Forever Mark

by Jessyca Thibault

  The old Carson had momentarily taken over when I stopped that guy – whose name I later learned was Joey – and hopped into his car. The old Carson genuinely didn’t care where Joey brought her or what he did to her. She didn’t care if he was a total creep. Fortunately he didn’t end up being a total creep because somewhere along the way the new and improved, yet slightly emotionally unstable, Carson kicked the old Carson out of the car. The new and improved Carson had then burst into tears when Joey stopped at a gas station and went inside to pay.

  “Um, did something happen?” Joey had asked when he’d gotten back in the car. He’d looked at me like I was crazy. In his defense the only things that he knew about me were that I had no problem running in front of moving vehicles and asking strangers for rides, and that I was sitting in his front seat bawling my eyes out.

  “Everything fell apart,” I’d said, sobbing. “My life is a mess.”

  “Uh, well that sucks,” Joey had said. “Do you want some chips?”

  “What?” I’d asked, looking up. Through my tear-stained vision I saw that he was holding out a bag of potato chips.

  “I don’t know, chips always make me feel better.”

  That made me cry even more because all I had been able to think about was Kellen bringing me that green donut at 5:30 in the morning, which was ridiculous because donuts and chips had absolutely nothing in common except that they both got a bad rep each January when people went all fitness crazy and resolved to never touch junk food again.

  “No, I don’t want some of your chips!” I’d cried. “I don’t even know you!”

  “That didn’t really stop you from jumping in front of my car,” Joey had mumbled, but then he’d taken a deep breath and added, “I’m Joey. And I didn’t exactly make the chips myself, if that makes you feel any better about eating them.”

  I’d laughed, despite myself, and took a chip out of the bag. “I’m Carson.”

  “Ohhh,” Joey had said, like this explained everything.

  I’d glared at him but didn’t say anything. I was too emotionally drained to defend myself against anything he’d heard about me.

  “So, is there anyone that I can call to come get you?” he’d asked. “I mean, I’m sorry your life is falling apart, but I sort of have to get to work.”

  That’s when I’d decided that Joey wasn’t a total creep. He wasn’t the most compassionate fellow in the world, but he wasn’t a total creep, which I’d since realized was a good thing because things could’ve ended up much worse had he been a total creep. It wouldn’t have taken much for the old Carson to come running back. New and improved Carson hadn’t exactly been in a secure enough state of mind to fend her off.

  So I didn’t sleep with Joey, even though I could have, especially after he’d realized who I was. Hell, he might’ve even been expecting it. But it didn’t happen and ten minutes later Bree had pulled into the gas station parking lot and I went from being in a car with someone I didn’t know at all to being in a car with someone I hadn’t known in years.

  “Sorry about this,” I’d said as we drove down the street. “I didn’t know who else to call.”

  “It’s no big deal. I was on my way home anyways,” Bree had said. She’d cleared her throat and then added, “Um, I saw Kellen on my way out of the school. He looked pretty upset.”

  “Kellen is an asshole.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?” she’d asked.

  “Not really.”

  “Okay.”

  “Thanks though,” I’d said awkwardly. “For the ride.”

  “Yeah, it’s no big deal.”

  Bree and I had sat in silence the rest of the way to my house. It was one thing for us to talk about math and triangles and laugh over hippopotamuses that were really hypotenuses, but casually discussing my personal life was another whole issue and I just didn’t think our friendship or non-friendship or whatever it was that Bree and I had was ready for that level of commitment. So when Bree pulled into my driveway I’d thanked her again because I didn’t really know what else to say and then I’d gone inside.

  And that was the end of one of the most horrible days of my life.

  That’s something else I’d been thinking about over the past few days. I could say with 100% certainty that Monday was one of the most horrible days of my life, but at first I couldn’t really answer why that was. Somebody looking at my life from the outside would probably say that was absolutely ridiculous. I hadn’t known Kellen for that long, but losing him had honestly been more traumatic for me than losing my father or Bree. I think I figured out why Monday was so unbelievably horrible though.

  Two words: quality and time.

  My father was not a quality man and we didn’t have a quality relationship. What little bond we had dwindled with each passing day and by the time he decided to leave there was literally nothing left between us. He’d been the guy that donated his sperm so I could be brought into this lovely world. After that he’d been the guy who spent most of his time slumped over on the couch in a drunken stupor. Yeah I’d been angry and a little hurt when he finally left, but I’d mostly just been relieved.

  With Bree I’d had time to prepare for her absence. She drifted away little by little and so over a period of time I’d gotten used to seeing less and less of her until she was eventually gone for good. I’d been able to mourn for our friendship in small doses instead of all at once.

  Kellen was different. With Kellen there’d been a whole lot of quality and no time. Every minute spent with him had felt good and right and special and then all of a sudden he was just gone. I didn’t have months to slowly detach myself or get used to the idea that he wouldn’t be around anymore. I had a second. And that second that I saw him hugging the blonde girl had completely shattered me.

  So yeah, it might have been ridiculous for me to feel this way, but it was how I felt and to me it made sense. To me it was like Kellen had died and Monday was my grieving day. And now it was Saturday and I thought maybe it was my “I’ve reached some level of acceptance or at least that’s what I’m trying to tell myself” day.

