ch. 13

Jess sits silently beside me in the waiting room of Planned Parenthood. I turn in my chair, a child who can’t help but look around, can’t help but observe what all is going on, but after a few minutes, I turn back into my chair, slumping into the back. The white walls are filled with posters about condoms and the “morning after” pill, STD testing, and birth-control. Most of these posters are full of women that look as if they haven’t had a breakout or a pregnancy scare in their lives, they’re all shiny hair and glittering eyes, not the bedraggled hair and dead-looking eyes of the women that are sitting around me. The bare wood chest that holds more magazines and a small  TV turned to the morning soaps are also posted with notices begging the patrons to turn off their cell phones, leave their purses in their cars, and, for god’s sake, to leave their children at home. I glance at this, feeling a pang in my stomach, and sit forward quickly, biting back a groan. Jess leans forward with me, patting my back, as I grasp my stomach, gritting my teeth against the contractions that the internet has assured me are just my uterus expanding so that I can give birth. I sit back up, glancing around at all of the patrons who are either studiously ignoring me or are staring openly right at me. “That was a bad one.”

                A woman, skinny and blonde with fake nails and a Playboy bunny wallet sitting on her lap, leans forward and smile at me. “Honey, I’m sorry, but I’ve been wondering how old you are. I mean, you look so young!” she smiles, as if this was just the supermarket line that we were waiting in. I glance over at Jess who is giving the woman a deathglare, and try to smile through the pain.

                “I’m nineteen.”

                “Oh, wow! You look so young! Well, I guess that’s a good thing, though. At least when you’re fifty or sixty you won’t look that way.” She chirps, “So, are you here for the pill or the surgery? I mean, I’ve had the surgery before but, luckily, I caught this one early enough that I could just take the pill and go home.” She smiles, as if we’re talking about something trivial: who’s dating who in Hollywood (as if anyone really cares) or how often we’ve seen the newest Ashton Kutcher film.  I look at Jess, begging her to save me from this conversation, but at that moment, a nurse comes out to call a group of us back. I hand Jess my jacket and wallet, and wave to her byebyei’mgoingtofollowmr.tambourinemanwhereeverhemaygo.

                The room that she leads us into is a small, glorified closet, with whiteasylumwalls and three fold-up chairs set up in front of an old-fashioned TV and VCR player. We file in and take our places on the chairs, watching the nurse walk around, popping a tape into the VCR player, all the while avoiding our eyes. She walks out, closing the door behind her, and we’re left in semi-darkness in the room, the glow of the blue screen of the TV our only light. Then the show really starts.

                The video is about the abortion, or “surgery” as they call it. It goes through what happens when the woman gets an abortion, and the exact procedures used in both the surgery and in the pill. Halfway through, as the pretty, petite Asian girl is talking seriously to her doctor about how much it will hurt, I get up trappedanimalinabaglookingforawayout I hold my mouth, feeling like I’m about to throw up everything I have ever eaten since I was born, and glance around futily for a trashcan, something to throw up in. I run to the door that the nurse disappeared into, banging on it like a mad woman until she opens it, and run past her, down the hall, into a small office, then kneel over a trashcan throwing up and retching into it until she taps on my shoulder, hands me a wet paper towel, and grimaces at me not wanting to even look at me. “Sucks doesn’t it?” she asks, helping me up. Then she turns away, “You need to go back and finish the video. I put a trashcan in there, but you can’t leave again.” I nod, weakly, and walk back into the room, greeted by all three pairs of eyes glancing at me, wondering what was wrong with me, why I had to leave.

                I sit back down, ignoring them, and stare off into the distance, the trashcan close by my side so that I don’t have to run anymore. There is a solid, thudding beat in my stomach, like I’d just swallowed a bassdrum mybabyhittingtheinsideofmystomachtellingmethatshedoesn’twantmedoingthisidon’tneedtodothisshedoesn’twantmedoingthisnoonewantsmedoingthis. When the movie is over, someone else gets up and walks to the door, knocking on it until the samenursewithcoldhardeyes opens the door, herding us out backintothewaitingroomlikeaherdofcattlelikewe’realljustfatheiferswaitingtobeledaroundlookingaroundwithbigdumbeyes. I flop into the chair beside Jess, feeling tears prick the back of my eyes and poke her in the arm, shaking my head no and pointing to the door. She nods, gets up, helps me up, and walks to the door. “Take me to Lee’s please?” I whisper, slouching in the seat.

                I’m curled up on Lee’s bed, staring out of the picture window that is across from his bed, the one that always drives me crazy because it gets so bright first thing in the morning, in fetal position under his quilt. He sits, ashen faced, in his desk chair, his best friend Mika and Jess both sharing the beanbag chair that I bought him for his birthday last year. The sky outside is overcast and gloomy, reflecting my mood, as I stare into the clouds. We’ve been in almost-total silence since I got here, wrapped up in Jess’ sweatshirt, her standing behind me to make sure that I didn’t fall and passout of something.

                “So…you couldn’t do it?” he asks, breaking the silence. Jess makes a harsh, hissing sound through her teeth and even Mika looks up quickly, shooting him A Look. He glares at them, “I wasn’t saying that she should have, I was just asking a question. Jeez, guys!”

                I roll off of the bed, “No, I couldn’t do it. I can’t. I don’t know what we’re going to do, but I can’t have that done.”

                I’m laying in Lee’s bed, his arms wrapped tightly around my waist, his breath hot in my ear as he blows out all of the badness, all of the nightmares and the shit that he has dealt with today, breathing in a peace that comes with sleep and the feeling that you can do anything that your heart desires when you are asleep. I sigh, watching the  darkness out of his window, staring at the passing car lights that come off of the highway until I see spots before my eyes. I can’t sleep, my stomach is upset as usual (why in the world do they call it “morning sickness” when it goes on all damn day is what I want to know. You can tell that phrase was thought up by a man.) and I keep getting up, slipping carefully out of the embrace that Lee has locked me into, and walking back and forth, pacing the floor in the effort to make me sleepy. Suddenly, there is a  sharp pain between my legs, it hurtsithurtsithurts like a knife is being shoved up into my uterus and twisted around. I let out a soft gasp and fall to my knees, pushing my face into the carpet and biting my lips. Then, suddenly, it’s gone. I rub my stomach in small circles, “Damnit, why can’t you not do that?” I whisper, feeling the soft beat against the inside of my belly (or maybe I’m imagining it, I’m sure that it wouldn’t surprise anyone if I was.) I crawl over to the desk, helping myself up by pulling on the side of the chair and hauling myself up slowly inchbyinch, then plop down onto the leather seat, leaning back against the wood and exhaling.  I sit, staring out the window, until I notice a pad and a pen laying on top of the desk, and then notice that I’m staring at them. I pick up the pen, clicking it and pressing it into the paper, hard enough to leave an indention leaving a mark without leaving a mark at all.  Then I started writing.

                The next night, I am back in my bed, alone. I lay on my side, picking the paint that had dried onto my nails off, scraping my arms with my nails to get the stubborn oil paints that I loved so much off of my skin, leaving only the vague stains of reds and yellows and blacks that are the most often-used paints on my palette.  My phone is still buried somewhere in the deep, dark recesses of my bag, flung over the post at the end of my bed but I’m too lazy to get it. Lee is off somewhere having “guy time” with a group of his friends and I learned long ago that any conversations we had during or after “guy time” were never good and would only make one of us pissed at the other the next morning. I get up, pulling out the painting that I had finished two nights ago and had replaced in the studio with the one that I just finished.  looking around, I decide that the place right above my bed would be the best for my painting of a traditional Hindu protection charm. I’m standing on the flat, soft mattress of my bed with pushpins hanging out of my mouth when I feel another sharp pain, as sharp and painful as the first time, that brings me to my knees. I’m gasping for breath, and finally catch it, feeling cold fear that feeling of somethingwickedthiswaycomes grabbing into my heart with its sharp fangs and taking a hold that can’t be broken. Deciding that my painting can wait until morning, I pull it off the one thumbtack that I have it up by and set it onto my computer chair, slowly laying on my back and sliding my jeans off, then curling up under the covers and drifting off to the (somewhat) comforting sounds of Garbage playing out of my iPod sitting on the edge of my desk where I set it when I came home.

