day eight: save me

i sit waiting for troy, grabbing my crate of records and carrying it over to my bed, dumping them all out. the disarray feels suddenly freeing, holding hands and making out in the backseat with my crazed state of mind. i open the window and light a cigarette, not that it matters tonight, my mother and that man she claims to be engaged to are out, and nicky shipped off to my grandmother's again. i wish i'd gone with him. i wish i was still that little girl who could get lost in those long hallways, who still loved the stacks of books and old board games that cluttered the den, and that i could embrace the bible hymns and strung up christmas lights, again. her house always smelled of cookies baking, and he is the one that soaks that into him now, not me. i'm supposed to be outgrown of all that.

i look at all the faces staring back at me. inhale, exhale, the sweet lightheaded swirl hits me, turning everything into a slight blur. i shift my position so i'm not leaning on my wrist, the only pain i can still feel. everything else swells in that honey thick numbness that is taking over. all these faces, all these voices. it would be so much easier to live within their skin, their souls. i could switch places with michael steele, talk the girls into changing their names back to the bangs. i feel like "going down to liverpool to do nothing all the days of my life" right about now. or, maybe i could disguise myself as one of the guys, slip into roger taylor's skin, or tony hadley's. i look at the cover of 'colour by numbers', rembering that night in robert's room, how we tried to re-create the cover. troy's sister elise was in from college, and she'd tagged along for the night. elise did troy's make-up and tied multi-shades of yarn into his hair, to be boy george. robert was jon moss, sam and i the other two. i wonder if elise ever sent those picturs to troy. she said they were for a project, for something connected to her plans to work for a music magazine, in london i think, or new york. i remember that sam worshipped her, we all did. troy wanted to leave with her, to escape. i wonder if i could look her up, if she'd remember me, if she'd tell troy where i was if i came.

i was keeping the room silent in order to hear the door, waiting, the knot starting to twist in my stomach. i didn't want to see troy, not now, not this reality of troy and i. i missed the days when we traded our quiet words over the phone, the stories, and our secrets. but, it wasn't who we were anymore. i couldn't shake the way he'd said it, with that tone of disgust. the lies snapped the cord between any connection we'd once forged together. i knew he'd come, though. he would use me as an excuse to pass the razor and straw back to himself. any reason worked for him, and i needed that more than i needed my dignity right now. maybe they are all right about me, maybe they see what's inside, the ugly and dirty bits of me that i try to hide. those things the shadow man sees. he takes the blood off my skin that i give him, sewing it into his plaid flesh, leaving with more of me each time. maybe the lies are all truth.

the door, i can hear troy at the door, finally. i can’t do this anymore tonight, this weaving in and out of all this gory emotional crap. i need to light myself up, send myself off. i need to listen to music and write nonsense, rewrite all the lies until they shine pretty and new. maybe I’ll write a goodbye to them all, finally go and see elise, or some other place. i can’t do this anymore. i walk to the door, my legs heavy and tingling from sitting to long on my feet with my knees bent. i feel like the floor is pulling me under. the door is closer now and i can hear him outside. i can almost taste the drip down the back of my throat, the surge of no more fear pulse through my veins, and pound through my chest., the familiar burn. i open the door, blink three times and wipe my eyes to take in what i see.

“robert? is troy with you?” i stand there, stammering, and confused. did i call Robert on accident? wasn’t it troy i spoke to? who said, in his mouse voice, that he’d be right over?

robert reaches for my hand as he lets himself in, he walks right by me, heading towards my room with me following behind, still confused.

"do you have a suitcase, janie?" he asks, his voice strong.

"why do i need a suitcase? why are you here? what's going on? robert?" i was still trailing behind him, in step, and in understanding. my head was starting to throb, right by my eyes. i stand at the doorway, impatient, and wanting answers.

"you're coming with me. this ends now." he is determined, almost fierce, but his eyes are soft. i know not to argue, though, and not to question any further.

i swing my closet door open and pull out the tapestry bag my grandmother gave me for my thirteenth birthday, the one i never use. sam and i laughed when i got it, she squeeled "it's a mary poppins bag!" i gave it to robert and slide to the floor, pull my knees to my body, and hide my face in my hands; i peek through my fingers to watch. robert empties my drawers out onto the floor, picks through them, and fills the bag. i watch him grab my sweatshirt and the purple case with all my mixed tapes. he holds his hand out to me and lifts me to him, leads me out the door to his waiting car. i can see sam and troy in the backseat, the sight makes me hesitate and pull back. he pulls me closer to him, though, his arm around me tight.

"come on, janie. trust me." robert looks into my eyes, a very slight smile lifting the corners of his lips. i can't possibly fight him on this, or anything, really. he knows i trust him. always.

day seven: cut and run

for weeks and weeks i stuck to sam like glue. i think she secretly reveled in my newfound need of her. she guided me through the halls, to classes, arranged rides home for us everyday. she created this cushioned wall around me, that no one could get past or inside, to me, without passing her first. she barely let me out of her sight. and, if i wasn't at her house, she camped out at mine, waiting for any word that might fall out of my mouth, or any change in how i acted. i felt like a science experiment, like i was being observed, day in and day out. and, i admit, at first it was comforting. being alone seemed to only make my heart race, my throat to close, and my hands to shake. feeling her near me, even when my eyes were closed, soothed me. it allowed me to take deep breaths, and occasionally even, to sleep.

but, it was starting to become claustrophobic, the way she was everywhere with me. and, how she was starting to make decisions for me, especially when it came to robert and troy. she vehemently blamed them for what happened, and kept them from me in anyway thatt she could. she tried to turm my attention to anyplace besides their direction. no matter what i said, or how i pleaded, she had made up her mind; and mine, by default.

if had stuck with her and not become so wrapped up in their dysfunction love thing i would have been fine, and it would never have happened. she believed this with every fiber of her being, and kept reiterating it to me anytime she thought she saw me waver.

"but, sam, robert took care of me. he helped me. he cares about me." i persisted, after she once again had answered my phone and told robert that i was out.

"he doesn't care about you, janie. can't you see it? you are just a cover for him, his cover girlfriend, so that he and troy can fuck each other without anyone bothering them about it. you see how they are to troy, what they say about him. you stopped that for robert, and for troy." her eyes are blazing, her hands flailing all aroud her.

i want to say something, want to stop her, correct her, get away from her. i want to see robert. she doesn't understand.

"you wouldn't be in this shape if it wasn't for them, you wouldn't have been mistaked for one of them. fuck, janie, i'm trying to help you." she is pacing now, in circles, her voice sharp and laced with bitterness.

"robert didn't hurt me, samantha. he didn't hurt me. that man did, not robert," the tears are coming, just on the verge of falling, i can feel them hanging onto my bottom lashes, ready to take a slide and fall ride down my cheeks. "you don't understand how it is between us. troy isn't part of it, not really. he's just robert's friend."

"you just can't see it, can you? you are blind when it comes to him. i hope i never fall in love like that. love that makes you this fucking stupid. jane, open your fucking eyes!" she is angry now, steaming angry, and so am i. we know the signs, the use of our proper names, her raised voice, and my tears.


“they are open, samantha!” my anger was awake now, and i was swallowing back the tears. the rage was part of my feelings for him, my defenses in overdrive, and all the pain from the last few weeks personified, and let loose. as if i was a pent up lion in a zoo cage and someone came by to taunt me, and accidentally hit the latch, letting me loose.

“why do i even bother? why? you are a disaster. i should run for cover while i can, before i end up being fucked like a gay boy in the back of some goddamn van myself.” i saw her mouth widen, and heard the quick intake of breath right after the words came out. i saw the regret paint across her face, but, it was too late. my recognition of her mistake, and guilt, came after my hand had already met her face, a hard slap, enough to leave a mark. i have never hit anyone in my life.

“get out of my fucking house. now.” my voice was full of ice and steel, anger pushing past and turning into something cold and final. i have never heard my voice sound quite like that.

sam's arms reach out towards me, as she tries to grab my arm, my shoulders, my waist, anything. but, i pull back. Si step away from her with my hands shielding my body.

“i’m sorry, janie. i didn’t mean it. god, janie. i’m sorry. please…” tears were choking her. i hadn’t seen her cry since she was a child, not since her brother. but, i don't care. i can't care. I can’t keep doing this. these walls have to be my own, and he hurt is too raw to relent, or forgive.

“leave.” i open my bedroom door, hold it open, glared at her until she finally walks out. she hesitates at first, staring at me in disbelief, and shaking; and then she runs out.

i shut the door then, behind her, walk to my desk drawer and lift up the papers and stationary set aunt connie had sent me on my thirteenth birthday, just under the jane eyre and lucky. i find a tiny baggie and open it, take out the razor, holding it with one hand, then i reach for the phone with my other. i sit down on the desk chair, dial, and while i listen to it ring i lift my skirt up past my knees, open my legs, and trace the fading bruises with careful cuts. the ritual starts, and i do not know where any of this is coming from, i feel outside of my skin. i hold my breath, cut, breathe; hold my breath, slice, breathe again. i stop when the ringing stops, and i hear the familiar voice.

"troy, i need something. can you help me?" it was the first time i'd spoken to him since that day under the bleachers. my voice was breaking, but my hands are steady now, at least. i watch the blood trickle down my leg, transfixed. it is like watching someone else's body, like in a movie, a character wearing my skin.

