Paper Dolls

by Emma Chamberlain

  I kept asking her these awkward questions and she kept answering them, her eyes coming back to my lips. I think I was distracting her. That was probably a good thing. My quiet line of questioning was definitely intrusive but I wanted to know.

  She moved two of her fingers up to my mouth and I opened and let her smooth them inside of me onto my tongue. My eyes closed and I instinctively rubbed my center onto her more while I sucked on her skin. I was still so turned on, of course this escalated all that.

  She seemed so torn up about things. Finding out he loved me solidified a lot of the thoughts in her head. I hated that it seemed like jealousy to me. I hated that it seemed like she was mad he didn’t love her. I didn’t want his fucking love. I didn’t want it.

  She couldn’t get that. And how could I ever speak it? They were gross words.

  Everything I thought was muddy, heavy, and unkind.

  I needed a cleanse. I needed to find clarity and strength. I needed a purification to wash this all away.

  Her sex was close to that. The way she fucked me was so fucking close.

  The way she pushed inside me and forced me to feel, that broke so many things away from me and made them just leave. She was ridding me of bullshit. I don’t think she even knew.

  “I’m not sure. Maybe that he was going to bury himself in a World War II bunker and never touch another girl again,” she snorted.

  She watched me as my eyes opened. Slowly, she took her fingers away from my mouth and watched as I rubbed against her again and moved to talk.

  “He knows he’s scum,” I said simply, drunk on my attraction for her and how sexy she was. “His letter said as much.”

  “Yeah, but he doesn’t think he needs to be punished properly for almost violating me.”

  “I think he’s trying for punishment,” I confessed, my mood slipping. “Why would he have even sent me to you in the first place if he didn’t want to end up behind bars?”

  “Plus,” I whispered sadly, moving into her again, this time to try and hug her. “He did violate you. It wasn’t almost.”

  “I don’t know, maybe we should ask him.” Avery let out a little laugh. “He almost killed me. He did for awhile. I was dead inside anyway.”

  “Is it weird I’d want to taste your blood?”

  I was close to her neck. If my hands had been free I would’ve touched her. My hands weren’t free. I licked her neck instead and listened as she shallowly gasped.

  I wasn’t sure why I was thinking of that now. Perhaps it was the sweet smelling sweat that I smelled so close on her skin. If I ever cut her like Ben, I wouldn’t want it to go to waste. I’d want to keep her, save her, hold her inside me.

  Her head turned toward me, her eyes a little wider.

  “Is it weird that, that doesn’t weird me out?”

  “Well, I guess I already know about your secret vampire obsession,” I teased. “I just mean… I could never cut you like that and not immediately regret it and want to rescue every part of you.”

  “Oh,” she chuckled and ducked her head. “Um, well, that’s actually really sweet and loving.

  “Would you want me a monster?” I asked. So many girls fantasized about being taken like that these days. Fangs sinking deep. Life blood being drained. Giving in until life was so very precious that it had to be saved… They fantasized because they had no real clue on how it would actually feel to be hurt like that. Our culture so romanticized any fucked up passion in men and that tended to bleed.

  “Are you asking me if I’d want you to turn into a vampire?” She blinked and raised an eyebrow. “Or are you asking me if I’d still want you if you were a person that did horrible things?”

  “You talk about the blood and his knives… You talk about secretly wanting to be punished. Would you want me to drink of you. Would you want me to pierce your skin and find you precious like that?”

  It was a touchy subject.

  These were things I just shouldn’t ask.

  So often she claimed she was worthless and unimportant.

  A big part of me wondered why she’d let Ben do so many horrible things.

  She had to like some of it, right? Or maybe that was just me projecting. I couldn’t ask for a thing I didn’t want.

  I hated to assume either way.

  “I want to say no,” her brow scrunched and she bit her lip before continuing. “But maybe there’s something in me that would like it. That’s what I’m scared of second most.”

  “Is it a want for death?” I asked. Why would she be scared. She hadn’t died yet. His practices must’ve been intense and confusing. I could never know what he really did.

  “No, death would be easily achieved. That’s not hard at all. A bullet, cuts in the right places, or even jumping off of something. I get confused. I don’t know if it was there before he did those things or if it was a result of it. I can’t tell you where it started. I just know that it’s true that people can brainwash you.”

  “I don’t want to do that,” I said adamantly.

  “I know. I wouldn’t want you to. That act would hurt you. I don’t really want it done to me. It’s part of the sickness. Now, if I accidentally got cut or something that’d be different,” she ended with a little smile.

  I was talking about the brainwashing… She was talking about something else...

