Messes and Memories
Before I had even completely woken up, Cassy bound into my room with a cake mix box in her hand. “Lisa, can we cook something today? I found mommy’s recipe for the cookies we used to make. It’ll be just like when we were little. Please, Lisa?” She asked all in one breath. I smiled at the chance to spend some time with her. I had been trying to do more of that.
“Yeah.” I said. “Just let me get dressed.” I looked down at my camisole and shorts and decided I would rather just brush my teeth and comb my hair. I could use a little lounge time, and I couldn’t remember the last time I had baked cookies in my pajamas. I missed it sometimes.
“Thanks, Lisa. I’ll wait for you in the kitchen. Hurry, so we can start!” She said, already skipping out of the door and into the next room.
The room was silent as soon as she left. It gave me a minute to think. I was starting to wonder if maybe our family was finally coming together. It was weird to think that, having recently lost two of our members, but the ones remaining----Mom, Cassy, and I----had never been closer. And every day seemed to improve the situation.
It only took me a minute to yank a brush through my pin straight hair. Then I made my way to the kitchen to find Cassy already mixing ingredients in a glass bowl. During the divorce, she had learned how to cook a lot of things, because Mom and I had always been tired and Milly kept going off by herself.
“Milly, have you seen the…” I stopped where I was. “Milly, what…what is this?” I asked. She dropped her head. She couldn’t even look at me.
She was sitting on the edge of her bed with a knife in her hand and her bleeding arm lying on a bloodstained towel. There were tears streaming down her face and the palm of her hand was covered in fresh blood. The air was thick with the smell of it.
She stood up from the bed and started putting things away. Before she could slip the knife into her bedside table drawer, I grabbed her wrist and she winced in pain. The pulse flowing steadily under my fingertips alerted me that the blood was still flowing freely. I turned her arm over quickly and found where the slit on her arm stopped. After yanking the ribbon out of my hair and tying it tight at the top of the cut, I let her hand slip from my grasp.
I looked at the drying blood on my hand, refusing to believe what was happening. I looked at Milly for some kind of answer, but I regretted it as soon as I did. Her head was hung down and she was shaking with the effort of holding back tears.
"Milly..." I started. I had almost too many questions to sort through. I started at the beginning. "How long have you been...doing this?"
She took a shaky breath, but replied quickly. "Two weeks." She said plainly.
"Why did you do it?" I was amazed at how calm my voice was staying. I told myself to leave things as they were. If I could remain unemotional for now, there was no reason interfere.
She shook her head. "I don't even know. It was like when I was doing it, nothing else mattered. I thought maybe it would wake me up, but it just became an addiction. I know it seems stupid, but I don't know how to stop." She said. When she finished, her shaking hands were in fists and the tears were flowing again.
"Milly." She looked up in response. "Can you promise me something?" I asked. She looked at my and nodded.
"You have to promise me," I started. "That you will not do this again." My voice broke. "I don't want to lose you." A flash of acknowledgement crossed her face and then she hung her head, ashamed. I walked over to her and wrapped my arms around her shaky shoulders. "I don't ever want to lose you." I said, pulling her tighter against my chest.
"You won't." She whispered against my shoulder. Her shoulder relaxed and I heard the knife clatter to the floor.
“Lisa,” Cassy said, jarring me out of my flashback. “Can you hand me the vanilla? I can’t find it.” She said, pointing to the cabinet above her head.
I shook my head to throw the bad memories from my mind. “Uh…sure.” I said, reaching to open the cabinet. I found the vanilla behind several other extracts including butter and almond. Setting it on the counter, I asked, “Cassy, how do you remember Milly?” I rephrased the question. “I mean, when you remember her, what do you think about?” I looked down at her. She had stopped stirring and looked like she was thinking particularly hard. Finally she answered.
“I think about that time we went to Kings Dominion and we took a picture of Megan in that coffin.” She said. “And that other time when we were singing that song Megan wrote about chik-fil-a as loud as we could in the back of the car. Even mommy was singing with us.” She paused to think some more. “Sometimes I just think about her being at the church.” She frowned. “The church was fun.”
I wrapped my arms around her shoulders and she started mixing again. I tried to think of a way to cheer her up. It was my fault. I was always taking my misery and putting it on everyone else, even Cassy. Suddenly, I knew exactly what would cheer her up. I reached over quietly and took a pinch of flour from the bag on the counter. While she was distracted mixing all the dry ingredients, I took the pinch of flour and threw it near her face, careful not to get it in her eye.
