Red Lights, Black Hearts

by Fabiola Francisco

  After the second night of being snowed in, Max left and prepared for a short trip to Germany. His words. Probably meant to ease me and inform me he’ll be back soon.

  In my own silence, I analyze my world. I analyze my truths and my deceptions. I was living a life I was content with until recently. I was surviving without the constant memories drowning my mind. The insecurities I buried deep within not making an appearance.

  Until now.

  Now everything has resurfaced. Now every truth is exposed in the front of my mind, a cursing memory haunting me in case I had forgotten where I came from and who I was.

  A rag-doll with loose threads barely keeping her together. Unsown by a seam ripper who fed off of her pain.

  Anyway. Not having Max around has given me space. Space to think. Space to breathe. Space to hide. The glass shelters me despite its transparent state. The walls in my small room protect me. The men that walk in surrender to me. All of this makes for the perfect escape. An escape I am craving and dreading at the same time. My analytical self knows this is what has helped me move forward in life. My foolish self wants to tear at the belief system I’ve created to fall victim to fairy tales with a Prince Charming and a Sleeping Beauty waiting to be awoken by a kiss.

  Kisses don’t heal. Princes don’t wake you up from nightmares. You are responsible for your own living and the only one who can break the bonds of the past.

  Do I want that? Is it even possible to break away from your past when it is what has created you? When did I become a pensive person?

  And when the hell did I begin comparing life to a Disney movie?

  It’s Max’s influence. I’m sure of it.

  “Come on, babe. I’ll walk you home.” Bale turns off the light and walks out. I follow him and shiver at the feel of the coolness against my hot skin.

  “How are things going?” he asks.

  “Good.” I raise an eyebrow. He laughs at my reaction. Bale isn’t one for small talk.

  “Just wanna make sure you’re okay.”

  “I am.”

  “You thought anymore about Max and giving yourself a chance at happiness?”

  “This again? I’m already happy. I don’t need someone for that.”

  “I agree you don’t need someone to make you happy, but you definitely are not as happy as you could be.”

  “I’ll make you a deal. When you let go of your ghosts, I’ll let go of mine.”

  “Sam,” he warns.

  “You know Bale, it wasn’t your fault.”

  “It wasn’t yours either that you were stuck in an abusive relationship.”

  “I know. I don’t blame myself for what happened to me. I just can’t forgive someone who would hurt a person they claim to love.” I’m no longer talking just about John. A parent should never have the desire to hurt a child.

  “Forgiveness. It’s difficult, but if you don’t your heart will always be numb.”

  “I’d rather have a numb heart than a broken one.”

  “Numbness is just an illusion we create. You should know that. You’re still feeling, except your heart is full of anger and resentment.”

  What is it with the men in my life calling me out on my feelings? I know he’s right. I’m the first to understand the difference between illusion and reality.

  “I want what’s best for you. I want you to heal.”

  Bale has become like a big brother, but I don’t want a speech. Suddenly he’s had a change of heart or an opening that makes him entitled to make sure I find happiness. I thought we both understood each other and our paths.

  “I saw a therapist once. After Evi died. He showed me a technique. I never used it. Didn’t need to, but maybe you can. Maybe you can find forgiveness for the both of us. It’s called ho’oponopono. It’s from your country. Hawaiian. It stands for I love you, I’m sorry, Please forgive me. Some kind of healing happens when you repeat this with someone in mind you feel you need healing from. I’ll never forgive the man who took Evi away, and I know you feel as though you can never forgive John. You can forgive yourself for acting in a way you needed to. You can forgive yourself for not getting out sooner. I know you blame yourself for those things.”

  “Thank you for your concern Bale.” I leave it at that. He never talks about Evi, and I appreciate him resurfacing such a painful experience to help me. It’s been years since he lost her, and I know that every day that passes he curses himself for not being with her the night she was killed.

  When we reach my apartment building, I give him a tight hug and walk inside. He’s a good person.

  Anxious, I sit on my bed unable to sleep. Despite having danced all night and seduced men, I feel restless. Chaos is swimming within me at the mix of emotions. At the resistance I am feeling towards who I am and who I want to be. Perception does create our reality. Max was right.

  So many things to take in. So many realities to consider. Someone who is depressed has a different reality than someone who is content. Our experiences mark our realities, but we have the control to react differently. It’s in my face all the time. The little girl who wants to come out and be free. Max and Bale telling me to forgive and move on, releasing the past.

  How does someone like me, with so much hatred and anger, let go? How does someone with a black heart, find the well-being of it’s beating organ again? Most importantly, the question I’ve been asking myself, am I ready for what that will mean? A new version of myself. A version of myself I have not been acquainted with for years. A true version of myself.

  I wake up to the streaming light from my window. The sun is brighter today. I lace up for a run. Fresh air will help. Every realization from last night and the previous couple of months is still overwhelming, but sleep helped. A run will be a magical cure to the stress and confusion.

  Halfway through my run I realize that I’ve been elsewhere in my mind. I am not even aware of how I got to this point in the city or what turns I took. Instead, I’ve been repeating ho’oponopono in my mind. To no one in particular. A mantra stuck on replay while my body maneuvers me through a city so perfectly even when I am not aware of my movements.

