—SIX—
I fiddle with the bandage encasing my wrist, picking at the sticky adhesive. It’s been two weeks since my brush with rock-bottom, and while the wound has been healing appropriately, the evidence of my crime is still glaring.
A grisly, jagged branding of my pain. My ghosts are now corporeal, carved into my flesh, visible to the naked eye. I can’t hide them anymore.
And I don’t have to hide them here, in this white room, with faces that are unfamiliar, yet so kindred. Fellow companions in pain. My eyes float around the circle, making up stories for each troubled soul. Loss, break-ups, mental ailments, death. Their sagas are written all over their faces, scribbled into their fine lines and shadows. Glowing in their hollow eyes.
The eyes are always the mecca for grief.
Except… it’s different with him—the dark stranger with hidden tales I can’t seem to read. He’s illegible. He doesn’t wear his pain like the others, and that fascinates me somehow. I want to learn how he did it, where he studied, what tools he used to perfect such a thing.
Parker. I think that was his name.
I can’t help but glance over at him, surprised to see him in the same seat, one chair over, after his dramatic exit the week before. He clearly finds no healing between these four walls, so what keeps him coming back?
Raindrops cling to inky hair, one going rogue and gliding down the side of his neck—a testament to the storm raging outside the tall window, rainfall pelting the roof above our heads. I zone in on that lone droplet as it makes a languid journey to his shirt collar, collapsing into nothing, like it never even existed.
Poof.
While I’m spaced out, envious of a raindrop, the mysterious man looks up, feeling my attention pinned on him. Jade eyes assess me in a slow pull from my scuffed ballet flats to my curious stare, almost violent in their scrutiny.
If he’s undressing me, it’s not my clothes he’s peeling off. It’s everything else.
A hard lump clinches my throat, and I jerk away until my gaze is focused on the sterile wall across from me. A safer canvas. A reprieve.
But I still sense his perusal prickling my skin, making me feel itchy and unnerved. He’s digging and digging, hollowing me out, pulling all my buried pieces to the surface. He’s a human excavator.
Biting into my lower lip, I can’t help but glance over at him again, an invisible force drawing our eyes back together. He’s still staring. Still poking around my burial grounds.
Still digging.
He doesn’t blink or smile. His eyes are beryl and brimstone, unwavering, his jaw shadowed in stubble, cheekbones high, eyebrows dark like his hair. Like his clothes.
Like his stare.
Part of me wants to storm over to him and demand he back off, quit exhuming me. I feel vulnerable and exposed, laid out, shaking and bare. The nerve. The nerve of this man—this intruder. And yet, I can’t seem to do anything but stare right back at him.
Our hold is eclipsed when a voice startles me, causing me to blink and cower against the plastic seatback, a feeble attempt to hide. A tension releases inside me, and I think that means he finally tore his eyes away.
“I’m Amelia.”
There’s a young woman standing in front of me, and I recognize her from the prior week. She sat between me and the dark stranger, quiet and timid, nearly blending into the background. She looks young, possibly still a teenager, and her hair is jet black with purple highlights. Her porcelain skin is studded with piercings and silver hoops, and her lipstick is black to match her hair. A soft smile upstages her harsh exterior. “Hi. I’m Melody,” I respond, forcing my own smile to the surface. The smile that has always sucked people in.
It must still hold some power, because Amelia’s shoulders relax as she approaches, taking the seat to my left. Her softness lingers. “You don’t look like you belong here.”
“I don’t?”
“No. You remind me of sunshine… it’s too cold for you here.”
My body stiffens at the analogy, the one I used to adore. The one that would spill from Charlie’s lips like a summer breeze, the perfect complement to the sun.
Parker’s eyes find me again. I can see his head turn towards me, just a blur in my peripheral, but I keep my attention on Amelia. “Appearances can be deceiving,” I reply gently, then decide to change the subject. “Have you been coming here long?”
Amelia twists her thin, stringy hair over one shoulder, her knees knocking together beneath a black shirtdress. “This is my fifth week. My parents enrolled me after I tried to hang myself inside my mother’s greenhouse. She always seemed to like it more than me, so it felt poetic somehow.”
My mouth goes dry at her blunt confession. “I’m sorry to hear that. How old are you?”
“I’m almost twenty.”
Twenty. At twenty years old, I was falling in love with Charlie, making plans, envisioning a bright and fruitful future.
She’s so young. Too young.
