by Harlow Hayes
Frankie turned the other way, and we laid there for a while, back to back.
Why couldn’t I do this? Was it because I had some self-respect? That’s what I told myself, anyway. I had so much self-respect that I would never have sex with a guy, knowing that guy just had sex with someone else only a few hours ago. In the same bed, no less, but that wasn’t the truth. The truth was, I didn’t have that much self-respect, and the truth was something else, something not yet clear. There had always been women in between me, so what difference did a couple of hours make? I could blame it on the attack, but that was beginning to become tiresome. No, I truly felt that deep inside, something else was pulling me away.
“We should get married,” Frankie said, interrupting my thoughts. I heard him flop back over.
I turned over to face him, shock written across my face. He had lost his mind.
“Don’t look at me like that, like it’s so ridiculous. I mean, why not? You practically live here already. You are the only woman to ever have the keys to my place. You’re smart, I’m smart. We know everything about each other, we fight, we get over it, we lay in bed and watch old movies and we don’t have sex anymore. It’s a perfect marriage, a perfectly real marriage.”
I rolled back over.
“Tell me, why not?” he asked.
I turned my head to face him.
“Whatever, Frankie, you’re so full of it. Tell me, what number I would be?”
Frankie looked at me, confused.
“I mean, I would only consider this if I was to be wife number one, because you seem to favor a polygamist lifestyle.”
He reached for the remote and unmuted the TV.
I knew he had heard it a hundred times before, but he was going to hear it again.
“You can’t be faithful. So talk to me about marriage later when you think you can be.”
He looked back at the TV and said nothing. He just put his arm around me and we waited for the movie to start.
* * *
I left Frankie’s that morning exhausted, wanting to go back to sleep. To drift away to a land of dreams where I didn’t have to deal with the bullshit that was my life. Because bullshit it was, smelly and smeared all over the place. I couldn’t stop thinking about what he said last night. I hoped he wasn’t serious. Frankie knew how I felt, and sure, there were moments when he got tired of man-whoring, but he never got tired enough to quit. I attributed his philandering to some evolutionary defect in the human species that stunted the affinity for monogamy. I was the closest thing he had to something real, a real family, and a real friend, but he blew it every time.
And yet I think we always figured that at some point in life we would eventually wear each other down and just get married. It was a win for him if I agreed, but I didn’t trust him, not after what happened in undergrad. I had seen those perfectly real marriages with my clients and even in my own parents, and I didn’t like what I saw. Each person bogged down by the other, drowning in the other’s waves of complaints, broken dreams, and weaknesses. I was better off without all that garbage. If I was going to be in love, it wouldn’t be like that. Not if I could help it. If that kind of love was my option, I’d rather be alone.
It was mid-morning when I got on the train to head back home, and I wanted to punch something, particularly a face. The lady that sat across from me seemed like a great candidate, but the consequence of jail wasn’t too appealing. She hadn’t stopped staring at me since I got on the damn thing and I didn’t know whether she was admiring my features or planning to rob me. I didn’t understand why the people on the train were always looking at me. She had a whole freaking city to watch right outside the train window, but I was the source of her amusement today. I stared back at her, eyes wide and crazed. She redirected her gaze, but on rare occasion the ones just as crazy as me would accept the challenge and look back at me with the same fierceness.
I still hated the train, but the vibration of the rails soothed me, so I used my time there for thinking. I worried about clinical, Frankie, and probation, but most about clinical. Would my clients trust me? I didn’t trust myself. I saw their faces sitting across from me, analyzing the curve of my jaw, taking in my words, hoping that they would reveal the root of their unhappiness, the source of their pain. Many were hopeful about therapy, but many weren’t the victims they claimed to be. These people were the perps and our conversations revealed the blackness of their souls and how oblivious they were to the role they had played in the destruction of their lives. I had access to the deepest and darkest depths of the human spirit. Their lying, the abuse, their numerous wrongdoings that they had locked away and hoped to never face. They expected me to tell them what was next, to tell them what to do, but I had nothing for them. My job was to illuminate, to show them the answer that they knew to be true but didn’t want to accept and hope to God that they chose that one for their own sake. They lacked introspection, and sadly, I did, too.
