Scars and Notes
Setember 11, 2003
When we were kids, she'd punch my shoulder, straight and strong, like a guy. "Ouch," I'd say, and massage where her fist had just been. "Liar, that didn't hurt," But it would. Just a little. Once, she grabbed my wrist and dug her fingernails in deep. I don't remember why anymore. But it bled. She twisted my wrist, pulled it up to her face, and squinted at the red trickle of blood. "Wow, sorry," she laughed, and threw my arm down. Eventually, the cut scabbed up. I picked at it every day to keep it fresh, but like a drying lake bed, the wound's borders shrank little by little until finally all that was left was a crescent-shaped scar. I was in sixth grade, but I still have the mark. By eighth grade, she'd given me a deeper wound than that, only it wasn't on the outside. I picked at that one too, in a way. When we entered high school, I lost track of her for a little while. She'd gone away to a private school for troubled kids. But one day, out of the blue, she called me. Invited me over. I remember going up to her bedroom. I'd never been up there before. It was in the attic, and the air was thick and still. She told me she wanted to tell me things, but she didn't know how to say them, and then she handed me a note. Blue ballpoint script on a piece of notebook paper torn out of a spiral binder and frayed on its edge. It was an apology. It said she was sorry for hurting me. She missed me. Missed the closeness we used to share when we were together every day. And it said she loved me. I was just a kid. Thirteen or fourteen. No one, besides my family, had ever said they loved me before. If she'd handed me that note a year earlier, I would've floated up to the stratosphere and exploded into a million sparkling shivers of happiness. But she didn't. Instead, she gave it to me after the wound was already filled in and covered with a rubbery scar. So the words just bounced across my chest with a dull thud. She wanted me to tell her I loved her, too. At least to say something to her. But I just stood there stupidly, like the dumb kid I was. Like the dumb kid I still am.
