How to Live on the Edge

by Sarah Lynn Scheerger

  “But she said—”

  “Listen.” I’m tempted to reach around her head and loosen her hair tie. “Mom had all kinds of ideas about what she wanted, but she hasn’t been around for fourteen years. The world is a different place. We’re different people. She wrote that journal and filmed the videos because she needed to do it. And it’s fine if you need to read it.” I leave her hair alone but pat her leg. “But I don’t. I’m at peace with my life. I don’t need to read her journal to feel complete.”

  A flash of anger strikes me. I could’ve used this from Mom in the third grade, the year Tee married Luke, the year I felt displaced. Back when I fantasized about my father riding in on a pony or a motorcycle and whisking me off to a better life. But not now. I’m settled now. “Listen. I’ll take the blame for bowing out. You’re off the hook.”

  Saff does not appear convinced.

  I want to smooth things out for her, so I offer her a kind lie. “Would it make you feel better if I say that maybe I’ll read some tomorrow?”

  “It would if I believed you.” Saff has the most readable face ever. She could never get away with a fib. It’s her eyes. They’re a crystal ball into her soul. And right now, they’re pools of sadness. A deep sadness that makes me want to carry her around in my arms, something I did for months after Mom died. Saff stopped talking for a while and I pretended she was my own baby. I guess we both needed that connection back then.

  I soften my voice and do my best to soften my expression too. “I promise I’ll watch the videos with you. Go ahead and read on your own. Okay?”

  I leave Saff on the couch, looking like she’s trying to give herself permission to break a rule. We’ve always been different that way. As a kid, I just snagged an extra cookie or a dropped dollar, figuring someone would stop me if it wasn’t okay. Saff, on the other hand, waited for permission, and if it never came, she missed out. Sometimes I wonder how we’re even sisters.

  ✱✱✱

  I name a lot of things. My car Gertrude for instance. Axel’s car, Churro. Betty, the latest train I dodged. So naming Death Lorelei seems appropriate. Lorelei existed in my dreamstate long before I had a name for her. I realize this makes me sound a tiny bit batty. But I do not hear voices. I’m not depressed or manic or anxious. The only things I can be accused of are being impulsive, the consumer of way too many horror movies, and possibly over-therapized by well-meaning shrinks. After Mom died, Tee signed Saff and me up for therapy, as if that would somehow ensure we’d wind up well-adjusted. I’m not sure it worked on me, but I loved the one-on-one attention—not to mention playing with the toys, sand trays, and art materials stocked in the office—so it wasn’t a complete waste of time.

  When I was in sixth grade, one therapist suggested I journal my dreams. The entries and the sketches that followed birthed Lorelei. I was knee-deep in a mythology phase and came across a mythological siren called the lorelei who lured sailors to their deaths.

  Once my personal version of Death had a name, she became even more real to me. Not only did she appear in my dreams, but she began visiting me in that halfway spot between sleep and waking, a space-time reality called hypnagogia. (It exists. I looked it up to confirm my sanity.) Sometimes I linger there, wanting to hold on to her, to confront her or challenge her. Sometimes I wrench myself from sleep to escape her, even when it feels like my eyelids are weighted with lead x-ray blankets.

  In my dreamstate, she’s frightening. Bald and so skinny the blue veins pop through her temples, the skin curving tautly around her bones. And yet she’s chic and seductive—like a model—wearing dangly earrings and loose flowing silks. There’s something about her that seems birdlike, and I worry that someday she’ll peck out my eyeballs. The edges of her essence blur, as if she can walk through walls and disintegrate.

  During my waking hours, Lorelei exists on the perimeter of my awareness, and I mold her into someone I can master. In these moments, I am brave. I taunt her. I place my life in her hands, only to yank it away. Over and over. I imagine my conversations with her. How I am besting her. How I am keeping her at bay.

  Lorelei. I’ve been thinking.

  Great. Just what I was hoping for. Lorelei is always sarcastic.

  You’re wrong. In a game of cat and mouse, the mouse always wins. Defies all odds. That’s the whole point.

  Show me, she sneers.