She squealed and turned to face me. The left half of her face was covered in the white powder. “Oh no you don’t!” She said, grabbing a small handful of flour and tossing it in my direction. Even with the warning of seeing it all, I squealed playfully. I looked down at my pajamas. They were covered in white dust. Before I could look up, I was hit again. Cassy stood in front of my grinning like she’d just won a medal. I grinned evilly. I grabbed another handful of flour, dodged Cassy’s third throw, and flung it in her direction. She threw her hands up in front of her to stop it, but too late. She was already covered with the stuff.
I crouched like I was about to pounce on her and she turned to run. I bolted after her. When I caught up to her, I scooped her up with ease and blew a raspberry on her stomach, instantly sending a cloud of thick white into my face. All the while she laughed and struggled.
When we were done with our fun, there would be huge mess to clean up, but that didn’t seem to matter right now.
“Lisa, put me down!” She squealed. I obliged and she landed gently on her feet. She looked up at me with a smile still on her face. “Why haven’t you ever acted like this before?” She asked.
I brushed my hair behind my ear from where it was hanging in front of my face. “I don’t know. I guess maybe I had just been remembering all the wrong things.” She put her hand on her chin and thought for a second.
“Well, now you don’t have to.” She said. “Because everything is gonna be okay.” I could hear the question in her tone.
“Yeah.” I said. “Well, it will be right after this.” I said, launching the handful of powder I’d been hiding towards her. She almost ducked in time. I had to admit, her reactions were getting better. Instead, the puff settled into her hair and shoulders.
I crouched and the chase was on again.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Walking Away~Ali Cummings
Walking Away
For about the thousandth time today, I had no idea what I was doing or why I was there. All I knew was what had happened earlier that day. I had attended Tod’s funeral. For the short amount of time that I was there, I wasn’t able to focus on much. I had sort of just slinked away from the crowd the moment it was over. There were no hugs, no talking, no contact whatsoever. I didn’t know if I could stand it. I had already seen one of my friends lowered into the ground and I didn’t know if I could bear to see another..
That had been hours ago. Now I was sitting in my house just staring at the wall. I didn’t know what I was doing here. I couldn’t figure out why I hadn’t run away when I had the chance.
The doorbell rang, knocking me out of my trance. I ran to the door, thankful for any distraction other than sitting alone and feeling sorry for myself. I opened the door without checking to see who was on the other side.
“Matt!” I said, shocked, as soon as I could see past the door. “W-what are you doing here? I mean, I didn’t know you were planning to come over today.” My lips stumbled through the sentence.
“I wasn’t planning to, but I wanted to come and see you.” He said, smiling. “I thought we could watch a movie.” He held up a Wal-mart bag with several DVD cases in it. I couldn’t read the labels to see what movies he had. “I brought Eagle Eye.” He said.
I sighed. I wasn’t really up for watching a movie, but I did want to talk to him for just a little while. “Do you think we could just go for a walk instead. I need to talk to you about something.” He bit his lip as if he would really rather stay.
“Sure. Yeah, we’ll walk.” He said, still reluctant. He set the bag of movies just inside the door and put his arm around my shoulders, leading me out the door and shutting it behind us.
We made it all the way to the top of my long driveway before either of us said anything. “So what’s up?” He inquired casually. Just like always, I almost got too lost in his eyes to think.
“Oh,” I said, snapping out of my trance. “Well, this is gonna be really difficult to talk about, but I’ll try.” I said. I could feel my palms sweating and I tried my best to wipe them on my jeans.
“Go ahead.” He said, keeping his tone casual. The apathy in his voice would’ve bothered me, had his voice itself not been so mesmerizing.
“This morning, I went to a funeral.” I started. I looked up at him for some kind of reaction, but he only nodded. “One of my friends…” My voice broke and I inhaled deeply. I paused for a long time, not sure if I would start crying again if I tried to speak. “He’s dead.” I finally said.
I expected to feel his arm wrap tighter around my shoulders in an attempt at comforting me, but he didn’t even miss a step as we walked. “Oh.” He said. There was that casual tone again. “That’s what you meant.” I stared at him, begging him to let his emotions show. Right now, I needed to know that I wasn’t the only one that cared.
