Fix Up

by Stephanie Witter

  I put my finished cigarette in the ashtray on my bedside table, and I uncap the bottle, ready for another round of burning liquid. I need that buzz now. No, in fact I need oblivion. Anything is better than this, and that fucking word is blaring in my mind.

  Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye.

  I hold up the uncapped bottle for a toast. “To Skye, thank you for making my heart beat again and then shredding it.’’

  But silently, without uttering a word as to not jinx it, I swear to win her back one day. Maybe not soon, maybe I’m deluding myself as the buzz is starting to make me dizzy, but I need to think that a goodbye doesn’t have to last forever. I need to believe in something or else … No, better not to finish this thought.

  I reach under my shirt and close my hand around the eternity symbol I gave Juliet. It’s warm from my body heat, and yet it feels foreign all of a sudden. I tug on it hard, feeling the chain biting in the skin around my neck. I tighten my fingers around the tiny piece of silver and tug harder, finally feeling the chain break. I open my hand in front of my face, my vision already unsettled as the alcohol starts to hit me, but I still see the piece of cheap jewelry in the palm of my hand.

  And I let it fall on the floor at my feet. This is the past, now I have to focus on Skye. Nothing else matters right now. She is my forever, my eternity.

  *

  SKYE

  I open the door of my room, and Kate pounces on me, startling me out of the fog and numbing pain I’ve been in since I left Duke half an hour ago. She grabs my hands in hers and squeezes softly. It’s simple, but it means a lot to have someone like her on whom I can count, even if she doesn’t agree with my decisions.

  “I have to go study with someone from my economy class. You know Zoey, right?” I nod, but I don’t really remember if it’s the petite chubby girl with mousy brown hair or if it’s the redhead with the biggest boobs I’ve ever seen that she’s talking about. “Well, she asked to study with me. I’ll be in her room on the second floor if you need me.” She kisses me on my cheek and walks out, leaving me alone to face my parents.

  They’re both sitting quietly on the bed, looking at me expectantly, but the gap between them is for me the size of the Grand Canyon. They’re holding hands like always, but they’re not attached to the hip like I’m used to seeing them. It breaks my heart. I don’t know what is going on between them, but I do know that it has to do with me. I can’t imagine my parents drifting away from each other because of me. I couldn’t stand it.

  I throw my bag on the ground at the foot of my bed and sit on Kate’s bed to face them. My father’s eyes, the same blue-green color we share, are on me, detailing my every move. My mother is focusing on my face where I know my eyes are red from all the crying I did. These days it’s like I spend half of my time crying, the other half being spent upset. I’ve never been that unstable.

  “Did your meeting with your psychologist last longer?” my mother asks me with a little voice. She sounds almost afraid to ask.

  I shake my head. “No, but I had to see Duke. Then I needed some alone time.”

  “Are you back with him?” my father asks, his elbow on his knee, bracing his head on his hand. He’s leaning toward me a little, but still too far to make me squirm with his intense look.

  “Listen,” I look around us at the room and brace myself. Today is honesty day for me. If I have to go see Dr. Marshall so often, the least I should do is to listen to his words, and I do think that honesty is important. I’ve spent way too many years doing and saying things, or nothing, to not upset other people around me. “Maybe you’re right; I’m trying to punish myself on some level, and that’s why I broke up with Duke. But the thing is, I do think it’s a good idea.” I take a deep breath and lock my eyes with my father’s. “I love him. I love him so much that I’m afraid. When you love someone and you’re not happy and sure of yourself, you have the power to destroy the person you love, and I can’t risk that. I can see now how fragile he really is. Before I thought it was just words because he looks so strong, but … he’s not that strong. Not always, and it’s too damn complicated. We hurt each other these days, and that’s the horrible truth.” I stand up and lean against the window, my favorite place in this tiny room. “I can’t accept what he had with Juliet, I can’t accept the other girls looking at him and trying to have a piece of him, and I can’t accept the possibility of losing him so …”

  “So you did the job yourself before he’s got the chance,” my mother finishes for me, standing up and hugging me against her, her soft body and motherly embrace softening my nerves. I fall against her and let myself be drowned by her motherly love. “Are you testing him?”

