I Think I Broke You
Characters:
Frank Fisher - Junkie
Bonnie - Muse
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“Too much is too much, Frank.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Too much is too much and you got too much.”
“What?”
“I think I broke you.”
“You broke me?”
“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but you’re fucking yourself up man.”
“No I’m not. I’m fine. I just need…something. I just need something else.”
“Frank…”
“I’m okay. I know it. I’m just…in between.”
“Frank, you don’t know anything. You don’t get anything.”
“Yes I do.”
“All you know is what I tell you.”
“That’s not true.”
“Oh, fuck you! It is too!”
“Fuck YOU, Bonnie!”
Bonnie’s eyes widen, and she SMASHES her heel into my nose. I hear a thump, a crack, a slight squeak and I’m swimming in a pool of the red stuff on a lovely starry night.
As the world fades-in she straddles my chest, pins my arms with her knees and digs through her bag.
I hock some snotty blood from my mouth, “What’s the fucking deal, Bonnie?”
“You’re such an asshole!” she says with her face in the bag.
“What’s the fucking deal?” I repeat.
Her face stays buried as she mutters, “Unappreciative fuck. That’s what you are, an unappreciative fucking fuck. You don’t care. You don’t give a shit. You don’t care, you don’t care, you don’t care. Look what I do. Look what I do! And what do I get? What do I fucking get?”
“What?” I ask.
“NOTHING!” she screams in my face.
And I’m officially scared. “Okay okay, I’m sorry Bonnie.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah, me too!” she says and yanks the bandages from my head, presses them to my nose, pulls something from her bag and slams it into my wound. It’s not the applicator. It’s something else. It feels different. It feels warm. It feels metallic. It feels strange.
“Look!” she shouts and opens a compact mirror. I see it. A light bulb. A light bulb is jammed into my head and it’s burning bright.
“Holy…”
“That ain’t fuckin’ right, Frank.”
“What the fuck is going on?”
“Your brain is pumping so much energy that this thing is about to fucking POP!”
“Holy shit.”
“You’re juicing, Frank.”
“I’m juicing?”
“Your head is a ball of crazy shit. I don’t know how much more it can take. I’m serious. If the bulb bursts you’re a fucking meat ball.”
“Bonnie, what did I do?”
“I told you.”
“You didn’t tell me this?”
She slides off my chest and I walk to the bathroom. I stare at the burning bulb jutting from my skull. She’s right. This is all kinds of wrong. I flip the lights off and the room is just as bright. My head is a power plant.
I step out of the bathroom, “Bonnie, what are we gonna—”
She hits me like a linebacker, snatches the bulb from my head and slams the applicator into its place. As she presses the button and releases the seed I stare at the shattered pieces of bulb on the floor.
The seed enters, dissolves and the flow begins.
“I fucking hate you, Frank.”
I catch my breath. “I know, Bonnie.”
“We gotta come to some kind of agreement.”
“Okay.”
“You stick with this new thing for a while. You see it through to the end. You hold onto it real tight…and I’ll keep you in a better way.”
“Why?”
“It’s something. You may not think it, or feel it, but it is.”
“Okay.”
“You slip, you try to switch, you lose it and I’ll let your fucking head burn.”
“Okay.”
“Got me?”
“Yes.”
“Promise me.”
“I promise.”
“Mean it.”
“I do.”
Face to face, she furrows her brow. She looks into my brain. She downloads. She reads the data. She doesn’t blink.
“Fine,” she says, and lays her head on my chest. The smell of her hair and the weight of her body tells me that she’ll keep me safe. My muscles relax and my breathing slows as I gently place my hands on her back. The blood from my nose gradually drips down my face and into my ear. It softly reminds me of everything she’s given me. It quietly says, You are Bonnie’s boy. Forever and ever, you will always be.