He tugged at her shirt. I want to look at you, he said.
Mel kissed his chin. You’ll see things, she said.
He chalked that up to crazy Mel-talk—what would he see? Visions, coming from the ankh on her necklace? He stripped off her tight long-sleeved shirt, tingling at the sight of Mel’s white belly, the glimmer of a red stone in her navel ring. The big nipples on her tiny breasts. He lifted Mel by the hips and kissed her between her breasts and then laid her back down, waiting all the while for her to catch fire, too, to pull at his clothes. But her face was placid—stoned, even—her eyes half-lidded, her lips holding a little smile. Her arms thrown limp above her head, wrists crossed.
He nuzzled her neck, her shoulders. He picked up one of her arms and kissed its length to her wrist—where he saw the long, thick scar, crossing the inside of her forearm. And another, smaller one underneath, like a shadow of the first.
Hey, he said.
Mel smiled in that sleepy way. Told you.
He picked up her other arm; this one had similar marks, except here the scar was shorter, more jagged. Mel traced it with a fingertip. I did this one second, she said. I was nearly unconscious.
Jesus, Mel. He looked at the scar again. When?
Just before I came to Chicago. Two years ago.
Why?
She smirked a little, and he knew that was a question a lot like Was jail bad?
I was unhappy, she said. But I guess you could figure that one out.
She held her wrists in front of her face, looking at the scars like they were bracelets she was thinking about buying.
Will you tell me about it? Brad asked. I mean, if you don’t want to—
She leaned over and kissed him. Sweetly. Then she climbed off her bed and crossed the room to the bureau.
I’m sorry, she said, holding up a joint. I have to get high for this.
Go ahead.
Mel lit up and sat cross-legged on the foot of the bed, an ashtray beside her. She took a deep hit, closing her eyes. She turned her head away from him to blow out the smoke. Brad pushed away the urge to reach over for the joint. Instead he watched Mel’s naked white chest expand and contract, watched the shadows between her ribs deepen. Her eyes took on a soft gleam.
She told him about her old boyfriend Andy, Andrew—and Brad could tell right away, just from the way Mel said his name, that she still loved him, would always love him; she almost didn’t have to tell Brad the rest of the story. Andrew might as well have been in the next room, pacing, waiting for Mel’s guard to drop so he could burst in.
They’d gone to neighboring high schools in Kalamazoo. Mel met him at a dance when she was a junior, and Andy was a senior; he was a friend of a friend. He was a terrible dancer, but he was—she said—so pretty that he got away with whatever the hell it was he was doing. He’d shown up with this horrible flouncy blonde, and the moment Mel looked at the two of them—the blonde thrusting out her boobs and Andrew looking down at them and grinning—she was suddenly and completely furious—
Why? he asked.
Oh, I was a good little church mouse then, she said.
You?
Yeah. I wore penny loafers. I played the clarinet.
You never would have talked to me, right?
She blew out sweet smoke. Oh, she said, I would have prayed for you.
But anyway: Mel went out onto the floor with a group of her girlfriends, and she ended up dancing right next to Andrew, and she got to, you know, putting herself into it—
Like how you dance now? Brad asked.
Mel blushed. Shut up!
—because Mel was trying to show him you could dance without rubbing your crotch on someone. And Andrew noticed, and the blond girl noticed, and Andrew was doing his thing right in front of Mel, and she did her thing—and then a slow song came on, and Andrew took her hand and pulled her in close. And she still hated him, but he was pretty, and as they slow-danced he talked with a low voice into her ear, telling her what a great dancer she was, and she found herself laughing at his jokes, or maybe at how much of a dumb ass he was. How smooth he wasn’t. And then she realized he had a hard-on under his jeans, pressing against her stomach—and to her horror, she got turned on, too, and at the end of the night he asked if he could call her, and she knew she should have said no, but—
You just couldn’t help yourself, Brad said.
