January 13th, 2011.

The sky was blue. An anomaly for an Oregon January. It was a balmy fifty degrees Fahrenheit, and you were sixteen. You'd just gotten your license and come to pick me up on our first date. Silly boy, I'd wagged my finger and told you there was no way we were driving-- it was illegal, and boys had a tendency to get tickets when I was in the passenger seat. You took one look at the sky and grinned, and I thought I knew right then-- you were the one.

You were veritably gigantic for a sixteen-year-old boy, and when you offered your hand, I took it, my hand swallowed in yours--and I thought I knew right then--you were the one. We walked together, both of us tall, strides in harmony, hands sweaty and cold and delightfully lost in each other. It was a terribly long walk to the arcade, but we didn't care. We were young and desperate to show off for one another. You let me beat you at air hockey, and you didn't bat an eye at the jibes I dished out in generous heaps afterward. The jock, beaten at a game by the theatre nerd. We each knew the truth, and the both of our eyes sparkled in harmony for it-- I thought I knew right then--you were the one.

But it wasn't then, no. It was an hour later, after we'd stumbled our giddy way into a tiny diner. You pulled out my chair and we played thumb wars over a sickeningly sticky table, and when the basket of french fries arrived, we shared. I know you were starving, but you gave me the larger portion anyway. I have never tasted a better french fry. They were perfect. Salty, soft, crisp, but not overcooked. Perfect. I nearly got lost in them. I nearly forgot you were there at all, for my very first love had me then in its grasp: food. But then you surprised me. You stole the last fry from my greasy fingers, and I looked in shock and sadness on the emptiness greeting my greedy tongue. "Did you forget I was here?" you teased me.

And I got worried...because... how could I have ever thought that I could be myself in the presence of a boy like you. You were a football player. I was chairman of the anti-bullying club. It was never gonna happen and I'd just made a terrible fool of myself over the last few hours. These things galloped about my head in the quick ten seconds it took to truly look at you, sitting there, the last fry held between thumb and pointer finger, ketchup bottle in the other hand. You slowly rotated the fry to face me, a garish grin painting your face in the process. "This is how I feel about you," you said, rather matter of factly, and handed me the fry. There, in bright red ketchup, you'd drawn a smiley face on the top. And I knew, then, that you were the one.

You ordered me another basket, and we drew ketchup faces until the waitress started walking by and sighing. So you paid and we left with a greasy sandwich bag of french fries and the certainty in our hearts that we were at the beginning of forever.

She was standing at the edge of the creek, mulling all of these things over, when Einar came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her. She immediately warmed to his touch-- she hadn’t realized how cold she was, standing alone. He breathed into her hair and then chuckled, “You’ve tried fried potatoes, then?” she smiled, and brought his hands low, over the small bump she’d discovered. He laughed, “A lot of potatoes, then.” Eve laughed softly, but then, she went quiet, steeling herself for what needed to be said.

“It’s not potatoes, Einar.”

He smelled her hair again and mumbled into it, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” She pressed his hands a little more firmly to her belly, and then, seeing that he wasn’t going to get it, she turned in his arms and looked up at him.

Seeing the tears in her eyes, his whole demeanor shifted. He cupped her face in his hands, “What’s the matter?”

She was crying happy tears, then, “Nothing--- oh--” she buried her face in his chest and wept. He smoothed a hand down her back and held her closer.

“It doesn’t seem like nothing,” he remarked dryly and then tilted her chin up, so she met his eyes, “tell me, Eve. Anything.”

She smiled. He’s going to be a wonderful father, before she could stop herself, she’d said it out loud, “--You’re going to be a wonderful father--”

“Thank you--” his breath caught “That’s an odd thing to--wait--are you saying...?”

She nodded, “Yes.” Einar pressed her to his chest and sobbed.

She didn’t know what reaction she’d been expecting, but it certainly wasn’t this. He held her tight and cried for a good long while. After he had quieted to a few sparse sniffs, and was pressing hundreds of soft kisses onto the top of her head, she finally asked, “Were those happy tears or sad ones?” He shook with laughter.

“Both--” seeing her look, he quickly added, “--but mostly happy. Oh, Eve-- I never thought… I just… Oh, God. I’m so happy.” He crushed her in another hug.

I'll lead you nowhere, but to certain doom.

However, if you'd like to visit the gloom...

I'd be the best friend to sit in your room.

I try to write fairy-tales, humor, and quirk,

But mostly I write about mire and murk.

