Bleed (7 page)

There are hives dotted across my chest like navigational points. I need to breathe, to relax. Robby would never hurt me. He served his time. He paid for his mistakes. Plus, it was an accident. I’ve thought so all along. An
accident.
I remind myself of these things all the way down the stairs and into the kitchen for breakfast. Only, I can’t possibly eat.

Grace, my father’s wife (though, young enough to be my older sister) is hunched over her usual dry toast with black coffee, and doing today’s crossword puzzle. “Where’s Dad?” I ask.

No answer.

“Hello?”

“Oh, hi,” she says, finally noticing me. “There’s coffee and muffins on the counter.”

“Not hungry.”

She eyes me up and down, from my chlorine-yellow hair—a victim of my father’s pool—to my French-manicured toes, and then nods. Whatever that means. Tina and Chelsea, my four-year-old half sisters, chase each other into the kitchen and hop into the booth seat, opposite Grace.

“Are you coming to the zoo with us, Kelly?” Chelsea asks.

I look at Grace. Her face is blank, like I could scribble all over it (and wouldn’t I like to). The lump in my chest breaks, and shards splinter into my gut. I don’t know why it bothers me, why I let it, or why I even care.

“Oh, yeah,” Grace says, in her deadpan tone. “Your father and I are taking the twins to the zoo today. Of course you’re welcome to join us.”

“Kelly’s coming! Kelly’s coming!” Tina shouts.

Grace looks at Tina, wishing, I suspect, that she had a muzzle handy.

“I have plans,” I say, turning on my heel, making my way across the marble-tiled floor, hearing Grace ask the twins for a three-letter word for
angry.

I find my father in his office, doing the kind of take-home work my mother used to complain about. “I’m going out,” I announce to him.

“That’s fine,” he says. “Give us a call if you need a ride home.”

“I’ll probably just have Robby drop me off.”

“Okay, Kell, have a good time.”

I feel like blurting out that it’s Robby Mardonia. Robby I-killed-my-girlfriend-because-she-tried-to-break-up-with-me Mardonia. But I don’t even think it would matter. So why does it matter to me?

I go back upstairs to spritz on a healthy amount of
A Minuit.
I wonder if Robby can still smell it on my letters. I picture him curled up beside them on some roll-away cot, thinking about the two of us.

I probably should have told him more about Sean, told him that we
did
end up dating after all. Part of me dated Sean out of spite. After I told Nicole he wanted to go out with me, she said we’d have nothing in common. When I asked her what she meant, she shrugged and said that one of us would probably get bored. I didn’t need to guess who she meant.

But it wasn’t just spite. Part of me wanted to go out with Sean because he was sweet and nice and simple. And did his homework. And volunteered on the yearbook staff. And because Nicole, one of the people I trust most in this world, trusted him.

Then there was the simple truth—Sean was nothing like Derik LaPointe. All fingers and hands. So when Nicole confirmed the fact that she was
over
Sean, that she wanted to forget about him, it pretty much sealed the deal for me. And Sean and I ended up a couple. And, I’ll have to admit, it’s been sort of nice.

I suddenly feel guilty. I look down at my watch. It’s a little after one o’clock on the East Coast, which means Sean’s probably just finishing up his landscaping job. I still have a few extra minutes. Maybe I should call him. Maybe the sound of his voice will thwack me to my senses, make me realize that this is completely insane.

Or maybe I’ll just want to see Robby all the more.

I pick up the phone and dial. It goes straight to voice mail.

I take it as a sign, hang up, squeeze into the blister-making sandals, and head out to meet Robby.

We’re meeting at the diner in Robby’s hometown. I know exactly where it is. I made it one of my first must-sees when I got here. It was weird being inside the place after Robby had talked so much about it, after picturing him in there, amid the red-and-white-checked tablecloths, the shiny black vinyl booths and the bright aqua jukebox in the corner, loaded with tunes by Elvis and the Beatles.

