Love Rewards The Brave
Page 7
The two of them
stood outside in the freezing air
talking for what seemed
like an eternity
at least to me
about me
and what I was afraid
to see.
Terry handed Ms. F the box.
She put it in her trunk
slammed it shut
drove it home
for what?
So I can go back through
my childhood memories
see
the words I wrote on a page
the only way I knew
to express my rage.
And now, two years later
the box shows up.
Well guess what?
Terry and Ms. Francine:
I’m grown up.
I don’t need those remnants of my past
to point out the parts that I lack.
A mom and a dad together forever.
I just have a dad who
kissed me
held me
grabbed me
too tight.
I don’t need to read my journals to
remind myself of those
memories.
More like
horror dreams.
Played out
in
real life.
65.
Forget the headphones
the music’s cranked up loud.
I text Jess:
Come over, I’m Bored.
She’s busy.
Markus sang her a song on his guitar.
And now they’re puppy dogs and roses
once more.
God.
Alone on a Saturday night.
I need a
fucking life.
If I go downstairs
my night will consist of listening to
Ms. F and Margot
laugh at inside jokes
constantly causing me to
remember
my solidarity.
Fuck it.
What else am I going to do?
Shampoo
my hair
for the third time today?
What a fucking cliché.
66.
At the kitchen table
they have a SCRABBLE board
spread with tiles
letters
forming
words.
When I walk in they look at me,
expectantly.
Did I need something?
Was I hungry?
Would I like a cup of tea?
Did I want in on the game?
Overbearing is not the
term
because I know they’re trying to
turn
my day around.
Salvage it into some
new found
good.
“Do you like SCRABBLE?” Margot asks.
Why are these two women sitting here
on a Saturday night
playing a board game?
I thought I was the one
who needed a life.
“Um. I don’t know. I mean, I’ve never really played it.”
“Well, do you like words? It’s like a big word puzzle,” Margot says.
My heart catches,
do I say, Yes, I know about words?
That
every thought
in my
brain
is transferred to the
page.
That my life story
is well documented
with ballpoint pens
and stubby pencils
on sheets of paper held
with a single
spiral.
Spiral-
ing
out of control
is my soul,
but it is kept
bound.
Bound
by the pages
of letters
that form into
words.
Life
Puzzles.
“Yes, Margot, I like words,” I say.
Shocking myself
I
sit
down
at the table.
They smile at me
at each other.
Like they were hoping I’d say that.
67.
Finally, Sunday morning lets me
drink coffee
wear sweat pants
with my hair in a headband.
Sunday lets me lay on the couch
watching TV
with a remote control in my hand.
My episode
of Teen Mom
is interrupted
though,
when I see that box of journals
under
the bench at the bottom of the stairs.
It stares me in the face
and I keep wanting to find out if the
Baby Daddy makes
it back
in time
to save face,
but I’m so effing distracted
by what’s next to the
staircase
I can’t focus
on my
donothingalldaySundayplans.
Two more episodes
air.
Commercial breaks
call for
yogurt then a handful of blueberries.
God I wish there was junk food in this house.
Ms. Francine leaves for work,
but Margot is
here.
I hear her get up
take a shower,
blow-dry her hair.
I can’t take it any longer.
Every time I get up I try to walk fast,
but the box is
bringing up my past.
God.
I’m bigger than this, I tell myself.
Knowing in my heart I can’t look away.
I pick up the box.
Remembering to breathe.
68.
It happens faster than I thought.
The flooding of my face
the salty taste
filling the pages
with drops
of liquid
hate.
Hate
for the memories
I forgot about a long
time ago. Blocking them out
so they wouldn’t be all I know.
And now as I turn the dates on each page
I remember the girl I was at every
tender age. A little girl of
7.8.9.10.11.12.13.14…
will it ever
end?
69.
She finds me
in a mess
on the floor.
Tissues forgotten, instead I
use the sleeves of my hoodie
to wipe, again, the never end-
ing stream
of tears.
“Louisa?”
Margot’s next to me, puts her
arm around me
just slow enough for my flinch
to be absorbed by the shock
of her hold-
ing me.
“Louisa, it’s okay, you’re okay.”
And I know she knows why
I’m crying.
Why I’m broken
Here.
Why I live
Here.
Why Ms. F feeds me,
is paid to
keep me
Here.
And I want to push her away
tell her to go,
but the other part
the scarred scared part
wants her to know.
Because then I won’t feel so alone
in all of
this.
And suddenly being alone, with
THIS
seems scarier than being known.
70.
> I don’t know why her, why then, but
I suddenly felt safe
with Margot.
Maybe it was a case of the right time
right place.
Maybe it was a case of
gentle grace
feeling safe
her embrace.
I hand her a book.
I know the volume well.
It was the story of my days from when I was
thirteen.
Officially a teen.
She takes it, cautiously.
“Are you sure?” she asks, timidly.
Like, she knows how fragile it is
to hold someone’s life
in your hand.
Knowing the taking of the
journal was like
receiving a heart transplant.
I offered my heart to her.
Yes, I am sure, I want to say.
Loud and clear.
And even though I want to,
I hold so much fear
inside.
Still, I nod my head.
