Marshmallows for Breakfast

by Dorothy Koomson

  “Try me.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “Try explaining it to me.”

  “I don't see what difference it'll make,” I said. “It's got nothing to do with me leaving.”

  “You can tell me anything.”

  I shrugged at him. “I know, but there's nothing to tell.”

  His eyes started to bore into me, seeking out the truth in what I was saying. There really was nothing to tell. Nothing at all. A woman's arm came between us as she reached for a bottle of bright red cherryade. She hefted it off the shelf and removed her arm from between us, but Kyle stared at me as though we hadn't been interrupted.

  “You can tell me anything,” he said again. “It'll go no further.”

  “Thank you,” I replied.

  “You know everything about me. Everything. Stuff I haven't even told my wife. I want to do the same for you.”

  “Like I said, thank you, but seriously, Kyle, there's nothing to tell.”

  “Kendra, you can tell me anything—I will believe you.”

  Time stopped for a moment. Just a moment. I had an out-of-body experience. Like so many I'd had recently. Like watching as I threatened Janene. Like seeing myself react to the kids disappearing. Like not being there in the nook in the hotel as his hands ran over my body. Now I watched myself as time stopped. Standing in the brightly lit supermarket, with the buzz of Saturday carrying on around me, I could see myself. I looked fragile. Even though I was wearing a fleece, jeans and trainers. Even though my hair was hiding my face, there were hairline cracks covering my body. Touch too hard and I would shatter. Those four words had stopped time. I never knew I needed to hear them. I never knew they would unlock everything. Would unravel the permanent knot that was embedded in my chest.

  When time started moving again, I was back inside my body. I couldn't see myself from the outside. “Why would you believe me, Kyle?” I said, shaking my head. “I don't even believe myself.”

  AIR, JUST AIR

  CHAPTER 46

  I want you to stay in here while you read it. I'll be in the bedroom. I… um … here.” I stuck the sealed white envelope into Kyle's hand, avoiding his eyes all the while. It'd taken me two weeks to do this. To tell him “anything.”

  In the end I'd gone for the safe option, Plan B. Basically, I chickened out and wrote a letter.

  Kyle reached out to touch my face, probably to reassure me, but I flinched away. He held his hand midair for a few seconds then dropped it. “I'll call you when I've finished reading it” was all he said.

  I wanted to apologize, to let him touch my face and reassure me. But I couldn't. Everything was about to change between us. And when he found out about my past I knew nothing would ever be the same again. I dragged my feet through my flat to my bedroom. I paced about for a few minutes, then found myself sitting on the bed, staring at the knots blemishing the wood floor, my arms wrapped around myself. I imagined Kyle sitting on the sofa, turning over in his large hands the white envelope I'd written Kyle on, his fingers tearing it open. I could imagine him taking out the sheets and sheets of white paper, unfolding them and beginning at the first line.

  He'd find no dear, no Kyle, no date, because it'd taken me so long to write.

  I'm going to tell you everything. Everything that has

  led me from where I was, who I was, to here.

  I'm going to tell you everything.

  I haven't talked about it before. I rarely even think

  about it. Only one other person knows what happened.

  And his account may differ from mine.

  When I was twenty a man I trusted forced himself on

  me. Before you think it was what I wanted, it wasn't. I

  promise you it wasn't.

  CHAPTER 47

  I‘m going to tell you everything. Everything that has led me from where I was, who I was, to here.

  I'm going to tell you everything.

  I haven't talked about it before. I rarely even think about it. Only one other person knows what happened. And his account may differ from mine.

  When I was twenty a man I trusted forced himself on me. Before you think it was what I wanted, it wasn't. I promise you it wasn't.

  It began in the middle of the night, the night I went to Harrogate for his work party.

  He'd been the perfect gentleman when we got to his place. He made me coffee and showed me the room I was going to stay in. It wasn't the room I'd stayed in with Tobey, but it was nice. Tidy, clean, bed neatly made, curtains drawn. He put on the bedside lamp for me and we sat on the bed talking. I was a little uneasy, abstractly unsettled. He hadn't mentioned that all his flatmates were away, that it'd be just the two of us in the house. But again, I told myself I was being silly. That I shouldn't think I was so extra- special that he was a good guy and he hadn't tried anything since I'd stopped him kissing me.