Yeah, Mel said, and took a hit. He knew I’d say yes. Andrew saw right through me. Get this: on our first date he told me I was beautiful because I looked so sad all the time. What sort of thing is that to say to someone? But he got me. I ate it up.
Were you?
What?
Were you sad all the time?
Yeah, she said. Pretty much all my life. But anyway—
Andrew called her, and that weekend picked her up in a nice car and drove her out for a burger. They talked about tennis, which they were both good at, and later he drove her home. He kissed her in the car, all innocent and sweet. Her head spun; even after he dropped her off, when she was alone, she could barely catch her breath.
But first he asked if they could do it again sometime, which they did, and then again.
And then one night, when Andy’s parents were gone, he talked her into a couple of glasses of wine, and after that they made out, and he unbuttoned her pants and touched her, and she told him she didn’t want to, and Andrew said, Okay . . . but then went ahead and undressed her and held her arms down and said, Shh, and fucked her anyway—
Brad said, I want to kill him.
Mel let out a cloud of smoke. Me, too. But I stayed with him.
Why?
She shook her head, and said, Because a day later he called me up, and he was crying, and telling me how sorry he was. He told me he needed me. To make him a good man.
She sighed and looked at Brad. And he told me he loved me. I can’t even tell you what that meant . . . you don’t know how lonely I was.
Even now, when she was stoned, buzzed and tired and still smiling—just a little—he could hear her voice want to crumble under that word. He took her hand. Mel’s eyes flickered to him. She laced her fingers in with his, and he knew he’d done the right thing.
And she told him that being with Andy was a lot like being hypnotized. Andy got to talking, and she just . . . believed him. She’d never kissed a boy before Andy, and now he was crying and holding her and telling her he wanted to make love to her—the right way this time—that he never wanted her to feel lonely again, and all the time he was touching her, so that her body wanted to make different decisions than her head . . . What could she say?
They ended up spending three years together. For a while everything was fine—like that one horrible night had never happened, like Andy really was good. Like she’d helped him become good. But then that fall he went off to school at Northern Michigan, which was way up in BFE. And he wasn’t there three months before he called her and told her he wasn’t coming home that weekend, that he couldn’t do this any more—
Let me guess, Brad said. He wanted to fuck around.
Mel nodded and looked at the ceiling. Yeah. Some friends told me they kept seeing him with different girls. I should have just hated his guts. But I was such a sap.
And she told Brad how the next three months ruined her. How she felt like she had before Andy—only everything was magnified now: she sat in church next to her parents, who loved Andy, who had no idea what their daughter had been through, and she understood she’d given up everything for him, and before that she’d given up everything for Jesus, and what was left? What was she? She tried praying, and she tried sleeping with the nice-enough guy from her class who took her to prom . . . and each time she felt nothing. But when she thought about Andy, who had screwed her over—who had raped her—she missed him so much she wanted to pull off her skin. So one night—
One night, she said, I took a bunch of pills.
Mel had finished her joint now, and lay back next to Brad on the bed, her
cheek tucked into the groove between his arm and his chest.
What happened?
I puked it all up—I didn’t take nearly enough. My parents never even knew.
Jesus, Mel.
Yeah, she said. And then—
Then that Christmas, Andy showed up at her house, asking to see her. He was thinner, and looked like an entirely different person: he’d gotten that college-kid look, the Seattle-grunge thing all the boys were into. He’d grown a goatee. At first she didn’t want to talk to him, but Andy started telling her just what she wanted to hear: That she was the only woman he’d ever loved. That since they’d broken up he had felt more alone than he could have dreamed—
She said, It was like listening to myself.
She broke down, holding him, kissing him, letting him take her right to bed. And later that night, out in his car, he offered Mel her first joint. She didn’t want to, but Andy told her how calm it made him, how happy. His eyes lit up, the same way they did when he talked about their future together. Do this with me, he told her. Let’s be together like this. So she tried it, and they smoked all night, and by morning she’d agreed to go to NMU, to be with him.
