This is Not a Love Letter

by Kim Purcell

  They don’t go home.

  I turn around. One of the neighborhood’s stray tabby cats is sitting there, watching me, from the curb. It’s kind of funny.

  I grab my bike and get on it, ride back down the street. Shit. I cannot believe I just said that. When you come back, you’re going to laugh your head off at me, clap your hand on your knee in that way of yours, and say, “No! You did that?” I glide up to my house, smirking. Good god. Today has kind of got to me. Those kids probably think I’m a crazy person. But at least maybe now they won’t go out at night. Maybe they’ll be safe.

  I want them to be safe.

  You say you like that about me, how I care about other people getting hurt, how I can never walk away, how I always got to rescue people. But you’re the same. You rescued me, didn’t you?

  When You Rescued Me

  It was the day after you poked me with a stick. I was riding down the trail, alone, just like you said I shouldn’t, heading for another swim. Didn’t need any guy to tell me something was dangerous. Even if that guy was super cute.

  I tried to jump my bike over a log, not even that big of a log. I’d done it before, but this time I spazzed out, the wheel caught, and I landed weird on my arm. It cracked. I actually heard it. The pain cut through me.

  After gasping and swearing on the ground for a while, I pulled my phone out. I called home, but Mom didn’t answer. Then I called Steph. Her phone went straight to voicemail. I could walk, but I’d have to leave my bike, and it hurt to move. I thought of you. You had a truck. You knew the trail. And I had your phone number.

  “It’s Jessie,” I said when you grunted out a hello, but then you didn’t say anything. It was weird. I mean, it wasn’t like you’d forget me. How often does anyone see a naked girl in the river? “Jessie Doone?”

  “Jessie Doone. Jessie from biology. Jessie from the river. Jessie with the tangerine hair. You think I’d forget you?” I could tell you were smiling. “My mouth was full. I was just swallowing.”

  You didn’t hear the croaky way I was talking, didn’t realize something was wrong. “I need help,” I said. “I think I broke my arm.”

  You nearly shouted in my ear. “What? Where are you?”

  “Matheson Trail.”

  “You want me to call an ambulance?”

  “Can you just come?” I couldn’t tell you it was too expensive. An ambulance would cost seventy-five dollars. I only knew this because my mom had a panic attack six months back, and we called for an ambulance.

  “I’ll be right there,” you said. “Stay on the phone with me.” I dragged myself to a tree and rested against it, clutching my bad arm with my good one. It felt like I was being stabbed with a jagged knife from the inside.

  You talked to me the whole time and told me what you were doing. “I’m getting in my truck.” “I’m driving past the mill.” “There’s an old lady driving slow in front of me. I’ll go around her at the next light.” “Passing a cop car, maybe I should slow down.” “I’m at the parking lot.” “On the trail now.”

  I listened to your heavy breathing as you ran. Every few minutes, you’d say, “Almost there” or “I’m coming.” I heard you before I saw you, your running shoes tearing down the trail toward me. You skidded to a stop, sweat dripping down your face.

  “Oh, baby,” you said. That was the first time you said baby to me. We barely knew each other.

  You wrapped your arm around my body, your hand under my armpit, and helped me stand up. You pushed my bike, and I walked slowly beside you, cradling my arm, trying not to cry out with each step.

  We made it to the parking lot and you helped me into the truck, pushed on my butt because I couldn’t grab on and pull myself up. It would have been sexy if I weren’t in so much pain. You even put on my seat belt for me—I didn’t have to ask. It kind of blew me away. Before you, I’d never had a single thoughtful boyfriend.

  You ran around the truck and jumped in. When the truck started up, Etta James blasted over the speakers. “Who’s this?” I asked.

  “Who’s this?” you exclaimed, and then you went off on a long history of all things Etta James. Said her mother was fourteen when she had her, she went out with James Brown, who was a real great singer, but he beat her up. She deserved more, you said, then you patted the dashboard, and said, “Named this baby after her.”

  “Your truck has a name?” I grimaced.

