A Dark and Stormy Knight

by Bridget Essex

  Cecile waits, her hooded eyes glittering.

  Then she says, “I know that something odd happened last night, my dear. Something…not quite of this world changed things.”

  I stare at her, dumbfounded.

  “What?” I ask weakly.

  “There was a storm.” Cecile glances sidelong at the percolator; it’s starting to make a bubbling sound. “Just a second, doll. The tea’s on,” she says with a soft smile, and then she’s up and striding toward the little table. “Would you like one lump or two?”

  “Two,” I whisper, shocked by the normality of her question, given the circumstances, but then I’m standing, spreading my hands. “Cecile, please tell me exactly what you’re saying, because…because right now, I need things put in really simple, logical terms.” I rake my hand back through my hair as I breathe out.

  Cecile lifts her antique sugar tongs and takes the lid off of her sugar bowl. She told me once that the bowl was her mother’s; it has a delicate rose pattern along the side. She takes two lumps of sugar out of the bowl and sets them in the center of the white teacup before splashing hot water over the bag.

  “I told you there was magic in the world, sweetie,” she says, and her eyes are twinkling as she hands me the teacup and saucer. She winks. “And last night, it happened, didn’t it? Here. Magic.”

  “How do you know that?” I sit down and lean against the futon as I hold the teacup gingerly in front of me, staring at Cecile.

  She shrugs, sitting down beside me and lifting her own teacup to her lips. She blows gently on the surface. “Magic is afoot, my dear,” she tells me, her mouth turning up at the corners. “Delicious magic. That is exactly what is happening, and you know it, despite your pragmatic, ‘tarot cards are bullshit’ nonsense,” she says with a hearty chuckle.

  I frown. “Well, tarot cards are bullshit—”

  “My darling girl.” Her eyes are dark, though her words are soft, full of fondness. I breathe out, watching her. “All of the times I have read for you, and you still don’t believe? Even when I read the truth?”

  “It’s…just that you know too much about me,” I protest, though my voice has softened. “You know everything about me. You’re the only one who does.”

  “But think about that, Mara,” says Cecile, and her tone is a little different now. There’s pain in her gaze as she takes my hand, squeezing it. “I have been there for you, haven’t I?”

  “Always,” I tell her, and suddenly, my eyes are swimming with tears. “When no one else was there…you were. But that doesn’t mean that tarot readings are real,” I persist, wiping the tears away from my eyes, forbidding them to fall.

  Cecile holds my gaze, her eyes calm.

  “I knew about you, dear heart, didn’t I?” she murmurs, her head tilted to the side. “I knew about you.”

  I close my eyes, resting the saucer in my lap so that I can grip the teacup with shaking hands.

  “I know you did,” I whisper, and though I have tried to push everything down, to keep a lid on my past, on my pain…darkness can’t stay hidden forever. There will be times when your scars throb so painfully that you can’t ignore them anymore.

  I close my eyes, and I remember.

  ---

  Everything rushes back, and all at once. It’s as if a dam has broken, and the angry river of memories roars over me, dragging me down into the rapids of darkness.

  I’ve just turned eighteen. For most people, it’s a momentous birthday, one full of happiness and good memories.

  But…not for me.

  It’s going to be the worst day of my life.

  I’m standing in my bedroom, staring at my reflection in the mirror. My palms are sweaty; I wipe them on my jeans. Real attractive, I think to myself, gulping down air as I slide a tendril of hair behind my ear and gaze at my reflection with wide eyes.

  I invited Kim over for the afternoon. It’s my birthday, and my parents aren’t doing anything for it—why would they? I stare at my reflection, trying to remind myself that I don’t care that they forgot. Again.

  But of course I care.

  When my friends say that their parents hate them, they’re just being dramatic. Most parents love their kids—that's how human beings are wired. But sometimes there are aberrations in nature. A bear kills her cubs and eats them. A stallion rips his foal’s throat open.

  Sometimes there are deviations.

  Like my parents.

