A Different Kind of Beauty

A Different Kind of  Beauty

by

Alyssa Cooper

Kindle Edition

Copyright 2013 Alyssa Cooper

Published by: Fiction Lake Online Publishing

www.FictionLake.com

Kindle Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

A Different Kind of Beauty

I stop at Jesse's apartment on my way to work, the way that I do almost every day. The superintendent is putting a new lock one of the mailboxes behind the door, and he waves at me as I let myself inside. He doesn’t try to stop me; he knows me well by now. He checks in on Jesse on the days that I don't visit. We
don't speak of it, but I'm sure he’s aware of the peace of mind he offers me.

I smile at
him as the door swings shut behind me, and he straightens, reaching to work a knot out of the small of his back. I ask, "How's Sandy?" without slowing my steps, and he gives an affectionate grin; he loves his wife desperately

"Oh, you know," he says in
a big booming voice without commitment, and I wave goodbye as I start up the stairs. It's an old building. There are no elevators. He only lives on the third floor, though.  I got used to the steps a long time ago.

When I reach the top of the stairs, a do
g down the hall starts to bark. I knock on the door. "Jesse?" I try to be quiet, because I know that Mrs. Kelly, in the apartment next to his, likes to sleep late. Even in the midst of my concern, I wonder why I bother; the yapping of the mutt reverberating through her walls has surely already roused her. I knock again, but he doesn't answer.

My first thought is that he's ignoring me, like he has done so many times before.

My second thought is that he is dead; he died in the night and I wasn't here. I can already see him in my mind, pale and still on the floor, dark blood dried around his mouth like sick red lipstick.

I rearrange the grocery bags in my arms, and dig in my purse with one hand for the key he gave me. I push aside lip balm, spare change,
and a stick of gum, but I can't find it. I hug the groceries tight, feeling the cold press of a milk carton against my chest.

"Jesse!" My voice is like a cry as I knock harder, faster.

I finally hear his clumsy steps as they come closer, moving very slowly, and knowing he is there sends relief coursing through me so potent my hands begin to shake. I drag in a deep breath and sigh heavily. I work to slow my racing heart as I wait,  and when he finally opens the door, I am struck by his shattered beauty the way that I have been countless times before.

His dark hair is held back from his face in a loose elastic. His hazel eyes are bloodshot, and there are dark, sleepless circles under them. I take in his delicate cheekbones and the hollows beneath, his long nose, crooked and strange from being broken more than once. There is vomit crusted at the corners of his lips, but he smiles when he sees me. He has pulled on a dark blue robe, and under it I can see a narrow stripe of his pale, boney chest. It is hard for me to see him the way he is now. Every changed detail reminds me of how perfect he was when
we were young.

"Lindsay," he says, and his voice is hoarse. He reaches the bags in my arms, but I won't let him take them. "Can I help?" he asks, but I shake my head as I step past him, making my way to the tiny kitchen. Dropping the grocery bags on the counter, I toss my purse onto the table and drape my jacket over the back of a chair; I am comfortable here. It's where I spend most of my time; my own apartment is barren and alone a few blocks away. Jesse doesn't visit. He waits.

As he shuffles back to the living room, I open the fridge and throw out the milk I brought him weeks ago, unopened and untouched. I check the cheese, a small slice of which is missing, the rest gone hard and covered in mould. Pulling open the vegetable crisper I find brown lettuce, blackened tomatoes, mouldy carrots. I dump the entire tray into the trash and rinse the rot into the sink. With numb hands, I restock the fridge with food that I know he will not eat.

At least it will be here when his mother comes to visit. At least she won't have to worry about that.

Silently, I check the freezer and the cupboards, reaching far into the back, even the drawer under the stove, which is hard to open without making a sound. I don’t find the bottles, as I know I won't. I don’t know where he hides his alcohol, and he'll never tell me. Jesse would never lie to me, but he's very good at avoiding the truth. I suspect he keeps it in the nightstand, or somewhere in his closet, but his bedroom is a place I have not been invited to share in a very long time.

He's lounging on the couch when I wander back into the other room. His robe has fallen open, and I see his thin skin stretched over jutting rib bones. I watch his heart
beat.

Slipping into the bathroom without a word, I soak a washcloth in the sink. I carry it back to him and he wipes at his face, scouring away his night sweats. Tapping the corner of my own mouth, I show him the vomit he missed, and, embarrassed, he scrubs it away.

I kick off my shoes and finally sit beside him on the couch. He folds the washcloth carefully and lays the square on the coffee table, making sure that it is centred on a coaster. He'll shower when I leave, although I know that sometimes it exhausts him to stand for so long. He will shower, and brush out his beautiful curls, and dress in loose jeans and a worn t-shirt, so if I come back after work, I'll almost be able to pretend nothing is wrong.

Almost.

I reach out and gently take his hand. I hold his palm without lacing our fingers.

"How is it today?" I ask him.

"It's okay." His voice is low and hoarse. He always speaks quietly in the morning, because his throat still aches from the vomiting he does at night. "It's not too bad."

I lift his arm and drape it over my shoulders, laying my head on his shoulder. He is bonier every day it seems, but I can always find a place that I am comfortable. He smells like himself, the soft blend of Ivory soap and eucalyptus aftershave and an undertone of bitter sweet sweat. The smells of my youth.

“Are you going to drink when I'm gone?”

He shifts uncomfortably. I know that while I’m at work, he tries to drink lightly
, just enough to get him through the day. Enough that he can get dressed and do his laundry, clean the apartment, even go out if he absolutely has to, without being plagued by his withdrawal. He keeps himself on that edge, so when I come to see him after work, he is rarely drunk, although I can always smell the alcohol on him.

