My knees buckle, and, for the first time in my life, I scream.
A real scream. The kind that vibrates through my limbs, an ear-curdling shriek I didn’t know I was capable of. I scream until my throat’s raw and my vision blurs. Entire rivers stream down my cheeks, flooding everything I am.
I expect relief, but it’s awful. The worst thing I’ve ever experienced. I can’t stop, my sobs unrecognizable. Everything inside me feels ugly and harsh and relentless.
At some point, as I lie in a tangled heap on the dirt, crying so hard the earth drops out from below me, a flicker of awareness rocks me to my core. It’s a sharp burst, a splintering chill so fleeting I have to latch on before it vanishes, and I think I almost understand.
The universe is alive inside us.
If the universe lives inside me, I can’t always be soft water, going with the flow. I’m not made of just one thing; I’m made of everything.
A beast resides in me, and I just set her free.
Exhaustion leaves me dazed, slumped on the ground, long after my screams have stopped. Closing my eyes, I feel one last tear slip, traveling in a broken, zigzag path along my skin, and I know it’s not mine.
This one is for her.
I see you, Mom.
A final, parched sob escapes me, my forehead resting on my tiny patch of earth.
I see you.
Blue
Ihit the speaker button as my phone rings. Then, setting it face-up on the grass in front of the cottage, I sit beside it and breathe.
It’s not the first time I’ve called my dad since leaving Texas, but it will be the first time I’m asking real questions—and making sure I get real answers.
“Bluebell?”
I close my eyes. “Hi, Dad.”
“Are you okay?”
My heart tightens like a punctured ball being squeezed of its last breath, yet, for a nanosecond, I’m tempted to sayyeslike always. My mouth opens and shuts before I’m able to push out an honest, “No,” and the word leaves a strange texture on my tongue. Heavier than lumber and stickier than glue. It’s going to take longer than I thought to get used to this side of myself. “Remember the last time we spoke, when my flight landed in Sacramento?”
“You told me you have questions.”
“Yeah. I’m ready to ask them.”
There’s a pause. A long exhale. “All right.”
“Promise no lies, okay?”
“I’ve never lied to you, Bl—”
“A lie by omission is still dishonest. I can’t understand the full picture if you leave things out. Don’t be careful with me, Dad. Be real.”
Another pause. “Okay. I think I can do that.”
I inhale, staring past the open field beyond the cottage and into the masses of towering trees ahead. “What really happened between you and my mom all those years ago?”
A sigh seeps through the connection. “Everything I told you is still true. She was ... well, you know Susie. Full of life and uninhibited. In other words, the polar opposite of me.”
A quiet laugh hits my ears, pulling a sad smile from my lips. I know a bit about opposites attracting.
“When we were together, she brought me higher than I’d ever been. So high that almost twenty years later, I still think about it more than I should. But that’s the thing about Susie: her highs were incredibly high, but her lows ...” The line goes silent for one second, two, three. “They were rock bottom, Bluebell. The kind of rock bottom I never knew existed. It wasn’t just her highs that affected me so profoundly, but her lows too, and, unfortunately, she began to see that. I think that’s when she first started distancing herself from me.”