"i'll be right over." troy answers, but i barely hear it because part of me is already gone.

day six: hey jane

leonard cohen on my stereo, i need this kind of musical envelopment of self right now. his voice singing me a bedtime story as i lie here by the window, trying to breathe the night into my veins. maybe the mysteries in the starless sky will distract me from this internal push and pull going on, with me, and within me. it is unseasonably warm for october, even for california. I can feel the trickle of sweat creep down the back of my neck. I need to do so many things, but, right now all i want to do was lose myself in the music, and lie here on the floor.

I have been avoiding so much lately, even the smallest things, like buying new shampoo or cereal, i put off. i am slowly going through every possible thing my cupboards can present to me. trial size soaps and shampoo and conditioner combinations, from that trip to santa barbara, the weekend that changed everything. it was the weekend of jake's birthday, conceive a baby weekend. i remember jake laughing when i stashed these in my bags, calling me his little thief; he had no idea.

top ramen noodles and tomato soup cans are sustaining me, tuna and fancy crackers, those ones from a party robert had over new year's. these are the crackers we forgot in the car. i remember the fight we had on the way, so vividly, the same fight that took it's jab at us, over and over. robert and i, how jake couldn't understand it. he told me that it was more than jealousy, that there was simply no competing, not when robert entered the picture. i protested, again and again, until my mouth went dry, my body, too. i yelled at jake that day, in the car, right outside of robert and troy's house, in the driveway, my face red with fury.

"i just want us all to be friends. can't you understand, jake? i just want us to be friends. it's important to me." i pleaded, trying to regain some modicom of composure.

jake laughed at me, shook his head.

"look at you, jane. nothing gets you worked up like this. if i could only have a half of that passion. but, no, only robert gets that," he cocked his head, his voice incredulous, almost mocking. "you silly girl, we will never be friends. you know that just as well as i know it." he shook his head, laughing as he hopped out of the car, slamming the door behind him. we forgot these crackers in the backseat.

one of these days i’ll have to go to the store. one of these days i’ll have to call robert. one of these days i’ll have to go back to work. but, today is not that day. today i need more music. today i need to forget how to remember.

i change the album, dig out joni mitchell's blue; the one i stole from mom's garage, that and half of her beatles' collection. i feel it again, this movement inside me, kick and a roll; it just took my breath. this living thing inside of me, this baby girl, it is so hard to really believe that it's real. even when i stand naked, just out of the shower, my belly growing exponentially ever week, even my breasts are growing. and, now this rolling and kicking inside, too. and yet i still find it so hard to believe.

the panic is setting in again, maybe if i turn up the music and try to sing along it will help. concentrate everything on the lyrics, remembering the lyrics, my mother's voice in my head. she used to sing tome, these songs. i am so lost in the music that i do not even hear the knock at the door. knocking, more knocking, eventually the knocing becomes pounding and that is what catches my ear. i turn to look, as if the door will tell me who is on the other side; or, maybe, the door can tell whoever it is that i am not home, that i've moved away, disappeard. but, it would be impossible to believe, or hide, with all this music and singing going on, seeping out of the walls and into the hallway.

i turn the volume down, and walk slowly to the door, half hoping whoever is on the other side will give up and walk away. i open the door cautiously, holding my breath in slightly, hoping to see nothing but empty air.

i wish i could have seen the look on my own face when it registered just who was on the other side of the door.

"surprise!" three voices chime in, singing, arms in the air; and then reaching for me.

day five: trouble me

i softened. i couldn’t help it. i wanted to be cold and determined, resolved. i wanted to walk out and never look back. but, robert had my heart, he'd had it since i was sixteen years old, when he first gave me that ride home in his jeep. he had it before then, really. back when i daydreamed about him, and made mixed tapes for him that i thought i'd never give him, watched him walk through the world and wonder. then later, when we shared conversations and shared spaces, when he shared his walls with me. i loved him more still when he gave me sleep, safety, and helped glue me back together.

so, yes, i softened. i walked over to him and let him collapse into my arms like i had so many times before.

"please stay with me, janie. i'll make this work. i will. just give me some time. please don't leave." he was pleading with me, with his eyes and his voice, and his tears. i was the one holding him up now, leading him back to his bed, letting him curl up into me, his head resting on my chest. it was my voice saying words of comfort, this time.

i stayed.

day five: cannonball

i couldn’t say anything. i couldn’t think of what to say. my skin was turning cold, clammy, robert's room feeling suddenly smaller, older. what was i thinking? didn’t i learn this already? love and sex, never the two shall meet, not by both parties, not by both hands and hearts and breath. what was i thinking? but everything had seemed so, so, so, i don’t even know what it seemed. not this, just not this. i move slowly to the edge of the bed, untangling myself from him, letting go.

“janie? where are you going?” he sound so surprised, like what he said would just blow over me, or drip off me, like honey, or syrup. as if not telling troy wasn’t significant in just about every way.

“i’m going home, robert. i don’t know why i came.” I grab my clothes, not looking at him, trying to dress without him seeing any part of me. i am suddenly so exasperatingly shy.

"janie? why would you say that? what did i do?” he is standing up now, too. i don’t look at him, but i can hear the telltale bed sounds, the shift in his weight coming off of it. he is walking towards me, i can feel it, i can feel him. it stops me, even though i want to move. i still look away, at my clothes, the wall, the door..

"look at me, janie. why won’t you look at me?” his voice changes. i can hear the slight brush stroke of panic paint over him. and i can't help it, i turn towards him, look right at him adn that is when the tears fall.

"why can't we tell troy, robert? why? what do you this this is?" my voice sounds sixteen again. i feel sixteen again; confused, conflicted, blurred with emotion.

he's the one to look away now. he turns back towards the bed, past it, grabs his pants, putting them slowly. everthing feels lengthened, like those hallways that just grow longer as the heroine in danger moves in slow motion, in all those predictable horror films. every moment seems to drag, and i stand there stuck. robert walks to the window and still says nothing. the silence is wrapping around us now, fogging over us like a haze heavy in the room, thickening the air. i try to move but i can't, my feet feel glued to this spot on his carpet. all i can do is cry, tears streaming down my face. i don't even lift a hand to wipe them away, just taste the salt on my lips.

robert finally turns around towards me. he looks pale, torn up, hesitation is written across every inch of his skin. i can feel the trip in his voice, how he is holding back, how it is breaking him into tiny little pieces.

"i can't tell troy...because...because he is my boyfriend now, janie. we are...we are together." the words stagger out, forced, pained.

he turns away again, and i feel the sting hit me. every part of my body responds to it, my insides are screaming. i had thought of countless other reasons. that he didn't want this to be more than tonight, that he wasn't ready to change these years of friendship, that he wanted to keep it a secret. i'd had that kind of thing before, guys who wanted to meet you out back somewhere, or in their car, in a van that doesn't belong to them. they didn't want to exchange names or numbers, or lives. that maybe this is a mistake, well it was a mistake, it is a mistake. but not this, not in this way. how is this possible? how is it possible? how di di not know? i feel the shift in me then, from shock to anger, and it lights me up from the inside. i feel flames racing through my veins, in my blood, and my thoughts turn into sharp objects.

"then what the fuck was this, robert? what the fuck was this?” i wasn’t much for cussing. i did it, but not often, and never to Robert. he knows it, knows that only a certain level of pain brings ou tthis kind of cold anger, and this delivery of language. he almost falls backwards, grabs onto the windowsill and holds it tightly. he is cowering in the corner. i've never seen him like this. he starts crying, fast, hard. cryign that turns into sobs, ugly sobs, with snot and tears all mixed up and running all out of you kind of crying. it takes everything in me not to run to him, to cover him in anything he needs. but, i hold my breath and just stand there. i try to hold on to something close to self-respect.

"you don't understand. you don't understand. janie, he doesn't have anyone else. he needs me. i can't leave him alone." the words come out between mor sobbing, in a mess of breath and water. he sounds like he is underwater, like he is drowning.

"then why me, robert? why this? why did this happen? i don't understand? yeah, you are right. i don't fucking understand." i am shaking so hard i can barely stand, i grab hold of the doorknob, hold myself up. i look at the door, and keep my escape open and ready. i know i am ready to run.

"because i love you, janie. i've always loved you. you are my home."

day four: crashing down

i only make it through first period before she sees me. her eyes were wild, on fire, pain and worry and questions and you better tell me woven in with cuss words and high octaves. i can hear all of it before she gets close enough to touch me. i am standing at my locker, leaning really, trying to remember my combination and turn the dial with shaking hands. i don't remember which class is next, where i need to go next. i've kept my head low, so far. kept to minimal conversations, if any.

robert suggested the car accident story to explain the shape i'm in, to give the bruises a reason. i stumbled over the story in the office and that clueless woman behind the counter came around and hugged me, asked me if i was alright. she had almost cried when she told me about a car accident that had happened when she was in high school, how she'd lost her best friend. at least there will be no call home, no notes to sign.

but, i failed on my head to the ground and no eye contact convictions, with sam. i felt her eyes on me before i had actual confirmation that she was near. she was running towards me now, grabbing the sleeve of my dress, with force. i wince as my wrist starts to throb from the pressure of her pulling. her voice sounds jagged and sharp.

