The Sunday before work, she took Daniel to the beach. It had rained the night before so the humidity was gone. The blue sky met the lake in perfect coordination. They spent the entire day playing in the sand, splashing in the water and working on their tans. As they lay side by side in the warm sand, they talked for hours about their future. And at the end of the day they observed the evening sky turn from blue to crimson, to orange then pink. Daniel held her tightly in his arms as they watched nature’s chorus in silence.
A flood of emotion came over Marissa when she thought about Daniel returning to California. She turned to him and said, “Have you ever thought of moving back?”
Dan released his arms and moved so he could see her eyes. “Mariss, please, we’ve talked about this. I can’t move back. Haven’t we always talked about going to California together? I just moved a little sooner than you. You’ll come out for college after you finish high school. I know it seems long, but it’s only a year.”
She burst out into tears, “I know. It’s just that it’s so long to wait. Life is horrible here. My mom is absolutely ruining my life. I need you Dan. I need you with me.”
“Shhhh, Marissa, life’s not a picnic in California either. My brother is an absolute asshole and it is so expensive out there…”
Marissa cut in, “What? You’re in California, Dan. How horrible can it be? A lot of people would die to live out there.”
Dan stared at her then tucked his head between his knees. For a moment he drew circles in the sand with his finger. Then he sighed heavily and said, “Marissa, it’s late. I don’t want to get into it now. I’ll explain later when we have more time and have had some sleep. You better take me to my mom’s apartment. You’re going to get in trouble with your dad.”
Marissa wondered what was up. Usually Daniel could care less if she went home late. But she had to get up at six for work so she agreed they should go.
On the way home, Daniel was abnormally quiet. Negative thoughts flooded Marissa’s mind. The last time he was acting distant, she thought, he had bad news to tell me. As she drove, she glanced over to the passenger seat. Daniel sat there, cigarette in hand, staring out the window.
Marissa made an attempt to get him to talk. “I had a great day hon.”
“Huh?” Daniel muttered without emotion. “Oh, yeah, me too.”
O.K., that went well, she thought.
Finally she pulled into the parking lot. Exasperated by his silence she said, “Daniel, I know I’m probably being paranoid but are you sure you don’t have something to tell me?”
He turned to face her. Then he grabbed the back of her head forcefully and kissed her hard on the lips. “I’ll see you tomorrow. O.K.? I love you.” He opened the car door and sauntered awkwardly toward his mother’s apartment.
Marissa watched him walk up the steps and disappear behind the door before driving slowly away.
The feeling of uneasiness didn’t leave Marissa’s stomach all night. And the next morning as she opened the dry cleaners with Brogan she could feel the pit in her stomach get heavier as time went on.
Brogan, who wasn’t used to seeing her friend so glum, couldn’t take it anymore. “Marissa, what’s eating you? You look so sad. Did something happen with Dan last night?”
Marissa gazed at her friend and read genuine concern on Brogan’s face. She wasn’t aware she was that transparent. “No. Everything’s going great. Daniel was just acting a little distant last night. He asked me to drop him off at his mom’s house early. It seemed so unlike him.” Marissa stopped and sank back into her thoughts trying to figure out why she felt so uneasy.
Brogan broke into her train of thought once again, “Marissa you’re probably just overreacting. This is hard on both of you. You know he’s going back to California. He knows he’s going back to California. It sucks. He’s probably just bummin’.”
Marissa sighed, “Yeah, you’re probably right, I’m overreacting.” And talking to Brogan did make her feel better. But it didn’t make the pit in her stomach disappear completely.
At eleven o’clock, the dry cleaner door opened abruptly and Daniel walked in. He looked nervous as he approached Marissa. He shoved his hands into his jean pockets and said to Marissa, “Hey baby.”
He was trying to keep his cool but his eyes looked sullen. His tan skin appeared pale. He looked sick and sad at the same time.
