Johnny

by Rachel Dunning

  Not a—goddamn—fucking—scratch.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  ~ Alone ~

  -1-

  You can’t describe the sorrow a person goes through with something like that. You just can’t.

  It was pain, it was actual pain that I felt for days, weeks. Longer. And after the pain, came the deadness, the feeling of nothingness, of wood, of death in your mind, your cells; the idea that there is nothing worth living for, breathing for, fighting for, striving for.

  After school one day, Nicole Ferman approached me while I was at my locker. It was late, the hallway empty. Johnny was waiting for me outside.

  I closed my locker, and Nicole’s face was there. I was so dulled by life that I hadn’t even seen her. I was so trampled by life that I couldn’t even hate her.

  But there was no need to.

  I waited, not looking at her, not really looking at anything. If she had something to say, she should say it.

  She didn’t say anything.

  She stretched a red fingernailed hand onto my shoulder, and pulled me toward her. And she hugged me tightly.

  Her skin was so warm, her grip so gentle, that I wept on her shoulder for ten minutes or more. The gasps were deathly in the echoing hallway. A teacher stepped out, I noticed vaguely, and then stepped back inside his classroom.

  Nicole kept on holding me, her body warm against mine. I felt her shudder as well, weeping with me. I didn’t understand it, but I didn’t need to. It felt right.

  I heard footsteps behind me, perhaps Johnny’s, and then the footsteps receded. I wept, and wept, and wept, and wept.

  I wept for another ten minutes easily.

  “Wanna get a drink?” she asked me when I was finally done.

  I nodded.

  We went to Starbucks.

  -2-

  “I, uhm, I’m sorry—”

  I put my hand up to her to stop her. Now wasn’t the time. And it wasn’t important anyway. None of it was important. It had all changed. Everything had changed.

  “My mom,” Nicole continued. “She passed when I was...five. My dad, well, he never took it too well. He, uhm, did some things...” She looked away, her eyes glazing with incipient grief. She stopped herself. “Well, he wasn’t very ‘father-like’ if you know what I mean. I...I’m... I live with my godparents. My father was imprisoned when I was twelve. They’re good to me, my godparents, they make good money. They...provide...for me. I guess that’s all one could ask for.”

  She turned her gaze back to mine. The deep auburn of her eyes looked almost red. The color shone in harmony to her red hair and the small freckles she had on her milky skin.

  She extended her hand over mine.

  “Once a month or so they have these parties... They’re...well, a few people come over, and they give me a bunch of cash and tell me I should go out and ‘have fun’ and sleep over at a friend’s house if I want to. One night I didn’t want to. I just wanted to be home, sleep. I was fourteen then. So I took the cash, went out, then snuck back in the house. When I got there, my godmother was screwing some guy in my bedroom. It was a full-on orgy or a swinging party or something. She didn’t see me. No one saw me. It was...well...

  “I guess what I’m trying to say is...I was lashing out at you, y’know. I was accusing you of being white trash when...” She gestured at herself, tried to smile but only managed to water up her eyes and shiver. “Well, here I am! Welcome to the apotheosis of American White Trash!”

  She coughed.

  I squeezed her hand. “Like I said, you don’t need to apologize.”

  “No, actually I do. I really do!” She ran a tired hand through her hair. “My dad... I visit him. Despite what he did to me...I visit him. Not often, but I do. And he tells me sorry and that he’ll never do any of it again, and I don’t believe him, not really. But with him behind that Plexiglass I can allow myself to believe him because so long as he’s there he won’t do that shit again.

  “So I pretend to believe him.

  “But you know what? If he...died. Well...I wouldn’t be able to handle that. I just wouldn’t. The prick’s still my dad. And he is a prick! But...I love him, I guess. Despite all his shit, I still love that...” She bit her lip, fought the torrent down. “Despite all his crap...I still love that...motherfucker!

  “What I did to you, it was beyond cruel. You were an outlet. All I can say is I took no pleasure from it, if it’s any consolation. I wanted to take pleasure from it, but I didn’t. No matter the things I said, none of them made me feel any better about my own...situation. Don’t you love that word—situation? And when I heard about...the accident... Well, I just figured enough was enough. I’m not trying to say I can be a shoulder for you to cry on. All I’m trying to say is...I understand. And... Well, that’s all, really. I do understand. And I’m sorry, and I understand. I understand more than you can imagine. And, again, even though you told me not to—but I really am so very, very, VERY, fucking sorry to you, Cat, for all the hurt I caused...”

  She couldn’t finish.

  She wept quietly, and the tears were oddly comforting to me. Grief was all I could bear at the moment. I couldn’t bear any other emotion. I couldn’t bear love, I couldn’t bear support, I couldn’t bear smiling, “being strong,” “moving on.”

  I couldn’t bear any of these things.

  I needed someone to weep with. Someone to hurt with.

  I needed someone, for the first time in my life, who was not like Johnny.

  The first signs of trouble had started for me and him on that very night.

  It wasn’t him, it was me—the classic line. And yet, in this case, it was true.

  I couldn’t love, and I couldn’t be loved.