                My phone is ringing. And ringing. And ringing. Deargodwhoseideawasittoputaringtonefullofscreamingpeopleontomyphone?Theyshouldbekilled,theyshouldbeshot,theyshouldnotbeallowedtosurvivedeargodcanwekillthemcan’twekillthemallrightnow?Oh,waitthatwasmeitwasmybrightideatorecordabunchofusdrunkandscreamingatthephoneandputitasaringtonewhoseringtoneisthat?whoseringtoneisthat?ishouldrememberwhoseringtonethatisi’mtheonewhosetitishouldrememberishouldrememberican’trememberican’trememberohshitican’tremember. I sit bolt-upright in the bed, eyes wide open and dive for the bag at the end of my bed, almost taking a nosedive straight off the edge into the carpet and dig frantically for my phone. It continues screeching at me, almost monotonously, making me feel a little bit crazy but all the more desperate to find it. Finally I grab it, punching the “talk” button and gasping, feeling the edge of the bed cut into my stomach and the baby screaming in protest. “Hello? Hello? Baby, are you still there?”

                The speech is so badly slurred that it sounds like something not even human. I listen carefully, trying to make sense of what he is saying, but can’t.  finally there is the sound of a scuffle, the clunk of a phone being dropped onto the floor, and the swearing of someone trying to find a dark phone on the dark floor of a dark bar. Finally: “Hey! Hey, Lil, you still there?” Mika’s voice is still slightly slurred but at least it doesn’t sound like some alien gibberish out of a Stephen King movie.

                “Hey, Me, yeah, I’m still here. What’s wrong?”

                “Um…we got a little situation here. Are you at home?” There is a distinct retching noise in the background and I can hear Mika groan, “Dude! Not the seats! I just got these seatcovers! Shit!” there’s a muffled noise in the back that sounds like a very drunken apology followed by more retching. “Lil, you gotta take care of him. He’s already barfed in my car, like, three times, and if he throws up in the house my mom’s gonna kill both of us.” I groan and he makes an odd barking I’m-trying-not-to-laugh-because-it’s-not-funny-but-it-still-is noise. “Just think of it as practice for the baby.”

                “Oh, great, I’m just caring for an almost-twenty-year-old baby.” I roll my eyes. “Ok, Me, just bring him over. But don’t ring the doorbell; Mom’s asleep and will kill me if she gets woken up. I’ll be in the living room so I’ll see y’all pull up.”

                Twenty minutes later, I’m sitting in the living room holding a cup of coffee and nibbling on the plate of toast that I should be saving for Lee (but, Damnit, this pregnancy makes you hungry. All. The. Fucking. Time.) waiting for Mika to bring him in. finally, I see the lights on the front of his car pulling up in the driveway, flashing twice, and then shutting off. Quietly, I get up and open the door, ushering them both inside. Under Lee’s sweatshirt, I’m hugging myself, upset at him for doing this to Mika and me.  Mika is trying to support Lee (who has six inches and about thirty pounds on him) and is stumbling to the couch as if they are both drunk. He lays Lee out, pulling the blanket draped over the back on top of him and I walk slowly over, pulling the trashcan that I had brought down from my bathroom in front of the couch and positioning Lee’s head so that he wouldn’t have to move very far to get to it. Standing up, I smile at Mika, who is standing by the door, clearly uncomfortable with this whole situation. “Thanks for bringing him home, Me.”

                “No prob, Lil. If you need anything else just let me know.”

                The next morning, when Lee opens his eyes, I’m sitting cross-legged on the floor, leaning up against the  fireplace reading 101 Names for Your Baby. “So, I’m thinking Cecillia Marie if it’s a girl and Aiden Conrad if it’s a boy. What do you think?” he stares at me, dumbfounded, his red eyes rimmed and drooping into his face like an old basset hound, his mouth hanging open. I nod to the table. “I brought you coffee and toast. Eat something and drink some coffee, ok? I need to go  get dressed.” I get up, walking over and kissing him lightly on the top of his head and heading up the stairs.

                Everyone says that pregnancy is the best you will ever look. Your hair gets glossy and always looks good, your skin is glowing and your chest is full. When you put all of these things, on top of a prominent belly, onto an anorexic-looking girl, the result is always comical. Since I’m so small now, there is really no way to hide what is going on. Pulling on my t-shirt, I stand sideways, looking in the mirror, and groan. “Shit! This was the absolute last shirt that I had that actually fit!” Lee, laying on my bed and staring up at the ceiling, laughs at me. I tear the shirt off, throwing it at him. “It’s not funny, Damnit! Not one of my bras fits anymore.” I turn to face him, showing him, “See? My boobs are spilling out of the damn top of it and over the sides! Jesus Christ, I’m not even four months pregnant; how much worse is it going to get when I get into the later time?” 

ch.12

Lee and I are alone, totally and completely alone, for the first time in weeks, if not months. Mom is going out of town for some meeting in Jacksonville and was leaving me home alone all weekend. Most kids would be having a huge party (I hate loud music and messes), inviting all of their friends (which is currently up to a whopping three people) and drinking and smoking pot all weekend (I hate the taste of alcohol and pot makes me break out in hives). So, Lee came over, throwing his bags onto my bed like he belonged her and had been here all the time, like he’d just come back from his own trip, and curling up on the couch with me, watching re-runs of Vh1 news and laughing at the utter stupidity of the newest whereverthehellthey’refrombecauseyouknowthey’renotallfromwheretheyclaim housewives. It was getting close to nine o’clock, and my head was lolling on the back of the couch against Lee’s arm. I grab his collar and pull him down on the couch on top of me, like he was just another afghan hanging on the back of the couch, and rolled onto my side. He kissed my neck, smiling at me and I pull him down further to kiss me on the mouth. He laughs, his hands roaming up my shirt, and I jump “Damn your hands are cold!” I whisper. He sits up, rubbing his hands together and then slides them back up. I smile, choking out a short barking laugh and nod “Much better.” His mouth finds mine again, and I run my hands up his back to the point where his shoulderblades meet, grabbing and holding on for dear life, feeling adrift on an ocean, the rocking of the waves rocking, rocking me to sleep.

                The light is too bright. Why the hell is the light so bright? What time is it? It can’t be that late- I always wake up insanely early and roll over, even if I just turn back over and go back to sleep again. I roll over onto my side, seeing the problem-my curtains are open. Again, why the hell are my curtains open? I never keep my curtains open! Didn’t I pull them shut last night? That’s one of the things that I’m insanely OCD about that Mom teases me about all the time. Groaning, I roll back over and bury my face in my pillow. Wait, this is too soft to be my pillow. What the hell? I shoot up, looking next to me, and see two beautiful blue eyes staring back up at me- Lee’s awake. “Mornin’ baby.” He whispers, wrapping his arms around my back and squeezing lightly.

                I clear my throat, feeling the scratchiness that I’ve become accustomed to in the morning move up and down with the tightening of my throat. “Hey.” I manage to choke out. “How did we get up here?”

                “You fell asleep. We were on the couch and you went into this trance about half-way through and then fell asleep right after.” He laughs, “I thought that only guys were supposed to do that. But I carried you up the stairs and tucked you in.  Did you sleep ok, baby?”

                I nod, smiling, and getting up. “Yeah, do you want some breakfast?”

                He smiles, closing his eyes and stretching, “You sure that you don’t want me to get it, baby?”

                “No, honey, I got it. You just come downstairs in a bit and I’ll have it ready, ok?”

                He nods and I get out from under the covers, walking out and softly shutting the door behind me, ducking into the bathroom faster than a fifteen year old buying condoms who just saw her pastor walk into the store, and, strangely, with just as much guilt weighing my shoulders down.  I pee, feeling oddly sticky and wet between my legs; before I can stop it, the weight drops into my stomach, a twenty pound medicine ball that literally brings me to my knees before the toilet, retching and coughing into it. I get up, letting the lid fall, and stand in front of the mirror, my face white as a piece of notebook paper, my eyes so huge in their sockets that it looks like they could fall out at any moment. I push my hair behind my ears in some vague attempt to fix it, and open the door, poking my head into the bedroom. “Baby?” I ask, quietly, to Lee’s naked back, digging under the bed in the search for his boxers.

