Magma

by Thora Hjorleifsdottir

“A razor blade,” I answered, ashamed.

  He scrutinized the wounds, allowed my answer to suffice, and began to stitch my fissures.

  Kindness

  I was discharged in the morning with stitches and bandages that itched, that I could not scratch, that I couldn’t get wet. Taxis aren’t cheap, and we didn’t have the money to take a taxi back. As we walked across the hospital parking lot toward the bus stop, we ran into a hippie I recognized from the café where I work. He worked as an emergency nurse, but I hadn’t seen him in the bustle of staff that had rushed in and out of my exam room. He said he’d just finished up his shift, and he offered us a ride. I slumped in the back seat like a shameful shit while they made small talk on the way to town. But I’ve seldom felt as grateful as I did for that ride.

  Hibernation

  I didn’t leave the house for days. A string of days. I didn’t answer the telephone, skipped school, asked him to call in sick for me at work. He tried to get me to eat, but my appetite was gone. I felt in a knot in my stomach, worrying that things were over between us. I was too fucked-up, afraid that the contract was broken. But he was gentle, lay with me, held me. Repeated again and again that he loved me so much and he wanted to watch over me. He begged me to keep the suicide attempt from my parents; he was afraid they’d try to keep us apart.

  Magma

  He dragged me into the living room; we sat there, looking for a movie to watch on his computer. I saw a tab blink. Her name. He was still talking to the redhead. The pressure of anger forced me out of my lethargy. “Are you still talking to that slut? What the hell’s wrong with you?” I shoved my bandaged wrists in his face and shrieked, “It’s all your fault, you asshole. I hate you!”

  He protested, said he’d long ago stopped talking to her, but she kept trying to connect with him. “I only want to be with you. Try to calm down. You can see what she said . . .”

  But I had no interest in doing more homework on their chats, nor did I plan on loosening the fist of my righteous anger. I jumped on him, punching and clawing. I throttled him and strangled him and dug my nails into his neck as he begged me to stop and tried to embrace me, but I fought like a wild thing, bit him and struck him, and in the end, he threw me off, and I slammed into the floor, where I lay in a pile and cried until he carried me, my body still furled, into the bedroom.

  Mission

  My mother called for the hundredth time, and I finally answered. She asked if I was okay, if something was wrong. I feigned illness and said I was on the mend. “I’m happy to hear that,” she answered cheerfully. “I’m just in your neighborhood. Did I tell you that your dad and I are getting new curtains? Do you want to come along, check them out?” Mom didn’t wait for an answer before adding, “I’ll be there in fifteen, be ready.”

  I tossed the comforter off of me and threw on some clothes, stumbled into the bathroom. I brushed the moss off my teeth, splashed water on my face, tried to freshen my appearance. In the mirror, I saw my sickness, sallowness. Hair in tangles, disordered. I had become so pale that the circles under my eyes were colored black purple. I didn’t understand why I had such dark circles; I’d done nothing but sleep for the past few days. I wrapped my hair in a bun and painted over the darkness under my eyes.

  Disappointment

  “What’s this? Do you still have a fever?” Mom asked when I climbed into the passenger seat.

  “No, no. I think I’m coming around,” I answered, flipping on the radio. It was just past four in the afternoon, but the sun was on its way down. As we inched forward in the traffic, Mom told me about some friend drama with my sister, Gunna. One of the girls had had sex for the first time, and she showed Gunna and the other girls a pair of bloody underpants to prove it.

  “They’re only twelve—should they be having sex already?” Mom asked, launching back into her story before I had a chance to respond. “Gunna’s lost all interest in the piano. We really have to push her to practice at home.” My mother talked and talked as we slowly made our way toward the shopping center at Skeifan. I leaned against the cold window, watching a drizzle of sleet fall to the sidewalk, melt into the grayness of the pavement.

  Mom parked in front of a pricey furniture store and unstrapped her seat belt. I felt like I couldn’t move. I had no way to muster energy for this snob store.

  “Come on,” Mom said, urging me to unhook my seat belt. I had such a lump in my throat, I couldn’t speak. As soon as we made eye contact, I broke into tears. She was completely taken aback. By sheer force of will, I was able to stutter, between deep sobs, “I’m . . . not . . . doing so . . . well . . .”

  Mom leaned over the armrest, wrapped her arms around me, tried to comfort me. I felt I didn’t deserve how good she was with me, not with how self-centered I’d been. In a calm, almost sedative voice, she asked, “What’s wrong, love?”

  I couldn’t tell her what happened, couldn’t talk about it. I had promised to keep the secret, but only halfheartedly. I lifted my arms, turned my wrists toward her.

  Mom gasped. And said sadly, “My girl.” She tightened her arms around my shaking frame, and we cried together to the murmur of traffic in the parking lot.

  The Situation

  I’m not going to leave him. I don’t want to go home to Mom and Dad. He takes care of me now.

