Broken Girl

by Gretchen de La O

  ‘Rose, promise me you’ll get out.’ My eyes flew open and I was frozen in my bed not knowing where I was. Seconds passed, clearing the way for my mind to catch up and I realized I wasn’t seven years old.

  “Sybil!” I hollered before I threw back my covers and stumbled out of bed.

  I knew she was still in the hospital and I was in our apartment, alone. I looked at the clock next to my bed it was ten in the morning. I can’t believe I slept so long. I checked my phone, fifteen text messages, all from Shane, and one voicemail from the hospital. My head still spinning from the nightmare, my heart dropped into my stomach as it swirled causing me to want to throw-up. I dragged my finger across the message from the hospital and pushed the phone against my ear.

  Please, please let it be she miraculously woke up. Please tell me she’s going to be fine. I droned in my head over and over again before the message began to play.

  “Hi, Miss Newton, ummm, this is Kate, I’m the early a.m. nurse assigned to Miss. St. James . . . ahhh, Sybil. It’s policy of the hospital to only call blood relatives about patients, but . . . umm, I know you were with Sybil when she was first brought in. There’s been a change in her status and, well, I think you oughta come down as soon as possible. Oh, and, you never got this call. Please drive safely.”

  Then there was nothing. No sound, no words, absolutely nothing, no indication of what Sybil’s status could be. Whether she was awake and okay or the other way things could go. I didn’t waste time calling the hospital back. All I had time to do was throw on a pair of sweats, an old Jimi Hendrix T-shirt Sybil had given me when we first met and ran out the door.

  FOR NOT BEING a God-fearing person, or someone who puts much weight into prayer, I got into my car and prayed the entire way to the hospital . . . out loud. I begged, bartered, and even made deals with God that I never had before. I even told him that I’d pull Brie and Crystal under my wing and help them find their way to him if he made sure Sybil was going to be okay.

  When I pulled into one of the parking spots near the entry of the hospital, I saw Shane. He was standing in front of the sliding doors with his phone pinned against his ear and everything that happened yesterday flooded over me. Seeing him there, busted open the wound I bandaged last night when I left with Briggs. It was so much easier when I didn’t see him, when I visualized my life being separated from his. My phone continued to ring in my purse. I watched Shane as he paced back and forth. I knew he was calling me.

  If I answered my phone, I’d have to listen to his excuses for not telling me about his girlfriend, and if I let it ring, his voice would be saved in my voicemail so I could hear his sorry excuses later, I let it go to voicemail. I didn’t waste the time I could have with Sybil trying to make him okay with his choices. A deep breath filled my lungs as I grabbed my purse and pushed my way out of the car. Shane was like poison that pearled on my bottom lip, waiting for the moment he could roll into my system and wreak havoc on my heart. I wasn’t about to be that girl. I had plans, ideas that didn’t involve falling in love. That was right, Shane tagged my heart, filled it with love and shattered it with lies. He made me lose my way and feel things for a man I never gave my body to.

  I’m stronger than what appears in front of me. I chanted in my mind. Words I found solace in when growing up got rough.

  “Rose! Please, talk to me. I’ve been trying to call you,” Shane said as he came toward me.

  “I know I have a shit load of missed calls from you.”

  “Please . . . I . . . ahhh, I wanted to be here for you. Beyond what happened yesterday, I wanted to get to you first, before you went upstairs.”

  Shane grabbed me, pulling me back away from the sliding doors. I twisted my arm from his grip. I didn’t have time for this shit. I needed to get up to Sybil.

  “Look, Shane, we’re nothing more than friends and that’s all. Nothing more, nothing less, now if you don’t mind I got a call to come down here for Sybil.” I started for the doors.

  He caught me around the arm and pulled me in front of him his words were sharp and clear as they tumbled across my skin.

  “I know, I was the one who asked the nurse to call you. This isn’t about you and me, it’s about Sybil. She had a rough night. A very rough night.” His eyes pierced mine, his lips quivered as he spoke in the same tone that echoed through all the moments I ached for someone to ask me to forgive them.