                “Yeah, babygirl?”

                “Um…we did use…something last night, didn’t we?” I ask, trying to keep my voice from shaking and digging my nails into my palm. The skin screams in protest, but I keep digging my nails in, willing myself not to freak out.

                He turns around, smiling, the smile faltering for a second when he sees my face. “No, baby, we didn’t.  But it’s fine, right? I mean, I pulled out, so you shouldn’t get pregnant.”

                I nod, willing myself to smile back until I can turn around. “Ok.” I reply, trying to make my voice light, “its fine, hon. No big deal.” I turn around and walk slowly down the stairs, peeking into the living room where our clothes are scattered all over the floor. I unwind my underwear from the legs of my jeans, pulling them on, and grab Lee’s shirt, pulling it over my head, then walk into the kitchen, willing myself to keep the bile that was rising up in my throat from coming up all over the hall rug. In the kitchen, I shut the door, turn on the water of the sink, and throw up, watching the water wash it down the drain, downdowndown into the center of the earth.

                Mom’s car crunches on the gravel of the driveway, but I stay on the couch, staring at the faces of Ren and Stimpy laughing on the TV in their wonderful cartoon world where no one had problems, there was no death (and if there was, then the character came back within the next ten minutes; I guess it was some kind of rule that no one dies in cartoons), no unplanned pregnancy, nothing that would upset or confuse the kids that were watching it on Saturday morning, stuffing their mouths with Sugar Coated Sugar Bombs and looking forward to nothing more than going to play at the park later that afternoon while Mommy was shopping for groceries. I can’t meet her at the door; I can’t tell her what happened, because I don’t even know what happened. If I met her at the door, she would know that something was up, and that it was big. I’ve always hated- in books, in movies, in anything-where the Tragic Heroine finds she’s pregnant with Someone Else’s Baby and she can’t possibly have it and then give it up for adoption, so, of course, she is left with the dreaded word: abortion. And, of course, because “God is punishing her for her crimes” (even though, no one will say exactly what those crimes are…we’re just supposed to accept that she is being punished for her crimes) she dies- or almost dies- after having the abortion, and spends the rest of her days regretting her decision, or living in unimaginable agony, or going to a Home for Ruined Women.

                She walks in, dropping her bags on the floor, smiles at me in the reflection in the TV. “Hey, baby, did you have a good weekend?” she leans over, smelling like her lotionshampoothecoffeeshedrankonthewayandtheleftovermakeupfromdinnerlastnight, and I lean back into her chest, smiling.

                “Yeah, Momma. What about you?” I ask, and she kicks off her shoes, sitting down cross-legged on the couch and pulling the afghan over her legs.

                I’m laying in bed, not wanting to get up quite yet. I’m scared. No, scratch that, I’m terrified. This is not what I wanted, this is not what I needed, this is totally not what I expected. I’m scared to get up and dig in my purse, scared to do anything that might hurt or help. How do people procreate without worrying themselves to death? Staring at the ceiling, I talk myself into it, pushing Miranda into the back of my mind. She will not screw this up, she will not screw this up, she will not make me do anything that could hurt me now. I stand up, the steps to my purse sitting on the edge of my chair taking forever to get to, and slowly walk to it, digging in my purse and pulling out the crinkly plastic bag that I smuggled in pushed in the veryvery bottom of my purse under my extra tampons and my iPod. Walking into the bathroom, I pull out my cellphone and watch the clock, reading the directions in the prettypinkbox (which, if you think about it is a tad bit sexist.) and pulling the stick out to pee on.

                One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, I’m counting slowly, trying to make myself breathe in and out. A blue wave slowly slides across the two windows, making my breath catch: that’s the control. The pink line slides into the second window, and slowly, so slowly, too slowly slides into the first window, and I start to breathe again. Until the second line slowly starts down, sliding across the first. A cross. The plus sign. Holy shit.

                I sit down heavily on the floor, trying to keep breathing as I pick up the test and put the purple top back on it. Breathe in, I tell myself, putting the cap back on and tucking the box into the very bottom of the trashcan. I sit back against the cabinets, suddenly feeling lightheaded and nauseated. I wrap my arms around my stomach and sit there until the little part of my brain that actually makes sense most of the time pipes up, standing on top of my brain and waving her arms to get my attention. Hey! Idiot! Breathe out! You’re going to pass out if you keep doing that! I let out my breathe and the lightheaded feeling dissipates instantly, leaving me to gasp, laying on my side on the bathroom floor. I lay on my side, watching the air go out from under the bathroom door, the dust that has settled against the floor and baseboards being sucked out and then pushed back in.  Minuteshoursdays later, I hear the front door open and slam closed: Momma is home. She pulls off her heels, dropping them on to the hardwood floor of the front hallway, and starts toward the bathroom in her stocking feet.

                “Baby? Are you home, Lilli?” she calls, and I sit up, pushing the test into the wasteband of my sweats, pressed tight between the skin and the fabric, then taking a quick glance around the bathroom to make sure that nothing was out of place.

                “Yeah, Momma. I’m in the bathroom. I’ll be out in a second, ok?” I call, getting up and flushing the toilet, then running the water in the sink to make her think that life was just going on like normal, hoping that she couldn’t see in my eyes that everythingwascrashingdownthewallswerecrashingdowntheworldwascrumblingdownaroundme, just trying to act like I normally would, but I can’t even manage to do that.

                “Jesus, Lil, what are you going to do?” Jess’ eyes grow huge as I tell her what has happened, leaning over her coffee the next morning at McDonald’s. it’s still dark outside, and all of the elderly men and women are crowding around the counter, trying to get themselves heard and glaring at the two teenaged trouble makers that are sitting in the corner. Jess is home for the weekend, or at least that’s her story to Lee and her parents. In reality, I called her last night as soon as I knew Mom was asleep, huddling in my closet, pulling my sweatshirt around me, and told her, and she had gotten in her car and driven over to see me. My hair was pulled back in a sloppy ponytail, hers brushed down around her ears, an old baseball cap pulled over the bare spots so we didn’t freak the old people out too much. I kept staring at her coffee, feeling myself getting sleepy again, until she tried to pass it to me, but I push it back at her, feeling nausea creep up from my stomach everytime anything go too close to my nose. Plugging my nose, I took another bite of my sausage biscuit, trying to chew and swallow without gagging.

                “I don’t know yet, Jess. I mean, I’m terrified. I’m terrified and moody and everything hurts!” I make a face. “And I don’t even know how or if I’m going to tell Lee. I mean, I’ve been putting it off until I know what I want to do.”

                “Well, don’t you think that he’s going to notice when you gain twenty or thirty pounds and your boobs get huge?” she ask, taking a long slurp of her coffee.

                “Well…I was hoping that it wouldn’t get to that.”

                I had never seen anyone- except people on TV, of course- do a spit take, but Jess did. She held a napkin up to her mouth, wiping away the coffee that was dripping out of her mouth as I tried to mop up the table and dabbed at the spots on my jacket. “You mean….”

                I shrug, “I don’t know yet. I’ve been researching all the options. You know, there are ways to do it naturally….”

                “But those don’t work unless you’re less than three months. Do you know how far you are?”

                I count backwards quickly “About two months…maybe close to three. I’m not sure exactly.”

                “Then you need to not put all your faith in that, Lila. Believe me, there was this girl in my Psych class last semester that had an abortion- you know, the surgical one, not the pill because you wouldn’t be able to get the pill this far along- and she was completely mentally fucked up afterward. I mean, baby, you gotta admit you’re not the most stable person without that on your mind, too.”

                Miranda pops into my mind and I shudder, “Yeah. I know. But, really, I don’t know if I trust myself with a baby. I mean, you’ve seen me do some pretty wicked things to my body, but now I’d have a baby to deal with, too.”

                “Well, if you had Lee and your mom and me, I’m sure that you wouldn’t do the same things. You know that if Lee knew he got you knocked up he would be the happiest guy in the world and would kill you before he’d let you kill his baby.”

                “wouldn’t that kind of defeat the purpose, though?” I ask, smirking.

