Yes and No

He tasted like whiskey.
It was so crispy cold outside, the kind that makes you skin pink and numb before you realize you can't feel your fingers.  The hours I spent meticulously setting my pin curls were lost as my waves rebelled and began to trickle down the back of my neck; too much dancing and not enough setting spray will do that to a gal.  He leaned over with that whiskey breath and his words tickled my ears,
"Let's go sugar, there's a full moon outside."  He didn't wait for an answer, but pulled my wrap over my shoulders and gently steered me out the back door.
The shivers could have been from the cold or the contents of the half-empty flask in his coat pocket, but the most likely culprit seemed the hand now settled snugly about my waist as we headed down the lake shore.
There was indeed a magnificent moon holding court over the cold midwest landscape, somewhere far away another couple was laughing, probably Vicki and Ronnie at it again.  I swear, if our parents only knew what we got up to at these fraternity socials...
A behemoth loomed out of the darkness, a rock that must have stood there since the beginning of time, or at least since the founding of our distant school. It had become the staged setting for many student's evening's trysts.  He took the wool coat that was so casually draped over his arm and spread it, and then with one smooth movement lifted me to perch slightly unsteadily atop the cold stone.  I couldn't see his eyes in the dark, but I could feel them piercing me to my core.
"Is this all right? You're not too cold are you?"  I shivered again, but I couldn't tell if it was the wind across the lake or his breath against my neck.  He was so slow, so deliberate that I could hear myself thinking as if my thoughts were spoken word.
He's so handsome, so very dark and mysterious.  I wonder what he expects me to do, tilt my head back perhaps, sigh just so... is that too much I wonder?  Maybe he thinks I'm fast, that I've done this before.  But I haven't.  I haven't and I don't know what I'm doing but he's perfect.  God, he is perfect.  Without trying, some of those last words do escaped my lips.
"Oh God!"
His hand was on my thigh now, exploring ever upwards, questing fingers tickled my gooseflesh skin. This is the part, in the pictures, where the debutante falls deep into embrace and then everything fades away, dissolves into the next plot point.  But here, there was no fading.  Only one hand searching ever higher, his other tugging at his belt; then with easy practice both sliding down his trousers and unhooking my garter belt in one slick move.  I gasped and recoil involuntarily, not ready for such exposure.  He notices.
"You all right sweetheart?  Not going to leave me in this state, are you?"  I looked up at him there, from my half prone position on the cold rock.
Calvin Greene, the most popular boy in school- president of the top fraternity and probably future president of the United States as well- or at least a moving picture star.  He looked annoyed, almost angry at my slight movement of resistance.  I could say no... and what?  Go back to the social?  He would probably put me in a cab straight back to campus.  Or I could stay here...Everyone saw me leave.  They would assume the outcome, even if it didn't come to fruition.  It was so easy to throw away, after all: a girl's virtue.
I grabbed his collar with both of my hands, the way I had seen Vicki seize Ronnie's earlier and kissed him as thoroughly as I knew how.  Temporary annoyance gone, he returned to the task at hand with gusto.
My legs were up over his shoulders before I knew it, and then...the oddest sensation.  Wasn't it supposed to hurt this time?  The older girls in my sorority had tried to scare us, saying it felt like being stabbed with a red hot poker.
It wasn't like that at all. It was the strangest thing, but it didn't feel particularly bad, or particularly good either.  I had the sudden urge to cover up all my exposed bits, but I thought I should probably keep up a good show, encourage him along.  I arched my back, feeling my dress catch on a jagged bit of granite as I did. He didn't notice, his eyes were closed and his head was thrown back in his own carnal pleasure.  And then, with one final grunt it was over.  He ran his fingers through his hair and leisurely pulled his trousers back.  I curled in onto myself, letting one of my own hands catch a stray curl, twisting it around and around and around my finger.  He paused tucking his shirt in to look down at me.
"Well get dressed sweetheart, we'll miss the walk back to campus if we don't leave soon."