The four steps to the front door of the house seemed like Mount Everest. I dragged myself up one by one as I held on to the rail. My bed was the only place I wanted be, the door the only thing separating us. I pulled my keys from my pocket and released the death grip on my pepper spray. Laughter and ruffled conversation echoed from inside. Someone was home, and I was already in a sour mood. I leaned my head on the door and took a deep breath to prepare myself for what I would encounter. I reached for the knob and walked in.
The conversation stopped, and twelve beady little eyes darted at me. I was greeted with smiles, but as usual Rosalina’s was missing, and I was given the move-along stare. Finding a smile on her was like trying to find Waldo on the back of the cereal box; it took some time. The whole crew was there, which included her mother, stepdad, two sisters, and a brother, and there I stood with yesterday’s clothes on and bushy, barely brushed hair.
“Hello,” I said, forcing a smile.
“Didn’t you have that on yesterday?” Rosalina asked.
“I did.” I walked into the living room. “I was in a hurry this morning and I didn’t have time to pick something out so I put this on.”
She furrowed her eyebrows. She wasn’t buying it. She knew that I hadn’t been home all night and I was certain she believed that I was nothing more than a drunk, pill-popping, walk-of-shame queen.
“I didn’t hear you leave this morning. Come to think of it, I didn’t hear you come in last night,” she said.
“I’m light on my feet.”
She rolled her eyes and turned to face the TV.
“Hi, Mr. and Mrs. Conners, how are you?” I asked, hoping for a quick response.
“Good, Mara, and how about you?” Mr. Conners asked.
“I’m well, thanks for asking.”
“How did the semester end for you, Mara?” Mrs. Conners asked. “I hope you’re taking care of yourself. Rosalina told us about your accident and you being behind in school and—”
“Ma!” Rosalina said.
“I’m sorry, honey, I just wanted to make sure that she was doing all right.”
I looked at Rosalina. She had been telling my business and probably dragging me through the gutter. What a bitch.
“Mara, you haven’t met our other children, have you?” Mrs. Conners asked.
“No, I can’t say I have,” I said, leaning on the couch. I was going to be there a while.
“Mara, this is my oldest, Joselin, my second oldest, Maria, and Jack Jr., our youngest,” she said.
Her accent was strong, and from what I heard through the door, so were the two older girls’, but Rosalina’s was a mix; sometimes you could hear it and sometimes you couldn’t. Puerto Rican, if I remembered right, all of them brown in skin color except Jack Jr., who was just as white as Jack Sr.
“It’s nice to meet you all, and it was nice to see you both again.” I rose up from the back of the couch, ready to exit.
“You should come with us to lunch,” her father suggested. “It would be nice to get to know one of Rosie’s roommates.”
<
br /> Rosalina looked up at him, startled, offended that he had even asked.
It was nice to be invited, and I would have gone just to piss Rosalina off, but I was too tired.
“I wish I could, but I have some schoolwork to do since I’m behind and all,” I said, staring pointedly at Rosalina’s big mouth.
“Understandable. I remember when I was your age, working on that stuff. I’m glad those days are behind me,” her father said.
“Yeah, I can’t wait,” I said before I walked away.
My floor was still littered with clothes, so I kicked them to the other side of the room to make a path to my bed. I sat on my bed and pulled out my phone to check my calendar. My mother had called again last night, but I couldn’t talk to her, not right now. My mother was the one person I couldn’t lie to, and if she knew I was with Frankie I would never hear the end of it. I brushed the papers off my bed and onto the floor and crawled under the covers. I lay there, eyes wide, staring at my bag that rested next to my nightstand. Inside, peeking out, was that damn journal. I hadn’t stayed long enough to figure out what exactly Dr. Moore wanted us to do with them, but I took a guess and decided that it was nothing more than a way to document my feelings. I reached down, grabbed it, and picked up a pen from my nightstand. The pages were white, bright, and barren. I gathered my thoughts, then wrote.