When I get off the bus, I can see the diner in the near distance, two blocks away. I look down at my watch. It’s after ten thirty. Robby’s probably already inside. I hurry down the street, feeling the sandal straps bite into the backs of my heels.

The bells on the diner door jangle as I push it open. I look around. There are several couples seated in booths. One woman and her daughter at the jukebox. An older man talking to the waitress. And two stray males at each end of the counter. Both look up when I enter. One is dressed in army fatigues. He has military-short, jet-black hair, with a five-o’-clock-shadowy chin, and just enough pump in his arms—not too bulky. I’m thinking it’s him, thinking he must be about twenty-one. He sort of smiles at me as he takes a sip of coffee. I smile back.

But it’s the other guy that stands up, allows his napkin to roll right off his lap. “Kelly,” he says.

“Yeah?” I feel myself cringe inside. I feel like, for one horrible-bitchy-mean little moment, I should deny who I am and go flying out the door.

His hair is parted to the extreme left side, dad-style, and he’s wearing plumber-loose jeans that hang around his hips. Where Army-guy’s arms are perfectly bulgy, Robby’s are overly rounded from too much prison food. What happened to all the working out he was supposedly doing? I feel hopelessly shallow sizing him up this way.
The guy has been in prison, for God’s sake.

“Hi,” I say finally, noticing that the jeans are brand new, still dark, dark blue, not yet baptized from the wash. His dress shirt, as well, is still in creases from the package.

He smiles at me, then laughs. And we both kind of stand there, me at the door and him in the corner, not really knowing what to do.

The longer I stare, the more I can tell that it’s him. Same green-blue eyes. Same slender nose. That heart-shaped chin. Just older. And maybe more average.

Still, it’s him, and I can’t believe it. I can’t believe this is real.

He starts to walk toward me, and he can’t stop smiling, like there’s a giant boomerang wedged in his mouth.

“Robby?” I say.

“Finally,” he says. “It’s so good to see you, to hear your voice.”

Before I can reply, he slips me into his arms and wraps me up like a pretty package. I touch the tip of my nose to the lobe of his ear and breathe for him—into his ear, the way he likes, and he smells like Ivory soap tangled in spearmint gum. Not quite the salty scent of virility I’d imagined. He holds me there, like this is normal, in a diner, in front of everyone. Like nothing else matters, and maybe nothing else does. “You look perfect,” he whispers.

When we finally break, he motions for us to take a seat in one of the booths. “Thanks for coming all this way,” he says, sliding in across from me.

“Sure,” I say, trying to free my heels of their straps. “It was no big deal.” But he’s barely even listening. He’s just … staring. “Are you hungry?” I grab the menu.

“Are you nervous?” he asks.

My first reaction is to lie, but he knows me too well. Knows just about everything, things I barely even tell myself. “Yes.”

“Well, don’t be. It’s just me, remember?” He takes my hand and draws a figure eight in the palm, over and over and over again. “I’m nervous, too,” he admits. “What are
you
nervous about?”

“I don’t know. I guess I’m scared of what you might think of me.” That
was
the way I’d been feeling, for the past five and a half years, but now, at this instant, I’m not sure if I even care. I readjust myself in the seat, trying to free my crack from the silk wedge.

“You don’t know?” He stops drawing in my palm, mid figure eight.

I peek up at him. At those eyes, so Melanie-serious, like he has no doubts.

“I’m not one to judge you, Kelly. I love you.”

He loves me. It sounds so strange hearing him say it. So weird that I have to bite back the jolt I feel stretch across my face. But then I have to remind myself that I told him the same. In so many letters, I told him
I
loved
him.
But this person sitting in front of me isn’t the person I wanted. The person I want is the one I can run back home to, the one I can write a letter to, describing this horrible confusion in my head.

He’s staring at me so hard; I don’t even think he cares if I say it back. I decide to be honest. I say, “This is just so weird. I mean, we’ve been writing back and forth for so long. I guess I’m not quite sure what we’re supposed to do.”

