Gen. 21 – Ameline: Chapter 5, Part 2

More excited than I had been at months, I was ready to go and pacing at the front door the next day at four-forty-five PM, and it was a good thing I was early, too, because at four-fifty-two, the doorbell rang. I sprang off the couch and yanked the door open almost before Daniel’s finger had even left the doorbell.

Gen. 21 – Ameline: Chapter 5, Part 1

“Mom,” I began. She looked up from her computer and made eye contact with me, letting me know she was listening as I took a deep breath and readied myself to propose my well-rehearsed request. “I know it’s important for Feli to be grounded and learn a lesson for what she did, but we both can see how down she’s been lately since Chris broke up with her, and I know you’re as worried about her–if not more so–than I am, so I was thinking…”

Memoir: Gen. 13-14 – Margaret and Jaime

When I was sixteen, I was given this journal by my grandmother Anne when she passed away, but only after reading the accounts of my ancestors when I got older did I truly realize the significance of it. I shared it with my mother after I read it so that she could hear the wisdom of all of our predecessors as well, and we both gained a substantial amount of respect for the history held within these pages.

Gen. 21 – Ameline: Chapter 4

In the weeks following my minor breakdown after losing Bronson again, I tried to keep to myself as much as possible. My wardrobe changed, as well. No longer was I interested in wearing the colorful, tight clothing I’d worn before. My mother expressed her concerns over my recent behavior, but I just brushed it off that I was just wearing what was popular at school now.

Gen. 21 – Ameline: Chapter 3

“I’d really started to think they’d be around forever, Feli. I can’t believe they’re gone,” I bawled into my sister’s shoulder as we stood in the hall gazing up at photographs of our Gramma and Grandpa.

Tomorrow would be one month to the day since Gramma had passed, but to me, we’d actually lost her when Grandpa died. He took a piece of her with him that would simply never heal in his absence. Him and Gramma had been married for almost fifty years, and when he left us, she couldn’t bear to keep living without him. Her health had gone steadily downhill until her body had just given up on her.

Felicia had been so strong through all of it: losing Grandpa and Gramma, planning their funerals, going through and dividing their belongings based on their wills; although the house and most of their possessions went to Mom, it was their wish that some things be distributed to our uncles. After everything was taken care of, Uncle William had moved out and gotten his own place, leaving the two of us and Mom all by ourselves in this big house.

Between all of this and losing Bronson, I was a complete wreck. I cried myself to sleep every night, barely spoke to anyone other than Felicia, and hardly ate anything. I think in the past two months I’d lost fifteen pounds due to not eating and swimming every day at school during gym. Feli had found me a few times throwing up in the locker room bathrooms because the stress of physically pushing myself that hard on an empty stomach was just too much for my body to handle.

I was still as distant from my mom as ever; Gramma dying hadn’t changed that. Any time I even mentioned Bronson, she flew off the handle about what a bad influence he was on me and how I better not ever be seeing him again.

Even so, I wished that I could talk to her. I was desperate to have someone that I could talk to about all the emotions I had pent up inside of me. Then, one afternoon when I got home from school and was on the way up to my bedroom to seek solitude so that no one would hear me crying, I heard sobs coming from the computer room. Knowing that Felicia was still downstairs, I turned the corner to investigate.

“Mom?”

I found her sitting at her desk, crying while looking at pictures on her computer. She glanced my way when she heard me come in and immediately moved to wipe the tears out of her eyes.

“Oh, honey,” she said, standing, “I didn’t hear you get home. I’m sorry.”

“Mom,” I interrupted, “It’s OK. What’s wrong?”

She looked me straight in the eyes and then pulled me into an embrace, fresh sobs escaping her throat.

“I know I haven’t always been the best mom to you and Felicia, and I’m so sorry,” she wept as she held me. “Your grandma always knew just what to say and what to do. She was the perfect mom, and I wish I could be as good of a mom to you as Felicia and she was to me, but I’ve tried to do the best I could. There have been so many things I’ve done and said that I’ve wished I could take back, and every time, there she was to give me advice and help me with raising you girls, but now she’s gone. I can’t walk down the hall to her room or pick up the phone when I need someone to talk to. She was my mom.” Her voice tightened up, and she barely managed to finish, “I miss her so much.”

“Shhh, shhh, Mom, it’s all right.”

“I’m so sorry, baby. I love you girls so much.”

“It’s OK. We love you, too, Mom, and you didn’t do such a bad job raising us. We turned out pretty good, wouldn’t you say?”