  I’ve often wondered whether my parents ever loved me at all. Maybe when I was born, too tiny to find fault, too helpless to actively hate. Maybe. But I’m not really sure. I have a feeling that, even as a baby, there was something about me that they found unlovable.

  The put-downs started when I was pretty young. The “you’ll never be good enoughs” morphed quickly into “I wish you’d never been borns.” It was hard to endure, but life got even worse once they started beating me.

  I gaze at my reflection, at the bruise around my right eye that I tried to hide with concealer this morning. I reach up, wincing, as I press a finger to it, smudging the concealer from that small bit of tender, black-and-blue skin.

  I don’t know why they hit me. That’s the worst part. My mother’s wailed a few times that she wishes she'd had a son, instead. But is that reason enough to hate her own daughter?

  I don’t know.

  Sometimes, people are just cruel.

  Sometimes, you’re born to the wrong parents.

  For a long time, I doubted that I should have been born at all.

  That sounds dark. And, for a long time, it was.

  Until Kim.

  Kim has been my best friend for the last few years of school. Since the beginning of ninth grade, actually. She’s a pretty brunette girl, a full foot shorter than me. She describes herself as a firecracker, and she is. Kim has a temper; she’s feisty as all hell. She loves soccer and ice cream…and she’s the most loyal person you’ll ever meet.

  She knows I’m gay. She’s always been there for me, even after I told her about the dream I keep having, about the woman in the water. Kim is such a good person—the best person I’ve ever known.

  I stare at my reflection in the mirror, eyes wide as I consider the truth of why I wanted Kim here today. Not just because she’s my best friend and this is my eighteenth birthday. Not just because I wanted someone to celebrate this day with.

  It's because I…I think I’m falling for her.

  No—I already have.

  That's stupid, right? It’s honestly the stupidest thing I could ever do in my stupid life. Headline: gay girl falls for straight best friend who can never love her. This is my life, my life that I’m about to profoundly mess up by loving someone out of reach.

  I can never be with her. She’s straight; I’m not. And that disconnect is tragic.

  The tragedy of the whole damn thing makes a twisted sort of sense, though. It fits in with the rest of my sorry existence. Being born to parents who wanted a son instead of a daughter, who hate me because I'm not a boy. Having dreams about that gorgeous mystery woman since I was a kid, a woman who doesn't exist but who I love all the same. The dream is especially tragic, because at least, someday soon, I’ll escape my parents’ hate, leave this house forever. But I’ll never find my dream woman, because she isn’t real. And I can never truly love Kim, because she could never love me back.

  It’s almost summer, and after this last summer together, Kim and I are going to part ways. She's going to NYU; I’m heading to UCLA. Colleges on opposite sides of the country. In a few short months, our lives are going to change so much. We're going to change so much…

  I pick up the compact of powder concealer and try to cover my bruise better, but when I stare into my eyes in the mirror, there’s a flicker there. A flicker of doubt.

  I’m wondering if I should just hold my tongue.

  Not tell Kim that I’m crushing on her.

  Problem is, I’ve been feeling for a long time that this secret is too big to keep inside.
Besides, it’s tough to hide a secret from my best friend. And this secret…it’s massive. Voicing it could change everything.

  I watch my reflection pale at the mere thought of telling her. My heart is drumming against my ribs.

  Then I lift my chin, eyes flashing.

  Resolve courses through me.

  Yeah. She needs to know.

  And…and if I manage to tell her tonight, if I don’t chicken out, then Kim can decide what she wants to do next. She can figure out whether she wants to remain my friend or not. She can figure out if this knowledge, my crush on her, my thinking—at eighteen—that I’m falling in love with her, irrevocably alters our friendship.

  I pat the concealer puff against my bruised skin, and I flinch. God, it hurts. You’d think I’d be used to this by now. I mean, this shiner isn't the worst of the bruises and breaks my parents have given me over the years. But, for some reason—maybe because it's my birthday—it's bothering me a whole hell of a lot more.

  And someone noticed this time.