The walk back to campus, of course.  My fingers were shaking so badly that I couldn't get my garter clip on the back of my stockings; I ended up putting a hole straight through them.  Finally, I stood, as prepared to run the gauntlet of fraternity jeers as I ever would be.  I had hoped to take his arm, but his hands were thrust deep into his pockets and he carefully kept a distance between us as we picked our way back across the shore.  As we reached the last few steps before leaving the lake behind, he turned and looked at me.
"You know this doesn't mean that we're going steady, right?  You understand that."  I nodded, wordless, and followed him back up path.
*****
It's been two months.  That beautiful clear december night was just two months ago, but I swear it must have been a millennia.  The doctor says that by April, I'll have to tell, I won't be able to keep this secret anymore.  But it's all right, because in the last two months I've been thinking, and in the last two hours I've made my decision.  Calvin is at dinner right now, but he will be home by six.  He's always home by six.  That's when I used to visit him in his room, he used to tell me to come over to help him study- but ever since that night at the lake he's stopped asking.
The first week of January term I went past the Phi Kappa Psi house to bring them a pudding I had made.  I could have left it in the parlor and gone back out the front door, but I thought perhaps I should bring it to the kitchen; and besides what did it matter if Cal's room was on the way and he saw me deliver it, anyway?  Well, it didn't matter because he didn't see.  He was sitting by the window, and there was a brunette with a bob sitting next to him with her notes scattered debonairly across the desk.  I left, red faced.  What did he want with Isabelle?  Everyone knew she was fast trash.  It wasn't until I was back in my room that I realized that I was fast trash now, too.
By the middle of the month I knew, but I had little idea of what to do with that information.  But now...now my decision is made.  My reflection in the mirror of my vanity is pale, but I've applied enough rouge to perhaps conceal my inner turmoil.  I pause, and then pick up my siren red lipstick.  I might as well look the part.
He is in his room, but thank god he's alone.  I knock and smile, seeing a half confused half wary look in his eyes.
"Hey sugar, what have you been getting yourself up to lately?"
"Oh nothing much, we've got the new girls, you know- they'll be getting their pledge mothers soon,;and I've got Professor Riley this semester, he's tough as nails." I'm babbling, and we both know it.  He's nodding politely, ever the perfect gentlemen, and I can feel my color rising.
"Well listen, Sweetheart, I would love to chat but I've actually got some physics sets to do before tuesday..."
"Actually Cal, I'm not here to talk about Professor Riley.  I'm pregnant, Cal."  He freezes, his hand caught halfway through his normally suave hair flick.  Twenty excruciating seconds of silence, and then,
"You're sure?"  Those two words packed with my worst fears.  Doubt and disbelief.
"Cal, if I wasn't sure I wouldn't be talking to you right now."  His face has gone ashen, but somehow he is still grinning.
"That's a good question actually Sweetheart, why are you here?"
"What?"  God, how can he be smiling right now?
"Why are you here talking to me?  What do I have to do with any of this?" I can't be hearing him right.  Those words can't be coming out of his mouth.  Dear lord, it wasn't supposed to go this way.
"You've got everything to do with this!  Without you, I wouldn't be in this...situation."
"Oh, Sweetie, your situation is your own problem.  You should have thought about all this before you said yes that night."
"But I didn't say yes, Cal.  I never said yes because you never asked me.  Even if you had asked me, do you think I could have said no?"  He shrugs, and turns away.  His next words come as he stoops to sweep his textbooks into his bag.
"I can't even be sure it's my problem at all.  If you're willing to open your legs for me, who knows how many others there are."
"You KNOW that there haven't been any others.  Good God this campus is small enough that you know everyone's business without trying so long as you're not deaf, dumb and blind!" He turns, looking sadly bemused at my distress.
"You're not Greta Garbo Sweetheart, passionate outbursts don't suit you.  I've got to get to class, but I think it's best if we don't see much of each other anymore.  I've got a future to think about."
He's gone, and I'm lost.