  I will. Truth is, there’s a double game going on here, only Lorelei doesn’t know it. I’m distracting her. If she’s focused on me, then maybe she won’t think about the other women burdened with the Silk curse. As long as she’s chasing me, I’m keeping her away from Aunt Tee, from Saff, even from the Minions.

  Once sleep sinks its claws into my mind, though, Lorelei has the upper hand, transforming into a cackling witch, a trickster and schemer. She slithers into my dreams, reminding me this night could be my last. She wants me. She hungers for me. The more I dodge her, the hungrier she becomes. Taunting me, reminding me that in the end everyone dies, so there’s no escaping, only evading.

  It is simply a matter of time.

  Chapter 7

  Wanna ditch third period? I hide in the dingy Mesa High bathroom to text Axel. We’re not supposed to use our phones during class, a rule as useful and well-followed as the ones that forbid gum-chewing and wearing short-shorts. My house is empty. Luke’s working, the Minions are at school, and Tee has a doctor’s appointment in LA.

  It takes Axel about five minutes to respond, during which time I read all the Sharpie on the restroom walls. I dig deep in my backpack to find my own Sharpie and scribble over the word “SLUT” under Kelly Stevens’s name. Not that I even like the girl, I just hate that word—one thing Saff and I agree about. Seems like we ladies should team up and ban it from the English language.

  I redo my screensaver to an adorable photo of the Minions building sandcastles at the beach. I’m just about to get hurt feelings when my phone buzzes. Meet you in the parking lot after second. Love your Valentine’s Day spirit.

  We can barely contain ourselves during the ride to the house. He drives, and I entertain him with my tongue. We kiss our way through the front door, and his hands slide under my shirt as we stumble through the living room, toward the bedrooms at the back of the house.

  His hands are magic, awakening a throbbing in every cell they touch. They graze each rib, circle my belly button, and skate upward to unlatch my bra.

  When we’re making out, I typically take charge. I like to direct his hands and how far we go. But today there’s something about the heat of his skin on mine, the roughness of his lips, and his tongue deep in my mouth, that makes me float, unable to direct anything. My mind is fully absorbed in the moment, incapable of rational thought. He slips off his own shirt and helps me remove mine.

  I close my eyes and let go, trusting him to guide me, trying my best to reciprocate. He’s so good at what he does that I can scarcely find the brain power to instruct my hands as to what to do. But perhaps they have a mind of their own, because they’re certainly moving.

  We tumble down onto the softness of a bed, and I fully relax, allowing myself to be carried away by the moment. This might be the first time I’ve fully released control, and I kind of like it. I breathe in the soft scent of lilac.

  Wait.

  My eyes fly open. We’re in Saffron’s room. She’s a fiend for lilac candles, incense, and potpourri. I extricate myself from Axel’s lips, or try to. “We’re in my sister’s room!”

  Axel lifts his head. “Who cares?”

  “Me.” And most definitely my sister. Saff would be horrified if she knew we were making out on her bed. She’d probably assume we were having sex, which we are not, but she’d be grossed out nonetheless. Fletcher and Saff probably have to google how to kiss without tangling tongues. “This feels wrong.”

  “Wrong can be exciting, you know that.” Axel’s back to exploring my body, and there’s no room for words.

  The moment is ruined though. Saff’s flowered wallpa
per and packed bookshelf distract me. Plus I keep rolling onto something hard, probably a book, because Saffron literally sleeps with them.

  Axel’s working his way lower and lower, and now all I can do is think. Thoughts are running through my mind haphazardly. “Stay up here,” I urge.

  He obliges and comes back up to my ear. His breath is hot against my skin, his words sending electricity down to my core. “It’s Valentine’s Day,” he reminds me. “We have the house to ourselves. This can be that special moment you’ve been waiting for.”

  I hate to turn him down, but there’s something that blocks me. I can’t quite explain it.

  He sighs. “Cayenne. We’ve been together for over a year. I’ve never been with someone this long without moving forward.”

  “I must be pretty special then.” I blow a kiss in the air. “Worth the wait.”