"you are coming with me, jane. right now." there is no fighting her, not that i have any fight left in me.

even just coming along with her hurts. the slightest touch is near unbearable, with every hour that passes the pain registers more. some of it is just being touched, touch is so unbearable. but, i can't say it, i just swallow hard and keep walking. it was a car accident, just a car accident. a car accident. she leads me out of the building, through a side door we used to ditch classes. we would sneak out during pep rallies, or other such school spirit gag me activities. this was the side of the school the security seems to forget about, the side with the gap in the fence, just big enough for skinny girls to squeeze through and determined boys to climb over. the sleeve of my dress snags as i push on to the other side. the sound of fabric ripping makes me jump, hearing it startles me, it is too recently familiar. i feel the taste of vomit in the back of my throat, choking me into a deeper silence. but, i keep walking. i keep following sam.

finally we stop in the field behind the school where they are planning to build yet another housing track. it is deserted at the moment, all the workers are on the other side, on a break, or something. sam drops down to the ground, sits cross-legged, and stares at me with that look of determination; the kind that screams i have all day if it takes that long.

i sit down, too, wincing when i cross my legs, trying to mimic the ease she seems to have. i am trying so hard to look okay.

"tell me." she says firmly, looking at me head on. when i try to look away she crawls in that direction until she is face-to-face with me again. she scoots herself closer until we are touching distance, knee-to-knee, like when we were kids.

"tell you what?" my voice is cracking again, damnit. i want to sounds strong and fine.

"tell me what the fuck happened to you, janie? the two weeks you haven't been here, the bruises that you tried to cover-up with what looks like clown make-up, that look on your face. that long dress and my boots, in this heat. what the fuck, janie?" she was a mile a minute, her words flying out of her, yet she doesn't move. she keeps her knees to mine, her eyes to mine, unwavering.

"car accident. i was in a car accident." my voice is too quiet and my eyes shift away, i can't look at her and say this. i can't. i will lost it. keep it together, just fucking keep it together.

"seriously, jane. a car accident? really? whose care then? when was this? where? who else was with you? what street? what time?" her questions go on and on, firing at me. i know it is no use to lie to her further. the lies would weave into more lies, and into even more lies, and then into nothing. this is impossible. sam is impossible.

"i was in a car accident." i barely whisper it now, my voice just won't come out. it is sticking like carnival taffy, and tar, and quicksand; all of it mashed and mixed together in the back of my throat. i can't breathe. my eyes are stinging, dry and burning. she stammers for a second, sighing, seeming like she will just walk away and leave me there.

but then i think she sees me, really sees me, and she just stops. she stops the questions, she stops moving, she stops everything. she just grabs hold of me, gently, wrapping her arms around me. she lets me cry.

day four continued: forget to breathe

the sun is peaking in through the blinds. they are still bent from when we had that kitten, the small, grey one that liked to leap from the bed to the blinds, hang by them by two or three claws, meowing until jake would get up and rescue her. once down she would start puncturing the boxes still left unpacked. we never did give the kitten a name, just kept calling her rascal and cat, or kit cat, or "no kitty". we meant to name her before all this happened. that night when it all ended, we were distracted and we'd forgotten to close the door that night tightly. she ran off then. probably out to find a home that would give her a proper name.

i could use that kit cat right about now. this apartment feels too big, too quiet. i’ve been sleeping with the television on all night, just for the sounds, just like my mother. does it really happen that easily? the adoption of parental cringe habits? i need to get up, get out of bed, get out of this funk i’ve found myself in.

there are unanswered messages on my machine, a pad of paper and a half worth. troy is going to be in town next week. he’s working on some kind of documentary show for mtv, something about a group of people living in a house. he's here in town briefly before he's back in new york, where sam is, and where the show is meant to be. he told me about it last christmas, over drinks. i asked him where the music was? isn’t that what mtv is supposed to be? music? videos? he just laughed and told me i had no vision and that college was bleeding the cool out of me. as if i was ever cool. as if i even stayed in school. i should have. i still have all the books, a month and a half salary worth of books that i didn’t even get halfway through. jake hadn’t wanted me to go. he had wanted me to work on all of this. our new place, our new life. "how can we have any freedom with your hands tied to schedules and papers and tests all the time? where is the adventure in that?" he would ask, shaking his head.

but our life wasn’t any sort of adventure. a department store job for me, a coffee counter job for him, one that only paid in tips; tips that usually consisted of a few buttons, some loose change and iou slips written on the inside of cigarette packs. we were supposed to be bohemian, living the artist life. he had every detail plotted, every t crossed. i guess i let him take me over. sometimes you just get tired of fighting life. i don’t know what i had to offer besides selling overpriced dresses, anyhow. i had those dreams of being a writer, a journalist, a teacher. but, every girl has those notions that they can write. they spout off about being a poet or an author because they write in journals and black and white composition books, or because they have read keats and e.e. cummings. all they really do is smoke cigarettes and skip meals, get pregnant, proposed to, and then wind up alone. what an adventure.

i wish i hadn’t thrown that pack of cigarettes away. i wonder if i go down to the dumpster, maybe i can still find the pack, wade through the mountain of black plastic we had a party last night bags to find them. no, i promised myself i’d quit. i promised you, too, little girl. i need to come up with a name for you. i do. i don’t think you can be kit cat the kid.

i don’t want to see troy when he comes. i don’t want to hear his stories, or see that look in his eye when he sees my belly. my maternity clothes, this half empty apartment. he’ll just talk about robert. he will. even if i don’t ask him, he’ll get brought up. robert is our connection, our old family ties. and i’m just not up for it. i’m not that girl anymore.

i can’t tell robert either. i know he’s on that machine, too, lost in that maze of i’m hiding unreturned calls. he can always sense when something is happening to me. it's in the wind, he used to tell me. "your words are in the wind, janie." he never knew about jake, about me dropping out of school, or that the dreams came back. no one knows about the dreams. jake tried to get me to tell him, told me i wake up screaming and clawing at the air, when i slept. he said my voice would sound alien to him, feral and raw. i pretended not to know, acted suprised and shocked. i blamed it on the zombie fueled 'night of the living dead' marathon we'd had, and bad food. i didn't tlel him that they come to me when i'm awake, too. the memories, the sounds, or how i etched survival lines into the inside of my thighs, in the tender spots, the pain covering me with a soothing haze; helping me breathe. i guess i don't have to hide it away any longer. last night's criss-cross cuts on my arm are proof of that. my freedom in pink swollen flesh; anything to silence this fear.

how am i going to do this? i don't even think i can afford rent here anymore. i've missed so many days of work. carrie pretends not to notice because of the baby, because she knows jake left. she'd run into him getting coffee, and he told her he'd left for good. not just me, but the whole city, the entire state. that he cannot breathe the same air as me, anymore. she told me she asked about the baby, asked how he could do it. how he could be out of my breathing space and still have a daughter. he told her i'd made my decision, shut him out, that he had no baby now. maybe he can look up my father and live with him, they can compare notes on denying their children's existance.

and, in a quick moment or less, we become our parents. it happens. they don't warn you about it, but it does, it happens.

"carrie, i'm sorry. i can't come in today. yeah, i'm sick." and i am still sick. i think i'll go back to bed. maybe i need a matched set, maybe then i can breathe. don't worry jake, i'll try to keep my breath far from you.

i wish i'd let sam come. i didn't think i'd be this scared.

day four continued: janie's got a gun

“remember when you used to sleep here all the time, janie?” robert walked back in from the kitchen, smiling as he spoke.

it was late and the house was dark. so silent, i’d forgotten how quiet his house gets. no television playing all day, no wandering through the halls, no sleepless nights. he is balancing a tray in his hands, a childish grin painted all over his face.

he sits down behind me and pulls me close to him. i can feel his breath on the back of my neck, down my spine, warmth spreading across my whole body. he hands me a cup. he's made hot cocoa for us, out of those little packs with the marshmallows that never really soften like they should; they remind me of the ones they gave us at seventh grade camp.

“yeah. troy would fall asleep on your pile by the closet, over there," i point at the pile, smiling at the sight of our clothes we had recently added to it, "you and i here in bed. i think troy hated me for that, for being the one in bed with you. he probably hates me still, or will; for this.”

i was starting to unravel what had happened between us, taking it in. the possible consequences and how the reactions might play out. i could picture how it will ripple through our intertwined lives, how it could affect us all. but, i don't want to think on it right now, not yet. i just want this right now, robert and i, in each other's arms, drinking cocoa. so, i sip the cocoa and move myself in closer, close my eyes. i just want to forget the entire world tonight.