Sometimes I'm funny,

but mostly I'm glum,

and my conclusions are mindbogglingly dumb.

But if you like trauma and gore and tears,

then perhaps you should read of my hopes and fears--

sometimes a glimmer of light does shine through,

when I tell about all the ways that I grew.

At times I might write something salty and sweet,

Sometimes erotic, just for a treat.

But truly, most truly, don't follow me,

Because often I write because I'd like to flee.

I'm whiny, impulsive, and terribly kind,

a more contrary crafter you'll never find.

And lastly don't follow because,

I break all the rules of the challenge above.

I think I might be a terrible person.

I often find myself elbow deep in selflessness, drudgery, and humility: putting on a show for the rest of the world-- being the woman they so desperately want me to be.

I am a servant to others.

I am here for the one purpose: to serve-- to make the world a better place with it.

But it's a lie.

At the end of the day, I resent it.

I'd like to run away.

I'd like to do... just ONE thing for myself.

The mask I put on... it's beautiful.

I am ever the doting, self-sacrificial lamb.

I would jump in front of a bullet for many a random stranger.

I would give my lunch and coat to the homeless man, in hopes he might not freeze to death in the night.

A saint.

A martyr.

A coward.

The truth is... I am a coward. I am too terribly frightened to show the world the pitiful, wretched excuse of a human being hiding behind my many coats and hats.

I know the world would shun me:

The woman who longs for luxury.

The woman who might quite like to be a queen amongst peasants.

The woman who smiles to your face and cackles bitterly behind your back.

The truth is... I don't even know who I am anymore, because in my deepest, darkest heart... I would sacrifice myself for a stranger. I would give away my very last penny to feed the hungry. I would forsake my every desire, just to see my children smile a little more often.

But. I would feel bitterly, wretchedly sorry for myself with every 'selfless' action.

So here I stay, trapped always in a war with my own conscience, tearing me in half, and feeding my scraps to the needy, desperate for respite, but always starving to feed their pleas. A coward. A martyr. A monster. The most selfish of the selfless.

Content Warning: Sexual assault.

____________________

I'm sure you know where this piece is going, already. "I never did."

It went something like this:

"We've been together for a year and a half. I thought you loved me-- you said you loved me. All these months--"

"--I never did."

"You never what?"

"I never did-- love you, that is."

His voice was cold. His blue eyes were the color of steel instead of the skies I'd become accustomed to. He was telling the truth.

We were sat on the porch steps beneath the lamppost. School had been out for a few weeks, and I was finally sixteen...finally legal. I was naive. We'd spent the last summer in the balmy grip of sweaty, sensual first love. I assumed this summer would be the same. You didn't just walk away from someone you'd invested this much of your short life into, did you?

All the things we did...

I'd lost my virginity to him.

I'd lied for him, when we'd been caught and they'd sent me to court, bringing up charges of statutory rape against him.

I'd lied.

I lied like I never had before and never will again.

I was an actor at the time and at the threat of sounding like an egomaniac-- quite good for a 15 year old girl. I put on one hell of a show.

They believed me.

They believed me when I told them we'd just shared kisses and caresses, that we'd known each other for years--that when the officer had caught us in the back seat of a beat up Honda civic that night, it'd been the first time. It hadn't.

Six months earlier he'd actually raped me in the front seat of said Honda civic, though I didn't realize that was what had happened until a year later, as diluted in my fantasy as I'd been at 15.

I didn't tell the social workers that he'd started dating me when I was just fourteen...and he was eighteen. I didn't tell them about the scar on my lower back from the time I'd said No. No. no no no no. NO. I didn't tell them about the ways in which he'd abused the body of a barely-woman, using me like some tattered sex doll. I didn't tell them.

I didn't tell anyone.

I didn't know it was wrong.

All I knew was that my heart was breaking.

All I knew was that I loved him. I really did.

I'd given my treasure to swine.

He got up and left after uttering those terrible words: I NEVER did.

I went upstairs to my bed and contemplated suicide.

I didn't do it, obviously-- but that is another story entirely.

This story continued with a girl who spent the next year flinching away from any relationship whatsoever. I lost every friendship I'd ever had, the ones who'd been by my side since second grade... they slowly faded away as I spiraled into an empty husk of my former self.

