Fuck this. She grabbed three bottles of beer from the cupboard and balanced them in her hands. She tossed one bottle into the air, and then the next. They found their way into the familiar pattern. Whitney watched that point at their peak as she juggled the bottles of amber liquid. They were heavier than the balls, but still familiar after all the juggling she did at the bar.
Until… crash. One bottle hit the floor. She watched with a sick kind of pleasure as the glass shattered into shards and the liquid spilled over the hardwood. Fuck it. She threw the second one down, then the third. They both exploded on impact.
She set her teeth in a grim smile. This was exactly what she needed—to break everything, just like she had broken her entire life. She took a step closer to the wreckage, a shard of glass sinking into her one foot. The pain only spurred her on. The blood that ran out made her more determined.
Raising her left leg, she smashed down the prosthetic. The shard exploded under her “foot.” She laughed with dark joy as she watched more and more glass shatter. The beer splashed around the room.
She brought her leg up and crashed it down again, breaking more glass. She could feel the blister rubbing against her cup. It hurt. She wanted it to hurt. She rubbed her good foot into the glass, sick with the knowledge that this was what she deserved. This was what she got for being defective.
She didn’t know how long she kept going, crushing, laughing, bleeding. The next thing she knew was a wet nose on the back of her hand. She turned and looked down at the dachshund, whose innocent little face was full of worry. She looked up at her as if to say, “Come on now. Stop this.”
Her heart wrenched, and she collapsed to her knees. “I’m sorry, Valentine.”
The dog put her paw over her shoulder and she wrapped her arms around her small back, sniffling into her fur. “I’m sorry.”
After a moment, she stood up, knees and foot both running red. She would find a washcloth. She would clean this up.
But she still felt the same inside.
Twenty-Three
It was always hard for Yolanda to tell the time when she woke up. The tiny window at the top of her bedroom only let so much light in, no matter the time of day. She pushed herself out of bed, her head aching as she went to look at the clock in her living room. It was already past four.
As memories of the night before drifted back to her, she shook her head. She had messed up. After Whitney had been so patient, so understanding of her self-denial, Yolanda had been horrible to her.
Whitney was willing to give her all the pleasure in the world, asking for nothing for herself. In return, Yolanda had pushed past her boundaries. She had persisted even after Whitney had clearly said she didn’t want it. Why should Whitney have to give a reason for not wanting something? Yolanda should have just accepted it.
Maybe Whitney would have allowed Yolanda to touch her one day when she was comfortable. Now Yolanda would never find out. She had only just come to terms with her desire for this woman, and now she had gone and ruined the entire thing.
After a quick shower, Yolanda headed up the stairs with heavy steps. She found Truman sitting in the kitchen, flipping through some news articles on his tablet.
“Where’s Jessie?” she asked.
“Out with Ella.” Truman tapped on his screen, then looked up at her as if just seeing her. “Where were you last night? I heard the door later than usual. In fact, it seems like you’ve been extra late every night this week.”
“Working,” Yolanda grunted. “Where else would I be?”
“I don’t know,” Truman said, raising an eyebrow at her. “Just seems like you don’t normally get home from work around five. Especially not whistling a happy little jingle.”
“I wasn’t whistling,” Yolanda mumbled.
She wouldn’t be anymore, that much was for sure. Not after how she had messed things up with the girl she was falling for.
“You’re sure nothing is going on?” Truman asked. He looked straight at her, setting his tablet aside.
Yolanda heaved a sigh. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to open up to him a little bit. They had known each other for years, after all. He was family to her, and the father of her child.
“Well, since you asked,” she said, still hesitant despite everything else. “I kind of met somebody. But… I’m just not sure.”
“Not sure? What do you mean? This is the first time you’ve mentioned anyone since Jessie was born.” Truman looked at her expectantly, his eyes lit up.
Yolanda was glad he didn’t seem jealous. As she had told Whitney, there was no messiness in their relationship. “The thing is… This person…”
When she hesitated, Truman prompted her for more. “What about her?”
“You—what—?”
“If you were expecting me to be surprised, Yolanda, you have another think coming. I’m just surprised it took so long.”
Yolanda’s heart dropped. “So you’re like everybody else,” she said softly. “You think I’m gay, too.”
“I don’t think anything,” Truman said quickly. “I just always found it strange that you didn’t date anyone else after me. I know having Jessie takes up a lot of your time, but she takes up a lot of my time too, and Ella and I are able to have a healthy relationship.”
“You two are different,” Yolanda said “I’m… well, I thought I was straight.”
“People have told you for a long time that you might be gay,” Truman said. “This can’t have been much of a surprise to you.”
“I just never saw it,” Yolanda said. “And I still don’t understand why people would think that. You always believed me, didn’t you?”
“Not exactly,” he said gently. “To be completely honest, I’ve had my doubts for a long time. Even when we were dating, you just didn’t seem that enthusiastic about things.”
“Not enthusiastic?” Yolanda’s heart felt weak. “If anything, I was more enthusiastic than you. Remember how you never used to want to kiss me in front of our friends?”
