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Astrid Park
“Good
morning,” Jake said. It was midnight. Sure I’d been in the park at midnight
before, but never during a full moon.
I
couldn’t help but think of what a photonegative sort of moment it was, as
yesterday and tomorrow came together. Is the moon at midnight anything like the
sun at noon? It was so bright, it may as well have been daylight. I
imagined people playing Frisbee, lounging on blankets, and walking dogs. Being
that it was August, it was still pretty warm out, despite the late-early hour.
“I
shouldn’t be here,” I said flatly. “With you, I mean.” I made a point of not
looking at him where he sat on the swing next to mine.
“Why
not?”
I
started swinging, slowly.
“Because,”
I said, thinking, “it’s you.”
“What’s
that supposed to mean?” he asked.
“Oh,
a lot of things.”
“Well,
could you elaborate a little?”
“All
right, well, for starters, not that it matters, but if my parents knew I was
here with you, they’d be pretty confused, kind of worried.”
“Well,
my house hates you too, you know,” he said.
I
laughed.
“No,
really. They blame you for my downward spiral.”
“Oh
really, then? Well, I blame you for a lot of things too. And thanks to you, my
parents never really trust anyone I bring home anymore.”
At
first he said nothing, just looked at the sky. He breathed in and then out,
shook his head. Part of me wanted to tell him that the skin around his eyes
looked almost lavender in this light, but before I had a chance, he spoke.
“I
never hit you, you know.”
“I
never said you did.”
“I
mean, I may have freaked out and yelled at you a couple times, but…I’m sorry,
you know. I really am.”
“I’m
sorry about it too.”
A
pause. Then he asked, “Well wait, what do you blame me for then?”
I
stopped swinging and looked at him. “Don’t you remember anything?”
“I
told you, I lost my memory too. The doctor said I just blocked out a lot, you
know.”
“You
blocked out a lot?” I looked away.
“Yeah.”
“Well, I started remembering things. Flashbacks and stuff.”
“What
did you start remembering?”
“Jake,
I, I…”
“You
what?”
I
looked at the ground and then off towards the woods. I smoothed back my hair
and swallowed. “I can’t have sex anymore, Jake. Not without breaking down in
the middle or spacing out or something. For a while the flashbacks were really
bad, but now I usually just…I go numb or gray or something.”
“I
have no idea where you’re getting any of that. I never did that to you.”
“But
then why do I remember all these things?” I said. “How could I be making it
up?”
“The
imagination is a strange, powerful thing,” he said.
“No,
you’re not getting it. See, I remember these things. I do. I swear. It’s in
pieces, but I remember it. I never know when it’s going to happen, but when it
does, I just get hit with these, these images of-”
“Well,
Elliot said that when the two of you were going out, you told him I’d raped
you.”
“God,
Elliot would say that, wouldn’t he? No, I told him I didn’t know. And anyway,
he’s the one that asked.”
“You
weren’t drunk.”
“So
you do remember?”
“How
do you know your subconscious or whatever isn’t just making it all up?”
“Because
I…Well I don’t know, exactly. But I mean, with Elliot, for example, I’d be in
the middle of things with him and then out of nowhere, something would pull me
out of the moment. I’d be seeing you over me instead of him, and I’d just go
completely blank. All of a sudden he’d be shaking me, calling my name, and I’d
realize I’d been crying, or staring at the wall.”
“But-”
“I
used to try to think of other things while I was with him, like the beach. I
don’t know, something for my mind to hold onto so I wouldn’t have a flashback.
Didn’t work too well though. He had these white bedsheets…mascara smears all
over them.”
“But-”
“But
what?”
“I’m
saying that you weren’t ever drunk when you and I would, well, you know. So how
would you now know what had or hadn’t happened to you?”
“But
that night in the car, when there was that crazy thunderstorm? We were parked
under those trees and I was scared, remember? You kept telling me it was all
right.”
He
opened his mouth, as if to say something, but then he stopped, so I went on.
“It
felt like you were testing me because afterwards, when I was driving, you asked
me how I could tell that it was your fingers you had been using and— wait, you
weren’t drunk either, but now you’re saying you don’t remember anything about
what happened? Are you serious, man?”
“Yeah,
but it’s different.”
“You
mean convenient,” I said.
“No,
I mean different.”
“Different?
How so?”
“Listen,
I know your life hasn’t been all sunshine and roses either, but you can’t even
imagine half the stuff I’ve been through. When you and I were together, I just
started falling apart, and I’m still not sure why. I wasn’t really in control,
you know?”
“You
were…I was afraid of you. Did you know that? Not really in control? Wow, Jake,
I had no idea.”
“Hey,
come on now, don’t go getting all sarcastic on me. You don’t understand.”
“Listen,
you don’t know what I went through either. Before or after you. I’m not even
just talking about the sex thing. That came later, actually. For a while it was
actually almost too easy to be with someone else.”
“Well
what then?”
“Well,
it’s amazing what stress can do to you. More than just not being able to eat or
sleep. My teeth got really messed up, and I ended up with all these cavities. I
even had to get a root canal. And my back got all twisted to the point where I
couldn’t walk normally. My hips were totally off, like, leaning to the left or
something. I started seeing a chiropractor though. And just all these things
like that. My allergies and my eyesight got worse too. All the doctors asked me
about trauma, but I just told them school was hard.”
He
didn’t say anything.
“But
that doesn’t even compare,” I continued, “to not being able to love someone in
the way that you want to love them.”
He
was quiet a long time. He just sat there looking at his feet. I kept looking
straight ahead.
Finally,
he muttered, almost laughing, “Jesus, you’re going to write about this, aren’t
you?” And then, quietly, “I loved you, you know.”
“Well
I loved you too.”
“I
know you did.”
Jessica Del Balzo
E-mail Jessica Del Balzo
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