Damaged

by R. R. Banks

I woke up curled into the curve of Micah's body. It felt warm and comfortable in his arms, and I was surrounded by a sense of safety and protection. It was as though nothing could get to me as long as I was enveloped in him. I never wanted to leave that. I never wanted to get out from under the comforter and sheets that were warmed by his body and filled with the heady smell of him. The room was still dark around me and I realized it wasn't morning. Waking up in the middle of the night felt familiar and I realized that I was having a flash of memory. I could remember getting out of bed in the middle of the night, slipping out of my bedroom and down to the kitchen to have a snack. The memory felt real, but there was a distance about it that kept me from knowing how long ago that memory was. It could have been mere days before Micah found me, or it could have been when I was just a child. Either way, it was something about me that I honestly remembered, and I clung to it. Even though I was still unsure whether I wanted to remember everything that had happened before the crash, I found it reassuring to have at least something from my past that told me I wasn't always afraid, I wasn't always trying to escape from something.

  I cuddled closer to Micah so that I could listen to the rhythm of his heart through his chest. I had my hand rested on his stomach and the deep, even rise and fall of his breath was peaceful and grounding. I kissed his chest and then the side of his neck. He didn't stir, and I touched a soft kiss to his lips before slipping out from beneath the blankets. I grabbed a pair of sweatpants and long sleeve shirt and slipped them on before stuffing my feet into Micah's slippers and heading toward the kitchen. I was happy to hear a little clicking sound of Scout falling into step behind me. He wasn't allowed to curl up at the end of the bed and sleep with me and Micah, and when he looked up at me with his huge, emotional eyes, it looked like he was trying to tell me that he missed me.

  "Hi, boy," I said. "Come on, let's go get a snack."

  Scout's tail wagged happily, and he pranced along beside me. I felt like we were sneaking through the house, but there was something fun about it. I was starting to no longer feel like I was a guest in this place. I might still not fully understand myself, and part of me may still feel as though I was a visitor in my own body, but here, in this place, surrounded by the constant feeling and reminders of Micah, I was safe and comfortable. The subtle night lights positioned around the lodge gave me just enough illumination to get me into the kitchen without having to flip any of the switches. I opened the refrigerator and by the light of the small bulb inside explored the various containers of leftovers and other foods that filled the shelves.

  "What are you in the mood for?" I asked, looking down at the dog. "Something salty? Something sweet?"

  Scout stared at me and tilted his head to one side.

  "You're right. We should start with something healthy. That's the only way to go."

  I reached into the refrigerator and pulled out the plate of leftover chicken that Micah had carved from earlier along with a bowl of mashed potatoes and another of green beans. Balancing them all, I closed the door with my hip and walked over to the table. I was developing a particular fondness for this table. I thought about the first night I was in the lodge when I sat in this very chair and let Micah treat the cut on my forehead. The wound was so small that it was almost completely healed now, and I didn't think that it would leave a mark. In a few more days that reminder of the crash would be gone and all that I would be left with was what Micah had told me about it. I realized in that moment that I didn't even know what type of car I was driving when I crashed. I wished that I knew. It seemed ridiculous, but I felt like somehow if I knew what type of car I had been in, I would know a little bit more about myself.

  "Did you see the car?" I asked Scout.

  He looked at me and then his eyes drifted over to the plate of chicken on the table. They snapped back to me and he tried hard to concentrate, but then they drifted over again. I laughed.

  "Yeah, I know. The important things in life."

  I contemplated whether I should go to the cabinet and get another plate, but then I figured that would just mean more dishes and there was really no point in that. I peeled away the plastic wrap on each of the dishes and then picked up a piece of dark chicken meat. I held it up so that Scout could see it, then tossed it up in the air. Part of me expected that he would jump up and catch it, but instead he turned around a few times and let it bounce off of his back.

  "That was masterful, Buddy."

