"There is no disguise which can hide love for long where it exists, or simulate it where it does not."
-La Rochefoucauld
Just when you think you're in control
Everybody has a past. Everybody has a secret (or a closet full). But my secret is my past. I don’t like to think about it much less talk about it. I thought if I moved myself far enough away from it physically that that would be it”it would be back there. I’d be up here, in a new place, safe. I came to Los Angeles with every intention of leaving everything and everyone I used to know behind because I needed to. I needed to forget. To not be that person who I used to be. I didn’t like her anyways and apparently neither did the people who had mattered to her.
Just when you think you've got a hold
So one day I packed my bags. It was late. One of those clear, starry nights. I wanted to say goodbye to my brothers at least. That’s what the old Fi/Fifi would have done. They didn’t expect much from her”smart, but no determination. She’d want to say goodbye hoping that someone would talk her out of it. But I…
I was determined. I wasn’t going to be Fi or Fifi or any other stupid nickname anymore. I was Fi-fucking-on-na now. Fionna didn’t say goodbyes. Fionna didn’t let irrational emotions cause her to hesitate, she did what she thought was best for her and screw the rest of y’all. I took Fionna with me to Los Angeles and hoped to leave Fi back in that five-bedroom house in Las Vegas.
Just when you get on a roll,
Here it goes
A five hour, three hundred mile drive away and I still couldn’t escape Fi or Fifi. I hadn’t factored in the resilience of my younger brother ‘Lie. Charlie. Charles, if he was trying to be sophisticated. I was sitting downstairs in front of the TV, watching Real World: Austin, trying not to tear up as I watched Danny getting the call about the horrible news about his mother on V-Day, when I conveniently got a call of my own.
Here it goes, here it goes again
“Hello?”
“Fi?”
I frowned at the sound of the voice. It couldn’t be. He couldn’t find me. Could he?
“Fifi? I can hear you breathing, so I know you’re there.”
I wanted to ask him how he’d found me, but what came out instead was, “Baby ‘Lie?”
He sighed and I could imagine him rolling his dark brown eyes. “I’d like to think of myself as a honest man now.”
“I’m sure you’d like to think a lot of nice things about yourself. But how many of them are true?” I laughed, grinning harder than I had in months. “So how did you find me?”
“You were never very good at hide ‘n’ seek.”
“No, you just always peeked to see where I was going.”
He chuckled and I realized that in the time that I’d been gone Baby ‘Lie really wasn’t a baby anymore. His voice rumbled with bass. “Doesn’t matter my tactics, I got the job done.”
“Of course the tactics matter, you under-handed…”
Cutting me off, he added that unfamiliar bass to his voice and said, “I didn’t call you to debate my hide ‘n’ seek ethics.”
I was afraid to ask what he had called for. More like terrified. “So you called to be the grey cloud over my parade?”
There was a few beats pause before he spoke up again. “Are you happy now?”
His question threw me for a second, I was expecting something silly, because that was his usual way (or at least it had been), but here he was getting serious on me. I said, “Since when did you care about stuff like that?”
Oh, here it goes again
Another pause. Shorter than last time. “Since I woke up one morning three and a half years ago and went to your room, fully prepared to do my usual thing, by jumping on the bed, hitting you with pillows”whatever it took to wake you up and piss you off at the same time…and when I opened the door…” He paused and I was hoping like hell that he was going to change the subject. He needed to change the damn subject. “I opened the door and my sister was gone. My sister who back then was my best friend, though I would have never admitted that to her or anyone. My sister who I thought if she was so unhappy she’d tell me…something. At least say goodbye. You didn’t even say goodbye, Fifi.” The bass fell away and his voice cracked.
I should have known
“Y’know,” I started, fanning my eyes. I really didn’t want to turn into that girl who was crying everytime you turned around, but it seemed like all the men in my life were hell bent on bringing the waterworks out of me. “You’re the only one I ever let call me that. Well, Fi or Fifi.”
Should have known,
Should have known again
“I feel so special right now, Fi.” He said, his voice perfectly deadpanned. I smiled. I knew he’d gotten that from me. “Look, I didn’t call to say how much you just up and leaving without a word fucked me up for a long time. I didn’t call to say how it fucked us all up and we had a whole fucking search party out for your ass, milk cartons with your face on it…you even made the news for awhile. I didn’t call to say how quiet the dinner table was after that. You remember how Mom always forced us to eat together no matter how hectic shit was, we ate together. Like a family, she always said. After about the second week of your disappearance, we stopped eating together. I can’t even remember the last time we did it. She kinda tried to start it up again, after about a month when you decided to be so kind as to let us know that you weren’t dead but had no intention of coming home.” The anger was growing in his voice, rising and bubbling over. Of the four of us children, he was always the calm one. While the rest of us raged, Charlie stood on the sidelines and cracked jokes about it all. He paused again. “I didn’t call to say how fucking selfish you are. I didn’t even call to say how much I hated you for the longest time for leaving me.” His breathing was the only thing that let me know he was still there now. “Mom had a heart attack. The second in the last three years. She’s okay, as okay as she can be considering. She’s in the hospital. I just thought you’d want to know.”
But here it goes again
My head was swimming and my heart was drowning. “Where?”
Oh, here it goes again
I heard this story one time. This story about a girl. A girl born to a man named George and a woman named Paula. Or so she thought. A day before her sweet sixteen, she got into a fight with her mother, which in and of itself wasn’t an out of the ordinary thing. But this fight was different. Paula had been raising the bar in their arguments for years, always taking it to levels of hurt that weren’t necessary”this fight wasn’t any different in that sense.
“When John has a play, who’s in the front row? You. When Kevin has a game, who’s cheering louder than the cheer-freaks for him? You. When Charlie wanted to be class president who was the main one running his campaign? You. You bend over backwards for them. But me? I just wanted you to come to one…just one art show I was in and you couldn’t even do that. I get straight A’s and…!”
“You got a B.”
“I got a…B” The girl smirked and nodded. “One B. One B and that means I’m worthless? Kevin pulls in C’s and D’s and spends more time in detention than he does in class…you don’t say boo to him. But me? One B?” She stared at Paula through a tear strained gaze. “I just wanted you to be proud of me. For once. For something. Seems like you’re everybody’s mother except mine.”
Whispering under her breath, Paula said, “I am.”
“What?”
Looking her straight in the eye Paula said slowly, clearly, “I am.”
“What?”
One night to you
Lasted six weeks for me
“I’m…” She trailed off with a sigh, rolling her eyes. “I’m not your mother.”
Shaking her curly-headed hair, the girl did the only thing she could do. Screamed for her daddy. “Dad! Dad-dy!!”