  I got changed for bed—he'd lent me one of his lumberjack shirts, which was missing its top button, to sleep in. I was grateful for the loan because I didn't want to sleep in my clothes.

  Once my head hit the pillow, I fell asleep. I could do that, then. I could fall asleep at will.

  In the middle of the night, when it was dark, when it was pitch black, I went to turn over in bed, but there was a heavy weight on top of me. I tried to turn again, but still this weight… It was getting heavier, or maybe I was waking up so I was more aware of it. But it was bearing down on me and making it difficult to breathe.

  I opened my eyes as his hand came down on my mouth, shutting off my ability to speak, shout or scream.

  For a moment I thought he was playing around, was being silly, trying to scare me maybe. I moved to push him off, but my arms wouldn't work; they were pinned I didn't know how, but I couldn't move. I couldn't move at all. That was when the fear, thick and deep, like a vat of hot tar, started to creep up on me. I started struggling. Trying to get him off me, trying to stop him from doing whatever it was he was doing.

  Suddenly one of his hands clamped around my throat. Squeezing, shutting off all air to my lungs. As the fear started to rip me apart molecule by molecule, and blackness started to seep in at the edges of my sight, two thoughts popped into my head at the same time: He's done this before. He's going to kill me.

  His lips were against my ear. “You're special. Stop fighting, you're special,” he whispered. “Stop fighting and I won't kill you.” I had to stop. If I didn't stop fighting he was going to squeeze harder. If I didn't stop he was going to …

  It happened for the first time. I left my body. I was a day-dreamer as a child. I could go to places inside my head, I could read a book and explore new worlds, but I'd never done this before. I'd never left my body and found a place to hide. I closed my eyes and curled up inside that darkness, safe from everything else. Disconnected and safe.

  Something was happening, I knew that, but I wasn't there.

  I heard what he was saying in my ear, but it didn't connect. His scent crawled up my nose and slid down my throat, but I wasn't there. He was moving against my body, inside my body, but it wasn't real. It wasn't happening. It couldn't be happening and I wasn't there to witness it.

  Suddenly it was over. It was over and he was lying on me, breathing hard, his chest the only part of him that moved. His chest and his sweat. His sweat. It rolled off him and onto me. Covering me in his scent. Covering me in more of him. I wanted to push him off, to get him away from me, but I didn't move. If I moved, I'd be admitting I was there, I'd be admitting it'd happened.

  The rest I remember in snippets. In snapshots and flashes. Like clicks of a camera shutter.

  Click. He was talking. He was lying beside me, propped up on one arm and talking. “Don't you ever get frustrated?” he asked after a while. “Haven't you ever wanted something so much you'll do anything to get it?”

  He was staring down at me, waiting for an answer. I could hear my breathing. That's how I knew I was alive. I wasn't moving, I was staring at the hairline cracks in the ceili
ng, but I couldn't move. I couldn't feel anything. But I could hear my breathing. Short shallow breaths in my ears. I could still breathe so I knew I was alive.

  “Aren't you going to say something?” he asked. “Talk to me, Kendra.” His long fingers reached out towards my forehead, to maybe brush away a few strands of my hair, to maybe just stroke my forehead, to maybe just touch me. I flinched. Scared. Terrified that he was going to hurt me. Again.

  “I'm not going to hurt you,” he said, horrified by my reaction, but he didn't touch me. “I'd never hurt you. Kendra, you're so special to me. I wouldn't ever hurt you. I thought that was what you wanted.”

  He'd just said that he was willing to do anything to get what he wanted, and now he was saying it was what I wanted. Which was the truth? Was it him or was it me?

  Click. “Thing is, Kendra, I know what you're like. What you're really like. I've seen how you are,” he was saying. “I thought that was what you wanted.”

