by Leddy Harper
“Just finding the girl beneath the disguise.”
Shock struck me and rendered me useless for all of ten seconds before my fingers moved, finding their way to the button on his pants.
“What are you doing?” His eyebrows knitted together harshly, yet he didn’t move from my touch. Instead, he allowed me to continue with the button on his pants.
“Finding the boy beneath the armor.”
Seven
Air escaped me, rushing past my lips but never returning. An invisible weight pressed hard against my chest, ceasing my heart from beating and promising to crush my bones as if they were tiny twigs beneath the soles of combat boots. And instead of hearing Novah in front of me, static filled my ears, growing heavier as each second painfully ticked by.
My lungs wouldn’t function.
Nothing made sense.
I gripped her wrists—probably harder than I should’ve by the ghostly shape of her eyes—and held her arms between us.
“I don’t want you to see beneath my armor. I only wanted you to show me what beauty means to you. This was a mistake.” I released my hold on her and backed away. My feet carried me inside at a reckless pace. I needed to get away from her—the intensity of the moment threatened to bring me to my knees.
My entire body burned from the inside out as if she had somehow branded my soul with her ocean-colored eyes and hypnotic voice. I didn’t bother to glance over my shoulder or stop inside to observe the destruction of my kitchen. Seeing the physical evidence of her ability to get to me was more than I could handle.
I rushed around the mess until I found myself alone in my bedroom, and then slammed the door behind me. The booming sound it made as the walls shook broke through the static in my head.
Novah wasn’t supposed to be like this.
She wasn’t supposed to be this person, and she certainly wasn’t supposed to possess the ability to get inside my head the way she did.
After torturing myself for years, I felt compelled to look her up, to see what had become of her after the hell we went through. Imagine my surprise when I learned of her profession—the things she did to make money. And even more so, the way she presented herself. I had to reach out. I had to point out how hypocritical she’d been after exiling me, but then something happened.
I collapsed onto the edge of the bed, propped my elbow above my knee, and dug into the tender muscle until pain radiated through my thigh. My head fell forward and I rested my forehead against the palm of my hand. I closed my eyes tightly as I tried to gather my thoughts about everything. I needed to calm down and sort through my feelings regarding Novah—both then and now.
Earlier, she’d described herself as a loner in school, assumed she was invisible. But she wasn’t. Sure, she didn’t have as many friends as I did back then…but I’d never considered the group of people who’d hung around me as friends. They were users, leeches who had attached themselves to my name, my persona, the character I portrayed for everyone to see.
Whereas, Novah may have only had a few friends, but they were real. They were honest. And they were good. I bet none of her friends would’ve gone into her room and taken a private moment with the sole purpose of destroying someone else.
She’d been a few years behind me in school, but it didn’t stop me from noticing her. Every day, I wanted to talk to her, stop her in the hallway and say something to her.
I wanted to make her smile and hear her laugh.
But I knew what the repercussions would’ve been. The idiots who surrounded me would’ve sank their teeth into the freshman, and not relented until they’d drawn blood. Because even though I had never viewed her as a loner. I knew in high school, the ones who sat alone at lunch were considered losers. They didn’t dress in style and they didn’t paint their faces with so much makeup you couldn’t see the person hiding beneath it.
They were ostracized and would never fit in. They’d never be accepted. And I never wanted her to fit in or be accepted by the people who hung around me. I wanted her to be her…to be true to herself and never change.
After months of watching her, wanting her, I had finally been given a chance. I knew ahead of time Mr. Connelly would be dividing the class into pairs for an assignment. I had overheard some kids talking about it the day before, so prior to our class starting, I went to our teacher and made a simple request for a partner. I told him how I loved photography and didn’t want a partner looking for an easy A. I knew that’d get to him. He mentioned someone I’d worked with in the past, but I told him I would rather have someone I wasn’t familiar with.
My argument was valid, and he saw my point when I said I wanted a partner to challenge me, oppose my views, and allow me to create something unlike anything I’d ever done before. A satisfied grin took over his face as he glanced to the door, catching Novah walking in, and it set me at ease. I never even had to use her name, but I’d been prepared in case I needed to.
What happened the day she came over for our project wasn’t at all what I’d planned. I honestly never anticipated any of it. All I wanted to do was get to know her better. While waiting for her to show up at my house, I’d been unable to sit still as different scenarios ran through my head. I wanted her number, a chance to contact her after our time together had ended. But as she packed her camera away, something came over me.
Her eyes.
Her lips.
Her body.
The way she nervously fidgeted in place.
It was as if I’d been placed under a spell, and rational thought never came to me. Even with all the planning I’d done prior to her visit, all the things I’d wanted to talk about and say, nothing came to me. Her gentility had stricken me silent, in awe, in wonderment of the person who stood right in front of me.
Thinking back on it—which I’d done for years—I could never recall the actual words I’d used. But I do remember telling her how beautiful she was.
And it had been the truth. Was still the truth.
I couldn’t recall making the move to kiss her, but the memory of her lips on mine had been seared into my mind, into my dreams, and had become the one thought I always went back to when I’d find myself surrounded by fear. Remembering the way she felt against me, the way her small breaths filled me…those memories had saved me countless times when all I wanted to do was turn my service pistol on myself.