“Yes, I do,” he said. “But it felt like you were trying to prove something to the others. What happened when we were in private? As soon as we were behind closed doors, it was like you wanted nothing to do with me.”
His voice dropped, and Yolanda wondered if this was painful for him to talk about. It was hard for her, too.
“It was never like that,” Yolanda said.
“I don’t know,” Truman said. “When we were dating, it always felt… hollow. Everyone could see it. You would hold my hand in public, but dropped it as soon as we were alone. Even the sex, well…”
He trailed off, and they looked at each other sympathetically. Yolanda could remember all too well what a struggle it had been. He wanted it far more often than she did. When she gave in, she was never too turned on, and she was always ready to finish their sessions long before he ever was. Something about his body just left her cold.
It was nothing like how she felt toward Whitney. She could touch her all day without even taking off her clothes, and she would be aching for her the whole time. She went into spasms of ecstasy as soon as Whitney touched her below the belt. Whitney could do incredible things to her, things she had never imagined before she met her.
“I did care about you,” Yolanda said, knowing she was fighting a losing battle. Truman was clearly in the right.
“I know you cared,” he said, dropping his eyes to his tablet as if wishing he could go back to playing with it. “That’s obvious at this point. We’ve been friends for so long, and you’re an amazing mom to Jessie. But I have to say, when I left you for Ella, you hardly even seemed to care.”
“Of course I cared,” Yolanda said. She leaned both elbows on the table, although she wished she could stand up and walk away. “I was hurt. I didn’t want you to go.”
“Were you hurt?” Truman asked softly. “Or was it just that you didn’t have a boyfriend to point to anymore when your friends asked if you were gay?”
“I hope
that’s not what you think of me,” Yolanda said. Her heart was breaking at the thought that he’d been hiding these feelings all this time.
“I’m sorry to have brought this up, but you asked. Like I said, you’re a great mom to Jessie. There are no hard feelings either way. We’ve made a wonderful little family here, and what we have is working out for us.”
As Truman finished speaking, Jessie and Ella walked in the door. Ella’s eyes met Truman’s, and Yolanda looked from one to the other as words seemed to pass between them.
“Mama, look at my dolls.” The little girl dropped an armful of dolls on the floor, blissfully unaware of the conversation that had just been happening. She had ten or twelve Barbie and Ken dolls with her, each in a different outfit.
“They’re wonderful,” Yolanda said, quickly getting down to her knees to play with Jessie. She picked up a Ken doll, making it walk toward Jessie’s Barbie. “Hello! What’s your name?” she said.
Jessie giggled in that way she had. She looked just like Truman when she did that. “Barbie!”
“Would you like to go on a date, Barbie?” Yolanda asked.
“Yes, please!”
Yolanda made her doll join hands with Jessie’s doll, and the two walked together across the floor. As Ella left the room, Truman got on the floor with them. He picked up two Ken dolls and showed them to the little girl. “Jessie, did you know that sometimes two men love each other like a man and woman love each other?”
“No.”
Yolanda’s heart clenched. But as she looked at the innocence on her daughter’s guileless face, she realized Jessie meant “no, I didn’t know” rather than “no, they can’t.”
“They can,” Truman said, not disheartened for a moment. “And that’s just fine. Sometimes two girls can love each other, too.” He picked up two Barbie dolls and made them hold hands, demonstrating it to the four-year-old.
“Two girls can go on dates?” Jessie asked.
“Exactly.”
“I want to go on dates with girls,” Jessie said. “Not boys!”
“You’ll figure that out when you’re older,” Truman said. “I just want you to know about this for now. You should never, ever care if a boy likes boys or if a girl likes girls.”
“No, I don’t care,” Jessie said. She picked up the two Ken dolls. As she made them stand close to each other, she pushed their plastic hands together. “Boys and boys and girls and girls,” she said happily.
A lump was forming in Yolanda’s throat. How was it that Jessie at her tender age could see what it had taken her so long to understand?
“Would you care if Mama was like that?” Truman asked.
“No! I want Mama to be happy.”
The lump grew to the point that Yolanda couldn’t talk. She just nodded, tears forming behind her eyelids.
Her friends were fine with it. Her family was fine with it. Even her preschooler was a-okay with it.
She was the last one to accept her sexuality, and even she was well on the way there.
Yolanda didn’t need to touch Whitney in a way she wasn’t comfortable with to be sure that she was gay.
Now she just hoped it wasn’t too late to tell Whitney that.
Twenty-Four
Whitney swept up the last few bits of glass shards and dropped them in the garbage. She had already mopped up the spilled beer and put bandages over the bleeding on her legs. She took off her prosthetic and deposited it on her bed, then took off the cup as well. She brought her crutch next to the bed. Her stump needed a break. That blister was getting bad.
On her crutches, she made her way back over to the kitchen. She opened the drawer and pulled out the medal that was stuffed in the back. She examined the profile of George Washington and the embossed For Military Merit on the back, letting the purple fabric slip through her fingers.
Most people would have been proud to have something like this. If things had been just a little different, Whitney might have been among them. But she had messed up so badly. She would never be proud of the time she’d spent in the service.
