion. It felt like too much pressure. It felt like I was a burden. I tried to steady my breathing, but it was hard. Everything felt numb.

"Do you want a Xanax?"

Blossom was holding out a glass of orange juice for Amy when she asked the question, and she was fine with either answer. In her field, medical intervention for overwhelming pressure and anxiety was de rigueur, as the French Friends would have said.

"What...? No..." I'd tried Xanax before, thanks to a combination of test anxiety and insomnia. That was in high school. I couldn't focus on anything. I was writing fanfiction back then, and I couldn't get more than a paragraph done at a time. It was like living in tar.

Blossom gave me the orange juice. I looked at it for a moment too long before taking a sip and setting it on the coffee table.

"What were you thinking there?" Blossom asked.

"Nothing," I sighed. Just more ways to be a nuisance.

"Remember how we talked about how you felt like you were always ready to self-destruct? That sometimes you can't do stuff right, and you wanna shield people?" Blossom was referring to the text messages they'd shared a few days prior. "I'm not gonna get hurt, alright? You don't need to protect me from you. You're doing your best, cupcake."

I was quiet for a long time. Blossom didn't say anything either. And just when I thought Blossom would walk away or something, I told her:

"I was thinking..." I exhaled. "I was thinking that I wanted apple juice instead..." But I didn't want to inconvenience her any more than I already had. She got me orange juice. I should be happy with what I get.

"Well, what if I told you that I prefer orange juice, and so I could get you an apple juice and I'd have that orange one right there. How would that make you feel?"

"Like you're lying," I said honestly, which I immediately regretted. I knew better than to be honest about some things, things that might hurt someone. I pulled at my fingers in my lap.

Blossom smirked.

"And what motivation might I have for lying to you, do you think?"

"To make me feel better?" I suggested. It was the only answer. Now I was making a liar out of her too?

"People do that a lot, don't they? Say stuff that isn't true, just to make someone feel better. And they think they're doing them a favor, but really they're just hurting their own credibility, right? I think a lot of people struggle with honesty for a lot of different reasons."

After watching Amy's eyes flicker with equal parts anxiety and doubt, Blossom leaned over to the coffee table, took the glass of orange juice, and drank the whole rest of the class in more-or-less one sip. She then got up, smiled, and went to rinse it out in the sink and filled it with apple juice.

She probably did that to prove a point. A point I made her prove. I knew my logic was conspiring; it would do anything it could to make me the villain and her the victim. And yet, I couldn't seem to find a single thought of contradiction. I knew I was wrong, and it just didn't fucking matter.

But when Blossom came back with a glass of apple juice, it was in a cup with a lid. Not a sippy cup, like you get at the store. It was one of those old plastic cups with the pop-on lids; a universal childhood experience at some relative's house you went to twice a year. Grandma? Great-aunt? I looked at it for a moment and then up at Blossom.

Blossom stared back with a knowing smile and made a gesturing motion with her hands again, daring Amy to take the cup from her grasp.

"Here you go."

I took the cup from Blossom. She didn't give an explanation or anything. She just stood there, waiting. So, with a reluctant sigh, I put the spout between my lips and sucked in a mouthful of apple juice.

I don't really know what it was. Nostalgia? Or just memories of the night before? The way the air sucked back into the cup through the spout, or the way my nose pressed against the plastic lid? Or maybe I was just thirsty. Or maybe I needed something cold, and maybe the apple juice was a little colder than the orange juice. Whatever the reason, I felt like maybe not everything was terrible. At least, this juice wasn't.

Blossom sat back down, on the edge of the coffee table, facing Amy and sitting on her hands while she rocked slightly side to side. She had a knowing smile on her face. Not mischievous, but rather that she was… satisfied.

"What?" I said, taking the spout of the not-sippy-cup out of my mouth. She was wearing that smile, that one that girls were good at. Ordinarily, that smile would draw me into wonder and abstract speculation, but everything felt too gray, too concrete. Everything needed to exist in real space, and girls - Blossom - just didn't. It annoyed me. Not because she was annoying, but because I was so incapable of understanding. Something in me was broken.

"It's just a little victory. I don't think, the first time I saw you having a panic attack, that I would have been able to get you to accept juice from me, let alone take a sip." Blossom didn't know why it meant so much to her. She didn't know why Amy meant so much to her. She didn't know why she wanted to help as much as she did. She just knew that she did.

"...yeah well... I'm glad I can be good for something."

I took another sip of the not-sippy-cup. Each trickle of apple juice made me think of church daycares, of fall-colored trees and cinnamon donuts, of thermometers that read 100 degrees exactly, of hot PopTarts, of trampolines, of birthday candles, of plastic wheels that don't turn and hamsters that don't run, of Pokémon, of styrofoam trays with five sections, of plastic wrappers, of familiar faraway songs, of bouncy balls, of whales sounds and echolocation, of warm white sheets and blankets, and of a TV show about a family of dogs.

When the cup was empty, I found Blossom in the kitchen. She was bagging up blondies in zip-lock bags. I waited until she noticed me, which took a bit. She was still wearing the same pajamas from the night before, the white plastic of her diaper spilling out of anywhere her tight booty shorts would allow. She looked cute...

"Hey cupcake," she finally said, zipping up one of the bags. "Whatcha need?"

I handed her my not-sippy-cup and she got the jug of apple juice from the fridge.