kissing in cars
no such thing as too young
red lights flash in the car
we're kissing in
There is no love quite like your first.
/
They meet on a foggy Tuesday morning a week after she's been admitted to the hospital. Her frame is small, skin stretched precariously over bone. There's so much bone, she's all elbows and ribs. Despite this, she's soft. Not timid in the least, her voice is strong for a girl so unstable.
They meet in the elevator, like in any modern day clichéd love story.
He looks angry, but more than that with eyebrows drawn together and tired eyes, Emma thinks that he looks sad. Defeated.
She doesn't know why or what possesses her to do so, but she turns to him. "Hi."
The boy eyes her warily, from her fedora to her perfectly straightened hair to her collared button up and crisp skinny jeans, she is the picture of "put together." The idea makes her want to laugh. It is funny how many people assume she's very well put together. Do well-put together people usually have eating disorders, she wonders.
Despite his hesitance, he says "hello." There's a pause at the end. "What are you in for?" This is the fourth time she's been asked this and a part of her wants to scream.
Emma smiles instead.
"Apparently not eating for four days straight isn't very healthy. Who knew," her words are filled with sarcasm and bitterness. Her mouth tastes like cardboard. She wants to go home. Why isn't she at home? Why was she so reckless to allow people to figure it out?
She closes her eyes briefly, willing the overwhelming feeling of it all away. When she opens them again, he is staring at her. There's no judgment in his eyes, in fact she can't quite tell what he's thinking. She never finds out. The elevator opens.
She's got a therapy session to get to.
"I'll see you around."
"Wait."
She pauses, turns to look at him. He smiles at her, just a little. It's barely even a quirk at the corners of his mouth but it makes her smile too. Something in her stomach sparks.
"What's your name?"
"Emma, what's yours?"
The elevator doors begin to shut.
"Leo. My name is Leo."
/
Leo turns out to be something like gasoline or hairspray. In every way, he is a fire hazard to Emma's heart. She is a firm believer that there is no such thing as love at first sight – that no matter how romantic it is, it's also very unrealistic. Except, when she's around Leo, she forgets to exhale, her hands shake, and her chest feels heavy and light, full and empty.
It's not love at first sight, though. It's not.
"Do you ever wish things were just…" she trails off, staring out into the city lights. Los Angeles is alive and pulsing, cars and sirens and the distant sound of music filling her lungs. The air is frozen, mid-January and LA is finally starting to understand the meaning of "winter." She shivers slightly, but she likes it.
Winter is her favorite season, she decides.
"A lot, yeah." He nods. He doesn't elaborate, he doesn't need to. She glances down at his leg. It's been a month and a half since he had the surgery to remove it. That was before she knew him. She wonders what he was like before. Was he upbeat? Outgoing? Snobby? Humble? Her eyes study his face, take in his dark eyebrows and thick lashes. She has a feeling he was who he is now, only a brighter version. The funny thing is she struggles to imagine a 'brighter Leo.'
"I bet you had great hair," she comments, not really meaning to say it out loud.
Leo laughs. "Not as great as yours," he murmurs, catching a few stands and toying with them. Shivers dance down her spine. When she smiles at him, it's all teeth and cheeks that burn and there's this weird feeling in her chest and lungs, it's in her veins and the corners of her eyes as well as the pit of her stomach.
"Better," she promises, deciding the feeling is something akin to happiness.
/
They spend a lot of time on the roof together, sometimes with his best friend Dash, who always insists on bringing "medical marijuana" and suggesting she try it (to which she always politely declines and he boos obnoxiously; she decides she likes Dash), and sometimes just the two of them. Somewhere around the fourth time he asks her why.
"What?" Emma knows what Leo is asking her and she feels afraid to give him an answer. Maybe she doesn't even really know why herself. It wasn't set off by one particular, traumatic event. She wasn't abused or bullied. No one ever shamed her for her body or looks.
No one except herself, anyway.
Maybe it's just perfectionism, maybe it is depression. Maybe it's both. Maybe it's neither. Maybe it's a way to control her life. She's never spoken to anyone about her disorder except her therapist, and even then it's always only a few words at a time. She always feels like a deer in headlights when she enters that pristine office and sits down on that spotless white couch. How can someone so okay understand someone so not.