  Johnny is a positive-thinking guy, a go-getter, a get-up-after-falling, life-won’t-get-you-down kind of guy.

  I could only weep.

  Nicole Ferman and I might end up sharing some type of bond because of this, I thought. That would also be tough on me and Johnny. But everything was tough on us right now. I needed something to get me through. And for the first time in my life, Johnny wasn’t it. No matter how hard he tried, no matter how many times he held me and told me it would be OK, the pain never went away.

  But this...this conversation with a girl I’d always hated, and who had always hated me (or so I thought)... This sharing of a common grief—this was helping.

  For the first time since I’d started dating him, Johnny took second place. I couldn’t do anything to change it.

  I was just trying to survive.

  I was just trying to get through each day.

  I was just trying to get through each day without killing myself.

  Literally.

  Nicole gave me something to hold on to when I was just about ready to let go.

  Maybe I did the same for her.

  -3-

  “Next time your godparents have a ‘party,’” I said, “come over to my place. We’ll put on soppy romances and chew popcorn and chips and other carbs.”

  “What about your other girlfriends?”

  My other girlfriends had given me a hug at school and then felt uncomfortable at my grief. I could sense they’d wanted to talk about guys and movies and music, but that they’d kept quiet in some sort of show of solidarity or support for my situation. They weren’t bad people, they just hadn’t suffered enough yet and so couldn’t appreciate what it’s like.

  “Viv and I have never watched a soppy romance together,” I said.

  Nicole understood.

  She looked beautiful when she wept, I realized. All the bullshit disappeared and the real person came out. The facade disappeared.

  Her beauty was increased by the fact that she had a very slightly skew nose, the flaw in the diamond which nevertheless adds to its allure.

  I liked her skew nose. I liked her eyes.

  I realized I liked Nicole.

  She seemed sincere, honest, human right now.

  She also seemed vulnerable.r />
  She seemed exactly like I felt.

  -4-

  “So, how did you get all that dirt on me over the years?” I asked her.

  “Gossip.”

  “Yeah, but from where?”

  “My godmother knows some people on your street. They share country clubs or men or vibrators—I don’t know. Anyway, she never passes up an opportunity to tell me anything and everything about the lives of every person on that street. I might be a bitch—but my godmother is the devil incarnate.”

  “That sounds like something out of a bad fairytale.”

  “Yeah, a modernized version that plays on HBO.”

  Yip, I was gonna like this chick.

  -5-

  Johnny also reminded me too much of my father. He reminded me of how they’d built that deathly Camaro together, of the first day we met when my dad had been ready to build that snowman with me on the other side of the street.

  When I saw Johnny, I saw my dad telling us “No sex!” in the dining room. I saw him sitting with us at the tasca, pretending he knew how to sing fado, chewing on a piece of chouriço sausage from an earthen plate.

  When I saw Johnny, I saw me and dad sitting on the porch drinking root beer, talking about Johnny; I saw dad watching soccer at Pat’s place. Worst of all, I saw my dad dangling from his seatbelt on the I-95.

  And I heard the screams.

  I couldn’t be around Johnny. And I’d hardly been around him for two months.

  The first month he’d been accepting of it. He’d left me alone with my thoughts because he figured that’s what I’d needed to get me through.

  The second month, it grew awkward. I avoided him, and I started hanging out with Nicole a lot after school. When she was at my place, he understandably didn’t come over.

  When Johnny did come over, we hardly kissed. I couldn’t bring myself to do it. A great chasm had been gorged in the space between us, and I didn’t know how to bridge the gap. Johnny had done nothing wrong. I had done nothing wrong.

  But I was lost, swimming, unable to bring myself to shore.

  And then we couldn’t pretend anymore.

  He came over.

  “We need to talk,” he said.

  I was on my bed, knees pulled up to my chest and my arms around my legs. College applications bestrewed my bed. Nicole and I had been looking over them all afternoon, trying to figure out a college we could go to together.

  The anger which radiated from him didn’t make me feel any better. I couldn’t deal with anger lately. I couldn’t deal with anything heavy.

  “Do you love me,” he said. Not a question.

  “Of course I do.” My voice sounded dead. I knew, logically, that I loved him. But I’d stopped feeling love for anything for over two months.

  He stayed silent for a second. “I don’t know what to do about this, Cat. I...” He ran a hand through his hair. “You’re... I know you’ve gone through something rough, and...maybe you’re afraid to get close to someone or something, but I need to know where we stand, I need...I need to know we’re OK.”

  So do I.

  When I didn’t answer, he continued. “And now...” He gestured to the bed. “This thing with Nicole of all people! What’s up with you? I don’t get it. It’s like you’re this whole other person now and I don’t even know you!”

  He sat on my bed. “Do you need more time? Is that it? I’ll give you time. I’ll give you all the time you need. But...I just need to know that it won’t be for nothing. I need to know that in a month, six months, a year, you won’t break up with me, Cat. I need to know that!”

  I forced myself to answer. “I...I’m just taking it a day at a time, Johnny.” It was the truth.

  “Do you love me? At least answer me that. Do you?”

  “I do.” In some part of my mind, I did.