I think about my pink bra and panties and feel stupid even talking. I take the cell phone out of my bag and rest it on the seat beside me, just in case Sean calls.

“We’re supposed to be together.” He beams. “Finally. Are you as happy as I am?”

I nod and look down at the menu to take a break from what I’m feeling. “Are you hungry?”

“Sure, we should eat something,” he says.

As I study the menu, he points out items I might be interested in—things he knows I like to eat. Cheese omelet, peanut-butter pancakes, strawberry blintzes. And, it’s like, for some reason, I don’t want him to know these things about me. I don’t want him to know me at all.

We order, and the waitress, this freckly red-haired girl, brings us some coffee.

“How are things at your dad’s?” he asks. “How’s Grace?”

“Fine,” I say, trying to take my eyes off the pen in his front shirt pocket. What was he thinking by putting a pen in there? Why does he even need one? “I might be going to the zoo with them later.”

“Oh?” He swishes the spoon back and forth in his coffee mug, stirring over the disappointment that hangs on his face. “I thought we had plans.”

I want to grab the menu back, to escape this conversation. But after several seconds of awkward silence, he changes the subject and starts talking about the motel he’s staying in and how he wants to get a job painting houses so he can go to school. And all the while he’s talking, I can’t help but think—is this the same guy who spoke that way on the stand about Melanie? The one who told me the most beautifully intimate secrets in his letters? Who made me a poet?

He stops talking and looks at me for a response. I have no idea what the question is. “Yeah,” I say, hoping
yeah
is the appropriate answer.

“Have you listened to a word I’ve said?”

“Yes.” A tweak of snappiness in my voice. “Your motel is cramped and you want to study law enforcement.”

“Criminal law,” he corrects. “What’s wrong? Do you still feel guilty about telling your mother you wanted to spend the summer with your dad?”

And I hate it. That he knows these pieces of me.

That he knows I lied to my mother about coming here. That a couple of weeks before I came, I cut Maria on the arm with a safety pin because she begged me to do it. But more because she wouldn’t tell me what Derik LaPointe was saying about me behind my back until I made at least one slit. I told Robby how guilty I felt about it afterward, especially when I saw Maria tear up. How nothing Derik LaPointe could possibly say about me could compare to the look on her face.

“Yeah, I guess that’s it.”

“You need to forgive yourself. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in this life, it’s that forgiveness starts with the self.”

I almost want to cover my ears. I don’t want to hear his Oprah-friendly advice. And I especially don’t want my mistakes—stuff no one’s supposed to know about me—thrown up in my face. But he knows all my faults. Every one.

I think about how I told him all about my date with Derik LaPointe. How we had taken a walk through the park after this party and what we did there. How I let him. Because I knew how much my mother wanted me to go out with a “nice boy” like him. Because she never thinks I do anything right.

“Is there something wrong?” he asks.

I ignore the question and lean back, allowing the waitress to smack a ceramic plate full of peanut-butter pancakes in front of me.

I think about when I told him how ugly I feel all the time. How I’d give anything to have a dryer-sheet life like Nicole’s—clean, stark, habitual.

I even told him about the times I’ve wanted to make it all stop.

“I’m not hungry,” I say finally.

“What’s wrong?” he asks.

“I don’t know.” I push my plate away. “This is just a little too real for me.”

“What are you talking about? We’ve waited almost six years for this. I love you. I thought you said you loved me, too.”

“I did.”

“Did?
Or
do?”

“I’m sorry, Robby.” I feel myself get up, and I almost can’t believe I’m actually leaving. Like this. It’s horrible, and I feel every bit of it, like my heart is slowly hollowing itself out.

But I need to get away. This isn’t the way I wanted it.

The door bells jangle behind me as I leave. I manage a few steps before freeing the straps from the backs of my heels, the skin all mangled and watery, blood outlining the place where the blisters have popped. I almost expect him to come running after me, to ask me to take a walk down some long dirt path. But I guess he doesn’t love me as much as he thinks, as much as he loved Melanie.