xo
Lani
August 3rd
Red pricks on white skin
Blood red roses against the pallor of new snow
Snow White has been sleeping inside me for
Too long now
To retreat from this crimson bordered ivory coast
Contrast of harshness in the stark red lines
Against the virginity of untouched flesh
I always go far enough into the redness
For a sharp burst,
But never enough to let the whiteout win
Control is a funny
thing really. There are certain things in life that some people believe you
have complete power over, but in reality, you are a slave to a brutal mix of
fate and hormones. Brain chemicals, like an army working against your every
will power. Things in your life like grades and jobs and friends you can decide
on. But other things, like sexuality, you can’t.
I knew I liked girls
when I was fourteen. But I pushed those desires to the corner of my heart where
daylight can’t reach. I feared for my own lusts, my own heartbeat. I felt
wrong, dirty. Girls my age were supposed to like boys. And I did. I mean, I
liked how they all liked me. I’m pretty enough, sexy some might say. I have the
sunset golden skin and big brown eyes. I have the gloss-covered hair and the
curves that swell like cresting waves. I liked how my boyfriends’ hands fit
perfectly over them, protective, possessive. I liked how they wanted me, needed
me. That gave me power.
Control.
But there came a time,
last spring, that I couldn’t push my feelings into the background anymore. Her
name was Laura. She had black hair and blue eyes and skin like blushing roses.
Baby soft. We met in a cafe on the other side of town and spent a whole summer
drenched in lust and dusted with love. We were blindly searching each other’s
bodies for fulfillment, satiation. I needed her like a mother and she needed me
like the ocean needed the shore.
But like all intense,
leaves-your-heart-throbbing summer romances, ours ended in a downpour of autumn
tears this fall as the leaves tumbled to the ground around her onyx hair in a
spill of gold and ruby. She left me to the harsh October winds without
protection, robbed of comfort.
Scarlett
August 5th
I roll
over in the queen size bed, my arm wandering across Ben’s broad chest. I watch
as the skin expands as he sighs, stretching his white tee shirt and raising my
hand. I look at the creaseless-ness of his face; the smooth skin and long
eyelashes. My hand inches towards his neck, and I kiss his shoulder. He rolls
over and sits up in the dark. The alarm clock shows five o’clock in red
letters. It’s too warm in here.
“What’s
wrong?” He turns to look at me, his torso still facing the wall. His eyes look
annoyed, deprived of sleep.
“What
do you mean what’s wrong?” I’m confused by his worry.
“Why
did you wake me up?”
“I
didn’t mean to wake you. I just-“ I trail off, realizing that it is a lost
cause. “Why don’t you reach out to me anymore, Ben? Why am I always doing the
reaching?” His face is blank.
“I
don’t know what you’re talking about.” He gets up and pads to the bathroom. I
roll onto my back and stared at the wood-planked ceiling. Five years. My mother had always told me that five years would be
the be all and end all of a relationship. That’s
when the heart-wrenching desire fades to television watching and who’s going to
turn off the bedroom light. I remember her saying, her eyes somewhere
distant.
No. My
relationship with Ben is not going to dissolve, a mere victim of time and
circumstance. What we have is too special, too rare. I searched long and hard
for Ben and I’m not about to give him up now.
He
returns and slips beneath the covers. I look out the window at the pinkish
light of dawn. Suddenly, the five o’clock morning looks more enticing than
staying here in this too warm bed.
I
release myself from the warmth of the suffocating covers. Release my mostly
naked, save for Ben’s oversized button down, skin from the entrapments of
cotton and linen. Walk, feet pressing on hardwoods, to the window. Peek through
the opening in the layered curtains, rose gold light meeting my tired eyes like
espresso.
In a
flash of lightning, I am downstairs and out the door, dressed in white shorts
and a loose camisole. My auburn hair falls in bed head, last-night curls, around
my shoulders and my brown purse is slung across my right shoulder, cross-body.
The
cafe is mostly empty at this time of morning. There’s the odd workaholic in
suit and tie, and collegiate with a paper due at nine, bags swelling under
their eyes. The bll tinkles above my head and coffee machines whir behind the
bar, the scent of roasting beans wafting to my nose. I step up to the counter,
to be met by my favourite barista, Shelley.
“Hey
there, love, what can I get for you this morning?” Shelley asks in her usual
fluorescent voice.
“Um, I
think I’ll have the vanilla cappuccino, please.”