There is a clinic in Cleveland; they'll do the procedure without asking questions and with minimal scarring.  I should go, I should make the appointment before it's too late.  In my mind I'm walking back to my dormitory, but before I know it my feet have led me astray and I'm staring at the silvery gray glass of the lake's surface.  A future to think about.  He's got a future to think about.  What about my future?  It's my fault I suppose.  That's what they'll say at least. I shouldn't have accepted the invitation, everyone knows that when Phi Psi's invite you to their formals, they mean business.  But he was so sweet, so sincere...somehow despite everything I still feel guilty.  But it shouldn't be my fault!  He knew what he was doing, knew it the whole time, he created a world where I couldn't say no even when I didn't want to say yes.  I kick a rock with all my strength and it skips away, disappearing in the lake into rings of concentric circles.
It's all over now.  One way or another, this will be the definition of who I am for the rest of my life.  A few moments on the rocks, and a man who makes it impossible to say no.  Unless...

It's February and the water that's washing over my toes is freezing, numbing them almost instantly.  Once the water is up to my knees I can't stop my teeth from clacking together, no matter how stubbornly I clench my jaw.  I'm holding my skirts up, but soon I'll either have to drop them and let the water soak it's way up my thighs, or I'll have to turn around.  I'm still standing there, indecisive, when a breeze begins to blow across the shore.  Turning my face to the wind I involuntarily let slip the fabric, and the tendrils of ice water are creeping up to my stomach before I can think.  The lake is wide but shallow, I'm a quarter of a mile out before it gets to my waist. I plunge further on, barley noticing that my shivering has stopped.  I've been submerged for nearly three quarters of an hour and everything is starting to feel warm again.  I splash with my fingers, enjoying the patterns the droplets make.  It's beautiful out here at the center of this wet world; it's fitting to be alone surrounded only by the hard elements of nature.  Glancing down at my blue skin, it takes some minutes to register something much darker spreading out around my skirts.  My hands are unwieldy blocks now, they don't move the way I think they should but I mange to press my fingers up beneath my skirt, and they come away scarlet.  No, it can't be true.  It's my cold addled brain playing tricks on me, it can't be true.  But the blood keeps swirling determinedly away, unceasingly real.
I'm trying to move now, trying to shift my feet but my legs have stopped cooperating.  I fall and come out with soaking hair.  How far away is the shore, half a mile?  How long have I been in here?  I can't conceptualize time anymore.  All I know is the fiery sting of cold.  Plunging doggedly onward, it isn't until I'm less than a hundred yards away that I realize even if I can make it back to shore walking on pins and needles, campus is still two miles away.  There are few cars on the road in February, my clothes are soaked and the wind is picking up.
In the same moment I realize that I'm not going to make it, and that I have to try.
Onward.  One step, two steps.  The lake is blue and bright and the sky is cold and deep.  No, that's not right.  Grey lake, cold lake, blue sky.  Clear.  So clear.  My fingers are chattering and my teeth is numb and I said no.  I did say no.  But I also said yes.  I said yes, and I said no, and now I am a debutante.  I am Greta Garbo and the lake is embracing me and I am going to fade, fade, fade.  Fade to.  Fade away.

EDM

That night was so cold it was hot.  I tried to wear red lipstick, but somehow on me it doesn't look effortless and I spend my night finding reflecting surfaces to make sure it hasn't bled outside the lines.
You were handsome, my love, in your white linen suit.  I think that's the night I fell for you, really.  There was your smile, the lovely dimples, and your confidence; cool and collected you could take care of me- and take care of me too.
Somehow every memory of you is overlaid with an electric pulse, a pop heart beat.  I wonder if I knew then that it couldn't all last.
You and me, swaying around your bedroom to a song with no beginning and no end.  The room smelled like comfort, sweat, incense.
We were that couple you know, if only for a moment.

And now, where has it gone?
Can I ever forgive myself if I leave everything I've ever wanted behind to be with you?
Can I forgive you if I do?

Somedays, the choice seems easy- other days not so much.  I have no idea what I'm going to do, but no matter what I choose it will break my heart.

I love you, my dearest, my darling, my Matthew.  I love you.

But for the first time in my life I'm wondering, is that really enough?

