And then I met James and I loved him 'cause he was like me; he wanted love-hard, and passion. But his passion held rage and he didn't squeeze like I did, he crushed. And in the end, his love left bruises on my skin and on my heart, and I was clumsy, on my legs and with my heart, so I hid it well and made excuses and Renée believed it 'cause she wanted to and it was easier and she didn't love enough where it counted.
And then one day it was too much. We fucked, when we used to make love, and then I cried and then he raged, and then 'Fuck you,' and then ow because he'd never done it that hard. Red speckled across his chest and running over my lips and into my mouth, nothing but hot copper I wouldn't swallow so it lands against the collar of my shirt and ruins it.
That's hard for Renée to ignore, so when I get home she coddles me and whispers sorry softly over and over like a prayer, and I'd like to really pray, to ask someone to make it better, but neither of us have ever learned how, so we stay huddle on my bedroom floor 'til there's no more tears or sorrys left to give.
When I wake up, she's gone and I can't say I'm surprised. There's faded red stained against my face and my palms, so I take a shower, scrubbing so hard it hurts and then stings and for three mornings after, I wake up to peeling skin and scabs on my chin. The shirt, I bury, following some fleeting logic that tells me it's time to start new and fresh, to hold on to the memory, to never forget, but to let go of the love and the hurt because I don't want to be like Charlie, old and alone and pining for something I can never have again.
But then it's a month later and I still can't let go. I'm still hurting and pining and loving and ready to forgive and it's the scariest feelings I've ever had because I can feel the Charlie creeping into me and I need it out before it settles. And I'm terrible for that, for wanting to cast him out even though he's my father and still loves me and I love him. But sometimes I feel more sorry than love and it makes feel terrible all over again. But I can't feel sorry for him now, I'm using up all the sorry and there just isn't any left.
And then one day I'm in the backyard, digging in the dry sandy dirt and then I'm wearing it, stinking and itchy and still red all over. I wear it all day, when I clean my room and Renée's too, and then the living room, and then I'm cleaning the kitchen, clearing out the fridge, under the sink, the cupboards, dumping all the old cracked dishes and swearing I'll go out and replace them as soon as I get some cash in my pockets.
Renée gets home late and with someone, and they find me on all fours scrubbing at the tiny grimy corners of the bathroom floor, the door closing me in with all kinds of fumes swirling around my head. My eyes are stinging and my head is fluttering and my throat's on fire but there's this ring of yellow around the bolt keeping the toilet secured that I still have to get to. It's been soaking under bleach for the past half-hour and if they just give me a few more minutes, I know I can clean it and leave the porcelain white and shining like it's supposed to be.
But this someone she's brought home is pulling me up with his hands under my armpits and, gosh, he must be strong 'cause though my head feels light as a feather, my body's got to weigh a solid ton. My arms feel so heavy, like they're gonna slip out the sockets any minute, and my feet, when they drag against the floor, I'm sure I'm leaving little scrape marks against the weathered wood that runs along the hallway.
When we get into the bedroom, he's trying to get me on Renée's big bed but I'm fighting because it's clean, too clean, and I'm just irreparably dirty and I know the minute he lays me on top of it, it'll be ruined. Like the shirt. Like James. Like Charlie. Like Me. But Someone does it anyway. He braces his arm along my back and hooks my knees over the other and then, so gently it hurts, he places me against the blankets and I'm sinking in, being swallowed by all the soft and the scent of clean, and as if that weren't bad enough, as if he's purposely trying to make it worse, he passes the pads of his fingers across my cheek, pushing the greasy dirty hair off my face in a move so gentle and intimate and full of care that I shatter.
I lose myself in all the pain and sad and lonely among the sheets and pillows and blankets and I miss James so much I think I'm bleeding because of it. 'Cause even if his love was too fierce and ferocious, it was still love and it's still better than the pale and watery version Renée holds for me. The love that's so easily outshone by Someone, this someone I've never even met and who's never even met me, yet he's looking down at me like I matter with serious worry in his eyes, and in that moment I know that if he weren't here, Renée would have said, 'Okay,' and let me get that little ring of yellow around that bolt that tethers the toilet to the floor. Because she always wants to give space even when that's the last thing I need or want, because she never got space from her mom. And because she loves too soft.
Her love's like taffy. Starbursts love. Sweet and solid but light and ductile. You can pull and pull and chew and chew and it won't break, but it won't fight either. It keeps bending and changing and it's nice at first but it gets tiring and before you can get the best of it, before you can use it up and get out all the sweet, it slips down your throat and you swallow it whole. And she just lets you.
As I'm crying and gasping, she just stands back and watches but it's like she's not even really there. She watches as Someone sits at the end of the bed and puts my head in his lap. She watches as he strokes my hair and uses his sleeve to wipe the wet slimy mess my face has become. She listens when he tells her to fetch some warm water and a rag, and when she returns with it, she watches as he cleans my face right, with barely there strokes and silky cooing words, and I know I won't wake up tomorrow with stinging skin and scabs on my cheeks, and I want to tell her that this is what I needed, and not her space and her absence. But then I look at her and something inside me goes gooey 'cause she's just so grateful that he's here to do all the things she can't and I can see it, I can see the soft love building in her eyes and I wonder if maybe this time, Someone will be the right one.
