Though there was a dark threat in his eyes, behind this façade was clearly worry. “But it really doesn’t matter what I say—it needs to come from you,” he said calmly. “You have to be the one to put a stop to it. It won’t work otherwise.” He was quiet, watching me. I began to nod, having come to the same conclusions myself moments ago.
“I know,” I said, and took his hand in both of mine. I didn’t know what else to say. I didn’t want to make promises I couldn’t keep, but denying him this wasn’t acceptable, either. “I know,” I repeated.
“There’s another reason I need you to promise me this,” he said, “and it’s purely selfish.” He looked down, the fringe of his swept bangs falling over his forehead. When his eyes found mine a moment later, there wasn’t any anger in them. “It’s breaking my heart.”
“Dominic.” My throat closed tight on the realization that I wasn’t the only one at stake where my effacing behavior was concerned. Allowing myself to be mistreated was hurting him.
He gave me a sore look. “Don’t do that,” he said, not unkindly. “Don’t start piling the guilt on. That isn’t what I meant when I”—he shut his mouth, pursing his lips as he searched for the words—“I’m just waiting. I’m waiting for you to see what I see. For you to stop doubting everything; how talented you are, how kind and beautiful.” He sighed, whispering, “How I feel about you.”
I waited for him to say more. When he didn’t, I replied, “What do you mean?”
“I mean I saw your face—before you found me waiting for you,” he clarified. “Tell me the truth, Foster. Did you think that was it?” He asked and shrugged. “That we were done? I would never want to talk to you again?”
“I didn’t—” I tried to lower my eyes. He wouldn’t let me, but made me look at him as I answered. I took a calming breath and started over, nervous. “I didn’t want to assume you would be okay with me—the way I am now. It’s not fair to expect that much of you.”
He shook his head. “You didn’t expect that of me. You asked me to ignore Vanya, and I made the choice to do that. I could have said no, and at any point I could have changed my mind. It wasn’t fair of me to expect you to all of a sudden turn into a different person overnight. Part of what draws me to you is your compassion and your kindness. It’s your greatest strength. It’s also your greatest weakness.” I shivered, not from the chill, but still he released my hands to rub his up and down the length of my arms. “I should have talked to you much sooner. It’s not your fault you’ve been busy, but I didn’t want to use the little time we had to talk about that issue. I got angry. I honestly can’t promise you it won’t happen again.” He smiled half-heartedly, though it was genuine. “In fact, I can promise you now that it absolutely will happen again. But I won’t ever just walk away like that. And if you could have a little more faith in us, and my feelings for you—I would appreciate that.” The smile faltered then and a look of absolute certainty came upon him. “This doubt . . . it will ruin us if you let it.”
The next thought hit me with such blinding acuity that I actually winced from the impact. The doubt—I could see it. It was right there in front of me—or rather inside of me. I could see the doubt. The word, that had for the last ten years masked itself as a concerned friend, told me it was for my own good that I felt this way. I would be safe, protected, if only I remained remote and inaccessible . . .
What I hadn’t realized was that in doing so, I would also constantly be afraid.
In my own mind I’d heard this word a million times, said a million different ways, and each time I felt it the same, as a healthy condition. If I remained in a state of doubt and wary observance, then nothing would ever take me by surprise. I could anticipate when someone or something was about to hurt me—be ready for it, and therefore have a plan of how to avoid it. For the most part, I had managed this consistently. The adventures were few, but so were the risks, and security above all else was most important. And so it was with this mindset I went about living my life, never once stopping to consider that my life was living me.
Hearing Dominic use this word in correlation with us, something had changed. Suddenly the fall was worth the risk, and the doubt that was once mitigating and welcomed, became an ugly, viciously palpable creature. I reflected on every time I had allowed it to infect me over the years; doubting my worth, doubting that I mattered, doubting my friendships, doubting the feasibility of my greatest ambitions, doubting that anyone could ever accept me the way I am—certain they would only and always see purely my flaws. The most recent infection had taken place this last week. With each and every gesture, every touch, and affectionate glance, I had doubted that someone like Dominic could ever want me. I couldn’t—wouldn’t—believe it. Even after he told me so himself, I couldn’t see past the guilt, the perfectly rational explanation that explained it all. This was the problem, of course: I was trying to give corroboration to things that were not things at all.
My skin had begun to crawl, and in Dominic’s arms I began to shift uncomfortably, fighting tears. Hot angry tears for what I had allowed myself to needlessly endure, delusional and misguided by so-called reason and rational. What was thought of as protection, had been a complete and total infection. The doubt was real. As real as bacteria. The disgusting organisms had made themselves at home in my mind, ingratiating when I was too young to know sycophancy from abuse. And for years—years!—I’d supplied them with opulent meals, in a sense offering myself over on freshly polished silver, inviting a continuous, gluttonous feasting.
