by Sandra Block
Five Years Ago
The rest comes in a jagged puzzle.
The smell of a stale carpet. Brush burns all over my face. My cheek red and swollen, the tip of my nose bleeding. I don’t remember the color of the carpet. Blue? Gray? An old mattress in the corner. Rust stains on it, or maybe blood.
The room is empty, and it takes me a while to stand up.
My legs are leaden. I have to concentrate to walk. My ankles keep collapsing. I get out of the room. I don’t remember how I get out of the room.
Then somehow, I am in my dorm room. I don’t remember how I got there. It takes a long time; I remember that. Shadows on cobblestone, people whispering as I pass. I remember raindrops glistening on the ridges of a leaf. My vision veers between telescopic and microscopic. Somehow, I get to my dorm room. And I must have fallen into bed, though I don’t remember this either.
I remember waking up.
Crackers in my hair. Bruises everywhere. My tongue is swollen. I must have bitten it, or someone else did. Unconsciously, I am cataloging it all.
My underwear is missing. My white shirt is stained with beer. Dried semen and blood on my thighs. (It will hurt to sit for days. It will hurt to urinate, like pissing through razors.) Holes in my sweater. Holes in my memory.
Holes.
I have been raped.
I can’t get around the word. I realize at once that I have to go to the hospital, because that’s what you do when you get raped. But the idea seems overwhelming. I need to shower. But I know from movies that I’m not supposed to shower.
Movies tell you what to do when you are raped. They do not tell you how you will feel.
I sit up in my bed, and my head spins. Aches. Pounds. I want to vomit and begin shivering uncontrollably. Carefully, I stand up. My legs are shaking too. Every joint hurts, every bone hurts. My hips hurt, like they had been wrenched. Fingernail scratches on my breasts, my back, my ass. Like animals had clawed me. I am cataloging it all, but I cannot name everything that hurts. I walk over to the mirror, an effort that takes time. I am short of breath by the time I get there. And when I look at me, I feel like I am seeing a stranger. There is a rap on the door.
Bum-bum-bum-bum. Daisy’s knock. “Hey, are you okay in there?”
I don’t answer.
“I didn’t hear you come back last night. Can I come in?”
I still don’t answer and hear her feet shuffling, then the door slowly creak open. She gasps. Her beautiful face transforms. Horrified, like she is looking at a monster.
“Oh my God, Dahlia,” she says, her lips trembling.
But I don’t feel like Dahlia. I look in the mirror again and realize that I’m looking for someone, but I’m not sure who. Then I realize who it is.
Pretty Girl. I am looking for Pretty Girl.
But she is nowhere to be found. And I understand that she won’t be coming back.
Pretty Girl is dead.
Chapter Nine
Dahlia
James is late.
It took me an embarrassingly long time to come up with my outfit: strategically torn jeans and a black, V-neck T-shirt. I sit in the moody coffeehouse, having fended off multiple order requests by a moody waitress. Maybe I should have gone to the movies with Eli. When I turned him down, he was not only shocked that I had an actual date, but more shocked that it was with James. The IT guy? With the sister? Eli didn’t explain his qualms, just that he thought James was “different.” And when asked if “different” was code for not white, he rolled his eyes. He’s right. Eli doesn’t discriminate on skin color. Or personality. Or anything else I can think of. But for me, he discriminates against everything. No one is right for me. I assume for James it’s that he’s too quiet or awkward or shy. Or something.
Eli made me promise to text on my way home, in case different means ax murderer, or more likely, rapist. Eli always asks me to text him when I go out, which I never do. I put my phone down, my stomach grumbling. This is why I don’t date. So I don’t end up in this situation, sitting, waiting, and feeling like a loser. I’m about to leave when the door opens, and I see him.
Framed by the doorway, haloed by the outside light, James catches my eye and shyly waves. Rain falls in a mist around him. I wave back, but I don’t smile. He’s forty-five fucking minutes late.
“Sorry,” he says, approaching the table and peeling off a soaked raincoat. Water is beaded on his brush cut. “There was some delay on the T. Engine problem.”