But I suppose grief doesn’t take age into consideration—it just takes what it wants when it wants it. Grief is the most selfish thing in this world.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” I tell her through the lump in my throat. “I’m glad you changed your mind.”
Amelia shrugs. “I didn’t. My dad and his mistress came barging in to screw or something. She started screaming her head off when she saw what I was trying to do.”
Her honesty startles me, stealing a response from my lips. I have no idea what to say as I watch Amelia nibble on her chewed-up fingernails, her demeanor casual, as if we were discussing something insignificant like the weather.
“Who would like to start us off today?”
Ms. Katherine’s kind voice slices through my somber haze, and I straighten in my seat with a choppy exhale.
Amelia responds first. “My hamster, Nutmeg.”
Starting points. Little things we would miss about the world if we chose to leave it. It’s a powerful concept, something I couldn’t stop thinking about all week. Everyone has something big, something important they would leave behind, but what about those little treasures we walk past every day, such as ant hills in the sidewalk cracks, or butterflies with tangerine wings, or the way water laps at a sandy shoreline?
What about the smell of deep-fried delicacies at a street festival, or buttered popcorn when you walk into a movie theater?
Ms. Katherine’s eyes drift to me, so I speak next. “The sound of violins.”
I’m not sure why I look at him after the words escape me, but I do, and I’m not surprised to find him watching me.
“Such a sad instrument,” Ms. Katherine replies, her tone tender. “But so very beautiful.”
“They make me feel,” I continue. “Whenever I hear the sound of violin strings, I always get this emotion in my chest and tears in my eyes, ever since I was a little girl.”
“That’s fitting,” Amelia cuts in, her umber irises appearing a shade lighter. “Since your name is Melody.”
I can’t help but chuckle. “Unfortunately, I’m musically-challenged. I’m pretty sure my parents started regretting the name choice the first time I attempted karaoke.”
Everyone laughs except for him.
The meeting continues, and we are given a “homework” assignment of creating a vision board, consisting of dreams and goals we aspire to reach one day. It’s supposed to keep us focused on a positive future.
Halfway through the meeting, we are allowed to mingle and stretch our legs for fifteen minutes. It’s an intermission—an emotional recharge. I watch as fellow members engage in conversation and check their cell phones, collective sighs and laughter breaking the silence.
Parker stands from his chair, and my eyes trail him as he saunters over to the little snack table, stocked with a Keurig, along with packaged crackers and cookies. He flips through the coffee flavors while I make a quick decision to join him. I’m not sure why. He’s not at all approachable—in fact, he hasn’t said a word this entire meeting. Parker doesn’t participate in any discussions or offer his starting points. He never smiles.
I’m pretty sure I even caught him sleeping.
But something pulls me to my feet and guides me over to him, an invisible force, an insatiable curiosity. I’m desperate to learn how he’s tempered his pain.
Parker is fiddling with the Keurig machine when I come up beside him, lacing my fingers together in front of me and gnawing at my lip. I clear the hitch in my throat. “Hey.”
He ignores my greeting, pressing an assortment of buttons until the coffee maker roars to life. His hair is a mess of unruly waves and curls, longer up top and short in the back. It’s a dark, dark brown, almost black, which makes his light green eyes all the more striking.
Those eyes flicker over to me, skimming down my body, then back up in a quick sweep until he returns his attention to the table.
“You were watching me,” I say, my voice surprisingly steady as I take in the way he sifts through the basket of assorted crackers.
“Was I?”
He doesn’t spare me a glance as he replies, his focus pinned on the little bag of Wheat Thins. Parker pulls it open, eyeing the contents, and I drum my fingers along the floral tablecloth. His dark denim looks worn, his t-shirt faded. He’s put no effort into his outward appearance, and yet he still commands attention somehow. I swallow. “Yes.”
Shaking the bag around, he takes a cracker out between two fingers and pops it into his mouth. Then, he finally turns to look at me, slipping his unoccupied hand into the pocket of his jeans while he chews. “And you want to know why?”
“No. I want to know what you saw.”
Parker hesitates mid-chew, his jaw ticking, almost as if I’ve taken him off guard by my answer. But he recovers quickly, his expression turning stoic. “I saw what I always see when I look at your kind.”
My kind?
The broken? The grieving?
