All We Left Behind

by Ingrid Sundberg

  “We don’t have to be here,” I say, hoping the offer to leave will make him want to stay. “I can take you home.”

  I put the phone on the dash, and he stares out the windshield. I want us to stay. I need to know what we can be. I lean over and smell the Ivory soap on his neck, fresh and clean.

  “Forget your father,” I whisper, unlatching the buckle on his safety belt, and the nylon zips over him with quick release.

  “Marion, I—”

  But my mouth is on his, kissing him, soft and hot and sweet. His lips open to kiss me back, and he doesn’t taste one bit like Kurt. Which is good. He tastes more saccharine. More gentle. More teeth.

  I thread my fingers through his curls and we kiss for a long time, folded together. His lips soft and polite. And I remember this about him, his tentativeness. His sweetness. It’s folded with fragileness, and for a moment I feel like that girl with blue cotton candy dissolving on her tongue.

  Only this needs to stay cotton candy. It’s not allowed to turn into mud.

  I press against him, wanting more, to show him I can be the girl I wasn’t before. But his hands don’t stray from my waist. I twist, my hips rolling against his lap, and he pulls away, panting.

  “Hey,” he whispers, his breath on my ear. “Slow down.”

  Panting.

  Breath on my ear.

  My stomach squirms and the smell of barbecue fills my nostrils. My skin tenses, because he’s not allowed to wake my skin. Not like Kurt does. He’s supposed to be different.

  I need this to be us—just us—just me and him. Not like with Kurt. Not hands and memory, and mud under my tongue.

  I need skin to only be skin.

  I take his hands and slide them up under my shirt, over my breasts, because this has to move faster. I need to be ahead of it. Ahead of the dark, and the wet skirts, and the dirty—

  Abe groans, and we are mouth and mouth again. His fingers glide over the front of me, but his touch is so gentle, so soft, so hot—

  I shudder.

  It shoots an ache through me that trembles deep, touching places I don’t deserve. Places that he and Kurt and no one are allowed to find.

  And it hits me—it’s not the fact that Kurt doesn’t know me that wakes what’s within, it’s his tenderness. It’s the soft way his hands explore. It’s the way he learns to speak with my skin. He’s fast and hot, but always gentle, always slowing, and pulling back, and listening. And it’s not my favorite color or my favorite book that Kurt’s trying to find. It’s me. The real me. The invisible part that’s naked and afraid and searching for a connection.

  It’s the vulnerability that wakes the water.

  It’s admitting that the water is part of me and worth seeing.

  I press into Abe—hard—because I can’t have this softness. Because slow and tender lets the darkness seep in and I can’t let this be vulnerable like it is with Kurt. This is a clean slate. This is surface. Only surface. Only skin.

  This can’t mean anything. Not if meaning wakes the water beneath. This is only allowed to be burning and heat.

  “Marion?” Abe pulls away, sliding his hands off my chest. He pants, his lips bruised with my taste. “What . . . What are we doing?”

  I kiss him hard, yanking open his shirt and scattering his buttons over the floor. I slide my shirt up over my head and press skin to skin. Drink his lips. I feel him through his pants and he groans and when I’m sure he can’t get enough of me, I take him into the backseat.

  “Marion, wha—?”

  I take his collar and pull him against me. There isn’t time for talking.

  “What is this?” he insists.

  “It’s nothing,” I whisper. “It’s everything.” I breathe hard, my lips at his ear. “It’s whatever you need it to be.”

  Abe’s weight is on top of me and we’ve become a mess of tangled clothes and limbs. His mouth is uncertain on mine. Too tender. Maybe second-guessing this.

  “I want you,” I whisper, but his hands stay at my back. I push them toward my jeans and repeat, “I want—”

  “I heard you,” he says, pulling his hand away and kissing me so gently it rocks the darkness inside. His kisses, like Kurt’s kisses, let the creek water seep in. They’re too soft and vulnerable, too—

  I pull him hard against me.

  “I need—”

  But he resists.

  “Slow down,” he whispers, but I shake my head. This has to be faster.