  Of course Kellen hadn’t exactly vanished from my life completely, at least not right away. That was probably why it took me all week to get to this place of fake acceptance. Up until the previous day he had been calling my phone (which I didn’t answer) and leaving messages (which I didn’t listen to) and sending me text after text (which I didn’t read). On Thursday he’d even come to my house and when I refused to answer the door he’d sat on the porch for three hours until my mom got home and threatened to call the cops if he didn’t leave. He’d left.

  I hadn’t told my mom what happened at school, but I think when Kellen called the house on Tuesday and shoved the phone in the garbage disposal she got the hint that he was no longer in the picture. She must’ve been thrilled because she didn’t even say anything about the fact that I’d destroyed the phone and when I said that I’d get my own ride to therapy the next day, she hadn’t objected.

  I hadn’t actually gone to therapy. No way was I stepping anywhere near that office when I knew Kellen would be there. I came home and buried myself under a pile of blankets and pillows in bed. When Dr. M called to ask why I missed my appointment I’d told her I was sick. In our last session Dr. M had said I was making a lot of progress, which is why I think she believed me. If she hadn’t then there wasn’t really anything she would’ve been able to do about it. The only other phone number she had was the home phone and, well, that had been eaten by the garbage disposal. I wasn’t really sure how I was going to get out of going next week though. I figured I’d cross that bridge when I got there. Maybe I could catch some kind of tropical disease within the week. Being quarantined had to be a valid excuse to skip a shrink sesh.

  So after my mom scared Kellen away she’d walked into the house with a smug look on her face. Her silent “I told you so” had been loud and clear, which had made m
e want to shove something else (like my right hand) down the garbage disposal, but the garbage disposal was broken. It turned out garbage disposals weren’t exactly built for stuffing phones down in angry rages.

  I didn’t hear from Kellen at all yesterday – not a single call or message or text. It sort of started the whole grief cycle again because even though I’d known he was gone before he was still also right there, ready to plead his pathetic case. Yesterday it was clear that it was really over and so I’d cried and screamed and stared at walls and basically in one night I went through a highly sped-up version of the grieving process I’d been dealing with all week.

  So by my fake acceptance day I was exhausted and most likely dehydrated from crying out every ounce of water in my body. Like I said, I was exhausted though so instead of going and getting water I’d just laid there all day feeling like I was swallowing sand and slowly suffocating.

  It started raining outside. The sky was taunting me.

  Mother Nature was a cruel woman.

  Chapter 33

  What Is

  I need to get over it

  No promises were said

  No commitments were made

  Sure there was a spark

  A spark that excited and scared me

  Sure I felt alive

  For the first time in a long time

  Sure I thought there was something more

  But apparently I was wrong

  Apparently what I thought

  Was different than what was

  What is

  I just need to accept it

  And get the fuck over it

  I realized that getting to the “I’ve reached some level acceptance or at least that’s what I’m trying to tell myself” day didn’t mean that you actually forgot about the person. If only that were the case, because it would be so much easier. Really it just meant that you’d gotten to the point where you didn’t expect them to come knocking on your door, even though you couldn’t stop wishing they would.

  It was agonizing, not to mention frustrating. I knew I shouldn’t want Kellen to come knocking on my door. I mean, he’d been knocking on my door just a few days before and I’d refused to talk to him. Now that he wasn’t there though, I found myself wishing he was. It was all so complicated. Why couldn’t I stop thinking about a guy that treated me like garbage?

  Life was so much easier when I didn’t have feelings.

  Feelings, feelings, go away. Come again another –

  Never.

  It was still raining outside, the sky reflecting the storm that was whirling around my head. I’d positioned myself in bed so that I could stare out the window. It looked sad and lonely and grey, but that actually made me feel slightly better, less isolated. The sound of the raindrops tapping against the glass was soothing.

  All of a sudden I got a flashback of the morning Kellen threw things at my window to wake me up. The sound of the raindrops didn’t feel so soothing anymore. It wasn’t like I was actively trying to think about Kellen, but it had only been a few days so I guess it wasn’t realistic to think I would just forget all about him. It was hard to wipe someone from your memory when they’d left their mark everywhere. No matter where I looked I was reminded of his freaking face or his freaking tattoos or his freaking eyes. Or the way that his freaking mouth pulled up on one side when he gave me that half-smile. I freaking hated him.

  What I needed was a distraction, something to take my mind off my tangled thoughts. I pulled my eyes away from the window and turned in my bed, rolling on top of something. I pulled my writing journal out from underneath me and stared at the plain black cover.

  I’d been writing a lot of poetry, especially over the past few days. The journal was practically glued to me, an extension of myself. It was funny because I’d never considered myself to be a writer. Writing was just something I did when I was mad or depressed or wondering why life was a thing – so I guess it was something I did a lot. It had always been a verb though, never a noun. It was only about two weeks ago that I’d even heard myself described as a writer, and of course it was Kellen who’d brought it up.

