Bend Me, Break Me

by Cameron, Chelsea M.

“Let’s just say there was a moment and I tried to kiss her, she hit her head on the frame of my bed and ran away. So that happened.” Marty made a choking noise, as if he was trying to hold in a laugh and failed.

  “It’s okay, laugh all you want. My life is hilarious.” I shoved him in the shoulder and he put his hands up in surrender.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I can’t help it. But you have some of the worst game of anyone I’ve ever seen. I should have stayed just so I could watch the failing.” I glared at him, but he just smiled and patted me on the shoulder.

  “You don’t understand, Marty. This is important. I can’t mess this up.” The humor faded from his face.

  “Why? What’s so special about her? I mean, you just met her.” Technically, yes, but it was so much more than that.

  “I just like her, okay?” I said, just a bit too defensively.

  “Okay, okay. No need to get your panties in a wad.” I wanted to punch him, but refrained.

  “So you tried to kiss her and she jerked away. You need to find out why. Either she’s not into you that way, you surprised her, or she did want to kiss you and that scared her. It could go any way at this point.” He was right. I had no idea what was going on in Ingrid’s head. I liked to think that I knew her, but I really didn’t. Not as much as I wanted to.

  “Yeah, I’m aware,” I said, running my hand through my hair.

  “Cheer up. All hope is not lost. I think you need a drink.” He reached under his bed and pulled out a box that had a few cans of beer in it. I raised my eyebrows as he handed me one.

  “Um, why have you been hiding this from me?” I asked. He popped the top of his can and shrugged as he sipped.

  “I was saving it for a special occasion.” I snorted.

  “So this qualifies as a special occasion?” He stretched his long legs out on his bed.

  “Yeah. Sure. Heartbreak always qualifies.” I gave him a look.

  “I’m not heartbroken.”

  “Whatever, dude.” He leaned back and motioned for me to give him the remote. We still had Justified going, but I had stopped paying attention a while ago. He flipped to CNN and turned the volume up. He was a Broadcast major, so he was almost always watching or reading news of some sort. Sometimes it grated on me, but right now I was so tired that I didn’t care.

  “I’m not heartbroken,” I said again.

  “Sure,” he said in a way that told me didn’t believe me at all.

  I texted her later and got a response that she’d made it back to her dorm and that her head was fine. I sent an apology for the almost kiss and didn’t get another reply.

  The thing that bothered me the most was that it seemed like she wanted to kiss me. I wouldn’t have gone for it if she hadn’t given me the signals. Or maybe I just thought I saw signals and completely misinterpreted the whole thing and now my entire plan was ruined.

  Probably. That would be how my life was going.

  This time when I showed up for class, I had her tea, but I had something else. A card.

  “What’s this?” she asked, taking the tea from me. That was the first good sign.

  “An apology card. They didn’t make one that says ‘I’m sorry I tried to kiss you’ so I got the one that was the funniest.” She raised an eyebrow and then opened the envelope to pull the card out. It said I AM A JERK on the front and inside I’d written three words. I’m sorry. And my name.

  She almost cracked a smile and then read the inside. She looked up at me and I waited.

  “I’m sorry, too. I’ve been thinking about it and I didn’t mean to… to act like that. I’m just… I’m so confused.” She ripped her hand through her hair and I wanted to just wrap her up in my arms and tell her it was going to be okay. That we were going to figure it out. But class was going to start and we had to take our seats.

  “I’m just not ready for anything… I mean—” she trailed off.

  I took a risk and put my hand on her arm.

  “Seriously. It’s okay. We’re still friends. No permanent harm done.” I gave her a smile and almost got one back. Almost.

  She was contemplative as we left class. Lost in her own head again.

  “We can pretend Sunday didn’t happen, if you want,” I said. She looked at me in shock, as if she’d forgotten I was walking next to her.

  “Oh.” She paused. “We don’t have to. It was a good day.”

  It was a good day.