  “I don’t want to think I’ve somehow manipulated you,” I confessed.

  That was a lot of my problem with her. It was hard to believe anyone could really love the real me. Especially when I went through such lengths to be cryptic and ultimately changeable for her.

  “Manipulated me into doing what?” Avery asked.

  “Loving me,” I said quietly, feeling how pathetic it must sound since we were only days away from our very real wedding.

  “Oh! No, that’s not what happened but that’s what has been really bothering you, isn’t it? Well, one of the things.”

  I felt her move to push me onto my back. She took my hands up and looked down at me as she lowered them down on my body.

  “I’m not bothered,” I said, looking up. “I’m just not oblivious either…”

  I could only deal with the information at hand. The information at hand was complex and troublesome. The information at hand forced me to be scared and feel unsafe.

  There was waking up and being touched. Then there were the thoughts like this…

  Everything was important and everything needed to be looked at and considered.

  I couldn’t just be like Fiyero from Wicked and assume the best and then the worst. I had to see the shades of grey.

  “Why do you even think that?” Avery asked.

  She was sort of annoyed and I felt her right hand absentmindedly tugging on the cord around my hand to take it off and free my hands.

  “Think what?” I returned, scared. I’d already talked to her about this. She just got mad. She always got mad. When we talked about this she always made me feel so stupid.

  “I’d love you even if you didn’t love me or want me. If I had gotten to know you and those were the circumstances then I’d still love you because it’s not about what you give me or where you were at the right place and time or anything like that. It’s about you being you. You didn’t control me and you didn’t ask me for anything. Waking up to you made me see how badly Ben had worked me over.”

  “But don’t you see… Anyone could love you better than Ben?” I said out loud. “Ben was this worst-case scenario. And I got lucky. I got to find you… Every day lately, every day since before Napa, you’ve been telling me you didn’t know something about me. Every day you’re confessing to not know me. I feel so sick sometimes… ‘Cause it’s true and you remind me of that.”

  It hurt to remember.

  Because of what I’d said, Avery was speechless for awhile. I’d shocked her. I just lay there awkwardly. My hands were free and I was somewhat sad because it meant she was closer to leaving.

  “If anyone else had been t
here I wouldn’t have seen them. You aren’t interchangeable with some other person. If I’ve given you that impression then something’s not computing.”

  “You have to go,” I sighed, realizing. It was getting later and she needed to put on clothes and head off if she was going to see her mom.

  “I can’t go and leave you here thinking that you could be anybody.”

  “I never said that, those were your words,” I reminded. “No one else was watching you like I was and fighting their way in.”

  “Yeah, and if they’d tried they would have failed. I don’t love you because you were just there.”

  “I’m not doubting your love, Avery… I’m doubting you can really know me… You keep showing me you don’t. And I hate that it’s true. I wish it wasn’t true. I wish we didn’t have a moment like that at least once a day but we keep having these moments.”

  “Maybe I’m just not good enough.” She got up and went to the closet and I heard her pulling clothes off the hangers with enough force to knock them off the rail.

  “Baby, no… That’s not at all what I’m saying.” I sprung up fast to try and find her. If she wanted to hit someone, she could hit me, I wouldn’t fucking care. I was just sick of holding this stuff in when it was terribly important with our impending nuptials looming off in the distance.

  I wanted her to know me before she said yes.

  “Hey, no,” I said, approaching her and holding my hands to her arms to try and stop her from being violent at inanimate things. “You’re great and I know you and I love you and I’ve no doubt in that. I know, I know you, okay? I can’t know what you went through. I can’t know how hard it really is for you or what that did to how you need to see others and be. All I know is what I learn. We just keep having these moments where you actually tell me you don’t know me… And I have to think about it. I have to consider it. I have to be cognitive and think, oh wow… Avery somehow didn’t know that. And it hurts me to think those things every single day…”

  I felt weak and stupid behind her.

  I hated that I had to say these things.

  I wanted her to just know these things.

  But she got mad at me when I didn’t speak.

  She let out an exasperated sigh and stayed facing the other way as I held her and made her be with me.

  “Nobody knows that you brush your teeth with your left hand even though you’re right-handed or that you can’t stand when people break rules like not using their turn signal, or that you think love is a virtue, and no one could describe how you look when you hear a piece of music that you love. I have a shitty memory now. I didn’t used to before it- I’m just saying that I know who you are. That’s not a factual kind of thing. I can tell you how you feel. I can feel your mind or soul or whatever it is that makes a person who they are.”

  There were so many things she said in Napa that completely stopped me in my tracks. It was like she hadn’t been awake with me for months while I’d been stricken and nearly paralyzed by my own awakeness since I’d been quietly studying her to the point of actually losing myself.