George came running down the stairs, expecting to find the house on fire for all the yelling the girl was doing. What he saw instead was Paula standing with her arms folded and anger radiating from her and the girl standing between him and his wife looking like she’d seen a ghost.
“What’s going on?” When neither one responded, he moved closer to the girl. Touching her arm he said, “What’s wrong, babygirl?”
She just stared up at him for a long moment as if she wasn’t sure she knew where she was. Then she blinked, her eyes coming back to life, but her voice was dead as she said, “Apparently, my mother’s not my mother.”
Turning from the girl, George turned on his wife. “You just couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you Paula?”
“She deserves to know.” Paula huffed, indignantly.
George was holding his head now and pacing the room. He stopped to stare at his wife. He had to stare long and hard because he was sure this wasn’t the person he’d married all those years ago. “But not like this. Not now, a day before her sixteenth birthday.”
Paula was unmoved by the calendar date. Shrugging, she said, “Well, she should have been told a long time ago.”
As the young girl sat in her family room with a family she was quickly finding wasn’t hers, George reluctantly told her everything he’d planned on never telling her.
George had been dating a woman named Cheryl, the love of his life, but she got strung out on drugs and he stayed as long as he could trying to help her but eventually he learned that the only one who was going to pull Cheryl out of this was her. So even though he loved her more than he’d ever loved anyone, he knew he had to let her go. So he did. Took him several tries to do it and stay gone, but eventually he did.
A few years down the road he met and married Paula. They’d been married for a year when he received the news about Cheryl’s death. Heartbroken he returned to Houston, Texas to pay his last respects only to find out that Cheryl had left behind a little girl. A wide-eyed, rosy cheeked, dimpled faced little girl who his heart immediately opened up to. He found out that Cheryl had been in rehab when she learned she was pregnant. Everybody thought the baby would change her, make her a better woman. And it did for awhile, but once she was back on the streets again, the temptation got the best of her. And she chose the love of her high over the love of her daughter.
George grew so attached to the little girl that even when he’d left to go back home to his wife, he’d still call back every now and then just to check on ‘babygirl.’ He always called her babygirl.
After seeing the high phone bill his affection toward the little girl was costing them, Paula sighed in exasperation one day and jokingly said, “Why don’t you just adopt her? It’ll be a lot cheaper.”
And so he did.
When he went back he’d found that babygirl was no longer in the care of her grandmother, who’d suddenly taken ill and was forced to live in a nursing home. It was only after a long process with the foster home she was now living in that he was finally able to adopt babygirl. Paula resented her ever since. Resented his devotion to her, resented the fact having babygirl around would only cause her husband to have a constant reminder of his true love, the one that got away.
The day before her sixteen birthday after George finished telling babygirl the story, he handed her a picture.
She stared down at it. Down at the high yellow skinned, high model-esque checkbones, coke botte figure and long, down to the middle of her back, thick wavy haired woman in the old photograph. “Who is this?”
“That’s Cheryl. That’s your mother, babygirl.” He smiled.
“She’s beautiful.”
His smile grew as he watched her staring at the picture. Nodding, he said, “You look just like her.”
Paula rolled her eyes and snatched the photo away from babygirl. With a huff she said, “She ain’t all that.”
Babygirl watched the photo flutter down to the ground where Paula had uncaringly flicked it before she’d stomped off with George at her heels explaining why he’d kept the photograph after all these years. When it was just her in the room, babygirl went for the picture.
Babygirl knew why Paula was mad. Paula looked nothing like the woman in the photo. She was thicker, stockier, and shorter than Cheryl and had grown up during the brown paper bag test days with her dark chocolate flavored skin. She’d always envied the high yellow folks. Babygirl’s skin which wasn’t as light as Cheryl’s, but was still a lot lighter than Paula’s was and just wound up being yet another strike against her in Paula’s book.
Just a bitter little pill now
Just to try to go to sleep
Sometimes I really hated that babygirl was me. That day, the day before my sixteenth birthday, I understood Paula for the first time. I finally got why she did the things she did. Why I was never good enough. Didn’t make it right. Didn’t make me feel any better towards her. But I got it. I understood. It was probably the best gift she”hell, maybe anyone could have ever given me. From then on I didn’t have to wonder about what I’d done that made her dislike me the way she did. I knew I didn’t have to do anything. Just being, just existing was enough. As long as I was around, there would always be a constant reminder to her husband of the life he could, would, should have had had my mother not been a strung out drug abuser. I also understood from then on, there was nothing I could do to please her, to appease her.
My mind understood that, but my heart…
No more waking up to innocence
My heart saw her as the only mother I’d ever known. I wanted her approval. I wanted her to wrap her arms around me and say “You’re not mine biologically. I didn’t birth you. But I raised you, I love you so by right you’re mine.”
Say hello to hesitance
To everyone I meet
My mind understood her mouth would never form these words because it wasn’t in her, but in my heart…
Thanks to you years ago
I guess I'll never know
What love means to me but oh
She was my mother. My only mother and I didn’t need to be taken on Maury and shown the results of a maternity test to prove it. I was one hundred percent sure she was, simply because I loved her like she was.
I'll keep on rolling down this road
But I've got a bad, bad feeling
Traffic jams can be peaceful. With all the cursing drivers, honking, and road rage driving maniacs, traffic jams can still be peaceful. Gave me a chance to stop. Just stop, think.
It's gonna take a long time to love
It's gonna take a lot to hold on
I didn’t always like being presented with the opportunity to stop and think, but sometimes listening to wants distracted you from the bigger needs. I didn’t want silence, time to sit and mull everything over, but I did need it.
It's gonna be a long way to happy, yeah
As I walked into the hospital and straight toward the lady behind the desk to ask where my mother’s room was, I was nervous. I was nervous as I walked down the long white hall to her room. I was nervous as I stood outside the door for a solid minute, just pacing and pacing and thinking and pacing. I was nervous as I knocked on the door and pushed the door open without really waiting for an answer. I was nervous as I inched into the room. I was nervous as I stood in the opened doorway, staring into the room. I hadn’t knocked, just walked in.
Left in the pieces that you broke me into
Torn apart but now I've got to
There was one bed in the middle of the room and everything else centered around it. Mom was on the bed. She’d always been the center, the super-glue of our family so this set-up only seemed right. I was nervous as I stepped into the room. Nervous as ten eyes turned to stare at me. Charlie was the first one up out of his chair, just like I knew he would be. He was the first one to run to me, tears in his eyes, looking more like a man than I’d ever thought possible with facial hair and all and hugged me tighter than I’d ever been hugged before but yet I could have still stood for it to have been tighter. After that though it was a toss up between the other three men as to who would approach me next if they’d approach me at all. All three were standing. Staring, but none were moving.