May 15
Fuck this journal.
I closed it, threw it on the floor, rolled over, and went to sleep.
Chapter 6
Each breath I took was strained. I felt like I was breathing in poison and it was only a matter of time before I would roll over, suffocate, and die. That would be my end. Mara J. Goodwin, dead of an anxiety attack brought on by group counseling and a crazy ex-boyfriend that I still couldn’t figure out after six years of dealings. I sat in the circle waiting for the rest of them to sit down. The journal sat on my lap.
“Good afternoon, ladies,” Dr. Moore said, eyes bright and full of life.
I offered her a cheap smile while the rest of the women took their seats. I looked at each one of them as they sat down, but the girl next to me was new. She was tall and slim, with long blonde hair and eyes the color of emeralds.
“I’m glad to see that everyone made it today,” Dr. Moore said, giving me the side eye. “First off, I want to introduce you to the newest member of our group. Sophie, would you mind introducing yourself? Give us a little background on where you are from, what you do, that kind of thing.”
The girl nodded and straightened herself in her seat.
“Hello,” she said, her voice soft. “My name is Sophie Scott and I moved from California to Chicago a few months back. I recently got a teaching job here and I have a little boy, a seven-year-old. So far I like it. It’s definitely a place you can get lost in.”
Boring. I started my analysis at her feet and worked my way up. She wore some worn-out flip-flops that did nothing to complement her clean clothes, and a trail of stars were tattooed on her left foot. She wore some whitewashed skinny jeans and a peach chiffon top that looked too much like her tanned skin.
“Thanks, Sophie,” Dr. Moore said, and she glanced down at her notepad. “Last session we spent a lot of time getting to know each other in order to help make the things that we discuss here a little easier, but the truth is, it won’t be easy. You will need to face the problems that you want to keep buried or swept under a rug; this will require you to be vulnerable and brave, and you wouldn’t be here if I didn’t believe that you were capable of doing that.”
She spoke with vigor, which made it harder to zone out.
“Destiny,” Dr. Moore said.
I looked across the circle.
“Would you like to start us off today?”
Her hands rubbed her stomach, as if protecting the child growing inside from hearing what she was about to say. She was petite, with thick red hair cut into a bob and freckles that seemed to dance on her cheeks when she spoke. “I was in college when I was raped. I went to a party and Eric was there. He used to be in one of my study groups. And of course, he was good-looking and charismatic and everyone wanted to be around him, so I about died when he started paying attention to me. Here I was, this bookworm or nerd or whatever they’re called these days, and here was the man every guy wanted to be and the man every woman wanted. We always were responsible with our drinking, always had drivers, but that night, that night… we all had a little too much.”
Destiny stopped, and I could see tears forming in her eyes.
She reached up to wipe her eyes before they had a chance to fall.
“It’s all right, Destiny, you can take your time,” Dr. Moore said.
I couldn’t listen anymore, so I made it white noise, some unclear words that faded into the background. Her bump wasn’t visible but she cradled her stomach with so much care and watching her rub her pregnant belly only reminded me of mine, and the only voice that I heard was my own…
“I’m pregnant.”
* * *
“I’m pregnant.”
I sat on the edge of my bed gripping my bedspread, fearful of what came next. Frankie sat in my desk chair on the other side of my dorm room.
“What?” Frankie said, leaning forward in his seat.
“I’m pregnant.”
I could feel the sweat trickling down my back and chest. My ears buzzed and I felt like I would be sick again. I reached over and pulled the wastepaper can closer just in case.
Frankie stood and walked towards the door, silent hands to his head before he finally spoke.
“What are you trying to say? Are you saying it’s mine?” He stopped to look at me, his face red and his eyes mad and full of rage.
“Yeah, Frankie, I haven’t been with anybody else.”