  “You are.” He sweeps my hair away from my face, kisses my forehead, and rolls onto his back. “I don’t want to pressure you, I really don’t. But I can’t help wanting more.” This gives me the urge to apologize or explain it away, and I really don’t know how. “Your body wants this,” he informs me, running his fingers down the length of me. He’s absolutely right, because my body instantly responds. “It’s your head that’s stopping you.”

  I nod. I can feel that physical want, almost an aching in my core, craving more. And a few moments ago, I would’ve let him do anything he wanted. I probably would’ve wanted it too. It is my mind that’s stopping me.

  “Is it me?” he asks the ceiling. I notice Saff still has glow-in-the-dark stars glued there. “Is there something wrong with me?”

  “It’s not you,” I manage this, because it’s not. And I don’t want to hurt him.

  “You cross every line there is.” He rolls back over onto his side and props his head up with his hand. “Even something as insane as train dodging. I won’t even do that. But you do. So this is hard for me to understand.”

  “I am a mystery, even to myself. That’s why you love me.” I stretch for some humor. Some way to diffuse this situation. Because if I break down and say “okay,” then he is pressuring me. Then I’m doing it for him and not for me.

  I think of the word SLUT written on the bathroom wall at school. Why do I feel like I’m somehow disappointing him if I don’t have sex with him? Do other girls feel like this?

  Who am I supposed to talk to about this shit? I’m friendly with a lot of people but I don’t really have super-close friends who are girls. At this moment I wish for a bestie—someone to tell me it’s okay not to have sex even if it frustrates my boyfriend, that it’s okay to do what I want even if I can’t verbalize why.

  I wonder if I’d be talking about this if Mom was alive. I wonder if I’d be dating Axel or dodging trains if Mom was alive. I wonder if I’d be accepting a scholarship to Cal if Mom was alive. All of a sudden, a wave of sadness seeps in and my throat winds up tight.

  Axel must notice my mood, because although he runs his fingers down my body one more time, there’s dejection in his movement. I’ve hurt his feelings. He climbs off the bed. “I’m gonna hit the shower.”

  I press my face into Saff’s pillow, squashing my emotions. Sobbing would be losing control too, and I refuse to do that. Even though I want to.

  That stupid book is pressing into my rib, and I wrench it free. Only it’s not a novel. It’s Mom’s journal.

  Something about finding the journal only moments after thinking of Mom makes it feel important. I find myself flipping through it, skimming random comments, and glancing at bookmarks Saff must have inserted.

  Little-known facts about me:

  I have a nasty habit of picking at my toenails.

  There’s never been a pimple I haven’t popped. In fact, I probably would’ve popped yours too.

  I hate the smell of mustard.

  I like cooked tomatoes but not raw tomatoes.

  I used to have an abnormally perfect belly button, but I didn’t fully appreciate it until I’d stretched it out during pregnancy. Now I have stretch marks fanning out from my belly button, and I love them because they remind me of you both.

  I curse like a sailor. By the time you read this, I’m sure you’ll have a full #@$%&#@ appreciation of the breadth of the #@$%&#@ English language.

  The idea of my mother cursing makes me smile. And now I know I inherited my zit-popping compulsion from her.

  Wait. A large half-page sticky note is pasted to the opposite side of the page. Different handwriting—Saff’s—is scrawled across it.

  Saff wrote back to Mom. And I know immediately why she used the sticky note. So she could rip out her personal thoughts if I ever wanted to read the journal. I consider closing it—not perusing what she’s written—but I can’t make myself. So shoot me, I’m flawed. That’s no secret to anyone. I can live with it.

  Little-known facts about me —Saffron

  I like raw carrots but not cooked carrots.

  I pray every night. Which is weird because I don’t go to church. But if I forget to pray, I wake up in the middle of the night and my sheets are drenched.

  I think I love Fletch but maybe that’s because he’s the one who knows me best. Vanessa is a good friend too, but Fletch is my soulmate.

  Axel is still showering, the epic water-waster that he is. I flip ahead in the journal. Is Mom ever going to tell me about my father? Clearly the guy was a jerk since he didn’t stick around. But still. It feels weird to be eighteen years old and not know anything about him.