  “Abe.” I squeeze my legs around him, needing his weight over me, on me, like the ocean. “Two years ago when I said I’d never sleep with you . . .”

  I know now what slow and tender brings, and I want it the other way—

  Where he takes me down—

  Takes me under—

  Lets me drown.

  “I lied.”

  I pull him against me, smashing his lips against mine. Needing him to pull me into the hard dark that is the other side of this. Needing to believe that this can be surface and unwaking. That it’s possible to do this and not taste the rose hips.

  If tender brings the dark, then hard must bring the light.

  But he doesn’t want to.

  He won’t.

  “Marion, stop.” He pushes me off him and moves to the other side of the car, wrapping himself in his white shirt. He holds the fabric closed with his hand, ignoring his pearl buttons covering the floor.

  “I thought you wanted this?” I say, covering my chest.

  “Not like this I don’t,” he says, shaking his head, like he has no clue who I am. “I mean, God, Marion, what the hell are you doing?”

  I stare out the windshield at the night, empty of stars, covered with too many clouds. I want the water to take me. Because soft or hard, cold or warm, Kurt or Abe, no matter who it is, or how it is—

  The silence is winning.

  In the back of my mind I hear Kurt’s words, in that flood of rain, talking to me about his mother. And I hear him asking—

  Who chooses to drown?

  I look at the hurt in Abe’s eyes, and the shame takes me.

  The fear.

  The part where I walk into the creek water and take part. The piece of me that doesn’t know how to say no, even when hands grip me and force worms into my mouth. The rage that is silence. The silence that is shame, and the person that hiding this shame makes me become.

  Drowning happens in the quiet. It happens slowly, till I’m too far under, and the surface is too far away, and I can’t speak anymore, because everything is water and I’ve swallowed it all down.

  I look at Abe and realize Prince Charming is a fairy tale and nothing about being with someone is simple. He clutches the sides of his shirt and I understand now that bringing him here was never about proving to myself he wouldn’t wake the creek water. I brought him up here to kill my last breath of hope.

  I brought him up here to prove that he would.

  Kurt

  My watch clicks past five minutes and I’m antsy.

  I look at the guy passed out on the mattress. He’s really out. Hasn’t moved since we got here. I’m not even sure he’s breathing.

  Minute six ticks by and I want back in that room.

  I tilt my watch to Conner and his eyes dart to the exits. To all the corners in sight. There’s that guy passed out on the mattress, a couch, and an unlit fireplace. There’s only one window and the floor is covered in trash. Cigarette Guy has the only advantage—a metal object, his chair. The lamp in the corner is too far away.

  Conner starts to pace, gauging our next move.

  “You got somewhere to be? Settle down,” Cigarette Guy says, getting out of his chair to block the hallway. He stubs both his cigarettes out on the door frame where the wood is covered in burns.

  “It’s been ten,” I say, and he scratches his beard.

  “So wait longer.”

  “You said ten. Josie said ten.” I kick a fast-food box on the floor and his back goes straight.

  “Wel
l, maybe ten means twenty.” He pulls a blade from his pocket and Conner stops in his tracks.

  I catch Conner’s eye. His fists are clenched and I know he doesn’t want to rush this guy. But he nods, letting me know he will if he must.

  “You know,” I say, stepping away from Conner and crushing another fast-food box with my foot, “in my book, ten is ten.”

  “Yeah, well, your book don’t—”

  I run.

  I rush him like he’s the ball. His eyes flash wide and he tries to swipe that knife. But I’m fast. Low. Under him before he has a chance. I slide tackle him, smashing into his feet and crashing him to the ground.

  Something clangs on the floorboards. The blade maybe. I don’t have time to look. His legs tangle with mine and—

  Crack!

  Pain splinters up my shin. I grunt, scrambling away from his kicking leg.

  There’s a scream.

  Conner’s pounced. The two scrabble, scratching arms and legs, when—bam! Cigarette Guy connects with Conner’s jaw. Only, Conner wrestles and Conner’s mean, punching him back as fast as he came.