  I'd pushed him away the last time he kissed me. I'd tried to tell him no this time. I tried to shake my head. I would have said no if he'd let me breathe. But he thought it was what I wanted. Why? How could he think that?

  “Hey, tomorrow, do you fancy going for lunch in town? I think the market's on. They've got some good stuff, you'd really like it.”

  He was being so normal. Had I imagined what had happened? Had I gotten it all wrong? Did he say he'd kill me? If he could just be chatting, then maybe I'd got it wrong.

  “You think about it, OK? You can bunk off lectures tomorrow, can't you? I'll drive you back in the afternoon.” He didn't move towards me again. “OK, I'm going to get some sleep. Night.” He rolled away and within minutes he was breathing slowly, deeply, asleep. I moved then. Slowly, carefully, I turned away from him. I couldn't move too much because I didn't want him to wake up. To touch me. To talk to me. If I could, I would have gotten up and got dressed and gone home. But I wasn't sure where the train station was from here. I wasn't sure my legs would work. It was still black outside.

  Click. I could smell him. His scent was all over me. The room smelled of him as well. Smelled of him and reeked of it. What he'd done.

  Click. I hurt, deep inside. Not just where he'd hurt me but in my throat. He'd crushed my windpipe but it hurt deeper than that. At the center of my throat, right in the middle there was nothing but agony. As though someone had gouged out that area of my soul and left a deep wound that would never heal. I wouldn't ever be able to speak of this. At the center of myself I hurt. I wanted to put my hands over it, to soothe it, to stop the pain but there was no way to touch it. It wasn't a part of me that hurt, it was the very substance of who I was. Shame and disgust ran like rivers through my body. They ran into the hole in me. The hole at the center, the hole I could not soothe and I could not fill.

  Click. “Do you want to use the shower first?” he asked.

  I started inside at his voice. I hadn't slept. I'd been watching the blackness outside the curtains, waiting for the sun to come up. The hours had crawled by and it didn't seem to get light forever.

  I nodded.

  “Cool, I'll go put the kettle on.” He leapt out of bed and bounded out of the room.

  Slowly I got off the bed, gathered my jeans and T-shirt and sweater and jacket into my arms, crept out of the room into the bathroom.

  Click. I let the water run over me but couldn't bring myself to touch my body.

  Click. He'd changed the sheet and made the bed. The sheet sat in a puffy heap, like a giant meringue, in the corner of the room. He'd opened the curtains and allowed the light into the room.

  Click. I left his shirt, which was now missing all its buttons, neatly folded up on top of the sheet.

  Click. The house echoed with the quiet. The emptiness. What had happened.

  Click. The shower spurted to life as I made my way downstairs to wait.

  Click. “Did you sleep OK?” he asked as he went over to the kettle. I kept my eyes on the table, running my sight along the thin lines of the grain in the wood. Like walking a maze, I let my mind follow the lines to where they ended, then found new ones to follow from start to finish. “I slept like a log,” he continued to my silence. “Didn't realize Heidi had such a comfy bed. Lucky cow.” He got two mugs out of the cupboard. Would Heidi mind that I slept in her bed? Would she guess what went on in her bed? “So, did you decide about lunch?”

  He was staring at me, waiting for an answer. I heard the kettle click off, and the room still as he waited for me to speak.

  “I…” This was the first time I'd used my voice since the middle of the night and talking through a bruised throat, a gouged-out soul, was agony. “I have to get back,” I said.

  “Oh,” he said. Surprised. Genuinely surprised. Like he expected me to stay. Maybe he hadn't tried to kill me. Maybe the others had stayed. Maybe he really thought he'd done nothing wrong. Or was it that I was going crazy? “Are you sure?” he asked.

  I nodded. One short movement down, no up.

  “OK, if you're sure. I'll drive you to the station after this.” He settled a cup of coffee in front of me. White, one sugar.

  “Thank you,” I said automatically. Because that's what you say when someone does something for you: thank you.

  Click. I didn't drink the coffee. Just like I didn't drink last night's coffee. It still sat on the bedside table, cold, with a web of milk skin on top. I didn't drink last night's coffee nor this coffee for the simple reason I didn't like coffee. Last night I'd been too polite to say so. At that moment, not doing something I didn't like seemed very important. Vital. It was the only control I had.