But when Emma glances down, she catches sight of Leo's leg and she doesn't feel as much pressure or fear to tell him. In a way, she feels like maybe she wants to open up. Maybe she wants to put it into words. How do you put something like this into words? Is there even a language to describe it? To make people understand, to make herself understand?
Emma doesn't understand.
"My entire life has always been orderly and put together. There is no chaos, no clutter. I am never late, not to class or appointments or anything. I've missed a total of five days of school since kindergarten. I am a straight-A student. My parents are good, happy people who love each other. My life is okay, more than okay. I should be happy," she looks at Leo and blinks and it's only then that she realizes she is not happy.
"I was thirteen the first time I did it. There was a day, when I just felt so…" her nails bite into her palms but it's only when she pulls them back bloodied that she realizes that her body is buzzing with the sting of pain. Whether it's physical or mental, she can't be sure. "Do you know what it's like? To look in the mirror and hate what you see? To want to shatter your own reflect?"
Emma admits, she expects him to be freaked out or even alarmed. The last thing she expects is a smile and his fingers to find hers, pulling her bleeding palms to his. "Every single day, Emma Chota."
It's then that she understands that he understands. That he's the only person in the world who gets it, in the weirdest way. His body is faulty, her body isn't good enough.
"It's so terrible," she mumbles as his palms find her face. He accidentally smears her blood against her cheeks. It's almost like make-up. It's almost beautiful. "To hate the body you're stuck inside of; to hate your home."
When he leans forward, she vaguely remembers this ride she took, once, a long time ago. She was about ten years old. Her parents took her to an amusement park and she insisted on riding the "adult" rides. There was a rollercoaster which she barely met the minimum height requirements to. It climbed and climbed and climbed towards the sky. She thought it would never end. Even though it was so high up that she was afraid, the view was worth it. It was like being on top of the world. And when the car dropped, her stomach met her throat and her heart met her feet and she laughed, fingers extended towards the sky, grasping for clouds.
Kissing Leo is exactly like plunging towards the earth at sixty miles an hour with hands outstretched, reaching for sky.
/
Falling in love is nothing like Emma expects. Before, she thought it would be blatant and clear; obvious. And later, it is obvious. When she looks back on it, it's all so clear to her. She can draw lines and paint maps pointing due north, to the very moment it began.
It is hazy to her, though. He is a drug, dizzying and nerve-wrecking. He makes her forget who she is, he makes her feel like the world is caving in in the best way possible. When his fingertips brush hers, she feels electric. She feels alive.
His fingernails rake through her hair, she leans back against the shelf in the janitors closet they're occupying. Her sweater is pink and fuzzy and large, but it cannot envelope her in its warmth the way he can. His fingers brush against her cheeks, she tilts her face upwards to look at him. This is the moment she knows.
Emma is in love with Leo.
This is the moment she knows.
They do not get a happy ending.
She leans up or maybe he leans down and their mouths press against one another's, tongues tangling gently. His hands don't tug at her belt or snake underneath her sweater, instead they cup her face. She presses herself closer to him, arms locked around his neck.
She doesn't say it in words, but when she pulls back she looks and him and he looks at her and she knows that he knows.
Leo smiles at her.
Flowers bloom in the contours of her heart, stems tangling around veins, petals springing out of tissue, vibrant and colorful.
/
How can people be so oblivious to other people? She wonders this the day of her release. She's 'all better' now; ready to go home. The doctors tell her she recovered in a stunning amount of time, that they're proud of her, that she's strong, that they don't want to see her here again.
She smiles, nods, says the things she's supposed to say in this situation. They can't know she's been hiding her food in socks, throwing them out the window, stuffing them in her pockets, discarding them later in trash cans and toilets. Emma is okay. Emma is better now.
She goes home to her parents and they hover and she calls Leo and she knows he knows, but she's afraid so she never brings it up because Emma is okay.
She's better. She's fine now.
She had a disorder, she went to the hospital, and she got help.
Her parents stare at her when dinner comes. Her hands shake and she can barely hold her silverware. She forces herself to eat half of the food on her plate. She wants to eat more but she can't. It's that all she can do. When dinner is over, she excuses herself.
She goes to the bathroom, forces herself not to look in the mirror, and she cries.
Her fingers fumble with her cellphone and it's only when it's on the third ring that she realizes she's calling Leo. The idea both frightens her and relieves her. She sighs when she hears his voice, like all of the tension in her body suddenly evaporates. The panic escapes her body like air in a released balloon.
