BOUNDARIES: A Louisiana Love Story (Post 16)

Chapter 7: John (continued)

I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin.

John 8:34

“You have to stop cryin’,” Becca insists. “I cain’t understand what you’re tryin’ to say.”
     “I cain’t breathe. I ... have to ... blow my nose,” I manage to say.  I drop the phone and scramble for a tissue.
     When I return, she’s waiting patiently, considering that I called her in the middle of the night. I hear her roommate complaining in the background. “He moved to get away from me,” I say. “I’m losin’ my mind.”
     “Just calm down.”
     “I cain’t stop callin’ him and drivin’ by his house. I even stand like him and walk like him now. He’s takin’ over my life.” I sit in the darkest corner of my room, my free hand stroking my arm and legs as if to comfort myself. “I love him so much that I want to be him. I cain’t stop and he hates my guts.”
      “Peyton, that’s normal when you’re tryin’ to get over a guy.” Like everyone else, she wants to believe I'm average; it makes me sick.
     “No, this isn’t normal. I cain’t do anythang. Every time I go somewhere I find myself drivin’ down his street. Every weekend I go from bar to bar lookin’ for him, and if I cain’t find him, I park by his apartment and wait for him to come home. Sometimes I even park around the block. I walk to his apartment and just sit in a shadow or somethin’. It’s pathetic.”
     “I’ve done that kinda stuff before.”
     “But I keep turnin’ around and going back, over and over again. It’s the same thang with the phone. I cain’t stop. You don’t know what it’s like.”
     “How many times do you call?”
     “I don’t know, twenty, thirty times maybe.” It’s humiliating to admit but I’m glad I said it; I need someone to know. I’m crazy but I’m not. I’m lonely and hot and tired of crying and choking and being who I am.
     “Surely you’re exaggeratin’,” she says, her voice far away from where I am.
     “That’s what I’m tryin’ to tell you,” I whisper as if it’s a secret. “He’s torturin’ me, Becca.” My voice gets louder. “He dangles in front of me like a glass of wine when I’m tryin’ to get sober, and then accuses me of doin’ it to him. He yells at me to leave him alone, but when I come to his door he says he’s been waitin’ for me." Now I'm nearly yelling. "When I see him out, he stares at me the whole night like he’s beggin’ me to come and then when I go, he wants to know why I came.”
     “You just said he hates your guts. You broke up a year ago. Besides, I thought you were datin’ that Peter guy.”
     “He’s Matt’s best friend and … we’re sleepin’ together.” It's another whisper.
     “You’re sleepin’ with Matt’s best friend?”
     “No, I’m sleepin’ with Matt.” My voice quivers in shame. “I never stopped.”
      “Jesus Christ, Peyton. He’s just usin’ you.” Her voice is filled with best friend love and I-don’t-really-know-how-to-help desperation. “ Look, I’ll be home soon and we’ll go out every single weekend. I promise you’ll meet somebody else; guys always like you. He’s psycho, Peyton.”
     “I’m psycho.” I hug myself. “Nobody understands. The only reason I’m doin’ so great in school is because I wanna get to med school. I just wanna catch up with him.”
     “Peyton, you cain’t make straight A’s unless you’re smart enough to make straight A’s. No man on God’s green Earth could inspire me to make an A in biology or chemistry; much less all that other stuff you’re takin’. Matt’s just bringin’ out somethin’ that’s always been there. Don’t you see? That’s your new beginnin’, not Matt.”

Matt’s door hits the wall and bounces back in my face as I explode through it. The picture has changed. The walls, colors, and dimensions surrounding me are identical to his old apartment but chaos has replaced what was once an organized mess. Stacked boxes line the walls, their contents strewn about as if unpacked by a madman.
     I navigate my way through the maze of scattered furniture until I find him cowering behind the couch as if he’s been expecting me. Numerous mismatched dishes, newspapers, and empty boxes engulf him. “Why did you move?” I demand. “Surely you don’t think I’m so dumb that I wouldn’t find you.” I laugh. “You only moved down the street.”
     “I had a point to make but I guess I failed.” He methodically places dishes into the nearest box as if he’s not staying. I stare at him as he packs his precious belongings. Eyeing me suspiciously, he struggles to shove as much as he can into the box. He’s a child who doesn’t want to share his toys. Dishes clank against dishes. My head hurts.
     A dish snaps. “Damn,” he says.
     I know he blames me.
     He asks, “What the hell are you doin’ here anyway?”
     Prince’s tormented voice calls to us from the upstairs bedroom. As I check each of my fingernails to see if there’s any white I can bite off, I realize it’s the first time I’ve come into his apartment without asking … without begging. Our usual struggle at the threshold didn’t occur. I’d cut a critical scene from the picture. Suddenly, I feel awkward. Uninvited.

