Losing Me, Finding You (5 page)

“Stop fooling around, Amy. Get dressed.”

“Yes, mother.” My words are hollow but my pulse continues to thrum like a live wire, making my neck feel vulnerable and exposed, almost desperate for the touch of another. I close my eyes and lean back against the wall, running my own fingers down the pale skin of my throat, sliding them under the fabric of the fuchsia nightmare, teasing the soft flesh of my breasts with my nails.

I stop suddenly, tearing my hand away and panting like I've run a mile.

Amy Cross, you need to get out more.

I stand up and drop my dress to the floor, staring at myself in the mirror with wide eyes and flushed cheeks.

Yes, out, out with Austin Sparks,
I think as I send a silent apology to Adam, Daniel, and Micah. Hopefully, they'll understand when I don't show up for our dates tonight.

My mother doesn't speak to me on the way home, but that's alright because I'm wrapped up in fantasies that combine Austin Sparks with a variety of my other favorite book boyfriends, making for a daydream that's almost too risqué for the hot heat of the afternoon. It's only when we pull into the driveway and I see my father's car that I start to get nervous.

“Mama.”

“Go up to your room,” she tells me, as if I'm five years old and unruly. I purse my lips, a habit I picked up from watching her.

“Why?” I demand, tearing off my seat belt and turning to look at her. I can practically feel the brochure burning a hole in my purse. Honestly, I'd love to go up to my room and look at it, choose something to wear, finish my book, but I don't like being told to do so. I never have. What I've lacked is passion and conviction and although I can't lay claim to either yet, something about today has made me want an explanation, at the very least.

My mother shakes her head but doesn't answer, keeping her eyes locked onto the beige paint of the garage door.

“Mom.” I reach out my hand to touch her arm, but she slaps it away with such force that pain ricochets up my bones and into my shoulder, making me pull back and slam into the car door. Her eyes are lit from behind with the fire of misinformation and ignorance. I don't know what it is that she thinks I've done, but it's much, much worse than Austin's lie about me trying to buy a bike.

“Did I raise you to be a whore?” she asks, and I gasp.

“What?” I whisper as my mother takes off her own seat belt with slow, careful movements, like she's trying to hold back another surge of violence. She pulls the rearview mirror towards her and checks her brown eyeshadow, her nude lipstick, and her pink cheeks. She couldn't possibly show my father anything other than perfection. “I don't understand,” I say as she opens her door and steps out onto the pale pavement of the driveway.

“I don't know who that man is or where he's from, but I do know that if you plan to see him again, the wrath of the Lord is going to fall onto your shoulders.” She pauses, one hand still on the handle of her door, the other reaching up to pat her hair. “Go up to your room and pray to Jesus for forgiveness.” My mother slams the door and disappears into the house, leaving me flabbergasted and wide-eyed. I sit there for awhile, unmoving, while the cool air inside the car starts to heat up and makes me sweat. Somehow, she's gotten it into her mind that I …
know
Austin Sparks. How? Why would she think that? I've never even gone on a date.

I open my door and am ready to chase after her for questioning when my friend, Christy, taps on the roof with her knuckles and makes me jump. My purse falls to the driveway and opens up, sending poor Adam tumbling down the cement in a flutter of pages. Christy picks up the book, thumbs through it and hands it back to me.

“Where have you been?” she asks, glancing up at the second story of her house where her mother's peeking through the curtains at us. It's almost enough to make me pick up a rock and throw it at the glass. “I've been calling you all day.”

“Out with my
mother
,” I say and Christy blinks at me questioningly when the word slides from my lips like a hiss. Her blue eyes look extra pretty today, rimmed in a thin line of black kohl and topped with a dash of blue shadow. I realize suddenly that it's been three years since I've seen her in so much makeup – not since senior prom. “Why? What's going on?” Christy looks up at the window again; her mother is gone. I bend down and pick up my purse, tucking it under my arm as I shut the hot metal of the door with my bum – with my
ass.

“I'm going to the festival today,” she declares proudly. Ah. Her mother's glare makes a whole lot of sense now. Christy's parents may as well be clones of mine. While her father might not be a minister, he always sits in the front row on Sundays, prays the loudest, and donates the most money. Her mother and mine are old friends from high school, just like our dads, and by no accident happened to purchase the house next door.

There's this terrible moment where I see my life playing out the same way, see myself peeking from the curtains at Christy's and my daughter while I scowl, so wrapped up in what I'm supposed to be and how I was told to act, that I'm rotting from the inside out. I close my eyes and struggle for breath as panic sweeps over me and brings goose bumps to my skin.

“Really?” I ask, and when I open my eyes, she's nodding.

“I mean, I've always wanted to go and this year … ” She leaves the rest of the words unspoken.
This year, we're old enough to make our own decisions. This year, it's time to start our lives. This year, things have to be different or I might very well die from boredom.
“It's long overdue, don't you think? Remember after senior year when we thought about going and chickened out? That's when we should've gone.” Christy pauses to tuck some hair behind her ear and then fiddles with the high hem of her dress. It's a few inches above the knee, a much more appropriate length for somebody our age. I resist the urge to hike mine up to match hers. “I feel like a kept woman, like I stopped maturing at age sixteen. I can't take it anymore.”

It's like she's stolen the words straight out of my mouth. I wet my lips and focus on the dimple in her chin instead of her eyes, getting ready to tell her what she most certainly will not believe.

“I have a date with a biker.”