"Emma? What's wrong?"
He knows. He always knows.
"Can I see you?"
It's almost 9:15 at night, way past visiting hours which dawns upon her only after she's asked the question. He agrees anyway, telling her he'll meet her in front of the hospital. She thanks him quietly, before splashing her face with water and going downstairs to tell her parents good night.
And then, she climbs out of her bed room window for the first time in her life.
/
Emma takes the bus to the hospital, the same bus she knows nurse Jackson takes. She tries to imagine what it's like, to be someone else. She passes buildings and imagines that nurse Jackson looks at them every single morning before her shift and every single night after. She wonders if she holds scalding coffee that makes her palms sweat in the mornings, or if her feet ache at night. Emma wonders if nurse Jackson has ever temporarily fallen in love with a stranger.
The bus stops. She thanks the driver and climbs out of the nearly empty bus, pulling her cardigan closer to her body. The air is relentless. Tomorrow is Valentine's Day.
She walks through the dark parking lot, slightly afraid someone's going to jump out and grab her. No foreign hands ever find her body, only a pair of warm, familiar ones after she's stepped into the light in front of the hospital doors.
Leo touches Emma's shoulder and when she turns around and sees him she almost cries on the spot. Her arms wrap around his neck. She nearly knocks his beany off his scalp. "I missed you," she admits into his sweater.
Leo sighs, "I missed you too, Emma. So much." He pulls back and frowns down at her. "Why did you leave? You weren't ready."
Maybe she feels a little guilty; maybe she knows he is right. Emma says nothing on the subject, however, never having been one to know how to admit her faults. "Let's go on an adventure, Leo."
There's a look in his eyes that tells her this conversation isn't over, but he smiles and agrees anyway.
/
They ride the bus around town for an hour, just talking in the very back seat, palms folded into palms, eyes staring out at cities, eyes staring into eyes. There is so much beauty and Leo's only now just seeing all of it.
"What was it like?" She asks, her voice a murmur. The only other patrons on the bus are a middle aged man holding a brief case in his lap who looks exhausted and an elderly couple near the front, holding hands. Emma smiles at the couple, the man too. "Losing your leg, I mean."
They don't talk much about their individual issues. Not their feelings on them, at least. They've discussed therapy and procedures in depth, but there's always been a line before. People don't like to talk about things like that. His thigh his pressing into her thigh and she can smell the mintiness of his breathe and feel the slight beads of sweat of his palm against hers. There are no lines now.
"It was like… losing a part of me." He laughs quietly at that. "Which, I did. Clearly." He gestures to the stub of his leg and then the wheel chair, folded up underneath their feet. Emma stays silent and stares at him, patiently waiting for him to continue. He realizes she's not going to laugh at about the same time he realizes he can't shrug it off with her. She knows. She understands. So he explains.
"That morning, when I woke up, I went to stretch my toes. It's weird, losing a limb. You don't just lose the calve, you lose your heal, your toes, your ankle. You lose skin and bones. I lost skin and bones, Emma. How does that happen?" He breathed out heavily and her fingers squeezed his. "It's like, all of my dreams, my hopes, my goals; they're all gone now. My entire life changed the second I opened my eyes and I knew it."
"You wanted to be a soccer player." It's not a question.
Leo smiles sadly. "I wanted a lot of things."
Emma tilts her head at him, "what do you want now?"
He looks at her for a long moment. His gaze is heavy. "A lot of things."
/
They go to the park. Emma is sure by now the hospital staff has caught onto Leo not being there. Maybe they're concerned, maybe she should be concerned. He is sick, she has to remind herself. He has cancer; had cancer, just like he had a leg. But she doesn't look at him and see his cancer; she doesn't look at him and see sickness and a lack of a limb.
When Emma looks at Leo, she sees something else entirely. Something like light, something like hope; something like happiness.
They lie in the dewy grass and stare up at the stars. The back of her cardigan rests soaked against her skin but she ignores it. It's worth it. "I miss you," he admits, rolling over on his side. She rolls over on her side too.
"I miss you."
Emma doesn't know who reaches out first, but they end up a mess of entwined limbs and open-mouths pressed against one another. His fingers cup her neck, hers press against the bareness of his scalp. She wonders what it would be like to run her fingers through his hair, how the strands would feel against her skin.