  Silence.

  “Good,” he said. “Good.”

  He moved to hold my hand.

  But as soon as he touched me, two things happened: I heard the moan of bending metal and the smash of glass; and I flinched.

  Johnny of course only noticed the flinch.

  I didn’t try and explain it to him. My explanations had started to sound like lame excuses a long time since.

  “I don’t get it,” he whispered. “I just don’t get it.”

  I stood, crossed my arms, leaned against the window and looked out. That my eyes were wet was nothing new. They were often wet these days. “It’s not you,” I said lamely. “I just...” I closed my eyes.

  Images came rushing back, just as they always did when Johnny was around. The blood, the red, the howls, the sirens.

  Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. They’ll go away. Just breathe...

  I heard Johnny stand. I wanted to turn and stop him, I wanted to give him the assurance he needed—but I just couldn’t speak!

  I heard him take a step toward the door. By now all my glands under my jaw were singing.

  He was going...

  I can’t let him go. I can’t...

  But I did.

  He shut the door.

  And I was alone.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  ~ Hidden ~

  -1-

  Another month rolled by, another month of limbo.

  I waited for Johnny at Our Hill.

  The grief had partially subsided for me, but not completely. There were moments when it struck hard, but at least the spans of sanity in between were now longer. And in those spans, I could think.

  And I had thought enough to know that Johnny and I must try again—if he would still have me.

  I saw him approaching from some distance away.

  He was in brown ankle-high boots, suede, tight jeans. His shirt bulged from his muscles.

  He sat down next to me, looked ahead. “You look different,” I said to him.

  “You’ve seen me every day.”

  No, I haven’t.

  “How you doing?” I asked.

  “I’m fine.”

  Wind brushed across my hair. “I—I’m sorry,” I said. “I know I put you through a lot.”

  His jaw worked up and down. It seemed to take a lot of strength for him to say the next thing. “You have...nothing...to be sorry about.”

  I shook my head, disappointed. “Don’t forgive me, Jay. Don’t make excuses for me. I pushed you away—”

  “You went through the unspeakable.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Is it...getting better?” he asked, hopeful.

  I looked down at the brush-covered hill, the stream below. “Yeah, I...I think it is. I get sad sometimes. Like now, I’m sad that you asked. But the tears are less. I have more control over them.”

  “Good. Good.”

  He played with some twigs, threw one away. “So, what now?”

  I swallowed hard, preparing myself for the next question. “You...seeing anyone?”

  The look he gave me cut deep. He was incensed.

  “OK,” I said, not needing him to answer.

  “Why would I?”

  I shrugged. “We grew apart, further apart than I thought we ever could. Everything changed, Jay. Everything. It’s like I was a little girl, and now... I grew up. The magic died. And what you and I had...it was magic.”

  He put his hand on my knee. The touch distracted me.

  “Are you?” he asked.

  “Am I what?”

  “Seeing someone.”

  I almost choked, but I guess he had a right to ask. “No, of course not!”

  He shrugged. “It wasn’t so obvious. You found a college yet?”

  I shook my head. “We’ve applied to a few. The whole prospect of studying doesn’t do it for me right now. I feel...like I need air. Like I need a break. But dad would have wanted me to go to college.”

  “What do you want?”

  To be happy. “A break. I just want...a break from all of this.” His hand tightened on my knee, and the thrill of it went right through me.

  I grabbed it.


  “So, Nicole. Wow. How’s that working out for you?”

  I understood his sarcasm, so I tried to be patient. “I think she also grew up. We both did. Turns out we...have a lot in common.”

  “OK?”

  “I’m serious. She’s a good chick. She... Well, it doesn’t matter. You don’t have to be friends with her.”

  “But I do. If you and I are dating... Are we dating?”

  “I’m sorry I pushed you away so much.”

  “So am I. I wish you had let me be there for you. Isn’t that what couples do for each other?”

  I didn’t answer.

  His hand was warm, so warm.

  I’d missed his grip, I realized.

  And then two things happened suddenly at once:

  I squeezed his hand harder.

  And at the same time, his lips—out of nowhere!—collided mercilessly against mine.

  The kiss was bruising.

  I hadn’t expected this.

  But now that he was on me, my desire for him was undeniable.

  It was a breath of fresh air.

  And then the lust filled me like a waterfall.

  Caution went to the wind.

  My mind cleared.

  And I lost myself in him.

  -2-

  In that moment, there was no thinking.

  All I knew is that I ached, actually ached, for him. My throat hurt and was dry, my breathing rapid, my hands clammy.

  My body shivered as his hands hunted my skin.

  I didn’t want to be made love to or held or warmed. I was beyond the veneer of banking, business, movies, TV, music, internet, all of it. This was primal, this was raw.

  I took my tank off, threw it on the ground.

  Johnny’s eyes lusted over the swell of my breasts. He looked around nervously, but we both knew this spot was private.

  I fought with his shirt, his belt buckle.

  His hand grappled with my bra.

  And our lips fought, struggled, slammed desperately.

  “I’m sorry, Cat. I know you wanted to talk but...”

  The sound of my name turned me to jelly.