(Excerpt from Poe Place)
Eliah picked up the old photo, turning it over in his hands to check the back. Looped letters in writing more ornate than readable said “Betti Lindberg, Junior, 2002. Go Ravens!” The i’s were dotted with little hearts. “Is this really you?”
“What?” Bet poked her head out from around the doorframe, thick mascara and eyeliner only framing one brown eye. She saw the photo her aide was holding up and winced. “Oh… yeah. Mom just found that one. Hoped I’d get something out of it.”
Probably sent with the hope that she’d get her daughter back out of it too.
Seven hellish years, and Bet’s mother kept trying to find the magic pill to bring Betti back. After all- what had only taken an instant to destroy should be repaired as quickly, right?
Even if her mother had ever accepted reality, the events of the past summer had only solidified that determination. They both had done a little healing, a little reconnecting. Thanks to that, Bet now knew that her mother wasn’t actively trying to piss her off and she no longer turned the reminders into colorful confetti the instant she opened the envelope. This photo… that had come close to crossing that line.
The memory that picture showed was just like a photograph; a two-dimensional, isolated image of someone happy and outgoing. Sometimes they were home-movie quality memories - grainy and stilted, with the sound and action and motivations never quite in sync.
Among the missing chunks was the one memory that Bet believed would help her understanding all that came before, and all that came after. That memory, that one huge question, she had fruitlessly chased for years before finally giving up. But still the question nagged: why had the smiling, outgoing Betti walked away from her afternoon nursing school classes, and into an Army Recruitment office? The motivations were now scattered on a roadside in Afghanistan.
What happened to us, Betti?
Eli flipped the print again to focus on the perky brunette in her cheerleader outfit. Perky in more ways than just attitude - it must have been cold that morning. “No really. You were a cheerleader?” His incredulity was almost insulting. “You?”
“I guess. That’s not me anymore.” Done with reliving her past, Bet retreated into the bathroom.
“Er. Excuse me.” Eli’s thin dark fingers carefully replaced the picture on to the desk. “Ready?”
There was only silence in response. Well, silence was better than profanity. Then Bet stepped out, smoky eye-shadow darkening both sockets, and dark purple lipstick masking the natural rose of her full lips. That was the only overt makeup she wore. Her skin, instead of being goth-pale, held its natural creamy caramel tan, and with her thin nose and delicately pointed chin linked her not only to the cheerleader in the photo, but to her beauty-queen mother.
But the brunette hair was a thing of the past. Bet brushed fingertips across the cropped side of her scalp and the scar-tissue laid bare by the buzz-cut. The bright pink crest of hair that arched away from the violent topography was as far from chocolate pigtails as you could get. Her therapist had shared some choice words on her hairstyle, and the woman had never even seen any pre-war photos of her patient.
Well, pink was Bet’s way of compromising. She had been reminded by that photograph of a childhood full of pink toys, pink blankets, pink clothes. For a minute as she’d looked in the mirror after washing the extra dye out, she felt closer to Betti than she had in years.
Eli was looking at her oddly.
“What?” Bet snapped. She knew that look. It was the one that sought the cracks, turning the surface of her life over like she was a porcelain doll that they could glue back together. Another reminder that she was still broken.
“I can see it. I mean her. I mean, I can see her in you,” he smiled amicably.
Bet glanced at the photo on the desk, but her eyes didn’t see anything but differences. Disgusted she picked it up and tore the photo in half. Back to her aide, she growled, “Leave. It. The fuck. Alone.”
Anyone else would have backed down or fought with her. Scream at me. Try to break me again. I dare you.
But Eli was different. He just tilted his head and waited. Like sunlight on her back, she could almost feel that good-natured smile still on his lips. She would have demanded he get the hell out of her life for even a hint of condescension, but it was more like he was waiting for her to get a joke. Eli invited her to laugh at her life, and at the damage that blockaded her from finding the humor in things anymore.
Unable to, she was the one to back down.
“Let’s go,” Bet shook herself - dislodging a past separated from her present by scar-tissue, and a present battle that would only hurt her more. “We’re…”