Dad was next to mom, holding her hand. I forced my eyes to skip over her eyes, I didn’t want to really see her yet. John and Kevin were standing in a corner to the left of me, like silent guards. John with his arms folded against his chest and Kevin with his hands shoved deeply into his pockets. I took a step toward them and that was all it took. I was still their baby sister and they were still my older brothers, nearly four years apart couldn’t change that no matter how much they were trying to be hard asses.
Keep on rolling like a stone
John at twenty-two now (if my calculations were correct) was the oldest of all the children and the only legal drinker. He reached me before Kevin could and quickly scooped me up into his arms. The swiftness and ease in which he’d done it, surprised the hell out of me.
“You’ve been working out.” I giggled. Only a few men in this world could make me giggle like a little school girl, for some reason Johnny had always been one of them.
He just grinned and said, “It’s good seeing you again, kid.”
Even though I’d always hated that he liked calling me a kid, I was too happy to see him again to let that bother me. Plus Kevin didn’t give me much time to think about that, because as soon as my feet touched the ground again, he swooped in and pulled me right off the ground and into his arms.
“Back so soon?” He laughed, his face pressed against mine.
Cause it's gonna be a long, long way to happy
With my arms around his neck, I didn’t say anything and didn’t want to let go. Since I’d been gone I’d been keeping secret tabs on everyone every once in awhile via my grandparents who I made swear that they wouldn’t tell anyone else that I’d been contacting them. It was through them that I found out that Kevin had gone off to fight in the Iraq war.
His dark brown hair was all buzzed off. The last time I’d seen him, he was so anti-haircut that if you even walked near him with a pair of scissors he would run away. Some of my fondest memories with him was me chasing him around the house with scissors that I’d never intended to use to cut his hair, which at the time trailed down to the middle of his back and always stayed braided up. I felt like I had to squeeze him a little tighter just to make sure he was really real.
Pulling away reluctantly almost my eyes were nearly blinded from the glare off of his huge diamond studded earrings. “What’s up with the bling, bling, Kevvy?”
He rolled his eyes at the nickname that he always hated, which of course only served to make me love it more. “You know I gotta get my shine on, Fifi.” He chuckled, popping his collar.
“You know you’re not allowed to call me that.”
“Charlie calls you that all the time.” He frowned.
“Baby ‘Lie is the exception to the rule.” I said, turning to smile at Charlie, who just rolled his eyes with a smile on his face.
My brothers had momentarily distracted me from the bed and my parents, but turning to face them, I was nervous all over again. Times five hundred to the fifth power.
Daddy was done being a hard ass too. He was never built to be anything but a softy. Not physically speaking though, all the men in the Houston household had intimidating physiques”all six-foot somethings with broad chests and shoulders, arms that grew larger from all of their love of the gym. I was the only non-gym rat in the family. Daddy had a booming voice when he wanted it to be. We all called it his ‘big voice’ but really it was the ‘scary as all hell’ voice, so even without his size, Daddy was made for causing fear and grabbing attention. But I was his babygirl, so I’d learned a long time ago with just a few sad faces and whines and he’d give into almost anything that I wanted.
Doing just as my brothers had moments ago, Daddy didn’t waste anytime sweeping me off my feet and into a tight hug. My spine was taking a beating today, but I loved every potentially paralyzing moment of it. “Oh, babygirl.” Daddy sighed, his face in my hair. “I missed you so much. You don’t even know.” He pulled away and my big, strong, intimidating, afraid of no man Daddy was struggling to hold off tears, and if I’d never known what it felt like to have my heart broken, this would have been it for me. “You don’t even know, babygirl.”
“I missed you too, Daddy.” I said and for once in my life let the tears fall where they may. “I missed all of y’all. So much. Everyday.”
I'll keep on rolling down this road
But I've got a bad, bad feeling
“I just bet you did.”
It's gonna take a long time to love
At the sound of her voice, I turned to face Paula, who was sitting up in her bed, propped up by a mound of white pillows. I’d always remembered her as this vibrant, larger than life person, but the person who was sitting in that hospital bed looked sallow and small. Standing at only five-foot-three, she’d always been the tiny one in the house, but I’d never really noticed how tiny until now.
“Momma…” I started, new tears streaming down my face as I inched towards her bed.
It's gonna take a lot to hold on
“Get her out of here.”
It's gonna be a long way to happy, yeah
I took two more steps. “Mommie, please.”
“I said, get her out of here!” Her anger reverberated against the white walls. All the big strong men in the room jumped and flinched at the sound. “I just had a heart attack. I don’t need to deal with…her, too. Didn’t they say that visitation was open to family only?”
Left in the pieces that you broke me into
Eight sad eyes were staring at me now, but nobody was moving toward me. Nobody wanted to be the one to shove me out the door and I had too much pride to let them do it. I stared at my feet for a moment, watching the tears fall onto the hospital floor, splattering and ruining its clean spotless perfection. I seemed to have that effect wherever I went. I stared at my reluctant feet, willing them to move.
Torn apart but now I've got to
When I heard one of them say my name, my feet did me a favor and propelled me out the door. Standing outside the door again, the closed door, I just stared at the door for the longest time. Stared and stared, until I had too many tears stinging my eyes to really recognize what I was staring at anymore. That’s when I started to pace the hall. Up and down. Down and up.
Keep on rolling like a stone
I didn’t know what I was going to do, but I knew what I couldn’t do. I couldn’t leave. Not now.
And maybe three and a half years ago I wasn’t ready to admit to the fact that maybe they didn’t need me, but maybe that didn’t stop me from needing them. But I was ready to admit that now. So I couldn’t go, I couldn’t leave. All I could do was pace. Up and down. Down and up.
Cause it's gonna be a long, long way
The door swung open and Charlie walked out. He stood just outside the door and watched me from where I now stood at the other side of the hallway. His eyes held ten thousand apologies, none of which I needed from him, he said, “I’m sorry about that. You know how she is though and with everything that happened…”
“Yeah.” I nodded, my eyes on my feet.
“She doesn’t mean it. She’s just mad and you’re an easy and not to mention old target for her.”
I just nodded, but didn’t say anything.
“Hey,” When I didn’t look up, he said, “Look at me.”
Slowly forcing my eyes upward, but still not meeting his eyes, I sniffled. I was done with crying. At least publicly. “What?”
Charlie just stared at me for a long moment, as if he was studying me for some important test. When a hint of a smile crept into the corners of his mouth, he said, “How have you been holding up? You been doing okay? Need anything?”