“It’s fine.”
“No, it’s not fine. I’m never late.”
“Okay, coffee?” I try to catch the moody waitress’s eye.
“Sure,” he says, though at this point I’m hungry enough that I want actual food. The waitress comes over, we order coffee, then we sit there.
It’s as awkward as I’d feared. We talk about work, which is boring on both ends. We talk about the weather, which is pathetic. Finally, we get our little drinks of overly strong coffee in white teacups. They don’t do decaf at this place.
“You weren’t at S.O.S. this week,” he says.
I tear open three sugar packets and dump them in to mitigate the bitter taste. “No. I don’t go very often anymore.”
“I suppose that’s good.” He downs his coffee like it’s a shot, then makes a hilariously awful face. It’s as if he’s new to the planet. What is this thing you humans call coffee?
“Yeah, it is.” I fiddle with my napkin square. “But it’s good to have S.O.S. out there anyway. I could go with you some time, if you need it.” Which would probably be even lamer than this date.
“Thanks.”
A woman coughs to our left, a heavy, gurgly, tubercular cough. James plays with his teacup, his legs splayed out like he’s too big for the table. A giraffe in a china shop. “I didn’t want it to be like this,” he says.
I stop spinning my napkin. “Like what?”
“Weird.”
I smile. “It is kind of, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. So, what should we do about that?” He asks this like it’s a fascinating problem to be solved. He’s so matter-of-fact about the awfulness of this date, it’s almost intriguing.
“I know a great pizza place?” I offer.
“All right,” he says, apparently satisfied with my solution. “Let’s get out of here.”
• • •
We are both sopping wet by the time we get to the next restaurant, and the mood has lightened considerably. My mouth is watering from the smell of real food.
The waitress places a beer down on the plastic, red-checkered tablecloth for James, and I squeeze the lemon wedge in my non–San Pellegrino water. We order a large pizza from an un-moody waitress and hand her back our plastic menus.
James’s face is turning a bit ruddy, though he’s only taken a few sips of beer. He leans back in his chair and crosses his legs. His large, black Birkenstock dangles on his foot, his leg tapering up to smooth, pear-shaped calf. A swimmer’s calf. I have an urge to touch it.
“Can I ask you a question?” he asks.
“Sure,” I say. But a little piece of me shrivels up in the usual disappointment. In the end, he’s just like everyone else. Why did you try to kill yourself? He needs to know the why.
“How did you end up as a paralegal?” he asks.
“Oh,” I say, pleasantly surprised. “I don’t know. I wanted to be a lawyer. That wasn’t in the cards. Miller and Stein were hiring.” I reach over for my water. “Eli found the job for me, in fact. We were both paralegals for a while. Then he got bored.” I take a quick sip and swallow. “Eli gets bored easily.”
He nods, taking another sip of beer.
“How did you end up working there?” I ask.
“Job fair.” He plays with the paper on the neck of the bottle. “In fact, it was the first booth I went up to.”
“Meant to
be, I guess.”
“Maybe.” He puts his elbows on the table. “So, are you happy?”
The question irks me some. No, I’m not happy. I got raped, quit school, and ended up in a job I don’t love. What do you think? But, of course, he doesn’t know any of this, so I can’t exactly blame him. “I don’t know,” I say.
“Because you don’t seem very happy.”
“Why?” I ask, definitely irked now. “Don’t I smile enough?” I offer a ferociously fake smile, and he gives a sincerely uncomfortable one in return. “What about you?” I ask, turning the tables. “Are you happy? Are you entirely fulfilled with your existence, James Gardner?”
He thinks about it, his eyebrows torquing downward. “No. Not really.”
His honesty shames me. The pizza arrives, leading to an uncomfortable silence while the waitress takes her time separating and serving our slices. I’m mad at myself for acting so rude. Though rudeness is one of the many tricks in my bag, as Rae-Ann has pointed out. I have a crop of them: acting out, turning stone silent, or mounting the guy after five minutes, all self-sabotaging ploys against a true relationship. Some sauce squirts onto my plate, as James wrestles with a long string of cheese. “Sorry,” I say. “I didn’t mean to be a jerk about it.”