                She rolls her eyes, “You know what I mean, Lilla. C’mon now, you don’t have to be a smart-ass about it.  But anyway, you don’t think that your Mom or Lee is gonna notice when you have to work to not gag when you’re eating?”
                “Nope, I think they’re used to that.”

                “Ok, well what about your boobs?” she motions to my ever-expanding chest, “There’s no way that you’re going to be able to strap those udders down much longer.”

                I shift a little, “I can’t strap them down now! Do you know how much it hurts to even have a shirt on right now?!” I grimace, “I haven’t been able to wear a bra in at least two weeks.”

                Jess laughs, “Well, that’s one way to get Lee’s attention. But, don’t you think that he’s going to notice if there’s something kicking in your stomach in a few months?”

                I roll my eyes, “You know, I hate it when you make sense.”

                She raises her coffee cup in a mock toast, “And that is why I’m here.” 

ch. 11

Everyone says that graduation is supposed to be the “closing of a chapter and the beginning of another” but, in my opinion, it’s just stupid. My brother, Jason, didn’t walk- of course, we were all just happy that he made it through high school, much less if he walked across the stage to get his diploma or not. But, of course, that was during The Transition, the time that I was in the middle of moving into Mom’s house and was a total and complete wreck. He didn’t want The Nightmare there either, so he just had his diploma mailed and, when it came, went out to dinner.  It’s been too much work to get here- not the school work, because that has never really been a problem, but the physical paperwork that you have, the loose ends that you have to tie up to get out of high school. I had spent most of the last month running around school with the other Seniors, a freshly printed checklist of the things that we had to get done in hand, a red pen to check each thing off in the other, going from the office to the library, from classrooms to get our final grades and any assignments that we had missed, to our homeroom, time after time after time, to get fitted for graduation robes and hats, to fill out the paperwork and get our seating charts. It had been a tough month, trying to get all of this done when the college acceptance letters had just started coming in, and the rumors of so-and-so having sex in the limo on the way to prom and her being two months pregnant were starting to surface. Many of the girls were getting their robes a size or two big in order to try hiding their growing bellies beneath them, trying to just pull the farce over the eyes of the administration in time for them to get across the stage and get that piece of paper that frees us from the horrors of high school and throws us into the party-hearty atmosphere of college.

            The gym is filled to the point of bursting, families, friends, and classmates running around in the same eddies that they have been drifting in for the last four years, spots of blue standing out among the regular clique uniforms of Aeropostal, American Eagle, and Abercrombie and Fitch. Girls teeter on their four inch heels, fixing their pearls and makeup, boys tugging on the ties that they can’t help but hate and wish they could take off. Mothers and fathers stand around in the typical “graduation pose” (one parent flanking the graduate) for the pictures that will grace their desks at work for the next five or ten years, alongside the ones of their new grandchildren, and marriage announcement photos. I push through the crowds, Lee holding my hand in a Deathgrip so that I don’t get lost and pushed into one of the “friend” photos that you feel that you have to get into just so that you aren’t rude, until we finally spot Jess, standing with the graduation photographer right beside the double doors to the outside, passing him a cigarette, with the one that she will smoke tucked behind her ear. Her hair is a higher Mohawk than she would ever be able to get away with at school, but the teachers, preoccupied with getting robes fixed and making the boys and girls keep away from each other, drift right by her- so, really, it’s not that much different from a regular school day- and her robe is folded neatly over her arm. She turns and grimaces at me, shaking it. “They’re going to make me wear it! Even though I made a point of telling them that it was just another way that they were sucking the individuality out of us all and trying to make us into just another nameless face in the crowd.”

            “Wow, they didn’t get the significance of that statement?” Lee joked, nodding to the photographer who, getting uncomfortable that he was standing around, smoking with an underaged girl and her friends, nodded and hurried out to wrestle people into taking “candid” shots for their overpriced graduation packets.

            “NO!” she exclaimed, angrily. I pull the cigarette out from behind her ear, sticking it in her mouth and pulling the lighter out of Lee’s pocket, lighting hers up, then taking one from the pack she always kept tucked into the top of her combat boots, lit that up, too, handing it to Lee. 

            “I’m going to pretend that I’m not seeing this.” Mr. Abrams, the headmaster, mumbles as he walks in the door past us, “But if you two aren’t done with those in three minutes, then we might not let you walk.”

            He turns and Jess makes a face at his back, taking a deep drag on her cigarette. “Just because I need controlled substances to deal with this pack of fucking morons doesn’t mean that I should have my diploma withheld.” She mutters. “I should get a fucking medal that I haven’t killed these idiots in this last four years!”

            The graduation photographer- not the tall, thin, older one that was smoking with us, but a short, fat, old man with grey hair and a purple vest and bowler on- herds us onto the front steps. “Ok, everyonelookhappylookexcitedlooklikeyouwanttobehere!” he yells to us, moving everyone around so that we could all be lined up shortest to tallest, just as we have been lined up since before we could even remember. “Put out your cigarette please!” he calls, and Jess glares at him. “Ok, kids, now let’s scooch a little closer to each other, act like you like each other!” he calls, crouching down behind the camera, looking through it, getting up, moving someone over, getting back behind the camera, and calling out “On three! One….twooo….three!” Jess raises her two middle fingers, her cigarette hanging out the side of her mouth, while Lee pulls me onto his shoulders and I raise my two fingers to the sky, too.

               

            There are some times that Mom just doesn’t understand. She doesn’t understand why I dress like I do, why sometimes I fly off the handle over the most seemingly trivial things, why there are some days that I can be fine until someone just makes one comment too many and I bite their heads off. She doesn’t understand why I sleep with my nightlight, or why I close and lock the door when I take a shower, or why I hate when she walks in on me when I’m getting dressed. I’m a very temperamental person, she always explains to others, but she doesn’t seem to understand me at all sometimes. Over Thanksgiving, I had gotten up early, meeting the sun on my run around the block, greeting its cotton candy pinkness with my sweat and tears, pushing through my own pain in my effort to meet its utter, pure beauty. I came in, quietly, holding on to the jamb of the front door to keep it from squeaking, and was on my way to my room when I heard the familiar clink of glass on ceramic- the noise of coffee pouring. I crept to the door leading from the living room into the kitchen, right where they could see me if they looked into the mirror front of the microwave, but that if they turned around, all they would see would be the white painted doorjamb.

            “You know, Dad, sometimes I just don’t understand.” Mom was sitting at the table, her morning coffee in front of her, running her hands through her hair.

            My Grandpa turned another page of the newspaper, snorting, and took a sip of his orange juice. “Well, honey, sometimes we’re not made to know everything.”

            “But it’s like she’s a totally different person. Like she’s not the sweet little girl that I had. There are sometimes that I can still see bits and pieces of it, but it’s like there are parts that are just missing. I mean…this food thing. Where does that come from?” she sighs, taking a long sip of her coffee. “I just don’t understand. The other day, I was sitting there and asked her about lotion that was in her bathroom and she just had a fit! Not a teenager fit it was a six-year-old going to her room and slamming the door and screaming like a banshee fit! I just don’t understand it. And it’s not just me, she does this to her boyfriend, too! It’s like she has these times that she just hates everyone and doesn’t want to be human anymore or something.”

            I sighed, looking up at the microwave clock. 7:02. Time to get ready for church. Tears prick at the back of my eyes as I walk slowly (more like limp) into the bathroom and turn the shower on high, as hot as I can take it.  Getting out, I slowly brush through my hair, taking care to put conditioner on the ends like Momma had taught me when I was little and slowly running a flatiron down it to straighten it out. Taking my time, I button up my shirt, taking care around my rib bones poking through my skin and the scabs healing up on my arms and collarbones. I pull myskirtmylastskirtthatfits on, tucking my shirt in and pulling the suspenders that I hijacked from Grandma and Grandpa’s old house over my arms, tipping the fedora that I found with Lee at the thrift store years ago, at a jaunty angle over my eyes.