  “What are you talking about, Shane. What happened to Sybil?”

  My heart felt like it was going to crash down into my stomach. My whole life I’ve lived through bad news. I knew the cold rippling chill that ran across my skin as I processed what he was trying to say. I pushed him back, his eyes narrowed before he looked away to hide his expression breaking.

  “I’m sorry, Rose,” he said as he shook his head back and forth.

  “Sorry for what? What the hell are you saying?”

  “It’s not good.”

  “Stop it, don’t say that. I gotta get up there and talk to her. She’s awake Goddammit!” I screamed as I struggled to get past him.

  He caught me by my biceps and pulled me against his chest, wrapping his thick arms strong around my back he held me to where I could hardly breathe.

  “Sybil didn’t make it through the night,” he whispered.

  “Shut-up! Shut the fuck up, Shane, don’t say that. She’s fine, she’s up there waiting for me to come up and take her home. Don’t say that. Don’t fucking lie to me,” I cried as I fought to get out of his embrace.

  “Shhhh, Rose, I’m so sorry. God I wish it wasn’t true. Sybil’s gone.”

  The harder I fought to get away the tighter he held onto me. I couldn’t believe him, I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t think, I couldn’t feel. He was wrong. I’d just left her last night.

  “You’re wrong, she’s gonna be fine, she has to come back to me, she promised to always be there for me. She’s my best friend. She’s the only one I have. She’s my best friend; she promised me she wouldn’t leave me! Sybil, you fucking promised you’d never leave me!” I screamed against Shane’s chest as every part of me broke down.

  “I’m so sorry,” Shane kept repeating.

  Torn

  Apart

  In seconds . . .

  The world had just fucked me all over again. Life bent me over the table and stripped me of the one last thing I held onto for any type of solace in my life. God in his cruel intentions saw how messed up my DNA was and pinned me for a life of complete fuckery. What entity would give a baby to my fucked up parents? Did God not see they belonged in the fiery pits of Lucifer’s basement?

  It was God’s fault. My faith became nestled in the crumpled sidewalks as I sold my body to eat and have a roof over my head. He let me become nothing more than a fucking whore who couldn’t be loved or find love. God laughed at me and dangled Shane in my face. Maybe I thought somewhere buried deep, that Shane could be the one man I could create a future with. Now God’s punishing me for selling my body by taking my best friend from me. The only family I had. You’re cruel, God, so fucking violently cruel.

  I couldn’t take the words that continued to echo through my mind, Sybil’s gone. I couldn’t believe what Shane had said to me. I never had a chance to say goodbye.

  The muscles in my arms ached, feeling weightier than if they were cast in cement. I needed to breathe, I needed him to hear me without consoling me. I pushed and struggled until I was out of his embrace.

  “Is she still up there? Where’s her body? I wanna see her. I wanna say goodbye!” I said with newfound determination.

  “Rose, I don’t know if that’s a good idea. Her family’s up with the doctors and nurses, discussing arrangements.”

  “I don’t give a fuck.”

  Then it hit me like a ton of concrete bricks. It all became crystal-clear. I didn’t have a right to say my last goodbyes to the only person who ever treated me like a sister. Suddenly, without a second’s notice, I didn’t belong to anyone anymore. In an ins
tant, I wasn’t a part of any family, yet again.

  “Oh, I see, they planted you down here, to stop the fucking whore roommate from goin’ up there. Now that Sybil’s family’s here I’m not worth a moment of grieving?”

  He reached for me, I stumbled back, far enough away so he couldn’t grab me.

  “No, it’s not like that. Rose, I wanted to catch you before you went up there. I wanted to be the one to tell you about Sybil. I wanted to protect you.”

  “Protect me!”

  “Yes.”

  “Shut up!”

  “Rose, I lo—”

  “Don’t fucking say it! Don’t you dare fucking say it, you have no right! You lied to me . . . you lied!”

  “I never lied to you!”

  “You never told me you had a girlfriend, Shane! You took my heart, made me fall for you, with your roses and Cajun food, laundry and lollipops, you’re the worst, because you made me fall for you even when I never gave you any part of my body, never shared something that anyone else could get for the right amount of money.”

