Something Wicked (29 page)

“Oh, Hon. It’s not dumb. It’s just life. God, if you knew my feelings, you’d understand the real meaning of dumb. Don’t worry. I get it. And I’m sorry you had to go through all of that.”

“It’s okay,” I breathe out heavily, as if I’ve been holding it for the past four years.

She smiles and holds out her arms to hug me. So much hugging lately. I roll my eyes and move into her embrace. It feels so stupid. Like some stupid Christian TV family drama. After a few seconds she pulls away. “So you’re cured, then? No more charges? Fights? A’s in school from now on?” She laughs and playfully pushes my shoulder.

“Ha ha,” I say, and push her back, just a little harder. “What do you think of these?” I ask, turning around and pushing my bum out to show her the cargo pants.

“Perfect.”

And it’s like nothing and everything has changed between us.

Sixty-Two

As
much as you might want to leave your life, just step out of it for a while and hide, it finds you. It sneaks through the window, over the phone, or even walks straight in the front door.

I’m watching the old show
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
when Giovanni opens the apartment door and enters the living room. I’m wearing a tank top with no bra and my short shorts because the building’s heat is so friggin’ strong that we have to keep our windows open in the middle of winter. Seeing Giovanni is my biggest nightmare. I’ve managed to avoid him until now. The sight of him makes me sick. I think he feels the same, because when he sees me, he stops and stares wide-eyed, like he’s shocked I’m here.

“Where’s Janet?” he asks.

“Out.”

He pauses, like he’s considering whether to say something to me or not. Like he’s thinking about fucking me. And I get scared. My stomach churns. I can’t breathe. I instinctively reach for the blanket to cover up my body, but then I stop myself ’cause I don’t want him to think I’m scared. And if
what happened between us before is what saved us from getting evicted, then I’d have no choice but to do it again.

He picks up our pile of mail on the table beside him and looks through it, like he’s really interested in it. But I can tell he’s just killing time. Building courage. I try to watch the TV, but I can’t. The tension is too much. I want to get it over with.

“So, you want to do it?” I ask. I don’t know why I said it. ’Cause he expects it? ’Cause I don’t want us to lose the apartment? It’s like the words just ran out of my mouth. Suddenly I’m not Melissa. Suddenly I’m some other person who’ll do whatever she must to get what she needs. I reach up behind my head. I try to look sexy, as sexy as possible without throwing up. I do this and I just don’t know why.

His mouth drops. He looks angry. Then he looks away. I’m surprised. Something’s wrong. I sit up a bit and grab the blanket to cover myself. He looks over his shoulder, as if checking to make sure no one is around, then slowly approaches.

I get nervous. He looks too serious. My heart beats a million times a minute. I feel like I need to put something between us, block him. With what? Words? “Thanks for helping my mom,” I blurt out, referring to him not throwing us out.

He stops a few feet away and sits down on the coffee table. I relax a bit. He puts his hands on his knees and sighs deeply. “Melissa. This is a terrible situation. I feel awful about it.You’re a young woman. My niece’s age. I don’t know what happened.”

I avert my eyes from his now gentle stare. “I was messed up on drugs. I barely even remember,” I say.

“You’re sixteen?”

I nod my head, suddenly feeling like a child and not the sexy woman I thought he wanted to fuck. I don’t know what to say. I feel totally embarrassed now. I pull the blanket up to my chin. Then I bring my hand up to cover my eyes, because I just want him to disappear. I think of what Eric told me,
about experiences being like seeds planted inside you. Maybe my plan of recording over the memory of what happened with Giovanni with a recollection of Bradley will only bury the experience deeper, to grow stronger later.

He clears his throat.

Silence.

“I feel sick about it. Just sick. So sick,” he continues.

Leave. Leave. Leave.

He clears his throat again. Silence.

Big sigh. Cough. He clears his throat again. “I’m going to help you and your mom not because of what happened, but
because
of what happened …”

Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.

“Okay? You get it?”

“No,” I say, both hands covering my eyes now.

Leave. Leave. Leave
.

“Let’s forget it ever happened. And don’t tell anyone. Especially your ma. Ever. Okay?”

“Yeah,” I reply, and pull the blanket up over my face. And suddenly I
am
only sixteen.