  I clench my fists and think about it. Am I testing him yet again? Didn’t I test him enough already? Is it why I was so relieved to see him outside the prison? Is it why I calmed down immediately when I saw him the other night when I had my panic attack? I breathe her in, the flowery perfume I know so well reassuring me.

  “Mom, I’m so sad that I don’t even know what I want or what I’m trying to do.” I put my arms around her and tighten my grip. “I want Duke, but I don’t want to have my happiness dependent on one guy again. I’m almost … I don’t want him to see how depressed I truly feel, and I know that I need to break down the last walls around me to get better. He shouldn’t have to support this at his age.”

  I hear my father sigh, but I can’t see him. My mother’s hair is in my face, hiding me to the world for just a little while. “You, women, are always way too complicated.”

  “Maybe, but it’s because it’s very easy to break our heart,” my mother replies shortly, her grip around me still as strong. “But Skye, when you do get better, you’ll regret breaking up with Duke.”

  I pull away and smile sadly because she’s right. “He’ll be happy. That’s all I want.”

  I walk to my father and hug him. He kisses me on top of my head, and I pull away to face them both again. Now is not the easiest part, but I have to talk to them about Sean’s mother. I know they did everything they could to give her a way out of her marriage, and they failed. But after seeing her and her son, I can’t just go on my merry way and forge myself a life when I know she’s still in hell.

  “Mom, Dad, please don’t yell at me.” They look at each other, worry lines on their face. “I met Sean’s mother a few weeks ago.” I close my mouth and wait for an explosion, but it doesn’t come. They’re just looking at me, frowning. “She called me because she wanted to see how I was doing. I tried to talk to her about her husband, but she left abruptly.”

  “We can’t make the decision to leave her husband for her,” my father says, his voice more strict. I know him enough to know that he’s hiding the failure he felt when they realized they couldn’t do a thing for her.

  “I need her out.” I cross my arms over my chest and take a deep breath. “I’m not going to stop, you know.”

  “Skye …”

  “No, mom!” I held up a hand. “You don’t know how it is to have a guy, a man, taking his anger and frustration out on you, and you have to suck it up even when it’s physically and emotionally painful. You have to tune out your own personality to the point that you don’t even know who you are anymore. Vulnerability is not even how you can describe how it is to be destroyed by a man that way. It’s a torture you have to live with everyday, and it leaves so many scars inside of you that you’ll never be the person you could have been had you not met that person.”

  My mother is now crying, and my father is barely holding on. It’s the hard truth, something I don’t like to talk about, don’t like to show to the people that are afraid for me and love me so deeply that it can only hurt them to see a glimpse of the deep hole I’m still trapped in. But that is how I feel, and I have to acknowledge what I feel.

  “What …” He clears his throat and takes my mother in his arms, protectively. “What do you need us to do?”

  “When you’re back in Boston, tell her that I need to see
her. Ask her to contact me when she’s in Seattle.” I glance at the calendar fixed to the wall next to the door where the date of our exams is marked in sparkling red ink. “In two weeks I’ll be finished with my exams, and I need to see her. It’ll be my last shot, but I have to try and succeed.”

  “And if you don’t?”

  I lock my eyes with my father. His eyebrows shot up on his forehead when he takes in my determination. “Then, I’ll call the cops.”

  ***

  DUKE

  “You should celebrate the end of the exams, man.’’

  Derek’s voice makes me cringe as I try to ignore the pounding headache I feel. It’s been that way for the last couple of weeks. Two weeks I’ve spent without Skye; two weeks I’ve spent thinking about her and looking for her on campus. And now the exams are over, I’m more or less officially a college graduate, and I’m spending my nights smoking cigarette after cigarette while sipping enough Jack Daniel’s to give me the buzz I need to finally fall asleep. I’m a very healthy fucker.

