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by CELENE CAREY

  What happens in the dark?

  Veronica

  I took the bus home. It was getting late. It was 10 pm when I finally left the place. It did what I needed it to. I even had a shot at Whitney’s “I Have Nothing.” I kept my tears at bay and hurried home to Jonathan. I wanted to tell him before he left, the trip would give him the space he needed to think. Clear his mind and figure out what he wanted to do. The guilt of what I’d done would drive me mad if I didn’t tell him. I had to. If he left, I’d just have to let him go. No, I’d fight and fight and fight and break and break until I couldn’t fight anymore…until I was sure I’d lost him forever.

  I got home and the TV was on, but I didn’t see Jonny and I didn’t see his bag. I checked my phone for any messages. Maybe he had to leave early. Then, I remembered that I hadn’t passed his car in the driveway. Where had he gone? I went to the bedroom, saw my phone exactly where I left it. Went to the kitchen, took the phone up to call him. No answer, it rang out and went to voicemail. I called back, it went straight to voicemail. Putting the phone down, I saw a Steno page with Jonathan’s scribbled handwriting. I picked it up slowly, with my hand shaking like a tree limb in a category-five hurricane. My eyes filled as a picked the phone up, dialled my voicemail box and listened to the message Bill had left. I flipped the page over.

  “P.S. He called, we had a nice chat.”

  My world was turned upside down, my heart was racing, I couldn’t see, couldn’t feel. My entire body went numb as I sank to the floor. My entire life had gone up in flames in that very minute. I should’ve left earlier, should’ve been here when the phone rang, should’ve never even left to go anywhere, should’ve told him sooner. I went through a million possibilities as to where Jonathan could’ve gone.

  I called Max, he answered, told me he hadn’t heard from him. Was he lying? Best friends did that for each other. But Max liked me. I pleaded desperately for him to tell me and as soon as I was convinced he really didn’t know, I hung up and cried. I cried from the pit of my stomach, curled like a foetus in a womb next to the broken glass in the corner. I hollered so loudly I couldn’t hear anything but myself. My neighbour came knocking; I silenced my crying and stifled my moans until Ms. Jenise finally went away. I was half dead, my entire body shaking was the only way I knew that I had not died as I hoped I did. I wanted to call Bill, curse him from deep within. Tell him I was sorry for the day we met. Tell him I would rather die than to ever consider remembering he existed again. I chose not to; I couldn’t. The part of me that wanted him wouldn’t let me. I used my hand to rearrange the mess the glass had made, ignoring my bleeding palm and fingers. I picked up the pieces and took them to the trash, where I felt like I belonged.

  I don’t know when I fell asleep. I woke up on the floor, it was 12, midday. Thank god it was Saturday because I would’ve been late for work. When I finally dragged myself from the floor, I ignored my sweat and tear drenched blouse clinging to me and faced the bathroom mirror like a convict in a line up. I looked horrible, splinters in my hair, dry blood on my tear-stained face from where I had wiped my cheek, my eyes swollen, I looked exactly how I felt- like a mess. I went to bed, closing all the windows, locking out life and my mistakes, burying myself in my closet with my skeletons. I dragged my covers over my head; it was warm and I didn’t care. I wanted to die. I cried until my eyes were too tired to produce tears, until I was parched, until I could no longer recognize the voice coming from my mouth. I called him. His phone was off. I could do nothing but wait in the silence. I wrote.

  “I’m obsessed with the shape of a heart

  It doesn’t have to be perfect

  But I believe a heart has to be just the right

  Size, so it can fit perfectly in your chest

  And be shaded the right colour

  You needed to have the perfect lungs

  To have just the right breath to match

  The perfect heart beating inside your chest

  That’s what I meant to do to your heart...

  But it looks like I couldn’t make anything better

  I only made the damage worst instead of less

  I’m sorry,

  For walking into your life and redecorating

  For changing your black and white living into a

  kaleidoscope of colours and feelings

  I’m sorry for holding you hostage

  For holding your hands too tightly

  For kissing your lips and

  Savouring the taste of your mahogany skin

  For crying with

  And laughing with you

  I’m sorry for being what you might have thought

  Was your happy ending

  For setting the bar too high that

  Any woman after me would have a test to pass

  Countless checklists that they could never

  Possibly live up to

  Because no matter their height they’ll never

  Be tall enough to stand up to me

  I’m sorry for all those promises you wish I had kept

  All the promises I should’ve kept

  For being more than you expected me to be.