     “You don’t have to lie to impress me. I told you I don’t judge people according to their IQ’s. Apparently you’re the one who’s worried about your intellectual ability, not me,” he says.
     “I hate you.”
     “You should hate yourself. I’ve been tellin’ you for months that I don’t want you around.” He stands and walks up the stairs, toward the bedroom. “Jesus Christ! I had to move. What the hell’s wrong with you?” His body language is a siren drowning out whatever he chooses to say. I know the drill by heart and follow as if my life depends on it.
     “Did you read my letters?” I ask.
     “I burned ‘em.”
     “But did you read ‘em?”
     “I burned ‘em.”
     “Where?” Intrigued, considering my conclusion that only someone tortured by love would commit such an act.
     “In my kitchen sink,” he says.
     “People don’t do thangs like that.”
     “People like me do, especially when they get letters from people like you,” he says. “I set every frickin’ page on fire. I dropped them in the sink and watched them burn. Do you want to know what I did next?” I shake my head, afraid to hear. “I turned on the disposal and listened to what you had to say. It was a pile of shit. Totally worthless.”
     “If you hate me so much, why do we always end up in bed?”
     He plops down on the bed and stares up at me. “You need to learn the difference between love and sex.”
     I stand before him, peeled and gutless. “But you said you wanted me. You said you think about me all the time.” The tears dribble down and I don’t wipe them away. “Now you’re tryin’ to tell me it’s not true. You’re sayin’ it was all a lie? You must really think I’m stupid because you’re the one who’s always headin’ for the bedroom.”
     “I only took what was given to me. There’s nothin’ wrong with that.”
     Liar.
     Both ends of a already tight knot tighten inside me, the demon in my head orchestrating. Unable to bear the pressure, I fall to my knees. “I really did make a hundred on my chemistry test. I’ve made lots of hundreds on lots of tests.” Salty tears now rush toward my mouth. I slurp at them in yet another pathetic attempt to comfort myself.
     “What do you want me to do, turn a cartwheel?” He sits as if glued to the bed. I look at the ceiling and it’s perfect.
     My tears flood the room. He tries to anchor himself but it’s too late to protest ignorance. We both know he’s seen them before. Remaining on the bed, he twists in torture as a swift band of demons overtakes him. They hold his head beneath the salty water, time after time, kiss after kiss, letting him go just before he drowns. I grieve, remembering my wish for Peter to stay and order me back to the safe monkey bars. Instead, he’d returned to the dull blanket we shared. Now I long for Matt to let go, to allow himself to float toward me, but he fights to stay where he is. “Don’t you understand?” I ask. “You’re my inspiration.”
     “I’m the victim of your inspiration.”
     “How can you be so cruel?”
     “How can you be so cruel?” he says. He seems sincere. His unexplained emptiness has formed a leathery sheath only I can fill. I’ve placed a knife into his heart. Now, refusing to let go, I grovel at his feet. He stripped me open and listened to my pathetic pleas night after night. He exposed the very weapon he’s now trying to escape. He found the monster in me, but we both enjoyed its freedom. “Please don’t do this to me, Matt,” I beg. “I cain’t handle this anymore.”
     He winces as the sharp instrument that I am slides farther into him. “I’ve also told you to leave me the hell alone,” he says, fighting against another inevitable sexual connection.
     “Just tell me what I’m supposed to do. How am I supposed to understand you? I love you.”
     “You don’t know what love is.”
     “This is love.” I grab his tense legs.
     “This is disgusting.” He pushes me aside and walks across the room. He stares down at his stereo.
     I follow him and put my arms around his neck. “Just kiss me,” I whisper in his ear. “You know you want to.”
     He pushes a button, ending the music. “If I fuck you, will you leave?” As he turns to face me, I reach out to slap him, but he grabs my arms and shoves me backwards, down the stairs, and through the maze in his living room. All the while, he stares into my eyes looking hollow and hungry. My mouth hangs loose in my face. I have no fear of falling or crashing into the furniture. I let him guide me through; he knows the way out.
     The door slams shut.
     He stares at me through one of two small windows that sit like eyes on either side of his door. I expect to see his anger but see pain instead. With renewed hope, I begin to beat on the door. With that, the knife I hold slides into its final resting place and the blade twists. He cries out in pain. “GO AWAY!” His deafening scream stretches out for what seems an eternity to people our age. No breath is taken. I stand, horrified, realizing that I’ve successfully burst him open, freeing the enigmatic thing that was festering all along.

After I leave, I park my Honda hatchback on the shoulder of the highway and stare into the sun. I force my eyes open until I begin to see strange, dark spots and feel a pain in my head. My anger boils until it pours over that confusing boundary between love and hate. It merges into the dark sun-induced circles surrounding me. My tiny car shakes as eighteen-wheelers pass dangerously close.
     I grab Matt’s book, Death and Dying, with my sweaty hands. Opening it, I tear out the first page, then the second, then the third. Each page easily parts from the backbone to which it’s meticulously sewn. As each thread detaches from the book’s spine, I imagine his blood spurting from severed arteries, covering me. I am bathing in it.  As I destroy his book, I chant, “There’s nothin’ wrong with me. I’m normal. I’m normal.” Finally I scream, “I’M NORMAL!”
     In the end, the pages are violently scattered throughout the car. I close the book and realize that it looks the same. If seen from a distance, it would look perfectly normal. But as I reopened it, the demon inside me cheers at its emptiness. I had ripped out its guts. I write the words, I HATE YOU, on the inside of the front and back cover in bold black letters.
     Moving like a robot, I take the maimed book and dump it on Matt’s doorstep. As I walk away, I think of my stargazing nights. There are no stars now, only the bright uncaring sun. It’s dissolving my make-up, exposing me, a collage of melting colors magnifying my flaws. I think of my childhood and wonder when the summers stopped being special. I didn’t wear make-up then, but there were times when I'd snuck into my mother’s bedroom and smeared both her subtle and brilliant colors over my eyes and lips—trying so hard to be like her.

Do you hate me yet? Do you recognize my self-indulgence, my recklessness and cruelty, and my sin? Can you bear to know more?
     I’m simply lost in that deep walled-off hole some of us find when searching for a savior. No one is searching for me.

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BOUNDARIES is Penelope Przekop's first novel. It's a work of fiction based on true events. Since writing BOUNDARIES, she has completed two other novels. ABERRATIONS was published by Greenleaf Book Group in 2008. CENTERPIECES is currently being considered by several publishers. Penelope is working on her fourth novel, DUST.