“I think that’s more of a credit to your grandma than to me.”

“Still, you’re our mom. You were a big part of it.”

I let her hold me and cry until she calmed down and promptly excused herself to clean up her face so that it didn’t look so puffy from crying. It was kind of unnerving; I’d never seen my mom break down like that before. Losing Gramma had hit her harder than I’d imagined.

Despite everything, we made it through the coming weeks, Feli and I trying to stay strong and help Mom out whenever we could. Every moment at school was an ordeal for me, though, because it meant seeing Bronson.

I wasn’t angry at him for breaking up with me; if anything, I felt like he deserved better than me. What could I offer him? I was just some lowly freshman. He would be graduating next year and going onto bigger and better things. I shouldn’t expect him to stay here and wait for me until I was old enough for us to be together; it wouldn’t be fair to him. I didn’t regret him taking my virginity, either. I was glad for the time we were able to spend together, and I hoped that he would be happy with whomever he chose to be with now or whatever he decided to do.

It was difficult, though, because he was still around all the time at the lunch table with us because he was Chris’s best friend, and Chris and Felicia were still together. He’d grown his hair out since we’d been together, and I thought it suited him better. There were some times, though, when my eyes would meet Bronson’s, and he’d look at me like he did when we were dating, and I’d feel that tightness in my stomach that reminded me just how much I still cared for him, and for just a moment, it would seem like he still cared about me, too.

Once and a while, he’d even give me a hug when the bell would ring and we’d all leave to go to our classes. The close contact was difficult for me and generally resulted in me silently crying throughout my next class, but I gave him an extra-tight squeeze anyway, hoping he’d understand how much feeling I was trying to put behind it.

My geometry teacher, Mrs. Hoole, was my savior during these times. Math was my last class of the day, immediately after lunch, and more than once she noticed me crying in the back of the room and pulled me over to her desk or out of the room while the class was doing their work just to talk to me and ask how I was doing, and she would just listen and let me cry everything out, if that was what I needed. She was the kind of teacher I would remember years down the line as being someone who really made a difference in my life, because that was truly what I needed at that point: someone who would just listen and not judge me for what I was telling them. I couldn’t possibly talk to my mom; she’d made it clear to me what exactly her opinion of Bronson was, and I didn’t want to constantly bother Felicia with my problems, although I did go to her more times than I can possibly count.

Against my better judgement, I agreed to go to a group movie night to see Van Helsing with Felicia, Chris, Bronson, and a few of our other friends from school: all couples. Bronson and I were really the odd ones out. It started out all right; Bronson and I acted amicably towards each other and kept our distance, but despite our attempts to stay away from each other, our friends had other plans, and we ended up seated next to each other in the theatre.

The tension between us was electric. We’d spent so many nights at movie theatres curled up in each other’s arms that it was exceedingly difficult not to reach out to him in the darkness. Instead, I left my hand loosely lying next to my thigh on the side that he was sitting on. I knew it was a long shot, but it was going to be my last attempt to try to spark some sign that he still cared about me.

As the movie went on, I began to give up hope, but about an hour and a half into the movie, Bronson relaxed his leg to lean slightly against mine. It was like that small movement had shot a current through me, and all the muscles and nerves in my body were suddenly alert and fixated on that point.

My heart began to race, and I had a difficult time concentrating on the movie from that moment forward. I sat stock-still, not daring to move my leg lest he think I was trying to pull away from him. After about twenty minutes of that, though, he moved his leg away from mine and shifted so that we were no longer sitting as close to one another. With that small movement, I felt my heart sink. I’d dared to hope that with that touch he would express that he still have feelings for me, but it appeared that I was mistaken, and it was all that I could do to keep it together and not break down and cry right there in the theatre.

It was at that moment, though, when I believed all hope for getting back together with Bronson to be lost, that he reached over and took my hand, wrapping his other arm around me and kissing me softly on the forehead. I hardly dared to breath; I was so shocked. part of me wondered if I was dreaming, because it seemed so impossible that he was actually doing what he was doing.

I looked up into his face and lost myself in his eyes, eventually reaching up to kiss him. We stayed that way, in each other’s arms, for the remainder of the movie, and I was so caught up in him that I don’t even remember what happened in the last fifteen minutes of the movie. When we left the theatre, I felt like I was walking on air. With his hand holding mine and his eyes looking down into mine, I couldn’t have possibly been happier.

——————————————————————————————————————————————–

“What?” I asked, flabbergasted.