  My gym teacher pulled me aside this morning, her brow furrowed in concern as she lowered her voice, asked me what had happened to get me a black eye. I lied, told her I’d fallen down the stairs. I panicked—it was the first thing I could think of—and even to myself, it sounded like the stupidest lie. A flat-out lie. I’ve been covering for my parents since I was a little girl. You would think I'd have had a better excuse on the tip of my tongue. But my gym teacher caught me off guard. Her expression was so kind, so pitying as she stared down at me, her hand gentle on my upper arm, like my bone might break beneath the weight of her fingers. That look of pity on her face filled me with a deep, consuming horror. With dread.

  I was so worried that she’d see through my lie, and finally, finally find me out.

  I know—thanks to Oprah—that it’s common for abuse victims to feel ashamed of their abuse, and to feel protective of their abusers. It’s this dangerous pattern, but what can I do? My parents threaten me to keep me quiet. My mother tells me over and over again that if I ever tell anyone that she hurts me, that my father hurts me, I'll be laughed at. No one will believe me.

  Besides, she says, they're only trying to shape me into a better person.

  Growing up, Mom told me all these horror stories about orphanages and the foster care system. I believed I'd be worse off in an orphanage—starving, bloody, filthy, alone. Orphanages are like dungeons, she said. Some kids don't ever make it out alive.

  Better the devil you know, right?

  I guess my gym teacher believed me, despite my fumbling excuse. She told me go to see the nurse, and that was that.

  But Kim?

  For a long time now, Kim has sensed that there's something wrong with my home life. She never buys my bullshit excuses about why I'm late coming to her house, or why I'm limping, or why there were black-and-blue handprints on my arms one day after my father grabbed me. I see her watching me carefully, see her brain working things out. She's never even been to my place. We meet at the bowling alley and the library, at the park and at the diner.

  I know that, if she's ever around my parents for even a minute or two, she'll pick up on the truth right away. Kim isn't stupid. She's the smartest person I know.

  Obviously, I've never told my parents that I'm gay. That knowledge would just give them more ammunition to use against me. Part of me wonders if they’d send me to one of those gay conversion camps. They'd never want to be associated with something as profoundly “wrong” as a lesbian daughter.

  I hope they'll just never find out, not ever.

  They don't deserve to know.

  Yeah...my life is all sorts of messed up.

  I’ve managed to hide my abuse from my best friend for years. I've never let her step over the threshold of my house.

  But now, tonight, that's going to change.

  Tonight, Kim's coming to my house for my birthday.

  And it's terrifying. But I'm ready.

  My parents don’t remember—or care—that it’s my birthday, and, as luck would have it, they’ve gone out to dinner. “Gone to dinner” is code for “staying at the bar until it closes.” Which is fine by me. By the time they come back, so drunk that they should never, ever have been allowed to get behind the wheel of a car, Kim will be long gone, and if they wake me up and beat me in their drunken stupors…well, my birthday will already be over. Technically, it will have been a mostly good day.

  I can live with that.

  I’m eighteen. I’ve already graduated. I need to get a shitty summer job, and then I need to go to college, get the hell out of Dodge and never look back. I have full scholarships. Once I save up enough money to afford the security deposit on an apartment or the first semester of a dorm, I’ll be set. I can live on ramen. I don’t need luxuries.

  I'll do anything to get out from under my parents’ roof. I will work my ass off in the blistering heat. Whatever it takes.

  I am almost free.

  And that almost-freedom is making me a little reckless.

  This morning, on the way to school, I watched a butterfly land on a flower along the edge of the sidewalk, and I knew that it might be the only present I'd get, seeing this gorgeous creature up close. I wanted to grab my sketchbook and draw it right away. When I stared at that butterfly, I was filled with inspiration to paint.

  I’ve been painting a lot lately because it soothes me, makes me feel something like happiness. My parents—with all of their anger and their bitter, jagged words—can’t take that away from me. I should probably study business at college, something practical, but what I really want to do, what I want to do with my whole heart…is study art.

