Strength

June 2017

My new apartment was under renovation. It belonged to my friend Zoe, who had made me a deal - I could live in it in exchange for working on it. It sounded good to me.

It was a mess, though. No one was supposed to be living there. There was no furniture and no fridge, and everything was covered in a thick layer of golden dust that had been sanded off the wood floors. Zoe's boyfriend and cousin wrestled an old fridge up to the second floor for me, and then she and her daughter and another cousin came up and cleaned it out and made sure it was working.

Ninja had joined the moving crew on its way from A to B, and she stayed late and went out shopping with me. I was setting up a new home from scratch; I bought a bed, some sheets, and some curtains. The walls in my room were lime green with patches of white spackle, and the ceiling was a lumpy mess that needed sanding.

The next morning I set about making the kitchen functional. I cleaned everything, from the tops of the cupboards to the cracks in the baseboards. At least once I collapsed in the middle of the floor and just cried. I wasn't supposed to be there. Everything had gone so wrong. I kept hoping that Aiden would call and say he had made a terrible mistake and wanted me back, but my phone stayed silent. I wondered what he was doing. Probably crying on Shelby's shoulder about how bad his life was.

By the afternoon the kitchen was sparkling. Zoe invited me to go ride motorcycles with some friends, and I jumped on the distraction.

I spent a lot of time with her, and it became obvious that I was very lucky to have her as a friend. She was supportive and helpful and adult, but also badass and crude enough that I felt like we might be related. She was understanding when I shared pieces of what had happened with Aiden and Shelby. She made it clear that I was to go to her if I needed help, without being an intrusive asshole about it. She fed me protein shakes when anxiety wouldn't let me eat.

She came to me for help too, when things weren't going well with her boyfriend or her daughter. She knocked on my door one night and said she just couldn't take it and needed to escape. I brought her into my room and we shared a bottle of wine and commiserated about life. Some mornings I brought her lattes, and some evenings she made me margaritas. We watched movies and I braided her hair.

A few days into my new arrangement, my friend Hawk messaged me to check in. He realized immediately that I was a disaster and invited me to go along on his upcoming motorcycle trip across the country. What the hell, I thought. I'm free. Might as well act like it. Ninja encouraged me to go, even after I came clean to her about the details of my involvement with Hawk years earlier.

"I knew," she scolded me, like a mother hen. "Do you think I'm an idiot? Please. I know you, and I know Hawk." We had a good laugh.

Hawk and I spent ten days on the road, and it was a blast. He egged me into doing 1,000 miles on the bike in a day, and I did it because I have a chip on my shoulder. I hit it off with his friends. I introduced him to my cousins. I dumped his bike twice, and to his credit he was completely chill about it. We drove through hours of rain, soaked and freezing, and we baked ourselves senseless under the blazing Midwestern sun. I realized I was better off without someone who held me down and refused to adventure with me.

The day after I returned, Aiden showed up on my doorstep. He had made a terrible mistake. He wanted me back.

I told him to go to hell.

The End

June 2017

I never did explain what happened after June of 2016. I was hurting too much to go over it again.

I did what I said I was going to do; I found a place to go by myself. The night before I moved, Aiden told me he had made his decision, and that he'd be staying with Shelby. This after he had already told me he was coming with me.

I lost my fucking mind. That's not how it was supposed to go. I did exactly what I'd been trying so hard not to do and I begged. I never beg, for anything, but I did. I was more desperate than I think I've ever been.

He told me no.

I walked out of the house, crossed the road, and headed for the bridge. I had no shoes, no wallet, no phone; I wouldn't need them where I was going. On my way up the north side I spotted something shiny on the ground - the tip of a fishing knife, broken off to the size of an arrowhead. I picked it up and started digging it into my palm as I walked.

At the center of the bridge I stopped and stood at the railing, just me and the drop and the rushing water in the middle of the night. I squeezed the knife tip until blood welled up around it, then squeezed it again, and again. I drew it across my palm, chasing the life lines around my hand until they were crimson.

After some time I saw movement out of the corner of my eye and realized Aiden was walking toward me. Baffled, I didn't run. I wanted to know what he could possibly say, what right he thought he had to be out there with me.

He told me stop doing what I was doing with the knife. I snatched it away from him, refused, continued trying to let the pain out through my skin. He told me come home. Home? Where the fuck was that, exactly? At least back to the house. No, I never want to be there ever again. I don't want to be anywhere. That place is poison, what the fuck have I been telling you.

Eventually he walked away. I jumped over the railing as soon as he turned his back. There was a ledge on the open side, and I sat with my back against the metal bars and my feet dangling into the blackness over the river. A patch of cracked concrete rose from the water below me.

It's not high enough.

Oh come on, people die from falls off smaller things.

By chance. People have also survived multi-story falls by that same chance.

I'll just go head-first.

You can't even dive into a pool, you idiot. You'll land on your back and end up paralyzed and stuck.

Hours later I walked back into the house. There was nowhere else I could go without a wallet, a phone, and some car keys. I snuck into the spare room and lay down on the futon.

It had been years since I made myself bleed like that. Seven years, almost to the day. I couldn't stop cutting, and I couldn't stop crying.

At some point he came in and laid down next to me. He talked for a long time; I can't remember a word of it now. None of it mattered. All I remember is asking him to stay one last night with me, and him telling me no. I told him it was the last night that would ever happen, and he could spend all the rest of the nights of his life with Shelby, but he walked away and spent it with her instead.

The next morning he came back, apparently to give me a third blow: I tried to take his pants off and he told me no and backed away. I rewound the tape. It's the last time. Then you can be rid of me forever. No, I won't. Don't touch me.

I found my sub collar in a drawer and gave it back. The look on his face told me I'd hit the pay dirt I was looking for. Three good headshots deserve at least one in return.

Then my friends arrived and there was a whirlwind of boxes. When everything was packed into vehicles and I'd gotten behind the wheel of the moving van, I dropped my head into the steering wheel and sobbed. Bruce, riding shotgun, held my hand until I could drive again. I'd been wearing socks on my arms, but as we idled through traffic I pulled them down and showed Bruce my new marks.

"I had a feeling," he said. I knew that he knew, and that he wouldn't judge me. "Please call me if you're going to do that again."

I promised I would, but I knew it wasn't going to happen again. It wouldn't help.