And it kind of gnaws at me and brings back the sad and lonely because she might have found Someone but I haven't and I hate that I'm so much like her though I try so hard not to be. My heart torn out and chopped up and bleeding all over the sheets right in front of everyone and I'm looking all soft-eyed at her soft love because I still want it – love, even if it keeps killing me. And I know that I'll go after it again, and I'll love too hard because Renée loved too soft and I'll try to let go too soon 'cause Charlie never did.
They've ruined me.
Someone stays with us that night. He tells Renée to help me into a bath, and she does, tentatively helping me shed my clothes. It's silent as I sit bare-bottomed on the toilet with my knees against my chest and my cheek against my knees. She fills the tub with warm water and fragrant bubbles and hums to herself as she does it. As it fills, she's digging under the sink and finding little things like a red and white toy boat and a small cool-pink water mug she swiped from the hospital a couple of years before.
'His name is Phil,' she quietly answers a question I didn't ask, and that's all that's said.
This time she stays, massaging a soapy rag across my back and shoulders, massaging her fingers through my foamy hair, rinsing it all clean with the cool-pink water mug. When I'm not so much a mess, she pulls the little rubber plug out of the tub and I sit watching as the water recedes, feel it pulling softly at my skin, calling me down with it. But it doesn't take me. It just takes all the dirty and some of the not-good-enough and by the time I've stood and let the shower wash away the awful residue, I've fallen in love with baths. I'm addicted.
Renée wraps a big fluffy white towel around me, a souvenir she took from that hotel in Phoenix, and leads me into my room, pulling out some underwear and a clean t-shirt for me to wear to bed. She combs through my hair and then brushes it and soon it's dry enough to be let alone.
When there's a knock on the door, she says come in 'cause I can't and then Phil's stepping in with a pink mug in one hand and plate in the other. He sets the plate on the bed next to me, on my right because Renée's still on my left, and presses the mug into my hand. It's warm and I can smell the sweet chocolate as the steam rises.
'Okay,' he says, and it's a question and a statement and a promise all neatly wrapped and handed to my heart.
He ruffles his hand in my hair and touches his fingers to Renée's cheek and walks out again, and for the tiniest of moments I panic, but then I hear the radio playing and something slow and sweet like honey's leaking out and I know he's staying.
And Renée stays too. She sits at my side, a silent companion, as I sip the hot chocolate and chew the peanut butter sandwich, and I smile 'cause it's my favorite and I know he couldn't have known unless she'd told him.
Once I'm done, she takes the mug and the plate and places it on the dresser top. She waits until I'm settled in bed, arms hugged around my pillow, and unfurls the blanket folded at the end of the bed, opening it up with the flick of her wrists and a flourish. And when the blanket floats back down to cover my body, it covers my head too and she just leaves it alone, and I smile because now I know she remembers that's how I like it.
And then I'm really grateful for this Phil, because while I wasn't looking, he changed her.
The next morning I wake up to pancake smell and light giggles and rumbling laughter. The sun is up and happy and streaming through my net curtains that let the salt-air through, and it's making everything sparkle and shine like new and I feel a little new too. So I lay there in my bed, finally feeling clean enough to deserve it and really appreciate it, and listen as Renée and her Phil clang around dishes and giggle and laugh too loud and shush each other and then giggle and laugh some more. And it feels nice, and though I feel the sad and lonely sneaking in, I only let it get as far as my little pinky toe and then I hold it there and it's not so hard because today I'm lucky. I'm so full on just-comfortable that there's really no room for it anywhere else and it doesn't struggle so hard to consume me because it's kind of mellowed by the peace. And I am too.
Eventually the banging of pots cease and I hear solid footsteps padding down the hall and getting nearer. There's a knock and it nearly stops my heart because suddenly the reality of distance is right back here in my mind and I panic that it was all just for one night and Renée's back to her goddamn space. But then the voice gives my heart the needed squeeze to start again 'cause it's Phil at the door and he's asking if I'm awake.
I don't answer and it's not because I can't, I just don't want to. If I do, I might break it and that's the last thing I want. So I pull the blanket back and slide my legs off the bed and put my feet on the floor that's just-warmed by the filtered sun. And he's patient, 'cause even though I haven't responded and he doesn't know if I'm reacting to his voice at all, he doesn't knock or speak again, he just waits and gives me time, and I wonder for a moment how I can come to feel so differently to what amounts to be the same thing. Time and space has always meant distance but right now he's giving it both to me and I find that I don't mind at all.
When I open the door, he's leaning against the frame, and he just smiles this easy-smile and says, 'Breakfast,' and it's a question and a statement and a promise all neatly wrapped and I wonder if he's trying to spoil my heart.
Breakfast is quiet and light. We sit at the round wooden table and with just the three of us, everyone's sitting next to everyone and it's the nicest morning I've had in so long. I notice Phil and Renée keep the scrambled eggs between them, as far away from me as the little table allows, and I swell up a little inside because they know. She knows and she told him and he remembered and they're cool with it and trying to keep me safe from it, and it's just eggs but still, I swell up a little inside.
Phil is watching us both with this sweet love and it's almost too much to bear but it's just enough. And Mom's watching him with a similar look plus her soft love on top of it and I hope, for her sake, that the sweet and the soft is enough to hold them both 'cause I don't know Phil but I know he's good and I want him to stick around.
The radio is on and something fluffy and sweet is playing, someone plucking sunshine and air from a guitar and singing about blue skies and how life's just great, and I just-believe him.