71.
I watch as she reads the
page pages.
I don’t know what I should do.
Leave her in quiet
or interrupt her so it’s over
or
what?
So I just pick at my black nail polish
as little flecks
land on the carpet.
After awhile she stops.
She points to a portion and says, “You wrote this? All of this? This is you?”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“It’s really beautiful.”
Her eyes are full of those
still same tears my eyes
want to be washed in.
“Beautiful?”
Grimacing at the thought of beauty found in the
story of my life.
How could beauty be found
in a childhood lost?
“Your life has been…too much, Louisa, for sure…but the way you write about it? It’s beautiful. You’re a poet.”
I start picking at my nails again.
A poet?
Quietly I say, “No, Margot. Those are just the pathetic things that happened, I’m no poet. I’m just….”
She stops me. “It’s not pathetic. It’s real. Here, listen to this:
72.
“Some days I feel like I am breaking.
Feel like
I.
Am.
Breaking.
I always thought the falling down or falling out
would be a lot louder.
Like a crash
happen real fast
feel fast
no gravity to hold it up
hold you up
and the fall is deep
and wide.
And I’m spinning inside,
dizzy inside
wanting to hide, but I can't.
I’m in a wide-open space and there’s
no door to crawl behind
no hole in which to bury.
Can’t I just bury
my heart?
Hurry real fast, before it breaks
be gentle now, set it in the fresh
dark dirt and put fistfuls on top of it
to cushion it
to soften it.
Soften the blow that came so close.
But my heart won't let itself be buried deep down.
No.
My heart felt the sweet touch of life.
The touch where hands hold
and heads touch
and dreams are made
and promises kept.
Now the promises are broken
and it’s too late.
You can't protect the heart, it’s already lived too much.
Loved too much.
And when that happens
that life living
that life giving
you can’t fight the feeling'.
I wish I could.
To save this heart from heartache and
heartbreak.
Soon the heartbreak
becomes a break
down
it only happens to those of us who give in
to the soul searching down real deep
it's getting kind of scary here
I’m feeling pretty weary here
sort of life.
They say the breaking into a million pieces
isn't always so bad.
So long as we can
find a hand
to help us pick up the parts
and put them in the places they belong.
Find a place to start again.
Find a start that’s worth it.
Worth the inevitable
Break.
Because it's going to happen
again.
Some days I feel like
I.
Am.
Breaking.”
73.
“Louisa, this is your story. Do you remember writing it?”
Yes.
I remember writing that.
I remember why
my heart
I
broke when I wrote it:
Thirteen years old
and it’s my birthday.
The day of
fairytale
dreamscometrue
blowoutthecandles
makeawishparty
the kind I dreamed about at six
is not happening
today.
For a long time I just thought my parents
were sad
and if I just loved them
the way they wanted,
they might be happy.
But the way they wanted always
hurt
so
bad.
When I started my period
at twelve years old,
a week before my thirteenth year ––
I realized
what the class at school meant
and I realized what Dad
did meant
and it scared me so much
that giving him what he wanted
could do that to me.
74.
I’d always been so oblivious.
I just wanted
to be
normal.
A family that eats together stays together.
That’s what the lady
who lived in the apartment down from mine
would say
to her son when she called him in
from play.
I wanted that.
A family who ate together.
Or at least a family who remembered to buy groceries
and pay the electric bill.
A dad who went to work and a mom
who didn’t always go to her room
to sleep all day.
But when I saw blood in my
pants
the parts I wanted to pretend weren’t there,
the hurt and the
hush-hush
and the “don’t you dare
say a word”
I realized it was more
than making Dad mad-
it was about Dad being bad.
Maybe other girls would have known
wrong from right
what to tell
what shouldn’t be locked away
tight.
But I was always at home
always alone with Benji and Mom and Dad.
See, my family––
maybe we didn’t eat together,
but we were always together.
In the same four walls
no friends came to call.
So I didn’t know the jokes
the girls at school spoke
about.
Laughed about.
If I saw two kids kissing
in
the hall
of the middle school,
I’d always looked away
not ever wanting to stay
around
that.
Because seeing it made me feel
sick inside
make me want to hide
because
I
Didn’t
Understand.
75.
But when I saw that blood,
all the things I tried so hard
to block out
not talk about
forget about
suddenly meant more than I ever
wanted to know.
I spent the entire week
scared shitless.
I was scared for him to know
about the blood.
I didn’t want to make him mad.
So I pretended to be sick in bed
faking a fever and night
sweats
even though
I knew the truth in it.
I was sick.
I felt sick in the
head
as I wrestled all night long with the
demons of
my past
coming up
wrapping around me fast.
Not letting go.
When the blood stopped I knew
what I needed
to do.
76.
“Benji!” I called that day.
The birthday party fantasy
no longer on my radar.
I had bigger fish to fry
like being my Dad’s whore.
And that might sound harsh,
but my edge
came out
that day.
I was sick of it all
my hormones were in a rage
I was just so
over trying to
pacify.
Nothing ever seemed to help.
I wanted to let me go
so we could be a normal family.
so that I could finally breathe.
I decided it was going to start that day.
I had a plan, and I needed to tell Benji
fast.