I shook my head, eyes down again.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, ‘Lie. I’m fine, alright.” I snapped, the sudden anger allowing me to meet his gaze again. He was babying me and I didn’t need babying. He was the baby of the family, not me.
He laughed. He never did take my anger seriously, that’s one of the reasons we used to fight so much growing up. “I never thought I was going to miss that old nickname.”
I smiled slightly. Charlie had always been good for two things: pissing me off and making me smile. “Maybe if you didn’t use to lie so much there wouldn’t be a nickname to miss.”
“But that wouldn’t have been half as much fun then, now would it?” He grinned.
Rolling my eyes, I couldn’t stop my smile from growing if I tried. “I really missed you.”
“Wish I could say the same about you.” He laughed, playfully pinching my side, an old habit of his that I definitely hadn’t missed. “It wasn’t the same without you. John’s ego just got bigger and bigger, because there was no one around to check it anymore. Now he can barely fit it through the door when he comes to visit. Since Kevin didn’t have your life to ruin by chasing away every would-be admirer…”
“Wait, wait…what did he do? I had admirers?”
Charlie smiled and laughed. “Did, until Kevin got to ‘em.”
“That bastard.”
Shrugging, Charlie laughed. “You know, Johnny did it too sometimes when he could tear himself away from the mirror.”
“What? No, I did not know that.” I frowned. “Those bastards.”
“They were just being good brothers. I mean, I even helped one time with that Greg guy.”
“What?! You too, ‘Lie?”
“He was creepy, Fifi! It was for your own good. He had a pierced tongue and always wore a trench coat even in hundred degree weather. He was hiding something. He was America’s Most Wanted-bound.”
“Bastards.” I shook my head. “All of y’all.”
“Kevin figured you’d think that.” Charlie said with a smile. “That’s why they made sure you’d never know what they were doing.”
“So what else did they do that I didn’t know about?”
That was of course when John and Kevin decided to saunter out of the room. “Are you telling her the secrets, man?” John frowned at Charlie, punching him in the arm.
“You’re breaking the pact now.” Kevin said, shaking his head. “You leave us with no choice but to kill you.”
Kevin and John jumped on Charlie then, throwing soft-landing punches and taking turns holding him in a headlock and giving him noogies. I just rolled my eyes at it all. Here I was thinking so much had changed and these fools were pretty much exactly the same, just older fools.
God, I’d missed them and I wasn’t letting them go for anything this time.
When they’d finally finished beating Charlie up, Kevin suggested we go downstairs to the cafeteria and see whose stomach was strong enough to withstand the hospital food. Once we all had our food and were seated, John didn’t waste any time getting me caught up on his life. “I’m getting married.”
“You’re what?” I sputtered, nearly choking to death on my sandwich. Charlie and Kevin both leapt up from their seats and proceeded to beat me on the back. “I’m not choking! But thanks for the bruises anyways guys.” Both of them smiled to themselves proud to have saved the day. “You’re getting married? There was someone out there that you could fall in love with besides yourself?”
Johnny laughed. “Nobody talks to me like that anymore.” He grinned. “I definitely missed that. Smart ass is becoming a dying art.”
Rolling my eyes, I said, “Who is she? How old is she? What’s she like? How did you meet her? And why in the world would you want to get married at twenty-two?”
“Um, she’s Lauren Stevens. Twenty. She’s…” He smiled, licking his lips. I didn’t even want to know why he did that. “She’s a pistol. Kinda like you. Though I’m not sure that means y’all could get along.” He smiled. “Um, we met at…”
“A party. A frat party.” Kevin chimed in, rolling his eyes. “She was drunk and he was planning on capitalizing on it.”
“Johnny!” I frowned, leaning across the table to slug him in his arm. “You were gonna sleep with a drunk girl.”
“I was drunk too!” He cried. “But I didn’t. We just wound up talking all night. The next day I asked for her number. Called her that night and…”
“Badabingbadaboom! Johnny boy got laid.” Charlie laughed.
“So you’re marrying her cause she’s good in bed?” I asked, shaking my head.
He frowned and sighed like he’d already had this exact conversation before. And for all I knew, he had. “I’m marrying her because I know that she’s the one I was meant to marry.”
“How long have you two been dating?”
“Less than a year.” Kevin said, rolling his eyes.
“Nine months.” John reluctantly added.
“P.S. She’s prego too. So you’re gonna be an auntie in a matter of days.”
I stared at Kevin, who’d been the one to give the news, for a moment with my mouth agape, before turning to John. I just stared at him for a long moment, as if I was expecting to see something different about him. Surely, he couldn’t be that stupid. Could he?
Staring at Johnny squirming ever so slightly under my gaze, I realized, he was Johnny, so yeah, yes, he could be that dumb. “You knocked her up the first time you…you…” I trailed off. God, I couldn’t think about Johnny and sex. Or any of my brothers and sex. It was too disgusting for words and I’ll be damned if let all the boys finish and keep their meals down except me.
“Yeah, the first time he banged her. The second night he knew her. He knocked her up.” Charlie laughed.
I didn’t see what was so funny about that. “So nine months of knowing her later you’re ready to jump the broom? You know Johnny this isn’t the 1950’s, babies aren’t a one-way ticket down the aisle.”
“That’s what everybody’s been telling him. Everybody knows the only reason she didn’t get the abortion she kept going on and on about is because she realized that John was going places with his acting and she wanted to go along for the ride.” Kevin said, before taking a huge bite out of his sandwich. “Or at least she thinks he’s going places. But let’s be real, one Colgate commercial doesn’t a six-figure oscar-winning actor make.”
I’d seen that commercial. I’d even taped it, at first I just wanted it to have something to laugh at on a bad day. Then just so I could see my big brother every now and then.
“What do you think?” I asked John, who was giving Kevin the happy finger.
He smiled. “You’re the first one to ask me that.” Sighing, he shook his head. “I dunno. I don’t think she’s using the baby as a way to try to trap me or anything. Cause it’s not like she planned on getting pregnant any more than I planned on meeting her that first night. But shit happens. And now I’m getting married.”
Shit happens. What a great reason to vow to spend the rest of your life with someone. “Getting married because of a kid on the way isn’t the noble thing to do anymore.” I said, trying not to frown at him, but failing. “Happy parents makes for happy kids.”
John didn’t try to fight his frown. It was strong and immediate. He’d had this conversation one too many times and to say that he was defensive about it all would be a grave understatement. “Who says we aren’t going to be happy together?”
“Who says you are?” Charlie asked, this time with no hint of laughter or a smile.
John just sighed, no anger just tired, but didn’t say anything.
