A Likely Story

12. bowed

My sleeve was rucked up around my elbow, and he refused to release my arms to let me pull it down. “Okay,” I said quickly, making an attempt at sounding calm. “Okay, it was a long time ago. It was stupid, I'm fine now, it's- can you please not do that?”

He had brushed his fingers across the raised reddish-purple line on my right wrist, sticking up like an ugly speed bump. I felt my whole arm burning, freezing cold at the same time. “Stop it. Let me go please.” I felt his breath, warm on my neck, sending tingles down my spine. He didn't move. “Charlie, let me go. I was upset before, but it's over and it's not a big deal. Let's just forget- stop it!”

He grabbed my hands and twisted me so that we were suddenly facing each other; his hands forming loose cuffs around my wrists. He stared at me for a moment, his gaze the colour of honey.

“I would have thought someone who reads as much as you would have a more appropriate word than upset,” he said finally, his voice dripping with contempt.

I frowned in confusion. “What?”

“When you're upset, you cry, you yell; you don't try to kill yourself.” I flinched. He was clutching my hands so tightly that I almost couldn't feel them anymore. “Stop minimizing your problems; stop ignoring them.” His expression softened and he gazed at me, his expression anguished. “You weren't fucking upset, and you're not fucking fine.”

“I am!” I said desperately, trying to make him understand. “It's all over, and I just want to forget about it.”

“But you can't, Lula,” he said fiercely. “You can't just skip over things that hurt, it doesn't WORK like that. They happened, and they're absolutely fucking shit, but they won't go away just because you're trying to forget. You can't shut them out. You need to think about them and accept them.”

“I can't, I can't,” I shook my head wildly, trying to stop the tears that seemed to be clogging every orifice, making it hard to breathe. “Let go, Charlie.”

“Listen to me,” he said urgently, “it will stop, but you need to talk about it.”

“Stop it!” I said frantically. “I don't need to talk about anything!”

He put his hands gently on either side of my face, making me look at him. “Please talk to me,” he said imploringly. “You need to.”

“No!” The word exploded out of my mouth, and I stepped back away from him. He looked shocked.

“What I needed,” I said slowly, “was to die, and instead I got sixteen stitches, which is kind of a shitty compromise if you ask me.” I could feel myself beginning to babble, and attempted to slow down. “What I need is y-” I broke off, hearing how ridiculous I sounded as my voice shook. “I just-” I stopped abruptly, unable to continue, not knowing how. He took a step forward, and words started to fall out of my mouth, like they were trying to fill the space between us and push him away. “It's never going to stop, Charlie,” I said quickly, “so can we stop wasting time and just...”

“But it's not just anything, and we're not going to just anything!” he said brutally. “It's a big fucking deal, and you're not fine, and you need to talk about it.”

Something inside me snapped. “Talk?!” I said furiously, feeling sudden white hot rage course through me. “I think I know enough about how fucking effective talking is, with her horrible pen tapping on the edge of the table like that's all she's there for, to tap- oh and to ask me if I'm fine when what she really means is do you feel like you're going to try and top yourself anytime soon Lula, because if so then you should really talk to someone about that. I wasn't, by the way, because that had gotten me absolutely nowhere.”