Where does she feel stuff…..? The look at Lou is so quizzical, she has no idea what to make of it. It’s weird, to hear this question posed like this. Where does she feel stuff? And the better question is why does Lou want to know? They’ve never been the types who tend to communicate verbally– Debbie and Lou always know what the other is feeling, but its unspoken, goes just as– something. It’s just who they are.
But here’s Lou– looking at a book, glancing at Debbie. Asking how she feels about stuff.(There’s a mark that’s faint and reddish at the jut of Lou’s shoulder, and Debbie feels a wave of distressed guilt. She’s not meant to see it– the fabric of Lou’s robe covers it– but she does, and she knows she caused it, tossed in the throes of a suffocating nightmare.)
But Lou wants her to talk so, painfully, she tries to figure out how to talk about it. She taps her fingers and then snaps them in what’s a small fidget, her hands shifting to keep her body in motion.
“What feeling do you mean? If you can give me a specific one, I guess I can– try to explain where or how I feel it,” she looks down at her own body like she almost doesn’t recognize it, like she’s already preemptively considering her answers before she can make them. And the idea of understanding emotion like this– of feeling it– floods her with an anxiety all its own. She never thinks about this kind of thing, “The jury’s still out on how good I’ll be at this.”
If she told you she liked doing this, she’d be lying. Lou’s always been a private person by nature –– hell, there are exactly two people in her life who know her real name, and she’s slept with both of them –– but this one is for Debbie. Isn’t everything? She’d left a piece of herself behind the prison walls, and here’s Lou still trying to fill it with whatever she can, help them both ignore it.
Maybe, she’d been realizing, it’s time to look in it now. Neither of them want to, but the nightmares have gotten so bad that Debbie wakes her at least once a night. There’s bite marks in her shoulder, still stinging from when teeth had sunk into it while she tried to hold her still the night before –– she sees Debbie’s eyes on it and pulls the fabric of her robe overtop.
The book on her lap, one about trauma, says to not just let your feelings go cold inside you. An hour of pacing around the psychology section at Barnes & Noble, and this is the kernel of wisdom they manage to offer. Talk about it. As if that’s easy. Lou’s never had half a clue how to talk about a feeling –– what’s the good in that, say the Millers in her mind –– so this is what she has. Sensations.
“Like –– anger. In my jaw, my hands, and here.” A reach across the bed, to run her hand along the bottom of Debbie’s ribcage. “You don’t have to be good at explaining, God knows I’m not. Just –– talk, really.”
