False Start (Love and Skate)

by Felix, Lila

  I let out a breath I’d been holding since she unbuttoned her pants. It crushed me to think that there was no way for her to get her stress out except to mar her beautiful skin. She put her leg down and I felt the beginnings of tears in my eyes. I wished I’d been there to stop the fourteen year old Hayes, to hold her. To give the young Hayes an outlet.

  “When my thighs got too scarred, I started here,” Now she was undoing my shirt starting at her neck, button by button. If it wasn’t so damned heart wrenching, it might be sexy. I folded my arms over my chest and clenched my fists in an attempt to be strong as she finished whatever it was she was doing. She dropped the shirt at her feet, but I didn’t see any scars there. My angel reached behind her and I knew what she was doing. Her eyes never broke contact with mine. I wanted to look but at the same time I didn’t. The gray lacey bra dropped to the floor and tears followed it.

  She dragged in a breath, “Then I started cutting here,” She placed her hands over her breasts and lifted them slightly. I broke at the sight before me. Underneath them were more whitened lines, all in a row. My tears joined hers and I reached for her, no longer able to stand the distance between us. She stopped me again, jerking her arms from my grasp.

  “One more thing,” she assured me.

  Then she took off her trademark bracelets one by one, it seemed to go in slow motion.

  No, God, please no.

  One arm clear, I could see the scars already, mostly the same as the others, but longer. But as she cleared the other arm, I knew I hadn’t seen the worst. She held her upturned wrists out to me. “I didn’t mean to. I just got out of control and this one,” she pointed to a cut a little wider and deeper than the rest. “This one hit a vein, a big one, and before I knew it, I’d woken up in a hospital and I was strapped down to the bed.”

  “Now,” I begged her.

  She nodded and I pulled her to me, she sat on my lap, facing me. We cried together like that for hours. Neither of us cared that she was naked. Sex had nothing to do with the intimacy we’d shared together. I knew she’d hid something from me, but never imagined it was those scars. I’d give anything, even my own life, to take that pain from her. She shivered once and I pulled a stray blanket over her shoulders and wrapped it in front of her.

  “Are you always gonna see them first?” She whispered as she held me tighter.

  “What?”

  She huffed out a deep breath, “When you see me, are you gonna always see the scars first? I can’t take that from someone I love as much as I love you.”

  “Angel, when I look at you I see your strength. I see your beauty and your love for everyone around you. I might not even have seen the scars if you didn’t show them to me. I will always see the woman I love when I look at you and nothing else.”

  She darted away from me. “You love me too?”

  “I think I’ve loved you since you first came to this apartment. I just can’t believe you love me.”

  She leaned forward, still holding the blanket around herself. We were both painfully aware that her show and tell had turned into something more with our confessions. She leaned forward, straight for my lips, but then last second diverted to the side of my face. She sucked my earlobe into warm mouth while her hips churned a rhythm that would put a belly dancer to shame. “I do love you, Rex Macon.”

  “You can’t do that, Hayes. You’re making me insane.”

  She pulled back and pouted, “You’re not gonna let me stay?”

  “Yes, of course I am. But only with clothes on. We just shared something here, Angel. I just want to hold you—protect you from the world.”

  “You don’t want to kiss me,” she complained.

  “Look at me,” she turned her blue eyes back to mine, “I want to kiss you until you can’t breathe. I want to kiss you until you are incoherent and the only thing left in you is satisfaction. But tonight, I just want to be here with you—just be.”

  “I don’t deserve you,” she smiled, almost quoting me verbatim.

  “Then we’re at an impasse Get dressed. There’s just so much a guy can take.”

  “Ok, ok.” She gave in. Instead of picking up her clothes, she went to my dresser and grabbed one of my army green tshirts and went into the bathroom. I got up and picked up her clothes and locked the door.

  This was just the beginning of talking about this. I needed to know more. Did she still cut? Did she get help?

