by Vera Hollins
As I packed things into boxes, surrounded by silence because Blake was late again, my mood went downhill. It wasn’t the first time such rumors had circulated around the school, but they bothered me nevertheless, which led to more self-reproach.
I was attacked by mental images of Blake holding some magazine-cover-worthy girl in his arms and making her feel everything I’d felt in that pitch-dark closet at the New Year’s party, and jealousy ate away at my stomach. I gripped the U tube and threw it into the box, dying to take my guitar and strum the strings until all my anxiety was gone.
Everything would be easier—way, way easier—if I could like someone like Kevin. Kev would never break my heart or devalue me. He would be sweet and nice, and I wouldn’t have to feel this hopeless because of my stubborn, stupid heart.
Blake stormed in, and I almost dropped the microscope I held in my hands, startled. He didn’t even look at me as he picked up an empty box and carried it to the far side of the room, which was probably for the best after our last run-in. I’d expected him to mock me for my fall or do a number on me, but he never even glanced my way as we worked quietly, which helped me relax. He wasn’t going to make this detention harder for me. That was a first.
A new tune dashed into my mind—an up-tempo song with guitars and a bit of violin in the chorus segment—and excitement swirled through my chest. There was nothing better than having my creative juices flowing. If I was inspired, I could come up with a couple of new songs in a day, but I couldn’t record all of them, so I had to opt for those that spoke to me on a deeper level.
Immersed in my song, I almost forgot Blake was there, when suddenly darkness covered the whole room. I stopped mid-step and clutched the small cardboard box filled with VHS tapes in my hands.
“What the…?” Blake shouted. “I can’t see anything!”
The fear in his voice sent a tremor through me. “The electricity must have gone out,” I said, taking two steps toward the table where I planned to set the box down, but they felt like a hundred because I couldn’t see a thing in this tangible darkness.
“No shit.”
I turned in the direction of his voice, which sounded closer to me now, but it was a mistake because this only messed with my orientation. “You don’t have to be so rud—”
“Where’s the goddamn light?!” His words were heavy with panic, spoken through bursts of heavy exhalations. “I need to get out of here.”
He fumbled close to me, hitting the chairs scattered around us twice before he dropped something. His fear hit me hard, and a piece of me deep inside yearned to help him. I had to get my phone before he had a panic attack or something equally scary happened.
“Fuck. My phone.” He tapped the floor, apparently searching for his phone, his breaths fast and shallow. “Where is my fucking phone?!”
I all but dropped the box on the floor and reached for my phone in my pocket. “Wait. I’ll turn on the flashlight—”
“Finally,” he said, not even paying attention to my words, presumably having found it. It seemed only inches separated us, and my body tingled with his nearness. “I need to find the door.”
I was about to turn on the flashlight on my phone, but he tripped over the box I’d lowered next to me and collided with me. We lost our balance and fell on the floor.
The air was sucked out of my lungs when nearly all of his hard-muscled body ended up on top of me, both our phones lost somewhere in the darkness. I brought my hands to his waist to get him off me, fazed by his warmth and his scent that stirred my insides.
“Blake, you’re crushing me,” I said, but he barely shifted his weight off me. He was breathing so fast it was becoming alarming.
“I can’t stay here,” he cried out. His shaking got stronger. “I can’t stay here. I can’t stay. I have to get out of here.”
He scrambled up to his feet, but he ran into something next to me and dropped right back down with a curse. He was wheezing. Feeling the floor around me, I reached him on my knees. I could sense him better now that I wasn’t relying on my sight anymore. My concern for him won out over any distance I wanted to put between us, and I decided to help him get through this.
“Hey, calm down. You’ll hyperventilate if you keep going like this,” I said softly. He whimpered. I outstretched my arm toward him on impulse. “It’s all right.” My hand found his shoulder, and he flinched. “You’re going to get out of here, but first, take deep breaths.”
He was still panting, and I stroked his back in a reassuring way, reveling in the feel of him. In this darkness, we weren’t enemies. In this darkness, our painful past didn’t exist. In this darkness, there was just his hurt and my need to make it disappear.
“Everything’s okay,” I whispered.
A few minutes passed, but I didn’t stop caressing his back until his breathing returned to normal and he stopped trembling. We slid into complete silence. His addictive warmth seeped into my palm through his shirt, and only then did I realize I shouldn’t have been touching him. I whipped my hand back, trying to even out my erratic breathing as I waited for his reaction.
His attack never came, and the atmosphere between us shifted. The air filled with anticipation. I could have sworn he’d turned around and was now facing me on his knees.
“Why did you help me?” he whispered, rousing butterflies in my stomach. He was so, so close, and I was sure he was able to hear the wild pounding of my heart.
“You needed help. I couldn’t just stand aside while you had a breakdown.”
“Anyone else would have done exactly that in your place.”
I shrugged my shoulders, even though he couldn’t see that. “Well, I’m not like that.”
His breath fanned my face, and I curled my fingers into fists on my lap, glued to the spot.
“You’re right,” he said quietly. “You’re not like that at all.”
