People were people, but for better or worse, most days, they were just puzzles to me. Easy puzzles, hard puzzles, crosswords, mind-benders, sudoku. There was always an answer, and I couldn't stop myself from pushing until I found it.
And on it went-good-natured ribbing, family jokes. I played the part, letting their energy infect me, saying what they wanted me to say, smiling the smiles they wanted to see. It was warm and safe and happy -but it wasn't me.
It never was.
I was everyone's problem and nobody's.
Not an easy girl.
Touch my face
run fingers through my strands
like you know the
every story they hold
and recognize that
all I have is
curls that are wild
& messy strands
depicting the fact
that I am not an
easy girl.
Coming to stand by my side, she nudges me with her shoulder and tips her chin to the sunrise. “I know you have a heart of stone, but you gotta
admit that it’s pretty.”
It is, I sign lazily, my eyes on her as she looks back at the view.
My heart isn’t made of stone. It’s filled with poison.
I stay against the wall, my hands behind me, and try to think of everything possible to make her stay. Willingly. I want Olivia to choose me.
Please choose me.
Nobody ever chooses me.
She stands, slips on her shoes, and wipes under her eyes. “I won’t tell anyone I saw you,” she says, her head down. If you let me leave, I’ll forget this ever happened. Don’t be difficult about this, Malachi. I’m leaving one way or another.”
I can’t answer. I just look at the ground as she moves towards me then stops. “Goodbye, Malachi. Please take care of yourself. Please.”
“Society would never accept us.”
I grip the phone in my hand. “Fuck society.” I don’t think my words have ever been clearer than right now. “Fuck everyone against us.”
“You don’t even know how to love properly. Your diagnosis proves that. Why would I give up a marriage for someone who can never feel the same way about me?”
I stay quiet, because she’s right.
My version of love isn’t enough for her—I love her, I do, but how am I supposed to know what’s normal and what’s not? My world revolves around her and always has. And if that’s not a good-enough version of love for her, and I can’t make her happy, then what’s the point?
I had a thing for words and he had them all.
“But si vis amari, ama? ‘If you wish to be loved, love?’ I tried that once.
It didn’t work out so well.” Her voice was bitter.
“Maybe youloved the wrong person.”
Because who wouldn’t love this gorgeous creature? This over-educated,over-sexed woman who oozed intelligence and sensuality? This woman of
white skin and red lips and a brain built for running financial empires?
کوئی پی کے راہ سے بھٹک گیا، کوئی پی کے راہ کو پا گیا
جو سبھی کا ظرف عیاں کرے یہ تیری شراب کا کام ہے
I wanted to pray in complete darkness. I wanted nothing in between my thoughts and God, in between this woman and my vocation. I wanted
everything but my sin and these starbursts in my eyes stripped away.
I’m sorry, I prayed. I’m so sorry.
I was sorry that I’d betrayed the trust of one of God’s flock. I was sorry that I’d betrayed the holiness of this place and this vocation by lusting after someone seeking solace and guidance.
Mostly…
Mostly, I’m sorry that I’m not sorry.
Dammit, I wasn’t sorry at all.
"I’m sure you know the feeling, Father, like the slightest breeze is enough to send you over the edge, like your skin itself is combustible."
“I rejected that entire reality,” she confessed. “The Wharton life. I didn’t
want to do it. I couldn’t do it.”
Of course, she couldn’t. She was so far above that life. Could she see that about herself? Could she sense it, even if she couldn’t see it? Because I barely knew her, and even I knew that she was the kind of woman who couldn’t live without meaning, powerful and real meaning, in her life. And she wouldn’t have found it on the other side of that Dartmouth stage.
She was all those things. She was indeed the perfect package on the surface…but below it, I sensed she was so much more. Messy and passionate and raw and creative—a cyclone forced into an eggshell. Small
wonder the shell had broken.
"I clasp her chin in a firm hold, bringing the knife to her throat and pressing the sharp edge to her pulse.
I want to slice it open, deep and gaping, to see her blood spill down her body.
But I also want to kiss her, goddammit."
Poppy was one minute early, and the easy but precise way she walked through the door told me that she was accustomed to being prompt, took
pleasure in it, was the kind of person who could never understand why other people weren’t on time.
(Us Poppy Us)
S volkámi zhit’, po-vólch’i vyt’
Resilience
Her hazel eyes flickered up to mine, green and brown pools of curiosity and intelligent energy, green and brown pools that reflected grief and
confusion if you cared to look long enough. I recognized it because I had worn such a look for years after Lizzy’s death, except in Poppy’s case, I suspected that the person she was grieving—the person she’d lost—was herself.
Lizzy’s death had nearly killed me. But it had killed Mom. And every
day after that, it was like we kept Mom artificially alive with hugs and jokes
and visits now that we were older, but every now and again, you could see
that a part of her had never fully healed, never really resurrected, and our
church had been a huge part of that, first driving Lizzy to kill herself and
then turning their backs on us when the story went public.
Sometimes I felt like I was fighting for the wrong side. But who would
make it better if I didn’t?
I pulled Mom into a hug, her face crumpling as I wrapped my arms
around her. “She’s with God now,” I murmured, half-priest, half-son, some
chimera of both. “God has her, I promise.”
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