  She came out of the bathroom and she, if possible, was twice as stunning as she’d been before. There was something about her exposing herself to me like that, trusting me with everything, that made me want to never let her go. I never intended to let her go.

  Hayes walked over to me and took me by the hand, leading me to the bed. I was already in my pajama pants and as she walked to the bed, I could see the teases of lace peeking from the bottom of my shirt as she moved. We lay in my tiny bed together. I had so many questions but didn’t want to pain her any further.

  “Ask me,” she breathed, her fingers ever in my beard.

  “Do you still cut yourself?” I braced myself for the answer. I already knew if the answer was yes—I’d give anything to help her stop.

  “No, it’s been years. I’d lie if I said I didn’t think about it from time to time. But the desire’s not there.”

  I leaned in to kiss her, stamping the truth she’d just spoken to my lips, feeling the honesty in her response. Her lips were always warm, always tasting of cake.

  “Will you tell me if that ever changes—tell me if you ever feel the need to again?”

  “Yes. It felt so wrong keeping that from you. I don’t ever want us to keep anything from one another.”

  “Well, then I guess it’s my turn.”

  Her face fell and since I couldn’t stand for her to be sad anymore.

  “Mine is a good secret. I’m not ready to divulge yet. I still have planning to do.”

  She pouted her lip out, “I guess I can let you keep good secrets.”

  “I love you Hayes. Goodnight.”

  “And I love you, more than you’ll ever know.”

  “You’re late for work, by the way,” I chuckled.

  “Screw it. Vera’s been late more days than I’ve had off. Anyway, I’m not ready to let you go—like ever.”

  The next couple of weeks, we balanced each other out. We spent more time together and every day. I was sure she would tell me she was finally sick of me. But she never did. My plan was completed. All I needed was her permission.

  We explored so many different things together. It had become her mission to help me discover who I was as Rex. I’d found out several things. I discovered that I hated curly fries. I found out that I loved going to piano bars with her—and I loved her face as she swayed with the music. But most of all I loved who I was when I was in her presence. I was content.

  So I just had to convince her to go along with the rest of my plan to make both of us happy.

  I took her to dinner, at the first place I ever took her, Crustacean. I’d ordered our favorite cake and she’d made it herself, for a customer under a pseudo name. I’d picked it up and put it in her refrigerator. She’d given me a key to her place and depending on our schedule we either spent the night at my apartment or her house.

  “What’s the matter with you,” she said stealing one of my egg rolls.

  “Nothing, why?”

  “Broodified.”

  “I am not. I’m actually very happy and very nervous.”

  “About what,” her demeanor faded.

  “If you’re done, we can go find out.”

  “I am now.”

  I took her back to her place and my stomach was in knots. She could say no to all three. She could say no or yes to some and not all. I let her get comfortable while I stomped a path in her wood floors.

  “Ok, what’s the big deal,” she asked. It occurred to me that most people would assume the worst. They’d assume something bad would happen or that my questions would be negat
ive. But not Hayes—she always assumed the best.

  “I have three questions and you have to answer each truthfully.”

  She nodded her agreement.

  “Question one: Do you want cake?”

  She rolled her eyes, throwing her arms in the air, “That’s not even a sane question. Who doesn’t want cake and especially me? I hope the rest of the questions are better.”

  I hoped so too.

  “Ok, I got a cake for you today.” I went to the refrigerator and brought out the sheet cake, still in encased in the white cardboard box. She stood next to me, “What kind?”

  “You tell me.” I waved her on, wanting her to discover what was inside.

  She opened the box and then squinted her eyes in my direction. “I made this cake. They gave you the wrong one. This one is for a girl whose boyfriend is surprising her with a European culinary vacation. Hence the Eiffel Tower and the outline of Italy and all the little pictures I had to print out on sugar sheets.

  “No. That’s the right cake alright. Almond with raspberry filling for the guy who wants to take his girl on a culinary vacation.”

  “That’s not in the form of a question.”