Lady Anne

You think you know me, don’t you?  You’ve heard stories, so many stories about Lady Anne Skipwith.  A beautiful woman, who married well and had a good life…

Until she and her husband, Sir Peyton Skipwith were invited to a ball.  Not just any ball, but one held by the governor himself in the capitol city.  They graciously accepted the invitation, and a few weeks later were happily staying as guests in a house just down the green from the Governor’s Palace.  On the night of the ball, Anne got separated from her husband, and when she went to find him, he was not alone.  Anne’s older sister, Jean was with him showing considerably more than sisterly affection.  Anne ran from the palace, stumbling across the lawn and losing one of her beautiful shoes.  Returning to the house she was staying in as a guest, she found a bit of rope and in a fit of grief hanged herself from the landing rail.   For years, people have been knocking on that door, trying to return the lost shoe.

Poor girl, poor sad Anne.

But there are other stories, you know.  Perhaps you’ve heard the one about Jean, poor Anne’s sister.  She went on to marry Sir Peyton, became the new Lady Skipwith.  It’s been said that on that fateful night, Jean followed Anne back to the house.  Anne was above stairs in her chamber when she heard someone coming up the stairs.  Thinking it was her husband returned to beg for forgiveness, she went to meet him with an open heart.  But it was Jean, not Sir Peyton that met her on the steps, and when Jean saw Anne’s pity and compassion she was overcome by such a dark rage that she grabbed Anne’s dress and flung her down the stairway, snapping her beautiful neck. 

Such sad, sad tales.  But that’s the thing, you never can tell what stories to believe, can you?

Oh yes, my name is Anne Skipwith.  I did go to a ball with my husband, and perhaps that’s what killed me.  But the real story, the TRUE story starts some years before.  I was heavy with child, my third.  It was June and all the cicadas were greeting the close of another day with a rousing chorus.  I went from my house to find my sister, Jean.   She had taken a book to the gardens, another novel or a scientific treaty- I never could keep track.  Wandering the flowerbeds I heard her voice, a breathless laugh.  Then I heard someone else.  They were there- both of them sitting on a stone bench.  My beloved sister and my dear husband.  He looked at her with such passion, such gentle love, suddenly I felt like the interloper.  I tried to move, to cry out- but I couldn’t.  I was caught there, behind the hedges watching as my husband leaned over and tenderly kissed my older sister. 

I froze, unable to think, unable to breath.  Then, with a snap I came back to myself.  I was eight months along; Jean had come up to help with the lying in.  In my state, what could I do?  I was terrified of doing something to harm the pregnancy, to bring the baby too quickly.  And besides, who knew if I would even survive- it’s not just the birth that’s dangerous you know- it’s the possibility of sickness, infection that comes later.  Showing myself would only cause more hardship to my family.  I loved them both so.  I turned, and walked away. 

Well the baby did come, not too long after.  A beautiful baby boy (girl?)  Jean stayed by my side, caring for me, my children….and my husband.  They did nothing to rouse my suspicion, nothing was outwardly wrong- but I knew.  A woman can always tell.  Still, I was healthy, and so was my baby- and that’s all that mattered.  I kept quiet and did my best to forget, everything. 

Life continued as it does in the countryside of Virginia, the years passed and my children turned into sturdy toddlers and then began to shed their baby fat and have opinions and thoughts of their own.  It was a pleasant, peaceful existence.  One day my husband came to find me in my dressing room.  He was glowing; we had been invited to a grand ball but the governor of Virginia himself!  I protested, I did not want to leave my children behind, but he insisted that they were old enough to be without their parents for a few days.  Perhaps, I suggested, their Aunt Jean could stay with them- she loved them so!  “But Anne, don’t you understand?  Jean is going too!  The whole family together for a long weekend in the city!”  Oh, I understood.  He would not hear of any further protests, when I said I had nothing to wear he said I should have a new gown, and shoes to match.  And so, before I knew it I was bundled up into a carriage with my husband and my sister, setting off to Williamsburg.

The journey was smooth, and we were welcomed into Williamsburg; before we knew it the ball was upon us.  I buckled my new shoes on and settled the smooth silk fabric over my hoops, determined to show nothing amiss.  I had always liked parties after all.  Peyton and I stepped a minuet, and several of the country dances before I excused myself to find a glass of punch.  When I returned, he was nowhere to be found.  A quick glance around the room show that Jean was missing as well, and I could feel my stomach drop into my feet.  So this was it, how predictable.  With a smile, I slipped out the back door and into the gardens.