He placed his hand on my waist, and I sucked in air. My pulse went crazy at the sudden contact. I was astonished that he was touching me, reminded of the exact moment we’d shared in that dark closet two months ago. It was just like this…
“Only you,” he said.
My chest ached. “Only me?”
“Only you managed to make it go away.”
Whoa. I could feel his face only inches away from mine as his breath caressed the side of my neck, and I couldn’t recall a single reason why I shouldn’t let him do this. He nuzzled my neck, creating an explosion of emotions in me, and it was like a dream come true. My heart embraced this greedily even though my mind tried to fight it.
“Blake…”
“You smell like jasmine…,” he whispered into my skin, removing my hair from my shoulder. And then…then he grazed my earlobe with his lips, a touch so light it could’ve been my imagination.
I breathed hard, struggling to remember everything he’d done to me. I shouldn’t have been allowing him to do this…I should have pushed him away right this second, and I raised my hands to do just that—
“Kids? Are you there?”
I jerked and looked at the janitor standing in the doorway with a flashlight. Blake had already pulled away from me before the beam of light reached us, confirming that the moment we’d shared was just an illusion and a big mistake.
“There you are,” Mr. Maynard said in relief. “The electricity’s out, but it should be back in an hour or so. Are you two okay?”
I cleared my throat. “Yes. We’re okay,” I replied and looked at Blake.
“Then let’s go. I’ll get you out of here.”
I could hardly process Mr. Maynard’s words as I took in Blake’s expression.
He just stared at me like he couldn’t believe what had just happened between us. Something resembling regret passed over his face just briefly, but it was enough to cause another gash in my heart. He shut himself off, the all-too-familiar ice back in his eyes.
Without a word, he picked up his phone before he sprang up and darted out of the room.
&nb
sp; Angry with myself, I got back home and spent the whole evening playing my guitar, singing until my throat was sore. It was my refuge but also punishment for allowing my compassion to rub away all those bad memories. I shouldn’t have touched him. When I heard him panic and lose control, I should’ve done something—anything—else instead of breaking the barrier between us and initiating contact.
As if that wasn’t enough, as if I’d lost my brain somewhere along the way, I hadn’t moved away when he came so close to me and said those rousing words. I’d practically served myself to him on a silver platter.
At least our detention was over, and I didn’t have to stress myself out about spending time alone with him. Blake didn’t come to school, so I had the whole Friday away from him, which was the only bright spot after the week’s recurring disasters.
Friday evening meant a new session with my therapist and opening up to her about my latest setback. The last time I had self-induced vomiting was in November last year, after the “Food Slut” photoshopped photo. Blake had had a field day that time.
It’d taken me several sessions to regain a piece of the tenuous confidence I’d gained, and the recent argument with Blake threatened to annul that, throwing me back into those dark, old times when I felt like my body was too big for me and suffocating me. This was all the more reason for me not to let my heart rule because of those few minutes in the basement, but when it came to Blake, I had to deal with many conflicting and unwanted emotions.
“You’re my dilemma. A continuous chase. You break me. You mess with my mind. And in the end, there’s nothing else.” I sang the lyrics I’d come up with just a few minutes earlier as I drove to the clinic, the last rays of sunset lighting the road ahead. The melody was ingrained in my mind, and each line I sang alleviated my tension.
Halfway to the clinic, I pulled into Stop & Shop to get a pack of gum and a bottle of juice. I’d just left the store when I spotted Masen in front of a grocery store nearby. He walked next to a quadriplegic boy in a power wheelchair, and the surprise made me stop.
Masen smiled as he talked with the boy, who couldn’t have been older than thirteen or fourteen. My chest filled with sympathy for him. He was a younger version of Masen with his blue eyes, blond hair, and striking face, which could have meant he was his brother or a cousin.
Masen seemed like a completely different person. There was no usual smirk or conceited look on his face, and his constant swagger and air of arrogance were gone. In fact, for the first time, he looked approachable, leaving the womanizer-douchebag attitude he had in school behind. I didn’t fail to notice that the clothes he wore now looked much cheaper than those he wore at school, which were always brand name and fashionable.
He carried grocery bags around an old silver minivan and to its cargo space at the back while the boy waited for him on the side. There was a grocery bag on his lap, but as he moved the controller with his spastic hand to reposition his wheelchair, the apples slid out and dropped to the ground.
My heart clenching for him, I rushed to pick up the apples. I knelt in front of him, collected the fruit, and took the bag out of his lap to put them back inside.
“Here you go,” I told him with a smile, touched by the innocence and shyness on his face. I was about to put the bag on his lap when Masen snatched it away from me and grabbed my upper arm, jerking me up to my feet.
“What are you doing?” he hissed. His previously nice demeanor was completely gone, replaced with something frightening. I’d never seen him look this scary, with his blue eyes boring into me as if I’d attacked this boy.
“I-I was just—”
“Stay away from him.”
My lips parted. I was astounded by how protective he was being. “I… Sure. I didn’t mean anything—”
He tightened his grasp around my upper arm. “And don’t say a word about this to anyone. You got it? Especially not to that bitch Melissa. I don’t need her to harass him just because she’s neurotic and gets a kick out of putting others down.”