“Coming
right up,” she moves behind the coffee machines and starts steaming milk and
pumping syrup. “How are you these days?
Enjoying the summer break?”
I pause
before I answer,
“Yeah.
Yeah I am. I’m working part time at as a columnist for the Mitchell Times, so
that keeps me busy. I go in Monday, Wednesday, Friday.” Today’s Tuesday, so
Shelley looks at me with a hint of suspicion as to why I’m up so early. “I
needed some air,” I feed her, and she nods.
“So how
are you and Benjamin doing?” She always addresses Ben by his full name. Guess
that’s what happens in a small town like Mitchell.
“Good.
He’s good. We’re good.”
The
same suspicion etches in her eyes.
“I’m
glad to hear it, honey,” she says as she hands me the cappuccino, extra hot
with extra foam.
Lani
August 7th
Pressure
Expand
Contract
Try to breathe beneath the weight of his secret
Transferred onto you by osmosis
Of deceit
Breathe in
Breathe out
Don’t think
Obey
Bryson’s couch is
prickly under the bareness of my thighs. I wriggle to find comfort in the hell
hole of a living room, not much living going on here, but I only cause the red
chafing to increase. I’m uncomfortable in the silk and mesh of the baby doll he
pulled over my head.
I take in my
surroundings. I haven’t been in Bryson’s house since I was young, maybe eleven
or twelve. I know his games, or tricks, I should say. I’ve been living without
parental guidance for a while now, and things were never PG for me. At least
then, my mom was still around to look for me. To send the cops bang bang banging on his front door. To
pull me from his claws like a princess. Now I’m eighteen and there will be no
one looking for me.
I know the deal. I
wear the lingerie, I paste the makeup on the dry skin of my face, hide the
chapped lips with the richest red of lipsticks. I sit on this couch or that bed
and I wait. I wait for him to bring in the men with wandering hands and devious
eyes and unfulfilled lives. I lie back and wait until I am covered with their
release and then I clean.
But I will never be
clean.
I catch a glimpse of
myself in the mirror on the dresser. My dark brown hair is spiked in its usual
pixie cut, and my eyes are traced with kohl. My lips are red like snow white
and I have the skin to match. Three dollar bronzer could never hide the pallor
of ghosts behind my skin.
I hear a knock on the
door. I whip around, ready to face the next suitor. But all I see is Bryson,
alone. When he opens the front door of the small rancher he brings in the night
air, and it swirls around me. I can picture the stars if I close my eyes long
enough. Bryson is my step brother. He trades a place to sleep for whatever he
wants. Unfair, but such is life.
“Hey honey.”
“Bryson.” My tone is
colder than ice water, trickling over the smirk on his lips.
“What’s with the face?
No johns tonight, thought you would be happy. I had a cancellation,” He brings
out his diary, all professionalism, “so we get to discuss The Plan.”
I hadn’t thought about
The Plan since I was fourteen. That’s when he went all quiet and didn’t tell me
anything, not even me.
“Now,” He chuckles to himself, a
horrible cackle of a chuckle that chills me to my bones. “Now, we take it to a
whole new level. We will have the whole world seized by terror. And this is the
key; this is the key, honey.”
“Stop calling me honey,”
my voice was whisper soft, like footsteps on damp pine needles.
“What was that? Honey,
you are going to be The One. It has to be you. It will shock them more than the
act itself! A girl, a girl with small bones and a small stature. A girl! This
will be the best plot the world has ever seen! A little girl, that’s you honey,
staring at them down the barrel of a gun!” He grabbed the skin of my bicep and
pulled me into his bedroom. The tears pricked through the barrier of my
mascaraed eyelashes and poured rivers of blackness down my cheeks. He flipped
on the dirty light switch and illuminated the horribleness. Newspaper clippings
and hand-drawn sketches adorned the black walls, covering them like morbid
wallpaper from floor to ceiling. My breath was coming in short spurts, just
enough oxygen so that my head would not explode. There were pictures of me,
from a two-year-old up until now. He had drawn handguns and stuck them onto my
hands in every single picture.
“I am not a murderer!”
I screamed into the room.
“Oh honey, you will
be. You will be. Just you wait.”
Scarlett
August 9th
This summer seems to be going on
forever.
I mean, at the end of June, I
couldn’t wait for long, hot days without any screaming children. Without any
books to read or quizzes to grade or parents to meet.