The following year, grade 12-- I attempted to find my power. I preyed on the boys, exchanging saliva and desperation in alcoves and against lockers, then roughly shoving them away when things began to progress past kisses. I was horny and angsty and utterly terrified to have anyone lay hands on me, terrified to give up any semblance of control, terrified to love or be loved.

Against all odds, I met my husband in grade 12. The first time I saw him, he was dancing with another girl at homecoming. He was terribly tall and muscled, but inexplicably awkward. He looked very much like a teddy bear. He looked safe.

I locked eyes with him across the dance floor and I think somewhere, in that moment, the both of us knew that I'd make him mine. Six months later, I did.

He was safe.

He was also just as broken as I was.

We filled in the holes in each other's hearts. He kept me safe and I kept him safe.

He told me about every terrible thing that had ever happened to him.

I told him about every terrible thing that had ever happened to me...

Except...

"I never did."

I wanted to pretend that part hadn't happened. I wanted to pretend that I was too strong, too much of an over-comer to have ever been used so maliciously.

We got married.

We had babies.

We built careers and homes and a life beyond our greatest fantasy.

But some nights...

He'd reach out and I'd curl away.

Some nights...

I'd push him away.

He'd roll over with hurt feelings and I'd cry into my pillowcase.

Some nights...

I'd refuse to be touched at all. Not even comforted by him.

Some nights...

I'd flail and kick and murmur NO, until he shook me awake with questions in his eyes and sadness in his heart.

It took a decade for me to tell him.

His heart broke-- I saw it. His face crumpled in shame and he touched me gently on the cheek, tears in his eyes, crease in his brow. The pain written starkly in his gaze, "You never told me." He cupped my face in his large hands, "I didn't know. I didn't know. All this time...I thought it was about me... I didn't know. I am so sorry." He'd pulled me to his chest then, held me like a baby bird, and run calloused fingers along my back until I'd fallen asleep. Safe.

And I've been safe ever since. He is careful and so am I. We hold to each other, but do not crush... because as much as I'd like to say that the pain went away...

It never did.

It wasn't really the rape.

It wasn't the broken heart.

It wasn't the weird waste of the last year of my childhood.

It wasn't the friendships that broke irreparably in the aftermath.

It was the being used.

It was the lie.... Being told that I mattered when...

I never did.

I'm pretty positive my uncle Don was a pedophile.

He made creepy, leering jokes at me from the time I was nine onward.

Dad always refused to allow me to be alone with him, despite Don's apparent love and favoritism for me. My brothers were terribly jealous, because, while there was definitely a dark, sick undertone to his love, he bought incredible gifts. Just for me.

His wife (a mail-order bride from some secret location in Asia) also "loved me dearly." I never knew her name. Everyone just referred to her as Mrs. Wong. Their attempts to groom me and gain my trust were impressive to say the least. Dad had a long list of faults, but protecting me from his brother wasn't one of them. It was one of the only right things he ever did.

How on earth does this relate to cars?

I'm getting there.

Uncle Don loved old things. He loved the challenge of them. He bought old houses and cars and bicycles and really any old thing he could get his hands on and restored them. He bought and sold more cars than I can count. He had no problem letting go.

One car, however, he could not part with. No one knew the make or model. No one else had ever owned a car like it. It was Don's own creation.

It was the first car he ever built...

and it was a masterpiece.

Supposedly, Uncle Don had worked in a shop when he was a young man, and he had slowly stolen parts until he had the makings of an engine. Then, he'd taken to sneaking onto properties late at night, stealing larger pieces of metal off of old cars to weld together into something new. He finally saved up enough to buy some classic car (origin unknown-- he wouldn't tell anyone) to use as the base for the project, and then had spent the next half decade piecing it together.

He was left with something resembling an old fashioned bat-mobile. The car was the color of midnight, with smooth, rounded lines, velvet seats, and a shining chrome hood ornament. The car was legendary. He had never lost a show in which it had been entered. The car was famous in every town it frequented.

They say that Don never had any children. They're wrong.

He did. It was that beautiful black monstrosity of a vehicle.

He lovingly draped it in blankets each night after spending hours of the day tinkering on it, perfecting it, waxing its paint.

That car was his child: his creation.

No one was allowed inside--Not even Mrs. Wong.

Until.

We met Uncle Don at some car show in a small town. It was mid-summer and the sun had just set. The atmosphere was perfect for cruising. I was twelve. I was brave.

And Uncle Don invited me on a ride in his car.

Even dad couldn't say no to that. He'd been dying to sit in the thing for years.