I’m about to ask him to clarify, but the car salesman, Robert, pushes his way between us to sort through the snack basket, and the moment is severed. Parker doesn’t elaborate, and instead, pushes off the table and makes his way back to his chair, leaving me frowning and confused.
And oddly, more intrigued.
When I’m stressed, I bake.
When I’m restless, I bake.
When I’m on the verge of an emotional breakdown… I bake.
Some people exercise or read, or take hot baths with scented candles and mood music. I knead batter, weigh flour, and play with fondant like I’m a toddler with Play-Doh. It sedates my inner demons in a way nothing else can, and I think it’s because I feel close to him when I’m in the kitchen, mixing and blending and measuring.
It’s my vice. My escape.
My cell phone pings from the kitchen table, so I swipe both of my white-dusted palms along my apron and fetch it, letting a smile lift when I see Leah’s name light up the screen.
Leah: LOVE YOU SO MUCH. Miss your face. And that cute ass of yours. Has anyone told you what a nice butt you have? Seriously. It’s fantastic. I’m sure you already know. Am I making this weird? Fuck. I always do this. It’s totally weird now. But you still love me, right? Muahhh.
God, I adore her.
I shoot her a quick text back, taking a seat.
Me: It’s always weird. That’s why I love us. Coffee talk on Saturday?
While I await her response, I scroll through my unopened texts and nibble my lip when I notice a missed message from my mother.
Mom: Give me a call when you can, sweetie. Dad threw out his back and won’t be able to finish the remodel on your bathroom. He’s okay, don’t worry. I will try to see if Al is able to give you a good price.
A lump forms in the back of my throat as I attempt to call her back, but it goes straight to voicemail, which means she’s probably in bed already.
The bathroom.
It was one of the last things Charlie and I discussed before…
Before winter rolled in.
We bought this house together three years ago, and it was a fixer-upper to say the least. Drab carpeting, funky wallpaper, a mauve master bathroom. Mauve. It was a running joke between us for years, but it was always pushed to the bottom of the to-do list, trumped by other projects and financial commitments. But Charlie had received quite a large pay raise at the beginning of the year, giving us the opportunity to finally tackle the bathroom.
It was one of many things left undone, and one I finally decided to pull the trigger on after an entire year of crying myself to sleep on those mulberry tiles, begging the decorative, floral wallpaper to bring him back to me.
I send my mother a reply, licking a dab of lemon batter from my index finger.
Me: Give Dad a big hug for me. Don’t worry about the bathroom. I’ll stop by for dinner this week. xoxo
There’s a heavy weight in the pit of my stomach when I set my phone down. A tumor. And it’s the malignant kind, that I know, invasive and deadly, spreading rapidly and infecting all the parts of me I try to keep from its reach—from its stems and hungry roots.
But I’m stronger than my sickness.
I have to be.
Heaving in a calming breath, I pluck my phone from the tabletop and open up my e-mail app. An unsent draft stares back at me, riddled with clumsy words and ill-defined thoughts.
What does one say to the man who holds her husband’s beloved heart in his chest?
What am I supposed to say to this person, this faceless man, who is by all accounts a complete stranger, but who feels closer to me than anyone else in this world?
He has what I want. He has what I crave.
He has a piece of my heart inside of him.
I enlarge the little window that hosts my response, worrying my lip between my teeth as my brain scrambles to assemble words and coherent thoughts. And then my thumbs start swiping at the digital keypad, transmitting a frenzy of feelings.
from:
Magnolia
to:
date:
Apr 25, 2021, 10:33 PM
subject:
Unperfect
Zephyr,
I’m sorry it took me so long to reply. I was trying to find the perfect words, until I realized… you’re right. There’s no such thing as perfect. There are only words and what we take from them. So, here are the unperfect words I have for you today.
Grief is a mechanical bull.
You can hold on as tight as you can with white-knuckled fists, clenched teeth, and tears biting at your eyes, but you’re destined to lose your grip. You’re going to get thrown.
And when you hit the ground, it’s going to hurt like hell.
People will try to help you up, tell you it’s okay, encourage you to hop back on and try again.
So, you’ll try again, expecting a different result, or at the very least, hope that you can hold on a little tighter this time—stay on a little longer.
But you’ll still get thrown. And it will still hurt.
I think the key to healing is accepting that your grief isn’t going anywhere, then getting back on the bull anyway. One day, you’ll start to enjoy the ride more than you’ll fear the anticipation of the inevitable fall.
I can’t wait for that day.