  “Every vehicle should have a name. It’s good luck.”

  When we picked up my mom, it took forever for her to open the door, and then she was standing there in her housecoat with greasy hair and I thought, Man, that is it, you’ll see past her, into my garbage dump of a house and you are never going to want to hang out with me again.

  You helped her into the truck. She asked if I was okay, and then she said, “Oh, I love Etta James.” I looked at her, like, who is this woman?

  She told you that she never opens the door to strangers. You chuckled, said that was a good idea, ma’am. I gave you a sharp look—ma’am? But that’s how you are, always polite.

  “I thought you were selling something,” she said.

  “Why would he be selling something?” I was horrified. If I hadn’t been in so much pain, I would have told her to shut up. But you would have hated that.

  She turned toward me to answer and bumped my bad hand with her hip. You’d been so careful not to touch my arm, even pressing yourself to the window to avoid it. I screamed in pain.

  “Oh no! Are you okay?” she said. “Here. For the pain.” She reached in her purse and took out some aspirin, and you handed me your water bottle to drink it down.

  “Are you friends from school?” she asked.

  “We are.” You looked at me with a smirk, like you weren’t sure what to say. Just because you bought me a doughnut and we held hands didn’t mean we were a couple. Mom gave me a funny look like she’d figured it out.

  At the hospital, you sat with us in the waiting room and even went to get us two Mountain Dews from the vending machine. Mom registered me and had to interact with regular people. Had to admire her a little, doing that for me.

  I said you could leave us, we could take a taxi, but you said, “I’m not leaving you, no way.” You waited until I got my cast and my painkillers, and then you drove us back.

  On the way home, I gazed at the side of your face, at your smooth skin, the whiskers above your lip, that killer dimple, and I thought, What if he really likes me?

  At my house, I just decided, I was staying with you. I told Mom we were going out for a doughnut. You looked at me, surprised. “We are?”

  “Do you have plans?” I felt nervous.

  “Hell no.” Then you glanced at my mom. “Excuse my language.”

  I snorted. Mom and I were way beyond language.

  She got out of the truck and you waited until she was in the house to drive off. “So?” you said.

  “I don’t care what we eat. I just want to be with you.” I smirked, all loopy from the drugs.

  “Ice cream?”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  We drove to Dairy Queen and went through the drive-thru for ice-cream sundaes, and you parked at the edge of the parking lot by the wooded area where no one could see us. You had a Jack and Jill, which I learned was chocolate mixed with marshmallow, and I had strawberry and I did that thing where I’m jealous of whatever the other person ordered, and I kept tasting yours.

  You held out your dish, grinning at me like you didn’t care if I took it all. I liked you for not being mad that I was eating yours and not mine. Once I had this boyfriend who wouldn’t share his food—major red flag. Sorry, I know you hate it when I mention old boyfriends, but I’m just saying, because of this, I knew you were different.

  You had this smudge of marshmallow next to your mouth and I couldn’t stop myself—I leaned over and licked it off. It must have been the drugs, because that was the weirdest first move ever. I mean, licking a guy? Most guys would be pretty turned off, but not you.


  You gazed at me like it was normal and we kissed, and your lips were so soft and warm; I felt like I could sit there and kiss you forever.

  9:35 PM Saturday, home sweet home

  I close the basement door and breathe in the familiar, musty-mold-mice-poop smell of my house. There’s a bang in my bedroom, like a drawer shutting. I’m thinking right away, it’s you. “Chris?!”

  “Jessie?” Mom steps out of my room into the hallway, peers at me over the piles of newspapers and clothing.

  Disappointment sits in my chest, plops its legs out, gets comfortable. Mom never goes into my room. It’s off-limits.

  “What are you doing?” I demand.

  “I was worried about you.”

  “You were worried about me?” I say, incredulous.

  She blinks her murky-green eyes. You once said her eyes were just like mine, only dulled with sadness. She used to look like me in other ways, too. Her body was just like mine at my age, and her hair, too. We look like sisters in pictures. It freaks me out, if you want to know the truth.