  “We should do it again,” she said and I couldn’t help the little rush of happiness that shot through me. Yes. Progress. Maybe I hadn’t fucked things up too horribly.

  “Cool. Yeah, anytime.” I knew I sounded too eager, but I didn’t care.

  “Okay. I’ll see you on Wednesday,” she said as I left her in front of her next class.

  “See you on Wednesday.”

  The card was cute, I had to admit. He was so apologetic, as if he’d done something absolutely horrible. That made me feel guilty, more than anything else. He didn’t deserve to beat himself up about it.

  I did realize one thing as I tried to pinpoint my feelings. I liked spending time with him. It was nice. There was an ease to him that I envied and liked to be around. Maybe it would rub off on me and I’d learn how to be human again, at least a little bit.

  Every time I thought that life was going to get a little easier (not better. Never better), I was struck in the face with a reminder.

  This time it was a note. A bit of paper that fell out of one of my books and fluttered on the floor like a sad little bird.

  A grocery list with five items, written in my mother’s hand. Apples, flour, butter, coffee, toothpaste. My legs folded on themselves and I found myself on the floor, staring at those seemingly ordinary words.

  She must have used it as a bookmark and forgotten. She did that a lot. Used whatever she could find to mark her place. People who dog-eared pages should be put in prison, she’d say. My hand trembled as I held the paper. I couldn’t stop looking at it. Not even when my legs went numb and my hips started to hurt and my stomach started to growl. I couldn’t move.

  It took everything inside me to close my eyes and let the paper drop back to the floor. I tipped sideways, curling in on myself. I didn’t cry. I couldn’t. I didn’t know how anymore.

  She must have been buying ingredients to make apple galette. Her ancestors were French, and she always liked to pull out her grandmother’s recipe book and make something like that. It made her spirit smile, she said.

  I heard a strange sound and realized it came from my own mouth. It was the kind of sound a wounded animal would make. Pitiful. Hopeless. I reached out with one hand and dragged myself across the floor to my desk, then used my chair to get myself to a standing position again.

  My television was blaring something, but I couldn’t for the life of me remember what I’d been watching. It didn’t matter. Reaching out with my foot, I slid the bit of paper under my bed. Once it was gone, my lungs were able to expand and I took a shaky breath.

  My head ached. Everything ached. My soul ached. I got a bottle of water from the fridge and took some aspirin before I climbed into bed and shut off all the lights except for the television. I wasn’t going to get any sleep, but at least my eyes were occupied with watching the images on the screen.

  I knew I looked bad from the way Coen looked at me on Wednesday. I’d barely slept in two days and it was catching up with me. Even naps were difficult. If I didn’t get a few hours today, I was going to take a sleeping pill and hope it worked this time.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, his hand reaching out to steady me. Apparently I was weaving on my feet.

  “Yeah, sure,” I said, but my voice was as weak as a whisper. Against my will, I let Coen lead me away from the door to our class and toward an alcove that had a bench.

  “Here, sit,” he said, his arm still supporting me. I leaned on him involuntarily.

  His concern was palpable. It almost had a smell. I didn’t like it, but I couldn’t help but
respond.

  “Hey,” he said and I realized I had drifted off. It was like sleeping with your eyes open. I’d been here before.

  “Are you sick?” he asked. I didn’t have enough energy to shake my head so I didn’t answer.

  “Okay, this is not happening.” A moment later I wasn’t sitting on the bench. I was being held and we were moving. Coen was carrying me.

  “Where are we going?” I mumbled as people stared at us.

  “To my place. It’s the closest.”

  He carried me all the way to his room, not letting me down, not even in the elevator. I was placed on his bed and then he put his hand on my forehead.

  “You don’t feel warm. You feel cold, actually. Holy shit, your hands are like ice,” he said. I blinked at him and noticed just how much his hair got in his eyes.

  Coen wrapped me in blankets. I couldn’t tell him that no matter how many blankets he used, I would never be warm again. Hot tea was thrust into my hand and he stood and watched as I drank one cup and then another.