  I’m sorry for stealing hope from you

  For losing all your hope in me

  I’m sorry most of all for hurting you

  For now showing to you the worst side of me.”

  It sounded incomplete. Maybe because it was. I was writing like Jonathan was already gone. I didn’t know if he was, in fact, already gone. I don’t know if he was ever coming back. I was going back to bed. Sleep would be my remedy, since I wasn’t liking my poetry. Sleep was a way to run away from life’s pain and misery. I fell asleep humming “Already Gone,” wishing he was beside me.

  I woke up, parched and sweaty from crying in my sleep. My throat was dry, my eyes were dry, my body felt as if I’d been running a marathon. I had an awful dream. I was behind Jonathan; he was walking ahead of me at a swift pace. I reached out to him, but he brushed me off. He broke out in a run and I chased him, all the time calling to him. I was crying, I knew it by the fact that it started raining. The dream changed and I was in a dark room. I was strapped to a bed in a psych ward and I could hear a soft voice moaning, a voice that wasn’t my own. Bill stood by my bed foot grinning. I fought but I couldn’t get up. I was trapped in the bed, naked. I was naked. I felt naked. I felt as if I was stripped of my soul and my armour. I called Jonny, called him again, I didn’t leave a message. After all what would I say to him? “Hey I got your note?” I did the smart thing, got some ice cream from the freezer, ate like a fat girl who lost to her diet, and cried myself to sleep.

  There’s no running from the past.

  Jonathan

  The wedding was beautiful: a bright Saturday afternoon, soon to be evening, the guests in baby-blue, white, and pink. The bride stood out the most in her tailored white gown and the groom looked no less sharp in his tuxedo. The two idiots smiled at each other like they knew a secret no one else knew. They looked happy and I hated them for that. But I couldn’t hate the view. The sun would be going down soon. I took amazing photos; I was a reporter but I loved photography, on special occasions like theses you’d see me pull my camera out. I took some shots of the happy-go-lucky, ready to pose bride and groom, a shot of the bride and her bridal party, a shot of the couple kissing away from everyone else on the beach, a shot of a group of children, and the one that stood out to me, a pretty Indian lady with a very light skinned baby, no father nearby.

  It made me think of my own mother, what she’d said about Veronica, how much she loved her, how she offered for us to come over for Sunday dinner after church. We never went to church; Mommy didn’t need to know that. I’d go see her soon. Mothers know best. I thought about her, her strength. I wish I had inherited that as well as her smile and dark skin. I thought about Veronica, was miserable, went back to my hotel room miserable, and ate my dinner miserable. What hurt the most was that I’d never met or seen this man; I imagined him to be ev
erything a woman could want, twice as good-looking, way better than me. Maybe he was a model or something, a biker? I don’t know, what else could he be? I thought I knew Veronica, knew exactly what she liked and didn’t. I guess I didn’t. I thought long and hard, staring at the ceiling, and like cupid’s arrow it struck me like the first time I laid eyes on her. I was not aggressive. He’d sounded stern, the kind of man she could be submissive to. What if he had raped her and she liked it? God forbid! Was Veronica letting a rapist do things to her? I slowly angered and wanted to call her. I thought of my mother, the reason I couldn’t let myself get angry towards Veronica, the reason I couldn’t be aggressive towards Veronica.

  I was thrown into a flashback, it happened before my very eyes. I was six years old, smart enough to know exactly what was happening, young enough to be afraid to say anything to anyone: My father, coming home late at night, me in front of the T.V. when I should’ve been in bed, but after a few “pretty, pwetti pleases” I was allowed to stay up later. It was a Saturday, Mommy knew I wouldn’t be able to wake for church Sunday morning. Daddy coming home drunk, reeking of marijuana and cheap perfume. Mommy being angry, speaking in a hushed tone, softly pleading to him to stop the cheating and smoking; he’d get lung cancer.