  “Did you find Chris?” she asks.

  “No.”

  “Are you okay?”

  I can’t remember the last time she asked if I was okay, and all I can manage is a quick shrug. It really hits me, no joke. She hobbles toward me, in her flowery nightgown that she calls a housedress, and wraps her arms around me. I stiffen at first, and then I relax.

  I’ve forgotten how much I like her hugs. It’s like hugging a soft, squishy pillow. Plus, she smells like baby powder and flowers from spending all that time in the tub Dad installed for her arthritis and her fibromyalgia and her million other disorders. When she lets go, I miss it.

  “How do you know about Chris?” I feel guilty I didn’t tell her, though she could’ve come downstairs and asked me before I left for work.

  “I heard the kids talking through the window this morning.”

  That’s funny, right? Why didn’t she come down to talk to me? I just stare at her. She’s a goddamn mystery.

  “Do you think the police are going to come?”

  “No, Mom. For god’s sake.”

  This is why I’m scared of cops. You always laugh at me every time we get pulled over. You ask what do I got to be worried about? You say I act like I’m being kidnapped. It’s true. I freeze right up. And I don’t have a good reason like you do; I mean, I’m a white female. But my whole life, I’ve always worried about our house being condemned, of being thrown into the streets, homeless, or even worse, into foster care. My mom’s been in foster care, and she’s told me horror stories. Even when I was little, she said we could never call the cops or the fire department, and we could never allow anyone to enter our house in case they called the authorities.

  It was dangerous. I mean, sometimes you need the authorities. Like, one time, when I was just nine, we had a grease fire on the stove. The whole damn house could have gone up. Mom was screaming at me from the kitchen: “Fire!” I flew up the stairs. I was always worried that one of her big, flowy outfits would catch on fire when she was cooking. Mom was screaming on the dirty linoleum floor in her nightgown. A frying pan was shooting flames toward the ceiling. “Get the fire extinguisher!” she yelled. It was in the cabinet on the other side of the fire. I grabbed it from the shelf and the damn thing felt so heavy, I nearly dropped it, but then I shot the white stuff all over the stove and put it out. No fire alarm went off. I guess we didn’t have batteries in them. “Tell the neighbors we’re fine,” she screeched. “Don’t let them call the fire department.” So then I had to run outside. Sure enough, the old lady neighbor across the street was standing on her lawn with her phone. “You okay?” she called. “Should I call 911?” From the lawn, I could see the upstairs filled with smoke. I told her that it was just toast, we were fine. (In my world, fine has always been an alternate word for awful.) I went back inside and told Mom nobody was calling the fire department, and she said I was a good girl. And I actually felt proud.

  12:45 AM Sunday, my bedroom

  I’m in my dark bedroom, and I can’t sleep, so of course, I grab my phone and call you. Your voicemail clicks on, immediately: “Hi. It’s Chris. You know what to do.”

  Why do you always have the same sick recording? I don’t know what to do. Not now. Not like this. I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO.

  I plan to leave a super sexy message. But the electronic woman’s voice says that the voicemail is full. What?

  I can’t even leave you a goddamn message. I have to talk to you.

  I stare at those star stickers you put on my ceiling and think about how I should write to you and tell you what’s been going on. That way, I can give the letter to you when you get home. I have so much to tell you already. I’ve already been writing it in my head.

  Oh god. What if you never come home? My brain keeps jumping to all the horrible, bloody, violent things that might have happened.

  You’re always so good at thinking up Must Choose options that stump me with equally awful or disgusting choices. Okay. Here’s one:

  Would you rather have your boyfriend eaten by a bear, thrown in the river to drown, or beaten so badly he’s brain damaged and drooling and he doesn’t recognize you, but he’s alive?

  Brain damage. I’m choosing brain damage.

  Maybe you won’t be the best at conversation anymore, and there will be drool, but I still want you back. No matter what.