After I leave, after I go home for the night, that is when he loses himself. That is when I need to worry. There are so many ways he could hurt himself when I’m not here. He could cut himself in the kitchen. He could fall and hit his head. He could black out and choke.

And of course, there is the cirrhosis on his liver he is always making worse. There are the swollen veins in his esophagus, a result of that failing organ, that tear and bleed when he pukes.

I stay with him as late as I can when I come, hoping that if I'm around long enough, he’ll fall into his restless sleep and forget the alcohol. He tries not to drink when I’m here. He doesn't want me to watch what he is doing to himself.

When he starts to sweat and shake, though, the withdrawal taking over, I lose my nerve. I can’t stay. I can’t watch his body rebel like that.

“Well? Are you?”

“I don’t know.” He crosses and uncrosses his thin legs, restless. “Maybe.”

“Why?”

“Just one of those things.” His voice trails, and I know that if I try to pursue it further, he’ll stop speaking to me.

“Why do you do this to yourself?”

He breathes into my hair. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“You’re killing yourself.”

“It’s alright, Linds.”

“You always had such respect for life. Don’t you remember? We used to rescue moths. It was like we owned
the world
.” I don't sound angry when we have this conversation anymore. I sound sad. I sound lost. If I still got mad each time we argued, I’d die of exhaustion. “How can you do this to yourself?”

“I’m not trying to kill myself.” Placating me.

“Then what? You know what you’re doing. You know what’s happening to you. What are you trying to prove?”

“Nothing,” he says quietly. “No one has anything to prove.”

“You’re running away from what’s here,” I whisper bitterly. “You can’t stand the thought that not everyone can be perfect.”

He is silent for a long time. Finally, he says, "I've made a lot of mistakes, Lindsay."

"And you think
this
is going to fix them?"

"It makes it easier," he says uncomfortably.

"What?" I demand, unswayed by his agitation. "What does it make easier?"

He shakes his head slowly, hopelessly, because we both know by now that I'll never understand. "Everything," he says
. "The world."

There have been times when I have wanted to hate him, but I couldn't. I never could. Not even now. So I say, “I wish I could understand you,” and I'm sure he can hear
my misery hiding just under the surface.

"I’m sorry, Lindsay," he says quietly. "I'm so sorry I hurt you."

I wish I could comfort him, but I don't know how anymore. It's been so long. "I know you didn't mean to."

"Good intentions don't mean shit, Lindsay. I guess no one ever told you that, but it's true. They're worthless."

His bitterness shocks me. "Don't say that."

"It's true. No one remembers how hard you try. They just remember the moment you fuck up. And they remember it forever."

"Jesse..."

He bores into me with eyes so sharp I'm sure they could tear through my flesh. I shrivel in the face of his power. After a moment, he says, "Maybe you should go."

And like a coward, I take the chance he has given me.

***

When we were children, we were best friends.

I don't remember meeting Jesse. He simply was
; a constant presence in even my most time-clouded memories. We played together from the time we could take our first confident and yet tottering steps, and when he fell and scraped his knees, I wailed along with him as if my own flesh had been torn apart at his pain. Soon, we were running rampant around the block, our own private kingdom, screaming and leaping and insisting we were being chased by pirates. We baked in the wind and the sun until our faces were burnt and brown, and I wailed at the injustice that little boys could go shirtless in the heat when little girls could not. And sympathetically, a young, wide-eyed Jesse would pull his t-shirt back over his head. We discovered small copses of trees at the edges of our domain, and they seemed like deep, endless forests. Taking on animal instincts together, we howled like wolves and went tearing through the underbrush. We built ourselves a shelter in the dark depths of those trees, guarding it like a fortress and claiming the forest as our own.

When the other children in our pack began to repel from the opposite sex, flustered and confused by the differences between us as they moved steadily towards adolescence, Jesse and I were somehow immune. We held fast to each other, frustrating the others, who could not comprehend a bond as powerful as ours.

When puberty finally hit, taking us all over like a tide and carrying us into the halls of a frightening new school, those friends became sure that Jesse and I were having sex. And for a time, when the squawking flocks of young girls questioned me relentlessly, I bitterly denied their accusations. Jesse had offered me many things in our time together, but not that. Not yet. No matter how badly I wanted him to.

As we grew older together, emerging from our coltish youth with the first promise of adulthood, my wish was finally granted. He looked at me differently; suddenly, I was surprising, causing his eyes to widen and his lips to part. I was fresh and new. I watched his pupils dilate as he breathed my familiar scent. For the first time, he took my face in his long hands, and as I shuddered from the touch, he kissed me carefully. A calculated embrace. After, we gazed at each other with the reverence that we had once reserved for the harvest moon, for shooting stars, for the birth of monarchs from their tight, constricting cocoons. He laid his hands over my bones, and told me their names,
ileum, sternum, clavicle,
the way that he used to tell me the names of the clouds,
stratus, cumulus, pileus.
He’d trace his fingers along my freckles, connecting them like constellations.

He loved me. We felt it so desperately. We were completely lost in each other, and for so long
, it was like a dream. Transforming in his hands, I became a different kind of beauty. We spoke of the future. We imagined running away, a Las Vegas wedding, and a honeymoon in the forests. We belonged together, and he assured me of that fact over and over, his voice desperate in my ears, desperate with his longing. We wanted a house in the country, a yard full of dogs. We wanted children.