As she fingered the silky fabric, she jolted at the sound of her phone vibrating in the other room. She grabbed her crutches again and made her way there. The number was one that she didn’t recognize. She picked it up anyway.
“Hello?”
“Hey, is this Whitney Dixon?”
Whitney’s brow furrowed. “Yeah.”
“The Whitney Dixon that was in the Marines a couple years ago?”
“Yep.”
The voice sounded familiar, although Whitney couldn’t place it. She hoped it wasn’t someone calling for donations or anything like that. One time, someone had called asking her to give a speech at a local school. She had shut that down pretty fast.
“Hey, Whitney. This is Andrew from boot camp. Do you remember me?”
A shiver went down Whitney’s spine. Of course she remembered Andrew. They had been best friends during basic training at the Marine base. They had trained together all day and drank together all night, joking around in the way that only Marine recruits had.
“It’s been a long time,” Whitney said. “How are you?” She sat down, still looking at the Purple Heart in her hands.
“I’m great,” Andrew said. “I was just thinking about you. Something told me to look you up. I still have your number from way back when.”
“Wow, it’s been a while.”
“So how are you doing?”
“I’m great. I’m working as a bartender these days. What about yourself? You’re back from deployment?”
“No, just on a break.”
“That’s great,” Whitney said, trying to keep the bitterness out of her voice.
Andrew was a real soldier, unlike Whitney. Andrew went on one deployment after another, going away and coming back, and never getting injured in a stupid way that would remove him from service.
Whitney ran her finger down the purple fabric, flashing back to the plane ride overseas. She and Andrew had been seated together, and they had joked around throughout the entire flight. Even though they knew they were heading into a difficult place, they kept their spirits high.
Iraq had hung over them like a specter for the months of their training. They’d known the whole time that they were going to be walking into hell. Whitney had just never suspected the way she would be walking out.
“How’s your leg doing?” Andrew asked. “I think about that day a lot, you know.”
The two had known each other through hard enough times that it felt natural for Andrew to bring up the subject. But even with him, Whitney couldn’t speak freely.
“It’s all right,” she said. “I barely remember what it was like to have two legs.”
“Really? You don’t have a phantom limb, or anything like that?”
“Sometimes I think I feel it,” Whitney said, letting her hand drop to where her foot used to be. She crossed the left leg over the right, almost feeling the ghost foot slide against her other calf. “I’ve had the prosthetic for a long time now, and it’s a pretty decent one. The government paid for it, and it gets the job done, even if there’s better ones out there.”
“That’s fucked up,” Andrew said. “You lost your leg in service to your country. They should pay whatever it takes to give you a top-of-the-line one.”
“It was hardly in service to my country,” Whitney said with a snort. “I didn’t do anything.”
“Sure, you did,” Andrew said. “I still feel bad, you know. I was there, too. It could’ve been me that was injured.”
“Why would you feel bad?” Whitney asked.
“Because I have both my legs, and you don’t,” Andrew said softly. “I still see it sometimes. That day was burned in my memory forever. We were just walking, and then I heard the explosion. It was only a millisecond, too short for me to even register, and then I heard you screaming.”
Whitney swallowed a lump in her throat. That day was permanently imprinted on her mind, too. She dou
bted if Andrew remembered it anywhere near as vividly as she did. For Andrew, it was a memory of a friend’s pain. For her, it was the worst thing she had ever experienced.
She put her hand on her stump, feeling the intense agony all over again. She closed her eyes, her face tightening, her lips drawing back to bare her teeth. Her own screams were like nothing that had come out of her before.
The pain was unbearable. Her mind wasn’t working well enough for her to comprehend anything about what had happened when the explosion went off. She couldn’t even tell what part of her body was injured—just that something was very, very wrong. It was only later that she would figure it out, when she woke up in a hospital and a white-coated doctor told her she had stepped on a landmine.
She could still remember staring dumbly into the doctor’s eyes, unable to believe the words he was telling her. We had to amputate. It was the only way. I’m so sorry.
“Anyway, you have no reason to feel bad,” Whitney said, breaking free of her painful memories. “You’re serving our country. You’re doing exactly what I wanted to do.”
“If I’d been on your left side, it would have been me,” Andrew said. “It was that random. So don’t tell me I’m serving and you’re not. You’re still serving your country, because I'm able to.”
Whitney’s stomach turned, and she was glad she was sitting down. As much as she would have liked to believe what Andrew said, her shame ran too deep. She felt guilty every time a disability payment arrived in her bank account.
She changed the subject, wanting to get off this topic as soon as possible. “How are things in the Marines? Where’d you do your last deployment?”
“I was in Afghanistan.”
“Oh, yeah? How’s that compare?”
“You remember how hot Iraq got in the summer?” Andrew asked.
“I didn’t make it to the summer there.”
“Right.” Andrew sounded guilty. “Well, it’s less hot in Afghanistan. And the women—they were gorgeous, even the ones in hijabs. Guess you would’ve enjoyed that, too.”
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