  I nibbled my way through some of the leftover breast meat and then used green beans to scoop up the mashed potatoes. I was glad that Micah hadn't joined me for my late-night snack. I don't think that I could have lived with myself if he had seen me with my makeshift utensils. There are just some things that you need to keep to yourself. When I felt that I had consumed a sufficient amount of the savory leftovers to claim that I was at least trying to be healthy, I covered them all with plastic again and brought them back to the refrigerator. I pulled out the pumpkin pie and set it on the counter. I knew that this particular leftover was going to warrant a plate and a fork. If I dug straight into the pie, it was an entirely real possibility that there wouldn't be any left by the time I was finished.

  Not that self-control had been the most glowing of my personal characteristics over the last few days.

  I sat back at the table and took a few bites of the pie, letting the same feeling wash over me as it had earlier. I remembered the look on Micah's face when he, too, had taken a bite of the pie and I wished that I knew more about when he was younger. Some things that he had said had stuck with me and I can only assume that there was darkness even before the crash that had taken his career, and his dreams, away from him. I didn't want to think about anything ever hurting Micah, but I could see in his eyes that it had. I felt the strange and unexplainable urge to protect him from that hurt, just as I felt that he was protecting me. I hoped that in some way I would be able to shield him from the memories that caused him pain, whatever those memories were.

  I heard a sniffling sound from beside me and I looked over to see Scout staring at the pie expectantly. The expression in his eyes almost said 'aren't you going to share that with me?' I looked at my fork and then back at him.

  "Are dogs allowed to have pumpkin? Is that one of those things that would make you sick?"

  He just kept looking at me, so I scooped up some of the filling and let it drop to the floor.

  "Oops," I said. "Look what I did."

  I figured that if I pretended that it was an accident it would be more forgivable that I was dropping pumpkin on the floor and letting a dog lick it up. I'd try to remember to search around for some cleaning products and do a once-over in the morning. If Micah had to go out to do any more work around the property, I could clean up a bit for him, not that the lodge really needed much cleaning other than the sheets being washed. The thought brought an unexpected smile to my lips. I found myself enjoying the thought of him going off to do some sort of gruff, masculine work while I took care of the house for him and welcomed him back home.

  Well, that will go down as the least feminist thing that I have ever thought...at least, I think it is.

  I scraped the last of the pie filling from the plate, licked it off the fork, and tossed a chunk of remaining crust down to Scout. Feeling completely stuffed and finally sleepy again, I tucked the plate into the dishwasher and then covered the rest of the pie with plastic. I slipped it back onto the shelf and reached for a glass bottle of milk. I stared at the name of the creamery and wondered if it was near the mountain. I had just taken the bottle into my hand and straightened when out of the corner of my eye I saw a dark figure in the doorway, its shape silhouetted against the light from a night light in the great room. I gasped, and the milk dropped from my hand, crashing to the floor. The sound of the glass breaking sounded like an explosion in the quiet night and I screamed, startled as much by the cold milk that splashed up and soaked through my pants as I was the sound.

  I stumbled back, my hand clasping
at my heart as if to hold it in my chest. Thoughts rushed through my mind, racing by in a blur of colors that eventually cleared enough that I could see a face and hear a voice. I didn't know it. I didn't recognize it. But I was terrified of it.

  Chapter Eleven

  Micah

  "Charlotte!"

  The sound of the bottle breaking had startled me, but seeing Charlotte stumble back away from the refrigerator like that, had scared the fuck out of me. I hit the light switch and saw her crouched down on the floor, one hand over her heart and the other grasping the chair beside her as if trying to keep her balance. She shook her head as I approached, making my way around the glass carefully. The last thing that we needed was another injury.

  "I'm fine," she said.

  "You don't look like you're fine," I said. "What was that?"

  "You just startled me, that's all."

  "Startled you? This doesn't look like I just startled you."

  Charlotte looked up at me and I saw tears in her eyes. I reached out and ran my fingers along the side of her face. She tilted it toward my touch, closing her eyes as if my fingertips on her skin could protect her from whatever she was seeing. I held my hand out and she took hers from the chair and rested into my palm. I helped her up and carefully guided her back so that she sat on one of the chairs.