  Out and About

  My mom made me an appointment with a psychiatrist. His office is right in the mall. When she told me about it, I quipped that it was very convenient that the shopping center offered its patrons both manic consumption and the psychological help to cure it, but she didn’t get the joke. He came with me to the office. As we walked the polished tiles of this temple of Mammon, concern that we’d run into the redhead crept up on me. Maybe she’d see us together and assume that I still didn’t know about them, that I was just this unsuspecting idiot girl who really believed she had a good boyfriend.

  Appointment I

  The psychiatrist lifted a gigantic notepad and, as I spoke, scribbled notes here and there on the blank pages. I told him that I’d tried to off myself. That the man I loved was a womanizer, but things had gotten better. I answered his questions as honestly as I could: Yes, I cry often. No, I don’t go out of the house much. No, I haven’t thought about doing it again. The doctor called me dear and sweetie—I hate it when strange men do that, but I didn’t mention it. I’m polite.

  As the appointment went on, I asked the psychiatrist questions that I hadn’t dared ask another person, but he’s a professional, so he can’t disclose any of the nagging worries that I air in his office: “Can I stay with him, even though he’s cheated on me?”

  The psychiatrist took a long pause, laced his sausage fingers together under his chin, and said thoughtfully, “Breaches of trust are remarkably common in relationships. There are a number of ways to work through issues like this. You have a choice: Do you want to try to forgive him and stay together? If you don’t believe you can do that, the only option is to end the relationship.”

  “But I want to stay together,” I answered, relieved.

  At the end of the appointment he wrote a prescription that he wanted me to begin taking immediately.

  Ground Zero

  The pills flatten me, make me into a thin scum on the surface of still water. I don’t sink. Coast instead, detached from the world around me, and I’m fine with it. Time is water, and the weeks run like a current beneath me, without me.

  Appointment II

  The psychiatrist comments that I’m losing weight, asks if my appetite has decreased. I shrug. “Maybe. I don’t really know,” I answer.

  That’s a fringe benefit of this medication. I don’t want to eat. I am finally thin.

  Desire

  I have no desire for anything—not food, not entertainment, not sex. But we still sleep together. For him, sex is a clear measure of how happy relationships are. The beginning of the end is usually when people stop having sex. We sleep together a lot, m
ultiple times a day.

  Sex has become a chore, like doing the dishes; you have to stay on top of it so that the mess doesn’t get out of control. I haven’t told him about the horror of feeling nothing. I don’t want him to believe he’s bad in bed. He’s not bad. The sex has gotten rough. I just want him to take control, to shake me out of this deadness. He slaps my ass, digs his nails into my skin, pulls my hair when he fucks me from behind. If he looks into my eyes while we’re fucking, I tell him to grab my neck, to choke me, and sometimes I hope he’ll lose control in the heat of the moment and kill me. But accidentally, so that he feels bad and has to call my parents crying and beg their forgiveness for riding their daughter to death. That would be good of him.

  Cold Slab

  Night after night, I have the same nightmare: I’m having cocktails, and I’m surrounded by attractive, well-to-do people. The scene glitters with light refracting off crystal champagne flutes and necklaces clasped around women’s necks. Frivolous laughter. The clinking of glasses. In the middle of the room, under an enormous crystal chandelier, there’s an elegant buffet set with exotic fruits, berries, and colorful canapés. In the middle of the table lies a thin girl, stripped of her clothes. She’s awake, staring straight ahead, sublimely detached. Before her, a row of carefully laid knives, sharpened to a sure point, not unlike the sterile scalpels of surgical carts. A grand middle-aged woman in an emerald dress that drags on the floor taps a spoon on her glass, announcing that it’s time to dig in. They line up one after another, slicing into the wafer-thin skin, binging on the pale morsels of her body. I go up to the girl, prod her with a knife, but she doesn’t react. I slice striploin from her skinny frame, relishing the cold, salty meat.

  As the room empties out, the woman in the green gown is beside herself because there’s so much food left over. She asks me to take the remains of the meal home.

  I follow the woman into the kitchen. The girl is standing there, ghostly pale, wrapped in plastic. I throw her over my shoulder like a sack of potatoes, carry her to my car. But it feels too cruel to put her in the trunk, so I place her in the passenger seat. When I put the car in gear, she begins to tremble violently, as if she’s just come alive, and she begins to breathe quickly, erratically. I take her home, wrap a blanket around her, and talk to her. She doesn’t seem to comprehend anything. She shakes, consumed by choked breaths. I can’t save her. I can’t ease her suffering. I am complicit. I know she won’t linger much longer. I try to offer her food. I try to do something good for her, but I know the time for salvation has passed.

  Resolution

  I have been working very hard to forgive him. I will, with time. He’s so beautiful, it’d be difficult not to offer him forgiveness. I find it much more difficult to forgive myself for being such a psychotic idiot. For not having known better, for not having left, for letting it carry on so long.