  “I don’t give a damn about a party.” I tap the last box with my shoe and pull it over to the other boxes in my now empty dresser. My college life is in these few boxes. It’s weird.

  “Listen,” Derek stands up and grabs my shoulder, forcing me to face him. “I know you’re hurting. You’re trying to keep your head up when all you want to do is give up, but you can’t keep this up. Drinking, smoking and moping around? It’s starting to be too much.”

  “And a party would solve all my problems, right? What do you think is going to happen? I’m going to get shit faced, and we both know that’s not something you want to see. Now, leave me alone.”

  Derek’s jaw locks and his eyes narrow on me, but I don’t give a shit. I don’t mind fighting with my best friend. In fact, I don’t care. I’m just …I don’t really know. Maybe the best word would be detached. There’s nothing much I give a damn about and the only person I care about, I know I’m not going to see her anymore. Just thinking about this tightens my throat.

  “Think about it, dumbass. It’ll be your last chance to see her. You could use that excuse to tell her about your plans now that you’re graduating and everything is settled. Get your head out of your ass.” Derek pats my shoulder and walks out, probably back to the frat house where there’s still a lot to be done now that it’s the end of the year, and he’s graduating.

  I glance at the bedside table where my cell phone is and think about Derek’s words. It’s true; it’d give me a good excuse to see her one last time. At least it’d be a better memory than what I’ve got with the word goodbye etched to her tear stained face. I wouldn’t be truly with her like I want, but it’d be something. But I know she won’t agree to it.

  I take a deep breath, and for the first time in the last few weeks, I let some hope in. It’s not the delusional kind, but there’s hope of some kind of talk with her. Something, anything, would be better than the whole nothing I’m trapped in. And I’m not ready to just give up. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have set my mind on the job I accepted.

  I nod to myself and grab my cell phone, dialing the only person I know is able to help me. Kate. At least, if I can convince her, she’ll convince Skye. I cross my fingers and close my eyes as the phone starts to ring.

  *

  SKYE

  “Are you sure you don’t want to go and celebrate the end of the exams?” Kate asks me for the third time as she puts one last coat of mascara on her long eyelashes, making her green eyes pop even more. She’s meeting with Derek and Duke for a drink in a bar downtown, and while a huge part of me is craving to see Duke after almost two weeks, I can’t imagine how it’d be.

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

  She sighs and walks to me. She sits on my bed beside me and nibbles on her lip. She’s always doing this when she’s trying to decide if she should say something or not. She shrugs and grabs my shoulders in her tiny hands. “Duke asked me if you could come. He told me that since he’ll graduate next week, it’ll be one of the last times he’ll see you so …”

  For the first time in weeks, my heartbeat increases and the butterflies in my belly take off. Even my blood is boiling at the thought of seeing him again. But it’s going to hurt us both. It’s useless to do it again. We already said goodbye, or rather I said goodbye. Maybe that’s why; maybe he wants to say goodbye too.

  “I can’t see him.”

  She releases me and smiles contritely. “Too late. They’re stopping by.”

  Startled, I stand up in a jump, my legs so wobbly that I almost fall on the ground. “What?!”

  “He was sure that you’d never agree, so he told me that him and Derek would stop by to go in one car to the bar. And you know, there’ll be many people there, not just Derek, Duke and me.”

  I grab my purse, ready to go hide somewhere before they arrive, but I’m stopped in my tracks just before I put my hand on the doorknob when someone knocks. I’m frozen with one hand extended toward the door and the other one tugging down the grey blouse I have on.

  “Too late!” she sings with a laugh. I look back at her and narrow my eyes on her laughing face. She pushes me away roughly and opens the door before I can get my breath back.