“No, it was a stupid thing to ask,” he answers, then sips his beer again. “I don’t have the right to demand that people be happy. Ramona would have been all over me for that.”
I nod, but I don’t have a satisfactory response. If Ramona were happy, maybe she would still be here.
“You remind me of her sometimes,” he says.
“Oh yeah?” I grab another napkin from the stack at the middle of the table. “Do you have a picture or anything?”
He reaches into his wallet and pulls out a little creased square. She looks like James but thinner, smaller. A bit boyish but with perfect, slick black eyebrows and red lipstick. Same cheekbones. “She’s pretty,” I say.
“Yeah,” he says and puts the photo away. I scoop off another piece of pizza, and he flicks the beer bottle’s neck with his fingers, making a ponging sound.
“I might still do it,” I say, thinking about what he said. Being happy.
He squints at me. “Do what?”
“Become a lawyer.”
“Oh yeah?” he asks.
“Yeah.” I mix the ice cubes with my straw. “Of course, it would help if I graduated college first.”
James gazes down at the table, appearing uncomfortable with my open admission of failure. After a bit, he looks up again. “So, how did you meet Eli?” he asks, obviously changing the subject.
The music changes to another Italian song, with loud, clangy accordions. “I guess you could say we were the original S.O.S. I met him in the psych ward. He was in for wrists, me for pills. Fall of my senior year, sophomore of his.”
“You were both at Harvard?”
“No.” I take a drink. “He went to BU.”
As he leans forward on the table, his face is deep red, the flush spreading to his neck. “Were you ever dating?”
“No. He’s always been gay. Since I knew him anyway.” I shake my ice cubes in the plastic cup. “That’s what he was on the psych floor for. He came out to his parents. Didn’t go so well.”
James frowns, looking down at the table. “That’s too bad.”
“But they’re all good now. Amazing how nearly killing yourself can make your parents love you again.”
He puts his beer bottle on the table. “Are you speaking from experience?”
“No. Mine never stopped loving me. They just don’t understand me.”
“Yeah,” he says. “Mine too.”
I pause while he drinks his beer. “Can I ask you a question now?”
“Sure,” he says with a smile. “I guess it’s your turn.”
“Why are you so red?”
“Oh.” He feels his face as if to confirm this. “I am, aren’t I?” He examines his arms. “Asian flush.” The waitress refills my water, and James waves off another drink.
“What’s that?” I ask. “Sounds like a card hand or something.”
“It’s an enzyme thing,” he explains. “Some Asians don’t process alcohol correctly, so we turn red.” He shrugs. “From my mom’s side, obviously.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, my dad’s white. My mom’s Japanese.” He pushes his beer bottle to the side. “Which is why I don’t usually drink.” He pongs the bottle’s neck again. “Do you drink?”
“No,” I say. This has been a deal breaker for some, but not for James, I would imagine. “I mean, I never had a problem with it or anything. I just don’t like to… I don’t know. A control thing, I guess.” It’s quiet for a moment. Then, out of nowhere, he reaches out, touching my arm, and I jump involuntarily.
“Sorry,” he says.
“No, it’s okay. I just…didn’t expect it.”
He pauses and points to my arm this time but doesn’t touch. “What does it say?”
I realize he’s referring to my tattoo and twist my arm to show him the black, cursive writing—SURVIVOR. It flows into the other designs. Black and gray screaming monsters that morph into forest-green and deep-purple victorious nymphs. Good triumphing over evil and so on. Much like Rae-Ann, my tattoo artist gets me.
“Nice,” he says. “Any others?”
“One on my back,” I say. “Hard to describe.” A goddess emerging from smoke—same theme. It’s the kind that you wear with a strapless dress and everyone stares. Which is, I suppose, the point. “How about you?”
“I’ve got one,” he says.
