J. Salsbury - Fighting to Forget

“I acted like a dick, got you alone on a bed with a bottle of booze.” I shrug. “What’s a girl to think? I set you up and then treated you like shit for taking the bait. I’m sorry too.”

A tiny smile lights her pretty face. “Thank you for being so cool about it. And for the record, I don’t go around, you know, kissing any guy who helps me out of a jam.”

Damn if this little shy-girl routine isn’t fucking adorable.

“Mac?” I draw out her name. “What is it with you?”

Her head jerks a little and she lifts her chin. “Me?”

“Yeah. You ride a motorcycle, take punches meant for a man and don’t even cry. And now, you’re confronting the guy who treated you like shit.” I fight to keep my shoulders up through the weight of my guilt. “Even though I’m the one who owes you an apology. And yet”—a slow smile curves my lips—“you blush talking about a kiss.”

She props her hands on her narrow hips, glares at me, and smiles. “I am not blushing.”

I nod and fold my arms over my chest. “No?”

“No.”

“All right, fine. Let’s put it to the test.” And satisfy my insane fucking urge to recreate it. “Tell me what happened between us a week ago tonight.” The fact that I know it’s been a week probably gives away that I’ve been thinking about our kiss, but there’s no taking it back now.

She lifts one eyebrow and bites her lip. “Hmm, let’s see if I can remember.” Her gaze slides to just over my shoulder and her lips purse in thought. “You gave me a ride to my place, I took a punch to the cheek, we went back to your neighbor’s place, and you tried to get me drunk.”

“Not the most accurate retelling of events, but I’ll accept it. You’re still missing the most important part.” The part that makes my blood feel as if it’s itching to relive it.

She takes a step closer and tilts her chin back to look up at me. “I was grateful for all your help, so I . . .”

I quirk an eyebrow, waiting and watching for the light of her cheeks to flood pink. “Go on; you’ve come this far,” I whisper. “Say it.”

Her eyes roam my face from my eyes to my neck and back up to my lips. Her smile falls. “I kissed you.” She blushes.

My dick swells and queasiness rips through my stomach. Her words affect me in such polar opposite ways it’s intoxicating. And even now, after she’s apologized and I’ve promised myself to avoid her at all costs, I’m gonna do it again.

I drop down from the tailgate and take a step toward her, dissolving the little space left between us. With the tips of my fingers, I hook her beneath the chin and tilt her face up to mine. Her eyes flutter, as if she’s trying to keep them open, and her lips relax. The bursts of air from her mouth prove that I’m having the same effect on her as she is on me.

“This looks better.” I run my thumb along the healing split on her cheek. It’s no longer scabbed and only an angry red mark remains. With a gentle pressure, I run my finger against her skin. “So soft.”

Her breath hitches, and my stomach threatens to unload. I’m wound up tight and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.

“You kissed me because you were grateful that I helped you.” I move my hand from her face to the nape of her neck. “Don’t know if you remember, baby, but I did it again tonight.” I don’t want to say it. I don’t want to want it. But fuck, I need it. “I’m thinkin’ you owe me another kiss.” My lips burn to feel hers again. I tug on my lip ring with my teeth.

Her neck stiffens and her eyes narrow. “But . . .?”

“Told you I was a dick.” I flex my fingers into her tight muscles. “You caught me off guard. Won’t happen again.”

She gives a tight nod and lifts up on her tiptoes.

I groan at her willingness to give me what I want. What else would she do if I asked? I swallow back the saliva that floods my throat and pull her up to meet my lips.

Just like the first time, we meet with a tentative brush. The warm, pliable flesh of her mouth runs along mine and lingers at my lip ring. She curls her lips around it and pulls away with a tug that makes my dick throb.

“There.” She backs away and smiles. “Goodnight.” Turning on her heel, she pulls open the back door and disappears into the club.

My heart pounds in my chest, half of me screaming to go to her and fuck her senseless and the other half looking for a safe place to puke.

For the first time in as long as I can remember, I’d gladly take the vomitous reaction if it means even ten seconds between Mac’s thighs.

I scrub my face and fist my hair. What the hell is this woman doing to me? My appointment with my therapist is tomorrow. Maybe it’s time we work harder to get to the bottom of all my shit, if for no other reason than to be able to hang out more with Mac without having to run off every time things breach the make-out level of an eighth-grader.

The memory of her soft skin beneath my hand, her rushed breath, and the honeyed taste of her lips. . . Huh. Thinking about it now is only mildly repulsive. Progress.

Rex

“Hey, Rex.” My shrink pops his head out of his office and waves me in. “Come on in.”

I stand from the leather couch in the waiting room, happy to get away from the damn flute music that’s dancing through the stereo speakers. Honestly, does that shit really make people relax? It gives me the urge to flute-whip a hippy.

“Have a seat.” He motions to one of the two overstuffed chairs in his office then swivels around to grab his yellow legal pad and pen.

I drop down into the chair I always pick, the one I’ve been sitting in one day a week for all these years. Not sure why I always pick this one, but something tells me Darren Gale—with a ton of letters after his name—would say it’s OCD tendencies or some psychobabble shit like that.

“So?” He leans back in his chair, legs crossed. “How’ve you been?”

