Memories That Still Haunt Us

Chapter Thirty:

I wake at six the following morning, before Beck, who since summer has let out, sleeps until about eight, and slip into a black sports bra and black high-rise biker shorts. I keep my face clean without any makeup and pull my hair into a claw clip before making my way to the cycling course I signed up for.

I know even without makeup I still look pretty. My freckles are on display. My skin is smooth and clear. I get just as much attention from men without makeup as I do with makeup.

It's cold this early in the morning. There are people in the neighborhood out jogging on the sidewalk. A man is watering his flowers in his front yard next to us. He notices me and raises his hand in a wave. I don't wave back as I chirp my car and get in. I place my sunglasses over my eyes—they're cat-eye-shaped—and begin driving towards town.

I think about my mother. One night in particular. I had just lost my virginity. He didn't even bother to drive me home; most of the time he didn't. I had to walk back by myself in the dark, feeling gross and used and the air was always cold, and I never wore warm enough clothes. The whole walk home, I'd always think about his hands and his tongue and my body. I'd think about everything that happened. I was close to crying when I walked through the front door. My dad was away on the fishing boat, so it was just my mom and me until he came back. I couldn't decide if I liked it when he was away or not. The house was quieter. His game shows weren't playing on the TV. The sound of his beer caps popping off and being tossed onto the floor was gone. His cussing and muttering under his breath about how fucked the world was and how miserable his life was. I didn't have to hear his insults or feel his bitter glare. I didn't hear his heavy footsteps moving through the house late in the night or hear him spitting in the sink.

But despite all this, being alone with my mother sometimes felt worse. She could be so cold, so cruel. Extremely cruel. She would smoke cigarettes inside the house, letting the ashes fall into the cracks of our couch. She'd look at me, curl her lip in the corner, and call me a slut. For some reason, regardless of how mean my mother has always been, I still would look to her for guidance. I'd still wander into her room after something bad happened and say her name quietly, hoping somehow she would know and tell me what to do. I would stand there practically begging for her to pay attention, to help me in some way, to give me some sort of guidance, but that's never what I received.

On this night, I really needed her. More than usual. More than the time I first started my period. More than the time that I fell off the swing at recess and broke my wrist. More than the time that I swallowed three oxys at an eighth-grade sleepover that I found in the bathroom and thought I was dying.

This was different. This was when everything changed. When I truly shifted. When I lost every ounce of immaturity I once had. My body hurt. I felt gross and repulsed by myself. I wanted my mother to make things right. To tell me it was okay. That this is what it was always supposed to feel like. But when I found her lying in the bathtub in her room, a cigarette dangling from her hand, her breasts above the water. Her hair was twisted into a bun, and I wondered if at one point she was beautiful. She had let herself go. Very rarely did she wear any makeup or do her hair. She always wore slouchy clothes that made her look two sizes bigger.

I dropped to my knees by the tub, my fingers gripping the tiles as I looked at her with pleading eyes. I could feel I was bleeding slightly, though he had already popped my cherry before when he shoved his fingers deep inside me, one at a time. He was never gentle—never patient. Always demanding and needy. My mother barely looked at me as I sat on my knees, the floor in her bathroom full of trash that crinkled under my legs. Instead, she lifted the cigarette to her lips and inhaled a long drag.