  I look for the knife. Cigarette Guy’s hands are empty. They’re balled into angry fists that pound at Conner.

  I see it. Just out of reach to their left.

  Adrenaline surges and I scramble on my elbows and knee. I try to put weight on the injured leg, but pain shears up the bone. I knock the blade away just as Cigarette Guy sees it. It shoots across the floor, sliding under the mattress.

  I check the passed-out guy. He hasn’t moved. And fuck, it looks like he’s dead, but I don’t have time to check. Nails dig into my ankles. I twist, kicking Cigarette Guy’s hands, and it distracts him long enough for Conner to get the upper hand.

  Conner pins him, digging a knee into his back. He yanks the man’s arm behind him, twisting the wrist like one of those martial-arts badasses. He leaves the fucker’s free hand flapping against the floor like a dying fish.

  I recheck the mattress. No movement.

  Cigarette Guy whimpers and Conner nods that he’s got this. My chest pounds and I gasp for air, realizing I’ve forgotten to breathe.

  “Go,” Conner says in a raspy voice, nodding to the hall. I cough back the pain and limp toward the shadows. This visit is over.

  I bust through the door and the back room smells like puke. For a second I don’t want to see what’s inside, but I have to get my sister. Then a second smell hits me, like burned metal or glass, and there’s a candle in the corner that cuts through the dark.

  I see a bed with Josie on it. Not wearing her sweater. Not wearing her hat. And there’s a man on top of her.

  He’s—

  I ram my shoulder into him, pushing him onto the floor and pounding him till he’s broken. He doesn’t put up a fight, and when I look at his face, I see he’s already half-gone with whatever’s stripping his eyes dead. Meth or fucking dope.

  I turn to see who else is in the room. Find Tina. A dark-haired woman is in the corner sitting on the floor, her head rolled back against the wall.

  “You told me you were going to help her!” I bark, but the woman doesn’t look at me, her eyes glassy and glued to the ceiling. She doesn’t care that I pounded the shit out of that guy. She doesn’t care what he was doing to Josie.

  My sister’s on the bed—not moving. She lies limp, a pipe in her hand, her head bent in my direction.

  “Josie!” But she doesn’t react. Her eyes are vacant, looking right through me. Like she’s dead. “Jesus, fuck!” I climb on the bed and shake her. “Josie! Goddamn it! Josie!” She doesn’t respond, her body heavy as lead. “No, no, no!”

  She isn’t breathing. I blow air into her mouth then press on her chest. Rhythmic beats. Like they teach at school, to get air in the lungs. Air in the lungs.

  “Josie! Goddamn it!”

  Her chest lurches, sick bursting up her throat, and I turn her head to the light as bile drips from her mouth. “Josie?” I shake her, but she doesn’t respond. “Oh, God, please!”

  Her chest jerks again and her mouth foams with slime. I grab her sweater and pull it down over her, scooping her into my arms.

  “Hold on, Josie, hold on. Conner!” I yell so he knows we’re coming. She moans, but her body is deadweight against me. Pain stabs my shin as I run down the hall.

  Conner curses at the sight of us. “Is she—?”

  “We have to get to a hospital. Now!”

  I’m out the door. There’s a thwack! behind me. It’s probably Conner, punching out Cigarette Guy. I don’t care. I drag myself down the steps, and Josie feels too heavy for someone so small.

  I get us into the backseat and lift her head so she doesn’t choke on her spit. Sour bubbles from her mouth and I can’t take this—

  The vomit in her hair. Her body limp in my arms. The fact that—Jesus, fuck!—she looks exactly like Mom.

  Conner busts out of the house and slams into the driver’s seat.

  Drool oozes from Josie’s lip.

  “Drive,” I say, which he already knows to do, but I yell at him anyway, because I need to yell at someone, anyone, to keep this from being real. “Please, Conner!” I pound on the back of his seat. “Drive! Faster! Now!”

  Marion

  I need air.

  I grab my shirt and pull it down over me. Abe sits on the far side of the seat with his clothes rumpled and his lips pink. Blond hair falls limp over my shoulders and I have a choice. Walk out of the creek water—

  Or fall in.