“Okay,” I sighed, watching John holding his head between his hands in silence. There was no sense in pushing John on the issue. At least not so overtly. He had a bad tendency to be extra stubborn and might just stay with the girl to spite us. That ‘tis the genius of my oldest brother. And to think I used to admire the fool. Or worse yet that I still kind of do. “So now that we’ve picked at Johnny, what about you Charlie?”
“Charlie? What about me?” Kevin frowned. “You know I’m beginning to think that you might like him more than you like me.” He was teasing, but there was something in voice that said that part of him believed it.
Laughing, I said, “Oh, Kevvy, don’t be jealous. Now stop your crying and tell me about your life.”
“Well, other than that I think I might be in love with my shrink”there's been a whole lotta nothing.”
“He’s lying. He gets girls like Samuel L. Jackson gets movie roles. And you know Sam’s in every-damn-thing.” Charlie laughed.
“So you’re a playa-playa now?”
Kevin grinned, but shook his head. “I’m a lover, not a pimp.”
“By lover he means,” John said with a roll of the eyes. “Love ‘em and leave ‘em so fast he usually forgets their names by the time he gets back to his car.”
Without denying this charming little tidbit, Kevin shrugged and said, “I know my shrink’s name. Malinda Parker. She’s gorgeous and smart and…”
“Thinks you’re crazy.” Charlie added with a laugh.
“Are you…” I trailed off, hating that I’d even started that question.
Kevin smirked, but the usual playful glimmer in his eyes faded. “No. Since I got back from the war…” He trailed off a sigh. Shrugged. “Well, certain people thought that it might be a good idea that I talked to a professional about my…experiences.”
His experiences. I wanted to ask what those were. But I knew Kevin, he wasn’t going to want to talk about that and I didn’t want to push him. Yet. Instead I said, “Is it helping?”
“I dunno.” He shrugged with a laugh. “But I got a hott ass doctor’s digits out of the deal, so it’s all good to me.”
“Who thinks you’re crazy.” Charlie said, shaking his head.
“You really need to stop calling me crazy, Charlie.” Kevin said, glaring across the table at him.
Rolling his eyes, Charlie was unperturbed by Kevin’s glare or tone. “Ain’t nobody calling your crazy ass, crazy.”
“Boy, you got one more time to call me crazy, before…”
“Before what? You hop your crazy ass across this””
That was all he got out before Kevin leapt at him. While John struggled to separate the two, I snuck some of my nasty ass meal (slimy ‘cooked’ veggies mostly) onto their plates. While their chests heaved, nostrils flared, and glares continued to be shared, I said, “I win.”
Six eyes turned on me. “What?” John finally asked.
“I win.” I smiled, pointing to my empty plate. “See.”
One of the things I loved about Johnny was that if he loved you, he trusted you. Completely. Looking from my plate to the rest of them and finding mine to be the only empty one, he nodded. “You won.”
I just hoped to God that that same quality about him wouldn’t come back to bite him in his trusting ass with this Lauren Stevens lady.
“No, she didn’t.” Charlie said, done glaring at Kevin so that now he could glare at me. “While happy ass choker over here,” He said, pointing at Kevin. “was busy cutting off my air supply, she put her food on his plate.”
Glancing down at his plate, Kevin frowned. “You did!”
John was frowning at me and shaking his head. “You always did cheat.”
I smiled. “I always won too.” Shrugging, I said, “Just remember this moment a few days from now when Lauren’s water breaks.”
“What?” His frown deepened. “Why?”
“Just remember.”
“Get a paternity test, dummy!” Kevin and Charlie yelled at him together.
“You don’t think the kid is mine?”
I just shrugged.
He watched me for a long moment before nodding. In a rare moment for us, we all just sat together in silence, save the chomping and smacking on their food, which annoyed the crap out of me but there was no changing that about them. We just sat there and ate, no fighting, no laughing, no teasing.
I tried not to stare at each of them too much. But I felt like like I had to, like I needed to, to make up for all the years that I hadn’t been there to see them develop into this. These men. In a way, nothing had changed. John was still in love with himself, but he was about to get married. The nineteen year old John I’d left behind was as afraid of commitment as Kevin had been of a pair of scissors anywhere near the vicinity of his head. The seventeen year old Kevin I’d left behind was…well Kevin’s always had a ball’s out craziness about him. He was definitely the down for whatever, adventurous type. But this twenty year old sitting at the table across from me, his eyes were different than my old Kevvy’s. They held experiences that I’d never know, things I’d never be able to relate to. Those eyes didn’t quite sparkle like I remembered. They weren’t quite as a innocently mischievious.
Charlie had only been fourteen when I left. He’d been going through a sort of awkward phase, where mentally he was ready to be a man, but the physical connections hadn’t been made. In a house of giants (all six foot-somethings, save Paula) he was a runt at only five-five and Kevin and John teased him a lot about being the Clifford of the house. I tried to tell him that yeah, sure, Clifford was the scrawny little runt at first, but when he grew he was gigantic. Charlie had only interpreted that as “Great, I’m going to go from the short skinny freak to the tall big freak.” Now the seventeen year old sitting beside me stood at an easy six-three. I’d heard through Grandma that he refused to play basketball and decided to kick ass on every academic team known to man instead. He liked to claim that he had the heart of a nerd, but Grandma had been hearing some stories about collections of giggling girls that seemed to spring up wherever Charlie was. That was something I was definitely going to have to look into.
“So, how’s your life been, kid?” John said, suddenly breaking into the silence and staring at me from his seat directly across the table from me.
“A lot less violent.” I laughed.
The boys just rolled their eyes. They fought each other all the time, some in play, some for real, but just as quickly as they were to throw punches they were equally as quick to forgive and forget just in time for the next fight.
“Listen, I’ll tell y’all all about the sordid details of what’s been going on with me…later.”
“Who says there’s going to be a later?” Kevin asked.
“Who says there isn’t?” I shot back with a grin. “If y’all get away from me this time it’s gonna have to be because you ran away.”
“I’m not running.” John said.
“Neither am I.” Charlie chimed in.
“Yeah, whatever.” Kevin said with a smile.
I smiled back at them. “Good.”
“Well, if we’re gonna be the big happy family again, then you need to go talk to mom.” John said.
“We were never the big happy family.” I said, rolling my eyes.
Charlie said, “We had our moments.”
“Yeah, so go talk to her again.” Kevin said. “We’re not taking no for an answer.”
Six eyes stared me down until I rolled mine and pushed out a long breath of air. “Fine. Fine!” I cried, throwing my hands up in defeat.