“janie, maybe we shouldn’t tell troy about this.” his words thud out of him, hit the wall and pound back. they hit like a fist, like a bucket of cold water being poured all over my naked skin. i stiffen, a thousand questions and assumptions lining up in front of me. my psyche firing squad. ready. aim. fire.

day four continued: you are my sunshine

i got home late, or is it early, all the same thing, i suppose. just before nicky turned on the cartoons, saturday morning delights. my mother is asleep on the couch. she doesn't hear me, or maybe she is pretending not to. she ignores the messages on our answering machine asking where i have been, explainging how i've missed two weeks of classes. sam can forge an excuse for me. we've always been the masters of each other’s parental signatures. i can even pull off her mother's voice on the phone when needed. i had refined the art of troy’s, too, when he needed excuses for missed p.e. classes. i would up lies why he couldn’t dress out, or be out in the sun; fabricated skin conditions that we had looked up in the back of the library after an afternoon matinee.

i'm lying in bed, trying hard not to move. if i'm still enough will it just all fade away? my mother has slept in here recently. i can smell her on my pillow, that forever mother smell that never goes away. i remember as a kid, when i would fall down, skin my knees, and she would hold me close as she kissed my forehead. she would squirt bactine on what ever hurt, and i would make that face; and she would blow on it, softly, promising a shared bottle of coke afterwards, from the machine.

i can hear her breathing in there, heavy, dream sleep heavy, i want to crawl inside that afghan, next to her, close. i want her to blow on the spots that hurt, promise me a drink, promise me that the pain will go away. i don’t move, though. i can’t convince my body to move.

robert promised me he would tell no one, promised me that it would be between us. actually it was more of a bargain then a promise. i had to go back to school. i had to eat. i had to take care of myself. i nodded to all of them in silent agreement. he didn’t see my fingers crossed, that i was sitting on my hands to hide them. i don’t want to break them, promises. but i honestly don’t know how to take care of me anymore.

i did return to school, though. today. one promise upheld. i spent two hours in the bathroom sitting on the floor in front of the long mirror, trying to cover things up with make-up and trying to focus; trying on the mask of sanity, of safety, of who i used to be once upon a time. i perfected a slight smile to impose an i’m really just fine please don’t ask me again. i keep trying to breathe. in and out. in and out. in and out. every time I stood up i felt everything spin and shake, the room, my insides, my head.

i’m wearing that dress that troy helped me pick out, with the long green sleeves and the mismatched patchwork bits of velvet sewn together. it is the best out of my closet to cover as much of my body, as possible. i keep my hair down and slide on sam’s black boots that she left here somtime last winter. i’m finally ready, i think i’m ready, maybe i'll just go back to bed. i hear his car in the drive-way, though.

i walk to the door, remind myself to keep moving. robert’s car is parked in the drive-way. he has hot cocoa and a donut, my favorite kind, old fashioned without any glaze, plain. i can’t remember when i told him i used to love those when i was five. riding beside my grandfather, in his tow truck, feeling so big with my hot drink between my knees. grandpa called those donuts “grown-up” and i held my hands up to him, a smile wide across my face. he always smelled of old spice, that white bottle with the ship drawn on. i pictured him a sailor, before he met my grandmother. that she brought him to shore, and then it was trucks that took him over. but he still wanted to smell of the sea. some days he would put some on the insides of my wrists, and i would hold them close to my nose, breathe him into me.

“good morning, my janie jones. have breakfast with me?” he was all bright and beautiful, sunshine in the body of a boy, smiling. he was my safety, my hand to hold. if i could love him more than right now i just can’t fathom it. i bite my lip and try not to cry. the cracked spots opening, and bleeding again. keep moving, janie; hold it together for him.

day four continued: janie jones

“he left,” i speak the words into the receiver, standing in the kitchen, socks on my feet. i peer into cupboards, into the empty spaces. “and i can’t believe he took all the cereal with him.” i let out a bit of a cracked laugh.

“what do you mean he left? now? he left now? with the baby and everything?” sam still had that jumping up and down on a trampoline while singing along kind of voice. new york hadn’t changed that in her.

“he asked me to marry him and he left.” it sounds so strange when i say it out loud, all of it. hearing it makes it so much more final, and even more true.

“marry him? what? he asked you to marry him? jake? and then he left? damn, janie, i don’t talk to you for a few weeks and look what happens. did you say yes?” sam is tapping her foot, her fingers. even though she is on an opposite coast i can see it, and know it, her impatience with everything. time has never moved fast enough for her.

“yeah, sam, i said yes and then he ran away,” (i said no. i still can’t believe I said no.) “i said no, sam. i had to. i don’t love him. a baby isn’t going to make me love him. i can’t marry him.” (i can’t believe I said no. that this is actual. final. just me and a baby.)

"you said no. okay. no. okay.” she was pacing. the tapping had now turned to pacing. dam verbalizing the mulling over in her head, aloud.

“what are we going to do now?” it is a question, but not really a question. it is more of a statement, her version of final.

“we?” i couldn’t disguise it, the breaking up in my voice, the scared bits that i didn’t want to recognize.

“you can’t do this alone, janie. you just can’t. i'm not going to let you.” her voice is strong, so strong. (how did she get to be that strong?)

“sam. i can do this. i can. you are in New York now and i’m here. we have our own lives now. i can do this.” i tried to sound convincing, enough for the both of us (i can. i hope i can. i’m trying to believe i can. i can’t ask her to help. i can’t.)

“you don’t have to do everything alone all the time. it doesn’t always have to be that way. you aren’t some damn superhero, you know?” her voice is starting to break up now.

“you’re one to talk, sam. all alone in new york, trying to pull some kind of i’m going to make it after all mary tyler moore crap. i don’t see anyone helping you. i can do this, sam. i can.” my voice comes out stronger than i feel. (i can do this. i can do this. i can do this. if you say it enough you can make it true.)

“okay, janie. but if you need me i'm here. i can be on the next plane. i can. i love you.” she is relenting, and i know it is hard for her to relent. and she means it, too. i know she does.

“i love you, too. now tell me about the boys in new york.” i knew that would change the course, that she couldn’t resist telling me about all the gory and the beautiful tales of boys she has met. i pour some team, hop up on the kitchen counter.

(i can do this. i know i can.)

day four: breakable

it was the last day of my ditched two weeks, a friday. that boy with the green streaked hair, i was going to see him, at that puke brown van. it was parked in the back by the dumpsters. no one really parks there. he took me there, showed it to me, told me that sometimes he slept there, got high there. and he would lead me there to mess around; me and who knows who else. i wish i’d asked his name, told him mine; maybe it would have made things mean more, or less. i’m not sure.

robert told me to write this down, to tell someone, even if its just this piece of ripped out notebook paper that i’ll probably burn away. i don’t think i need proof of this lying around. robert says we can cover the bruises the same way we did troy’s. that i can sleep here anytime. that i’m not broken. i’m not broken. i’m not broken. i'm not broken.

wasn’t there someone that said if you say things in three it makes it true?

i didn’t tell robert what troy said about me, or what i’ve been doing these last two weeks. he might think i deserved this. i probably do. deserve this.

my wrist hurts, it hurts to write with. that boy was there. he wasn’t alone. there was this older man, younger than a father, older than someone still in school, i think. he had these long, bony fingers, had them around the back of that boy’s neck. he was leaning him over that chair in the back of the van. a chair like that one like in my grandparents’ motor home. a captain’s chair, i think. it swiveled back and forth. he was holding it steady with his other hand. that boy was screaming. how come no one heard him screaming? How is that possible?

he was shoving himself into the boy, over and over. i felt dizzy. i wanted to run. i wanted to scream. i wanted to pull him off that boy and make it stop. i think i did scream. i don’t know. i don’t know. maybe i did, maybe i didn't. i know he saw me then. he turned around. he had this wild look. he looked like the shadow man from my dreams. i wanted to wake up, to just fucking wake up. but i was awake, wasn't i?

he had let go of the boy. left him slumped across the chair. and i saw blood coming off of him. i tasted blood in my mouth. i think i was biting my lip. it is crusty now, sore and scabbed.

why do i have to write this? what will it change?

i want to just lie in robert’s bed and not speak, not sleep. i want to just lie there. he keeps telling me i need to eat, that my ribs are showing more, too much. he keeps touching my hair and saying i’ll be okay. he wants to call sam, i don’t want him to call sam, i don’t want him to call anyone. i don’t want to write this. but he’s watching me. he is changing the record, but he keeps looking to make sure i'm still writing.

the man grabbed my arm. i didn’t feel it then, but i feel it now. there is a handprint bruise where he grabbed me. he said something, some mismatched words i can't remember. he called me a boy. i was wearing that skirt, and i don’t look like a boy. i know i don’t look like a boy. even with my ribs showing i still have curves. i’m still a girl. even now. i’m still a girl in this skin.

there was another one of those chairs, across from the boy. i guess you could sit like that, have a conversation, or something. i don’t know. that boy and i had always sat on the floor, putting our cigarettes out on the stained carpet.

it smelled like stale beer, like vomit and piss, like the bathroom at anaheim stadium. there were igarette burns all over the place.

he pulled me over to that other chair and pushed me down. my face was smashed into the fabric. i could taste it, feel the frays of thread stick to my tongue, and in between my teeth. i could still taste blood, but more now. i closed my eyes. i think i screamed again. i know i wanted to scream. i wanted to become a scream. and i wanted to disappear.

i lost a shoe. i don’t know where it is. i don’t know. he ripped my skirt, my stockings, my everything. ripped me bare, quickly, with one hand. it felt like a knife inside of me, like cutting, tearing. that isn’t even where it is supposed to be, is it? not where my fingers wandered to, under the covers, the warm feeling of putting them in and out. or where that boy across from me had put his fingers.

i can hear his sobs. this raw punctured sound where he had once touched me. even though I went numb. it wasn’t like this when he had touched me.

troy could be some fucking sage. is it sage? is that what they call them? fortune tellers telling that girl that I like it like that. there was all this blood and this sound.

i can’t write this. robert will have to deal. i can’t write this anymore. it has been two days. i haven’t slept, and i think i want to sleep now; i think i want to sleep forever.

