3.16.22

In Spite Of Everything

I sit with my younger self on the eve of a new day. There is the misty breath of cold air that flutters through the nighttime sky, and the smell of the day’s warmth swallowed by the evening’s cooling touch. The stars glitter above and remind us both of other worlds, of our smallness, of the vastness of possibilities that span before us. I wrap us in a blanket as we sit upon the steps to my home and stare out through the darkness, to the highway that lays asleep. She is small, the child that once was me. Small, and thin, with blonde hair that had not yet given way to the crimson it would one day become. Freckles dot her cheeks and mud cakes her hands and knees. She bares scrapes from bark that cut her palms as she scaled trees she ought not to, and her clothes still hold remnants of the leaves and twigs that snapped during her adventure. 

She is small, and she is thin, and she is full of life.

I say to her: We still play in the dirt. 

She smiles at this, her pink lips spreading to display her crooked teeth in an overwhelming display of joy. She nearly leaps from her spot beside me but settles for kicking her feet and hugging the blanket closer. 

She says to me: Do we still climb trees? 

Not as many as we’d like, I say. But I will. Just for you. 

She is pleased by this. She huddles close and I put my arms around her to keep her warm. From the driveway, a figure approaches. She is tall and lean and red marks line her arms and legs from where she used her fingernails against her flesh. 

Dark lines hug her eyes, deeper than the shadows cast by the moon. Her long hair falls in a strawberry blonde mess across her shoulders, combed often but never cleared entirely of the knots. She walks hunched, her head down, one hand wrapped around the other’s forearm. Freckles dot her cheeks and highlight the redness from the tears shed not long before. She sits at the foot of the steps. She sniffles and rubs her eyes. 

We have our own house, she says to me.

We do, I say back. We have a pride flag up. 

She offers a weary laugh at this. She looks at me, briefly, before turning away once more. 

I bet they don’t like that, she says.

I wouldn’t know, I say. I’ve never invited them inside. 

She stills now, this aching teenage self of mine. She faces me once more, her brows knit together, a line forming between them that would one day become a crease. 

They haven’t seen it? She breathes. 

Not since I moved, I say. I reach out a hand. We’re safe now, you know. We have a girlfriend. 

She starts crying. Tears spill down her cheeks and she grabs my shirt and pulls herself into my chest. She hugs me tight as she wails. Her fingers dig into my spine. Her forehead compresses my sternum. I put my arm around her. My younger self hugs the teenager as well.

It hurt so much, the teenager rasps. It hurt so much and it never stopped hurting. I tried to use a knife but I was too afraid. 

I rub her back and place a hand on her scalp. I know, I whisper.

I thought running away would make things better, but it just made things worse, she says.

I know, I reply.

I said what I had to. I had to hide. I was so scared. 

It was terrifying, I murmur. I remember how much it pained us to be afraid. But you chose to stay. You never chose to step off that bridge. You never chose to take that knife against your wrist. You chose to stay. And you chose to fight. Thank you. 

She does not stop crying. Not for hours. Not for days. She sobs into my shirt until I am drenched in the sorrow of what should not have been. But we stay. The child version of me, the teenage version of me, and me now. We stay, and we hold each other, and I relish in the knowledge that we have come so far, and healed so much, and that was all because we didn’t take a short walk off Hawthorne Bridge. 

In spite of everything, I survived.