I thought of the harmless bacteria, that which was considered beneficial; namely the four hundred amiable single-celled prokaryote microorganisms swimming around in my digestive system, doing helpful things like preventing cancer and flu viruses. Last year in Microbiology, I had studied a couple of these benign germs—acidophilus and bifidobacterium—under a microscope. This culminating, while perturbing certainly, was not the same thing that had taken siege inside me. What I battled was a genetically mutated, highly destructive, parasitic and resistant bacterium that flourished with every new insecurity, and every new fear of the unknown and unpredictable. Would I be able to put a stop to this? Was I capable of changing a part of me without losing the rest?
I surfaced from the tidal wave of clarity that had crashed over me, though the grief didn’t subside with it. Dominic had pulled me close, his arms once more wrapped tightly around my back. I took a long, deep breath, finding I was in great need of it, my breathing shallow and thin. He pulled away slightly, gently taking my arms in his hands and staring down at me with more knowing than I could hardly understand. I felt wet warmth upon my cheek, but made no move to reach for it.
“I know you can do it,” he said softly, and I wondered if he hadn’t experienced my same vision. “You just need to open your eyes. If you can do that, I think everything else will take care of itself.”
Chapter Twenty-eight
It was difficult to believe that it had only been one day. The change I noticed in myself didn’t seem possible in that short a time frame. I suppose that the recognition and reckoning was the easier of the two; though, it would take work figuring out how to actually change the behaviors I was predisposed to feeling and doing.
There were a few things, however, that I noticed right away; most alarming, the sense of great relief as if some invisible weight had been lifted straight off the top of my head. Worrying had become a comfort of sorts, a companion that fit without ever belonging. More than anyone or anything else, I had made this my friend. So on Sunday evening when Dominic had left my house, it took only a moment before I gave myself permission to wonder when it would end. When would he decide he’d made a mistake, and I was not the one he wanted? This was my fear. In truth, it still was, the difference now being my awareness of it and my determination to fight back, using truth as a weapon. It was not easy, and often I would find myself entrenched in a pool of worry, drowning in that bacteria. Eventually, I would come to with a renewed sense
of will and resolve, only to wind up in the same dark place a few hours later. Time—it would take time.
I found it helped if I used a picture to limn the situation: if I were a castle, then my heart was the drawbridge. The hinges were rusted from desuetude, the wood splintered and worn, but it still functioned. Dominic had been the impetus setting things in motion, initiating the first groans of activity with that very first day we met. Though I didn’t know it at the time, this meeting had changed everything. Frightened and reckless didn’t begin to describe how I had felt lowering the bridge mechanically, listening to the chains release and grind together, link after link. What was intended to act as a barrier of adamantine around me, was never anything more than thin panes of glass to Dominic. He had seen right through me, begun to knock down the walls one by one, subsequently destroying my world of half-truths along with them. Where I was in this analogy now, I couldn’t quite comprehend; mid-construction, I supposed. Many of my senses were heightened, though at the same time a paradox occurred, so many of them less prominent. What I did feel, felt incredibly vivid and fresh—something peeled back and exposed. I was terrified to no end, but in a way that left me almost giddy, in a constant state of newfound awareness.
Walking toward my car, I nearly vibrated with euphoria as I thought of Dominic. Just a few hours from now, I reminded myself, a smile coming unbidden. I had missed riding to school with him this morning, though I thought it selfish to make him wait both before and after school while I took my last two makeup exams. Insisting that he didn’t mind, I insisted I did, certain he had better things to do with his time. In the end he capitulated, much to my complete surprise. With the last of my tests and late assignments finally behind me, I felt like celebrating. I started Hattie’s engine, cranked up my stereo system, not at all minding when the speakers began to crackle and cut out. I sang with an over-loudness of joy, paying little attention to the words I was singing. My head was somewhere else, entirely. In less than two hours, Dominic would join my parents and me for dinner. Afterward, we would at last have time alone. A serpent of nerves wiggled its way across my abdomen.
Alone.
Ten minutes before Dominic was scheduled to arrive, I made my way down the stairs, feeling as if I was floating on a moving cloud. I had dressed in a sleeveless, scoop-neck lavender sundress and white sandals. At the last minute I’d decided to wear jewelry, choosing diminutive amethyst studs and a matching pendant the size of a pencil eraser strung on a thin silver chain. The end result, I had to admit, was more than I could have hoped for. The soft hue of my dress, in combination with the richer color of my hair, accentuated the pallor of my skin, rather the wash me out or emphasize how pale I was. The birthstone jewels, too, provided the right amount of aureate luster without appearing garish or gaudy. I fingered the cool pendant, positioning by feel so that it sat precisely along the middle of my sternum.