  “You’re not okay, Ingrid. It’s a wonder you even made it to class. You know you can talk to me, right? We’re friends.” No, I couldn’t talk to him. I couldn’t talk to anyone.

  I turned my face away from him and looked at the wall. There was a chip in the paint that showed this room had been a light blue before it was painted the current off white.

  “Ingrid? Please talk to me,” he said and something about his voice made me look back at him. Were there tears in his eyes? No. I must have imagined that part. Everything had a hazy quality, as if seen through a filter.

  “I’m really worried about you.” I was worried about me, but there was nothing I could do to change it. Nothing.

  He reached out and smoothed some of my hair back. Something about that simple touch was so genuine that I thawed, just a fraction.

  “You can stay here as long as you want. I don’t care about missing class. Are you hungry? I still have some of the vegan stuff I bought the other day.” He rushed to his closet and pulled out boxes and then went to the fridge and pulled things out. Before I could speak, the bed was covered in vegan snacks and fruit and peanut butter.

  I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten.

  “Peanut butter is fine,” I said. I ate it with a spoon all the time. He gave me a look and then grabbed a box of crackers. I watched as he made me a paper plateful of cracker sandwiches and then presented them to me with an apple on the side and another cup of tea.

  “I can’t eat all that,” I said. Now that I realized I was hungry, it was to the point that I was nauseated.

  “It’s okay. We can share,” he said, pushing the other boxes and food items aside so he could sit on the edge of the bed by my feet. He set the plate between us. We each reached for one of the little sandwiches at the same time.

  “Do you want to talk about anything? Or not talk? We can watch more Justified.” I knew he was trying to be nice, but letting him do that wasn’t easy for me. It should have been, but it wasn’t.

  I ate and then cleared my throat.

  “I’m just stressed lately. Haven’t been sleeping well.” He didn’t seem to buy it even a little bit.

  “Would you do me the courtesy of coming up with a better lie? I mean, I know we haven’t known each other long, but I know that you’re not a very good liar.” He was right. I never had been. Jess would always hate me for it when Mom and Dad would bust us because I couldn’t lie about where we’d been to their faces.

  I choked on the bite of cracker in my mouth and Coen had to bang me on the back with his fist and get me a glass of water before I could breathe normally again.

  I hadn’t been letting thoughts like that form for months. Every now and then one would slip through and bloom in my mind. I would stare at it for a moment, like a beautiful flower, then stomp on it and crush it, brushing away the petals and pretending it never existed.

  Coen’s bed was a mess from the cracker crumbs that I’d spewed everywhere, but I couldn’t get up. I brushed at them feebly and he took care of the rest.

  “What happened just then?” he asked.

  “Uh, I choked on a cracker?” I said.

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. “Before that. Something happened. I could read it all over your face.”

  This was why I didn’t let anyone in my life. Because once they started to make their way in, they ask questions like this. Questions I wasn’t going to answer, and that they would keep asking. I wanted him to stop asking. I wanted to go back to us talking about vegan pizza.

  “Nothing,” I said, my voice full of bite.

  “Look, I’m not trying to be an asshole, but there’s no way I’m letting you go back to your room without talking to me. I could just take you to the student health center. They’d take one look at you and probably have you hooked up to an IV. It’s up to you, Ingrid.” This was side of him I hadn’t seen yet.

  I definitely didn’t like it.

  “Don’t take me there,” I said, my voice rasping.

  “Then tell me what’s wrong. I just want to help you. God, I want so much to help you.” Emotion choked him and he looked away. I wondered if he was going to cry. Why did he care? Why did he care about the broken girl who shared one class with him?

  Finally, I sighed and closed my eyes. I couldn’t look at him anymore.

  “I’m tired. I’m so, so tired, Coen.” His name tasted both new and familiar in my mouth. I liked his name. Something like Nick or Brian wouldn’t have worked for him. His name fit him perfectly.

