Lily of the Valley (14 page)

“You need to stop taking your shit out on me,” she says.

I smile. “I think that’s the first time you’ve shown a spine, princess.”

She says nothing and the world opens up. There are two roads ahead of me, two paths that lead into a dark haze that I imagine must be the future. Having never believed in the future as anything more than an illusory concept that other people,
normal
people, cling to, I don’t recognize it at first.

One of the paths involves me freaking out, forcing her out of my room and out of my life forever. I need to see my dad and she doesn’t belong there with me. However, the second path says something different. It suggests that maybe, just maybe, I give her what she wants. I show her my life – and let her choose what she does with it. I have only a moment to decide and I don’t know why I say what I do.

“Look, come for a ride with me. We’ll talk. I can tell you all about how fucked up I really am.”

It’s a strange feeling, this decision to try. I wonder if I would have chosen it had I had the time to consider it, but now that the words are out, Lily dresses and waits for me to bring her into my world. It’s frightening, but it’s time to let someone in.

Chapter 13

It’s fucking sunny. How is that even possible? I’ve had the best three days of my life and here is this girl, this foolish girl who thinks she wants to know me, riding with me to the prison where she can face the darkest demons of who I am – and it’s fucking sunny. Sometimes, I think the universe just hates me.

Lily doesn’t say a word as we pull into the prison, walk in, go through security, or walk to the room where she’ll meet my father. She doesn’t speak when I take her hand, which is probably a dumb move, a move of hope and silliness, but I need to hold onto her. We sit at one of the tables and I’m restless.
This was a terrible idea
, I think, but it takes me too long to change my mind. I get up, but before we can leave, there he is.

He looks like hell, which is a little satisfying. I know it’s mean, but he used to be a good looking guy. When I was a kid and he’d take me places, usually school things, all the women would ogle him. It was kind of annoying. I think they assumed he was a single dad, since after a certain point, my mother couldn’t get herself clean enough to care about meeting my teachers, and he used to work that angle as much as he could. Even at eleven, I knew it was fucked up to act that way. Now he’s got dark circles under his eyes and a scraggly ass beard. Serves him right.

“It’s been a while,” he says. Which is bullshit, because I was just here. His guilt trip shit pisses me off.

“I changed my mind. We’re going.”

My grandmother said I had to come. I came. Nowhere was there a mention of socializing.

“You can’t hate me forever,” he says.             

You’d be surprised
, I think. “I don’t know. I think maybe I can.”

He pleads with me, but I am done with this. Poor Lily looks like she is going to pass out.

I bring her outside and, once we’re out, I lean against the wall of the building. The fucking sun and its stupid glare make it impossible to see her eyes, but I’m sure they’re judging me.
No
, I fight with myself.
You can’t lose her. Not now.
I don’t know why, but I’m unwilling to let this go. I won’t give in to this today and I grab her, pushing her against the wall, and I kiss her hard. It isn’t the intimacy she was craving, but it’s a huge step for me.

She does taste like strawberries, and my hands start working without direction from my brain, touching her, needing to feel her, desperate for confirmation that she is real. She moans softly, but pulls away.

“Not here,” she says.

“I need you, princess.” It’s the first time I’ve said it and meant it so much.

“I know, and it’s fine. Just not here.”

It’s overwhelming. She doesn’t hate me. She isn’t running. She’s happy to let me hold her, just not here in this shitty prison parking lot.

I don’t know what makes me do it, but I drive home. She’s seen a huge part of what scares me, and she might as well see more of it. I know where I live will disturb her. I’m sure her house has multiple bathrooms, probably more bathrooms than people, and I bet the lawn is landscaped by some guy they pay. We don’t even have a real lawn. It’s mostly dirt, which is good, because my grandmother could neither pay someone nor afford to keep it up. There’s a rusted tricycle in the yard when we pull up. It wasn’t here when I was just home, but who knows how long it’s been here since?

My grandmother is reading when we go in. I don’t want to chat, don’t want to explain. I just take Lily to my room and undress her. I should try a different move, but hell. There is absolutely nothing about me, other than what I’ve shown her this past weekend, that even gives her reason to talk to me. She doesn’t resist; she just lies back on my bed. I can’t look at her. I want to look at her so bad, but I am so scared of what I’ll see in her eyes. What if she’s already starting to put it all together? What if I see that she’s already changed her mind?