            My heels crunch over the stones in the church parking lot, filled with couples who, within the hour, will be dancing around the aisles “een tha pawahful, mercahful naehm of Jey-sus” to the sounds of the “mercy band”. This was the southern Baptist church; welcome to the circus, where, if you aren’t careful, you can end up saved. We walk in slowly, my hand tucked in the crook of Grandpa’s arm, stopping to talk to all of the couples that we have known since before Mom was born, catching up on the monotonous small talk that I had grown accustomed to- even if it still made me crazy. We walk in to the main chapel, Grandpa disappearing into a door set into the wall to change into his choir robes, and Grandma herds us into the pew closest to the front, where all the little old pink haired ladies sit gossiping and talking, daggers cloaked in taffy coming out of their mouths.  We settle in and Grandma turns around, talking to one of her “Oldestanddearestfriends” about the weather (“it’s been hot as blazes these last few days! I do hope that handsome new weather man on Channel five is right and we’re going to get some rain later this week!”) , her grandbabies (“Well, Joshy is doing so wonderful! He’s going to be graduating soon and already has his acceptance letters from Montevallo and Auburn, but poor thing he’s just praying and praying for that letter from LSU. Too bad Jamie has gone by the wayside. You heard about her, of course, running off with that black boy! Well, it just made me happy that her Grandpa is dead because that would have just killed him! We still pray that she’ll find her way back to our precious Jesus soon.”), her husband (“dead twenty years but still in the front of my mind every single day”) and any other trivial thing that pops into her head as she’s sitting at home, watching her bunions grow and her family die off one by one.

            “Now that is just a disgrace!” she whispers, harshly. “Your poor granddaughter, she must be in such turmoil! To dress so unladylike, it’s just horrible! Marilynn, you really should do something about it!” she whispers, poking me in the back with her nails, filed to sharp points like dragon’s talons. I bite the insides of my lips, slouching down in the pew and staring at the preacher, biting back snarky comments about his new toupee and the spray tan that makes him look like the new cast member of the Willy Wonka factory.

            I drop my bags in the front hallway, smiling around at the house, glad to be back here where no one would criticize my dress, or how I talk or act- except maybe Jess, but then again, she criticized everything. It was her job in the cosmic scheme of things. Classes started back on Monday, but until then I had three days of purely nothing to do. I walk up the stairs, open my door, and collapse on to my bed next to Oreo, my cat, who curls up next to me, purring. I lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling, petting her fur and zoning out when I hear my window open with a creak. I look up and Lee is sitting there, smiling and breathing heavily, struggling to get his jeans off of a tree branch and still maintain his balance. “Are you just an idiot, honey?” I ask, not making a move to help him, laying still so that I don’t disturb Oreo.

            “Well…I thought it would be a bit more romantic if I crawled up to your window and snuck in.”

            I snort, “Oh, yeah, ‘cause broken bones and snapped vertebrae are just so romantic.”

            He shrugs, “It was an idea….”

            “Yeah, honey, ideas from the man who invented the Axe flamethrower are not the most well-planned or well-thoughtout ideas in the world.”

            “Well,” he answers, flopping onto the bed, causing Oreo to jump up and run under the chair, “someone’s a little PMS-y, aren’t they?”

            I groan, rolling over onto my bed, “You have no idea, love. I’m moody and bloated. ”

            He digs in his pocket, pulling out a fresh cigarette pack and slapping it on his palm, handing me the first one. I take a deep drag and hand it back and we sit in silence for a little bit just passing the cigarette back and forth. He takes a deep drag, flicking the butt out the window, and rolls over, pinning me on the bed between his hands and kisses me, exhaling the smoke into my mouth. I roll over, exhaling, and kiss him again. “I missed you.” I smile, wrapping my arms around his neck. He kisses down my neck and I groan.

            “I missed you, too, babygirl.”

            Thumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthumpthump. I wake up, sweating, curled into the crook of Lee’s arm on my bed, the TV a blank blue screen staring at us in the darkness. My heart feels like it’s about to thump out of my chest, it’s beating way too fast. I sit up, and immediately lay back down, feeling lightheaded, shaking Lee’s arm softly, feeling like I can’t get a good grip on it, like it’s too hard to be able to shake or to move. I can’t breathe, and shake his arm harder, willing him to wake up and see me and find out what is going on. He sits up, sleep crowding the edges of his vision, smiling sleepily until he sees my face. “Holy shit, Lilla, what’s wrong?” I point to my chest, making the sign for CPR that we got taught in fifth grade onehandontopoftheotherpressupanddownintheairaboveyourchest. He lays me down on the bed, flipping me over so quickly that if I had any breathe left, it would be gone, and lays his head on my chest, putting one hand in front of my nose. Grabbing his cell phone off of the bedside table where it was sleeping peacefully next to mine, he flips it open and dials, keeping his head on my chest, silently trying to keep up with the beats of my overworked heart. “C’mon, pickuppickuppickup!” he grits his teeth, frustrated, and starts hitting the pillow beside me. A voice comes on the line and he starts speaking, but I can’t hear the words, it’s like in the movies when something stressful or life-threatening happens and you can’t hear what they’re saying, all you can do is see the lips moving and sad, melancholy music playing. I’m watching his lips form words, the edges of my vision getting dark and blurry, and then it’s like a train rushing by my head, drowning out all the words but the ones that are in your head and I close my eyes, see Miranda standing there, smiling.

            You’re going to die, Lil, just get used to the fact. You’re going to die and end up cold in the hospital hall. No one will care that you’re dead, they’ll all be happy that they don’t have to deal with you anymore- your mom will be happy that she doesn’t have a fuckup child anymore. Lee will move on- maybe he’ll even look Bobbi up again and find her to fuck. At least she’s prettier, and probably less frigid than you are. At least he won’t feel like he’s fucking a skeleton when he’s having sex with her. And your brother? Oh, he’ll be ecstatic! He’ll be so happy that he’s the only child again, that he doesn’t have to share the spotlight with some freaky reject that can’t even kill herself right, that had to wait until her body shut down, that couldn’t just put a bullet through her head and get it over with. Your dad, too, you know The Nightmare. Yes, dear, I know about him, I know all about him. The rage that you felt about that, the anger, all the darkness that you stored up in your soul that was telling you to kill him? The anger that made you grab a butcher knife that night? That made you think up ways that you could kill him and make it look like an accident? That was me. That was all me. He spawned me, he created me in your head. You thought that you got away from him, didn’t you? You thought that you would never have to deal with him again, that you could just run away and never have to tell anyone what happened, that you could just ignore his calls and his letters and all of that- that you could just tell your Mom that you didn’t want to talk about it, and that would make it go away? No, it didn’t. He made me, he created me to make your life a living hell, and you fed me until I could be strong enough to not have to have you in the house with him to torture you. Your dad might be the only one that comes to see you, the only one that will come to your grave. Your stepmom, too, the cunt? She’ll come, too, you’d better believe that. You were such an attention whore that she’ll want to make sure that you’re dead and gone, that she doesn’t have to vie with your dad for his attention anymore, that she can finally have him all to herself.

            I can feel myself slipping in to darkness, the vague feeling of Lee desperately trying to push his breath into my lungs and pressing down on my breastbone, trying to get me to come back, but not trying to kill me or hurt me any worse that he had to. I want to scream at him; want to scream so many things, just so that if I do die than I don’t have to think that I left him without telling him all the things that I should have. I want to tell him all about my dad, about Miranda, how much I love him, how I could see angels when we made love, how I could feel safe when we were together, how much I wanted a life with him before this disease and Miranda took away any life that I could have had. I’m screaming at him in my mind, willing him to hear me, even if it’s just by telepathy. I’m screaming all the things that I thought I would have years and years to tell him; screaming the things that you should be telling your loved ones in a hospital room when you’re surrounded by tubes and wires, knowing that you’re going to die soon but being secure in the fact that you have weeks, even days to get out anything and everything that you wanted to. I always imagined that I would have days to plan what I wanted to say, that I would be giving deathbedconfessionals and telling a priest about all of the things that would send me to hell- if there was such a place. That I would be able to tell Lee about anything and everything that I had done to him, that I had thought, that I had wished. I thought that I would be surrounded by children and grandchildren, not just by Lee in my bedroom, his tears falling on my face as he tried desperately to bring me back to life. And then- there was blackness.