As I danced back and forth between the front room and the kitchen, willing the minutes to pass, I had yet to temper the insurmountable grin. It seemed to be a permanent fixture on my face. My cheeks throbbed for relief, but whenever I put effort into relaxing the muscles, they only worked that much harder to fortify their beatific infrastructure. My parents, in passing, were reduced to stifled giggles every time they saw me. Even knowing how ridiculous I must look, wandering around with the perennial smile did nothing to mitigate the expression. If anything, it made it worse and I’d have to leave the room, their laughter infectious. On another loop through the first floor of the house, I ambled back into the kitchen, adjusting the temperature on the oven to a degree that would keep the lasagna warm, but cease cooking it. Eye-level with the neon green numbers displayed on the screen, I frowned.
Only five minutes since the last time I looked, I thought rather bleakly. For the first time the smile faltered. Searching for tasks to swallow up the time, I found menial things to do around the house—starting with the dining room. The table was perfect, or mostly so anyway. I went about obsessively straightening the bamboo place mats, lining them up exactly so that each was at a perfect ninety-degree angle and precisely the same distance apart from the neighboring place mat. I smoothed down the suede chairs, coaxing the lush material in only one direction, and eradicating the unattractive ripples. Lastly, I pulled a few dead leaves off the floral centerpiece. The grandfather clocked dinged once.
I jolted. “Five thirty,” I informed myself unnecessarily, “It’s five thirty.”
My heart raced as I soared down the corridor, my footfall nearly soundless. In fact, I wasn’t entirely sure my feet were touching the floor just now, so buoyant my insides. Even though it was only the clock and not the doorbell, Dominic had proven to be a punctual person, and I knew I could expect him to be here any minute, if not second. First checking the peephole, I opened the front door a crack, on second thought flicking the porch light to give purpose to my loitering. Earlier my mom had opened the gate entrance to our street so that he wouldn’t have to contend with dialing the house and waiting. I half-expected to see him walking up as I peeked through the sliver of open door.
He wasn’t.
I felt my buoyancy diminish some, but not completely. It was only, after all, exactly five thirty. Five thirty-one, I corrected grimly upon a glance at the clock.
Stop it, I scolded. You’re being ridiculous.
I continued to busy myself, trying not to linger directly in front of the door—trying being the operative word—and forcing my eyes away from the clock. When I was positive that a minimum of five minutes must have passed, I permitted myself a glance. I blinked hard, not trusting my eyes, but finding the result no different from a second ago when I opened them. Five thirty-two the arrows told me.
In pursuit of a distraction, I grabbed a pitcher from the kitchen, filling it up with water, then went about watering every plant in the nearby vicinity. I was beyond tempted to check my progress on time, but denied myself, instead heading toward the cupboard to where I knew I would find a rag and bottle of furniture polish. Making wide, arcing motions with my arms, bending myself over the expanse of its girth, I told myself that choosing the round table in the foyer, the one only a few feet from the door Dominic’s knocks would sustain, was only coincidence. This task completed, I was inexplicably delighted that my hands were unctuous, in need of a good washing.
Standing in the dim bathroom, not bothering to turn on the light, I counted to thirty in my mind—trying not to celebrate that this activity alone had burned half a minute. After folding the small hand towel and replacing it beside the basin sink, I returned the dusting materials to their rightful place, and took the long way back toward the front of the house. I nearly choked on shock when the grandfather clock was close enough to see.
Five thirty-four—Impossible! I placed one hand on either side of its smooth frame, preparing to argue with it. Three minutes? That’s all? It takes three minutes alone, just walking from one room to the next.
Convinced time was playing cruel tricks on me and had begun to move backward, I acquiesced to inequitable certainty that no matter how many tasks or activities I busied myself with, none of them would bring me closer to seeing Dominic. He would be here when he got here, and no sooner. My phone, silent and inert, gave no indication that anything was remiss. He was simply running a bit behind, I thought optimistically. It could happen to even the most dependably punctual people, I reasoned.
My parents had gone upstairs together around the time I had come down, presumably to dress for dinner. On the steps I waited, the pendant in my fingers growing warm from excessive fondling. Without voices or movement, the house had sunk into that numinous quiet; the quiet so loud it almost hurt when you honed in to its sonorous hush. I rubbed my hands up and down my shins slowly, comforted a little by the susurrant noise. Still, the clock’s tick boomed like launched grenades. Though the grandfather was a ways behind me—halfway toward the living room—I attuned myself with its enumerating vitality. I literally breathed in time: every three second
s in, every three seconds out, every three seconds in, every three seconds out. When the longest hand moved forward and slipped into the notch with a soft click, it felt as though a capillary in my brain had burst. Five thirty-five. I winced and shut my eyes. The lack of noise had set my ears ringing fearfully, but even that was better than the pounding ticks, like tiny hammers to the sides of my skull. My pulse aligned itself, beating in unison. My skin felt balmy and chilled; though how that was possible, I wasn’t exactly sure.
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