“What I meant when?” I asked.
“When you told me that you needed to talk to me about something.” He explained. “When you came to the door I kind of thought you looked a little…” He voice trailed off.
Then it was my turn. “Oh.” I tried to decide if I wanted to know what he was thinking. I finally decided against it. I would ask him what he thought I had wanted to talk to him about, but what good would it do? His voice once again broke through my thoughts.
“So where are we going exactly?” He asked. Being back in reality, I realized that we’d walked almost a mile. The pauses in between our responses must have been longer than I thought. I focused back on his question. Suddenly, I knew exactly where I wanted to be going and why I needed to go there.
“Come on.” I said, grabbing his hand and pulling him into a side trail in the woods. “I’ll show you where we’re going. You’re gonna love this.” I said. The path we were going through was a thick part of the forest, but it would get us there much faster than taking the main road.
We walked for almost twenty minutes before he had the chance to speak. He had to use most of his concentration on getting bushes out of his way before he could trip.
“You never answered my question.” He said. “Where are we going? Ow!” I turned around to help him get out of a thorn bush his legs had gotten tangled in.
“You’ll see when we get there. Plus, you should recognize it by now. We’ve only got about a minute’s walk left.” I said, pointing to the break in the trees not far ahead of us.
“All I recognize is trees.” He mumbled. “And they all look the same.” I giggled quietly. From his reaction to the overgrown path, I guessed he didn’t spend much of his spare time in the woods.
Soon, we were pushing through the woods and into the back yard of the church. He had been here before, but he had never seen the back of the church. I heard him chuckle behind me.
“We came all this way so that we could come to your empty church?” He said.
“Isn’t it amazing? I don’t know, there’s just something peaceful about this place. I love coming here with just me.” I turned to face him. “And now you.”
“You’re joking, right? The church?” This time, his voice hurt. The subtle pull behind it was completely gone, washed away by his sarcasm.
“What’s wrong with that?” I asked defensively. In my eyes, I didn’t see how a person could not like it here. It was so peaceful and serene and the pavilion provided the perfect place to just sit and think when you had a lot on your mind.
“It’s just…Why would you spend all of your time at a church?” He asked. “It’s not like there’s anything special about it. It’s just an empty building.” This shocked me.
“It’s not just a building. This is where I come when I need to talk to God. It’s like he’s here, waiting for me to come. I trust him with everything.” I said. Why didn’t he see that?
“You really think he waits here just for you?” He asked, disapproval in his words. He sounded like a parent who was scolding a teenager for believing in a guy too much. It was as if he was calling my gullible.
“For anyone who comes here. It’s not just me. He’s wants to talk to everyone. Don’t you ever feel that? Don’t you ever feel like he just wants to talk to you?” I asked.
“I never feel anything like that. I can’t feel something from someone who doesn’t exist.” He said. Finally, the casual tone was gone, but it was replaced now with defiance, almost anger.
Hearing the last part of his dialogue, I didn’t know what to say. I turned and ran to the pavilion and heard him following close behind me. I sat down on the bench, breathing heavily. He said beside me and grabbed my hands. I almost pulled away, but I found that I wanted his touch. Even when he was the source of my pain, I ached for him to be the source of my comfort.
“Ali, I don’t care that you’re different from me. We don’t have to have the same religious views to be together. I’ll love you no matter what.” He said. For a second I almost the believed the words and left it at that. Then my mind snapped back into action.
“But Matt, it’s not just some religious view. I have a relationship with the risen, living king. I love him and he loves me. Nothing comes before that. We talk to each other. You can’t deny that kind of thing.” I argued.
“That’s fine. Have your God. Talk to him all you want. All I want is you.” He said. He leaned in to kiss me on the lips. My mind lapsed and I forgot to pull away from him. Finally, I got my head focused back on the conversation and I was able to break away from the kiss. With him off of me, I noticed that he had gotten close enough to push my back into the wooden support of the pavilion roof.
“You don’t understand. I don’t know how anyone can know him and see al the miracles he’s done and then deny him even existing. How can you do that?” I pleaded.
“Look, Ali.” I jumped when I heard that his voice had risen to a shouting level. “I told you I don’t care if you have a different belief then me. If the religion thing works for you, that’s fine. Just don’t take what you believe and try to shove it down my throat!” He said. He leaned in to kiss me again, but the sting from his words kept me in reality long enough to protest.