“Fuck!” He walked over to my closet door and kicked it repeatedly. “You got to be fucking kidding me.”
I jumped. “Don’t do that. You know these walls are thin. I don’t want the RA or the rest of the floor to hea—”
“What am I supposed to do?” he yelled before he started pacing again. “You’re not keeping it, are you? Like seriously, what are you thinking? I thought you were on the pill?”
I managed to blurt it out without crying because I wasn’t going to do that. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction thinking that he was worth any of my tears. “No, Frankie, I told you I wasn’t.”
“What do you mean? Every girl is on the pill. Jesus Christ! It was just that one time!”
“I’m pretty sure that’s all it takes.”
He stopped pacing and stared at me as if he wanted choke the life out of me, then started pacing again.
“Fuck this. Mara, you can’t keep it. You’re not keeping it, right?”
I put my head down, afraid of what was going to happen next.
“I am.” I braced myself and waited for his response.
He said nothing. Frankie walked over to the door and grabbed his backpack.
“Fuck you, Mara,” he said, and he walked out.
* * *
I wanted to spit fire after I looked at the clock and realized that my hour of torture was nowhere near close to being over.
“Would anyone else like to add anything?” Dr. Moore asked.
I hoped no one would, but of course there always had to be that one douche bag that had to say something when everyone was ready to leave.
The new girl opened her big mouth.
“I understand what you mean. When you say you want to be strong for your baby. My husband, I mean, my ex-husband, used to hit me in front of our son. It’s the worst feeling in the world waking up each day feeling weak and out of control. I would look at my son and think to myself, what kind of example am I setting for him by staying? And I knew that I didn’t want him to ever feel the way I felt or think that hurting someone else was okay, not ever. I had to be strong for him.”
“See, I feel like I am being ridiculous,” Destiny said. “This happened to me years ago, and I still c
an’t find the courage to move on. But you—it sounds like you found your courage.”
“I haven’t completely, and that’s why I am here. My ex and I are in a custody battle now, and because he has all the money, he also has my son. I have to be strong for Isaiah because he doesn’t understand, and I feel bad because I don’t know how to answer him when he asks why me and his father aren’t together. I just want him to be a kid. To look at his face when he asks, ‘Why don’t you love my daddy anymore?’ How do you explain that to a seven-year-old? That his father is a wife-beating rapist. It breaks my heart that he’s not with me, but I have to be strong, I have to be strong to get him back.”
The idea behind group therapy is to make everyone feel better, but at that moment I only felt depressed. Dr. Moore had moved on from Destiny and Sophie and now it was Roe that spoke.
“It happened to me a little over a year ago. I’m a lesbian and I have no qualms about it; I’ve known that I was a little different since I was a kid, but no one wanted to admit it. You know, always the tomboy. But anyway, it happened to me in college, too. I was just hanging out with a group of friends at a house party after our kickball game. We had been smoking and drinking as usual and things started to die down. I passed out into a deep sleep on the couch, and next thing I knew Alex—that’s that dick’s name—was on top of me, burying his weight into my chest, smothering my mouth. He looked at me the whole time… and he said the most perverted things. He kept asking me if I liked his cock, his hand over my mouth the whole time. Telling me that he was going to turn me. If I could have overpowered him he wouldn’t have a cock to speak of. I had never been so angry at myself because I trusted that asshole. We had played on the same kickball team for months. I didn’t know how I could’ve been so stupid. I still don’t.”
“Did you tell anyone?” Destiny asked.
“No.”
“Me, either. Too scared that they wouldn’t believe me,” Destiny said.
“Yeah, same here,” Roe said. “Alex was loved by everyone. Guys liked him, girls liked him, so I figured who in the hell was going to believe the campus dyke. Why would good ole Alex do that to me of all people? He had no problems getting laid, so why would he rape you?” She reached down to scratch her leg. “I didn’t want to hear it. I just wanted to be rid of it. To be done with it, but here I am. So…”