“Mel isn’t like that. She—”
He bared his teeth. “Tell me you won’t say a word. Tell me.”
“Mace?” the boy said tentatively. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing, Eli,” he answered in a soft voice, though his unforgiving eyes remained on me. “I’ll take the fruit and put the ramp down in a sec.” He got into my face. “If you say even one word about Eli to anyone, I’ll make you regret it, Metts.” He said it so only I could hear him.
I fully believed him. I could clearly see he was ready to do anything to protect this boy, and despite not understanding why he wanted me to stay quiet about him—why it mattered so much that no one knew about him—I didn’t want him as my enemy. I had too much on my plate with Blake as it was. Besides, I’d heard stories of how brutal Masen could be. He’d bullied three girls into leaving school, and he’d sent a couple of guys to the hospital. Better safe than sorry.
“I won’t mention this to anyone. You can trust me.”
“I don’t trust anyone,” he spat out. “And especially not girls.” He pulled away from me. “This is your only warning. Cross me, and you and I are going to have a problem.”
I nodded and hurried to put some distance between us, taking one last glance at the boy, who looked at me silently with sad, wise eyes resembling those of a much older person. I got into my car and drove away.
“Tell me how it all started again,” Susan told me, her notepad in her lap.
I sat in a recliner across from her, my gaze darting between her PhD certificate and a painting of fruits gathered in a metal bowl. I studied the shades of the colors for the hundredth time as I formulated the answer about the moment I’d relived in my mind so many times.
“I was in a school play in sixth grade. I played a supporting role.” I closed my eyes; the old pain coated my chest. “I was extremely nervous about singing in front of an audience for the first time. It was a dream come true, but I couldn’t get rid of the stage fright.”
“What happened then?”
She knew well what came next, but her question helped me refocus and recollect the incident in more detail.
“The moment I appeared on the stage, my peers in the first row broke into hushed whispers. I thought it had something to do with my oversized dress, but I was wrong. It all had to do with my weight.”
“What did they say?”
I sharply sucked in a breath, my eyes still closed. This memory never failed to bring back the humiliation and fear I felt that time.
“They called me a pig. Hippo. Fat. Fatty.” My long nails were pressed hard into my palms, but the pain was good. Pain kept me rooted to the present.
Susan’s face was sympathetic as she waited patiently for me to continue.
“They said I would surely sound like a squealing pig when I opened my mouth.” It’s in the past. Remember, it’s just a memory. “So when I started to sing…nothing came out. I tried and I tried, and the only thing that came out was a high-pitched sound that couldn’t even be called singing.”
“And then?”
I glanced at the golden pencil she held in her hand. I’d found out the first time I saw her that that golden pencil also helped me stay in the present. So I stared at it, transfixed.
“And then they started booing and laughing. Even some of the classmates I considered friends laughed or pointed fingers at me. It was terrible. They said I didn’t know how to sing. They said I should never sing. They said I was too fat for the stage.” I buried my face in my hands. “It was cruel and vicious.”
“How did you feel in that moment?”
“Shocked. Then ashamed. I was so ashamed I couldn’t stay on that stage anymore. I couldn’t sing. So I rushed away and swore to never go on a stage again. I never tried singing in public after that.”
“And that is how your weight and singing insecurities started.” I nodded. “Did you consider yourself overweight before that incident?”
I wiggled my
lips back and forth. “Hmm, maybe. I don’t know. It wasn’t that big of a deal. I mean, I didn’t pay that much attention to my weight. I kinda knew I was fat, but it didn’t bother me. I was a kid, and I couldn’t have cared less about the way I looked. But it all changed after that day, and I started thinking about dieting and calories.” I snorted. “Up until then I didn’t even know what calories were, but all of a sudden, I was all about calories, the number on the scale, and the size of my clothes.”
“What did you do to lose weight?”
I shrugged. “Nothing special. I used to diet from time to time, like trying out some popular diets I could find on the internet, but I would usually get bored of them after a few days and start eating normally. I also tried exercising a couple of times. I never actually lost any weight, and for a while I just tried to learn to live with it. Like: oh okay, I’m fat—well, it’s not like it’s going to change any time soon, right? I just have to live with it.” I let out a chuckle.
“What led you to make yourself vomit?”
A faint blush covered my cheeks as I inspected my hangnails. “My back-then crush, who never even noticed me, made fun of me with his friend in eighth grade. His friend loved to taunt me about my weight, but one day he joined in too and…and it was horrible.
“He said no boy would ever be interested in someone as fat as me, which hit a nerve, because I was always invisible to boys. All my friends had boys crushing on them or were dating someone. I had nothing. That night I thought if I couldn’t be slimmer by dieting, maybe I could make myself throw up. That…that was the first time.”
“So you threw up because of what your old crush said?”
“Yes.”
“How did you feel afterward?”
“Relieved. I felt I had control. It was nice for a change, but then I felt guilt and fear because I remembered my mom, who had had an eating disorder. I was afraid I would end up like her if I kept throwing up. She also caught me that time, which was totally humiliating. So, yeah.”