  I return home without the nonsense Bale put into my mind last night. I don’t need to forgive, love, or apologize to the dead, or living for that matter. It’s a crock of shit that I don’t need fed to me. Manure was never my flavor of choice.

  I hate doing mundane things. It reminds me that I am human. That I have pained and suffered, loved and hated. It reminds me that life goes on long after you see it in a different way.

  I lug the grocery bags up the stairs, never aware of why I buy half the stuff I buy. I throw most of it out anyways.

  “Whoa!” I jump back, tense.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.” Exhaustion vibrates off Max.

  “It’s okay.”

  “I wanted to talk to you,” he responds to the unanswered question of my raised eyebrows.

  I open the door and walk in, putting away my groceries while he sits at the small round table I have in my kitchen.

  “Let go of everything and be free,” Max says. That’s the thing about him. He doesn’t sugarcoat anything. He just says what he wants no matter how I’ll react. He doesn’t care about my reaction, he cares about getting his point across. His savior role. A role I told him I didn’t need.

  “I am.”

  “Really free. You’ve lived here for years and haven’t explored. You’ve been locked up in a glass case that feigns beauty. All it is, is a playhouse. An act instead of reality. You speak so highly of reality versus perception. That glass prison is your perception of freedom. True freedom is not being locked up out of fear that letting go of the past will change you.”

  “You have no idea what you’re talking about.” My teeth are clenched. He came fully loaded to fire his opinion my way.

  “I do. I know exactly what I’m talking about. Bale tells you the same thing. It’s time. It’s time to forgive and move on. Learn from it, but damm
it, live.”

  “I am living.” I slam my hand down on the table. “I’m fucking living. I work. I eat. I run. I fuck.” I know I’m crossing a line.

  “Fucking is another mask you wear to hide from the world.”

  “You seemed to enjoy it,” I counter. I’m pushing my limits.

  His chair screeches against the old, wood floor as he stands. “You may say it was fucking, but at that moment you know damn well that was more. We aren’t strangers. We are linked. Yes, connected,” he says when I roll my eyes upon hearing the word. “I haven’t been gone long enough for you to forget.”

  I see it. The same way I see the little girl in me struggling to come out, I see the fear in him that I’ll never understand the connection we have. Deeper than words and contact.

  Here’s the thing with people like me. Feelings? Bullshit. We’ve been knocked down so many times that we reach a point where we no longer care. We no longer care about anyone else because we are numb. We are cruel. Or so we think.

  Final blow.

  “My first mistake was giving you my heart. My second was taking yours. I had no intention of returning it nor of loving it.”

  “That’s a harsh thing to say,” he says calmly. “But if I have to be the person that takes your verbal punches, then so be it. If that is my role in your life so you can move forward, I’ll do it.”

  “This isn’t a verbal punch, Max. I’ll never be able to love you like you want. I never meant to.”

  He smiles. Softly and kindly. I feel like I missed something.

  He leaves me alone in my kitchen, feeling as if I have just ran a marathon. Who takes people’s verbal punches? He’s a masochist.

  I slow my breathing, an underlying headache forming right above my hairline.

  He returns with something in his hand. I thought he had left.

  “Who is this?” He shoves a picture in my face.

  “Where did you get that?” The panic in my voice is evident. I’m not even sure why.

  “Answer me.”

  “You know who that is.”

  “Go back to her.”

  “I can’t. She doesn’t exist anymore.”

  “Of course she does. She’s the true you. Before everything you experienced locked her up.”

  I stare at the little girl in the picture with dark eyes and messy hair. Her smile careless. Something inside me clenches at her memories. Running wild. Picking flowers. Laughing. Star gazing.

  “What took her away?” I whisper.

  “Only you know that.” I’d forgotten Max was here. I got lost in my own memories.

  I’m losing control. Everything is spiraling out of me, and I no longer have the strength nor care to hold it in. My perfectly manicured façade is demolishing and I’m in shambles as my world falls apart. The glass has been shattered and everything it held within bursts out like an angry sea that has been contained against its will. A hurricane fiercely ripping at everything.

  I cry for the first time in years. Not just a lonely tear or two while I try to hold it in. No. I sob. Every emotion I have ever felt in my adult life is expelled as I drop to the floor and surrender to my reality.

  I can’t take it anymore. I can’t take living someone else’s pain. I can’t spend my life questioning what if. What if. What if. What if is going to kill me. It’s driving me crazy not knowing. Not remembering. It’s a mind game.

  Through my sobs I feel myself being carried and gently placed on my bed. The bed dips down as Max settles next to me quietly holding me in consolation. I hear him mumble to Bale on the phone that I won’t be at work today. And I let him.

  Here’s the thing, we all have our own issues to work through, but the breakdown happens right before you make a choice to fight for yourself or drown in it. As Max holds me, I let him make that decision for me because I am preoccupied with deciding if I will fight or drown.

  I remember crying like this once. When was it? When? Desperation. When my father moved out. I never thought of myself as having daddy issues. He left because there was nothing else for him to do for my mom. I eventually understood it. Maybe the little girl then did not. She saw it as abandonment.

