Dum Spiro, Spero
      Chapter 2  - Non Compus Mentis  
 

Damn. "I'm probably going to need that finger in the future," she ponders, absentmindedly, biting down on the knuckle that got caught between the drawer hinge and the drawer itself, as she pulled, nay... yanked it out of it's secure position in the dresser. This hunk of wood was cumbersome to say the least. But what was she to do, it was the only place left to search for the bracelet. If it was not here it was simply lost forever, and she had promised Drew that she'd ship it to N.Y. as soon as she could find the time to search the loft. Of course, she'd promised her that four months ago, when it seemed important enough for Drew to call and ask if she'd left it behind, in the hurried packing she'd done. And for four months, she'd let her down, even if Drew never mentioned it again after that first phone call. Today she would not, even if it meant waxing the wood floors with her knees, all day long. The possibility that the bracelet was not actually left behind, was simply not a possibility. It was there and she would find it, because Drew asked her to do so.

She sits, dejectedly, on the floor, canvassing the disaster area she's just created, pulling drawers out of dressers, comforters out of closets, junk out of junk drawers... for such an empty place there were an awful lot of nooks and crannies to inspect, and not one of them contained the elusive bracelet. Impatiently, she drums her fingers on the empty drawer beside her, contemplating her next move. Taking everything apart seemed easy enough, putting it back together would be far more of a challenge, one she was simply not up to. "Oh well it's not like anyone lives here anymore, this can wait," she decides, impulsively standing and brushing the bottom of her jeans free of four months worth of dust. She buries her hands deep inside the pockets of the black zip-up sweatshirt she'd dug up from the basement earlier in the day, in search of clean clothes. She hadn't worn this shirt in years, but it felt so comfortable and lived in, she couldn't resist. She laughs as she stares at her feet, what a sight she must have been, tangled hair in a half twist/half ponytail, no makeup, sloppy jeans, with an even sloppier shirt and raggedy old boots. To anyone else she'd look like a college co-ed, to her reflection in the mirror she looked like a stranger. She could no longer remember when she last dressed like a slob or like someone her own age. But it fit, it was clean and didn't suffocate her between breaths, and that's all that mattered.

She surveys the floor beneath her feet, disappointment setting in, her mission had failed. Over an hour of searching had resulted in nothing but making a mess in someone else's home. How had she managed to screw up such a simple task? Find a missing bracelet, what could possibly be so hard about that?

"It's probably right in front of me," she remarks out loud, to no one in particular, as though the heavens had parted specifically to give her that message. It all makes perfect sense, "I'm looking so hard, I can't see it, it's somewhere obvious." She claps her hands quickly together, her eyes wildly scanning the room, for an obvious spot, she had missed, her body twisting to and fro, frantic with the need to find this tiny sliver of gold.

"If I were a bracelet, where would I be?" The conversation bounces off the empty silence of the room, that held no answers. "I would be in the place my owner last took me off, and that would be in the bathroom... no I've already checked there. Where else would I take a bracelet off?" Her voice pitches an octave higher than normal, filled with an uneasy desperation. Drew would be so disappointed to know the bracelet was gone, she had to find it, for her.

She snaps her fingers, genius alighting her features. "I would take it off in bed, because I forgot to take it off earlier." She grins, proud of herself for solving the mystery, blithely walking over the crowded floor full of the mess she had made earlier, until she's within touching distance of the bed.

This bed.

Her resolve crumbles, a frown setting in place, as she stares at the hand that had reached out to that comforter, on that bed, ready to strip it bare, in search of a some small speck of gold.

She pulls her hand back, slowly, returning it to the safe keeping of her pocket. Her eyes close, shielding her from the intensity of the images that assault her visual perception, real and imagined.

It was in this bed. She and Jesse, Jesse and Drew, Drew and....

"Michelle... MICHELLE," the voice stirs her, but she cannot look away.

"Michelle, what are you ignoring me now?" His voice rests somewhere deep in her subconscious, perhaps he was not really speaking, maybe she was imagining it.

She turns slowly, a polite, empty acknowledgment plastered to her face. He looked well, standing next to an impossibly blond, impossibly tall, impossibly beautiful woman, with nice hips. "Good birthing hips," she thinks to herself, matter of factly. "They'll make it through labor," she swallows hard, burying the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, at the dreaded image of a Daniel Jr. flowing out of those hips. Who is this woman? Why should she care? The marriage is over, he is free to do as he pleases. Why does the thought of throwing up sound so appealing right about now?

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt, I was just leaving. I didn't know you were using this place for..." she muses quietly, beseeching him with her stare, "for anything, at all. I was just looking for something, I can't find it. I was just leaving. I'm going. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make such a mess. I'll clean it up later, after you're gone..." she rambles, incoherently. Her feet, take her nowhere, firmly planted in place, her conscious mind drifting out the door.

She stares through him, horror etched in every line of her face.

Fear.

She looks scared. Of me?

No, lost... she looks lost, and miserable, and scared and wrong. She looks wrong, something is very wrong.

Shit. She thinks that I'm with... shit. Good. She should. She should know I'm not waiting around for her.

No, she shouldn't. Not good.

Something is very wrong. She doesn't even hear me, she doesn't even hear herself. What is she talking about? A bracelet? The bed? Babies?

"Michelle... Michelle... will you stop. Michelle? Michelle... SHUTUP!" I roar so loudly, my neck twitches, but finally she's silent, on the verge of tears.

Wounded.

She looks wounded, and I'm the cause of that wound, of that I'm sure.



*Non compus mentis= Not sound of mind