She was there for only a year. The Upper Peninsula was beautiful—she loved to walk on the lakeshore in summertime—but the winters were brutal and cold, and most of the time all she and Andy did was sit around with his horrible friends and get high. It turned out Andy was into harder stuff than pot—some of his rich skier friends had gotten him into coke. She took it without hesitating much; Andy wanted her to. And she kind of liked it—coke made her feel too buzzed to be unhappy. When the weather was warm they’d all sometimes drive farther up the coast, out into the woods, to a little cabin Andy’s father owned. There they’d spend the weekend getting high and pretending to catch fish. Sometimes she’d even go by herself, to get away from Andy—he couldn’t stand being high out in the woods with nothing to do. She’d dread going back to Andy’s apartment, because when he was on coke he’d always want to fuck, and sometimes he’d get rough, and it reminded her, each and every time, of the first time, made her think that maybe he liked it that way . . .
But whenever she felt the most awful, he’d always look at her and lower his voice and say, Hey, pretty girl, and she’d think: But he loves me—
She said: I’d think, he’s the only one who loves me.
And then, one night, at the end of her first year, she went to a party with him, and saw him talking with a woman she didn’t know. A pretty blonde, the kind who always turned his head. Andy and the woman were standing in a quiet hallway at the back of a house, and while Mel watched the woman ran her hand from Andy’s elbow down to his wrist, and he didn’t pull away; he smiled and put his hand on the woman’s waist, and Mel knew—
It was the worst, Mel said, whispering. Like my eyes had opened. All along I’d been alone. I started alone, and I only got more alone.
She turned her face to Brad. Have you ever felt like that? Like you were nothing? Like if you died no one would care?
Yeah, he said. In jail.
Her fingers twined and untwined with his.
The next weekend, she told him, she cut her wrists. She went home to Kalamazoo, because she knew if she tried it in the dorm someone would find her before it was over. She told her parents she was too sick to go to church, and when they were gone she filled up the tub and got in and swallowed a bunch of pills, and when she felt numb enough she cut her wrists with one of her father’s razors.
It was really peaceful, she told him. It didn’t even hurt much. It was like—it was like being as sleepy as you’ve ever been, and then closing your eyes and finally getting to go to sleep. Like giving up.
Brad could feel her breath on his shoulder.
She said, Turns out Mom was worried about me. Being sick and all. She came home early. I don’t even remember what happened. One minute I’m in the tub, and the next I’m waking up and there’s doctors, and my arms feel like they weigh a hundred pounds each, and I don’t know whether to be happy or sad—
They put her in a center, because they tested her and found evidence of everything she’d been doing at NMU, and she cleaned up, and talked to counselors, and insisted to all of them she was fine, that she didn’t ever want to do drugs again, or want to die. And, now that the coke was out of her system—now that Andy was out of it—she did feel better. Mostly. After a month they sent her back to her parents. She withdrew from school. They wanted her to go somewhere closer to home, but that, she knew, really would kill her. She felt free, finally. She wanted to go to USC—but after weeks of arguing her parents talked her into DePaul, where one of her uncles taught, where they’d wanted her to go in the first place.
So, she said, here I am. All better.
Brad said, So . . .
Well, yeah, I’m smoking pot. I get these, you know, panics? But nothing heavy.
No, I mean—do you ever feel like that? Like . . .
Like killing myself?
Yeah.
She got up and crossed the room again, and rooted in the same drawer that had produced her joint, and then came back with a brown prescription bottle full of pills. She dropped down onto her stomach next to Brad and set the bottle on his chest.
What’s this?
My Celexa, she said. I’m supposed to take it for my anxiety, but I hate it. I’ve been saving it up. I ever have to do it again, I’ll really do it.
You think you’ll have to?