  I laughed. She wasn’t going to let me get away with easy. But that was fine with me, since even difficult didn’t feel like a strain with her.

  “Hayes, will you go to Europe with me for three months—it’s not like you have a job or anything.”

  She jumped up and down with a squeal, “Vera is gonna flip when I tell her. And my parents—I have to tell my parents!”

  I reached for her, stopping what I hoped was her victory dance, “You’re answering my question about you with stuff about other people again.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. Did you really think the answer was going to be no?”

  I shrugged and looked to the floor, “I didn’t know. I hoped. I dreamed. I wished. But you’ve got me so dizzy I can’t even think straight.”

  She kissed me then, a frenzied kiss of love and happiness. “Yes, of course I will go with you. I’d go with you anywhere.”

  We found ourselves lost in another fit of passion until she pushed me back.

  “I hid something in that cake,” she whispered and then her eyes bulged. I never knew so much fun could be had watching realization take over her face. “I hid something in that cake!”

  I held her to me, it seemed like she might run over bunnies to get back to the cake. “What, Angel? What did you hide in the cake?”

  She was practically hyperventilating, her eyes tearing up as she answered. “There’s a clear tube in the center. There’s a diamond ring inside.”

  “And that’s my third and final question. That ring is yours. But it means you’ll have to put up with my antics. It means you’ll have to endure my broodiness. It also means I’ll love you for the rest of my life. Will you be my wife?”

  She bumped her head against my chest nodding yes. While I was relieved, I needed to hear it.

  “I can’t hear a nod.”

  “Yes, Rex. Yes. If you promise to wear the suspenders on our wedding day.”

  “Yeah,” I chuckled, “I promise.”

  One Year Later

  Rex

  Halfway through Europe, we decided to elope, much to the anger and surprise of our families. She chose a small chapel in a tiny village in Northern Italy. We only had the witness of the preacher and two older couples who happened to be passing by. She wore jeans and a sweater and I wore jeans and a flannel t-shirt. And I made sure, the suspenders were firmly in place. I made her promise she wouldn’t hate me one day for not giving her the white dress and flowers. She swore she wouldn’t over dinner in an Italian bakery that night.

  Maddox and Storey had a little girl who they named Sela after Mad’s mother.

  Almost exactly nine months afterwards, we had a girl named Darby.

  I understand so many things now. I understand the way the brothers always doted on their wives because I couldn’t stop myself from bringing Hayes flowers or making sure she had ever comfort she needed. I understood the constant baby talk because from the second I laid my eyes on Darby I was consumed with love and obsession for her. Love had become something I strived to do better day after day instead of running from it, hiding my want for it in the corner.

  My love for Hayes, coupled with her happy disposition and refusal to let me settle for punishing myself, saved me. I tried to spend every day paying her back for it.

  I was still in school, but only had one more semester. Hayes, with her investor husband and now brother in law, Falcon, had opened her own bakery. Sylvia’s restaurant and nearly twenty others in the city bought all of their bread from her bakery exclusively.

  I was complete, all thanks to a girl who saw me for what could be and decided to pursue it.

  Owen

  15 years later

  “I’m going to get my hair done and then Cybill and I are going shopping. Do you need anything,” Nellie, my Nellie, called to me from the living room.

  “No, I don’t need anything.”

  She bustled into the room and grabbed her purse from the dresser. She dug her keys out of the jacket she wore on the previous day and then stopped in her tracks.

  “Owen, she gave you those tapes so we could listen to them, not just stare at the box all day.” She sat on my lap. Even at almost forty years old and with two teens in the house, she was still my firecracker. She’d taught me to love and to trust. She made me laugh every day. She was fierce about our family and anyone who messed with our children would pray for death before she was done with them.

  “I need to do it by myself. I can’t tell you why, but I have to be alone.”

  “I get it. I do. I’m gone and Cyrus won’t be back home for another two hours. Sounds like you’ll be alone for a while. Just try to listen. It might help you, Owen. You haven’t been the same since.”

