Love Her

Page 10

I didn't want to bring up last night, but I wasn't sure if avoiding the subject would be worse. The word ran through my head, tonelessly, like I was reading it rather than hearing it spoken:

"Oh."

For that brief moment, when her voice came from some other part of me than my awake and conscious memory, when her voice was immaculate and honey-smooth rather than the pale, hazy echo my memories usually produced.

I hesitated and then went to sit against the sofa with my cup of coffee where I set it on the floor and stared at it. I couldn't remember pouring it. I was suddenly so frightened that my hands were shaking. I pressed them into my stomach to hide them, put my chin on my knees, and stared at the TV screen in front of me, seeing nothing. I was like a lost moon, my planet destroyed in some cataclysmic, disaster-movie scenario of devastation, that continued to circle in a tight little orbit around the empty space left behind, ignoring the laws of gravity.

I didn't trust this to last. It was a slippery, unstable edge that I balanced on, and it wouldn't take much to knock me down.

When I went to brush my teeth, I was almost surprised that the face in the mirror hadn't changed. I stared at myself, looking for some sign of impending wrinkles in my ebony skin. The only creases were the ones on my forehead, though, and I knew that if I could manage to relax, they would disappear.

I couldn't. I just couldn't. My eyebrows stayed lodged in a worried line over my anxious brown eyes. I stared deeply into them. There was something to search for. Unattainable and impossible, uncaring and distracted.

I felt the smooth wooden floor beneath my knees, and then in the palms of my hands, and then it was pressed against the skin of my cheek. I hoped that I was fainting, but, to my disappointment, I didn't lose consciousness.

The waves of pain that had only lapped at me before now reared high up and washed over my head, pulling me under.

I did not resurface for a long time.

Even when each tick of the second-hand ached like the pulse of blood behind a bruise. It passed unevenly, in strange lurches and dragging lulls, but pass it did. Even for me. I wished I could feel numb again, but I couldn't remember how I'd managed it before.

Maybe I was doomed to be empty forever. Never truly loved.

I laughed humorlessly to myself, still gasping for air. The dark humor distracted me, and the distraction eased the pain. My breath came easier, and I was able to lean back against the seat. Though it was cold today, my forehead was damp with sweat.

The cold rain dripped through my hair and then trickled across my cheeks like freshwater tears. It helped to clear my head. I blinked the water from my eyes, staring blankly out the window and across the road.

The grandfather clock chimed.

It was time for school.

This was entirely new to me. I had no parallels to draw, no comparisons to make. I had never confessed my feelings for anyone before. Boy or girl, that didn't matter, I tried to convince myself. Gender at all didn't matter. I guaranteed I would have felt the same anxiety if it were anyone else.

But the fear was due to her being my friend.

The hole came back, the way it always did when I was away from her, but it didn't throb so badly around the edges. I was already planning ahead and that was a distraction. Also, I knew I would feel better when I was with her again. That made the empty hole and the familiar pain easier to bear; relief was in sight.

Then I stopped.

What if she had meant no?

My chest ached with emptiness even to think of it. It was hard to hold myself upright, to not give myself away. My stomach was contorting strangely and I thought my voice might crack. I was terrified. I tried to tell myself that the fear was pointless.

My stomach wasn't buying it.

"So you'll come over when I'm home, though, right?" I asked when I saw her next. I hated that I felt suddenly unsure about this. I was so confident earlier today.

"If you want me to."

'I always want you,' I wanted to tell her, with perhaps a little more intensity than the conversation required. Doing nothing with her in the meantime was not appealing anymore. Suppose I got depressed again, even with her? I had to keep occupied.

"We could do something? Like, go to the mall?"

"Sure."

The other part was the strange sense of repetition I'd felt at school today when I asked her to come over after school. She always did, so I don't know why I felt the need to ask.

I didn't keep track of the days that passed. There was no reason, as I tried to live as much in the present as possible, no past fading, no future impending.

Regardless of our now quiet and semi-uneventful life, I was quite content. Honestly, I was probably enjoying this much more than I should be.

Usually, she is the one unlocking my secrets and giving all the answers. But the past two weeks had been kind of entertaining, especially every time she gave me her pouty face, which was absolutely adorable and almost impossible to resist. I decided beforehand that if she gave me that irresistible face one more time, I would just kiss her pouty bottom lip.

I skipped breakfast, in a hurry to get out of the house as quickly as possible. I wasn't entirely able to avoid my grandmother, and so I had to spend a few minutes acting normal.

"I think I'll call Sarah," I fibbed quickly. "We have a Calculus test to study for. I could use her help." That part was true. But I'd have to make do without it.

My grandmother hadn't changed much from when I was younger; her face looked just the same as it had always been. The skin was soft and withered, bent into a thousand tiny creases that clung gently to the bone underneath. Like a dried apricot, but with a puff of thick grey hair standing out in a cloud around it and braided down the back.

"That's a good idea, Rachel. You've been spending so much time with Melissa, your other friends are going to think you've forgotten them."

I smiled and nodded as if I cared what my other friends thought.

It was a crippling thing, this sensation that a huge hole had been punched through my chest, excising my most vital organs and leaving ragged, unhealed gashes around the edges that continued to throb and bleed despite the passage of time.

Rationally, I knew my lungs must still be intact, yet I gasped for air and my head spun like my efforts yielded me nothing. My heart must have been beating, too, but I couldn't hear the sound of my pulse in my ears; my hands felt blue with cold. I curled inward, hugging my ribs to hold myself together. I scrambled for my numbness, my denial, but it evaded me.

And yet, I found I could survive. I was alert, I felt the pain the aching loss that radiated out from my chest, sending wracking waves of hurt through my limbs and head but it was manageable. I could live through it. It didn't feel like the pain had weakened over time, rather that I'd grown strong enough to bear it.

I quickly ate the rest of my toast and ran out the door.

I couldn't wait to see her.