Sliced Trees and Dead Words

8 - Dalen the Damsel.

- DALEN -

My parents would never say it out loud, not wanting to get their hopes up and somehow jinx it, but they were so stoked when I first brought Luna home to meet them on one of our many road trips. Luna and I travelled a lot together those first few years after we met. She hadn't bought her business yet with her sweet-as-pie best friend Nella, so she was able to take more leave from work to traipse around the country with me.

When we arrived at my parents' place, I genuinely thought my mother was about to have a coronary, clutching at her heart like Jesus had walked in through her front door unannounced, wanting a cuppa at her rickety old table in our 70s inspired, black and white checked linoleum and mustard-cabinet kitchen.

The pathetic truth, however, was that it was very likely my ticker that was closer to failure than hers was, with my anxiety and PTSD madly dancing the cha-cha together in my chest and threatening to tear a hole or two in those flimsy organic walls with their respective five inch stiletto heels.

Grace and Darren Rivers only ever saw Luna as my saviour—the woman who was going to pull me out of whatever shitheap my brain decided to build around my heart when I was a small child; the one to help me build roots that ran much deeper than tyre tread and overheated asphalt in the Australian outback, and allow me to function in society like a 'normal' person.

How wrong they both were . . . about Luna and I, and the normality.

I never should have taken Luna to see them, that first time or any other of the few times that followed, especially the last. I shouldn't have listened to Luna when she convinced me it would be good for my mental health to attempt to reconcile the irreparable damage that had been done to my relationship with them so many years beforehand.

I wish I just missed the turn off on the highway and kept driving her somewhere better; maybe somewhere more iconic, picturesque. Just anywhere safe. Where I didn't have to meet waves and waves of torturous memories that traumatised me all over again, or remind me of how much a burden I was to my parents growing up and still now, even when I'm always miles from home.

Where Luna wouldn't feel pressured and responsible for me, or have to forever be reminded of how much my parents were relying on her to save me. Dalen the Damsel.

"Come in, come in!" my mother had wailed, practically dragging Luna by her sleeve into a house that had barely changed in the five years it had been since I had walked over the threshold I then stood on. The smell of stale cigarettes hung in the air as soon as the door was opened. The muddy boots by the door carried the smell of a hundred or so different farm animals. The chickens were still wandering freely, pecking at will at whatever they desired. The old telly running in the background still sounded like it was going to explode any second now.

We only stayed the one night, with Luna bunking with me in my old childhood bed that sat exactly where I left it, never thinking I would ever see it again. I had hoped that it would spontaneously set alight in my absence, and burn itself to the ground along with everything else in that fucking room. But I've never been one to have that much luck.

It was the one and only time that being near Luna was anything other than the greatest feeling in the whole world.

Following that visit, everything for my parents became even less about me than usual, and more about Luna.

How is Luna going? She's such a sweet and lovely girl.

Where is Luna these days? We really should go down to Byron Bay to visit her.

What is Luna doing with her life? Oh, she has her own business now?! We're so proud of her!

Why didn't Luna come with you? You really should have brought her, Dalen.

It was exhausting having to filter their questions with my reality that Luna was only in my life to be my best friend. A reality I had almost completely accepted and embraced by that point, though that didn't really make it any easier. But Luna just being there was my saving grace, as it so regularly would be over the years. Both when it came to my parents, and with just about everything else in life.

You see, I have a complicated relationship with my parents. I have ever since a young age when circumstances caused me to hate everything about myself and my life, and dive head first into drugs and alcohol and other dangerous shit as soon as those risky opportunities presented themselves to me. As a reckless, ratbag teenager, I'd willingly grab at anything I could get my hands on to drown out the thoughts in my head that constantly threatened to take control of my life.

To give credit where it's due, my parents did try for a while when I was younger. I never told them what was wrong with me until I was around twenty-six years old, so they had a hard time understanding why they would find me missing from my room in the middle of the night at fourteen years old, or why I was expelled from three high schools before I even hit fifteen. Or why, when they searched my room when I had passed out, they would find syringes and clear little bags of white powder and much bigger bags of manky, green bud right next to my homemade bong, all rancid garden hose and heavy plastic drink bottle.

Once I turned seventeen and got my licence, even before I had my bricklaying apprenticeship lined up, I packed my bags and got as far the fuck away from Gympie and its surrounding suburbs as I could, never once looking back until I met Luna and she forced me to think about why I hadn't.

I couldn't face my old home without Luna. She knew that, and she loved me enough to accompany me back there a few times to see some of my family. But after that first time going back, her opinion on the matter of me being anywhere near Gympie changed significantly, though she remained polite and courteous (at least as much as her stomach could handle it), and her disapproval of me having convinced her to trek back up there to see them again usually only lasted an hour or so into the drive to drop her off back home.

But she wasn't ever really mad at me at all. She was mad at them. And at my old house sitting on four acres of quality tropical, Australian bushland. At baby blue walls and hand-stitched quilts. At closets with tear-soaked carpets. At loose, creaking floorboards and a bunch of soft toys. At Gympie, and basically anything outside of the wagon I drove or the flimsy mattress we shared in the back of it on the slow road trip home.

Luna's hand never left mine on those drives home. It made for some interesting roundabout turns and when avoiding kangaroos, echidnas and wombats strolling lazily across the road. But it was always, always worth it.

Luna's touch does interesting things to a man. Probably women too; I wouldn't put it past her magic hands to weave their bewitching spells on the superior sex. She's always warm, like her blood filters through her body a couple degrees hotter than the average person, but without the accompanying sweat that often grips my hands when running similarly hot, as I often was around her. Her hands were always soft and tender, like she treasured the great privilege of being able to touch you and didn't want to risk leaving even the slightest mark. And even though she was always delicate and gentle, be it touching your fingertips, your ribcage, your knee or your big toe, she was also strong and powerful, and made you feel just the same.

Every movement she makes is deliberate and has a very distinct purpose. Every second and centimetre of her body she shares with you is a gift you are duty-bound to treasure above all else because Luna doesn't give it away freely. She sacrifices a significant part of herself when she bestows upon you that great offering, and I freely admit to having knelt down and worshiped at her glorious altar on more than many, many occasions to pay my respects.

If she heard me ever say that, she would probably slap me. Hard.

I think I'd probably worship the fuck out of that, too.