I took my time going back up there. Even took the stairs, because I knew my laziness would cause me to take several breaks going back up to fifth floor. I almost turned back and left six times, but kept going each time knowing that if I didn’t go for myself I had to go so I could at least tell my brothers that I’d tried. Even if trying didn’t change anything. I had to try anyways. For them. For us. For me. Especially for me.
I stood in front of the door for a long moment. Hand on the knob, hand off. On, off. When the door opened itself, I jumped. Daddy walked out smiling at me. “You going back in there, babygirl?”
I sighed and took a few steps back from the door. “I’m trying to.”
He just grinned at me for a moment, before he said, “I’ve never cared whether you won or lost I just cared whether you tried.”
“If I go in there, she’s going to freak out again.”
He nodded.
“She’s not going to want to listen to anything I have to say. She’ll just want me to leave.”
He nodded again.
“She’s stubborn and pig-headed and would rather suffer than admit when she was wrong.”
He smiled then. “Sounds like someone else I know.”
I frowned. “Me?”
He nodded again.
I sighed. “That doesn’t make it any easier to go in there. I still don’t know what to say.”
“Say…” He started, trailing off with a soft tired sigh. “Say whatever you’re feeling. Doesn’t matter much what you’re saying. You two just need to talk. So, talk.”
Before I could respond, his long legs were carrying him down the hall. I sighed, facing the door alone again. I forced my legs forward, forced my hand to turn the knob, forced myself to push the door open and walk into the room.
“What are you doing here? Are you hard of hearing now?”
I just want to thank you
Paula was still sitting as I’d seen her last, propped up against her mound of white pillows. I just stared at her for a moment, taking in all the equipment that surrounded her. Listened to the various beeps of the machines so as not to focus on the pounding of my own heart that felt like it was ready to jackhammer its way out of my chest. I stared at her and my feet began to inch with the need to run away from this. My hands dying to pull the door back open.
Taking a deep breath, I ignored those thoughts. That’s what the old Fi/Fifi did, she didn’t stand her ground. Fionna was stronger than that. I hope. “I know what you said, but maybe you should listen to what I have to say before you kick me out.” I waited for her to just tell me to get out anyways, to start yelling and not listen to a word that I was going to say. I didn’t even know what I was going to say, but her silence let me know that she was giving me room to say it. Whatever it was. For some reason that kind of made me more nervous. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for the last nearly four years. I’m sorry and I know that’s not good enough. I know that I can’t take that back and make it better. I know that. But I’m sorry anyways and I think you should know that. When I left I didn’t think you of all people would be affected by it. I thought you’d be happy. Happy that your burden was finally out of your house. I was finally gone and I thought you’d be happy. I was wrong. But I still don’t see why. You always hated me, but I never knew why until you just straight out told me one day.”
Thank you
I could feel the burn of tears at the back of my eyes and I hated myself for that. For having that weakness. Especially in front of Paula. She didn’t respond to weakness. She didn’t kiss boo-boos and make it all better. She said to shake it off. Shaking my head for a moment, I stared at the ceiling. “I’ve never cried so much or so hard in my life. But I understood you. I hated you for hating my mere existence, but I understood you. I also understood you were never going to be that mother that I’d always wanted you to be. I knew it, but I couldn’t accept it. A big part of me still can’t accept it. I love you. You resent me. I understood the rules of the game. So I did the only thing I could think of to make it better at the time and I left. No more me, no more problems. That’s what I was thinking. Y’all would be on easy street”a regular Cosby family. That’s what I thought. Now I know that leaving didn’t do anything but create more problems…and I-I’m sorry, mommie.” My chin was quivering and the burn was growing in my eyes as my vision went up in blurry flames. I took steps closer to her, determined to hold it together for as long as I could, but I just needed her to believe me. To hold me for one moment and tell me she believed me.
From the bottom of my heart
For all the sleepless nights
“Don’t.” She said softly, raising her hand as a stop sign. I stopped, the burning in my eyes didn’t. “Don’t come any closer. You’re selfish and have been nothing but a pain in my ass from day one. I wasn’t your mommie then and I sure as hell ain’t your mommie now. I tried to be good to you once and you thanked me by ruining my family. Now Johnny’s gonna make some huzzy that’s probably not even pregnant with his kid, his wife. Kevin went to the war sane and came back crazy. Charlie…” She sighed, shaking her head. “He’s always been the weird one. Probably from hanging out with you too much. He keeps to himself a lot now. I worry about him a lot, but he doesn’t tell me anything. But I know he’ll tell you.” She glared at me. And that hate was so raw, so hot in her eyes. “He really likes you for some reason. They all do. Love them some Fionna. But you already fucked them up once, I don’t need you coming back for a few days and then disappearing again and fucking them right back up again. I’m getting too old to be bending over and picking up the pieces for everybody all the time. We don’t need you coming back and messing things up for everybody again.”
And for tearing me apart yeah, yeah
I bit my lip, feeling myself lose the battle to overcome this weakness. “I’m not trying to mess anything up. I just wanna be with my family again.”
She laughed. Threw her head back and laughed. “Remember I had the blood work done, you’re not George’s love child.”
It's gonna take a long time to love
It's gonna take a lot to hold on
That’s when I officially lost the battle. My hands stayed limp at my side, neither balling or swiping at my face, as I said, “I know, but””
“But nothing. You’re not family anymore and frankly you never were. More like an unwelcome guest we could never get rid of. We’re better off without you.”
“You don’t mean that.” I shook my head, but stared at my feet. I didn’t want to see the look on her face when she said her next words. I already knew what they were, but I was hoping like hell to be wrong.
It's gonna be a long, long, long, long way to happy, yeah
“Like hell I don’t.” She snapped, losing control of her voice momentarily. Lowering the volume on her emotions, she said, “Now kindly escort yourself out of my room and my family’s life and forget the way back like you did almost four years ago.”
Left in the pieces that you broke me into
Torn apart but now I've got to
I just stood there and stared at her, blinking back new tears I refused to cry. My mouth gaped like it had lost its muscle functioning and just swung open and close like a cowboy barroom door in the wind. She shooed at me like I was just a pesty fly hovering around her leftovers.
Keep on rolling like a stone
So I turned my feet into wings and flew away.
Cause it's gonna be a long, long way to happy
Music blared loud enough to feel it in my chest, thumping through me. I painted. Stabbing, jabbing, punching, followed by gentle regretful strokes to make it better. I stared at the lines I’d made, not seeing the image turning out the way I wanted it too. It was ruined. Ruined. Everything I’d spent the last few hours working on had been the same way. Ruined.
My foot shot out, kicking through the canvas just as the door to my room opened. I stared down at the hole, at my foot still in the hole, before looking up towards the door. A hesitant, worry-filled eyed Janice popped her head in and said softly, “Hey.”