  Daddy issues.

  It all starts to make sense. I stayed with a man who would hurt me because it was better than having a man that would leave me. I work a job where I am in control, telling the men when to leave instead of having them walk out.

  However, that underlying what if still haunts me.

  “I made you some tea.” Max enters my room quietly.

  I sit up on my bed embarrassed. Emotions that remind me I am a person that feels. In case I had forgotten, which I often times do.

  “Thanks.” I take the tea from him and the tag at the end of the tea bag catches my eye. Live in light.

  I sip it slowly, blowing the liquid to cool the heat burning my lips. Quiet. I appreciate the quiet. My eyes stay glued to the amber liquid that is meant to soothe me.

  “How do you feel?”

  I look up at Max with a raised eyebrow. He laughs nervously. “Okay, okay. I just wanted to ask.”

  I’m lost. My only consolation prize is that Max is my compass, and if I lose him I won’t find the exit to this nightmare.

  Connections.

  The wise say that in order to heal you must feel every pain, experience every chaos, and intentionally release the pain from forgiveness and love. I have no idea where I got that from, but it sounds like something my tea bag would say.

  “Let’s go have dinner. Laid back, but it will be good to walk outside a bit.”

  Every part of me that resisted my emotions, my weaknesses, and my reality has dissipated. I nod my head, shower, and leave with Max.

  We eat at a small Italian place. Five euros for any dish. I overload on pasta while we sit in silence. A few words spoken here and there, but mostly Max respects that I need the space.

  Fight or drown? It’s so much easier to drown. It’s effortless. I could just let go and sink into the abyss without a backwards glance.

  “I can see the moon reflected in your eyes. The whole universe shines in them.” Then I hear his voice, and I have to wonder if the fight is worth it.

  “The beauty of the moon is neither subtle nor minute. You’re always aware of the moon. When it is shining in the sky and when it’s not. Always seeking it,” he continues. “You’re my mond even if I can’t see you all the time.”

  Fight.

  If I drown, I let the others win.

  And though I don’t really believe in pleasing others anymore, looking into Max’s eyes, my own self reflected in them, I have an urge to satisfy him.

  The night is chilly, but no longer the cold winter nights. Spring is quickly approaching and the tulips will bloom all over the city, adding rainbows of color throughout.

  Max grabs my hand and laces our fingers together. We continue to walk, him offering his support as I figure out a way to fix myself.

  How long will it take for me to stop bleeding black?

  I tell Max I’m okay and assure him he can go home. I need time alone as well. I broke down. I lost control. I have to wonder if I ever really had it. How much control do any of us ever really have?

  I don’t sleep. Instead I stare at the picture of me as a little girl. The one Max shoved in my face. The one that is a reflection of the girl crawling out of me that I keep shoving back in. Keeping her a prisoner.

  I look into her eyes in that picture and stare. Just stare. The eyes are the windows to our soul so maybe the little girl’s soul will speak to the one that abandoned me when bitterness took over and darkness became a permanent fixture in my life. She can tell me what happened. She can share why my light was turned off before the experiences I do recall.

  The picture doesn’t speak to me. I knew it wouldn’t. It’s Max and Bale’s influence sneaking into my mind, but that doesn’t stop me from falling asleep subconsciously repeating ho’oponopono. This time to someone in particular.

  I go straight
to work after my sob fest. Max never comes back into my room. Instead now he waits for me outside. When I’m done, he walks me home in silence. His unconditional support speaking volumes of the person he is. We haven’t been intimate again. He won’t come second to my job, but he won’t push me before I’m ready. I’m good at reading people. Except for John. He was an expert at interchanging masks to hide who he really was.

  “Hey,” Max says as I exit my room.

  “Hi, are you always going to be here?”

  “For now.” He smiles and stands away from the wall he was leaning against.

  “You don’t have to, you know.”

  “I want to.” He leaves it at that even though I know he wants to say more.

  A week after I let it all come out Max has been more careful and more present. Bale just smiles at me as if I am on the road to recovery. This isn’t Alcoholics Anonymous and I’m not on a twelve step program. Every night before I leave he whispers words of wisdom as if he were the new Deepak Chopra. When did Bale become the father of forgiveness? I still want to see him incorporate that into his own life.

  Me? I’m still in my own head trying to figure out how to fight when my mind challenges me to continue holding on to the past so I don’t have to work on who I am. It’s easier to hold the grudge and hatred than to accept some kind of responsibility, because everything we manifest is in part ours, right? At least those are the thoughts that come to me while I’m awake in the early hours of the morning. I stare out my window a lot. I look at the moon, desperately pleading for her to help me. She just hangs in the night sky while I replay scenes of my life. I cradle my body as memories rush through me until the sun peeks over the horizon and I’m grateful for its light and warmth. It’s comforting when the light shines through and the coolness of the night disappears.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” Max stares into my eyes, searching for a key that will unlock the door barricading me from him.

  “I am.”

  “When you hurt, I hurt. It’s the way the universe works. You are a part of me.”

  “I’m okay.” I unlock the door to my building.

  “Will you ever be okay enough to leave this life?”