They were in the maze, at the very center.  They didn’t see me approaching.  Before I knew it, I was yelling, screaming at the top of my lungs for the whole world to hear.  God only knows that names I called them, and then I was running- sprinting back to the house I was staying it- to safety.  My new shoes were loose, one slipped off and stayed on the green but I didn’t stop to retrieve it.  I was on my bed before I knew it, my shoeless foot tucked beneath me as I clutched a pillow to my heart.  The minutes crept by, and then I heard the door open.  The steps were too light for my husband, they must be….yessss. 

She came up the stairs and I rose to meet her.  I could feel the cold fury rolling off of her before she entered the room.  Yes, she was my sister- and I knew her better than anyone else in the world.  Better even than my husband.  I knew what to say to make her blood boil, and I had said everything I could in the gardens.  I was on the landing by the time she got there.  She looked up at me, and then I did the one thing I knew she could not stand.  I looked at her with pity. 
“You poor woman.  You poor old maid.  You can’t get a husband so you’ll steal you younger sisters.” 

That’s when she screamed.  The last thing ever I ever heard was her wailing.

Have you ever been betrayed?  Have you ever realized that the one person you love more than anything else in the world, the one person that you would do anything for doesn’t love you? 

First you’re devastated with grief.  Then you get angry.  Then, you get even. 

I am no simpering fool.  Do not pity me, for I chose my fate.  Who do you think wrote to the governor, begging for an invitation to the ball for my dear sister?  Who ordered shoes a size too big? I knew what I was saying to Jean in the garden that night, knew she would come after me.  It was no accident that my scarlet shoe was outside the house that night, pointing the way to me.  And then, when she found me I did the one thing that I knew she could not stand; I pitied (or forgave?) her. 

If you had the chance to punish someone, would you simply punish them for life, or for all eternity?  She pushed me down the stairs that night, and yes I broke my neck- but she sealed her fate as well.  She is trapped in this house with me, she can never escape the sister that she wronged.  Poor sweet girl, poor sweet Jean.  She lived with my husband, never expecting that when she died, she would come back here.  And I will never let her forget it.  It’s like my red shoes, don’t you see?   All these years later, everyone feels sorry for me, tries to help me find them.  They hate her, curse her, dare not speak of her.  But I’ve had them, all along. 

(stands to reveal both shoes are now on her feet)

Now, remember- don’t believe everything you hear.  Goodnight.

Ghostly nights

Funny thing is, Lady Skipwith is a character I could have written myself. Thanks, stranger who stood outside the window to capture me as a bitterly angry ghost.

Haunted

The night smelled like trash.  Somehow, I always come back to that.  I was standing there outside the door, trying to get the courage to raise my fist those impossible few inches and knock.  The whole hallway smelled like trash and musty sweat.  Boys dormitories have a very particular musk.

I close my eyes and there I am, again.  I knock, three agonizing seconds, and there you are.  Your eyes are what drew me to you in the first place, but I don't know if I really saw them that night or if I'm just imagining being caught in their deadly blue gaze.  Somehow, I'm inside the room and on your bed.  You remember how you stole an extra twin XL frame and mattress from the closet down the hall?  You pushed them together, but with a deceptively large gap between.  I know I loved your body.  I know I loved your smell.  But somehow, it's the moments right before we touched that are forever etched in my mind.  The sweet anticipation, the hairs in my arms standing on end at the thought of your breath on my neck.

God.  Was it really all that cliche?

You taught me how to kiss, stopped once and looked down- I was terrified that you had noticed my lack of experience, but you simply said "I like the way you kiss." I know it happened months before, but somehow that feeling is tied to that night.

I was wearing slippery pink underwear printed with stars, they wouldn't stay where I wanted them- though I wasn't even sure I wanted them there anymore.

Damn you.  Damn you to hell.  I wonder if the conclusion had been as thoughtful as the crescendo, if that might have made a difference.  Maybe, if you could have been sweet and gentle, I would have been able to box the whole thing up and remember it (and you) fondly.  But not so.  Now, you are my Mr. Wickham.  You are my heartbreak.  Other people hit me, raped me, isolated me- but you are the one I'm still mad at.  Why?