I glared at her for a moment and when that did nothing to get her out of the room. I turned off the music, drowning the room in silence. “What?” That sounded even more bitchy than I’d meant for it too, but I didn’t soften it any. Just stared, glared at her. She wasn’t leaving. Damn.
After a moment of withstanding my best glares without flinching, she sighed. Her eyes wandered the room for a moment, before settling back on me, who was still just staring at her. I’d given up glaring. She said, “Food?”
“No.”
“Drink?”
“No.”
“Life?”
“Fuck it.” I sighed, plopping down onto the futon. My room wasn’t really big enough for a futon, bed, desk and chair and but there was a sliver of walking space left, which was good enough for me.
“Fuck life, or is it fucking you? You’re not looking too good right now.” She’d moved further into the room, but not necessarily closer to me. Smart girl.
Laughing bitterly with a shrug, I said, “What’s new? When do I ever look good?”
“If you wanted some compliments today you could have just asked.” She smiled as I sneered at her. “Instead of attacking innocent canvases and my poor ears with that stuff you call music.”
Today had definitely been a moody song playlist type of day, plenty of yelling and guitars or general pissivity. Everything from Fiona Apple “Criminal” to Kelis “Caught Out There” to Alanis Morrisette’s whole Jagged Little Pill album. A little Avril. A little P!nk. A little Fefe Dobson.
“It got what was coming to it.” I said, giving a half smile. “And it’s not my fault that you don’t know good music when you hear it and I really don’t wanna hear all the Britney Spears is ‘good’ music crap speech right now. My headache is already thumping hard enough.”
She giggled. “That’s because of that so-called music of yours.”
“Whatever.” I sighed, my smile dead.
I was staring at the ceiling wishing that she would just go away. I felt the futon dip as she sat down. Nudging me, she said,“What’s up?”
Frowning at the contact, I sat up and muttered, “The sky.”
“Fi…”
“Ja…”
Her nose crinkled up at that. “Ja?”
“Fi?” I echoed right back at her.
“Okay, point taken.”
“Finally.”
She giggled and then it dissolved into a somber sigh. “You’re not going to tell me what’s wrong, are you?”
“And people say you’re slow.” I laughed.
“Fionna!”
Flinching at her bellowed anger, I backpedaled, “I’m sorry that was rude.”
“Yeah it was.” Her voice softened back into its usual light and fluffy tone. “But you apologized all on your own without any hesitation. I’m proud of you, girl.”
Groaning, I held her head. “This is really a bad time for you to try to learn the art of sarcasm.”
She shrugged with a grin. “Too bad.” She giggled. She actually had the nerve to laugh at that. “But what you need to do right now is learn the art of communication.”
“I am communicating.”
“No, you aren’t. I know something happened. I know you’re upset. But instead of just telling me what’s wrong you close yourself off and get into this ‘whatever’ mood.”
“Whatever.” I muttered with a small smile.
“You’re so annoying!” She cried, playfully shoving my forehead with her forefingers. “Can’t you just be a girl?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I seem to have been under the impression that all these years I was a girl. But thanks for letting me know, I always wondered why everyone looked at me funny when I went into the ladies’ room. And now I know! It’s because of the penis I never knew I had! Thank you soooo much, Janice.” I smiled sardonically, getting up to leave.
“Fi, that’s not what I meant. Fifi!” Her whines followed behind me as I trudged out the door. So much for the understanding of why I don’t like being called Fi. Now it’s been stepped up to Fifi. Great all I needed now was a collar and a leash and my picture will be perfect next to ‘bitch’ in the dictionary.
I need to get out of this damn house. Out where a bitch can be a bitch without getting flack for it.
“Justin, where are you?”
I walked away from the loud music. Walked away from the intoxicated people who seemed to be under the impression that alcohol was the cure-all for their lack of rhythm. It wasn’t, but it was funny to watch. Or might have been if I’d watched them more than the bottoms of my growing collection of various bottles instead. I walked until their noise, their fun was a less roar and I could hear myself think again. “What? Who is this?”
“Janice.” She sighed on her end as if I was just supposed to know that. “I stopped by your place. You weren’t at home.”
“If I had of known how desperate you were to see me I might have changed my plans so I woulda been home.” I chuckled, stumbling over something I hadn’t seen in the soft darkness I was moving through now that I was standing outside. When I stumbled again, I fell that time. I laid where I’d fallen, laughing for a moment, before crawling toward where my cell had fallen.
“Hello? Justin? Are you…drunk?” There was a pause on her side of the line. “You’re drunk. Great.”
I laughed. “I’m not drunk. I wish I was drunk. Or high. Or just not…me. Not right now.”
“What’s wrong? What’s going on? Where are you?”
“I’m gonna hang up now, okay? Okay, Janice? I’m gonna hang up now and go puke.”
“Justin, wait””
I woke up…I dunno when, I just woke up later. I didn’t even know what day it was. Did it really matter though? My life was slowly working its way down the drain anyways. And before you start to think of me as more pathetic than even I could aspire to be, this wasn’t all about Fionna. Edison, which much to my disappointment was released as a straight to DVD movie, had been the critics number one movie to hate for the last week or so. Then all the movies that had been practically thrown at me disappeared quickly than Mike Jones’ (Who? Mike Jones! Who? Mi- No, really who the hell are you talking about?) career.
I’d gotten the itch to start working on my sophomore album, but according to my label they thought that maybe it would be better if I held off for a little more. It’s been four fucking years, what’s a little more? I guess that’s the million dollar question for me right now: what’s a little more? What’s a little more that everything can go to hell?
I know I’ve been drinking too much lately. I knew it, but not drinking gave me too much time to think. When my car ran off the road two days ago and I woke up with my head bleeding and car flipped upside down in a ditch. I knew I’d been drinking too much. When I pulled myself out and managed to barely stumble to the top of the small hill in time to watch my new fucking car go up in flames, I knew I’d been drinking too much. When I stood on the side of the road, drunk, bleeding from the head, watching my car burn, baby, burn and all I could do was laugh, I wondered how long it would take to get to the nearest bar.
“What the hell are you doing to yourself, Justin?”
Janice was hovering over me, struggling to try to pull me upright. I snatched the arm she was attempting to hold away from her and struggled to get myself upright on my own.
“Justin…” She stared at me, shaking her head. She bit her lip and squinted up into the sun. How did I get outside? When did that happen? And wasn’t it dark a minute ago? “What happened to your head?”
Touching the gash in the middle of my forehead, I winched. “I fell.”