“I’m sorry. I just don’t feel like this relationship is what’s best for either of us anymore.”

It had been six months–six wonderful months–since Bronson and I had gotten back together. Chris had graduated and was taking classes at the community college, Bronson was in his senior year, and Feli and I were sophomores now. Everything had been going great for a long time, but a few weeks ago, I began to notice changes in his behavior. He wouldn’t make eye contact with me as much, wouldn’t talk to me or hold my hand when we were out with friends, wouldn’t call me to talk late at night before we went to bed. I had been able to feel the end coming for a while now, but I still hadn’t wanted to admit the reality of it to myself; I wanted to believe that he still cared about me the way I cared about him.

“Look, I’m going to be graduating this year, and you still have another two years of high school to go,” he continued. “Plus, your mom still hates me, and I know you’ll argue that that shouldn’t be a factor if we really care about each other, but it is. I can’t help it. Being able to see you and not have to sneak around all the time should just be a normal part of a relationship. For us, though, it isn’t. We can’t see each other unless we lie to your mom about where you’re going to be.”

“But–”

“No, Ameline. I’m sorry, it’s over between us; at least it is for me.”

And that was it. With a few simple words, he had shattered my whole existence. Why wasn’t I good enough for him? Why was I never good enough? For my teachers, for my mother, for Bronson–no matter what I did, it was never enough.

I walked back inside, too stunned still to let myself cry, not that I would let my mother see me upset anyway; if she did, I’d have to explain what was wrong, and I wasn’t in much of a talking mood. I felt so empty inside. The pain was there, boiling at the surface, threatening to consume me, but instead of feeling hurt, feeling sad, feeling betrayed, feeling anything at all, I only felt numb, but it was as if that numbness was trying to devour me whole.

When I made it into my room, I shut and locked the door, turned on my stereo, and lit some candles around the room, leaving the lights off. At that point, something inside of me snapped, and I just couldn’t hold back the flow any longer. I collapsed to the floor, my body wracked with heaving sobs, crying out every bit of feeling I had left in me. I had to do something to make the pain stop, anything to focus my mind on something else, something that wouldn’t consume me.

In an act of desperation and helplessness, I made my way to my my desk drawer and pulled out a pair of scissors. I don’t know what made me do it; it was simply on impulse that I took off my jacket and shirt and placed the open blade of the scissors against the skin of the upper portion of my left arm. It didn’t cut–wasn’t sharp enough with so little pressure applied–but the focus and intrigue of what I was doing replaced that empty feeling of hopelessness that had overwhelmed me.

More committed now, I tried once more, applying more pressure to the blade. This time it dug into me as I raked it across my arm, creating a jagged cut on my skin that filled with a thin line of dark red blood the moment pressure was released. I stared at it for a moment, incredulous at what I had just done, and then proceeded to make not one, not two, but four more similar cuts in a parallel pattern down my arm.

When I was finished, I lay down on the floor, my arm slightly stinging but too numb to feel any real pain. My emotional pain, however, seemed to have dissolved with the simple action of inflicting physical pain upon myself. I recalled everything that had happened that night, but I no longer felt burdened by it; it no longer threatened to consume my consciousness. My tears had dried to my cheeks, leaving my face red, puffy, and salty, and I could feel the trickle of blood down my arm as my cuts oozed and dried.

I felt a great sense of guilt wash over me. What would my mother think of me if she’d known what I had done? What would Felicia, or Bronson, or my teachers think of me if they found out? Coming to my senses, I covered the still-wet blood on my arm with a tissue from my dresser and put my shirt and jacket back on, careful to blow out the candles and hide any evidence of my actions from possible discovery.

I left my room quietly and tiptoed down the stairs, careful to check the landing to make sure that no one would be around when I crossed the hall to the bathroom. I managed to make it inside without detection and carefully shut and locked the door behind me, then glanced at myself in the mirror before taking my shirt off again, not wanting to get any blood on it.

I cleaned my cuts with water and disinfectant, wiped the tears off my face, and ran a hot bath so as to relax and clean myself up. I knew three things for certain. Firstly, I had found a way, despite the guilt it inflicted upon me, to ease my pain and make myself feel better, if even for a moment. Secondly, I could survive this, whatever it was, whatever I lost, whatever would come at me next; I could keep going. I had to, if only for Felicia’s sake. And lastly, I could never let anyone find out what I was doing. It wasn’t like anyone could possibly understand what I was going through; they’d all just think I’d lost my mind.