Maybe, if it had been good and kind I would have stood up to him later on.  Maybe I would have been able to let go.

But time is marching relentlessly forward and I'm not 19 anymore.  And yet, somehow I can still close my eyes and feel your almost-kisses on my neck and smell the trash.

God damn it Tim.  God fucking damn it.

The night I lived

There was a time that I wanted everything to just stop.  It was fall, just as things were starting to get cold again- one of the first snows on the ground.  It was the semester that I didn't go back to school- for the first time I saw friends continue on and simply leave me behind.  No one seemed to notice the absence, but stuck in a tiny town in Maine I was screaming-
"I'm here, I matter, I'm important and I'm missing! Doesn't anyone notice?"
But no one did notice, really.  Six months before I had three, four, five young men courting me- and now that I was *absent* all had forgotten except for one, my boyfriend.  That word still seemed strange on my tongue, never having had one in all my 19 years of life.  But now things had changed.
Six months before I was pure and innocent and seemed perhaps desirable; my little girl perspective of the world managed to turn young men's lust into worth.  But even there, at school, I had my moments.  One by one people turned their backs on me.  Mostly girls first, as they tend to do at the first sign of a social pariah.  There were nights, long ones, when I felt so utterly alone.  I walked out to the middle of the rustic bridge one, two, twenty times or more; wondering if one small jump would end it or simply leave me in a mangled unlovable mess.
Finally, in a fit of despair I gave up my innocence and with it went my fight.  The night that I slept with him, I knew that he didn't love me.  I knew that it was all in my head, that he probably never would-but some part of me went to bed still believing in fairy tales.  When I woke up, Hansel and Gretel were dead and Cinderella's glass slipper had shattered.
After that I believed what people said about me.  I was a whore, slut, worthy of shame and ridicule, not worthy of happiness or the air that I was so greedily filling my lungs with.  I lied to everyone, said it had never happened, lied to myself until I couldn't even remember the details, much as I wanted to hold on to them.
There was one person who still told me I had worth, though that worth was built on the lies I was telling, completely dependent on my status as a Truly Pure Girl.  I should have seen, right from the start, that he was beginning to control me, using his role as the Experienced Man to show me that the only time I had worth was through him, but I was so genuinely ashamed of my own actions that I made a house out of lies and hoped that it didn't fall down.
To be honest, I didn't think it would last.  I knew by that point that I was going to have to leave, knew that everything would be changing, so I thought that perhaps with distance he would become disinterested, break my heart, and let me go.  Heartbreak would truly have been kinder.
But he thought, through my own deception, that he was the First, and that made me a prized possession. And so when I left he didn't break it off, instead he let me linger somewhere on a shelf in his life.  I wasn't truly there but I wasn't truly gone either.
And so, summer came- normal summer, almost happy summer.  Work sucked but I was 19 and summer jobs were supposed to suck.  I made friends, made flirtations, and had I not been tied to my shelf I probably could have found summer romance.  It almost happened, once.  We were sitting at the top of Cadillac mountain, and he started talking about love.  He looked at me and I looked at him and we almost kissed.  It was the most intimate moment I had ever experienced.  Nothing happened, but somehow I understood that this was different, this was what it was to be valued.
But I had a boyfriend, and he told me that he wanted me forever, asked me to marry him at least three times a day, and played games of truth or dare for hours on the phone.  And that, I thought, was what a *Mature Long Distance Relationship* was supposed to be.
And then fall came.
And people went back to school.
And I stayed in frigid Maine.
The tourist season ended and with it, my job.  The end was horrible beyond words but it was over.  I had nothing to show from my summer, I had earned more than ten thousand dollars and spent it all on weekend road-trips to Pennsylvania and thai food and an online game that I didn't play.
He stopped talking on the phone. Started asking why we had to talk, what new things we could possibly have to say to one another- but still he could not let me go and now I needed him because he was the *only one* left.  Well, not quite the only one.
That man, the innocence stealer, he was asking me why I was throwing my life away.  Why I wanted to be with someone so cruel.  But, I wondered, what could be more cruel that plucking something fresh and sweet and then throwing it away?  And so I ran from him, straight into the arms of the only person I had left, someone who had not yet shown their full capability of cruelty.
