Cross, Part Three
Editor’s note: This following story is copied from its original draft, scribbled illegibly in a spiral notebook way back in September of 1989. Barring egregious errors in syntax, grammar, and style, it has been represented as faithful to that original, scribbled draft as possible. A kind of prosaic “time capsule” if you will….
Fortune was already up and about, brushing her hair and dancing to no audible music in the full length mirror by her bookcase. I wondered if she had actually been awake the entire time, and if so, what she thought about me leaving her alone for so long. I checked and it hadn’t been as long as I had thought. She didn’t look at either Bryanna or myself as we walked into the room.
“Hey, hon!” Bryanna went to give her a hug, but didn’t at the last moment. “Look, you’re in better spirits already! Let’s see your boo-boo….”
Fortune turned to her, not having yet saying anything, lifted her sweater up to her chest with her left arm and peeled off the tape and gauze with her right. She looked as if she was proud of the way the scar was coming out. A perfect crucifix on her flat, tan tummy. I got the feeling that, somehow, she had been staring at it the entire time I was downstairs, and that she’d watch it develop into a nice hard scab over the next week. It would scar her for life and she was proud of it. Bryanna leaned against the mirror.
“Shit, Tuna, I mean, what the fuck?! How…how do you want us to react to this shit! I mean, I love you so, so, so much, and I hate, hate you doing this to yourself—and doing this to us! Do you think it’s fair?” Bryanna was still looking at Fortune’s scar, probably trying to figure out the significance of a crucifix, which prompted me to do the same. Fortune was a devout atheist and I couldn’t figure out if it was just to be symbolic or just an idea off the top of her head. Fortune was now looking at me as if she knew I knew the answer to Bryanna’s question, but I wasn’t going to say anything until she did. I was mad now, for some reason.
“Bry, why would you take something like this personally? I did it to me, not you?” Fortune was now rubbing her fingers softly across her scar. Her tone of voice was flirtatious and daring. I felt strongly like she was daring us to do the same to our stomachs. Bryanna missed it completely and stood up to be better heard.
“You’re wrong, Tuna. You hurt me by doing this. I may not…I may not have any scars to prove it. But I’m here now,aren’t I? This, my being here giving up everything else in my life right now, to be here with you, should prove how much I want to help you through your pain. Sure I’m can’t understand whatever fuckin’ hell you’re going through, But I’m here to make it all a little easier for you!” She grabbed Fortune’s head, which had been looking at me this entire time, towards hers, and she, Bryanna, was screaming now, spit occasionally jumping off her bottom lip. “Tell me, sweetheart, what is it exactly that I do for you?” Bryanna sat Fortune on the bed,then sat beside her.
I, myself, had several times wanted to ask Fortune that same question, but was always afraid she would offer some, vague, superficial reply. That was a question, if asked, I would need an honest and exact answer for.
“You deal with me,” she smiled. “Both of you.” She looked at her now. “I can’t deal with me. Can’t deal with being me. You guys deal with me and makes me feel loved. I don’t like it sometimes, it makes me feel guilty. I, honestly,don’t think I deserve it. And I hate feeling asking for it. “She was wrong, although I’m sure at the time she didn’t think so.
“You’re lying and you don’t even know it!” I said not looking at her, and I knew she wasn’t looking at me. “You feel so much you deserved to be loved, but you’re frustrated that the world doesn’t love you the way you want it to. You couldn’t even begin to tell the world how to love you and you’re tired of waiting for everyone else to figure it out themselves. And the fact that they haven’t makes you feel like no one’s putting in enough effort, as if everyone’s decided you’re not worth the bother!” I lit a cigarette. She turned to me and probably wanted to be crying, I guessed.
“Do you think I’m worth the bother?” She actually snapped at me.
“Yes!”
“Am I a bother?”
“No! In a lot of ways you’re actually therapy for me!”
“Do you love me?”, she asked, and though tempted not to answer the question seriously, I was actually in the mood to address our address our relationship and define some of it—even after three years. I wanted to have accomplished something for the both of us by the time we all went to sleep.
“Of course he does!” Bryanna answered before I did, as if she were afraid I would not answer correctly. As if an honest answer would not have been a practical one. “And so do I, Tuna?” Bryanna must have started feeling a bit insignificant, worried, I guessed, that Fortune’s relationship with me was for more important than one with her.
“Oh, and I love you guys, too! You know that!” She stood up and walked towards the window. But I knew that her saying “love” she meant before. The earlier “love” was one that had never been used before, at least with me. And I had never heard her use that “love” with anyone else or talking about anyone else. Looking back, there was no way I could have answered that question and felt that I was being 100% sincere.
Tags: depression, doubt, drama, love, night, Westchester, youth