  There, just a few feet from me, Duke is standing behind Derek. Derek is smiling at Kate and then at me, but he stays quiet. But really, I barely see him. All I can see is Duke with his tall muscular body and his goatee which has almost disappeared with the beard that is slowly invading his cheeks. His dark eyes are as intense as I remember them, but the shadows in them are not hidden anymore. Rings under his eyes and the paleness of his face show how much he lacks sleep.

  “I think these two have some things to talk about. We’ll wait in the car,” Kate says to break the silence. She kisses me on the cheek and walks away with Derek at her side. They’re back on speaking terms, even if everybody can see a certain stiffness between them.

  In the hall, many people are already drunk or laughing like hyenas since the stress is over after the exams. And here we are, the only ones quiet and looking at each other without moving to walk out or in.

  Duke shakes his head three times and tugs on his hair. I’ve missed this. I’ve missed him.

  “Can I come in?”

  I nod and let him walk inside before I close the door. When he passes me, I’m overwhelmed with his smell of smoke, shampoo and musk, and it brings tears to my eyes. I take a deep breath and blink several times before I turn around and face him.

  “I accepted the job offer here, in Seattle.”

  “What?” I take a step back and bump into the door.

  He runs a hand on his unshaved cheeks, his eyes never leaving mine, pinning me and making me his prisoner. “I can’t live in a city where I know you’re not. I need … I need to know that I’m close to you in a way, even if it’s not like I’d like to be.” He takes three steps toward me. I look up to meet his eyes again as he’s towering over me. My breathing is just a notch louder. “I’m not going to leave. I’m not going to accept that it’s over just like that when I know that you love me enough that you decided to open up to me months ago. For the both of us it means a lot, and I’m not going down without fighting for you, for us.”

  “Duke …”

  “No!” He brings a finger to my mouth, silencing me. The feel of his fingertip against my lip makes me shiver. I can’t look into his eyes any longer, not when I see the fire in them, this passion still consuming both of us. I close my eyes. “I’m fed up with all these obstacles between us, most of them being ones you created, but I had to experiment how it’d be without you. It’s not a life I want. I need you, not because I can’t live without you, but because you complete me. You don’t really believe me when I say this, but I’ve never loved anyone like I love you.”

  “And Juliet?” I push away his hand from my lips and point at his neck where the necklace is under his black tee-shirt.

  He tugs on his collar and expose his bare neck. No necklace. No
thing. I gasp and look back up at his face, his well-defined lips stretching on one side up in a half-smile. “I took it off the other day when I told you that I’m sure that even if Juliet was alive I’d have fallen in love with you. When you left I … it was like you burnt my heart to ashes and ruined my life.”

  “But … I …”

  “I know, these are just words, and it doesn’t mean that we can be sure of what would have happened if Juliet was still alive. But I’ll show you that I’m not going to let you go. I want you, Skye. I want to make plans for our future; I want to build a life with you.”

  “Why are you telling me all of this?” I put a hand to his heart. It’s beating so strongly that I feel it under my palm. He shivers and brings his hands to my hips, trapping me between him and the door.

  “Because I’m upfront.” He kisses my temple and pulls away. My hand falls back at my side. “You’re going with us to celebrate the end of the year, and we’ll have a good time with our friends for a start. What do you say?”

  “There were too many things, bad things, between us, Duke.”

  “There were many amazing things too. Loving you isn’t a mistake, and loving you isn’t a choice I made. I fell in love with you, with all of you. I’m not waiting for easy days because I do love the broken parts of you just as much as I love the parts of you fighting to smile and laugh. I’m in love with you, and I think that you’ll see that it’s enough for me.”

  He grabs my hand and opens the door, leading me outside without another word, and I let him because I’m way too shocked to think about anything or process anything. Once again, he took me by surprise, and it softens my hard determination a little to stay away from him. Just a little bit.

  ***

  DUKE