Marissa glanced up at the clock that hung above the door. “Daniel, it’s only eleven and I don’t get off until…” All of a sudden she saw his arms and her mouth dropped open. “Oh my God, what happened?” Dried up blood seeped out of clumsily wrapped bandages around his wrists and forearms. At once she knew what had happened but she couldn’t believe it.
He shoved his fists deeper into his pockets as he tried to hide his arms. He shrugged, “I, uh broke a glass and it cut me up.”
For a moment, time stood still. Marissa stared at Daniel in disbelief then turned her eyes to Brogan, who stood transfixed. In a robotic fashion Marissa shook her head as if to say, No. I’m not going to believe this.
With her mouth still gaping and her eyes still staring at Dan she said, “Uh, Brogan?”
Marissa didn’t have to say another word, Brogan understood. “Go!” she said firmly. “I’ll cover for you.”
Briskly, Marissa came out from behind the counter, grabbed Dan’s arm and pulled him outside. Her eyes welled up with tears. “Let me see what’s under those bandages Daniel!”
He shook his head no but she insisted lifting off the gauze. Deep cuts lined his arms in every direction. Quickly she covered the wounds and looked away. She wanted to vomit. Her heart filled with sorrow. “What is going on? Why did you do this?” Her heart thumped in her chest and her head began to spin. “We need to get you to a hospital. You might need stitches.”
Dan turned pale and his lips quivered as he spoke, “No Mariss, the bleeding has stopped.”
Looking for answers she blurted out, “But I don’t understand. Why would you try to kill yourself? You never seemed depressed. We have each other. We have our future together. How could you do such a thing?” Tears poured down her face.
Daniel broke down at once. “My plane was supposed to leave this morning, this morning Marissa! But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t leave you. I couldn’t go back there.” Uncontrollable sobs overcame him.
“What?” Marissa yelled in disbelief, “ I booked your ticket. Your plane isn’t leaving for another week, Dan.”. She gazed over his shoulder trying hard not to look down at his wounds.
In between sobs he choked out, “Marissa, my brother forced me to change my plane ticket before I left. He said he needed me back to work and pay rent. I couldn’t tell you, I’m sorry.”
Customers, headed toward the dry cleaners, swept past them.
Marissa pulled Dan closer. “Look, this isn’t the place to talk about this. Let’s go back to your mom’s house and you can tell me the rest. But I’m not leaving you alone today. No… you...um people who…you just can’t be alone.” She was going to say, “Suicidal people should never be left alone”. But she couldn’t bring herself to admit that her boyfriend was suicidal.
Behind the wheel, her eyes glazed over as she tried to make sense of what was happening. Somehow she had entered the twilight zone. She couldn’t believe that her boyfriend, her Daniel, had tried to kill himself. And what if he had succeeded? she thought. What if he had bled to death overnight? Not even wanting to think about the answers, she quickly pushed those questions out of her mind.
The nightmare continued as they walked through the door and into his mom’s apartment. As they entered, Marissa felt like they had stepped into a murder scene from a horror movie. Dried blood covered the room. Drops of blood dotted the pea green carpet leading into the kitchen. Blood was smeared across the coffee table and couch. Various razor blades lay strewn across the table where blood-drenched towels had been carelessly thrown. The door to his mother’s bedroom was shut and barricaded by several empty w
ine bottles. Marissa swallowed hard to hold back the tears. The evidence wasn’t even hidden. She had learned in school that people who attempt suicide leave clues they hope someone will find, a sort of cry for help. It seemed that he wanted so much for his mother to notice him but it was all in vain. She never even awoke from her drunken stupor.
A pang of guilt hit her hard in the stomach. Why didn’t I notice anything? she said to herself. I felt something was wrong but why didn’t I see he was that desperate? Marissa stared at him searching for an explanation.
“I felt trapped, Marissa. I didn’t know what to do. We are starving out there. We can barely make enough to pay the rent. We’ve had to live on candy bars for the past two months. I got caught stealing money from the video shop where I worked and had to get another job. And then, you’re here and there’s your mom…”
“What?” Marissa interjected. “What has she got to do with this?”