  “Stop, Rose.”

  “Don’t you see you were something special to me, Shane? You were something different than any other man in my life. I fought so hard trying not to give you my heart, tried so hard not to open the ironclad lock, because I knew I’d get hurt. But you found the key, you found my weakness and exploited it for your own needs. Whether you knew it or not, whether I knew it or not, I gave you my heart. And just like that, like everyone in my life, you broke it and now you’re gonna walk away never looking back.”

  “That’s not true, Rose, we have a lot to work out, but I won’t leave you. We’ll find a way to make this work. Can’t you see I’m crazy about a woman who likes me for who I am, a woman who just told me that she loves me.”

  “I can’t . . . don’t you see, I can’t love you, I can’t be with you. Look who’s in front of you . . . I am a whore, Shane.”

  “No, don’t call yourself that!”

  “It’s what I am, Shane.”

  “No, stop calling yourself that.”

  “What? Are you crazy? Do you not hear what I’m telling you? I sell my body to men for money. I let filthy men fuck me for money.”

  “Stop it. Stop saying that.” He pushed toward me.

  I backed away.

  “Well, it’s the truth. I’m so fucked up Shane, too much dirty laundry.”

  “Well, then we’ll be fucked up with each other. Look, I know we have a lot to work out, I have a lot to work out. I’m not saying it’s going to be easy, but it’s worth a try. I’ve seen your dirty laundry; it isn’t anything I can’t handle. Besides I own a laundromat, remember?”

  “Not everything’s a joke, Shane. You can’t love someone like me. Someone you can’t take home to your parents, I’m not Martie.”

  “My parents would love whoever I’d bring home.”

  “Well, good, then they probably already love Martie.”

  “Stop it, Rose! I don’t want Martie. I want you. Maybe I’m crazy for wanting to be with you.”

  He stepped closer I stepped back against the building.

  “Do you hear what you are saying? I’m not a forever girl, Shane.”

  “I don’t care, I want you, Rose. Only you.”

  Well, you shouldn’t. I’m no good for you.”

  “How can you say that, when every time I’m with you I suddenly feel alive? Like I can take on the world. How can I get you to see that when I’m with you everything feels right?”

  “Because I heard you, in your office with Crystal, you told her that you don’t want to fuck someone like her . . . like me, a whore!”

  “Rose, you’re right, I don’t want to fuck Crystal! I don’t want to fuck Martie, I want to be with you! Why can’t you accept that? Why can’t you see what you do to me? What are you so damn afraid of?” he asked as his hands caught my face, pushed me against the hospital building, he had me trapped between my pain and my fear.

  My body responded to him, God, I wanted him to take me away. I needed him to bury himself so deep inside of me, he’d take away all the pain that was exploding through my body.

  He lowered his mouth toward mine, brushing delicate against the salty tears that caked my lips. His tongue skated against the fault line of my mouth. I wanted to open to him, I wanted to get tangled up in his kiss, I wanted to do the only thing I knew how to, but I couldn’t. I pushed him away; my cheeks ran as cold as my lips. Shane planted his hands against the building just above my shoulders, leaning in toward me again. I pushed my hands against his chest, holding him back from trying to kiss me.

  “I can’t do this. I can’t handle another wrecked heart, girls like me don’t deserve to be loved by someone like you. It just isn’t in my DNA. Please, don’t make this any harder than it already has become, just forget about me. You’ll be better off.” I ducked under his arm and hurried away from him. I only looked back once and saw that he didn’t follow me, he just watched me walk away.

  He had no intention of following me, and I had no intentions on making it harder than it had to be. I just needed to go home alone and grieve the loss of my best friend.

  I PUSHED THE door open to my apartment. Heavier than before, the door scraped just a little harder against the hardwood floor. The colors seemed different, the sun burned through the rippled glass of the old kitchen window and it gave the apartment a different energy. Suddenly, everything in the apartment was soaked in the essence of Sybil. The vacuum lines she put in the plush area rug in the middle of the room. Even down to the pillows on the couch she’d angle just right to give the illusion we were expecting guests. I remember her telling me through her recovery she found healing in controlling the things she could and letting go of the things she couldn’t. Call it OCD, or replacing one addiction for another, but she found comfort in keeping the apartment nice and organized.

