"You went to the funeral?"
Her breath catches.
I don't wait for an answer.
Instead, I walk over to the empty workstation beside hers and slam the clay down onto the banding wheel.
"What are you doing?" she asks.
"You said you thought I was dead," I snap. With the first cut, clay hits the table with a wet thud. “You thought I was buried.” I slice the block in half with the wire. "You thought I hated you." Another cut down the middle to the second piece, another slice. Clay falls apart beneath my hands as I move it to where I want it. “Show me.”
"What?" She frowns. “I don’t understand, I?—"
With dirty hands I cup her by the face, my fingers digging into her skin gently. “The funeral, show it to me. I want to see. I want you touching,” I lick my lips. “I want you molding. I want you showing me your truth since you’re incapable of using your words, since I’m incapable of trusting anything that comes out of your mouth. You haven’t earned that sort of trust from me, you might not ever, but this,” I grip her by the chin and use my left hand to point at the clay. “This is your truth. Fromevery sculpture I’ve seen, you’ve shown a story right down to the one about me, so this I’ll trust. This is going to be how we communicate. Got it?”
Silence ensues. Her eyes go from calm to panicked in seconds. She’s afraid. Good. Let her feel fear. That seems to be the only thing that pulls the truth from her.
“Jude, wait, I think?—”
“You’re not allowed.” I shrug. “You want my forgiveness? You want restitution? You want to settle this shit with the devil? Fine, then you confess your sins with your hands. That’s our deal. That’s how you find peace, Lilah.”
I grab another piece of clay. “Show me.”
Her eyes narrow. “You sound crazy.”
"Probably, so why do you look petrified?" I shrug. “Besides, prison does that to a person, makes them a bit crazy, a bit unhinged, we only get four walls, just in case you were wondering, and for the first few weeks I had exactly one book, and one podcast I could listen to, care to wonder what that was?”
Tears fill her eyes.
“Nope, I won’t feel sorry for you, suck those tears back in and move.” I shove her gently toward the clay. “Create, and maybe I’ll start to forgive. get dirty, Dig in, and maybe…you’ll finally feel clean. I want to see it." My voice lowers. "I want to see what you remember."
The room goes quiet as I slowly turn her toward the chair and urge her to sit. “I want to feel what you remember. Give me the pain.” I lift her hands onto the clay. “Give me the horror of what you saw.” I rest my hands on top of hers and whisper, dangerously close to her neck, so close I can almost graze my mouth along the vulnerable skin there. “Tell me a story.”
I move behind her before I can stop myself. Before I can think better of it. Because it’s not just her story, it’s my story too, I’m part of this whether I like it or not. I’m torn between wantingher to suffer and feel her pain but also wanting to be the one person she shows it to. I want her mask to slip, and I want to be the one to see it all. I want to look her in the eyes and drink her in despite how naked she feels for it.
Before I can think better of it, I get comfortable. I stay. She freezes beneath my touch and then it’s like she realizes I’m not moving, that my hand isn’t moving either. We’re a team now. A unit, and I’m not leaving.
I exhale against her neck.
A shiver wracks her body as goosebumps erupt up and down her skin like an explosion of pleasure I willed by being so close. I forgot what it was like, touching her, being this close to her, and suddenly my mind is back in my bedroom at sixteen when I kissed her, achingly slow, so slow that I wonder if it even happened or if it was just a figment of my imagination.
The warmth.
The softness.
The familiarity of her.
All of it comes crashing down onto me at once. For one stupid second, it feels like seven years never happened. It feels like ignoring the demons between us is possible, and then the pain returns, slight, sharp, right in my chest, the same pain that appeared the day she lied.
I wonder if I’ll ever be rid of it.
Probably not, but pain is meant to be felt, remembered. I would do good to focus on that, otherwise I’ll never be able to survive what I have to do, I’ll be too focused on her and now, now I’m looking out for me.
I clear my throat. "Clay." My voice sounds wrecked already, it’s raspy, heavy with emotion. “Focus on the clay.”
"Right." Her throat moves. “I’ll focus on the clay with you that close to me, breathing on me, existing in my orbit, easiest thing in the world.”
“You were the one who ejected me from your orbit, remember? Should be easy enough letting me back in since it was such a flippant thing letting me go.”
