How to Help

“I don’t know what to do anymore.” Sierra pinched a tuft of her frizzy hair between her fingers. Split ends. Each strand ended in in a fork, with two lightning bolt fibers jutting in opposite directions.

Abandoned microwave meal packages crunched under her feet on the way to the bathroom. Sierra didn’t bother to turn the light on. She grabbed at a space on her left; she knew the conditioner would be there on the edge of the sink. Thousands of dollars flowed down her drain in the form of fancy shampoos, conditioners, and creams. None of it seemed to matter.

Sierra rubbed a blob of the conditioner in to the ends of her hair. That would at least make her hair look good for the next couple hours. Well, “good” was a stretch. It would look okay. Passable. Maybe.

Grey sunlight flickered through the glass pane in their front door. They’d chosen the door - Sierra and Rayne - specifically for the glass pane. The way the light glinted through it was meant to help one of them with… something. Sierra couldn’t remember what anymore. But so many things in this house had been chosen for that purpose, to “help.”

It’ll help to have a garden outside.

It’ll help to have individual offices.

It’ll help to have narcan in the pantry.

Sierra ran her hand across the torn wallpaper Rayne said she would replace six months ago. In front of her rested the doors to her dusty office and Rayne’s empty one. She could’ve sworn there had been a desk in there a few days ago, but then again, she hadn’t walked down this hallway in a long time. Her hand hovered over the door to her own office. The canvas inside lay blank, fresh, uncorrupted. Perhaps she could-

The doorbell rang.

So she had come home! Sierra rushed to the door, scrambling to undo the lock and swing it open.

Nothing. No one was there. Her heart sank. What a cruel prank; then she saw the package. A box peeked out form behind a dead potted plant. Right, the art supplies she’d ordered last week.

She brought them in, but left them just inside the front door. The moment was spent. The had been just about to open her office door, that creative lightness beginning to lift her heart again like a dandelion on the wind, but the package brought her crashing back to the ground at the exact same place she started. Nowhere. Alone in a house simultaneously cluttered and empty.

The kitchen beckoned her. Sierra opened the fridge. Inside rested several varieties of unprepared vegetables, raw meats, and six bottles of electrolyte water. All that was supposed to “help,” too. Something about healthy eating aiding in mental recovery, or so the doctors said.

Thinking about chopping vegetables made her tired. She ate three slices of ham and wandered back to the couch. She knew she’d be mad at herself at some future time, when she needed to make a sandwich and only had cheese. That thought surfaced in her head, she knew it was there, but she didn’t respond to it, simply letting it sink back into whatever void had spawned it.

She turned on the TV and inspected her split ends again. Still splitting. Another conditioner bound for the trash. Another day lost.

News anchors told her it was 7:15pm. Rayne was late again. A thread of anxiety wormed up from Sierra’s gut, settling in her heart. Last time Rayne stayed out more than two hours after work, she hadn’t come home for three days. Sierra glared at her phone. It lay facedown on the crumb-littered coffee table. She kept it on “do not disturb,” so even if someone had contacted her, she wouldn’t have known.

Sierra treasured the moments like this. The time before Knowing. Whatever crisis may have occurred wasn’t her responsibility yet. She could just sit here, forever, in peaceful ignorance.

No, she couldn’t. She could only wait so long before that anxiety crawled up to her brain and constricted. But picking up the phone… That could catapult her into disaster mode.

It felt like someone shoved a poker into her chest and was slowly heating it up from the other end. Sierra picked up the phone.

No text, no calls, no notifications. So nothing was on fire… yet.

A calendar alert popped up: February 14, “animal shelter.” That was supposed to help, too. Her online friends told her taking care of another creature, one fully dependent on her, would help Rayne get her act together. But at that point, wasn’t Sierra dependent enough? A whole human being relying on Rayne hadn’t been enough to change her, so how was a dog or a cat meant to fix things?

“It’s the same as those people who tell you to stay together for the kids.” She said to herself. “And another mouth to feed…”

A mouth they could afford if she sold more art.

Art she could make if she could stop worrying about Rayne.

Rayne who could get home at any minute if… if she cared enough to.

“Honey,” Sierra yelled down the hall, “If you’re out on some bender again I’m gonna lose it!”

Who was she kidding, she lost “it” long ago.

Keys jingled in the front doorknob. Sierra muted the TV. Maybe it had been a sound from the news segment; she might still have time alone to attempt productivity! Of course she wanted Rayne to come home but if she did, they’d have to spend time together and Sierra never opened her office door.

The jingle again. Was Rayne having trouble with the keys? Was she sober?

Sierra jumped out of her chair just as the door opened. Rayne stood silhouetted in the moonlight, eyes focused forward, jacket sleeves covering her arms. She opened her mouth to speak but didn’t get the words out before Sierra rushed her, hugged her. She was suddenly conscious of the clothes she’d been wearing for two days, her budding tears and Rayne’s smell, why did she smell like sweat?

Rayne flung her arms around Sierra and they held each other for a long time, with the door wide open.