After a long time, she said, Probably not. I think about it all the time, but—hey, don’t worry. I don’t mean it like that.
So throw that out.
Mel picked up the bottle and held it in front of her eyes. She said, No. I kind of like having it, you know? It’s like I’m testing myself. If I ever feel bad I take it out and look at it. And then I ask myself, how bad does it hurt? And so far it hasn’t been that bad.
They make me nervous, he said.
She lowered her voice, spoke with a Russian accent, Not to worry. I am strong like bull.
Mel, you’re nuts.
She said, I didn’t tell you all of this so you could, you know, nurse me to health. Or pity me.
No. He ran his finger along her collarbone. I’m just trying to figure you out You seem so . . . okay.
She grinned and rolled herself on top of him, then kissed him.
Who says I’m not?
V.
In the middle of their second night at the cabin, Brad wakes to utter darkness, but also to sound: a light tapping, followed by a howl.
He’s confused at first. He just heard these same sounds in a dream—he and Mel were in her bed, and upstairs the house was full of wolves, who kept howling, their claws tapping on the ceiling above their heads—
He blinks into the dark, remembers: Md is with him, and they’re in Michigan, at the little cabin. In their makeshift tent. And it’s cold. Cold like he’s never felt—so cold that his cheeks are like sheets of stone, that his fingers don’t want to curl. And the roaring sound is wind—horrendous wind, making the walls of the cabin creak, the windows rattle in their frames.
Brad pulls away from Mel—she mutters and slaps at the mattress where he’s been—and crawls out of the tent. He reaches for the flashlight and then, on stiff legs, follows its beam over to the door.
When he opens it the wind bursts through, so cold and quick that Brad feels like he’s being cut by knives. And—he can barely believe that’s what he’s seeing—there’s snow, too, stinging his cheeks, swirling through the flashlight’s beam. He trains the light on the porch—and sees the snow there is already several inches deep, drifting even higher up against the outside walls.
He crosses the room and shakes Mel awake.
What?
It’s snowing.
What?
She climbs past him to look for herself. While she’s gone Brad lights the grill, and holds his stiff hands over the flames until they prickle. He’s so cold he can barely think.
; Mel scrambles back into the tent.
Did you look at the thermometer? she asks—she means the big round one, nailed to one of the porch rails. Her voice is thick, almost deadened.
No.
Fifteen degrees.
Jesus Christ.
What do we do?
It’s a good question, but he can’t think of what to say. The grill spills out heat like bathwater; he takes Mel’s trembling hands and holds them close to it. The flashlight is still on, next to Brad on the mattress, and in its light Mel’s face shines as white and cold as the snow. Her breath is coming in quick, steaming gasps.
Okay, he says finally. I guess we just have to stick it out till morning. We’ll see what we’re up against when the sun’s out. Mel?
How can you say that? she asks.
She’s looking at her lap now, shoulders heaving. Her hands are clutching into fists.
Her voice falls apart around the words, We’re dead.
No! he says. Mel, come here.
She slides closer, her mouth twisted, her breath sour. She’s never cried like this in front of him; she’ll get teary over little things every now and then, but he’s never seen her sob. It’s awful. She might be right—his own body is numb with cold and fear—but he can’t bear to watch her like this.
Come on, he says. Hey. Come on. We’re not going to die.
She wails, How?
We’ll think of something, he says. All I know is, we can’t panic. Okay?
He holds her to him, strokes her hair, her cheeks, until—at last—she takes a long breath: shaky, but deep.
Then, in a small voice, she says what he’s been thinking: But what happens when we run out of gas?
I don’t know. I’m thinking. You think, too.
Brad—I’ve seen the snows up here. People die all the time—
Listen, he says. It’s not going to snow forever. We’ll wait it out. We haven’t used much gas. Okay? So put on all your extra clothes and stay next to me. In the morning it’ll be warm.
You don’t know that—
No, he says, but that’s what I’m going with.
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