  "I'm so sorry about all of this," she said, looking at the mess across the kitchen floor.

  I shook my head.

  "Don't worry about it. It's not a big deal. I can clean it up." I crouched down in front of her and rested my hands on her thighs, so I could look into her face. "What happened?"

  "I don't know," she said. "I was just taking the milk out of the refrigerator and I looked up and saw you. I didn't know who you were, and it scared me."

  "You didn't know who I was?" I asked. "You know that I'm the only one here with you."

  "I know," Charlotte said. I could see that she was shaking. "I know that. But for some reason when I looked up and all I could see was the shape of you standing there, I didn't know. I didn't know that it was you. I didn't know that you were the only one here with me. I felt like I didn't even know that I was here. Does that even make sense?"

  I wished that it did. I wished that I can understand what was going through her mind and what had happened in the moment that she looked up at me.

  "Did you remember something?" I asked. "Is that what happened?"

  Charlotte seemed to stare over me for a few seconds, and then nodded.

  "I think so," she said. "But I don't know what I remembered. It was so fast. Just a few flickers. Just the flash of a face and the sound of a voice. I don't even know what it was saying. But it scared me so much. It's almost like my body remembered something even if my mind couldn't."

  As soon as she said it, I felt my jaw set and my head start to pound. I remembered something from high school, something that had faded away with time but that had remained in the back of my mind until this moment. I saw her young, innocent face again, the face that had captured me in the hallway and distracted me from the football stands. This time, though, that face was drawn and reddened, tears like the ones from the night that I found her in the car staining her cheeks. I didn't know what had happened in the moments before I turned the corner into the empty back hallway of the school and found her standing there like that, but I knew that whatever it was, it had something to do with the guy who was standing right in front of her.

  It was one of the guys who was born into her social circle, enjoying popularity only because of his name and his money. Unlike me, he wore the tried-and-true uniform of those people. Khakis and a pastel polo shirt. It was the same look that his father probably had, and maybe even his grandfather. It was the look that meant that someone could line up a row of pictures of nearly all of the guys in his circle, clip off their heads, interchange them, and they would still look exactly the same. Unlike me.

  He was standing so close to her. It wasn't unusual to see people, especially couples, close together in these back hallways when classes weren't in session. There were times when I had my fair share of girls who I stood very close to in these hallways after school when the teachers drifted their way up toward the lounge or the office and created the perfect environment for hormones to run wild. But there was something different about the way that this guy was close to Charlotte. His back was stiff, and his chest was pressed toward her as she seemed to fold away from him, withering even in just his presence. My eyes lowered, and I saw that his fists were clenched tightly at his sides.

  He hadn't seen me there. If he had, he wouldn't have lifted his hand to her. He wouldn't have pressed that hand to the front of her chest and shoved her back against the wall behind her so hard that her head snapped back and her eyes clenched closed. In that moment everything that I had ever gone through and seen my mother suffer had exploded behind my eyes and the world suddenly went red. I grabbed him by the back of his shirt and wrenched him away from her. He had started to say something, but my fist stopped him. It was one punch, but it was enough to send him to the floor.

  "Are you OK?" I asked her now, just as I had then when we stood in that hallway.

  She shook now just as she had then, her shoulders trembling and her eyes glistening with tears that she seemed to be fighting to keep inside. Composure was something that people like her valued, I had learned. The more in control she seemed, the less anyone would pry into what was behind her pretty eyes and gentle smile.

  "What if there is something horrible that I'm running from, but I'm never able to remember it?" she asked. "What If I never get all of my memories back and I never really know what happened? I might be in danger, and have no idea. How am I supposed to protect myself if I don't even know what I'm protecting myself from?"

  I took her face in my hands, holding it so that she would look into my eyes.

  "I will protect you," I said. "I will always protect you."

  Just like I protected you then. Even though you don't remember. Even if you never remember.

  I leaned forward and touched my lips to Charlotte's. I could taste tears clinging to them and I licked them away, whisking the salt away from her skin as if each tear that I removed was a bit of her pain that I could take away from her. Memories were starting to filter back into her mind, but they weren't the ones that she would want to have. They weren't the ones that I would want for her.