“Excuse me?”

I swallow hard and glance over my shoulder. The front door remains closed and none of the curtains are open – my parents don't like
those heathens
to be able to see inside our house when they drive by, just in case they're looking for something to steal.

“I met a man today, and he asked me for drinks.”

“Holy shit,” Christy whispers and it's so rare that either of cusses aloud that we both laugh. “So you said yes?” she asks and I nod, describing the incident to her, including the bit where Mr. Sparks sauntered into the bridal shop and gave me the brochure. I pass it to her and she snatches it from my hand like it's made of solid gold. “Oh my God, count me in,” she whispers as her freshly painted fingernails graze the words that Austin scribbled.
Tempered Iron.
It's the name of the bar downtown, the only bar, the one that nobody in our church has ever set foot in.

Christy unfolds the shiny paper and lets her eyes slide across pictures of bikes and leather clad women, her smile increasing in size until it's a full on grin. I lift my lips to match and jump when I hear the front door opening behind me. When I turn around, my lips are pursed again. My father is waiting for me on the front porch, face calm, but hands twitching. My heart starts to pound again, but not the way it did for Austin. This time, it's in fear.

“Hello, Mr. Cross,” Amy chirps, reaching out to take my arm. She knows that look. Her father has the same one, and so does her mother. Christy has it worse than me even. “How do you do?”

My dad doesn't answer her, keeping his eyes focused on mine, sucking the breath from my lungs with each second that our gazes remain locked. I've only seen him look at me like that three times in my life – three times when I didn't measure up to his standards. This is the worst one yet. I turn back to Christy.

“Keep the brochure,” I whisper as I pull away and take a step backward. “If you don't hear from me, go. Ask for Austin.” I wink at Christy, trying to give her a brave face before I turn and face my father.

He smiles, but only to keep up appearances, sliding his arm around my shoulder and ushering me into the cool darkness of our house. He smells like cucumbers and tobacco, an odd combination considering he condemns smoking in nearly all of his sermons. His face is free of stubble, perfectly serene, dark brows sloping gently downwards in the center like maybe he's perplexed about something, but not angry. Very few people could tell the difference.

“How was your day, Amy?” he asks, using his minister voice, the one that begs you to tell him everything, promises that he'll understand, but in reality, condemns. I watch my mother as we move past her in the hallway and see that she's not sorry, not this time. This time, she was the one that pushed me into my father's web. I only hope I can diffuse the situation before it spirals out of control.

I try partial honesty.

“Not so good,” I tell him as we step into his office and the door swings shut behind me. The blinds are down, too, which isn't good. The window in here faces the backyard and is nearly always open unless he has someone from the church over. Or he's getting ready to punish me. “There was a bit of a misunderstanding at the bridal shop,” I say, wondering why I'm even here, standing here, doing this. Nobody's making me do this anymore. It's been three years since the law said I had to stay with my parents. I could walk away at any time. What's stopping me? Fear? Not exactly. I just haven't found something to chase after, not yet.

“Tell me about it,” he says, dropping his fake smile, letting the twitch that's in his hands travel up to his eyes. He doesn't look all that imposing in his khaki slacks and white button up, but I know better. My father is the first to judge and the last to forgive. He thinks his holiness gives him power over the rest of the world. I should be used to it by now, but I'm not.

“Nothing happened with that man. I just met him today, and I wasn't looking to buy a motorcycle.”

My father shakes his head.

“Amy.” Just that one word. I start to plead which is stupid. I should just turn around and walk out of this room and up the stairs, grab a bag and pack it. I should just go. Instead, I stand still and try to explain myself with my hands.

“Dad, listen to me. I don't know what Mama told you, but I didn't do anything wrong.”

“Amy, your mother said she could tell by the way you two looked at one another that you had been sinful. She said she could see the devil in that man's eyes and the hold he'd put on you. When did you first start seeing him? When he came into town last year?”

“I've never been to the festival!” I scream, letting frustration bubble up alongside my thoughts of Austin, thoughts that are leading to emotions I've never had before. I feel like I've been seared with heat, left open and sore to the world, like I'm suddenly awake and can't figure out why. I barely spoke three sentences to the man and yet, I can't get him out of my head, even now. “I couldn't possibly have had sex with him.” I say it out loud because that's what they're thinking. They're thinking of me as some dirty, little slut who sneaks out and fucks men I don't know. But I'm not. I'm nothing because they've never let me be anything. I wish suddenly that I had slept with Austin, that we'd been having illicit trysts for years. At least then there'd be something worth talking about.

“Amy, the bible says,
For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
”

“Dad!” I say, stepping forward. “I'm twenty-one years old. I'm a woman and this is not the dark age.” I look him in the eye when I say this and can't help but realize that this is the first time in my entire life that I have ever stood up to the man.

My dad's hand comes up too fast for me to see and cracks me across the face with a sharp sting that makes my eyes water and sends me stumbling backwards into the door of the office.

“
Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.
” My dad watches me as I slide to the floor, cupping the side of my face and trying to still the blood that's leaking from my nose. Papa certainly knows how to hit, just enough to hurt, not enough to cause any real damage. I rub my jaw and close my eyes, pushing past the pain in my teeth and skull. It feels like my bones have been shattered and put back together. “Stand up, Amy,” he tells me as I open my eyes and watch him walk across the room with slow, careful steps.

I follow his instructions, but when the next hit comes, I swear on the very depths of my soul that it will be the last.