Surviving The Blues

38

Even though my mother was not in my life, I knew my grandparents. I spent summers in the Caribbean tanning beyond recognition. My grandfather, a man originally from Libya, migrated to Grenada of all places on his way to America. There, he met my grandmother. He's a Muslim man and she grew up baptist. She was seventeen at the time and he was twenty.

He was all ready to be married, a woman from his own culture. He's Arab but fell in love with some girl he met on an island selling beads to tourists on a beach and braiding hair. She wasn't as taken by him at first, his religion being a man factor and he visibly didn't look like the men around her. Men of his race in her country were known for selling home appliances on loan and marrying their own.  They were fewer in number as Christianity is the main religion on the island.

It was a pursuit that left her worn down. When she was eighteen they got married and moved to the USA. They would eventually move back when they retired early. They were never supportive of the path their daughter chose. It wasn't the way of Allah.

My grandmother converted to Islam. They both always told stories of  being each other's first. Well, granny usually does the talking since she isn't shy like my grandfather. She always preached how terrible she would have felt if she gave in earlier to other guys in her neighborhood. Being in love and pleasing Allah was what she always stressed. She would look at my grandfather with a cheesy grin as if they were young all over again. He would look at her with his loving hazel eyes filled with love.

I had never witnessed love like that in my life. They seemed so happy, I internally vowed that I would be like them. How they made it over thirty-eight years is beyond me. They are still considerably young since they had their first child when granny was nineteen. Much to the dismay of her parents, my mom had me at eighteen.

I decided I wouldn't let anyone touch me past respectable boundaries. I decided to limit kisses and even avoid dating as much as possible. I am good at controlling myself. I have always been. However,  it isn't my vow that stopped me with Luke. It isn't even my self-control. My anxiety is gone somewhere out of mind and out of sight. The only thing left is desires that if left at their own devices wouldn't end the way I would like.

Hands had been under my shirt. Fingers trailed down my body. My hands, my very bad hands had committed unforgivable deeds on their Columbus-like explorations. They just kept getting lost and discovering things.

It's sad that the stopper had to be a hormonal-riddled teenage boy who I am sure does not have the amount of self-control I have. I clearly should cut off the hand that dared to offend me.

My eyes widen at the thought and I slowly back away from him. I bite my lip trying to calm myself. "I-." I scratch the back of my head. "I am...I am sorry I led you on. I shouldn't have done that. We shouldn't have done that." I shake my head and turn away from him. "I am going to the bathroom." I get up quickly before he can reply and run away.

I want nothing more than to disappear off of the face of the earth from an alien abduction or a rapture. I have never been so embarrassed in my life. I close the bathroom door behind me. I quickly turn on the pipe splashing water violently against my heated face. How could one lose their self control?

I pump the soap into my hands and furiously attempt to scrub my hands clean. I am not satisfied with it until my hands begin to bleed. I start on my face, scrubbing despite the minutes of water waste. It's a cycle I can't pull myself out of until the knock on the door snaps me out of it.

"Um...are you okay in there?" My eyes, which blankly examined my face in the mirror after each face rinse, contract and dilate. I snap out of it and take a swig of air. I had been withholding myself from the pleasure of breathing.

"I'll be right there." I call weakly. I turn off the pipe and stare at myself for a couple of moments before opening the door.

He's standing in front of the door, his hands awkwardly at his side. "What the hell did you do in there?" His eyes widen at my raw skin, abused from my panicked reaction. His hands reach out to access the situation and I jerk away. He looks at me confused. "Did I do something wrong?" He asks, truly concerned.

I shake my head. "I did something wrong."

"Nothing happened. I stopped it." He assures me.

I shake my head again. "Something did happen," I tell him.

"Faith-"

"Luke, everything I have ever remembered after the accident is all fake and reconstructed."

"What are talking about?" He asks, his eyebrows scrunched up.

"That night, Titus and I were arguing, but it wasn't about my mannerism. We were arguing about his ex girlfriend." I take a deep breath. "Titus and I were dating. Nothing happened the way I said it did. And now, here I am kissing another guy after the last words I said to him was let's break up." Tears stream down my face.

"You dated...him..."