Don treated me like the queen of the whole wide world. He read the warning look my father gave, nodded his head at the murder threatening in his eyes, and held open the door of his most precious possession for me to slip inside.

(He did-- behave, that is. Don never did lay an inappropriate finger on me. I know you were worried, but this isn't that kind of story.)

The velvet of the seats was even softer than it looked. It felt like floating on a cloud- it felt like luxury. The blending of leather and metal and wood on the inside of that car was artistry itself.

Don slipped into the driver seat and smirked, "Are you ready?" he asked.

"Yes." I'd scarcely whispered, torn as I was between awe and fear.

His smile widened and he turned the key. The engine rumbled and screamed and purred. I could feel it in my soul.

He accelerated and the engine roared, and we sped off down the road, and I forgot time had any meaning at all as the wind whipped my long hair and my skin melted into velvet and my heart pulsed with every nudge of the gas pedal.

When it was over, I could scarcely bring myself to slide out of the soft seat. Uncle Don waited with the door held for a long minute, a knowing glint in his eye. As I stepped onto the pavement, he whispered in my ear, "Now you'll never be able to say no to a guy with a fast car again..."

And he was right.

My life is chaos.

It’s full to the brim with fat little feet slapping on hardwood floors, with bickering over whose unicorn gets to be the mommy this time, with moods, with runny noses, with splattered paint and crocodile tears. It’s full of crossed arms and defiant glares and tattle-taling.

It’s full of loud noises and ‘I wants’ and overstimulations.

It’s full of saying the same thing on repeat for all eternity.

It’s full of the ‘but whys’ and the “mom mom mom mom moms.”

My life is terribly full– overwhelmingly full.

It’s full of warm bodies piling into an overly stuffed king-sized bed.

It’s full of kisses on the forehead and ‘I love yous’ and clasped hands swallowed in mine.

It’s full of driving to the next adventure, music blasting, tiny voices singing out in an incessant quest of finding oneself.

It’s full of scraped knees and bandages and snot rubbed on my shoulder from consoling after bicycle crashes.

It’s full of ball-playing, bike-jumping, frog-catching boyhood.

It’s full of ‘one more story’ and dancing in the kitchen and ’I don’t want to clean my rooms.'

It’s full of shining eyes, shining hearts at watching them capture their dreams in a jar.

My life is terribly full— wonderfully full.

Yes, my life is fuller than I could have ever Imagined. Sometimes the days stretch in unending swathes of whining and crying and exhaustion–Others they fly past in a blur of colorful laughter. Being a parent is the most challenging, rewarding undertaking of all.

My life is Chaos,

And I wouldn’t change a thing.

She lied because the truth was a horror upon which she couldn't bear to reflect; she'd been alone all this time, speaking only to the voices inside her head, telling them lies about who she was, about what the world was, about happiness, about existing in anything but a dystopian hellscape. It was a beautiful lie.

When I was eleven, I thought my life was already over. I’d settled into the tedium of the well-defined role of ‘traditional woman.’ I was to be a helper. This world was for men, and my only job was to ensure that things came easily to their grasp. I was meager. I was meek. I was not the kind of girl to stir up trouble. The feisty part of my spirit had been drowned in dirty dish water when I was five, standing at the sink, scrubbing until little fingers bled. Playing was for boys– for men. Housework was for the women. Women weren’t meant to have adventures, not unless they were accompanying men, anyway. Yada yada. It’s what I was told.

It’s what I believed.

I was bored out of my mind with the role foisted upon me, but I accepted it nonetheless. And so I sat and pulled at tufts of grass, mind wandering down dark corridors, opening antique clocks, solving mysteries like Nancy Drew, while the boys rode motorcycles and shot BB guns. I journeyed in mind, while they left me for hours, sitting on the tailgate of a rusty pickup truck, alone, in the middle of nowhere. They’d come back around noon for sandwiches, disappointed if the food wasn’t already waiting. I hadn’t had anything else to do, after all.

It was one such Saturday that I found a spark of the indomitable spirit I’d been born with. I decided to leave the truck. I decided to go explore. I would not leave all of the adventure to the boys. First, I ventured only a short distance, to a tall pine at the center of the clearing. There, I found a loveliness of ladybugs, congregating at the base of the tree. I thrust my palm into them, relishing in their tiny legs tickling up my arm. They were soft and sweet and nearly as friendly as the pair of doves I’d spent the past weeks cooing at from the bed of the truck. I spent well over an hour getting lost in the ladybugs.