I don’t say anything before I slip inside of her. It’s animalistic sex, the kind you have when you have nothing else to hold onto, and right now, that’s what I have. After I come, I move away from her. Her hand brushes against my back, but I cringe. It feels like it burns me.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asks.

We’re both still naked and she leans closer, but I can’t look at her. “You couldn’t possibly understand.”

She rests her hand on my shoulder. “Let me try.”

I turn to face her and my heart snaps in half. Her eyes are so kind, so sweet, as if I am worthy of her. There are so many emotions running through me right now. I want to hold her, but I also want to tell her to get the fuck out and never look back. I want to hide inside of her and breathe in strawberries for eternity, while another part of me wonders if a rope would still hold me.

In Lily’s eyes, there is also a little bit of fear, and it’s what hurts the most. I would never, ever hurt her.

“You’re going to hate me,” I tell her.

“I don’t think so,” she says and reaches out her hand to caress my cheek. It’s weird being this close to her, both of us naked, and yet it’s not sexual. It’s vulnerable and beautiful and more intimate than I ever knew I could be with another person. I certainly don’t want to answer her questions, to watch her eyes burn out as I speak.

“Look, this is my shit life. I’m sure it’s nothing like Daddy buying you a BMW for your sweet sixteen.”
What the fuck are you doing
? I yell at myself, but my mouth just keeps spewing hate. I should tell her I love her, should beg her to love me back despite it all, but instead I’m being an asshole. I really am the world’s biggest fuck up.

“You really need to stop blaming me for whatever made your life suck or whatever. I’m trying my best, Jack.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t,” I say.

“You know what? Fine. Let’s just fuck and the next time you get a phone call that pisses you off, I’ll leave. Easier than this.”

My brain thinks a lot of things, but they’re all lost when I slam my hand through the wall next to me. The drywall shatters into a fine dusty haze. My grandmother is going to be pissed. I reach into my dresser and take out my plaster and putty knife. She bought them for just such an occasion. The tub is almost empty.

Lily waits until I’m done patching the wall and then she takes my hand in hers, reaching up with her other hand to brush my hair back. “Tell me what’s wrong. Please.”

Oh, this beautiful, beautiful girl. Why doesn’t she know how to save herself? “I’m not ready for you to hate me yet. For a few days, I almost thought there was a chance…”

She’s frustrated with me and I try to fight it. I try not to give in to wanting her, to needing her to care. But she refuses to leave, no matter how vile I am, no matter how much I push her away. Finally, I let go, and I meet her eyes. “You saw what I will become,” I tell her.

“I saw a man in a prison and I saw you lose it. I don’t know who he is, why he was there, or what you think it means for you. But I don’t think you automatically become anything.”

“That’s my dad.”

The confession rolls off my tongue surprisingly well, given how long it’s taken me to face it, and how few people I’ve told. I expect many possibilities, but what I don’t expect is for her to clutch my hand and say, “That still doesn’t mean anything.”

Everyone has always told me it means something. All I’ve heard is that he is my future. How can she still look at me like I’m not him, like it has nothing to do with me?

“Maybe it wouldn’t if he’d robbed a convenience store or sold drugs. However, what he did… It doesn’t go away,” I warn her.

“What did he do?”

I get dressed, since I know as soon as I tell her my story that she’ll want to leave, and then I sit back down next to her and tell her everything. The fighting, my dad’s being on the road, my mother and her addictions. I even tell her about how lonely I was, about the time my mom disappeared for an entire summer, about how much I loved her in spite of it all. Lily moves closer to me as I talk, and she runs her hand along my leg, not speaking, but not backing away. Finally, I get to the thing that changes it all, the one thing that’s held me back from almost everyone I’ve ever met, the thing that makes me unlovable. Seeing my father snap my mom’s neck, watching her die on the living room floor. Knowing it was somehow the end of everything. I was fourteen.

Lily looks at me and says, “I’m sorry.” That’s it.
I’m sorry
.

