Ray met him before.
She met him in grade school, white squares of teeth, a stance lazy with confidence, even when donned in wrinkled, stagnant dress he was glory, burning brighter within his entourage of burnt toast boys that followed just as close. He showed up again in high school with a beard shaved perfectly around those bulging freckled cheek bones pushing even more apathy into his hazel irises. He was nicer then, offering hugs, a hood drawl and assurance to any open ear of his sexual prowess at his young age.
A quick point in any direction from the window of a public bus charging through any American ghetto would find a boy, a man, an elder with the same thought process, same clothing style, same assumption of an inner brand of unobtainable mystique. He was transparent and cliché; moving and speaking like he was written rather than raised
She met him in her father. Those same sad eyes that all black men have. The same dragging, guttural voices that turn every word sticky and rude, shot out like phlegm straight from the peak of their throat. The same anger due to the broken vehicle they were shoved behind and forced to drive before they could even pronounce their own name. The same crunching squeeze of her bones whenever that anger is thrust upon her, building a fear that remains heavy inside her like spilled glue.
...and she’d rather strip skin from her cuticles and suck the tiny speckles of blood into a puddle on her tongue than dive blind into whatever they offered.
Her parents marriage, for her, was a collage of nonsense she never attempted finding a tangible truth within. It was only scrambled black and white, frustratingly blurry and painful on the ears. Why do these opposing ends try to meld? They only create an unappealing eternal attempt to work together. So, she maintained a blindness as early on the only thing that was clear was there was no depth. It was forever black and white, gray to unfocused eyes, inattentive periods when an active mind is muted by midnight caresses, slippery kisses...bodies doing what bodies do.
Yet, she managed to be open to love, no matter how the package arrived and the way he spoke to her for the first time, as though he’d known her for years made her panic as the landmarks of her life were when she was certain that something significant, special and sensual came within that generic shell, even if their pairing turned him into a child hypnotized by a new toy, never expecting another will come.
“I don’t know why, I need you”
Ray seethed about it, from his waking sturs to his premiere exhaled snore, staring down the silhouette of his shoulder she holds in her urge to shove her hand into it, wake him and demand the answer she wants. Instead, she twirled and growled, bit off her cuticles, then on to the slender lump of skin on her fingertips. She held it in like she’d hold in piss on a bus ride home.
So simple a reason it just doesn’t feel thought through, definite or lasting. It offended her, left her in that same loneliness that brought her to accept his first suggestion they go out. He equates their love to a constant mundane presence, like a birthmark.
She’s posed this inquiry once before to the man behind her first real heartbreak…loyal. That was his answer. Another answer invoking that loneliness.
Her aura, a vibe, an imaginary tug…” I don’t know why.”
She reaches for bones, their passion, their depth, a piece them that expands into all of her the more time they spend together…until she has nothing to give but a reflection; vices, angers, loves, secrets…maybe that’s why he never gave an answer she expected. From the way he discusses himself, he doesn’t know himself. He needs her to learn, she is his unadulterated truth. This is why he needs her and doesn’t know why. This is why when they aren't making love they’re screaming at eachother like the critic and the conscious.
The first time he struck her was like the first time they kissed.
The hold of his long, square palms, the way he sucked his lips between his teeth. His approach, the impact, the way it forced her neck back, inflamed her cheeks, twisted her tummy, dampened her eyes…She anticipated it, and still she was surprised. Like tugging the skin of a hangnail and wincing once it rips too low.
Her sister told her that girls like her are feared by boys and intimidating to girls, that she turns thugs into gentlemen; something she never believed...especially with the sudden flash of white that blinds her, the wild expression on his face once her sight returned, the tight, sucking feeling in her sternum, the panic…
Gentlemen don’t hit women.
She wanted to run, she could feel the anticipation in the back of her knees, but the pill has already been swallowed. The pump of their pulses has already aligned, the widening of their pupils has already rounded the sharp edges, blurred the glow of the white lights into suspended illuminated cotton balls. Neither of them need to breathe, there is no air.
...but there is a song, the same one that came with that first kiss. A tuneless, repetitive acapella, vague and unimaginative but enough to relax her to the point of collapse:
“I don't know why...I need you.”
Maybe more sterile, more neutral, more of a blank expression waiting for your movements to determine the expression it presents. She wants to love it, but she’s never loved a space she’s had to share. Has she?
It isn’t like the attic.
The attic was sick, a thick heaving cough extracting phlegm from the bottom of its lungs. It shrunk, by centimeters, every day she woke inside of it. Back when you could smell the attic, it was an eggy-mildew catastrophe. But after a while, there was no way to tell what scent the attic had, everything stained in burnt nicotine.
And so was she, from her fingertips to her burps.
The carpet, drizzled in ash, wasted food, and dribblings of piss stained the soles of her socks. The space heater unevenly manipulated the area, making the walls sweat. The humidity dampened her bed sheets. The light bulbs shone yellow, turning everything dingy and dull. The window was too tiny to bring in enough natural light or fresh air.
Miserable.
But it was her home, her friend, her family. It wrapped around her like a fitted top, one with tattered hems, splitting seams and faded colors. Yet, every time she walked through the door, she only saw that vibrant new color, felt that comforting snugness, ignored how it was falling apart. In the arms of that attic, she saw herself, who she was meant to be. She spent the time smoothing the base solid that would carry the woman she could become; quick and capable, magnetic, missed. All the pieces in hand, she just had to put them together.
But when they were together the picture was nothing she could ever be. Her eyes were round rather than long, fat clinging to her figure in smooth lumps, light soaked into her skin rather than illuminating. Within those four walls, life only was waiting for that someone we swear lives inside of us that we’ll love unconditionally once they emerge; whatever magical day that finally happens? Who knows?
But it’s worth staying still for, isn’t it? Worth hiding who she was behind a strand of smoke cutting her face in two, donning fabrics wider than she was tall and thick as carpet, shrunken and silent. Patient. That’s what anyone outside of her SHOULDVE seen, patience.
She lets the side of her gym shoe push some dust balls beneath a defunct radiator, pulls her elbows toward her center with her hands holding hard and nods to every assurance offered that this is the place for them. She looks around at her -their- new home. There are places that need extra care, corners that will thrive in her attention, spaces where their pasts can meld into a present, corners that can thrive with pieces they both handled, moments of static, of movement that will certainly pair beautifully. She anticipates it, she expects it, she hopes for it.
Here she is, once again. Patient.