My enchantment was broken by a hot splash on my arm. Steaming liquid drowning my pretty red friends. My brother, urinating all over the little creatures… and me. I screamed in rage and shook the wetted bugs from my arm, fist balling, ready to strike. Booming laughter from the men standing near the open truck tailgate joined the cackle of my brother’s sick happiness. “Where’s lunch, Pearl?” they called between chuckles.

I shoved my brother over and mumbled, “get it yourself,” under my breath. I wasn’t brave enough– dumb enough– to say it where they could hear me. I stalked off, up the dirt road. I hadn’t made it half a mile when they zipped past on motorbikes, leaving me behind with nothing but dust in my mouth and the ringing of wicked laughter in my ears.

I plopped down on a grassy slope, disappointed that in all my walking, I’d just ended up where they were riding, on a hillside creatively named “the meadow.” I didn’t have it in me to keep walking. I watched my brothers jump. I watched my dad try ill-favored stunts from years gone by. I watched my uncle weave between trees, not to be outdone by his older brother.

I hated myself. I hated them. I hated the hot tears that threatened to fall out of my eyelids. I ripped at the grass, pulling hunks from the earth to match the holes in my heart. I lay back, hoping, secretly, that one of them would run me over. Maybe that would at least make them feel a little bit sorry. I watched the clouds breeze by and imagined I was a ladybug flying above the trees. I could almost feel little feet crawling on my skin as my eyes drifted shut and I fell fast asleep.

When I woke it was dusk, and my father was gruffly ordering that I hop on the back of his bike. We rode down to the truck, the wind whipping my hair, and I felt terribly, wonderfully alive. I never wanted it to end. I could have ridden on the back of that motorcycle for the rest of forever, but instead, we stopped. I cleaned up tuna cans from their hasty lunch, guilt eating at me for making them do it themselves, skin crawling. My skin wouldn’t stop crawling. Not during the hour-long drive home. Not while I helped unload and wash the bikes. Not while I put together dinner in the kitchen.

I begged off to go and take a shower before we ate and was allowed several luxurious minutes. I scrubbed, but the crawling wouldn’t subside. It centralized: a pinpoint of annoyance in my belly button. I finally got up the courage to look at the truth that I could feel crawling there. Little legs protruded from the folds of my belly button. I screamed and Dad came in to see what the hell all of the fuss was about. When I explained he laughed. He brought in a flashlight and looked at my belly button. “HAH!” he’d said, startling me, “yer right, Pearl. It is a bug. Looks like a tick.” I started panicking.

“Get it out. Please! Dad– get. It. out!”

“Enough–” he replied, raising a hand and silencing my pleas, “we will deal with this after dinner.”

I sat through dinner, gulping down food, nauseated, but attempting to fake it. Dad scowled and told me to toughen up. I flinched away from the crawling in my abdomen. Dad told me I was being ridiculous–dramatic. He didn’t ever try to help me remove the tick. I tried for a long time, to pull the thing out with tweezers, while I hid in the bathroom, pretending to pack to go back to my mom’s house. I had no luck.

Mercifully, my brothers and I were going home to mom that night, else I fear I would have been forced to sleep with the tick in my belly button. When we arrived at mom’s, she had me lie down on the dining room table and everyone took turns trying to pry the wriggly wee beast out of my astonishingly deep belly button. You see, leaving the head of a tick in one's skin can lead to terrible infection, so we needed to be careful not to break it. It was a delicate game I quite wanted to opt out of playing. At one point, my oldest brother (who lived with mom only) had the bright idea to try and scare the thing out with a match. Suffice it to say that I ended up with a burnt belly button and a stubborn tick still very much inside. Finally, mother stepped in, wrenched the tweezers out of my brother’s hand, and ordered them all from the room.

“Hon– I am going to pull the tick out. If I don’t get the head, we will go to the doctor in the morning. Okay?” she asked.

I gulped, “Okay.”

“Lay back,” mom commanded.

I complied, and she yanked the tick out, whole.

My mother could always be counted on to get the job done, no matter what.

I showered for what felt like hours, washing away the remnants of a day I would have liked to forget, but that lives stubbornly on in memory.

That is the day that I stopped liking bugs.

It’s the day I stopped laying in the grass.

It’s the day I stopped trying to go on adventures.

It’s the day I gave up: the day I decided it would be better to stay on the tailgate.