D-days

I heard his voice echoing through the house as I opened the door. I stopped for a moment just standing there, staring into void; my eyes clouded a second and then... nothing. The answering machine clicked off and my mother started shouting orders for house cleanup.

I arrived back home on Monday it had been a long drive from Portland with many food breaks and bathroom stops. What can you expect with an 11-year-old brother. So no one commented when one of the only two messages on our machine was a “Merry Christmas” from some long forgotten man my father once knew, no one even gave it another thought...... no one except me.

Clothes, lots of clothes, an mp3 player, a door curtain, pillows bathmats, books, soap, chocolate tons of chocolate and candy canes (yucky candy canes) a new purse, (oh how I hate and love them) cash, hats, makeup... the list is endless. A million and one things a teenage girl could want for Christmas oh how spoiled I am. Of course none of it was from my parents, all from grandparents and rich aunts and uncles...Its not that they don’t love me or that they don’t want me to have that stuff. But its not the other thing either, we aren’t poor. No, the lack of presents under our tree is because my mother loses things, she’s lost this months bills, and my fathers paycheck amid the clutter and crap strewn all over our house. My dad makes enough money that we should be living in a huge house, with maids and sports cars...... if my mom wasn’t slowly but surely succumbing to her sick mind..... but that doesn’t matter so much, after all Christmas is about celebrating Christ and spending time with your family........... I don’t know which is harder to do.

D-day’s how pathetic, I’ve just coined a phrase so remarkably cruel and delightful to myself, that even I cringe. What does d stand for?........ anything and everything. D stands for depression, for disgust, for dreary, for dry, for dread, for dark, for dead ........ and for Derek .

Derek is anyone, he is my wonderfully gay friend, my best friends cousin, the spoiled brat in my T.A. period, my long dead uncle....... and Him. I see him every once in a while, at my church far across the sanctuary looking at me, pleading with his eyes for forgiveness. It’s ironic what he is asking forgiveness for with those eyes of his, all this time I thought he was feeling guilty... for ...IT. ...turns out he is feeling guilty, for leaving me alone...

He saw me standing on the steps from across the room, I imagine I looked forlorn or alone. He came over, lightly brushing his fingertips across my bare shoulder. I would have been happy with my self if I had winced, but I didn’t, I had to stop myself from leaning into his touch, somehow part of me still wanted him... how disgusting. We talked for a moment about his dogs and the weather. I smiled the whole time like a ditzy whore, just thrilled he was talking to me. All the while my mind threw tantrums in my head throwing things around and screaming at me to spit in his face or kick him in the balls, but my body would have none of it. Finally he turned to face me, and I saw that look in his eyes, he was gunna bring it up, he was gunna say something, oh god no......

“ you know I never meant it to turn out this way...” he stutters

Shit my tongue has suddenly grown a conscience and swelled up so big, I can’t speak. There is silence as my pasted grin slips off my face and lays melting on the concrete railing. Uuunnggggggggh.

He continues, “ I mean... I wanted to....you know, be with you...” he fades off.

My face is turning purple with the effort to speak. My body desperately wants to console him and assure him that there are no hard feelings. But my mind screams ‘no hard feelings?!?! He is a fucking child molester how can you have “no hard feelings” ’ my tongue remains resolutely neutral, and the size of a cantaloupe.

The conversation ended quickly when his girlfriend showed up to take him off to some godforsaken bed somewhere... Oh how I loathed him... but then it just sort of settled on me, I didn’t hate him, and I don’t hate him. I hate myself, I loathe myself for letting him touch me. It wasn’t he who came to my bedroom late at night when all were asleep, I went to him, I consented, I let him touch me, I let him, and I hate him..... But I hate myself more.

My mind wanders off, gazing out the window into the rain. It’s only 12 o clock noon. My sister is in my room screaming her head of and destroying my stuff, my brother is holed up in my parents room chuckling wildly and trying to pull my dads rifle off the wall. (he has run out of ammo for his bb gun you see) my parents are obviously at work but I seem to have forgotten this for a moment because I half open my mouth to call for my mother so she can take care of my brother. Then I remember she’s not here. Instead I pull a glass from a cupboard and pour myself a tall cup of some cheap wine that is sitting on the counter. (the only alcohol in the house) I walk over to the sink with my glass. For a moment I stare into the window, seeing only my reflection, there is a gash above my left eye it’s a claw mark from my sister, and a slight swelling along my jaw line an impending bruise from the shovel blow my little brother nicked me with. Looking back down into the glass, a toast, “To madness.” I say, “To madness!” my reflection echoes. I chug the nasty wine and rinse my mouth a dozen times in the sink.