“What are you doing?” I asked, suddenly scared of him. I tried to back away from him, but the post kept me from moving any farther away from him.
“I want you, Ali. I would never do anything to hurt you.” He put his hands on the sides of my face, pulling my into another kiss. I pushed him away with all the strength I had.
“Then stop!” I yelled, now feeling more terrified that pleased with his actions. I had managed to push him away from me, but his hands were still gripping my face, preventing me from looking away.
“Ali, do you love me?” He asked. Al the fight went out of me. There was no way I could lie to him about that, even now.
“Yes.”
“Can you give me a chance?” I stopped.
“No.”
I felt his arms go limp and I took the chance. I was able to easily remove his hands from my cheeks and set them back in his own lap. Not once did he protest. I stood up from the bench and turned my back on him. I started to walk in the direction of my house, and I didn’t hear a single footstep behind me.
For about the thousandth time today, I had no idea what I was doing or why I was there. All I knew was what had happened earlier that day. I had attended Tod’s funeral. For the short amount of time that I was there, I wasn’t able to focus on much. I had sort of just slinked away from the crowd the moment it was over. There were no hugs, no talking, no contact whatsoever. I didn’t know if I could stand it. I had already seen one of my friends lowered into the ground and I didn’t know if I could bear to see another..
That had been hours ago. Now I was sitting in my house just staring at the wall. I didn’t know what I was doing here. I couldn’t figure out why I hadn’t run away when I had the chance.
The doorbell rang, knocking me out of my trance. I ran to the door, thankful for any distraction other than sitting alone and feeling sorry for myself. I opened the door without checking to see who was on the other side.
“Matt!” I said, shocked, as soon as I could see past the door. “W-what are you doing here? I mean, I didn’t know you were planning to come over today.” My lips stumbled through the sentence.
“I wasn’t planning to, but I wanted to come and see you.” He said, smiling. “I thought we could watch a movie.” He held up a Wal-mart bag with several DVD cases in it. I couldn’t read the labels to see what movies he had. “I brought Eagle Eye.” He said.
I sighed. I wasn’t really up for watching a movie, but I did want to talk to him for just a little while. “Do you think we could just go for a walk instead. I need to talk to you about something.” He bit his lip as if he would really rather stay.
“Sure. Yeah, we’ll walk.” He said, still reluctant. He set the bag of movies just inside the door and put his arm around my shoulders, leading me out the door and shutting it behind us.
We made it all the way to the top of my long driveway before either of us said anything. “So what’s up?” He inquired casually. Just like always, I almost got too lost in his eyes to think.
“Oh,” I said, snapping out of my trance. “Well, this is gonna be really difficult to talk about, but I’ll try.” I said. I could feel my palms sweating and I tried my best to wipe them on my jeans.
“Go ahead.” He said, keeping his tone casual. The apathy in his voice would’ve bothered me, had his voice itself not been so mesmerizing.
“This morning, I went to a funeral.” I started. I looked up at him for some kind of reaction, but he only nodded. “One of my friends…” My voice broke and I inhaled deeply. I paused for a long time, not sure if I would start crying again if I tried to speak. “He’s dead.” I finally said.
I expected to feel his arm wrap tighter around my shoulders in an attempt at comforting me, but he didn’t even miss a step as we walked. “Oh.” He said. There was that casual tone again. “That’s what you meant.” I stared at him, begging him to let his emotions show. Right now, I needed to know that I wasn’t the only one that cared.
“What I meant when?” I asked.
“When you told me that you needed to talk to me about something.” He explained. “When you came to the door I kind of thought you looked a little…” He voice trailed off.
Then it was my turn. “Oh.” I tried to decide if I wanted to know what he was thinking. I finally decided against it. I would ask him what he thought I had wanted to talk to him about, but what good would it do? His voice once again broke through my thoughts.
“So where are we going exactly?” He asked. Being back in reality, I realized that we’d walked almost a mile. The pauses in between our responses must have been longer than I thought. I focused back on his question. Suddenly, I knew exactly where I wanted to be going and why I needed to go there.
“Come on.” I said, grabbing his hand and pulling him into a side trail in the woods. “I’ll show you where we’re going. You’re gonna love this.” I said. The path we were going through was a thick part of the forest, but it would get us there much faster than taking the main road.