But I’ve realized that my teenage
years of hot, sticky summers are long behind me. And now I’m left with a boring
job behind a grey desk with a flashing cursor begging me to write boring
articles. And when I come home, I’m met by a man who has tricked me into a five
year relationship of the same week on repeat.
Okay, I guess he didn’t trick me
into it. But all the same, I resent him for it.
When I was sixteen or seventeen, I
used to dream about being in my twenties. All the things I would do, all the
people I would meet, all the life experience I would gain. Instead I caved
beneath the pressures of my high school teachers, my friends, and my parents,
and I settled. Instead of taking my full scholarship to an arts school in San
Francisco for painting, I chose the monotony and comfort of becoming a teacher
in a good school. I would have a solid job for as long as I wanted, with good
pay and good benefits. And I told myself that I would be fulfilled, helping
kids. But really, I wished every single night that I was still painting, that I
had held on to that ultimate dream of being able to make a living on a
paintbrush and canvas.
And with the monotony of my job came
the security of Ben. The strong comfort of his embrace and the sureness of his
deep brown eyes.
We were on the path to having it
all, and we talked openly of having kids. Of getting a dog and going for Sunday
walks, watching a movie with the family on Friday nights, and going for brunch.
So why, when I saw that unmistakable
plus symbol on the pregnancy test a year ago today, did I suddenly feel a knot
tightening in the pit of my stomach? Why did I start trembling with panic, my
hands shaking and tears welling up in my eyes? Why, instead of rushing to tell
Ben, did I rush to Planned Parenthood and wash the embryo right from my uterus?
I remember that day like the sterile
bed was only hours ago beneath my shaking body. I drove to the clinic, no
tears, all business, without even a thought of calling Ben. Okay, maybe the
thought raced through my mind once or twice. But every fiber of me screamed not
to tell him. So I didn’t. When I got to the centre, it was mostly empty.
Pro-lifers in this town have been itching to shut down the dilapidated clinic
for years now. A single pasty grey haired lady sat behind the front desk,
issuing me a form and assigning me to a cold plastic chair. The inhabitants of
the clinic consisted of a young girl, maybe thirteen or fourteen, nervous as a
butterfly. There was also a couple, around twenty-five or so. The last party
was a girl, around sixteen or seventeen, with layers of cheap eyeliner
surrounding her large brown eyes. A suspicious could of blue edged its way
towards her temple. Her short hair curled timidly around her ears.
My name was called and I was ushered
into a procedure room, where I was given a gown and told to lie back.
I waited, staring at a poster on the
wall of the digestive system. I remembered my high school teacher discussing
the various purposes of the liver and I remembered how I wanted to throw my
textbook at her all year long. I remembered the chiseled football player who I
had a huge crush on for a few months, until I found out he was dating a
complete airhead cheerleader.
That’s what was running through my
mind. I wasn’t thinking of the tiny life forming inside of me, of the way Ben’s
face would inevitably crumble when I told him months later, of what getting rid
of this baby revealed of our relationship.
I should have known we were doomed
right from that day.
But instead I pushed, I tried to
make our love work because ‘love isn’t found, it’s made.’
Lani
August 11th
I don't wear rainbows on bare skin to spite you
To threaten your community, your wife, your children
I don't fight for my rights against you
Against God, against trust, against family
I don't love someone in order to offend you
To scare you, to threaten you
I wear rainbows because sometimes the darkness is so black
So opaque from the way you stole my rights from me
That I need something bright, something hopeful
I need something to show me that one day,
One day our love might be equal
“Hey Lani,” Matt
Grant’s voice floated toward me across the warm wind currents of the Mitchell
Pier. I was seated on a wooden bench, my arm resting on the round metal
armrest. A journal was propped on my crossed knee, and I was peacefully staring
into the dark blue abyss that was the ocean. I loved watching the ocean, of
being so close to something so infinite, so endless, with so much potential, so
much freedom.
I jumped. Snapped my
leather journal shut.
“God, Matt, you scared
me.” I looked into the eyes of the tall football player that, if I was so
inclined, I would probably get lost in. Matt never seemed to catch the drift,
or maybe he just thought that I needed the ‘right kind of guy’ to put me
straight. Or so to speak.
He winked. God, I
hated that wink.
“Enjoying the
sunshine?” His voice was heavy with insistence.
“Yeah, I was.”
Emphasis on the ‘was’.