“Oh, yeah?” I ask, fairly flummoxed. He seems too straight-laced for that. “Where?”
He swallows. “On my chest.”
I move my chair in closer. “Can I see it?”
He looks hesitant, but then undoes a few buttons on his blue button-down, with clumsy fingers. The rain has dotted his shirt with dark drip marks, like teardrops. The top of his chest is flushed too, like his neck. On the skin is a black thunderbolt, made up of Japanese characters. It’s beautiful.
“What does it say?” I reach over slowly and trace the characters with my fingers.
“It says…” He looks down at my hand. “Revenge.”
• • •
I don’t expect to see Eli when I walk into my kitchen. He has a key and comes and goes as he likes, as I do in his place. But not usually after he’s been out. Then, he usually ends up sleeping somewhere else. He is standing in my tiny galley kitchen, drinking orange juice from the carton. I glance over to see he’s filled Simone’s food bowl.
“There are actual cups in the pantry, you know,” I say, pointing.
“Waste of time.” He wipes off his upper lip.
“Cups are what separate us from orangutans.”
“I thought it was the red butt,” he says.
“That’s baboons.”
He laughs and takes one last sip before putting the carton back on the shelf and shutting the door. “Dahlia and her useless knowledge.”
“From one non–college graduate to another,” I say. It’s low. I don’t always fight fair with Eli. He’s like a kid brother; you can only take so much of him.
“You didn’t text me,” he says.
“And yet I survived.” I yawn. “Did you end up going out?”
“Yeah. Didn’t hook up though.”
“Wow. That must be a first.”
He ignores my jibe. “I Googled your boyfriend. Wanna know what I found out?”
“Not really.” I sit down in a kitchen chair, and he jumps up to sit on top of the table, next to me. Looking closer, I can see he’s a bit wild-eyed, with dried crust on his nose. “Were you with Kevin?” I ask. Kevin the asshole who always has blow.
“No,” he says. “He hates me,
remember?”
“Yeah, I know. Just checking.” Kevin was Eli’s first “true love,” who broke his heart after Eli finally opened up to him. “He was weird anyway,” I say.
“True,” he allows, his knee bouncing up and down like a wind-up toy.
“What about Brandon with the AC/DC tattoo?” I ask. “Weren’t you guys dating?”
Eli shrugs. “He’s never at the bars.”
“I like Brandon,” I say. And I do. He’s a cute, normal guy who works in IT. Worlds better than Kevin the asshole with blow.
“Anyway. We were talking about James.”
“Actually,” I say. “You were talking about James. I was not.”
“First off,” he says, “Gardner. What kind of name is that?”
Simone slinks over to me for a pet. “His dad’s white. So I suppose it’s a white name.”
“He’s a total geek-head, by the way,” he says.
“As am I.”
“I’m talking Dungeons & Dragons–member geek-head.”
I could say so fucking what, but then I’d be inviting a fight. Eli is like this when he gets high sometimes, oddly possessive. I’m your best friend. Me, me, me.
I stand up from the table, and Simone follows me. “I’m going to bed.”
Eli springs up too. “I’m kind of wired. I was thinking of going out again. You want to come?”
“No. Don’t go out, Eli. You’ll feel like crap tomorrow. Go to bed.”
“But I’ll never fall asleep,” he whines. “Come on. Come out with me, one drink.”
But it’s never one drink. “Eli, I’m tired. I’m going to bed. You should too.”
He sighs, suddenly deflated. “All right, fine. Maybe you’re right.” Then he grabs my shoulders and stares into my face. “You know I love you, right?”
“Yes. I know.”
“And you love me too?” His questioning look is almost pitiful.
“Yes, Eli. I love you too,” I say, wondering what the hell kind of drugs he took tonight. He nods though, apparently satisfied with the response. “You’re sure?”
“Positive.”
He nods again and finally leaves. As the door shuts, I lock up the three locks, then head to my bedroom with Simone in tow. I peel off my black shirt, which is damp from the soft sprinkle outside, and throw on a T-shirt. Lying down, I think back to the date.