  And we’d talked about what happened. I learned that she’d been somehow gone.

  But it still hurt and I couldn’t explain that to her without feeling like this total fucking asshole of a person.

  How much was excusable and how much was okay?

  What was normal? Well, fuck normal.

  What was healthy?

  I never said I wouldn’t want her anyway. I couldn’t say that because it wasn’t true.

  At this point it was so clear to me that all I wanted was to be what she needed...

  “You’re tearing yourself up because you’re blaming me for shit I can’t control and I get that it sucks and it hurt and I’m an asshole for not remembering what you paint.”

  “I don’t want to blame you, baby. I don’t want to doubt. I don’t want to think these things. I’m not thinking about this because it’s easy. Is that what you really think?”

  That hurt to hear. Why would I?!

  That just wasn’t fair…

  “No, that’s not what I think. Because I know you. The important part of that sentence is that you’re torturing yourself with this thought that I don’t know you.”

  “I’m not torturing myself. I’m not,” I said. “I can’t just let that go. That’s all.”

  “You will.” She dropped the shirt she was holding and pulled me into her. “If I have to tell you every fact about your life over and over and describe who you are every night. You’re gonna see.”

  “It’s not about facts. I’m not a fucking test,” I cursed but it wasn’t to bite. I was bothered, frustrated. “It’s just every day. It’s every day. How am I supposed to feel? How would you feel if I did that to you? You’re acting like I’m trying to hurt you or test you or something and it’s not that, it’s not. I’m not doing this to you. I’m not testing you.”

  “I don’t think you’re testing me. I think you’re telling me that I made you feel like I don’t know you and that you don’t want to feel that way but maybe I don’t have an answer for that other than I hate that you feel that way and I wish I knew how to show you that it’s not true.”

  Make me feel.

  She was still thinking it was past-tense.

  Little things were important just as big things were. It wasn’t just little facts she didn’t know. Though the things she said had definitely been lovely and adorable.

  The whole day yesterday she kept doing things that meant she didn’t see me...

  “You want to appease me. You want to be able to say: I know you. I know this woman who I love. But you don’t Avery. You don’t know me enough yet. And that isn’t your fault. We haven't had enough time. But it’s true and it scares me. It doesn’t scare me because of some failing in you. It scares me because what happens when you do finally learn everything. What happens when you really see me and really start to understand who I really am?! I’ve never been this open and honest with any other person in my life. I see you. I’m aware of you. I wake up and I can’t wait to soak up everything you can teach me. I can’t wait to breathe you in and learn more and be this person who gets to be the only one to hold you within myself and know who you are. I’ve been waking up like that every day since the first day I met you. Every day. You don’t understand. I feel so open with you. I’m an open wound. And still you’re somehow missing me. Even basic parts of me. Even basic things. How can I feel like you won’t someday wake up and realize you didn’t know me before? When you don’t know me today and you didn’t know me yesterday or the day before that or the day before that.”

  She was crying and she dropped my hands, sinking back to the wall and letting it support her.

  “And you’re acting like I’m crazy,” I wept, hating it. I ran my hand up into my hair absentmindedly, touched and moved it, before hugging myself.

  “I’m not acting like anything. You’re putting that onto me. You don’t know-”

  “Right,” I scoffed, tears coming. “So it’s all in my head? Everything? Just like I thought it was before when it wasn’t?”

  I’d be the crazy one for her. I really would. I wouldn’t fucking care.

  If that’s what she needed me to be to allow herself to hold me, I’d be that and I’d be that every stupid fucking day.

  I needed her.

  “Are you sure you know me?” She picked up the shirt again and the pants that she’d picked out and then she stood there and got calm. When she looked back up she stepped forward and kissed me before I could say anything. My head swam. “I’ve gotta go to my parents.”

  I didn’t know what to say. She’d gotten us to this point in the conversation and now she was leaving.

  I couldn’t say anything.

  I just let my gaze drop and I listened as her footsteps grew further away.

  If I was too hard to deal with, I was too hard to deal with.

  I couldn’t change it. I couldn’t be some other way.
<
br />   She was too good for me. I already knew that. I knew that before she even gave me the time of day at the Inn when we sat down for that very first time after that interview.

  I may have been perceptive but she was a better person than me.

  I couldn’t exchange myself to be someone like her.

  Either I was that person or I wasn’t and I wasn’t.

  She was gold and I was bronze. In the sun she’d always shine where I’d just pale.

  I couldn’t talk to her about this. I kept trying but it never worked.