“Marissa, she told me not to tell you. But she called me, Mariss. She called me in California to chew me out. She told me I was a wimp and that I wasn’t a man because I took money from a girl. She told me that I was nothing, that I was scum and that I would never become anything in life just like my drunken mother. And she said that I better pay you back or she wouldn’t let me speak to you again.” He spoke with absolute distress in his voice. “I, uh, I didn’t know what to do.”
Marissa knew her mom was manipulative. She knew her mom could be downright awful. But she never thought, not for once, that she could be so horrible to someone else, especially Dan. Barbara knew how much Marissa loved him and she knew how mean and cruel his own mother was. What gave her the right to call him and tell him off like that? She put him over the edge, Marissa thought. She completely put him over the edge.
“Dan, please don’t pay any attention to her! My mom is sick. I hate her. She can’t stand the idea of anyone but herself in my life. She has always tried to get rid of anyone who is important to me. What a bitch! I can’t believe she called you.” She stood up and started pacing the room. Dan lit a cigarette. Marissa leaned over and lit her cigarette on his.
After a few minutes she sat back down. For a long time, they sat on the bloodstained couch and cried in each other’s arms saying nothing. Marissa picked up his wrists and began kissing them. She wanted so much to make everything better.
“You know what she said to me,” Marissa chuckled through her tears, “she said that if I bought you a plane ticket it was because I wanted to have sex with you, you know, like for the first time?”
At this Dan laughed out loud for the first time in days.
Later that day, Daniel had to call Fred to tell him he missed the plane.
“Dan,” Marissa pleaded, “Tell him you’re not coming back at all. Tell him you’re going to find an apartment here. You can get a job here. We can make it work Dan, we can. I promise, I will help you in any way I can. You need to get help. You need to see a therapist or something. I’m afraid Dan, afraid you might do it again.” She choked out the words she knew he didn’t want to hear.
He looked straight into her eyes. “Marissa, don’t worry about me. That will never happen again. I don’t want to die. I don’t need to see a shrink, believe me.” He turned away, “Now I’ve got to go and call Fred.”
She started shaking again. For a minute, she thought he might say yes. In her mind he said, “Yes, Marissa I’ll stay. I can’t stand another minute away from you.” But from the look on his face she knew he wouldn’t stay. Marissa glanced over at his sexy body, his hands motioning as he talked on the phone. He ran his fingers nervously through his dark curly hair. He slammed the phone and slumped down on the bloodstained couch.
“He was pissed. I’m going to have to pay another fifty bucks to change my ticket. I have to book another flight. I’ll probably be leaving tomorrow.”
She looked at him and didn’t say anything. Dan knew she was upset but what could he say? What could Marissa say? Against her better judgment, she pouted for the rest of the afternoon. A dark gloom hung over her and nothing could lift it.
The ride back to the cleaners wasn’t any better. They didn’t talk at all. Marissa puffed away nervously on a Marlboro light and blasted Wild Flower, by the Cult.
When they arrived in the parking lot next to Daniel’s mother’s car, Marissa turned down the radio. “I’ll pick you up at nine for Bob’s party, “she said coldly while staring straight ahead. She tapped her fingers on the steering wheel and waited for him to get out of the car.
Dan stared at Marissa’s profile and said, “Marissa, you know I have no other choice, don’t you?”
“No, Dan, I don’t know,” she said lighting another cigarette. “I’ll see you in an hour. I gotta take a shower.”
“Fine!” he shouted and slammed the door.
As soon as he left the car it hit her. All of the events of the day came flooding out like a dam being released for the first time. Marissa lost it completely. Nothing could stop the tears this time. She felt she had no one to turn to. No one could possibly understand the eeriness of the situation. Dan wasn’t psycho, he wasn’t. People who slit their wrists are completely crazy. Everyone knows that. Daniel is not crazy. She thought, This doesn’t happen to someone like me, not to someone I love. He didn’t want to die; he just wanted someone to notice him. I was always there for him, but not last night.