  “You ever heard about marijuana giving anyone lung cancer? Shut your fucking mouth or get hit in it!”

  “James, please don’t talk to me like that in front of J.”

  He’d silenced her with a blow from the back of his hand to the side of her face. In his drunken stupor, he’d asked her, “Where’s my dinner?”

  She wouldn’t reply and he dished her another, then another, then violently kissed her, grabbed her by her long hair and pull her to the kitchen. When she refused to speak to him through her crying, he’d said, “I’mma give you something to cry about.”

  She still didn’t answer him. The only words she’d spoken were directed to me

  “Jonathan, go to your room. It’s bed time, daddy needs to talk to me about something important.”

  So, blinded by fear, I stayed, quiet in the corner I was hiding in, and listened and heard my father raping my mother on the kitchen table.

  Nights like those, she’d take long showers; I could hear her stifled crying from the other side of the door. James would be sprawled out on the sofa or in his bed asleep by then but she wouldn’t dare let him hear her again. Nights like those, I’d dream about killing my father in his sleep, going to his side of the bed, and nesting mommy’s best cooking knife deep in his chest with all the strength my hands could muster. Nights like those, Mommy slept beside me.

  It’s something I never told anyone, didn’t need to tell anyone, eventually my mother grew the strength to get my father arrested. He eventually was charged and incarcerated but with Australia’s government he was out in no time. He came back twice. He raped her once. The second time he came, I was nine years old, and wasn’t as afraid anymore.

  He was holding mommy by the neck against the wall. I stabbed him in the same arm he had been holding her with. I was hit, my eye bloodshot, my eyelid purple, but he never came back after that.

  Veronica couldn’t understand, I grew up with all that hate, all that negative energy. I worshipped the ground my mother walked on. I grew up respecting women. Respecting them enough not to objectify them. I knew what they had to go through. I know what my mother went through. I could not do what she had asked. Not without being haunted by the shadows of my past.

  To Befriend

  Becky Chang

  I was not hearing from Veronica. I called her office, she hadn’t been to work in two days. I guess in the evening I’d go see her. Something was wrong and I could tell. I guess I knew something was wrong since she met this “Bill” man and everything changed; she no longer spoke to me. I guess cheating was, in fact, a full-time job. I was never tied down to anyone one chick so I guess I wouldn’t know, since I was never technically cheating.

  I got to her house at six on Tuesday evening. She wouldn’t answer. I knew the flower pot she hid the key under outside the building. I went to retrieve it, then went back to the door to let myself in. Everything looked normal. I felt weird in my grey pants, seamed perfectly in vertical lines, my shoes, and white button down shirt, smelling like the office. She was in the bedroom and that wasn’t pretty. There was tissue everywhere, the room was dark, it smelled musky. The smell was similar to that of a hot room with the aftermath of hours of sex. Her phone was lying on the dresser, dead. When was the last time she charged it? When was the last time she got out of bed? Something was terribly wrong.

  “Kay?” I gently rocked her, “Kay baby wake up, what’s wrong? Flu again?”

  I knew what the flu could do to her; she need some vitamins, her immune system was probably too weak. She stirred, came over to me, and hugged me. I couldn’t help myself. As sweaty as she smelled and as awful she looked, I still saw the beautiful goddess I knew she was. She was so sexy, braless in a silky, but not real silk, night-gown. She pressed her breasts to mine. I felt my body react to her, her hair smelled good- if you liked sweat and tea therapy shampoo mixed together, it smelled great.

  I resisted the urge I had to fondle her; she laid down, opened her eyes, and realized it was me. I guess I wasn’t the person she’d been expecting, by the look on her face. I shoved the rejection I was facing away once again and became the friend I needed to be. When she fully woke up, I encouraged her to take a shower and told her then we’d talk. I went to the kitchen and made an egg sandwich for her with lettuce and cheese. At least somebody had gone to the grocery store. I didn’t find Jonathan not being there odd at all. I knew he went out of town frequently, sometimes for very long periods at a time. Veronica would complain how she missed him and tell me all about her days since she had no one else to talk to. I kept inviting her out, let’s go to Kal’s, let’s go to Hellshire, let’s go here or there, but she always turned me down. Now she needed me. Oh, how the tables can turn and so easily at that. I pretended to not hear her crying softly in the bathroom. It didn’t sound so much like the flu anymore. And I didn’t recall seeing any medication around, now that I thought about it.