The sound of my front door slamming closed freed me from the compounds of my reminiscing. I picked my head up. My arm weightlessly fell to my side as I held my breath and waited for another sound to break through the silence. But there was nothing. Only distressed stillness filling my entire condo.
She left me.
It was what I had wanted when I walked away from her. Yet the thought of her not being here now formed a crater inside my chest.
The time on my watch confused me, because there was no way I’d been locked inside my head for half an hour. It couldn’t have been so long. It only seemed like a few minutes. And then I began to wonder what Novah had done while I’d hidden away.
I slowly stood. Fear of the unknown consumed me until every muscle in my body had coiled so tightly I worried I wouldn’t be able to move. It caused my left thigh to ache uncontrollably. Still, I blocked out the pain like I had to do every day, and made my way to the bedroom door.
Silence met me. The lights from the kitchen shone down the hallway, and if I strained enough, I could hear the rain pitter-pattering on the terrace through the open doors in the living room. But other than that, the place seemed empty.
And cold.
Always cold.
My heart hammered away as I cautiously made my way down the hall to the kitchen, unsure of what I’d find. My wary steps halted abruptly as I glanced around the vacant space, noticing the absence of my mess. I moved farther into the room, glancing around at the bare countertops and freshly mopped tile. The only evidence of my earlier tantrum was the slight discoloration in a section of grout where there’d once been a po
ol of wine. She’d cleaned everything—including the pots and pans I’d used to make the dinner we never ate.
On the end of the counter, close to the trashcan, I found a paper towel. It’d been neatly placed there, unused. But once I picked it up, I noticed the neat letters written in black ink: When you’re ready, I’m here. I balled it up in my fist, prepared to throw it away. Then something stopped me. I wanted it gone, yet a small voice in my head prevented me from getting rid of it. Instead of tossing it—or preserving it—I left it in a ball on the granite counter and walked away, back to the solace of my bedroom.
I needed her out of my head, gone from my thoughts and my life. But it was so hard to do when she’d been engrained in me for so long. She had owned my guilt for a while after I’d walked away from her, and then she had become my relief for a few years, unknowingly helping me through my darkest days. Then the explosion had changed everything. It had changed me…and my desires. After that, in my head, she’d been the cause of it all, the reason for my disfigurement.
The very first time I’d ever laid eyes on her, I believed her to be something special, someone so different from anyone I’d ever met before. The day she came over to my house, even before I grew lost in her kiss, I assumed her a staple in my life. The one-of-a-kind person I’d always heard my parents talk about when speaking of each other. And because of that, when my actions had caused her pain and humiliation, I vowed I’d make it right. I’d do anything to prove to her how wrong she’d been in her accusations of me. I only needed to get through my punishment, and then I’d find her again—if only to make everything right.
But I never got through it.
I lived with my punishment every day.
My father had taken the prints I’d developed of her, and the film. He’d destroyed them all—except one. I’d hidden just one image, needing something to get me through until I could make my way back to her. I only needed that one photograph of her face to remind me of the virtue I saw in her. The same virtue I’d detected even before I took those snapshots. It’d been the very last picture I’d taken of her.
You couldn’t see me in the shot, because I stood beyond the frame, but her gaze was locked with mine, on me, moments after her release. The flash had caused her eyes to glisten, but the light had been soft and kind to her face, eliciting a glow from her flushed cheeks. Her lips were parted, and the corners of her mouth revealed the excitement I knew she’d felt—mirroring the eagerness in me.
I’d muted the colors, developing it as a black and white photo, and even with the lack of color, her magnificence radiated from the glossy paper. I’d kept it hidden for years, and had taken it with me everywhere until it was creased and worn.
Even on the days I spent defending this country, it was always right next to me. Just like I’d wished she was.
I pulled the old picture from my nightstand, sat on the edge of my bed, and ran my finger lightly over the image. The memory of her from then and the woman she’d turned into were very different, yet still very much the same. Her outer appearance had changed dramatically over the years, but her heart, her soul, her eyes were those of the girl from my dreams.
The girl from my kitchen table.
Turmoil twisted in my gut as my desires warred with my anger. Desire for Novah to make me feel like the boy who’d fallen for the unnoticed girl. Anger for the boy who’d fallen for her, only to grow up and become a crippled man.
Crippled by everything.
By life.
Love.
I grabbed my phone. My thumb hovered over her name for long minutes, but I was unable to follow through with placing the call. I knew my words would be unkind, and after everything she’d shown me tonight, I consciously knew she didn’t deserve it. I’d given her enough hateful words—words I knew deep down she didn’t deserve. Before giving up and putting my cell away, I typed out a message and hit send.
Me: You didn’t have to clean up my mess.
I sat completely still, barely breathing, and stared at the screen, willing it to light up with a reply. I didn’t care what she had to say—she could’ve responded by telling me to go to hell and I would’ve been happy. As long as it was something. I only needed to know she cared enough to send something back.