  One of the bookmarked sections catches my attention.

  Here’s the thing. I don’t know you.

  I only know what I imagine you to be. I know how I think you’ll grow and change. I know what I believe to be your strengths (and yes, your flaws), but by this point I will have missed at least 70 percent of your lives. So forgive me if I’m wrong. Forgive me if I sound like I don’t have a clue.

  On the plus side, I know the people you are pre-peer pressure, pre-self-doubt, pre-dating. So maybe I DO know you. Maybe I know the REAL you. Anyway, here goes.

  Cayenne—I see you as completely driven. Call it stubborn, maybe, but once you put your mind to it, you can do anything. I remember how you cried when you made the smallest mistake, so I want to give you permission to make mistakes. Mistakes are how we learn. So give yourself a break here and there.

  My heart catches, reading that. Because that’s not me. Stuff my mistakes with feathers and call them a pillow—I’m comfortable enough to sleep on them. And I’m the opposite of driven—the gifted kid who smarted her way out of doing any work. The chronic underachiever. The waste of potential. But maybe that’s not who I always was. Maybe that slacker quality is not an inborn trait, but something that evolved over time. If anything, Mom’s description sounds more like Saff. She’s the rule follower, the one who never allows herself to make a mistake. The good girl.

  And Saffy-Taffy with your big heart . . . Don’t forget to protect yourself a little. Even from toddlerhood, you’d give your last cookie to Cayenne, you’d pat MY hair and MY arm when I was trying to put you to bed. When we played a board game, you made sure your sister won. You’re a natural born caregiver. Just don’t burn out on me. You’ll learn over time when to give and when to conserve. If you only give, give, give, you’ll be left depleted.

  A memory flashes in. Learning to play checkers. Bursting into tears when I lost against Mom. Saff trying to console me, draping her hot arm around my shoulders, patting my tear-streaked face, offering me the stale Halloween candy she’d stashed under her bed.

  Who am I? —Saffron

  Our three-year-old selves

  Are not our forever selves.

  Our real selves are molded and morphed

  (And sometimes carved, creamed or crushed)

  By the forces that touch us in our lives.

  But maybe some people are more morphable than others.

  I don’t recognize the Cayenne that Mom described.

  Maybe I n
ever knew her.

  There are shadows of the Saffron Mom spoke of.

  I’ve learned to conserve, though—

  View my heart as a resource,

  Like water in a drought.

  To be used sparingly.

  That’s why Fletch is so perfect for me—

  He fills me up

  Reminds me how to laugh,

  Replenishes me.

  He’s my life preserver.

  A discomfort settles deep in my stomach, like I drank some expired milk. Saff never knew me? Please.

  I snap the book closed before I can get too pissed off. Honestly, it feels a tiny bit wrong to dissect Saff’s thoughts without her knowledge. Maybe I should stop. But that doesn’t mean I have to stop reading Mom’s. She left the journal for both of us, after all. And it doesn’t mean I have to tell Saff I’m reading Mom’s entries. Maybe I can just avoid Saff’s sticky notes. Too bad she picked such a bright color. It’s like trying not to notice the marks of a highlighter.

  The sound of running water stops, and the shower door slams. My moment of privacy is ending, so I return the diary to its safe spot under Saff’s covers. Axel pads into the room, wearing a towel around his waist, seemingly over his disappointment, which settles me. He playfully shakes his hair at me like a dog, spraying water my direction. “If we hurry, we can get back to school before fourth period.”

  I agree, dressing quickly, smoothing Saffron’s bed, and scanning the room for any evidence that we’d been there. I silently apologize to Saffron’s old ragged teddy, perched on top of her bookshelf. It was a gift from Mom, and Saffron never wanted to part with it. What can I say, Teddy? I’m complicated. This should come as no surprise to either of us.

  Chapter 8

  Watch the kids for us tonight? Need some alone time with Luke. The message from Tee buzzes in on my phone. I see that both Saff and I are on this thread. I groan. I was hoping to hang out with Axel again tonight, but we can’t turn Tee down—we owe her fourteen years’ worth of favors.