“Yeah, I hear that a lot.” Although that’s not entirely true. Usually it’s followed by a qualifier.
I’m sorry, but based on your background, we’re not sure this would be a suitable school for you. I’m sorry, but you are too fucked up for me. I’m sorry, but you’re simply not welcome. I’m sorry, but you’ll probably never get better, and these meds are really your best bet.

She nods and reaches for her clothes. So that’s it.

“Don’t leave, Lily. Please.” It’s begging, I know, but if only…

“I don’t think I can handle this,” she says.

And it’s over. My heart doesn’t even break; it just stops beating. I swear, I am no longer even alive. The numbness settles over me, consumes me in a way that all the alcohol and meds never could. Those seven words and my world ended.

I look at her, hoping to see doubt in her eyes, but there’s none there.

I shrug. “I’m not asking you to handle it. I told you I can’t be your boyfriend. This is why. I can’t be a boyfriend. I won’t end up like him. I refuse to put anyone through that. You don’t have to feel guilty.” It’s weak, but it isn’t her fault. I knew this would come. I just didn’t think it would hurt this bad. Why does it hurt so bad?

She tries to console me, to tell me she still wants to know me, but how is that possible? She’s running away, like she should, and like I expected. The conversation is hopeful, but the end result is the same. She wants to leave and she can’t handle what I’ve told her. Finally, I give up. It’s pointless to delay this. The pain is not going to be any less because we talk it out.

I bring her upstairs and my grandmother makes us sandwiches. She doesn’t talk to us. I know she can see it in my face. She probably saw it the second Lily walked in the house. This girl doesn’t belong here, in my house, in my life. I was the one who was too stupid to face it.

I love my grandmother, but sometimes, I wish she would yell at me, would tell me how fucking dumb I am. She’s a perfect enabler, having lost her husband to alcohol and her daughter to drugs. She buys me booze and lets me be miserable, because it’s that or lose me to suicide. But how can she see someone like Lily and not warn me that this beautiful girl who smells like strawberries is far more dangerous than even the most deadly drug? Because I see it, and I know that this is pain that I can’t bear.

I bring Lily back to school. We don’t talk on the walk back to the dorm. We ride in the elevator together in silence and I contemplate touching her, kissing her, begging her not to hate me, but when we reach our floor, I walk away. Inside my room, I cry, and it’s pathetic and embarrassing, and I feel weak. I don’t have any alcohol left and, even if I did, it would never, ever dull the agony that is growing by the second.

I lie on my bed and wouldn’t you know it? The whole fucking thing smells like her. I can’t even sleep now without the faint hint of strawberries taunting me, reminding me how utterly alone and empty I am.

Chapter 14

I wake up in the morning and go to classes, but it all feels pointless. It was four days. I keep reminding myself that it was only four days, but somehow, I feel like the entire ground beneath my feet is missing. I swore I would feel nothing. It was supposed to be fun. She was a temptation, a challenge; she was never supposed to matter. Yet here I am. I’m mourning the loss of something I could never hold onto in the first place.

I decide I’ll call Alana after classes end and we’ll go to the bar. We can get really drunk and maybe we can have another threesome. Why the fuck not? It’s all I’m good for anyhow.

I have a stupid paper to write and although my heart isn’t in it, I work on it in between my classes. There’s a soft giggle from the girls at one of the other tables and I look up, thinking it’s her. It isn’t, though. Just another generic girl. At one point, I see her roommate on the other side of the library. I even debate about chasing her, of asking her to tell Lily to come by my room and see me, but then I realize that if she
did
pass the message along and Lily never showed… well, I couldn’t deal with it. So I just keep typing.

I finish the paper and print it, since I don’t have my own laptop. It really sucks trying to get my work done like this, especially as a game design major, but working part time at a café is not exactly computer buying money. The school offered to give me a loaner, but I took one look at the thing and decided the library was best. It was not only huge, but also bore a giant university logo on it and the words, “Property of IT,” because it’s not embarrassing enough to be poor. Neil has been nice enough to lend me his when I get really stuck, but I do try to get as much done as I can here. I hate charity.