  Balance

  I’ve always tried to be a good person, and I’m pretty sure I used to be. But these days I have nothing to give, nothing to say. I’m here, but I’m completely lost. My parents taught me that patience, empathy, and hard work were key to a happy life. If I treated people with kindness, everything would turn out fine. But now I find that I’ve become emotionally bankrupt, having given away much more than I ever had to begin with.

  Untoward Effects

  Nothing has improved. The meds are a bandage on a gash. With the least provocation, my fissures open up, blood and pus erupt from the wound, and the only remedy is more medicine so that I don’t feel as much. I go easy on myself; I take pains, I wrap myself in cotton. I never meet anybody or make plans. I don’t force myself to move. At first the pills dried up the well of my tears, but now the tears have welled over. I grieve for us and the relationship that I believed we would have.

  Sleeping Beauty

  I had an appointment with my GP at eleven o’clock on Tuesday morning to refill my contraceptives. I set the alarm clock, but when it went off, I didn’t get up. I couldn’t wake up. I couldn’t move. I meant to press snooze but turned it off instead. I slept until two in the afternoon, and I didn’t wake up when the doctor’s office called—twice. I wasted their time. I can’t show my face there again. I’ll just find another way to take care of the pills. I’ll just wait until I meet the psychiatrist again—he seems eager enough to scribble down scripts for whatever I want.

  Optimism

  I finished my birth control pills a week ago. It was no problem getting a new prescription from my psychiatrist. The new pills are already in our bathroom cabinet. The doc said I had to wait for my next period before I can start taking them. I’m not worried about this break—in fact I’ve suspected for years that I might be infertile. When I was fucking around, I was often reckless, and nothing ever happened.

  He hates condoms, says they’re uncomfortable and unnatural. I’m pretty sure he’s never had to use them with other girls. We haven’t ever, at least. I don’t mind him cumming in me.

  Drought

  I’ve always been irregular. Maybe I’ve become anemic. Maybe it’s the meds. Maybe I’m like a Russian ballerina who’s starved off her womanhood. I’m not squeamish about blood; let it overflow the banks, flood between my thighs, through my pants.

  Absence

  I’ve kept quiet over the fact that he has two children for so long that their existence has become a massive lie. I don’t think my parents would mind him being a father—that’s just how life goes sometimes. But I’m pretty sure they would have reservations about him not taking care of them. He’s never visited his kids while we’ve been together, probably because it’s hard enough as it is to have to look after his crazy girlfriend.

  Going Down

  Our bed is descending slowly into the ground, like an elevator. I touch the cold, wet walls of earth. The darkness becomes thicker, but if I concentrate and stare straight upward, I see in the distance our bedroom ceiling. The bed sinks deeper and deeper, I have no control over this mechanism. There are no buttons, no way to get back up. Dirt and insects slowly fall on my mattress, filling it up. In the muck, I roll over to my other side and try to sleep some more.

  Situation

  I don’t think there’s any reason to take the pregnancy test seriously. He says that if I’m really pregnant, I have to keep the baby; it was created in love. He says he’ll help me as little or as much as I want. I don’t know what to believe; he never thinks about his other kids, but he says this time it’ll be different.

  Appointment III

  “Has the crying increased?” the psychiatrist asked.

  “Ya, I think so,” I answered, drying my eyes with my sleeve.

  “And how is it going with him?” he asked, leaning back in his chair.

  I straightened up, swallowed the lump in my throat, and mustered as much dignity as I could. “It’s going well, thanks.”

  The psychiatrist hmmed and I see’d, and said finally, “Well, it’s not good that your mood swings haven’t evened out, my dear. We can add another medication to try to stabilize you.” He turned to his computer and entered a new prescription as he continued to mumble toward his keyboard about the mechanism of action and the purpose of the medication.

  I interrupted. “Listen, I was thinking about . . . well . . . I think I might be pregnant—would that be a problem?”

  The doctor looked up from the keyboard, screwing up his eyes, as if contemplating something.

  “Why do you think that?” he asked.

  “I took a pregnancy test yesterday that showed—well. I don’t know, maybe it’s just a false positive.”

  The psychiatrist picked up his phone and punched in an extension. “Hello. I’ve got a patient here that I would like you to look at . . . yes, exactly, thank you.” He set down the receiver, rose to his feet, and directed me to follow him. We went into the next room and met with an OB/GYN, obviously a close colleague of his. They talked about my potential pregnancy as if I weren’t there. “Patient report
s she took a pregnancy test that returned a positive result. I need to confirm before I can prescribe her Diazepam.”

  The gynecologist, a lively older man, answered lightly, “Let’s take a look. I’m available till three.”

  Crossroads

  There’s no room for another person in our relationship; we are already enough to handle. We can’t have a child together. We can hardly be together. It won’t be long now until I dissolve, disappear, become nothing. I don’t know what’s best. I’ve strayed too far from myself to think right. But I know that my choice is between having him and having the baby, between staying together and severing myself from our root system. To me, it’s one or the other. A termination, no matter what I do.