day three: when you were mine

i can’t get that kiss out of my head. it stings like a re-opened wound, when the bandage is ripped off prematurely before any healing is complete. i feel restless, unhinged. sam left hours ago, after she dismissed my feelings of guilt, giving you back to me in a way. now the guilt is replaced with this unfamiliar and overwhelming need. i need reactions and answers, some kind of understanding. and, this feeling again. again. again.

i try to busy myself with the comfort of order, and re-organization. these things i cling to when i lack control. when my reality spins and spins into some kind of carousal abandon, and my arms want to reach for the sky, for escape; when all i want to do is scream into the water, that's when i change my room around. i move my bed under opposite windows, to the other side of the room. i re-alphabetize my albums, stopping to read the back of each one, scanning the song lists. i start to play songs that can emote for me. the music feeling like a welcome itch on exposed skin.

maybe i'll make a mixed-tape.

the songs come easily. robert and i have always had such synchronicity between us, especially musically. there are so many things to say, to think, to feel. all that fear still so strong and thriving inside of me. time has passed between now, and the last time i allowed myself to recognize love for him. the things that have come in to fill the gaps? forgettable. they just are that. not even worth the trouble of lipstick. but him. but robert.

how do i swim myself out of this? or, into this?

i keep pushing play. pause, record, play; pause, record, play. the cyclical rhythm is soothing, hypnotic, distracting. my eyes are trying to avoid the shape of things, my ears trying to focus on something besides the sound of the phone not ringing. i just want to dive deep into my waves of denial, disavow that it even happened. maybe it was all just a dream. perhaps this is not what i want at all.

the tape stops suddenly. i hate when the last song is cut off, abruptly, mid-lyric.

"oh, i love you. god, i love you. i'd kill a dragon for you. i'll die."

i could fix it. spend the time to get caught up in the numbers, the re-ordering of songs. add them up, fit them in properly, make the songs finish with perfection. but nothing ends that neatly and i cannot sit here any longer. i can't abide the stillness, the unknown. i need to know what this is.

i grab my keys. i don't even stop to look in the mirror. i don't bother with my hair, my face. i hear my brother arguing in another room, with our mother. i stop briefly when the screen door slams behind me. there is always a part of my brother that i want to scoop up and take with me, wherever it is i'm going. and, another part of me that wants him as far away from who i am, as possible. there has to be a different path for him to take.

i drive with my arms locked; straight and unwavering, no bends or curves. i used to drive like this when i had too much speed in my system. right now my heart is racing in that same way. i need a cigarette. i need something bigger, something more; something that fish hooks into me, through the skin. i need him to be home.

it has been years since i’ve been inside his house. his parent’s house. we all still live at home; well, maybe not live. i don’t think any of us have lived anywhere for a long time. just short sleeps and clothes to pick-up, that is what our “homes” have become. a place to collapse, and then get back up; a place to rejuvinate, and then back out the door as fast as you can type of living. my car was more of a home.

i had been here briefly, to robert's house, in the time since i used to sleep here. but just a stop in the drive-way. i hadn't even turned off the engine. just swing open the door, sam pushing the seat forward. "climb on in back."

but, here i am walking to his door, counting the steps. one. two. three four five. the night feels like rain, thick air that you can almost see. the damp sprinkles catch in my hair, and attach to my eyelids. i blink them away, wipe my hair from my face. i wish I’d tied it up. the doorbell is still broken. it still hangs by two tiny wires, dangling and dirty. i knock, a little too quietly, holding my breath. i am poised to run.

i see his eyes first. the house is dark behind him. then the rest of him comes into view. the porch light changing my focus. his hair is a mess, flannel pajama bottoms, a washed out black t-shirt that you can tell is soft to touch, worn in. he wipes his eyes with the palms of his hands, like a child. rub. rub. rub. his face is changing into a mottle of warm red and cold pale. he smiles, and opens his arms. he pulls me in so close that i can smell everything he is right at that moment. him. the cigarette he smoked before falling into sleep, that incense that he always swore aids in lucid dreaming, residue lingering of studio one hairspray, the scent of his body. i feel the slight tinge of sweat beading on the back of his neck, at the hairline, when i reach up to accept his welcoming embrace.

we say nothing at first. he just takes my hand and leads me inside. we walk by his parents. they are watching something on t.v. that i can’t quite make out. the couch faces the screen, not us. they don’t even see is walk by. not that it ever mattered who came and went. robert was invisible to them. his mother busied by her new children. her husband, robert’s stepfather, not wanting to embrace a son he didn’t understand. robert claimed to like it that way, though. the anonymous shadow self he became in the house, even when he was a child.

his room, it hasn’t changed much. still the piles of clothes strewn around. the black and white photographs and ripped pages of magazines pinned haphazardly to the walls. his bed, the rumpled sheets and that feathered bedspread that felt like a womb, or the embrace of a mother’s love. he wraps his arms around me again, pulling me close, sgain. he buries his face in my hair.

“you’re here.” he whispers, and we just stand there, together, locked in this moment of time and space and past and future and words and music and emotion. i can feel nothing but his arms, his breath, his body. all thinking is gone.

finally one of us has to speak, had to step back, has to let go first. i pull back from him slowly, unlocking my arms, my hands sliding down his. i grab his hands and hold them in mine. i look up at him. focus, janie. try to focus. i should ask what now. i should ask how he feels. i should ask what he wants this to be. but, i can’t. i just can’t make it that real. instead i reach into the pocket of my grandmother’s old sweater that i grabbed off the floor of my backseat on the way here. i pull out the tape I made.

“i brought music.” i murmur, handing it to him, smiling crookedly, suddenly feeling so shy. my whole body is shaking.

he puts it in his tape player, pushes play. the silver boom box type thing that lies on the floor by the bed. he sits down on the edge and stares at me, his eyes wide, and mesmorizing. i catch a haze of blue and grey floating around him, in the air; a trick of my imagination, i’m sure.

“come sleep with me, my music girl.” his voice is shaking, like my insides. hearing it startles me, sends these running up and down and through me chills over every inch of my skin. this vulnerability is new, strange, yet beautiful. i can barely breathe at all anymore. i'm afraid of cracking the lens, breaking this moment in shards. i walk over to him, dizzy. now my whole body is shivering.

there is so much not said that washes over us through the music from that tape. fumbling hands, both of ours. i pull off his t-shirt. he unbuttons my sweater. i pull my shirt off, over my head. he reaches his arms around me, fumbling more, as he tries to unlatch my bra; the trip up of unskilled boy hands. i finally take over, remove it, throw it past his shoulders. it lands in a heap on the floor, follwed by more clothes, adding to the piles. we are just us now, naked and pale, shadows casting shapes on skin; the street lights making lines and language across us. we are playing games with night, within our wordless disbelief.

this isn’t a first for either of us, just a first between us. we aren't stumbling in that how do you do this and that sort of way. but, still, it is new. this is new. our fingers explore parts of each other that we have never seen. it feels as if we are translating a strange and alien text to each other. communicating through touch, senses, lips and shoulders and spine curves. the feel of him sliding inside of me is beyond words, it garners deep throated gasps from both of us. we are frozen for a moment, not moving, just grasping at this feeling of shared existence. we are full of wonder at how there is no longer a dividing point between where one of us breathes in, and the other breathes out.
our eyes lock, our Bodies move. this is what it is all supposed to feel like. this feeling, i have never let myself feel anything near this.

“i love you.” his shaky whisper voice is back, while he moves within me. his words moving within me, too. then the shock of release, a slight panic enters in, not wanting to stop. we hold each other still. all our missing pieces are melding together. my legs lock around him, holding him to me. his hands are in my hair, tangling the strands, interlocking us more.

“don’t move. please, don’t move.” i whisper back.

i feel the tears coming. i let them go, not bothering to stop them. i allow them to trickle down my face.

“i love you, janie. always.” he says, clearer now, as he traces the marks of my tears with his lips.

i’m shaking again, from deep inside, and all the way out. this is a soul shake. my skin is hot and cold and tingle singed color alive. my lips reach up to meet his. i grab hold of his bottom lip with my teeth. he is grabbing my hair now, his teeth baring down on my neck, i can picture the pink flush rising. all of the waiting and hesitation, the mixed signals and miscalculations, the holding back. it is all being unleashed now. the passion grabbing us again, and thrashing us about. over our bodies a safety net invisibly wraps around us, protecting us, giving permission for us devour each other. we never knew how hungry we really were.

and then collapse. the sweetest of sleep creeping in and taking over, pulling us deep beneath an ocean of dreams and sated feelings; of love. all that human doubt and consequence is locked out for the night. our night. the beauty of the way our bodies blend, and the way we could always sleep like this.

day two continued: leaving

"i’m trying, jane. i’m trying. can’t you see I’m trying?” jake says, wringing his hands, his voice raising an octave with every subsequent trying. his head is bent down low so i can’t see his face clearly, but i know that crease between his eyebrows is deepening, and that his eyes are squinting as if trying to look into the sun.

“trying? what are you trying?” i am pacing now, releasing my hair from its pony-tail prison; it falls fast and wildly around my face, and whips around defiantly as i turn around to face him. i feel myself staring right through him, willing him to look me straight on.