  I pushed my fingers to the chartreuse green pillow she had put on her side of the couch. The embroidered lines across the silky front caught the pads of my fingers, for some reason they were more defined than ever before. Each stitch representing a day she was clean, or so I pretended. I pulled the pillow to my chest; her perfume soaked the lining of my nose and down my throat, sweet with a touch of spice. I sat down in her spot on our couch and curled my feet up under my body. Coiled, I held Sybil’s pillow against my face, feeling the chill from the silk against my lips and nose, I breathed her in. I felt like I was living between reality and something I had no name for.

  I ached to have Sybil walk through the door. Argue with me, laugh at me, and get pissed because I creased her favorite pillow. God, I just wanted someone to come and take me away. I wasn’t comfortable in my own skin, in my thoughts, or in the expired promises we made to each other. Sybil wasn’t coming back and I wasn’t ready to figure out what I had to do. Where was I going to belong now?

  Goddammit, Sybil, we didn’t plan for this!

  I didn’t plan for this day to come so soon. I wasn’t ready to let go. I wasn’t ready to never hear her laugh again, or have her pissed at me for being such a fucking asshole. I spent my entire life pushing people away, so much energy wasted on making sure I never gave too much. It was because of this, this exact reason . . . it was too painful, too much investment if this was the return.

  Goddammit, I’m not ready to let go. I don’t want to be alone in this life.

  Every agonizing brick hovered over me waiting for the moment I cracked, those deep personal feelings I was a master at pushing away, locking up and keeping at a distance suddenly slammed down across my shoulders. There was nothing I could do to bring Sybil back. She wasn’t mad at me, she didn’t leave to work, she wasn’t visiting her family or pulling an all-nighter, my best friend, the only person who felt like some form of family to me was gone . . . forever.

  I pushed the heels of my palms into my eyes, pushed so hard my eyes ached from the pressure. I lost my breath and crumbled to the voice in my head.

  Well, Rosalie
, if you weren’t such a fucking idiot, you would have locked the door. Maybe you could have saved her if you didn’t pass out after hitting your head. Weak, you’re weak, crumbling to the demons you cling to as an excuse. Maybe your friend Sybil would be here right now if you didn’t fail at saving the one person who always had your back. Did you have her back when she needed you?

  My inner voice was relentless, reminding me I was the same worthless broken girl I had always been trying to run from my whole life. I took a deep breath, and let it out. I didn’t want to listen anymore; I didn’t want to fall to the memories of who I never asked to be.

  “Sybil! I’m so sorry I wasn’t able to save you. I wasn’t able to protect you. I’m so sorry . . . Oh. My. Fucking. God . . . you’re not coming home!”

  My voice cracked as I curled up and let every last thing which ever broke me flood my existence. Every breach of trust, every second of pain scorched into my soul where strangers and people I thought loved me, used me. Every breath I took drowned my lungs. Buried in wasted moments and nauseating memories as they flashed through my mind. Incidents which created who I was and how I handled moments like this. I couldn’t stop the twisted minds and pathetic excuses for people who ripped my heart to shreds. I thought about giving up Shane, losing a love deeper than any physical connection I’d ever had before.

  I bawled until my head hurt and my voice was gone. I cried until I had no more tears to give, until every tear I had left was soaked into the cushion of the couch or Sybil’s chartreuse green pillow. I cried until I was exhausted enough to fall asleep in the puddle of my agony.

  I was woken up by my phone vibrating next to me. I guess life goes on, even when it was being torn to pieces. There was no consideration for a woman whose life was just ripped apart all over again. I peered at the clock, blurry through my swollen eyes; seven thirty. The apartment was dreary and I was exhausted. The sun was down and I just couldn’t bring myself to get up and go out tonight. I tossed the phone on the coffee table. I knew it was horny clients who had called me to hook up or wondered if I’d left the business or even died.