“Okay, assuming that I believe that, which of course since I’m a rational, thinking, sober person, I don’t. What happened to shaving? Bathing?”
“You trying to say I smell or something?”
“No,” She shook her head. “I’m not trying. I am saying you reek.”
I smirked. “So in that case, is your next question: Can I be the one to give you your sponge bath, Mr. Timberlake?” I said, pushing up and cupping where my invisible rack would be, licking my lips and flipping back my invisible long blonde hair.
“Justin, what’s happened to you?” Her face was a frown caught between sadness and disgust. She could have just laughed. “I’ve never seen you like this. And I’m not just talking about your new alcohol cologne. You’re even more bitter and hostile than F…”
“No, go ‘head and say it. I’m even more bitter and hostile than Fi-fucking-on-na now.” I laughed. See, laughing was easy. I’d feel a lot less alone in my stupidity if she’d laugh and she didn’t even have to laugh with me. At me, would work just fine too. “Good, that was my main goal in life. Mission accomplished.” I said, falling backward into what I thought was grass, but of course tried out to be concrete.
Where I had expected to hear sympathy or concern, all Janice had was giggles.
Now she laughed. Of course. “How did you find me?” I frowned at her, rubbing my throbbing head.
“I followed your stench trail, so it was quite easy actually.” She smiled, scooting away from me. “You really do smell. But I dunno how I did it.” She shrugged. “I was just driving trying to think of places that you might be. And I got hungry and I was close to PF’s so…”
My frown deepened. “I’m at PF’s?”
“Yeah, kinda. The back parking lot.”
“Great. I’m sure I gave some paparazzi bastard his big break. You know AIM had me as one of those Sucks To Be You people?”
“Wait… you use AIM?” When all I did was roll my eyes, she said, “Those things only last for a day, right? Tomorrow you could be on Best Week Ever.”
“Yeah,” I laughed. “As a joke.”
“Look, I already have one bitch to deal with at home, I don’t need to add a bitchy drunken boss to that.” She smiled, hooking her arm through mine and starting to pull me to my feet. “So how about we work on getting you sobered up, maybe even get crazy and have you take a shower or something wild like that and then we can try to talk about the real reason I was looking for you.”
“You mean it wasn’t for my cheery company and uplifting conversation?”
“Uh, no.” She giggled. “But that was a close second.”
I didn’t like the way that seagull was circling above me. I know they probably weren’t naturally inclined to try to take a bite out of a person. But my luck wasn’t something I wanted to have to be the one to test out that idea.
I should have picked a better place to go than a beach in the first place. All I’d succeeded in doing was turning another three shades darker. I didn’t feel like getting up though. Laying there in the sand, face up, staring at the puffy white clouds passing me by, hoping the seagull wasn’t hungry enough to get adventurous”that was about all I was willing to do at the moment.
The warmth of the sun lessened, but it was kind of nice so I just enjoyed it, laying with my eyes closed. After a minute and what I was assuming to be clouds hadn’t stopped blocking my sunshine, I opened my eyes.
“What are you doing?”
The cloud had come down from the sky in the form of Justin and his shadow which were looming over my reclined body. I frowned up at him, but didn’t move. I might have been surprised at his sudden appearance if that didn’t require energy. “Catching up on my tan.” I said, closing my eyes again.
He smiled. “You’ve had one since birth.”
My eyes snapped open, finding him looking over my golden brown skin. “How do you know what I’ve had?” I said, momentarily making eye contact.
Apparently Justin was smarter than he looked because instead of responding directly to that, which was just a prelude to an argument, he pointed upward and said, “There’s no sun out.”
I looked up into the sky. In place of my sunshine, large grey clouds had rolled in with little baby gloom and doom clouds trailing in after them. Of fucking course. “Then I’m waiting for it to come back from its lunch break.” I said, closing my eyes again.
He didn’t say anything, but laid down close enough to me that our arms brushed.
Go away
Give me a chance to miss you
“Go away.” When he again didn’t say anything, I said, “Fine, I’ll go.”
I was sitting up and nearly on my feet, when he reached for me. His long fingers wrapping around my wrist. My eyes instantly locked on the point of contact, trying to burn his fingers away from me.
Slowly dragging his hand away, he said, “No, you stay. I’ll go.”
Say goodbye
It'll make me want to kiss you
I nodded, perfectly okay with that idea and laid back down in my original position with my eyes closed.
A minute or two went by in silence before I felt his arm brush mine. Keeping my eyes closed, I sighed wearily. Opening my eyes and turning to face him, I said, “Justin, what are you doing?”
He kept his eyes on the clouds, as he said, “Nothing.” He shrugged, smiling innocently, or tried to.
I love you so
Much more when you're not here
“Cut the bull. Why aren’t you leaving?”
Tonight
Leave me alone I'm lonely
His head rolled to face me. “Because…”
Alone, I'm lonely
I'm tired
I glared at him, but the more we looked at each other the more I was losing hold on my anger. And I needed that to hold down the hurt that was threatening to strangle me. Now was not the time to break down.
Leave me alone I'm lonely
Alone, I'm lonely tonight
When he spoke again, it was soft and hesitant. Like he was actually thinking before he spoke for once. “I know I have a tendency of acting like the sun rises and sets out my ass, but all this hostility couldn’t have been brought on solely by me. So what else happened?”
Go away
Come back
Go away
Come back
Why can't I just have it both ways?
I just blinked at him, before expelling a long loud breath of air. He was watching me so earnestly, like he could will me to spill my secrets. I stared up at the grey, grey clouds, wondering if it was going to rain enough to drown me. Or at least hide the tears I was losing grip on holding back.
I sighed and looked back over at him. He was still Mr. Earnest. When my mouth opened again, I said, “My mother who’s not my mother just recently had a heart attack. I went to the hospital to see her the other day and she exploded at me, screaming for me to leave before I caused her to have another one.” I’d been watching the ocean while I said that, but looked back at him, tears brimming my eyes. I didn’t need a mirror to know that I probably looked as lost as I felt. So lost, like a little girl who just got separated from her mother in the store. And I hated that. Hated that weakness. That hopeless weakness.
Go away
Come back
Go away
Come back
I wish you knew the difference
I’d been that little girl once, lost in the store with my heart pounding and my vision blurred, chin quivering and all I wanted was my mommie. When I found her again”five of the longest minutes of my life later”I ran towards her with opened arms, wrapping them around her leg. I wasn’t lost anymore and I’d never felt so happy. She’d turned from the rack of sale items she’d been perusing and frowned down at me. “What’s wrong with you?” She’d said, shaking me off of her.
She hadn’t even noticed I was gone.
Go away
Come back