“i’m trying to take this all in. a baby? how is this possible? i don’t even know how to be a father? and you, are you ready for this? are you ready to be a mother?” jake is shooting the questions at me. bang bang. and all i can do is try to hold on, take each one in, then try to cover the wounds.

“you don’t try to be a father, jake. you just do it. can’t you see that? it isn’t that hard to do. just grow the fuck up.” i was firing back, grabbing a bow and arrow; aim. release. hit.

“what would you know about fathers? what would you know about any of this? you can’t even stop smoking, or lying to me. to yourself. what kind of mother do you think you are? we aren’t ready for this.” he starts pacing now, too, his voice raising louder, echoing off His voice raising louder, echoing off the walls where we still have pictures to hang; everything is still so unfinished.

“fuck you, Jake. you are the one not ready. and you don’t know anything about my father.” and with that the tears arrive in full force. i could feel them stalling in the back of my throat, choking me, like fingers lacing around my neck. i start counting between breaths, trying to talk the tears back. i do not want this kind of weakness to take hold of me, not now.

“tell me then, jane. help me understand. i’m trying here.” he is wringing his hands again. his eyes pleading with me.

i want to speak. i do. i can see him drifting, floating away. i want to throw my hands out, pull him back in, open up to him, for him. but i can't. i just stand there, staring, watching his questions turn to something raw and ugly. finality is creeping in, and landing like a shadow over him.

“to hell with it, jane. i’m never going to be enough for you. never going to have the right things to say. never going to have you’re perfectly written answers.”

he was fading more and more. i was losing him, quickly. he was disappearing before my eyes. he was ooking at his shoes, his hands pulling at his hair, leaving strands sticking out, left and right. everything gone askew. this was the boy who kept trying to mold me into something different. always wanting to get his hands into me, inside me, turn my skin to clay. his artist vision taking over the past. turning the girl into a lie. and i let him, i had wanted to be his lie; until now.

“what do you want from me?” he was looking at me now, eye to eye, face to face. and i regretted it all then, every bit of us. that look on his face so full of incredulous anger, pain, and giving up.

“i don’t know.” i say it flatly, my voice not even familiar to me.

i stop pacing, i stop moving at all. i slink myself down to the floor, and now i am the one looking down. my arms wrap around myself in a childish attempt to disappear.

he stops, too kneels down to my level, and runs his fingers through hair. he gently lifts my head up to meet his, until we are making contact again.

“do you want to get married?” he seems so sincere, so painfully fucking sincere. his voice has toned down, gone softer, warmer. and all I want to do is stand up, let go, and run like hell.

“no.” I say it without thinking, the word shocking me. i say it before i can even consider stopping, editing, thinking it through.

he pulls away, his hands drop from me, and his body falls. he lets his feet slip beneath him. and he sits in front of me, but out of reach, crossing his legs. his hands lift to his face. he rubs his eyes, and his breath comes in these short static movements. the silence between us seems to take over the entire room. still air turning to stale air. i want to scream. i want to jump up and down. and for a moment i just want to grab him and say i didn’t mean it. say yes I’ll marry you, i’m sorry. i was wrong. but the words don't come. that kind of lie just won't fix this anymore.

he finally looks at me again. his eyes breaking the silence. and he slices me to bits with these simple words.

“no one will ever be him, jane. not me. not anyone. not even him.”

with that he stands up, walks into our bedroom, and shuts the door. i can hear him inside, the shuffling around. he is opening drawers, and rummaging throug the closet. he is packing his things. i know right here and now, without a shadow of a doubt, that this is it.

then there is silence. i strain to hear him, to hear anything. i lie myself down on the floor. my head turns, the cool wood on my cheek feels somehow calming. i watch as the light disappears from my cracked view, from under the door. i pull myself up. my barefeet padding across the room. i open the door, and slowly creep in.

he is there, in our bed. his legs pulled up to his chest, and his eyes staring at the window across the room. i'm not sure what he sees, maybe at nothing. denial is powerful, it starts to pull me towards him. the desire to keep us the same is so strong. i climb into bed, curl myself around him, and look for some sort of recognition. or a turning back time sort of thing.

he pulls away from me, grabbing the blanket and cocooning himself within it.

“i’m sorry.” I whisper it. i put my hands to my belly, and say it again. i am speaking it to jake, to the baby girl growing inside of me, and to myself.

this is our end.

day two continued: our lips are sealed

that was how it started, my sleeping with robert and troy, and how the rumors all started, too, about my sleeping with robert and troy. though the two stories were so far from being aligned. all i was doing was sleeping, finally sleeping. not every night, but at least once a week. when i could stand it no longer, that night patrol with eyes pealed open and my heart racing. the lack of food and the lines of no sleep my darling holding my hands, and pushing me so close to the edge. when i could barely stand robert would take me, grab us both. tuck us in and hold me close.

of course, that isn’t how it went around. i suddenly went from being a virtual nobody, or that weird girl in black with the headphones and smeared eyes, to that total slut. did you know she sleeps with both of them? they have no shame. walking around the halls as if we don’t know. i hear she takes it from both ends, that sometimes they invite people in with them, that they trade blow jobs for speed. did you know? did you hear? i heard she had three abortions. i heard she slept with mr. deacon for that "a"; setting the curve in more way than one.

i was still a virgin.

well, unless you count... but i don’t count that. virginity is supposed to be something you give willingly, and i’m still not sure if that was all real. the shadows, the plaid, the bruises, and the dreams. they seemed to have slowed. my almost excuse.

i’m not sure how i’m supposed to take this sudden fame. i find notes shoved in my locker now, phone numbers, party flyers; The looks and whispers. there is nothing quite like the cruelty of girls. lisa wouldn’t talk to me anymore, she stared at me until i caught her eyes in the hall, then she'd turn away. i heard about her birthday sleepover from the bathroom stall, my feet balancing on the door, shoved shut and trying not to be found. i held my skirt between my knees, tightly. i heard most of the stories from my hidden bathroom stall; the last one, with the broken toilet paper holder and the lyrics to depeche mode’s ‘somebody’ written in black sharpie pen (should have been 'blasphemous rumours') i listened in silence to all the music girls kill me off without saying goodbye.

all of them, except sam; she never did anything with my back turned. she came straight to my window, knocking hard enough to make the panes of glass shake. she came right in when i opened it. she lit a cigarette, grabbed my shoulders and pushed me onto the bed. she sat opposite me, her hands still holding me close, her eyes burning into mine.

“so, are you fucking them? both of them?” there was no skating around truths with samantha, no bullshit layer to wade through.

i just laughed. and then she started laughing, too. laughing in that full body abandon sort of way until the tears started to well up. the release of things, and words, and time just pushed out of the both of us. fast.

“i didn’t think so,” she finally said, when we had breath again. “not that it would have mattered to me.”

and i knew it wouldn’t have.

the rumors didn’t play the same for robert and troy. they had some sort of superhero aura to them, landing on their shoulders, making them larger than life. troy stopped being cornered in the locker room, his bruises faded and didn’t re-appear. robert was invited to some of the same parties i found out about through the shoved in the locker flyers, only they were handed to him in person; face to face. they were not some code for meet me in the back room of the party, spread them for me, and for all my friends. the difference of being a boy, i guess.

it didn’t change us, though. not to each other, not right away. we laughed about it. the way we were misinterpreted. robert would say how crazy they all were, how ridiculous. and, i have to admit, sometimes it stung to hear that. not that i wanted the title of class whore, but, i also didn’t want him to dismiss the possibility of us completely. my emotions were all over the place. sometimes i wouldn’t speak at all. i would take up troy’s code of silence, and set myself to mute. robert would try to lure me out. he would bring up duran duran, make me tapes from krog, drag me to the drive-in to see ‘the breakfast club’, or a midnight showing of ‘rocky horror picture show’ at the balboa theatre. he would walk with me out to the lifeguard tower afterwards, the one off the third cul de sac, with troy trailing behind us, kicking sand.

Iididn’t always shut him out. it was impossible to hold up that kind of vigil. robert's words were like honey, slipping in between my bitter parts, and giving unspoken promises to my shrinking corners of hope.

troy stopped calling me as much, though. he had his own grudges, and he held to them in earnest. he would pull himself farther away every time i shared robert’s comforter, or when i had the crook of robert's arm asmy pillow. i overheard him once talking to lisa under the bleachers; one of our places. i was there to meet them, but arrived a little early. he was giving her a mixed tape. i knew the score, what was hidden within. then i heard the words that felt like a slap across the face.

“she likes it up the ass. Shi have pictures of it, i swear. taking it while she fingers her dealer’s girlfriend.” he was whispering it to her, close to her face, but loud enough that i could hear it, so that i could make out his conspirational tone.