            In the movies, when the heroine has almost died, there is always The Scene. You know the one: the screen is fuzzy and starts to fade back in slowly; there’s always A Voice that starts off very far away and gets closer and closer to you, getting louder and louder, like the volume is being turned up slowly. The heroine fades back into either a hospital room or with all of her friends crowded around her like aliens about to start probing her for their experiments. The doctor is always an older gentleman who treats her nicely for the first few minutes, looking older and distinguished with silver hair, a white jacket, and a stethoscope around his neck, looking through charts. He looks up, smiles, and explains to her what a “close call” that was.

            The reality, I shouldn’t have to tell you, is nothing like that. I woke up, alone, in a hospital room. There were voices coming from behind the curtain next to my bed, and the more that I listened, the more I could tell that it was a nurse talking to the patient in the next bed. She’d had a bad drug overdose and the nurse was not helping, I’m sure. I could hear her weeping. The nurse’s soft-soled shoes started toward the curtain and I quickly turned over, closing my eyes against the glare of the florescent lights, waiting until she had walked out and closed the door behind her. When I heard the click, I rolled back over. “Excuse me?” I called to the person on the other side of the curtain, “excuse me? Are you ok?” she was still weeping, but it slowed when she realized that I was talking to her. The curtain is pushed back and she looks at me, a mirror image, almost, of myself. Her long, stringy black hair was pushed off of her face, which was skeletal at best. There was a needle going into her hand, and prominent track marks up both of her arms. She looked at me with dead eyes, as if she expected me to pick up where the nurse had left off. “Are you ok? I could hear you crying….” I trailed off, not sure where to go with this. There is no etiquette for how to talk to people that are in the next hospital bed recovering from a drug overdose.

            “Yeah.” She answered, her voice raspy and sharp. “I’m fine. I’m just great.”

            “Ok…I just didn’t want you to take what that nurse said to heart. She seems like a bitch.” She turns back over, facing the wall, and continues to sob. The door opens and a doctor, a younger man with a hooked nose and salt-and-pepper hair, walks in.

            “Lillith?” he asks, checking his charts, and I nod. “Well, you gave everyone a scare there, dear.” He checked the charts again, “You had a sudden cardiac arrest- a heart attack- but your boyfriend got you here in time, faster than most would, and gave you CPR the entire way, from what he said when y’all got here.” He closed his charts and sat down, looking at me gravely, “You should be out within a few hours, whenever your family gets here to take you home.”

            “Wait, what?” I asked. “I thought that you were supposed to keep me for a week or something.”

            “Four days is the maximum that we generally keep a patient who’s had a heart attack, especially a younger one who seems to become more stable than an older patient, but you have been asleep for at least two days, Lillith. I guess that you didn’t realize it; we did give you a lot to help you sleep, especially for someone of your…” he clears his throat, “weight. Anyway,” he snaps his charts closed and stands up, “your family should be here soon to take you home. I hope that we don’t see you anytime soon, dear. Please take care of yourself, ok?”

            I nod, dumbly, and watch him walk out the door, staring at it in disbelief and then rolling back over to face the curtain that, sometime without me noticing, had been closed back.

            I walk into the door, closing it softly behind me. “Anyone home?” I call out, walking back toward The Nightmare’s bedroom, calling again. No answer. I stomp up the stairs and throw my bag onto my bed, going into the bathroom to wash my face and pull my hair back off of my face, then pulling my school uniform off and throwing it into the laundry hamper. Turning around, I twist my head so that I can see my back, checking the bruises running down the length of my spine that are turning black and blue. Gingerly, I touch some of them to see how tender they are and wince-they’re still incredibly tender- then touch some of the places that are bleeding. I pull the Neosporin out of my drawer in my bathroom, dabbing it onto the cut places and then inspecting the backs of my thighs, starting to dab it on the cut places down there, too. There’s a warm trickle making its way down the front of my thigh and looking at it, I groan “Shit!” the cuts on the front of my leg have opened up. Yet again. Pulling a wad of toilet paper off of the roll, I hold it on the cuts until I can pull my shorts up to hold it in place. Waddling down the stairs, I dig in the container under the kitchen sink for a bandaid, then pull down my shorts to put it onto the cuts. Pulling back up my shorts, I groan softly- even the softest cotton shirts and shorts that I can find still chafe the bruises that They left on me, so everytime that I move, it’s another reminder of what they have done to me. Turning around, I spot the butcher block that The Nightmare bought when he was really into cooking, when I would come home and find fresh-baked bread and there were fresh cookies every weekend. The butcher knife that he uses is sticking out of the top and an idea flashes across my mind. Maybe I can’t stop them from beating me, but there are things that I can stop.

            That night, it’s dark in my room, and I lay on my bed staring at my nightlight, based on a painting made by Degas that I fell in love with when I was taking ballet classes- two ballerinas dancing on a stage, the lights illuminating the smiles on their face, their shoes looking, even in the painting, like they were about to twirl off onto the wings of the stage. I feel swollen and sore everywhere, like I had just been beaten with a huge stick, and stay focused on the nightlight, trying to get to sleep.

            I couldn’t do it anymore. It was just getting to be too much. I was sitting in the floor of my closet, a razor pressed to my wrist, my earbuds in my ears. My back hurt from being hunched over for so long, my legs were screaming at me, chaffing against the cotton of my shorts, against the rough carpeting that had been in the closet for at least twenty years. My arms look as if vines are wrapped around them, red vines twined around my arms from the front to the back, pulling me down into the ground. The edge of the blade is crimsonred and I’m amazed by how dark my blood is- how rich it looks. I lick my lips, tasting salt, and am confused: why am I tasting salt? Why, when I am the happiest that I have been in most of my adult-life, am I crying? This does not compute, Will Robinson. Tears mean sadness, but this is not a time of sadness, this is a time of rejoicing, becoming happy that I will not have to take this for much longer, that soon I will be gone, in the ground, and not have to burden anyone anymore. I think of Lee, realizing that he will probably find someone else relatively quickly- relationships at our age are very shortlived, and someone that you “love” at twelve or thirteen is, by sixteen, just a superficial cut on your heart, one that you can barely see or feel anymore, one that no longer hurts or bleeds. 

ch. 10

High school graduation: a five hour ordeal that is supposed to make up for the four year ordeal that we have just had to suffer through.  Ceremony where we will be rewarded with a piece of paper and plastic cups of punch from a second-class school that can barely afford an Art department but can afford new football and softball and baseball equipment every other year, that puts its emphasis on spitting back facts that were spoon-fed to us satisfactorily. A school that rewards those that embrace conformity and shuns those that question The Man; one that teaches us, really, only one good asset that we will take into our adult years- being able to say “Do you want fries with that?” “Our President is our leader. He is not to be questioned-but only as long as he is a White Anglo-Saxon, Protestant man whose list of influences include God and his daddy.” These are the only real things that my high school has taught (or attempted to, as they wouldn’t hold me back in the futile effort to instill these ideologies into me. I think there was mention of a protest of this idea held in the teacher’s lounge- instead of burning their bras, they burned my report cards.) So, on this day that I should be planning my graduation party (a.k.a. yet another reason to get drunk out of my mind and gang-bang thirty or forty of my closest guy friends, despite the fact that many of them are at least three years younger than me.), I’m sitting in the back, Lee’s hand protectively around my shoulders, bitching.

            “I don’t see why I had to walk. Jason didn’t walk. He didn’t want to walk. He has his diploma mailed to him!”

            “Now, Lill, we’re doing this for your grandparents.” Mom chides me from the front seat.