  “Ok,” I answered solemnly. I stared a hole in that box, wanting it to flee or fight me—something other than opening it and facing what was inside.

  “Nellie, I love you,” I called to her as she opened the door.

  “I love you double, Owen.”

  I heard the deadbolt turn and it sealed me in place. That box and I were at a standoff.

  “It’s just a box of USB drives. That’s it,” I convinced myself out loud.

  My inner Hulk took over and I stalked over to it, throwing the top aside and pulling the first one out. She’d labeled them by dates. The one I picked up was dated four months before her first trip to the hospital. I walked into my study, that’s what Nellie called it. I called it an office. Work was done there. But Nellie said that’s where she sat and read while I worked, and pretended not to study me.

  I stuck the stick into the USB port and waited for everything to load. Suddenly her face popped up on the screen and her first words blew me away.

  “Hi Owen. You just left the house. You gave me this idea. So, it’s essentially your fault. If you’re seeing this, it means I’m gone. It’s weird to think about, me making this for you to watch after I’m gone. But there’s things I wanted to tell you and your brothers. Things that are too hard to say in person. I have a list see?” She fluttered a pink piece of paper in front of the screen. “Falcon would be proud. Anyway, I’m starting at the beginning when Chase found me so long ago…”

  I struck the pause button, already rivers flittered down my face as I knew they would. She looked frail even in the video. My mom had made it through six months of chemo successfully. She made it through radiation treatments too. Ten years later the nodules came back and she went through another four years of treatments. But her immune system had been compromised and what started as a tiny sneeze grew into a sinus infection, which transformed into bronchitis and pneumonia and when the liquid took over her lungs in the hospital, she breathed her last breath surrounded by us all. When we went to the funeral home to make the arrangements we found she had already arranged it all. Falcon didn’t speak to anyone fo
r three days afterward. He was the closest with Mom. And that was his way. He shut down. And then at the lawyer’s office, I was handed a box and was instructed to pass it along through each brother, including Nixon and Rex. She left a letter to her five sons and five daughters. She left another to her eight grandchildren. She left a video to my dad. We thought that was it. But then my Dad informed me that she’d been videoing herself whenever she felt up to it. It took me that long to open it up.

  “I want you to know most of all that the things that stood during your childhood still stand now. You are the big brother. They will always look for your approval on everything, even if they joke about it. Nellie is your perfect match. She is easy going, patient and loving. I couldn’t have chosen a better fit for you myself. Falcon will always be the rock. He will always be the advisor, the one with the tempered head and wise opinion. Trust him, always. Mad will always be the naysayer. But the naysayer is also the Devil’s Advocate. His opinion counts too. Plus, Maddox is my clown. He was born to be our comedic relief.” She looked down and smiled, cue cards; that sounded like my mom. She probably had written out cue cards.

  “Nixon is the family man. You ever have a concern about family or marriage, go to him. I’ve never seen a man cherish and revere his family as much as Nixon does. And Rex, dear, sweet Rex. Keep an eye on him for me. Because if anyone deserves happiness, he does, but he will also be the first to self-sabotage it. All of my girls have videos too, but don’t watch them. I’m certain to get weepy. Because I love you boys, I do. But I couldn’t have dreamed up better daughters.” She wiped the tears from her eyes and I did too. She said that was all for the time being and turned off the camera. As her face disappeared from the screen I reached out to touch it, trying to grab her, reach into the computer and pull her back into my life again.

  She’d raised us to live without her. She’d given us the skills, the love and the strength of a family unit to see us through. I watched the first video over and over until I heard the front door again.

  “Hey Dad,” Cyrus walked into the office. He was now twenty years old. He had my build and his mother’s warm eyes. He’d struggled through school because of his severe Dyslexia, but he’d made it. Unsurprisingly, he’d decided not to go to college, opting instead for opening his own mechanic shop. He wasn’t good at reading and writing but he could pull a car apart and put it back together before you could blink.