CHAPTER FIVE
Fighter
It’s not even ten o’clock when I slide out of my clothes and pull a T-shirt from my bureau. This day has tired me out. Pausing before I pull the shirt over my head, I step in front of the full-length mirror. This is not something that I’ve done in a while, but I’m overwhelmed with the impulse to see my reflection. I’m not sure why. Few women I know, including myself, find it particularly thrilling to look at themselves only in underwear. But now I look at my calves, my thighs, my stomach. Pivoting slightly on my toes, I check out the view from behind.
Huh. Maybe it is the low, flattering lighting from the small lamp by my bed, but I definitely don’t look awful. Surprisingly, my body is not so unappealing that I want to burst into tears. Although I don’t look great, either. I sit down on the floor and fold my legs in front of me. Crisscross applesauce. I examine my face and my hair, almost as if I’m meeting myself for the first time. My hair tumbles from the knot on the top of my head as I pull out the elastic. Unruly curls fall over my shoulders; I’m neither blonde nor brunette, but somewhere in between. Then there are my eyes. My blue eyes, which even I have to admit are decent. Prettyish. My full cheeks have a slight pink flush from being out in the sun today. Yes, I am not entirely disastrous looking. On the verge, perhaps, but not without the possibility of salvation.
Of course, there is still my arm. I hold out my forearm and peer at the reflected image. The four-inch scar is still jagged despite the surgeon’s neat sutures. Maybe a larger hospital would have had a more skilled surgeon, but I don’t really mind. I deserve to have a much-worse scar than this, all things considered. I uncross my legs and put my feet flat on the floor. Pushing myself up, I slowly come to a stand as I move my hands up the lines of my figure. The skin under my palms tingles and tenses, not used to touch. Even my own. My hands trace over my calves, around to the back of my thighs. I certainly have some extra weight in my legs. Somewhere under my palms has to be muscle and definition, but I can’t find it. My fingers skim the curve of my waist. It is the one part of my body that hasn’t seemed to gain weight. Everything that I eat or drink hits my legs and ass, but my stomach somehow stays relatively flat. So at least there is that. My touch travels over my stomach, back and forth, and I close my eyes as my hands move to my breasts. I linger for a few moments, suddenly aware of how much I’m enjoying this. One hand moves lower, back across my stomach, under the edge of my underwear.
Okay. Apparently, I still have some kind of sex drive.
I stumble to the bed, seemingly drunk on what I’m feeling. As I fall against the rumpled sheets, my free hand moves into my hair while the other moves farther between my legs. A longing and need grow, one that I haven’t felt in ages. I rub my fingers slowly over myself while my mind drifts to Chris as I first saw him, his lean body silhouetted against the morning light.
What’s a little risk now and then, huh?
I turn my head to the side while my eyes close,and I curl up my hips. I take my time, letting my body’s reactions lead my fingers to the places that feel best. I can’t even remember the last time that I’ve touched myself like this. My thoughts are blurry and wonderful, and the stress and depression that usually lead me have dissipated for now. There is one sensation overwhelming me, one desire in charge, and I surrender easily to this because for once, for once, I am seeking and finding something other than self-loathing and pain. My rhythm is soft at first as I find what I like and how I like it, but soon it seems that I have unleashed some sort of fiend that’s been shackled for far too long. That fiend is demanding, and my body and my unconscious thoughts take over. Live a little.
My hand presses harder, faster, making the intensity build.
Show me.
Heat overtakes me, and I shove down the sheets.
I’d rather stay right here with you.
My breathing picks up.
There is no God. Not for us.
One hand is back in my hair, tightening against my scalp, and my heels dig into the bed as my body tenses. I start to tremble and shake. The sound that comes from my lips surprises me, but the strength of the release makes it impossible to be quiet.
I’m smiling, and I turn onto my side and swallow hard as I catch my breath. Holy shit, I needed that. I so, so needed that. It occurs to me that what I felt just now was so crazily awesome that I may never leave this bed again. I might just stay here and masturbate all the time, classes be damned. Then I am laughing, almost giddy, because I am persuaded that, to at least some degree, my body is my own again. Perhaps my mind will follow?
What’s certain is that I feel better than I have in months. Years, really. I think of Sabin, with his exuberance and charm; and of Estelle, with her enviable physical beauty and her self-assurance. And Chris. Chris with his … magnetism. His stability.
I try to coax myself into thinking about something besides Chris. Sure, he stayed with me at the lake, took me to lunch, and walked me back to my dorm—our dorm, as it turns out—before heading to his basement single. So what? I laugh out loud as I confront the truth: There’s no way he’s lying in bed right now, obsessing over his day with me. Well, or masturbating himself into a frenzy. Today was probably a completely ordinary day in his life. Even if I never speak to him again, I am grateful for this day, this one day when my misery lifted, even if just for a little while.
Later, in the depths of my sleep, I dream. A new, unfamiliar dream this time.
I’m on the shore somewhere. It’s a long stretch of pebbly sand, and I curl my toes into the little rocks until it hurts. Until I start to bleed. I look down and wonder why I’m doing this. It occurs to me to look around to see if someone will help me, but the rest of the beach is empty. Miles to the left and right are silent. Still.
Then I look in front of me. There is a boy standing on a sun-bleached dock. I guess that he’s about … I don’t know. Twelve? I can’t quite tell. He is wearing swim trunks and a sleeveless shirt. Deeply tanned, the wind in his hair. A beautiful child. Then I see that he is skipping stones. The water is rough, so I can’t see if his stones end up skipping. When I try to call to him to ask if he will help me stop digging my feet farther into what are now shards of rock, I can’t make a sound. Nonetheless, he turns to me. As if he hears me despite the silence. The peaceful, content look on his face calms me, and I’m able to take a few steps forward and my pain eases.
Without warning, fire erupts around him, and the boy is engulfed in leaping flames. I start to choke. I can’t move now; I can only watch and scream. I’m confused because he doesn’t struggle, he doesn’t jump into the water, he doesn’t do anything. I watch as his figure fades and then the fire subsides. The dock is now empty, as though he was never there. As though it never happened.
But soon I’m smiling, and I throw my head back, laughing. The boy emerges from the water, unscathed by the fire, and climbs back onto the dock. He puts his hands on hips and looks at me, an unmistakably determined expression on his face.
The boy is a fighter.
He nods once at me, and I nod back with some sort of understanding that I can’t identify. I have no explanation for the clear connection between us because we are nothing alike.
He is a fighter. I am not.
And yet, we are unquestionably linked.