And so, one night in early fall, I went for a walk.
There was frost on the grass but I purposefully left my jacket behind, wearing flip flops over the crusty ground of the summer estate long since abandoned for a warmer home somewhere to the south.  There was a little bay, private, just beyond the long driveway, maybe a mile and a half from my house.  I walked, phone to my ear, talking to someone who had stopped listening months before.  Finally, looking at the bay I said something that made him listen.
"How cold do you think the water is?"
"What?"
"How cold do you think it is, now?"  I dipped my pinky toe in, and immediately I could feel the shock of hundreds of tiny pins spreading up from the icy water.  Silence, and then
"You're scaring me, stop it."
"I could just go for a swim."
"Don't do that, stop it.  Go home, ok?"
For a moment, standing there, I could see it happening before my eyes.  Pulling off my shoes and wandering into the water, pushing my head under to quicken the numbing effects, and just floating until unconsciousness and the tide carried me away.  Gone.  I wondered if he would call anyone, or if it would take weeks for them to find me washed up on some forgotten shore.  Maybe I wouldn't be found.
I don't know what it was that stopped me.  Maybe it was love for my little brother, he had saved me so many times in the past.  Maybe it was fear of pain; I don't like uncomfortable situations.  Whatever the reason I put the phone back to my ear and slipped my numbing toe back into the sandal.
"Only kidding."
"Good, now go home where you'll be safe."
Only when I got home I was more disappointed in myself than ever.  Because I was a cowered, because even in this I had failed.
I wonder if I would have done it, if I had known what the next three years would bring.  If I had known that they would come with physical, sexual, and worst of all emotional abuse.  If I knew I would be scared to talk, scared to eat, have to ask permission to dress and undress, to go to bed and go to work.  If I would have know how much it would have hurt when everything finally, inevitably crumbled.
All I know is that somehow I survived.  But not everyone survives.
Gwen, I wonder if you were feeling the same way at the same time, if maybe we had talked or noticed each other things could have been different.  Your death brought me a little closer back to life, but I often wonder what would have happened if I had stepped out into the bay- maybe you wouldn't have made that choice just one year later.
And then, finally after years of abuse and torment someone else took a step into the bay.  Someone I had never met, that I know of, though I'm sure we passed each other dozens of times on our tiny college campus.  I was in yet another horribly abusive relationship, firmly anchored in what psychiatrists would I'm sure call a *pattern,* but somehow what he did woke me up.  Once again it was real, I was standing there looking at a reflection of my own past, only this time I wasn't helpless.  I could hold hands, could listen and wipe away tears.  Without that, I wouldn't have every truly lived, without that, I wouldn't have ever truly loved.
I wish you hadn't I sincerely do; but I also wish that you could know the love and joy that you unknowingly brought back into this world.
I am not that terrified girl anymore, I don't think I will ever feel that amount of despair again, but I will never as long as I live forget how it feels to stand alone looking out over the icy black water.

Forever and a day

For the first time in five years, I feel safe.  Here I am, curled happily on the couch and there you are in the computer chair; I can easily make out your strong profile in the glow from the tv.  I don't need to hide behind pseudonyms and distinctive eye colors anymore, I can easily say that I love you, Matthew, and that is my talisman against anything and everything the world can throw at me.  

This love is more than a passing infatuation and it's more than fear of being alone.  The only other "love" I have known was born out of fear and guilt; there is not a day that goes by that I don't thank my guardian angel for opening my eyes and allowing me a way out of that.  Out of the abuse, the hatred, the feeling of despair.  Two years ago I didn't care if I lived or died, I thought that I was disposable, furniture, worthless.  Some would say that I needed to have someone give me love to show me that I was worth it, but my dearest Matthew you have done more than that- you insisted that I start to love myself again for me  and no one else.  That truly saved my life.  

And now I know that if I die tomorrow, I have known true happiness and true love.  There are so many who never have that privilege and so for that I am beyond lucky.  I love you, Matthew, now and forever.