  Click. Nausea stirred inside as I sat at the table. I hurt. All over. Inside my skin. Outside my skin. Deep in my head. Deep in my chest. I hurt and I wanted it to stop. I wanted to be away from this place.

  Click. I knew he was watching me and I kept my head lowered, my eyes watching the coffee I wasn't going to drink so I wouldn't see what he was really thinking. If I saw triumph, the satisfaction that he'd gotten what he wanted, on his face, I might just possibly die. If I saw nothing, looked into his face and realized that it was just another ordinary morning of another ordinary day to him, I would die. I'd lose my mind and I would die.

  Click. He stood too close to me as I was buying my ticket back to Leeds. My teeth ached. I'd been unintentionally gritting my teeth, clenching them tight, so I could bear this and my teeth throbbed from the pressure.

  Click. I thanked him for inviting me to the party, for the place to stay, for the lift to the station. I was polite, had been brought up properly. He nodded. In the seconds that followed he leaned in to kiss my mouth good-bye and I snatched my head away, jerked my body back. Anger, confusion, upset crossed his face. Acceptance crossed my mind: it had happened. My body's instinctive reaction told me so. I wasn't going mad, this wasn't another ordinary day, I had been damaged. “I'll call you,” he said as I turned towards the gate. He never did, by the way. But the terror that he would stayed with me until I moved out of that house.

  Click. The scenery dashed past the train window, a blur of green and houses. A series of smudges that put distance between me and the middle of the night.

  Click. My calmness broke when I shut the front door behind me. The house was empty and I ran to the bathroom. I threw down my bag. I tore at my clothes. Frantically, desperately I ripped at them. I wanted none of them to touch me. I wanted nothing to touch me. My hands slipped over the bath taps. It was a student house, only a bath. It filled so slowly. So slowly. But then it was full enough. I sat in the bath, ran the small white bar of soap over myself. The soap but not my hands. I was too disgusted to touch my skin.

  Click. After a few minutes, when it wasn't working, when I could still smell him on me and feel him against and inside me, I dropped the soap, leaned forwards over my knees in the bath. I didn't cry. I sat bent forwards, as much as possible of my curled fist stuffed into my mouth so I could scream and no one would hear. So I wouldn't hear.

 
Click. We sat in the pub, everyone talking and laughing and joking. The world didn't stop. I don't know why I expected it to, but it didn't. Why would it? Meg and Elouise were on top form, they were like a double act and I couldn't help but laugh. It was there, at the back of my mind. Hovering over my shoulder, dancing on the edge of my consciousness, but I forgot for a while. I didn't think about the jeans, T-shirt, bra, knickers, sweater, and grey and white jacket stuffed into a plastic bag and hidden at the bottom of my wardrobe, waiting to be thrown away when the bin men came next week. I didn't think about the internal bruise on my throat that made it hard to swallow. I didn't think about the agony that circled my lower body. I didn't think about the urge to stand up and scream.

  Click. For the first time in my life I prayed for my period to start. I prayed that I wouldn't get pregnant. That I wouldn't have to make that choice. I didn't realize at the time that because of that night I'd never get pregnant.

  Click. The nurse who drew my blood for the HIV test had a kind face and cold hands. She was my mother's age, but white with short brown hair. She was gentle when she pricked my skin. She'd been impressed that although I'd told her about my fear of needles I hadn't flinched, I hadn't tensed. She asked me why I wore six layers of clothes when it was summer. When I told her I was always cold, she hadn't looked convinced. She looked like she wasn't convinced by me at all. “If you ever want to talk, I'm always here during surgery hours,” she said. “Simply make an appointment.” I thanked her and went to leave. At the door, she stopped me from turning the handle. “Kendra, even if you can't talk to me, find someone. A friend, a relative, anyone. Even call a help line. Just talk. It's important.”

  “That's just it,” I replied with a shrug. “I have nothing to say.” I have no words to describe this so I have nothing to say.