"I love you."
"I love you."
Sirens wail, head lights flash, stars fade. His skin burns into hers.
Emma decides that she would die for him. That she would give him her kidneys, her lungs, her liver. She has already given him her heart.
He murmurs words against her mouth, breath tickling her skin. "Be my valentine?"
Emma smiles. She's never had a valentine before. "Of course."
/
They both get in trouble for their little field trip. The doctors do not allow her to visit Leo for a while and her parents become convinced Leo is some sort of no-good rebel. He is, kind of. A rebel, at least. Emma thinks that he is plenty good, however.
Consequences are nothing to Emma. She gives up her phone and freedom willingly. She wouldn't take back the night she had for anything. There was something freeing in the time she spent with him, outside of the hospital, in the real world.
It was like they were living, no longer simply just surviving.
She struggles with her disorder still, finds it increasingly harder to force herself to eat. Her hospital visit helped some, and the weekly therapy sessions do her well, but she wasn't ready to go and she knows it. Maybe she should have stayed. Maybe she shouldn't have been so unwilling to try. She was afraid, though. They wanted her to gain weight. They wanted her to eat.
How could she? Every bite felt like too much. Every bite felt like it was laced with poison.
Maybe that was just her mind.
/
There is a moment when she realizes that this is it. This is unhealthy. She is not okay. It's not a big moment, like the last one. She doesn't collapse dramatically, there are not doctors and white coats and florescent lights flooding her vision the second she opens her eyes. There is this: herself, a mirror, and a sadness ages old.
Emma realizes she is tired, not the type that can be fixed with a good night's sleep. The type that stays, that lingers, that weighs down on you like an anchor. She thinks about people who use anchors as symbols. "I will not sink," she murmurs to herself quietly.
She doesn't scream it off rooftops, there is no goose bumps, no chills up her forearm. She doesn't suddenly love herself.
Instead there is possibility. There is a realization that things don't have to be this way. That her disorder was a means for control, but there is no control in addiction. She is addicted to her own madness, something Emma realizes with a start.
It's like opening her eyes.
"I can be okay," she whispers and maybe she believes it, just a tiny bit. Maybe it's enough for her, not to heal, but to give her the strength to want to.
She doesn't want to be this person anymore. Three years is far too long to hate yourself, to cringe at the sight of your body in the mirror. Three years is too long to struggle. Three days is too long. It's too long. She is tired.
Emma just wants to be okay.
/
Here's the thing: Leo doesn't 'save her.' There are no white horses, no battling of dragons. Not real ones, not him, anyway. She slays her own dragons, because sometimes that's the only way. Sometimes you have to fight your own dragons. Sometimes you have to save yourself.
She tells her parents she wasn't ready to leave, she tells them how she really feels. She tells them that she'd rather die than eat. She tells them she is tired but that she will try this time. And then, she thanks them. Her arms come around their necks and there are tears, a lot of tears.
Humans are so flawed; it's a widely known fact. Yet, they still try to hide their flaws: Underneath baggy sweaters, underneath sarcastic comments, underneath false pretenses. Silence is the tallest wall there will ever be.
Emma breaks it down with a sludge hammer, because there is no beauty in self-destruction. There is nothing to romanticize. There is nothing pretty about self-hatred. It is unhealthy. It is destructive.
/
When she steps through the hospital doors, it's different this time. She has a suitcase in hand. She is not angry, she is not recovering from four days without any nutrients and severe dehydration. This time Emma knows. This time Emma is ready.
Recovery depends on the help you receive, yes, but more than anything it depends on your willingness to receive help. No one can help you if you don't want them to.
Emma presses the up button on the elevator.
She wants them to help her.
It dings.
She smiles, stepping inside of the elevator.
There is a boy. He is standing on his feet (foot and artificial foot?). His hands are in his pockets, there's a beany covering his scalp and a smile spread across his face.
"Hi."
She smiles so hard she laughs. "Hi. What are you in for?"
"Cancer. You?"
"Recovery."
/
When the elevator doors open, their mouths are pressed firmly together.
/
Maybe they do get a happy ending. She can't be sure. It's not like this is the end.
if you kiss me goodnight i'll know,
everything is alright
second chances won't leave us alone
note: the song is kissing in cars by pierce the veil