“Well, how’d ya like
to join the guys for a smoke? I know a really cool place near the trees where
some real entertainment goes on later tonight.” The way he said ‘entertainment’
made my skin crawl. Seriously, the guy’s had one too many concussions.
“Matt, honey, I’m
really sorry. I don’t know what I need to tell you. You know I don’t roll that
way, and even if I did, I wouldn’t be rolling with you.” I couldn’t resist adding that last bit on there. The way his
eyes drooped almost made me regret it. Almost. Because sure enough, they quickly
turned from grey to red-hot. He put up that muscle-head wall and looked at me
with eyes of stone, of steel.
“God, you Lesbos are
so fucking unbelievable. You’re such bitch teases, making us watch you all
girl-on-girl. Seriously. You’re fucking lucky I invited you to join us. Normal
girls would kill for that position. Fuck you, Lani.” With that, he grabbed my
journal and hurled it off the edge of the pier. He stormed away, back to his
buddies in the trees.
That’s the common
attitude around here. There’s no such thing as just loving someone of the same
sex. If you’re a girl, you’re a dangerously sexual tease who just needs to find
the right man. If you’re a guy, you’re a pussy who needs to man up and grow
some balls. Either way, there’s something broken in you. And the citizens of
this godforsaken town have taken it into their own hands to fix you.
I look over the edge;
don’t see my journal anywhere near the surface. Fucking idiot, I had just
written some really good stuff in there. Oh well. I grab my sweater and leave
the bench, not looking behind me as the sun recedes below our horizon.
I’m walking up the
grey pavement of the beach parking lot, my mind on my lost words and my heart
lodged in a strange place between indignation and embarrassment, when I see
her. Laura, walking along Main Street, her black hair cascading down her back,
over her white chambray shirt, as she laughs and curls her hand around a blonde
girl’s. Wait. She’s with a blonde girl. I walk toward them without meaning to;
the girl has long light blonde hair and huge blue eyes that seem to hold
galaxies. It is a stark contrast to my dark brown pixie, and suddenly I want to
hide my plain green eyes away from the blistering sunlight.
“Lani?” I look up.
Crap, I must have walked right up to them. Subtle.
“Oh, Laura, hi,” I
stammer, looking up into her matching green eyes, the same as mine, like I used
to look into them for countless days and not nearly enough unremembered nights.
“This is Elizabeth,”
She gestures to Blondie, their hands never breaking contact.
“Call me Lizzie,”
Blondie speaks.
“Hey. Um, I was just-“
“How are you?” Laura
looks into my eyes with concern, but that store-bought kind of concern you save
for the mentally ill and strangers, that more concerned-for-yourself kind of
concern. What happened to us?
“I’m good.” I start to
turn away.
“No, really, how are
you,” she grabs my wrist, pulls me toward her. Lets go of Blondie’s hand. And
it’s last summer again. I look up at her and betray the tiniest bit of truth
before pulling away. But not fast enough. Her eyes catch the ugliness
protruding from my sleeve, angry red lines proving that I’m far from okay.
“Lani...” Her voice
trails off, because I am no longer hers. No longer hers to protect, hers to
keep safe, hers to harbour from the storm. I am my own, and she is Lizzie’s.
Blondie makes that clear as she regains hold of Laura’s hand, and pulls her
slightly away, retracing their steps. Retracing their steps away from me.
August 13th
I could leave him.
Pack up my bags; leave my key on the
counter, maybe a note for good measure. I could walk out of his life and maybe
just find what I’m looking for, maybe just find a heart that completes mine
like they said they do in the movies.
I remember when I was little and my
parents were in love. I remember the stolen kitchen kisses when I wasn’t
looking. I remember hands placed on knees while driving on long road trips with
no drama, I remember love notes and small smiles and surprise chocolate bars.
But I also remember the sunlight
giving way for thunder clouds, the greyness seeping into our lives and driving
a wedge between the two most important people in my life. I also remember
screeching tires and separate homes and anger.
And then I remember the final,
resigned friendship that they both agreed to, for my sake. I remember how they
said barely a word to each other in passing, how they barely acknowledged the
other’s existence.
I didn’t want Ben and I to become
like that, living out our life because marriage vows tied us to it
I could quit my job, drive far away, not looking back as my
tires screeched out of the driveway, like my dad’s had done so many years ago.
I think the driveway still wears tire marks like scars to
remind us of that night.
Couldn't stop reading, can't wait for the next part <3
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