The tears wouldn’t stop and Marissa had to pull over to regain control. The closest place was that damned parking lot, that God forsaken place where Barbara had interrogated her two weeks before, like a criminal. Now that day seemed like nothing compared to today. She turned up Destination by The Church so she couldn’t hear herself screaming, “Why Dan? Why did you do that to yourself and to me? Why?”
That night at the party everyone wanted to talk to Dan about California. The mood between Dan and Marissa was still somber. She sipped a wine cooler and watched him talk to his friends in his cool voice. After awhile, he slipped away from his friends and led her out into the back yard. He took her hand in his while holding a beer and cigarette with the other hand. He kissed her softly and said, “If I stay here, I’ll never become anything. Look at these guys, two years out of high school and they’re still hanging around each other partying every night. They’re going no where fast.”
Marissa understood what Dan meant. She had felt the same way for years. She longed to leave her hometown. It wasn’t a place where she felt she could grow. He was right and that’s what made her so angry. “Dan, please, I…I need you to tell me that you will go and see a therapist when you get back to California. I really think you need to talk stuff out with someone,” she stammered.
Not sounding convinced Daniel answered, “I’ll see if I can. I can’t promise anything.”
His lack of concern for his own mental health did not comfort her.
The next day Dan had to leave again. This time they knew they wouldn’t see each other for almost a full year. Before he moved to California they had barely been separated for a day. Everything seemed like such a nightmare. When they kissed good-bye at the airport, Marissa knew her feelings for him had changed during the visit. She felt tired of the struggle. She knew that. For some reason, her ability to cope was to say to herself that his problems were beyond repair. It seemed like too much to handle for a seventeen-year old girl. Marissa still loved him tremendously and her heart ached when he left; but something was different.
Chapter Four
Marissa stared down at the phone, her only connection to Daniel now. School was starting soon. The only thing she had to look forward to that year was its ending. She couldn’t wait until she received her SAT scores so she could start applying to colleges in California.
By the time the first day of school arrived, Marissa’s mood had lightened. Her optimistic nature took over. She was determined to work hard to improve her grade point average as much as possible. Junior year the guidance counselors explained that senior year grades counted just as much as grades e
arned the previous years. That was her carrot to work hard senior year, and then there was Daniel.
Brogan had talked Marissa into driving her to school on the first day. They lived quite a distance apart but Brogan felt she needed to support her friend after the incident with Dan.
As they pulled up to the red brick two-story building Marissa sighed heavily, “Only nine more months in this hell hole.”
Brogan smirked. “It’s not that bad Mariss. You’ll see. Once we get back in the routine, things will be fine.”
Marissa wasn’t convinced.
She was sick of St. Mary’s. She had been attending St. Mary’s since first grade. The small Catholic school, in an upper middle-class neighborhood, wasn’t a place she liked to call home. When it was time to look at high schools, she had begged her mother to let her go to the public high school. She knew the public school had more money, which meant more teachers and programs for acting and musical theatre. But Barbara had been adamant about Marissa attending a catholic school. She was convinced that public schools were made up of bad kids who might influence her to do bad things. What Barbara didn’t understand was that the kids at St. Mary’s did as many if not more drugs and drinking than the kids in public schools.
But as usual, Barbara didn’t agree and ignored her request. So throughout her high school career, Marissa tried to make the best of the situation.
Brogan and Marissa stood in line in the counseling center to get their new schedules. It actually felt good to be back in a routine.
Marissa looked down at her new schedule:
Adv. Choir period 1 room 115 Mr. Sincop
Newspaper period 2 room 102 Ms. Prime
Lunch period 3 cafeteria Staff
Government period 4 room204 Mrs.Bonsworth
Religion Ed. period 5 room 110 Mr. Turner
Study hall period 6 study hall Staff
Forbidden Fruit: An Unlikely Love Story Page 3