  Soft, warm fingers brushed my forehead.

  “Then sleep. You can sleep here as long as you want, Ingrid.” I opened my eyes and then closed them again. And slept.

  I was scared out of my fucking mind for her. Her pain was something I couldn’t even begin to comprehend. It was in every part of her. It beat in her blood and was written all over her face. I wasn’t qualified to help her try to carry it, but goddamn, I was going to try.

  She slept, at last. It took a while, but eventually her face relaxed and I saw, for a little while, the girl she must have been a few years ago. Her hands curled under her chin as she dreamed and I hoped they were good dreams. I didn’t want to be the kind of creep who watched her sleeping, so I hung out on Marty’s bed and did homework and when my brain wouldn’t focus on anything but her, I watched movies with my earbuds in, checking on her every few minutes. Not once did she toss or turn, or mutter.

  I nearly murdered Marty when he slammed through the door, but she didn’t move.

  “Sorry,” he whispered when he saw her and slowly backed out, saying “text me when it’s okay to come back.” I gave him a thumbs up and he returned it before shutting the door softly. I didn’t know what I would have done if I hadn’t had a roommate like him. Someone who would just change his plans at the last second because I needed him to. I was going to have to do something to thank him.

  I had some snacks and when it turned late and it was time for dinner, I ordered another vegan pizza. I’d really liked the last one. I’d consumed the rest of the slices after she’d left.

  At seven, Ingrid’s eyes fluttered open and then went wide. She didn’t know where she was.

  “Hey,” I said, staying on the other side of the room. “Do you remember where you are?” Her eyes settle on me with an unfathomable expression. She was so soft in that moment. So soft that it made something pound, deep in my chest. I wanted nothing more than to cross the room and crawl into bed with her, wrapping my arms around her to keep her safe.

  “What time is it?” Her voice still had a hint of roughness.

  “Ten after seven,” I said, pointing at the clock on my bookshelf.

  “Shit,” she said, trying to sit up. I got up and put my hands out for her to stop.

  “It’s fine, it’s fine. I said you could stay as long as you wanted. If you’re still tired, you can stay. It’s not a big deal. Are you hungry? I got vegan pizza.” I pointed to the open box next to me
. I hadn’t been able to wait to eat, but I’d saved her a few slices.

  “No, no, I should go.” She pushed the covers off and tried to get up, but her legs were still unable to support her. I had to dive forward to catch her so she didn’t collapse to the floor. I set her back down on the bed in a sitting position and then sat next to her. She smelled like… something I couldn’t put my finger on. It was flowery, but also dark. Her hair was all over the place and her eyes were a little puffy.

  She was still the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

  I snapped my eyes away from her face so she wouldn’t think I was staring.

  “Ingrid. Really. It’s okay.” Her eyes half-closed and I thought she might be drifting off again, but then they opened and she looked right into me.

  “I haven’t slept that long in months. Actually, I don’t remember when it was that I slept so long. A while ago.” This time she did drift and I thought I knew exactly the last time she had slept through the night. I knew the date, the day of the week, what the weather had been, at least where I was.

  Ingrid and I were tied together by that day. By something that someone else had done. She might not know it, but I did.

  “Why?” I asked, even though I knew.

  She shrugged one shoulder.

  “Some things happened. I don’t want to talk about them.”

  “That’s fine,” I said, but I wanted her to. I wanted her to feel like she could trust me. I wanted it so much it was like a physical ache.

  Suddenly, she let out something like a cousin to a laugh. A little, breathless thing that lasted for only a moment.

  “I get it,” she said. “I finally get it.” She wouldn’t look up at me, instead concentrating on her hands. There were a few freckles on the backs of them. I wanted to take one of her purple pens and connect them to make constellations on her skin.

  “Get what?” I asked. Her eyes came up to my face.

  “Why you’re so obsessed with me.” I raised both eyebrows, but inside, I was panicked. What if she figured me out? That would be disastrous. It would be the end.