  Choosing to drown would be easy, slipping under the water into the silence, leaving only the light babble of the stream. No more fighting, or hiding. Drink the water and no longer breathe.

  “I don’t know what I was thinking,” I say quietly, and Abe doesn’t look at me. None of this is fair to him. His fingers fumble with the strings from the broken buttons of his shirt and he closes the fabric over his chest. “We should go.”

  He punches the remaining button of his shirt through its hole, his pinkie finger fishing it through the tiny opening before he looks up.

  “Did you ever like me?”

  His whisper fills the car and I can’t look at him. My throat tightens with how impossible it is to answer that. How liking him, how even loving him, is not enough. How it alone cannot shield him from the razors of this secret. How caring about him doesn’t mean I won’t tear him to shreds.

  I look out the window and the sky is black and starless. I wish there was one—just one—single star. Or maybe even an outline like the stickers on my bedroom ceiling hidden under all those layers of paint.

  But the night is seamless and dark.

  Yes—I want to tell him. Yes, I like you. I’ve always liked you. But—

  “I’m sorry,” is all I manage. It’s what I really mean. There’s nothing else I can say that will fix this.

  Abe gets out of the car and walks to the edge of the cliff. His white shirt billows like a ghost against the seamless horizon. I can’t see where the sky ends and the land begins. There’s only flat surface and endless dark. No separation. No space with which to divide this. No way to blame this on him, or Kurt.

  This is all me.

  Everything since the creek, all the canyons of silence slung between me and Lilith, my father, Kurt, Abe—I can pretend it’s them. But that’s all it would be. Pretend. And all that does is leave them in the dark at the edge of this cliff, hating me.

  I’ve made this divide. All this silence and darkness—

  Is mine.

  It was me who chose to drown.

  * * *

  I drive us out of the woods, and Abe sits beside me in silence. I don’t blame him. He’s earned this quiet space, which is private and not for me to see.

  The road bumps and I think of Kurt and the first time I was on this ridge. My body was screaming—not hot, but sobbing—because there are things it can’t keep holding in.

  And if I keep pushing it down it will drown me.

  And I can let it.

>   Or I can reach for the surface—for words, for breath, for the air that can make all this silence take shape again. So I can become visible.

  * * *

  I pull up to Abe’s house and my stomach turns when I see my father’s car parked out front. Abe’s dad is a cop. Of course he called my father when I drove off with his son.

  I grip the steering wheel, but it’s slippery in my hands. My front bumper hits the curb and metal scrapes against pavement.

  “Jesus,” Abe curses, opening the car door before I’ve even stopped. I slam my foot against the brake.

  “Wait,” I say, pulling the emergency gear, and he glares at me. “Wait, I’m—” I shift the car into park, but grab the wheel again, needing something to hold on to. “I wanted to say—” I squeeze the wheel, barely able to speak. “I’m sorry. I’m awful. I didn’t mean to hurt you, and I can’t believe I—”

  “Don’t!” His voice slices out my air. “You don’t get to be the victim in this.”

  His words lodge in my throat.

  Unswallowable.

  His furious eyes bore into me, and I deserved that.

  “I . . .” I whisper. “I’m—”

  “Just don’t.” He leaps out of the car and slams the door shut. He stomps up the lawn with his bare feet pounding into the grass. It makes me think of my broken flip-flop as I raced through the reeds, needing to get away.

  Abe disappears into the house and a moment later my father replaces him on the lawn. He’s angry—my father—in a rage I’ve never seen. Heading straight for me.

  Kurt

  The nurses swarm us at the emergency room. They take Josie out of my arms and put her on a gurney. They yell for wires and pumps and bags of fluid. They roll her away, behind the glass. And I can’t follow.

  The fluorescent lights buzz and I’m left with empty air.

  With nothing.

  A lady behind the counter waves paperwork at me. She asks for my name. Josie’s name. Insurance numbers. For my parents. They ask if I know what kind of drugs she was on, and Conner tells her whatever he can answer.