            “But they’re not even going to be here!” I whine. Lee squeezes my knee and I turn to him. “And Lee, we’re not even going to be close to each other! I mean, you were there at practice this morning! We’re on the other side of the gym from each other.” I grimace. We had to practice graduating! We had to practice sitting in chairs, standing, walking in a straight line to a stage and then walking back and sitting back down. Excuse me, isn’t this what first grade is for? Does this tell you anything about the caliber that our future generations are going to be?

ch. 9

They said that I was “resisting treatment”. That’s why I’m not allowed around the other girls anymore. Someone blabbed about me not eating, hiding my food in my napkin, which made all of the crazy nurses here believe that I was just as crazy as the nightmare had painted me to be. Someone lied about me, too, saying that I was taking pills and giving the others tips on how to trick them, but they won’t tell me who it was, even though I’m sure that I know who it was. Whenever I ask, they just tell me that I “shouldn’t worry about that, worry about getting well”. They tell me that if I don’t start gaining weight, they’ll have to send me to the nuthouse. They don’t know that I’m already in the nuthouse, I’ve been in the nuthouse for my entire life, it was just that no one knew about it.  They don’t know about anything that’s happened, because I don’t talk. I don’t talk in the bathrooms in the morning, when all of the other girls are chattering while they brush their teeth, acting like this is just summer camp and we can leave anytime that we want, if we get homesick, we can just call our mommies and daddies to come and pick us up, whisk us home to where we’ll resume our normal lives. I don’t talk during meal times, I don’t talk when we’re all gathered around watching TV, I don’t talk when we’re allowed to write home and the others are wondering what their families are doing. I don’t talk in line for our weigh-ins, nor do I talk when we’re having inspection by the manly nurses that we all suspect are dykes, while many are chattering to break the awkward silence of standing around naked having other women turn us around at will. I don’t even talk during therapy- I sit and stare at the wall until the doctor gets frustrated, eventually sending me back to my room with a sigh, saying “well, maybe next week we’ll have a breakthrough. You can’t rush these things, you know.”

            They told me yesterday that if I don’t start trying to work with the doctors and nurses that are “only here to help you get better” they’re going to send me to the loony bin.  Then this morning, the burly nurse barges into my room, throwing my suitcase on the bed, telling me that I’m going to the psych ward, that it’s doctor’s orders. She stands in the door while I pack up my clothes- anally folding all of my clothes just so, making sure that they are creased perfectly, that they will all lay flat in my suitcase and won’t get all wrinkled. She stands there while I tiptoe into the bathroom (walking on your tiptoes makes your calves stronger- I heard that my first night here when we were all gathered around the TV, using the noise to mask us whispering about tips and tricks while all the nurses sat in the corner, looking in their Peoples and talking about the handsome new doctor that just transferred) gathering all of my shampoo and conditioner, my soap and makeup and hold it to my chest, dumping it onto my bed so that I can put it just so into my suitcase. When I zip up my suitcase, she huffs, “Are you finally done?” I bite back the many snarky comments that Miranda whispers into my ear and just nod my head, picking my suitcase up off of the bed and feeling that it is about to wrench my arm out of its socket. I look up, rubbing my shoulder, and she leans out into the hall calling to someone. I can feel the darkness descending before I even see the Nightmare walking toward me, along with another female nurse, and a male one.  The male glances at me, mentally sizing me up and walks over to the bed, pulling out the rolling handle for the suitcase and pulling it off the bed.

            The other female hands me my book bag while I stand in the door, scared, deerintheheadlightseyes staring straight at my Nightmare. I want to scream, I want to run down the hall and tell people what he did to me, tell the nurses to get him the hell away from me, remind him that he’s not supposed to be within five feet of me. And then I remember dinner times back in The Past when he sat there, his feet propped up, pushing the food around on his plate, bragging about his friend the Sherriff, calling to tell him what a good job he did on such and such investigation; recommending that he take the new spot on such and such committee; offering to send him to this and that academy so that he could be a “specialized” officer. Even if I said something to one of the nurses, he would just smile and say that I must be delusional. He did it so many times when I was growing up that I could almost tell which smile he would use- number 34 his “I’m Just Being A Happy, Helpful Father, I Know I’m Indulging Her, But She’s My Little Girl And Wouldn’t You Do It, Too?” I knew that smile. I hated that smile. I hated him.

            I stare at him, at his wolf smile, at his eyes that were like mirrors, reflecting back at you the ugliness that he saw inside of you (and he saw ugliness inside of everyone. Everyone was equally ugly in his eyes. They say that Justice is the great equalizer, but in my mind it was really only because they had never seen My Nightmare’s eyes.) I feel Miranda herself cowering in the back of my mind- she was never quite comfortable around my Nightmare. She didn’t like anyone but herself inflicting pain on me, and she didn’t know quite yet how she could utilize the pain that he inflicted on me to make my pain exponentially worse. I could hear a high keening in the back of my head, like when you get hit in the head and your ears ring. The nurses were all getting closer to me, my nightmare still grinning at me like a wolf ohgrandmawhatbigteethyouhaveallthebettertoripyoutoshredswithmydear. I could feel the male nurse pinning my hands behind my back, the females running down the hall toward the nurses station, their jackets flapping like angel wings behind their backs, the doctor running, running toward me like a knight in shinning armor brandishing his sword, coming to save the princess from the dragon, not it’s not a sword, it’s a needle, the end glinting in the florescent lights, making it shine like Arthur’s Excalibur. I scream and scream and scream, the teeth are getting closer, closer, and they’re going to rip me to shreds, rip me, kill me and bury me in the backyard like a dog with a bone. They’re going to kill me, they’re not going to stop this time, I’m dead, I’m dead, I’m dead. I feel something cold sliding through my veins- is this Death? Is this the feeling that people get before they die? I thought that I would greet Death like an old friend, sitting and talking to him for awhile, whydon’tyousetawhileandrestyourfeetitmustbehardrunningaroundtheworldallthetime, what took you so long, sir? I’ve been waiting for you. Take my hand; take me off to Never Never Land. It’s getting colder, the edges of my vision are getting black, and I’m slipping, slipping, slipping……

ch.8

I had three pieces of pizza. It’s not fair; between Lee and Mom I got no slack! If it was just Mom I could have bullshit her, beat her down, made her give in and be happy with a compromise- one piece of thin crust vegetarian, patted with about three napkins just to remove any trace of grease that could possibly be lingering on it- even with Lee there could have been some kind of compromise: maybe just one slice of the regular meat lovers that he loves. Even that would have been better. But, no, both just gained up on me at the restaurant, ordering a large stuffed crust meat lover’s pizza. Even the sound of the words coming out of Mom’s mouth smacked of residual grease, a heartattack waiting to happen. And just when we’re sitting down and I’m trying to find the smallest piece of the pizza so I can cut it in half, Lee reaches over, grabs my plate, and piles the biggest fucking piece that I have ever seen onto it. Then he grins that sexy grin that makes it (almost) impossible to hate him and hands me the plate. “And when you’re done with that you can have another.”  I glare at him, taking in every greasy, disgusting piece, feeling my stomach pushing against the waistband of my jeans, the grease making a trail down my throat into my stomach.

            Lee is lounging on my bed. This is the part that I have dreaded all day, Scene fifteen, act two, Undressing In Front of Lee. Yes, I’m a fatdisgustingpig, I hate myself, I think that I have got to be the most disgusting thing on the planet, and this does not make me want to undress in front of my boyfriend any more than it would if I was a size 0. Hesitantly, I grab my sweatpants and t-shirt, “I’m gonna go get dressed…” I say. He smiles up at me, those beautiful blue eyes bearing into my soul and stretches out on my bed, opening his arms up wide.

            “Why? You know that you’re just going to get undressed again, anyway.” I blush, shrugging.

            “But, what if I don’t want to…”

            “Why, baby? I haven’t seen you in two months. I’ve missed you.”

            “But….” I struggle for an excuse, but that part of my mind is busy, holed up in the back of my skull with the other pieces, fighting for its piece of the pizza that is trying to make its way through my digestive tract. “….I don’t want to….” I finish, lamely.

            “Baby,” he sits up, anger written across his face is 48-point font. “Goddamnit, I want to make love to you! What is wrong with that? What is different now? I used to have to drag you away from the bed!” he yells.

            Yeah, Miranda hisses into my ear, when you were a huge cow and wanted to keep him happy in bed so that he wouldn’t just run off with the sexiest girl that he found that was skinnier than you. You’d better bet that he bragged about you- that you always gave him what he wanted, when he wanted- but he let his eye roam, don’t even let him lie to you about that. Even you know that he did- he thought about fucking those sexy cheerleaders that were doing splits and that weren’t as fat as you are.

            “I’m just not in the mood to tonight, baby.” I plead with him, holding onto my clothes for dear life, wishing that I were Dorothy and could just click my heels together, find out that this was all a nightmare and the last few years hadn’t happened.