  I tried to push the memory out of my head. I couldn’t keep thinking about him. It was right there though, fresh and vibrant and pulling me in like a bad dream, one that was disguised as a good dream.

  It was a Thursday afternoon and Kellen and I had been laying on my bed. He was reading a new book that Dr. M had loaned him the day before and I was writing in my journal. I’d just finished a poem I was working on when it hit me that I was home alone, laying on my bed with a boy, and what we chose to do was read and write. It had made me laugh.

  “What’s so funny?” Kellen had asked, looking up from his book. His baseball cap had been turned backwards. He said he liked it that way when he was reading so the brim didn’t bump up against the book. I liked it that way because I liked being able to see his eyes when he was reading – the way they lit up and widened slightly or the way they got a little squinty at certain parts and I could tell that Kellen was really focused. He read the books and I read his eyes.

  “Nothing, just thinking about how we’re such promiscuous teenagers,” I’d said, kicking his leg lightly with my bare foot. “You’ve been pretty quiet.”

  Kellen hadn’t said a word for about a half hour, which had to be a record for him.

  “I didn’t want to disturb an artist at work,” he’d said, tossing one of my pillows at my face.

  “I’m not an artist.”

  “You’re a writer and writers are artists.”

  “I’m not a writer.”

  “Do you write?”

  “Well, yeah, but – ”

  “Writer,” he’d said, grinning.

  I’d rolled my eyes, but deep down I thought it was kind of cool. I’d never thought I was good at anything, but being given a title like “writer” made me feel like maybe I was.

  “You know, I was thinking about your writing the other day,” Kellen had said.

  I’d raised my eyebrows. “You were?”

  “Yeah. You know how the Happy List mentions creating something?”

  “It does?”

  “Item number three,” he’d said.

  “Sorry, I haven’t committed the entire thing to memory.”

  “Damn, and here I thought you were perfect. Anyways, I was thinking you could make a book out of all of your poems.”

  I’d laughed. “My poems aren’t good enough to be a book.”

  “First of all, yes they are,” Kellen had said.

  “You’ve only read a few of them.”

  “And the ones I’ve read are definitely book-worthy,” he’d said. “And second of all, I’m not talking about some official book that you try to pimp out at the bookstore, although I’d be all for helping if you wanted to do that.”

  “No thanks.”

  “Just throwing ideas out,” he’d said, the corner of his mouth lifting up. “Anyways, what I meant was you could make a book for you, like with crafty stuff.”

  “Crafty stuff?” I’d asked, grinning.

  “Don’t give me that look,” he’d said, but he was smiling too. “I don’t know the technical terms for crafty stuff, I just know that my mom uses a bunch of it when she’s making scrapbooks.”

  “I’ll think about it,” I’d said.

  The next day when I’d gone to Kellen’s house for dessert before dinner he’d mentioned the poem book to his mom and she gave me this heavy-duty scrapbook, decorative paper and a bag full of fancy pens, ribbon, stickers and other things I didn’t know the names of or the uses for. She’d said if I needed anything else to just let her know.

  I’d given Kellen a look but he’d just shrugged his shoulders. “What? Now you have all the crafty stuff in case you decide to do it.”

  The bag of stuff had been sitting under my bed ever since that night and I hadn’t really given much thought to it. Now though, it seemed like making a fancy book out of my poems was the kind of distraction I
needed. I wouldn’t be doing it because I still cared about the Happy List or because Kellen suggested it – frankly I didn’t owe either of them anything – I’d be doing it for me. I’d be doing it to keep myself sane. Plus, my notebook was kind of falling apart. My poems needed an upgraded home.

  I pulled the bag from under my bed and dumped the contents on top of my comforter. Suddenly I was staring at a lot of crafty stuff. There were bottles of glitter glue, bags of gems and buttons and other weird decorations, containers of glittery sprinkle dust, three different kinds of ribbon, googly eyes, gel pens, permanent markers, and tons of other stuff. There were about 50 pieces of decorative paper and sheet protectors to slip over the pages.

  It looked like an art store threw up on my bed.

  I ran my hands over all the supplies, wondering where I was going to begin. As I shifted some of the paper to the side though, a glint of silver caught my eye and I froze. Sitting there was a craft knife. I looked at it for a solid minute before lifting it up. The knife felt heavy in my hands, much heavier than it actually was.

  I’d been fighting the urge all week. Instead of looking around and seeing objects I’d found myself looking around at potential weapons. I didn’t see things for how they were traditionally used, but how I could use them to feel pain. Everything had become dangerous, things I’d never even thought of before. It was scary because it used to just be scissors that struck a nerve. This week everything had struck a nerve.

  I wasn’t really sure how I managed to make it through because sometimes the urge got so intense I thought I was going crazy. Sometimes the only way I could stop myself was to say I would go have a snack or take a nap or watch a show on tv and then if I still felt bad I would do it. I knew making self-harm bargains like that probably wouldn’t fly with Dr. M, but I was alone and on edge and it was all I could think of. It seemed to work though. Each time the urges subsided and I was able to talk myself out of it. It was hard, but I’d fought through it. By some miracle I’d fought off all the thoughts and I hadn’t given in once.