We walked for almost twenty minutes before he had the chance to speak. He had to use most of his concentration on getting bushes out of his way before he could trip.
“You never answered my question.” He said. “Where are we going? Ow!” I turned around to help him get out of a thorn bush his legs had gotten tangled in.
“You’ll see when we get there. Plus, you should recognize it by now. We’ve only got about a minute’s walk left.” I said, pointing to the break in the trees not far ahead of us.
“All I recognize is trees.” He mumbled. “And they all look the same.” I giggled quietly. From his reaction to the overgrown path, I guessed he didn’t spend much of his spare time in the woods.
Soon, we were pushing through the woods and into the back yard of the church. He had been here before, but he had never seen the back of the church. I heard him chuckle behind me.
“We came all this way so that we could come to your empty church?” He said.
“Isn’t it amazing? I don’t know, there’s just something peaceful about this place. I love coming here with just me.” I turned to face him. “And now you.”
“You’re joking, right? The church?” This time, his voice hurt. The subtle pull behind it was completely gone, washed away by his sarcasm.
“What’s wrong with that?” I asked defensively. In my eyes, I didn’t see how a person could not like it here. It was so peaceful and serene and the pavilion provided the perfect place to just sit and think when you had a lot on your mind.
“It’s just…Why would you spend all of your time at a church?” He asked. “It’s not like there’s anything special about it. It’s just an empty building.” This shocked me.
“It’s not just a building. This is where I come when I need to talk to God. It’s like he’s here, waiting for me to come. I trust him with everything.” I said. Why didn’t he see that?
“You really think he waits here just for you?” He asked, disapproval in his words. He sounded like a parent who was scolding a teenager for believing in a guy too much. It was as if he was calling my gullible.
“For anyone who comes here. It’s not just me. He’s wants to talk to everyone. Don’t you ever feel that? Don’t you ever feel like he just wants to talk to you?” I asked.
“I never feel anything like that. I can’t feel something from someone who doesn’t exist.” He said. Finally, the casual tone was gone, but it was replaced now with defiance, almost anger.
Hearing the last part of his dialogue, I didn’t know what to say. I turned and ran to the pavilion and heard him following close behind me. I sat down on the bench, breathing heavily. He said beside me and grabbed my hands. I almost pulled away, but I found that I wanted his touch. Even when he was the source of my pain, I ached for him to be the source of my comfort.
“Ali, I don’t care that you’re different from me. We don’t have to have the same religious views to be together. I’ll love you no matter what.” He said. For a second I almost the believed the words and left it at that. Then my mind snapped back into action.
“But Matt, it’s not just some religious view. I have a relationship with the risen, living king. I love him and he loves me. Nothing comes before that. We talk to each other. You can’t deny that kind of thing.” I argued.
“That’s fine. Have your God. Talk to him all you want. All I want is you.” He said. He leaned in to kiss me on the lips. My mind lapsed and I forgot to pull away from him. Finally, I got my head focused back on the conversation and I was able to break away from the kiss. With him off of me, I noticed that he had gotten close enough to push my back into the wooden support of the pavilion roof.
“You don’t understand. I don’t know how anyone can know him and see al the miracles he’s done and then deny him even existing. How can you do that?” I pleaded.
“Look, Ali.” I jumped when I heard that his voice had risen to a shouting level. “I told you I don’t care if you have a different belief then me. If the religion thing works for you, that’s fine. Just don’t take what you believe and try to shove it down my throat!” He said. He leaned in to kiss me again, but the sting from his words kept me in reality long enough to protest.
“What are you doing?” I asked, suddenly scared of him. I tried to back away from him, but the post kept me from moving any farther away from him.
“I want you, Ali. I would never do anything to hurt you.” He put his hands on the sides of my face, pulling my into another kiss. I pushed him away with all the strength I had.
“Then stop!” I yelled, now feeling more terrified that pleased with his actions. I had managed to push him away from me, but his hands were still gripping my face, preventing me from looking away.
“Ali, do you love me?” He asked. Al the fight went out of me. There was no way I could lie to him about that, even now.
“Yes.”
“Can you give me a chance?” I stopped.
“No.”
I felt his arms go limp and I took the chance. I was able to easily remove his hands from my cheeks and set them back in his own lap. Not once did he protest. I stood up from the bench and turned my back on him. I started to walk in the direction of my house, and I didn’t hear a single footstep behind me.
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