Walls {Shelby and Toni}

I'm Sure

- Shelby -

If you thought waiting until marriage was prudish, what would you say if I told you I've never tried even a drop of alcohol?

Jesus Christ, what has this island made of me?

The drinking was helpful at first. I no longer felt like running out into the ocean, hands flailing in the air, screaming at the top of my lungs. I no longer felt like digging a hole in the sand and burying myself. I no longer felt...things I shouldn't have felt. Things I was most definitely feeling in the forest with Toni.

For a while, I hardly even felt her stare on my back, concerned and far more compassionate than I deserved. I felt nothing at all.

But what they didn't tell me about alcohol is that all the stuff it numbs... comes back. In a tidal wave. All of a sudden I was drowning in my own emotions.

It's all a blur now, but I think I did suggest that sprint into the ocean eventually. The other girls followed and played in the water, not understanding my true motives. I chopped my hair - my beautiful, long, pageant winning hair. At one point I actually confessed to another sin of mine: masturbating with the jets of our home jacuzzi. I think I was just really aching to confess something. As if that would wash me clean...

I was angry too. Angry at myself, but I took it out on the others. Mostly Toni.

"What I want is to know exactly what you and Martha were talking about."

My brain had run wild. Seeing Toni laughing with Martha, stealing glances when she thought I wasn't looking... my cloudy mind was on fire with awful possibilities.

"Well," She said, digging mindlessly at the sand, "She's ripped out of her skull right now so food or maybe the cloud that she thought looked like her uncle?"

Toni was as calm as the surface of a lake. That made my hurricane heart even angrier.

"You told her, didn't you? You told her about-about the whole..."

She stared at me, jaw dangling, brows furrowed. I couldn't read it.

"Did you tell her?" I burst out.

"No! Fuck, I would never."

The force of her response hit me in a different way, "Right, 'cause you're that ashamed?"

"No, you are obviously the one with the shame," She softened at the sight of my expression, "Okay, I'm not gonna lecture you on how or why or how fast you should figure things out for yourself, but all of your hateful church shit is not gonna help you figure out who you are-"

For a moment after I grabbed her wrist, she looked like she thought I might kiss her again. That just deepened my rage.

"I know exactly who I am," I spat, trembling, "And I cannot wait to get home and get back to her."

***

The days softened me. The sun softened me. The hunger most certainly softened me.

Kissing a girl doesn't seem so heavy when your insides feel like they're eating each other.

So when she asked me to go on a food run, all nervous and delicate and glowing under the midday sun, I didn't hesitate.

We trekked through the woods for hours. I stared at the backs of her legs and didn't feel guilty. She lifted a branch for me like a gentleman and I blushed. We laughed. Laughed. I sang while she peed; which is weirdly bonding by the way. We cast secret smiles back and forth like school children and she was calmer than I had ever seen her. I probably was too.