Love Rewards The Brave (10 page)

63.

She reaches behind her seat

pulling up a box

two-feet deep.

She huffs a bit at the

awkward maneuver, but when it’s

squarely between us

she looks at me

with a smile.

A bright-eyed

and wide

smile.

“What is it?” I ask self-consciously.

“It’s your journals. From your old apartment. At least a dozen of them.”

You know that saying about

losing your breath?

It’s real.

The air went straight out of me.

The box right here

contains relics

I don’t know if I want to see.

Want to know

because I’m afraid if I remember

I’ll never grow

or change from the girl I was then.

I’ll get caught up in the

tailspin

of self-preservation.

“Well, don’t you want to see them?”

Terry takes off the lid

and somehow the box

holds

the cigarette smoke

of all the

homes

I lived in.

It holds the

sweaty stale smell

of

the

Hell

I lived in.

It holds the

rotting broken heart

of

disregard

ed

dreams

I lived in.

I can’t do this.

I can’t do this.

I can’t do this.

I shake my head

fast

wanting the wave of nausea

coming over me

to pass.

I am not

ready

or prepared

or “self aware”

enough

to do this.

I can’t do this.

“Louisa, what’s wrong? I thought you’d be so pleased.”

I open the door just in time to

vomit the

visions

I

had

just

inhaled,

out.

64.

I go to my room when we get home.

Fall on the bed

stuffing the scent of the

pillow

into my head.

I felt sick

on the drive home.

Ms. F wanted to know what happened.

If I was feeling okay?

I left Terry’s car so fast

in such a hurry.

The two of them

stood outside in the freezing air

talking for what seemed

like an eternity

at least to me

about me

and what I was afraid

to see.

Terry handed Ms. F the box.

She put it in her trunk

slammed it shut

drove it home

for what?

So I can go back through

my childhood memories

see

the words I wrote on a page

the only way I knew

to express my rage.

And now, two years later

the box shows up.

Well guess what?

Terry and Ms. Francine:

I’m grown up
.

I don’t need those remnants of my past

to point out the parts that I lack.

A mom and a dad together forever.

I just have a dad who

kissed me

held me

grabbed me

too tight.

I don’t need to read my journals to

remind myself of those

memories.

More like

horror dreams
.

Played out

in

real life.

65.

Forget the headphones

the music’s cranked up loud.

I text Jess:

Come over, I’m Bored.

She’s busy.

Markus sang her a song on his guitar.

And now they’re puppy dogs and roses

once more.

God.

Alone on a Saturday night.

I need a

fucking life.

If I go downstairs

my night will consist of listening to

Ms. F and Margot

laugh at inside jokes

constantly causing me to

remember

my solidarity.

Fuck it.

What else am I going to do?

Shampoo

my hair

for the third time today?

What a fucking cliché.

66.

At the kitchen table

they have a SCRABBLE board

spread with tiles

letters

forming

words.

When I walk in they look at me,

expectantly.

Did I need something?

Was I hungry?

Would I like a cup of tea?

Did I want in on the game?

Overbearing is not the

term

because I know they’re trying to

turn

my day around.

Salvage it into some

new found

good.

“Do you like SCRABBLE?” Margot asks.

Why are these two women sitting here

on a Saturday night

playing a board game?

I thought I was the one

who needed a life.

“Um. I don’t know. I mean, I’ve never really played it.”

“Well, do you like words? It’s like a big word puzzle,” Margot says.

My heart catches,

do I say,
Yes, I know about words
?

That

every thought

in my

brain

is transferred to the

page.

That my life story

is well documented

with ballpoint pens

and stubby pencils

on sheets of paper held

with a single

spiral.

Spiral-

ing

out of control

is my soul,

but it is kept

bound.

Bound

by the pages

of letters

that form into

words.

Life

Puzzles.

“Yes, Margot, I like words,” I say.

Shocking myself

I

sit

down

at the table.

They smile at me

at each other.

Like they were hoping I’d say that.

67.

Finally, Sunday morning lets me

drink coffee

wear sweat pants

with my hair in a headband.

Sunday lets me lay on the couch

watching TV

with a remote control in my hand.

My episode

of Teen Mom

is interrupted

though,

when I see that box of journals

under

the bench at the bottom of the stairs.

It stares me in the face

and I keep wanting to find out if the

Baby Daddy makes

it back

in time

to save face,

but I’m so effing distracted

by what’s next to the

staircase

I can’t focus

on my

donothingalldaySundayplans.

Two more episodes

air.

Commercial breaks

call for

yogurt then a handful of blueberries.

God I wish there was junk food in this house.

Ms. Francine leaves for work,

but Margot is

here.

I hear her get up

take a shower,

blow-dry her hair.

I can’t take it any longer.

Every time I get up I try to walk fast,

but the box is

bringing up my past.

God.

I’m bigger than this, I tell myself.

Knowing in my heart I can’t look away.

I pick up the box.

Remembering to breathe.

68.

It happens faster than I thought.

The flooding of my face

the salty taste

filling the pages

with drops

of liquid

hate.

Hate

for the memories

I forgot about a long

time ago. Blocking them out

so they wouldn’t be all I know.

And now as I turn the dates on each page

I remember the girl I was at every

tender age. A little girl of

7.8.9.10.11.12.13.14…

will it ever

end?

69.

She finds me

in a mess

on the floor.

Tissues forgotten, instead I

use the sleeves of my hoodie

to wipe, again, the never end-

ing stream

of tears.

“Louisa?”

Margot’s next to me, puts her

arm around me

just slow enough for my flinch

to be absorbed by the shock

of her hold-

ing me.

“Louisa, it’s okay, you’re okay.”

And I know she knows why

I’m crying.

Why I’m broken

Here.

Why I live

Here.

Why Ms. F feeds me,

is paid to

keep me

Here.

And I want to push her away

tell her to go,

but the other part

the
scarred
scared part

wants her to know.

Because then I won’t feel so alone

in all of

this.

And suddenly being alone, with

THIS

seems scarier than being known.