  Maybe I can just take off your clothes, stare at your body, lie with you naked, and not do anything. It would be sick to do things to a brain-damaged boyfriend. But we could lie naked and do nothing, like that first time.

  Just Naked

  I made you wear a blindfold the first time you came in my house. You protested, but I said you weren’t coming in unless you wore it. It was a scarf, leopard-print. I held your hand and you banged into pile after pile, and by the time we made it to my room, we were both giggling like little kids.

  I closed my bedroom door. “Okay. You can take off the blindfold.”

  You ripped it off and surveyed my room, grinning, and turning in a circle. “Hey, it’s not bad. It’s cool.”

  I laughed because my room is immaculate compared to the rest of the house. You had no idea.

  We were kind of awkward then. It was weird, I guess. I mean who has to blindfold their boyfriend to let him come into the house?

  Then, you walked around the room looking at my collages from when I was younger, when Mom and I used to do art together, and she was only a little crazy. I told you my favorite was the one with the endangered animals. You said you liked the one with all the weird world records. You let out a howl when you saw the woman with the long fingernails.

  “Okay, must choose,” you said. This was the first time we ever played it. You lifted up one finger. “Either, you must have long fingernails like that woman.” You held up your second finger. “Or you must have hair so long, it drags fifty feet behind you, on the floor. Must choose.”

  All I could see was the dirt my hair was gathering. “Nails,” I said.

  “Oh no…Hair,” you said. “At least you could do things. Can you imagine?”

  You hung your arms down in front of your body, weighed down by massive imaginary fingernails, and mimed lifting them up and dropping them on the desk. You’re a pretty good actor. I laughed and fell back onto the bed, and as I was laughing there, I thought this might be okay, you being in my house and all. It might really be okay.

  But then, before I knew what was happening, you strode past me, out of the room, with no blindfold. I jumped up.

  “Stop!” I yelled.

  You called, “Can’t stop me, I’m the gingerbread man.” You thought it was a big joke, and you loved calling yourself the gingerbread man on account of being a fast runner and loving gingerbread.

  I was too late. You were rounding the piles in the hallway, like you were rounding bases. “Stop,” I whimpered at your back, a whimper that you ignored.

  You gazed across the garb
age dump of our downstairs rec room area. Clothes. Newspapers. A bunny cage even though we never owned a bunny. Old art projects. A bunch of random cords that someone could use to choke themselves with, if they wanted.

  “See?” I said. “It’s a garbage dump.”

  You turned around and stared at me. Disgusted? I didn’t know. “I don’t want you to think you have to hide anything from me.”

  My arms wrapped tight around my body. I was shaking, I don’t know why. Maybe I figured you were dumping me? You must have seen something in my face, or my eyes filling with tears. “It’s okay,” you said, waving your arms out at the mess. “This is all okay, you hear me?”

  I nodded. But it wasn’t okay.

  You stepped with your long legs over the mess and reached me, resting your strong hands on my shoulders. “This isn’t you, okay? And I’m never going to judge. Never.”

  Tears tumbled down my face.

  “Come on.” You guided me back to my room, steering me around the piles, down the pathways. It was so embarrassing. I gripped my mouth, sobbing. Could not stop. In my room, you wrapped your arms around me and held me there for a real long time. “Hey now, hey, hey, it’s okay.”

  I felt like a young girl, crying like that.

  Finally, I managed to get myself under control, and I just stood there, gripping you. I murmured into your warm shoulder. “I don’t know why I’m crying. It’s just hard, you know? I don’t let anyone see this. I don’t let anyone in here, ever. Only Steph. And she’s known me my whole life. No boyfriend ever came here before. No other friends.”

  “Thank you for bringing me.” You pressed me into your chest.

  “I clean it up, but my mom fills it with more crap,” I tried to explain. “I can’t stand it. I hate her.”

  “Shh,” you said. “It’s okay.”

  You gave me small kisses all over my forehead, my ears, my eyelids, my nostrils, and then, I couldn’t help it, I giggled. “What are you doing?”

  “Kissing your sadness away. Is it working?”