by Kilie Sams
I sat in the car, didn’t leave the drive way. Calmed down. Maybe he was a psycho, maybe I was being dramatic. I breathed, felt like I was stifling. Came out of the car, slammed the door so hard I heard the glass rattle. I walked back and forth up the side walk, talking to myself like a mad man. I was a young man who made it uptown from nothing to something, not really nothing. Not really something, not really uptown, I had it together there wasn’t a thing I couldn’t give Veronica that she didn’t want!
“How the fuck you hadn’t seen this Jay?
How could Veronica really do this to you?
Where the fuck she met this asshole?
How long now has this been going on?!!!”
All these questions. I was tempted to call the man and ask him all my questions. But a man like me could never let another dude know I was crying, worse the very same dude that stole my girl. I felt myself getting even more upset. More angry. Then I calmed down as my subconscious buried my desire to see the fucker dead and buried somewhere only the devil could find him. I was on the side walk for what felt like an hour, which had worked out to be just half that. I went upstairs, swept the shattered glass to the corner of the room, put Veronica’s phone exactly where it had been, put my laptop in my bag, got a few more things and left her a note that said.
You really should check your voicemails, clearing your inbox isn’t the only thing you should’ve done. While you’re at it clean up my heart. It’s in the corner by the bed.
I left, one night early; it would be a long drive. I didn’t want to hear music. It will only fuel my anger and all the other songs would remind me of Veronica. Half cursing half crying. I drove out of the drive way, headed for the highway. 10:37 pm the clock was saying. Soon enough the highway was as empty as was my heart. I never knew something that from hindsight could seem so minuscule would hurt so much. Who knew a man could be heartbroken or feel like his world was shaken because of the betrayal of a woman. A woman, I guess I knew I was never a gangster. If it did some other guy Veronica would’ve got home to some good beating. But I just wasn’t that guy. Couldn’t be that guy. Not after..., no. This was just too much for me. One soul didn’t need to harbour this much pain or be this scared. Fuck that.
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 will 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, the TV was on, 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 noticed I hadn’t passed his car in the drive way. 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 ringed out went to voicemail. I called back, it went straight to voicemail. Putting the phone down I saw a Steno page, with Jonathan’s scribbled hand writing. I picked it up, with my hand shaking like the tree limb in a category five hurricane. My eyes filled as a picked the phone up, dialled my voice mailbox 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. May entire life had gone up into 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, as soon as I was convinced he really didn’t know i hung up, cried. Cried from the pit of my stomach, curled like a foetus in a womb to the broken glass in the corner. Hollered, so loudly I couldn’t hear anything but myself. My neighbour came knocking, I silenced my cry stifled my moans until Ms. Jenise finally went away. I was half dead, my entire body shaking was the only way to know I had not died as I hoped I did. I wanted to call Bill, curse him, from deep within. Tell him I was sorry the day we met. Tell him I would rather die than to ever consider remembering he existed again. I choose 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 belonging.
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, splinter in my air, dry blood on my tear stained face from where I 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, burning 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 feel asleep humming “Already Gone” wishing he was beside me.
I woke up, parched, 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 a head of me at a swift pace. I reached out to him, he brushed me off. He broke out in a run; 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 psychotic 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, couldn’t get up. Was trapped in a 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 looking nothing less that sharp in his tuxedo. The two idiots smiling 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, only special occasions like theses you’d see me pull my camera out, I did. 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.
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 and soon. Mothers knew 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, ate my dinner, miserable, what hurt most was I’d never met or seen this man, I’d imagined him to be everything 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 sound stern, the kind of man she could be submissive to. What if he raped her, and she, she liked it? God forbid! Was Veronica letting a rapist do things to her? I slowly angered, wanted to call her, 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 TV 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 Jay.”
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 ask 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 say.
“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, quietly 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 dear 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, six in the afternoon 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 seemed perfectly in vertical lines, my shoes and white button down shirt, smelling like the office. She was in the bedroom, that wasn’t pretty. Tissue everywhere, the room 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 sexy, braless in a silk, but not so silk night-gown. She pressed her breast 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. 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. She woke up, I encouraged her to take a shower and then we’d talk. I went to the kitchen 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 one 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. She always tur
ned 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. Doesn’t sound so much like flu anymore. And I don’t recall seeing any medication around now that I think of it.
I turned the TV 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 said a soft, “Coming”. I relaxed, she sounded like she stopped crying.
She came out, fragile and shy as 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 was the last time she had something warm in her stomach. Since we weren’t talking I had no idea how long this had been going on for. She started to tell me what happened, but as soon as I could understand she started crying a cry that made her entire body shake 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. Sat back down, further away from her. She stoped 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.