After a few minutes of nothing in return, I set my phone down and put her photo back in the drawer, hiding it from my view…even though I didn’t have to see it to know it was there.
A sense of loss overwhelmed me, suffocated me like a soaking-wet comforter weighing me down. I leaned forward, hunched over, as my limbs grew heavy and my thoughts darkened with incredible hopelessness. Her silence proved to me what I’d always thought of myself: I wasn’t worth it.
The memory of her in the hallway outside the principal’s office—the day our families had met to discuss the situation I’d put her in—seconded that theory. The way she had refused to look at me screamed how worthless I was.
The emails I’d received from her after I’d reached out fueled the fire inside. They gave way to the resentment I’d harbored for so long. At some point along the way, bitterness overshadowed the longing that thoughts of her used to provide me with. But instead of empowering me like I’d hoped they would, they only served to highlight how empty I was. How hollow I’d become.
The first time she came to my office, armed with the portraits she’d taken of my friends, I thought I’d be vindicated. I honestly believed she’d provide me with the evidence of her true feelings. I’d looked her up, carefully went through her online portfolio, and had expected her to come back with demeaning pictures of my friends. I thought she’d cover Jennifer with makeup, hide her scars—not highlight them and make them the focus of the frame. I expected her to clean Andrew up, not showcase the demons living inside his head. Instead of cropping out Mike’s amputated legs, or Jacob’s missing arm, she’d used them to exhibit strength and power. But rather than compassion, she had glared at me with distain. Once again, proving to me how completely insignificant I was.
It was what made me beg her to take my picture. I desperately wanted to see how she would view me. How she’d see my disfigurement through the lens of her obvious hatred. But I never got that chance, because when she came back, I couldn’t keep my thoughts to myself. I’d opened my mouth and brought back our past, the words not coming out right. I hadn’t meant to place the blame on her like I’m sure she took it. It was meant to express my astonishment over her strength and strong will. But I had failed. And in the end, she left. Worthlessness snaked around me, choked me, and prevented me from going after her.
Following a day of being lost in my thoughts, lost in the world I’d trapped myself in, I couldn’t fight the demons any longer and I went to her. Desperation drove me, hopelessness provoked me, and determination blinded me. I found her at her computer in her studio, and watched her for a moment. I’d said something, but I couldn’t for the life of me recall what.
Even though it’d only been a few hours since I last stood in front of her, stripping my clothes for her to see the hideousness hidden beneath, I couldn’t remember what all I’d said. The only thing that had stuck with me from those few moments in her office were her words: “You’re so fucking beautiful.”
What a lie. A lie born from pity and sympathy. Maybe she was compelled to say it after I’d proven her assumption of me wrong. She thought I’d sent her my friends because I found something wrong with them, and seeing my body dismissed her claim. But whatever the reason behind the sentiment, I’d foolishly invited her over, knowing it wouldn’t go well.
I was deplorable and undeserving of her attention. And I’d proven it by my actions, by my rage and reckless disposition. Her silence—after I’d walked away from her on the terrace and her lack of response to my text—verified how I’d lost my chance.
After being allotted so many opportunities with her, I knew I wouldn’t be given another.
But then my phone vibrated next to me.
Novah: You don’t deserve to live
in a mess, surrounded by what you THINK lives inside you.
I read and reread her message several times, trying to formulate a response. But it wouldn’t come. I wanted to thank her, but at the same time, I wanted to tell her it wasn’t her place to assume anything about me. I wanted to go after her, but I knew I didn’t have the right. I wanted her to come back to me, but if she did, I’d only ruin it again.
And while I contemplated what to say, another message came through, erasing all previous thoughts from my mind.
Novah: I know you don’t believe me, and you don’t have to. The eyes are the windows to the soul, and I see yours. Until you can see it, it’s pointless to argue about my beliefs. I meant what I said…I’m here for you when you’re ready. No matter how long it takes.
I became faced with two options: let her go, or allow her in. If I did the latter, I could chance ruining her. By allowing her the opportunity to find the person she sought inside, I could end up revealing the ugliness trapped within, and she might not ever be the same again.
However, if I chose to let her go, I’d lose any possibility of ever making it out of this dark hole in one piece. She held the ability to become my salvation, but I could very well be her demise.
I made my decision and typed out my reply, sending it before I could change my mind.
Me: I want you to show me what I can’t see, but I can’t do it this way. I need you to start by showing me the goodness on the outside first. Meet me tomorrow after work?
Her response was immediate.
Novah: Text me the time and place. I’ll be there.
Relief flooded me, making it easier to breathe. The weight on my chest caused by her departure immediately evaporated, setting my mind at ease for the first time since I’d left her office earlier. Except this time, the reprieve wasn’t tethered to the encumbrance of doom.
I knew exactly where I wanted to meet her, and it wouldn’t be directly tied to me. It wouldn’t hold the ability to strip me bare in front of her, revealing the raw pain which had turned my blood into molten lava, burning me from the inside out. It was a place found to be disgusting by most individuals, and an exact representation of the man I’d become. If she could show me the splendor amongst the filth, then I’d allow her the chance to prove me wrong about myself.