            “It’s about the eating thing, isn’t it?” he gets up, walking toward me, the panther toward the frightened gazelle, frozen in the panther’s glare. I can’t answer, and then his arms are around me, his lips on mine. He rips the clothes out of my hands and throws them on the floor. “I’m going to say this once, Lilli. I love you. I think that you were the most beautiful woman that I had ever seen when I first met you, and the longer that I’ve known you, the more beautiful you have gotten. But this…disease, obsession, whatever you call it, it’s taken away my beautiful Lilith. You still have those glimpses where I can see the beautiful woman that you were, that you still are, but it’s just hidden by all this…” he motions to my body. “Now, I still love you. I want to make love to you, because when I do, you are the only thing on my mind, how much I love you is the only thing on my mind- not how you look, not how much you weigh- just you. Will you please let me have that?”

            He doesn’t wait for an answer, leading me to the bed and putting his hands under my jaw, holding me there as he kisses me, his hands coming down to lead mine up around his neck, grasping the hair that has grown out from the buzzcut that I gave him before I went off. He kisses me, first on the forehead, the cheeks, the eyelids, the lips. He kisses his way down my neck, to my collarbone, and across it. I lean back, pulling off my shirts, blocking Miranda out with all of my might, sure that as soon as he sees me in my underwear he’ll give up, he won’t want to make love to a skeleton. He glances at my body, and I can se the indecision in his eyes, but then it’s gone and there’s a fire in his eyes that I know too well- it’s the look that he gets when he knows that he should give up, and that little place in his head tells him that he’d better not, that he knows better than to give up. I’ve seen it in his runs; I’ve seen it when he tried to learn German and playing the guitar. Now I’m seeing it again, and it almost scares me. He lies on the bed, pulling me on top of him and unbuttoning my jeans. I push his hands away, scared again, nervous as a new virgin, but he puts his hands back on the buttons, kissing my neck, “C’mon, baby, just let me do it. Don’t think about it. Just go, like you did the last time.”

            I’m lying on the bed, and he’s poised above me, the muscles in his chest ripping, his hair flopping over his face. I can feel him nudging against my thigh, but he stops, leaning down to kiss my neck. “I love you, baby. No matter what you are the most beautiful thing in the world to me.” He kisses me wasted breasts, my protruding ribcage, down to my hipbones and I try to sit up, knowing where he’s going with this. Gently, he pushes me back down, one hand staying on my ribcage. I feel his warm breath on my thigh, kissing up it, then the warm tongue that almost makes me jump out of my skin. I jump a little, an electric volt running up my spine that makes him laugh. I grab his hair, feeling a moan escape me.

            Jess follows me out to the courtyard, allowing me my nicotine fix before fifth period Physics (a.k.a. How to Make Your Head Explode). We head to our usual spot: underneath the overhang of the neglected West wing of the school, the spot that all of the other Rejects hang out in. I sit down and one of the Freaks, a girl named Rhonda that has permanent nicotine stains on her fingers and whose hair is thirty different colors, glances at me, raising her eyebrow- the accepted greeting among the Freaks whose only interaction is between classes when one of more needs a cig to get through the rest of the day. Jess pulls out her pack of Reds and hands one to me. I cup my hand around it while she leans forward with her lighter to light it. I keep my eyes focused on the glowing end as I take a deep lungful, allowing the nicotine to flow into my brain. Ah, more brain cells dead as we speak. Maybe at this rate, my heart will give out and my brain will shut down at the same time. Maybe that way I won’t suffer much. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Jess move, trying to be subtle and failing miserably. I glance up, sharply, and take too deep of a breath on my cig, choking on the acrid smoke that flows up my nose. Rhonda pounds on my back while Jess digs in my bag for my everpresentwaterbottle, handing it to me and letting me take two deep swallows, getting the breath back into my lungs.  

            “Why is she out here?” Rhonda’s gravely voice cuts through my ears, straight into my brain. “Those people don’t belong out here with us. They’re not welcome.”

            I can tell who she’s talking about before I even look up, studiously ignoring Jess making swift, chopping motions with her hands. There, sitting across the quad, is Lee….with Bobbi, who is looking disgusted with both her surroundings and those who currently co-inhabit it with her. Lee shakes a cigarette out of his pack, turning his back to me and, before I can say anything, Jess is on her feet, halfway across the quad (which is not that much of a feat- the quad is only about three feet wide).  She taps him on the back and he no sooner turns around than she starts screaming at him.

            “WHERE THE FUCK DO YOU GET OFF?!”

            I can’t hear his answer, and I suck at reading lips. Bobbi looks up at her, innocently, and I can see the perfectly pouty lips forming an answer. Jess’ back tenses up, and Lee gets a look in his eyes like he would rather be anywhere but there.

            “YOU FUCKING WHORE! I KNEW THAT YOU WERE A TRASHY SLUT THAT WOULD DO ANYTHING WITH A DICK BUT TO STOOP THIS FUCKING LOW…..SHE JUST GOT OUT OF FUCKING REHAB! AND HE WAS THE ONLY THING THAT WAS KEEPING HER ON THIS SIDE OF SANE!”  I can feel my face go scarlet, and wish that I could just make Jess shut the hell up.

            Rhonda taps my shoulder, “Mills, you need to go over there. Grow some balls, chick, and go get your man back!”

            I nod, standing up and lighting another cigarette, feeling much tougher with a cigarette clutched in my fingers. Before I know what I’m doing, I’m walking across the quad, seeing Lee’s face get closer and closer to me. Jess turns around. “Do you know what the fuck this whore told me?”

            “Well, if the little freak wants to know, I think that I should get the pleasure of telling her myself, lesbo.” Bobbi answers, turning to smile at me. “Your friend over here asked where I got off and I told her….” She trails off, grinning an ugly grin at me, “with your man inside of me.”

            I’m seeing red. There are few times that I let the pure rage that is Miranda boil up inside of me, but this time I let it out. Before I could even see what I was doing, I reared back, allowing Miranda full reign. Then, as if I was watching it in a movie, not doing it myself, I reared back and sent my fist flying right into her perfect nose.

            “No!!!” she screams, putting her hands up to her nose, “Daddy’ll kill me! This was a birthday present!!!”

            She stumbles off, tripping on the concrete in her hooker heels and almost falling onto the cracked pavement, but she regains her footing. Jess turns a look of amazement and pride in her eyes and makes to slap me on the back. Then she looks at Lee, then at Bobbi, “I guess I’d better go turn myself in.” she grins a wicked grin, mocking slapping herself on the wrist, “Bad, bad, Jessica, punching a girl in the nose. What a horrible person I am….maybe I’ll get leniency because she did deserve it.” She wraps me in a hug, “Good job, love.” She whispers into my ear, “I’ll call you later.”

            Lee looks at me, “Lill…”

            I turn away, throwing down my cigarettes and ripping his hoodie off my shoulders, then start walking, Miranda riding my ass all the way home where I curl up on my bed, falling into a partially-comatose state until I hear the tires crunch on gravel and the door slamming that meant Mom was home. She opens the door, leaving a shadow on the wall behind me, leaning in to make a half-profile. “Baby?” she whispers. I slow my breathing, make believe I’m asleep. After a few minutes, she closes the door softly, leaving me to be raked over the coals, yet again, by Miranda.

            I’ve started to become really good at ignoring the phone. For the last three days, I’ve become a robot: waking up in the morning; throwing on the first thing that my hand lands on; going to school; answering teachers on autopilot; smoking mechanically; going home; doing homework to make up for what I’ve missed while I was away; daydreaming during dinner while Mom rambles about her day; having the obligatory “family time” with Mom; zoning out on the couch, hiding behind my Ayn Rand or Tolstoy, then slipping upstairs as soon as I could to curl in bed, thinking my nasty little thoughts, feeling the worms eat into my brain.

            The nightmares have come back full force, like they did when I first went into treatment. They always say that it gets worse before it gets better; I just didn’t know that it “getting worse” meant that you would almost be torn in two before you got any better. At first it was horrible, I stayed up all night, drank cup after cup of coffee every day, and curled up in my bed when lights out came around, staring at the same one spot of white wall that ran behind my bed, watching my memories be played out like movies on the wall.