“ewww. why do you hang out with her? god, janie used to be so sweet.”

i heard my name clearly, the confirmation that what i heard was actually about me. and with it, i ran. i threw up in the far bushes, back by where the gardening shed was, right near the dumpsters.

i was afraid to confront him, to confront what he said, to make it real. i ditched classes for the next two weeks, took the bus to south coast plaza. i would sit there in the center court, watched the merry go-round go round. i stole lipsticks from may company, used my lunch money to buy magazines. i would walk down by sears, down by where all the runaways collected themselves. i would let this boy with green streaks in his hair, and rough hands, feel me up in the back of this van. it wasn't his van, i don't think anyone knew whose van it was, exactly.

he pressed himself against me, closer, his tongue pressing my mouth open wide.

i wanted to feel something, or not feel anything at all. i stole valiums from my mother’s bathroom. a bottle of vodka from town and country. snuck in the back, by the toilet paper, diapers, mouth wash. i shoved it into my coat and walked out.

i met that boy a few times. i let him touch me places. with my eyes closed, and my body going numb. he would moan in my ear, his face in my hair, until his breath quickened. then he would pull away, his pants sticky. he’d dig into the bottom of his backpack and pull out a cigarette, share it with me. he didn't look at me, he didn't notice the tears.

day two continued: love will tear us apart

troy fell asleep on robert’s pile of clothes, over by the closet. he was lying amongst jackets and corduroy pants, jeans, and concert t-shirts. sleep came like that, sudden and slamming into you; before you could stop consciousness was gone. so many hours of lacking those deep moments of sleep when things become clearer. when you are running fast and away from clarity the lie of awake is phenomenally addictive.

i should go home. my mom will wonder, not worry, but wonder. she will just make up her own drama filled conclusion that i would wince at, i can already hear it. and really, i don't want to leave. i watch robert and his sleepy eye stare, and i just want to bend and fold into a miniature me. disappear into the curve of his spine, float around inside of him. there are no words that can make this true enough. this moment. the pull he has on my every pore.

“do you want to stay?” he asks me, reaching for the light switch and motioning towards me with this impossible to resist warmth. there is absolutely nowhere worth knowing that I’d rather be. anywhere.

we climb into his bed. a double. he has the softest sheets. they smell clean, they smell like babies, like safety, like love. he opens up the blankets and enveloped me into them, then wraps an arm snug around me. with my head on his chest i can feel his intake of breath, the soft murmur of his heartbeat. it is all so intoxicating. i can feel my entire body suddenly give in and collapse.

“you should sleep more, janie. you and troy both. i don’t understand it. the way you chase around, running from the night. i love sleep.” he takes my hand then, reaches over and kisses the top of my head softly.

"it’s just…it’s just, like, so hard sometimes.” i choke on the words. the sting of possible tears hanging precariously in the balance of my eyelashes. i try to blink, i try to let go.

"what is?” He asks, not looking at me, but looking all the same.

“everything.” i whisper.

he knows things, i know he does. i can tell by the gentle way he is with me. how careful he tries to be, as if he's touching something fragile and new.

“you know, you and i are all he has.” he is whispering now, too, taking my lead.

“i know.”

i want to say they are all i have, too. well, the two of them, and sam. when she isn’t fed up with all this mess i am. i know i have her, even now when we don't talk. i wish i could tell him i love you. in this huge, encompassing way i love you. but the words just refuse. that kind of truth is jagged. raw. with far too many doors to open, all of them with possible hidden traps inside.

but, i feel it. beyond my age kind of love. and i know that it isn't something fleeting. this is that thing in my heart that will probably end me.

day two continued: ask

“sam, it’s me. i’m having a baby. a girl. i’m having a girl.”

it had taken me months to call. all that built up hesitation, even though i knew she’d come running. she would be full of wisdoms unearthed from knowing the right words, paths, and the misguided zig-zag patterns of so far and back then.

“not with that ass. please tell me it isn’t with jake. please.”

she had that sound to her voice. the sound of too much knowing mixed with too much life. she knew already, there was no real need to answer.

“does robert know?”

day two continued (inserted words from an earlier time): she's lost control

(doesn't count for my ultimate word count goal, but it fits into what i'm trying to write...changed the name of the girl)

fifteen minutes left. i count them on a salvation army man’s watch, scratched on the face. sometimes i pretend that it was his. sent back from a war, or a peace march. contradictions aside, the impossibility prevails. that he exists at all, past faded photographs with ruffled shirts; prom night tuxedo, and that big hair picture of mom, looking younger than eighteen. he had scared as hell eyes. i was his little girl, once. waiting by the screen door, pleading for his arrival. my knuckles bleeding and raw, after he stopped coming home, at all. she insists that everything healed up fine, that i was better for all of it. the leaving, the going on, raising her on the way. band-aids over failed marriages, a baby brother. breakdowns. break-ups. drunken calls from i don’t know where i am. an adolescent raising an adolescent, in reverse.

this band is worn. it leaves stains on my skin sometimes, when i drive home with my arm out the window, capturing wind waves, with the radio turned up high. at the spin of a bottle, the turn of a dial, i could just keep driving all the way past the familiar off-ramps. there is nothing waiting at home for me, at least nothing unexpected, or new. his breath on the back of my neck, hot and stale, smelling of motorcycle gas fumes, marlboro reds, and late night bottom of the pot denny’s coffee. lying opposite his face. lying. away. i watch the shadow of false dance on the wall. i can count to ten once, and then backwards, flutter my eyelashes, three sighs, and it's done. then he’ll pass out next to me, snoring too close to my ear, as i teeter to close to the edge of the bed, gripping the sheets to barely hang on. this is as far as i can go without giving notice; two weeks, or otherwise. i stare at the wall still, sleepless, my legs sticky. if i move to take a shower he might wake, or i might just let myself slip down the drain, and empty out into the ocean.

i turn the page down. he tells me that dog-eared books lose their value. that people will notice the carelessness when they borrow a book, or just pick it up and page through, that they will see. but, he’ll never see this one. i can hear in my head how he’d scoff at it, shake his head and say that this is what too much television will do to you. he'll hand me yet another copy of crime and punishment, pat my head; only two years younger and still i’m supposed to play the role of jake’s little girlfriend. as if he can read the abandonment in my eyes, that need for a father figure, twisted and recalled, recoiled. the fact lost on him that sometimes i read trash like v.c. andrews because i need that taste of poison to fill in the empty spots, to make my own family attic look clearer, saner, less cracked and torn. the page rips as i fold it, my hands betraying me again. i check for scars, for the story they tell, i see nothing.

i walk outside, fish my sunglasses out of the bottom of my bag. where is my lighter? the pink one with glitter. the one i bought this morning. that guy behind the counter wears too much cologne, i think. he smells like the guys who work downstairs, or the ones who dance at rage. (he never wore that much). he said to me, with a smirk. “you like the pink one? not black?” i laugh. roll my eyes. palm the green one, also with glitter, on my way out. he doesn’t notice. his eyes are locked on my breasts the whole time he talks to me, watching the rise and fall of my breathing, the noticeable cold morning air that my sweater cannot disguise. the lighters remind me of mixed tapes. all those trips up the coast, the way robert’s tongue felt in my mouth; ever promising things he would never deliver. i can almost hear the way our voices intertwined then, all those secrets kept, and shared. and, the hiccups of betrayal, just like these petty theft lapses of mine. his predilection for giving blow jobs to boys was right there with my constant study in the arts of denial. i’m still good at it. lying just seeps out from my pores.

i was supposed to forget about him. i was supposed to have left all that unopened hesitation behind me, like the abandoned blank walls that i stripped the posters off of, leaving only that sticky tape residue behind. i packed up all those boxes, loaded them into the borrowed office furniture truck, take them to his apartment. i knew that i was leaving pieces of me in the floorboards of my childhood bedroom, and in the back seat of my broken down first car. a hundred dollars from the junk yard was what offered me for her. “but you’ll have to drive it here yourself”. drop her off and walk away. might as well have pushed her off a cliff with me tied to the back bumper. the rear view mirror pops off easily, i should have told them, and has razor blade scratches, unique grooves in the glass. i wish i had a line right now; that familiar burn.

maybe i could pack everything back up and just say i changed my mind. take back the middle of april, too. jake’s birthday present. how i had faked it even back then. his hand yanking my head back, my hair rough through his fingers. i had opened my eyes wide and focused on the pain, the map on the wall, that faint smell of burnt toast. i could hear his mother in the kitchen. he wanted the escape hatch, too. the reason to leave.

my lips feel chapped. raw. i bite down anyway and taste the metallic sting of blood. count to ten and its over. happy birthday, baby (he isn’t you). i sit down against the wall, run my hand slowly across the stucco, feel the slight tug on my skin, the rough exterior pull. how easily we can tear, bleed, and heal over again. i'm an expert at looking good as new, at least on the surface. i pull my knees to my chest, rest my chin. my torn black stockings show from the small gap between skirt and boots. i picked them up off the floor by the window, had slid them on with shaky hands. the gentle grasp required for fabric so vulnerable, sheer, fragile. my fingers could just push through, and rip everything to shreds, even if my nails are bitten down to the quick. my finger tips always have that slight pink tinge of abuse. my zipper catches, snagging, another run up my leg. but, no one sees it. i pull the edge of my skirt down lower and fold my body up closer into myself. inhale, flick. i’m tempted to touch my flesh with fire just to feel something besides this lump of doubt in my throat.

the weight of not saying anything is like the nagging sound of an invisible clock, ticking incessantly. as if that big clock in peter pan was buried in the deepest parts of my insides. big ben, yeah? i forgot my pixie dust along the way, though. i have forgotten how to fly.