  It’s crazy, right? There’s that joke that if you major in the arts, you’re guaranteed to end up flipping burgers. But I don’t believe that’s true. My aunt Sandra went to college for creative writing, and she’s an author now. Yeah, she has to work a second job, but she makes a nice living with her books.

  I know I’m not a half-bad painter. I’ve gotten my art into sandwich shops and cafes here in town, and a couple of my paintings have even sold. I haven't told my parents about that, because they’d want a cut of the money, payment for “allowing” me to live in their house.

  There’s this hope rising inside of me, and it’s pretty fierce. I want to be an artist. Right now, I’m tentatively going to major in computing. But the reason I chose UCLA is because of their art program.

  Suddenly, I hear the doorbell ring, the tinny sound echoing through the empty house.

  My heart in my throat, I race downstairs to open the door.

  Kim’s there.

  She’s got her platform sneakers on, her jeans tight at the hips, a peasant blouse baggy around her curves. The shirt is low cut enough to reveal the creamy tops of her breasts. I'm embarrassed that I notice that. I love everything about Kim—her heart, her humor, her loyalty and kindness and courage. But I love how she looks, too, and I’m eighteen, never been kissed. Stupid Jeffrey McKinley doesn't count; he copped a feel and kissed me without my permission at summer camp when I was thirteen. I punched him in the face.

  Kim grins at me; she's hiding a helium balloon behind her back. Why she’s holding it behind her back is beyond me, because it’s pretty obvious that there’s a bright pink balloon floating above her head. It has a princess crown on it, with the words “Birthday Princess” printed on the cardboard. I laugh, pointing at it, and she laughs, too, hugging me before handing me the balloon.

  “I saw it, and it made me laugh so hard that I snorted Coke out of my nose, so I knew I had to get it for you.” She moves into the foyer, looking around with wide eyes. “Wow. So this is where you live. Honestly, after all this time, I was kind of wondering if you were Batman or something, and lived in the Batcave, and that’s why you had to keep it so secret.”

  I flush, twisting the balloon’s ribbon around my fingers. “Nah. My folks have just been remodeling a lot,” I say, wincing at the half-assed lie. “Do you like it?”
<
br />   My parents have money, and they love to show off, so they never settle for less than the best. The foyer has a ridiculously expensive marble floor.

  Kim nods, shoving her hands into her jeans pockets, rocking her shoulders forward as she glances sidelong at me. “It’s a’right,” she says with a little smile. “But I really want to see your bedroom. I have a present to give you.”

  Tugging the balloon behind me like I’m five years old, I lead the way, and we ascend the staircase together. We’re comfortable enough with each other that we don’t have to fill the silence with chatter. Kim wasn’t in school today—she had a doctor's appointment—so we should have a lot to talk about since we last saw each other. But I’m too nervous to talk… And, anyway, I can tell that Kim is plotting something. She has a mischievous smile on her face, brown eyes twinkling.

  When we get into my bedroom, I close the door behind me. My palms are so sweaty. I let the balloon go, and it drifts up to the ceiling, gently bobbing, the ribbon dangling down over my shoulder.

  “Very nice, very nice,” says Kim, glancing around the room. She bounces on her heels, and I realize that her hand is, again, hidden behind her back.

  She’s biting her lip.

  Wait—is she nervous?

  Okay, now I’m a hell of a lot more nervous than I was before.

  What surprise does she have planned?

  Kim steps forward, and a strange expression sweeps over her features. She's looking at me like she pities me. As if I'm...pathetic.

  “Mara, I’m really sorry,” she says, though she doesn’t look sorry. Her brows furrow together, and she wipes one hand on her thigh.

  I hear the front door open and close downstairs.

  My heart is pounding inside of me. Oh, no. Shit. Shit. My parents are home, and there is no way that they should already be home unless something has gone terribly, terribly wrong. Maybe Mom got one of her migraines, and Dad had to take her home, which will mean that Kim is going to have to meet my parents, and this whole damn thing is going to come crashing down around my head.