Sixty-Three

Crystal
comes over the next afternoon. She has her own key. God, does everybody feel free to just walk into our apartment?

As usual, I’m reading a book and watching a movie at the same time. Other than going to school, it’s all I’ve been doing lately.

“She’s not here,” I say when she appears in the living room doorway. I don’t even raise my eyes from the page.

“Oh, I’m not here to see your mom,” she announces, waltzing into the room. The shimmering silver Christmas star earrings she’s wearing catch the TV glare. Her big tits sway under her baggy blue T-shirt. I wish she’d wear a bra.“I’m here to see you!” She plops down beside me, too close, and then plunks a pink satin satchel down on the coffee table. I now keep my eyes locked on the TV screen; I don’t like her forcing all that huru-guru hippie stuff on me. She raises the converter and turns it off. Then she leans over and carefully unties the purple string, as if she’s about to reveal diamonds, only she ends up spilling out a bunch of blue and green rocks.

I eye them quickly, pretending not to notice how pretty they are. I don’t want to give her the satisfaction.

“I brought you these to revitalize your energy,” she says, all perky. She gingerly picks up each stone with her skinny fingers and holds it up in front of my face, blocking my view. “This one is to help with your spirit. This one will help with appetite. This one is for nourishing the starving soul. And this one is to soothe your sexual goddess.”

“Huh?” I look at her for the first time. “My what?”

She smiles that stupid smug smile, like she’s won. “Your sexual goddess within. We are all sexual goddesses, Melissa. Sometimes we women forget that—God knows I must remind your mother all the time—but we are all goddesses of the earth.”

“And they think
I’m
crazy,” I say, holding my hand out to take the stone.

“Mel, it’s none of my business—”

“You’re right, it’s not your business,” I interrupt her, because she has no right sticking her nose in my life.

She pouts. “But you don’t even know what I’m gonna say.”

I shrug my shoulders. I couldn’t care less.

“Well, I’m going to say it anyway. And I’m going to say it straight out. Sexual relations, Melissa, are a gift in life.”

“Oh, God …” I turn away as if her statement is making me sick.

“Hear me out, Mel. There’s a lot of crap and suffering in life, but sexual contact is a gift. It’s something that can be really beautiful and special. I’m not talking about saving yourself for marriage. Even a one-night encounter with someone you find irresistible can be gratifying. Ha!” Her voice starts to wander. “I’ve had some beautifully erotic encounters on foreign beaches under a full moon that—”

“Okay!” I interrupt again, holding my hand up to indicate
stop
. It’s just disgusting to hear old people talk about sex.

“Anyway. You get what I mean. The important thing is the connection between two people. If you reduce sex to something
as common as a handshake, then you’re missing out on that connection. People need to connect to other people, Melissa. It’s something integral to your soul. And you need to feed your soul, Mel. Feed it, or it will die. You will die inside. You will be empty.”

I pretend I’m not listening, but I am. Because what she’s saying sort of makes sense. And if it weren’t for me being with Michael, feeling how special that was, I don’t think I would ever have come close to understanding her point.

“Tell me, Mel. Why do you think you give your body away so freely, while you hold on to your words, your feelings, so tightly? It seems to me it should be the other way around. Shouldn’t it? You’re a teenager. You need to talk about how you feel.”

“Oh, God …” I hide my face in the couch cushion. I can’t take the awkwardness.

Relentless, she leans in and takes my hands in hers. “Your body is sacred, Melissa. Your body is beautiful and miraculous and sacred.”

I feel like an idiot sitting here on the couch holding hands. But I let her continue because otherwise she’ll keep pestering me.

“Your body is sacred. It’s the most miraculous thing you own. Can you say you truly own anything, Melissa? Anything except your own body? A woman’s body is the most precious gift. If you give it away for free, it becomes worthless. And then the most precious, the most valuable thing you own, your body, becomes worthless. And soon you begin to feel worthless as well.”

She flips over my right hand and starts to rub my palm.

“Do you feel worthless, Melissa?”

Her question freaks me out. It’s a terrible thing to ask. Not many things people say can truly shock me. But for once, an
adult, this crazy lady, is speaking the truth. For once, someone has had the guts to say it like it is. I’m both excited and upset: excited because I finally have an answer but upset at the bare-boned truth. Do I feel worthless?