he will tell me this is just another way to prove my immaturity, that it is so ordinary to stumble this way. to have this conversation at all will seem so unnecessary, to him. we just unpacked, hammered nails into the walls. "hold it still, jane. stop shaking. not there. here. didn’t you study the floor plan i drew up? pin your hair up next time. you know how it makes your neck look longer. now this picture over here. the couch there." i am just part of the drawing. the sketch of a life in his black bound book. journal #26. "you are in these pages, don’t worry", he assures me in that lowered tone. through his own puffs, and exhales. he will say there is no room here, for this. that’s why my desk had to go, my school schedule, and my college education. "school is just someone else’s view of the world, we will make our own; the two of us." i’ll show you how it will all work out. my own design. his own design. his. the two of us. two.

standing up i feel slightly dizzy. this skirt is perfect for spinning, hands behind my back while i let myself go. i can hear the music swell in my ears. close my eyes and i can feel the sky dim, turn itself into night. the stars dot a path, carve out a perfect space. my heart pulses as i let the imagined thump of music course through me and thin my blood. my feet just walk forward, though, even as i try to grab onto the nearest lamp post, phone booth, stranger’s arm.

i need that kind of darkness that a small club with a membership desk at the front gifted me once. i long for that sort of anonymity, and knowing. the kind of trouble I could drum up back then didn’t play out like this in the end, the screen flickered and reflected back these easier to mend snags, and missteps. i would turn myself inside out and back again. find a pathway, a bathroom stall, a reflection, a new song. passed red cups from the door staff after hours, and black lipstick kisses. i suppose it was just a different scent of deny.

she would know how to write this, but my hand slips when i pick up the phone, or when i try to bring pen to paper. there has been this pause, a button pushed before the end of the song arrives. i walked out of the room during a commercial break, and when i stepped back in she was gone. we were gone. maybe it was too much to keep my half of the bargain. the reminders of him painted boldly in black and blue, on pale skin, on the street lines, the call boxes. i didn’t know how to spell out help. push me back under, love; water my eyes, my nose, my lungs filling until i can no longer take in air, or anything. then pull me back out. my heart racing, my expression wide and wild. she would do this now, give me her answers. but then i’d have to embrace it, hold it away from me. recognition of something that will soon be impossible to hide.

the ice swirls. i spin and shake the straw, pull back the lid, slide ice chips into my mouth, between my teeth. i think about how carrie would laugh and say, “you know what chewing on ice means?” but this is far past sexual frustration. this is about breaking something, even if only the enamel on my teeth. it is about creating noise in my head as the ice cracks. how it delays the whispers in my head, the words i’m choosing again to ignore. one more day, one more hour, one more second. maybe if I keep chewing, keep walking, keep reading grocery store last minute decision aisle novels. keep memorizing the lyrics to ‘she’s lost control’. watching his fingers on the strings as he showed me the bass line, telling me how easy it could be if i just tried harder. how he taught himself to play songs like this. how new order progressed the sound of joy division. that i needed to grow past my death rocker tastes and sensibilities. "stop wearing so much black, jane." drown out the words as procrastination takes her predictive place in line. take the stage, front and center, arms in the air; now spin.

i light another cigarette.

but, my waistline was beginning to betray me. my hand rests on my belly. i mouth “i’m sorry", to my reflection in the store window, and "i can’t do this” i whisper out into the air. i pour more ice into my mouth. i count the steps back to the second shift. he is late again. i look at my watch. i put my weight all on my toe tips, up and down, lift and decline. he knows how much i hate it when he’s late. i could go back in and unlock the gate, call him from inside, wait for him there. but, that would mean alarm codes, closing the gate again, writing down an explanation for re-entry. again. i know joe is going to start wondering. i see the way his eyebrow raises when i come in, the look of distrust. i’ve seen it before. like he knows about the stolen pens, and the ten dollars that one time when my gas tank was empty, and i ran out of cigarettes. it all paints this pink glow to my face, guilt. my eyes invariably darting back and forth, and my lies never taken in clearly, misunderstood his second-language english. i know he watches the way my hands shake, and how i’m always too quick to volunteer for anything.

so, i guess i’ll stay put. stand here and wait. my heart skipping a beat every time i see a car, craning my neck to see if this one is finally him while nightmare storybook pages float through my head. i play act shock and surprise when they break the news to me. a car accident, a failed robbery, a stabbed victim bleeding internally. i try on how my mask of sorrow would look, practice hiding a momentary buzz of relief, and freedom. these were the tales i played in my head as a child, too, while i waiting in a deserted playground. mom losing track of time. i would stand there watching every child wave from a car window. ice cream and daddy’s dream, they all were. the mad array of violent endings i saw, that i almost hoped for, just something she could us to explain, to somehow make the forever waiting worthwhile; and not just me as a forgotten errand, an afterthought.

i loathe these inner folds of me. the hushed side of who i am. i know most people are fooled by my good parochial school past. the way i can write a perfect essay, play a good game. they laugh at the trappings of a girl gone bad, the witch’s cackle, the smeared kohl under my eyes. thrift shop garb in fifty five shades of black. they think they can look right through me, as they nod in this smug way as if to say “you can’t fool me”. like i am just a naïve little thing underneath it all; bright and shiny, sewing paths to a happy ending in some optimism overdrive fairytale. they all stand in line to walk across me. as if i’m a damn yellow brick road.

if they took off my clothes they would see the indentations, the boot scuffs, the notches and nicks where the heels dig in. they all think I love it. dig it. dance a tango to the beat of give everything to everyone. the never ending needy bring their shopping carts to me, park them in my driveway, just up and under the eaves, or in the stairwells. they come tuck themselves in next to me as i sleep. steal the good blanket, and push me to the floor. they would all run and hide for cover if they saw beneath my skin, the gore, the doubts. the pathologic writer of tell-tale explanations. i spin better than a spider, but no one squints hard enough to notice the web.

maybe tonight i’ll tell him. throw it out there over a plate of fries, right before he pulls out his latest scheme dream that will be forgotten in a month. his plans used as rolling paper to smoke one last joint. “i produce more when i’m stoned”, he says this from the couch, where he’s sat for the last twelve hours. paging through the free press, the want-ads, the lost and found. he asks for another five cookies, always better to polish off the whole row, then the symmetry is complete and intact. and, in his bakery goods order, or despite it, the space between us widens. some day i’m sure one of us will fall in, disappear.

maybe this will do it. the words will spill out and a portal will open up in the sky, pull me up by my ears. he’ll just see my feet dangle for a second before i’m gone. he’ll still have that look of shock plastered across his face, the circular twist of argued perspective and reasons waiting on the tip of his tongue. i am ever holding my breath while he readies his army, lying back as i let them march on over to me; his hostile takeover. his words shake me until i’m blue in the face. but, i’ve beat him to the proverbial punch. i'd be gone then, taken through the space portal. he can just sit back and waft in the titles and role models he'll swear i could have been. or maybe he'll just take that waitress girl’s obvious pass at him, bang her in the bathroom stall, right next to i heart gene loves jezebel, and adam lies, with three exclamation points. her face pushed up against the chill of the metal door, the latch barely holding them in. lipstick pink smear smudge leftovers and wrinkles smoothed out of her brown corduroy skirt, placating her way back to work, fixing her hair in the dessert glass. don’t mind me, i’ll just be floating by, watching. she sighs a little quieter than i do. the staccato one two three a bit too rushed. but, it will all help him forget. let go.

i hear the brakes squeal. i recognize the impatience even in the way he drives. somehow the story will reverse and back-up into me. responsibility pinned to my sweater, stuck sideways and in through my flesh, and back out again. i slam the door a little harder than necessary. sulk into the seat. somehow my body has twisted and turned itself into adolescence, again. i can almost hear my mom telling me to sit up straight. to project my voice to the back of the room. to lose ten pounds. to go to more parties. to kiss more boys. all the expectations she never voiced, but just threw at me without words. how she longed for me to fall, to fail. ditch classes, earn a reputation, open up my legs, break curfew. anything that would bring me to her with tear stained cheeks and choked-up pleadings. she would bravely hold my hand at the clinic. wait for me with a magazine. and the looks of admiration from the other scared girls who couldn’t tell their own mother, she would bask in it. how they would tell her i was the luckiest.

maybe she would hold my hand now, eight years too late. can i cash in a rain check for my teenage rebellion? i press my nose into the passenger window glass. breathe out hard. blowing. i watch the hot air fog block my view. i’m tempted to etch help with my fingertips. i remember doing that as a child; smile faces, dogs, my name. mom would yell back at me “don’t write on the windows!” and i’d deny it, forgetting that it would stay there, even after days went by. you’d still see the image, taunting me with it's existance, chiding and singing at me liar liar pants on fire. another knot in my stomach, tied in a bow. even though she wouldn't remember telling me no.

i rest my head on the glass now, feel the cool shock to my system. michael penn is singing about blue jeans. we just passed a 7-11, and i can almost smell the inside; old hot dogs on that continuous roller thing, with one always left in the back, all shriveled up. the bleep blips of video games, the warning labels across the magazines, 18 and over or this is not a library. the whir of the slurpee machine. i want to shringk three feet and walk through the door, quarters stashed in my pocket for ms. pac man, and enough money for the biggest size, my own suicide in multi-colors, a cola and wild cherry death. that big straw with the spoon on the end, michael tried to see how far up his nose it would go when he was ten, i was twelve.

i catch a young boy staring at me from his back window. his own breath shield is almost completely hiding him, except for the eyes. we make that quick contact, that inner register of i see you, you see me. i don't even turn around to look at him then. he is driving, humming to the radio, when the words finally come out.

"jake, i'm pregnant."