  Charlotte's lips parted beneath mine and I deepened the kiss. My tongue swept into her mouth, brushing across hers, and I lowered my hands to her waist. I drew her toward the edge of the chair. Her hands settled on either side of my neck and she pressed further into the kiss as if she were searching for something within it. My fingers dipped into the waistband of the sweatpants she was wearing, and I pulled on them until she lifted her hips, so I could slide them the rest of the way off. Our mouths parted long enough for her to take off her shirt and me to step out of my pajama pants, then caught again. I tucked one arm under her legs, sweeping her up to cradle her against my chest as I carried her through the kitchen and into the great room. I lowered her to the couch and walked up to the fireplace. I hadn't tended to the fire that evening and it had nearly died, but I was able to encourage it back to life with the poker, soon filling the room with the light and warmth of its flames.

  I put the poker away and went back to the couch. I held my hands out to Charlotte and she took them, letting me help her to her feet. Once she was standing I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her close so that our bodies pressed together. Our lips played against each other as I walked backward toward the rug in front of the fire, drawing her along with me. I lowered down to my knees, guiding her down so that we knelt on the rug, touching from chest to knee, and continued to kiss. Sitting back on my heels, I drew Charlotte forward so that she climbed into my lap. I felt the warm heat of her body cradling my erection and I wanted nothing more than to sink inside of her and feel her body, but I knew that I couldn't.

  "Wait right here," I wh
ispered into her ear.

  I eased her carefully off of my lap and went to the bathroom where I had stashed several condoms. I put one on before going back into the room with her, not wanting even another second of hesitation. When I got back into the room, I knelt on the rug again and Charlotte folded into my arms, her lush body wrapping around me and her head coming to rest on my shoulder as she lowered onto my shaft. I tightened my hips to sink into her further and enjoyed the feeling of every inch gliding along her walls. Her thighs on either side of my hips kept her tight and we felt fully melded. I closed my eyes and leaned my head against hers, concentrating on the feeling of our breath and the way our hearts seemed to beat toward one another. Their rhythms started erratic, then slowed and quickened in response to one another until they were in concert. My hand pressed to her lower back guided Charlotte's hips into a slow roll against mine. I breathed her in and made everything else disappear.

  ********

  Charlotte

  I wrapped myself around Micah, giving myself over to his strength, and closed my eyes. I wanted nothing more than him. I wanted nothing but the feeling of him possessing my body and soothing an ache in my heart that I didn't understand, but that I knew was there. The flashes of memory that I had had in the kitchen were brutal, excruciating even in their brevity, and I didn't want to let them in any further. If I gave myself entirely to Micah, allowed him to fill me so completely, then even those memories couldn't reach me. There would be no space for them. In the same way, Micah seemed to be filling himself with me. The muscles in his arms strained with how tightly he held me, and he rested his head against mine as if he didn't want any space between us.

  That was the way that it stayed between us for the next few days. The time blended so seamlessly, I barely kept track of how long it had been since I had come to be with Micah. We were completely wrapped up in one another, disappearing into each other as we pretended that there wasn't anything or anyone else in the world around us. We were almost desperate, using each other to numb our pain. With every moment that passed, however, I felt like the peace that we had found was running out of time. The attraction that I had toward Micah was undeniable and the powerful feelings that seemed to get stronger each day were purely visceral, but no matter how hard I tried to fight it, I had the lingering sense that Micah and this place couldn't be a part of my life moving forward. We were in a snow globe. Everything was perfection, but it was contained, it was temporary. We were stuck here for now, making the most of what we were given, but eventually it would be over, and we would have to go back to our lives. Micah would go back to the way that things were before he found me, up here alone on the mountain. I didn't know what I would return to, but there was nothing that I could do to change the reality. I was trying to fight it, but I couldn't. As much as I wanted to believe that Micah and I could discover where what was happening between us could go, I felt like there was something trying to pull us apart.