When I first started coming here, I was barely speaking and he had a hell of a lot more hair. He never pushed me to talk about things until I volunteered, and he’d be happy to just sit and not talk at all if that’s what I needed. Often times it was. But now, he’s the closest thing I have to family.

“I’ve been all right.” I flick a ball of lint off the chair’s arm.

He hums in acknowledgment. “You sleeping okay?”

I shrug. “Had to take some Trazodone last week, but it’s been better since.”

“Dreams?” He scribbles something down.

“Yeah. Same ole same.”

He drops his gaze and busies his pen on his legal pad. “The little girl or the men?”

My stomach tightens at the mention of those dreams. “The little girl and the one where I’m stuck in the dark.” And sometimes the others.

“Are you writing in your journal as I suggested?”

I shake my head and study the floor. Filling pages with feelings doesn’t appeal to me. “Kinda. I write lyrics from them.”

“That’s helping?”

“Yes.” Not really.

He puts his pad and pen on his desk and leans back in his chair. “This is good. You’re processing the nightmares in a way that works. The sexual dreams with the men, that—”

“Stop. I know what you mean.”

“Rex.” He gives me the look. The one that says skating around my issues won’t lead to progress.

“I just . . . it’s hard enough to dream it. I don’t want to hear you talk about it.” I grip my stomach and nausea builds in my throat.

The dreams. Flashes of different faces. Older men with hungry eyes, licking their lips, reaching out to touch, and all the feelings that come with it. The terror, pain, and helplessness. For years I thought those dreams were telling me I’m gay—even though I’m not the least bit attracted to men—but why the hell would a teenage kid dream about them in this way?

“I understand. I do, but if these are actual memories, then we can work on molestation victimization rather tha—”

“I’m not a victim. They aren’t memories. They’re . . . they can’t be.” I tug on my lip ring to keep my fingers off the rubber band at my wrist.

“Just because there’s no proof doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.”

“Exactly. I would’ve told someone at the hospital or my case worker from the home.” Hope drips slowly, freeing my lungs enough to take a full breath.

There’s no record of me being abused, only that I tried to kill myself when I was ten and was taken out of foster care and put into a group home for troubled kids.

His eyes go soft with sympathy that just pisses me the fuck off.

“There are people out there that go through lifetimes of abuse and never talk. You tried to kill yourself, Rex. It’s important to ask yourself what would drive a ten-year-old boy to do that.”

I wasn’t trying to kill myself. At least, I don’t think I was. I have a vague memory of pressing the sharp piece of metal into my skin and dragging it down my arm. It was exciting. It made me feel hopeful. I just can’t remember why.

“In your professional opinion, I was being molested and I tried to kill myself. Those seem like two pretty fucking significant things. Why don’t I remember any of it?”

“We’ve talked about this, how children handle trauma differently than adults. They unconsciously lock away the traumatic memories as a form of protection. It’s not that you don’t remember; it’s that your mind won’t allow you to unlock the place where they’re stored.”

I groan and pinch my eyes closed. Accepting that I was sexually molested by men, many different men, is more than I can stomach. And the dreams, they’re so vivid: the conflicting feelings of hating what’s happening to me, but not being able to control my body’s reaction to the touch. I break out in a sweat and wipe my palms on my pants.

Why would any living breathing human being allow that to happen to a kid in his care? God! What kind of a sick fucking world is this? And if the memories are locked in there and somehow they get unlocked, what then?

My skin feels alive, and I’m overcome with the urge to race out of here. “I’m sick.” The words are meant for only me and come out strangled.

“You’re not sick. You were an innocent child who trusted those who were trusted to take care of you.” His words are clipped with anger. “If there was a way I could get more information about the different families, investigate and find out what happened to you, I would.”

“There’s nothing to suggest those things happened. They’re just dreams.” Dreams of a sexually demented and mentally unstable psycho.

“Nothing is just a dream, Rex. Everything has meaning: your fear of letting people in, compulsion to be clean and stay organized. You don’t allow anyone in to mess up the delicate balance that’s keeping you on the right side of sane? All of that means something.”

I dig my fists into my eyes and rub. God, why won’t he stop talking?

“You crave structure, order, because it’s something you can control. Not allowing people into your condo keeps your space safe.”

Stop. Fucking. Talking!

“And your sexual habits . . . Prostitutes and easy women who allow you to get what you need and move on. That too—”

“Stop it! None of this bullshit you’re talking about is real.” I lean toward him and stab my finger into my chest. “I’m a sick fuck! There’s no reason for why I’m sick; I just am. Have you ever thought of that?”

His eyes narrow. “It’s possible, but doubtful.”

“Doubtful? My mom was bi-polar, depressed, and who knows what else.” I shake my head, suddenly irritated that I don’t have a single fucking memory of her that didn’t come from her autopsy report. “My dreams, my OCD, the shit I do to my body, maybe that’s just me and there is no excuse.”

He’s quiet, his expression blank and probably not at all surprised by my outburst. He’s heard it all before. Without concrete memories, therapy has been me chasing my tail around a big fat void.

The small office grows tight with my heavy breathing. Silence fills the space between us. People don’t understand what it’s like to not have a past, to have no roots, nothing that grounds me. At least if I had a history I could remember it would explain why I am the way I am. It’d be like discovering the germ that causes the sickness in order to formulate a cure.