  I turned the T.V. on and turned it up loud enough so I didn’t hear her pain. I couldn’t stand it. I waited and waited, the shower was running all this time. I knocked softly and told her that her food was getting cold; she replied with a soft, “Coming.” I relaxed, she sounded like she had stopped crying.

  She came out, fragile and shy as a baby gazelle. She refused to eat at first, but when I heard her stomach I insisted; she ate and drank some cherry juice. I probably should’ve made her some tea, lord knows when the last time she had something warm in her stomach was. Since we weren’t talking, I had no idea how long this had been going on. She started to tell me what happened, but as soon as I could understand she started crying so hard that her entire body shook and she began to wheeze. She cried on my lap and I tried to be just a friend and understand her need for compassion and affection; she just needed to be hugged, but her closeness was biting at my last strand of self-control.

  I’ve wanted her for so long, and here she was, in pain and in my arms. I wanted to hate Jonathan for ignoring her, but I couldn’t blame him; this was her fault. It was my fault, too. I should’ve never encouraged her, since I knew how much he’d meant to her. But this man sounded like a psycho. I wish I had seen it coming. Then, I would’ve known what exactly to say to her. I wish I could’ve gone back in time and warned her of the heart ache to come. Instead, I held her warm, shaking body in my arms, and wished it was under very different circumstances.

  It was horrible. I was fighting myself. I let her go, got up, and went to the counter; for nothing really, I drank some water. I sat back down further away from her. She stopped crying, her face was pink now and no longer red, her nose was very swollen and so were her eyes. The things we do to ourselves.

  “How’ve you been?” she asked, trying to change the topic.

  “I’m oka
y, I’ve been good,” was all I managed. It came out harsh and she took it completely the wrong way. Why the hell did she put on shorts that short and where was her bra? I could feel the insides of my palms sweating. I wanted her, puffy-eyed and red-nosed I wanted her. She was still very beautiful to me. Fuck beautiful, her body was calllliinnggggg, I kinda giggled, humming “No Hesitation” in my head.

  She looked at me, and smirked, “I’m sorry I’ve been avoiding you.”

  She came and hugged me, leaning over her breasts in my face. I hugged her back, putting my hand under her blouse, groping her breast, and kissing her neck. At first she reacted, then she jumped back.

  “Becky, what the fuck?” she exclaimed.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck! What the fuck had I done? She had looked so good, felt so good, smelled like the Veronica I knew and fantasized about.

  “How the fuck could you do that to me? I trusted you!” she began to go off at the mouth. She screamed at me to leave. I tried apologizing, explaining, but she wasn’t hearing it. I knew that she was in the worst position to be rational, after all nothing was rational about love, about a lesbian girl in love with her straight best friend. I really didn’t mean to; she had to know how attractive she was.

  “Get the fuck out! Can’t you hear?”

  I think that was the most anger I’d ever heard her spit. My limbs finally caught on and I got up and left with my tail tucked between my legs.

  I thought about what I had done, how stupid I was, how easily it happened, how desire can get so strong that it out-wills you. I completely understood how she cheated on Jonathan, and I felt like I did her wrong. I had done her wrong. I wondered to myself how long she intended to stay mad at me. I hoped it wasn’t too long… I really didn’t mean to. Okay, I didn’t accidentally grab her tit, but I did it without thinking, like it was first nature. I sighed loudly. Fuck. The only person who could probably help me was Bill, she’d told me his name today. She had only called him Mr. Hilton before. I would find him and get him to understand, maybe he could talk to her for me, if she ended up with him, that is. Google was my friend; I found him for sure. He worked for an American company that just opened in Australia. I wrote the number down and scheduled an appointment with his secretary for the very next day.