Yes. That is exactly how I feel.
Worthless.

And every guy I was with, every fuckin’ one of them, has stripped my soul. How did I not see that?

She doesn’t wait for me to answer. “Your body is sacred,” she repeats.

“You said that already.”

“Your body is sacred,” she says again, like she didn’t even hear me. She just keeps rubbing my palm.

“Okay … enough.” I pull my hand away a bit, but she holds tight and keeps rubbing, so I just let her do what she wants.

“Your body is sacred. Your body is sacred,” she says again and again, as if she were chanting, her eyes closed. My palm starts to burn. I feel so dumb, but for some reason I don’t really want to stop her, so I close my eyes so I don’t feel as stupid.

“My body is sacred, my body is sacred, my body is sacred …” she starts chanting, over and over, so that the words, the rhythm, start to go into my head. And I find myself thinking the words along with her, and they don’t sound so dumb anymore.

My body is sacred. My body is sacred. My body is sacred.

Sixty-Four

Fortune
calls my cell at two in the morning. He’s called me lots of times in the past couple of weeks, but I never answer. This time I do, because I’m still awake. He tells me he wants to see me. He pretends nothing ever happened between us, that there was no fight. He doesn’t even ask me about my OD, though I’m sure he knows. He just picks up the conversation like we were hanging out only yesterday.

“I’m doing my own thing,” I say groggily.

“What’s that mean?”

“I mean, I’m on my own. I don’t want a boyfriend. I’m gonna be alone.”

“Ha!
You
can’t be alone.”

“Fuck you,” I say, in a joking way. I have to admit, it feels sort of nice to be talking to him.

“Come on, baby, come over.” His voice sounds quiet and sleepy and sexy. “I wanna see you. I wanna hold you, babe. I miss you so much …”

I pull my blanket over my head. “You don’t miss me.”

“I do. Really. I think about you all the time. I miss your body—”

“My body is sacred,” I interrupt him before I can stop the words from coming out of my mouth.

He laughs. “Wha’d you say?”

“Forget it.”

He starts laughing really hard. “Did you say your body is
sacred
?” Then he starts fake-laughing just to make me feel like an idiot. And I wonder, why was I ever into him in the first place? At first I think about explaining my words, telling him about Crystal and what happened, but then I think it’s just too long a story and he won’t get it, and why do I need to explain anything to him anyway? I’ll prove to him, to everyone, that I changed just by living my life. He’ll see that I’m not messing around with guys anymore. He’ll see that soon enough.

“Whatever. I gotta go.” I close the phone and switch it off.

Freestyle told me, “Never try to teach a pig to think. It doesn’t work, and it annoys the pig.”

Sixty-Five

I’ve
realized something these past few weeks, since the hospital. My mind is now clear and ideas are coming so easily. I’m beginning to think that when you’re in a relationship, it’s not about how beautiful the other person looks, it’s about how beautiful you become when you’re with them. With Michael I was beautiful, inside and out. I said the right things. I did the right things. I liked who I was.

And I have been thinking that maybe I’ve been Echo
all
the time—in my home, my neighbourhood, with friends. It’s not just with adults. It’s
always
. And maybe it’s not just the words I’ve been reflecting back to everyone. Maybe it’s also the ugliness. And the hate. And the fear. And the anger. And the self-loathing.

A while ago I remember believing that I was simply reflecting Michael’s beauty. But now, when I really, really think about it, perhaps because he was so calm and clear, quite possibly Michael was reflecting mine.

Up. Up. Up.

Sixty-Six

I am
sleeping soundly the night before my court date when shouting from the living room wakes me up. A man’s voice. Someone I don’t recognize. And my mom’s high, screechy voice. They are both yelling in the living room, but I can’t really make out a lot other than swearing. It gets bad. And then it gets really ugly. I hear a fist in his voice. I’ve heard it before, in other men’s voices. It’s why I keep a baseball bat behind my dresser. All these thoughts and images go through my mind. My bloodied mother, dead on the floor. The man coming into my room to finish the job.

I rip open my door. They both turn to me. “Melissa!” my mom shouts, horrified because I’m holding the bat over my shoulder.