I scurry around my apartment after the drive from Helena. My eyes feel grainy and sore and I’m not sure if it’s from focusing on the road for so long or because I was crying.
I never cry.
At least, I try not to. I learned a long time ago that crying doesn’t help. It always makes me feel worse, not better. I don’tlike being vulnerable. Feeling mushy and ruined inside. I hate the swollen eyes, the puffy cheeks, the way my heart feels tender and bruised after.
It’s easier not to think about it. To block it out and pretend that it never happened. It’s easier just to keep looking ahead because looking behind only ever made me trip and stumble.
And then Gage kissed me.
I really wanted him to sign those papers.
At least, I thought I did. I figured it was the fairest thing for both of us. We both have lives we want to live. I wasn’t brave enough to face him until I knew I was absolutely ready. And I was. Honestly.
And then he kissed me.
I haven’t been touched in a long time. I’ve focused on school and work and kept myself busy with the few friends I’ve made in Tampa. The rest of the time, I’ve done boring things like read and learn about antiques, since I always liked old furniture.
And then he kissed me.
I was into it. It felt… good. It felt good in ways I couldn’t imagine that ever being close to another person would feel like again. His mouth, his hands, his body, the way he opened himself up to me—it was all a sucker punch straight to the heart of me. It turned me to ash and shattered everything I thought I knew about myself. Because all I’d known, when it came to being touched, was fear. Ever since I was fifteen.
And then he kissed me.
He kissed me, and it all went to shit.
I had nothing else to think about the entire drive home. I could still feel Gage’s lips on me. Firm, insistent. Scalding. Possessive and raw. Claiming me. Owning me.
I’m not trapped in my car anymore with nowhere to go, the confined space locking me in like the cage of my ribs enclosing my wild, aching heart. I’m away from him. Away from Helena and all it stands for. Away from a family who moved on without me. Away from sisters who are firmly entrenched in their own happiness. Away from a tight knit community and a club with men closer than brothers.
Away from the life happening all around me and the loneliness it always represented.
Giving my head a shake so hard that my neck cracks, I pick up my cell. I start firing off texts to the numbers I have programmed in there, hoping that someone will be free and respond back. It’s late enough to go to bed, but I know I won’t be able to sleep. Anxiety churns in my stomach and bitterness floods the back of my mouth.
He’s just like everyone else.
The man I wronged. The man I married. The man I held out this absurd hope for, a tiny speck in my heart that I never allowed or fully acknowledged. Even he condemned me.
Fuck.
I don’t want to think about it, any of it, but I can’t help it. That set of papers is still sitting in my tote, unsigned. I’m back in Tampa without resolving things with my sisters. I crashed my nephew’s party when I haven’t even met the kid and he’s a year old. My life is just as much of a mess as when I took a week off work to try and get my shit figured out.
I have exams coming up that I should be studying for.
I could clean the apartment. Do laundry. Go out and get groceries. Start searching for jobs. Something. Anything.
My phone remains ominously silent, even after waiting nearly an hour. As usual, the few friends I have here are busy with their own lives. That’s the thing about meeting people who aren’t eighteen anymore. They have lives. They’re busy with school. Work. Family. Even kids.
I’m stuck here in this no-man’s land of my own making. Unable to go forward or back.
I’d finally grown brave enough to take a chance. I tried to shove past the shit storm that had been my life, but somehow, I’m still here. Nothing is resolved. Nothing will ever be resolved. I know that when I go to bed tonight, I’ll probably dream about it. No, dream isn’t the right word. I’ll have my usual nightmares. Wake up in a cold sweat. I’ll head into the bathroom for a shower, scrub my skin raw, refuse to look at myself, because if I do, I’ll see the marks he left. I’ll think about those papers, about how my confused body betrayed me and my bleeding heart longed for just a scrap of compassion after so many years of wandering in a dry desert of forcing myself to feel nothing.
I force myself to do something. Anything—just to distract my mind. I take a few things out of the fridge, ingredients I don’t even see. I assemble a sandwich—a disgusting combination of stale, tasteless, white bread, wilting lettuce, overripe tomato, deli meat that is on the verge of going bad, laced with enough mustard that I can’t taste anything else.
It would have been like sawdust in my mouth, even if it was the most gourmet meal. I’m not hungry. I doubt I’ll ever betruly hungry again. I can’t remember having an appetite since I was fifteen years old.
It’s hard to believe that was nine years ago.
That I’ve been trying for nearly a decade to find myself and put myself back together like some sick puzzle that is never going to be whole again, since the pieces are all bent and jammed and missing.
