she goes by lottie she can be pretty naughty (lustres) wrote in invol_rpg, @ 2012-12-31 17:12:00 |
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They do not tell you what you are supposed to do when your boyfriend dies. When your husband dies, you are given a certain amount of time. The grieving period. When she was in high school, Lottie’s English teacher’s husband died of a heart attack and she showed up for the rest of the year with the same red-rimmed eyes, shaking hands, the same wing pin stuck on her blouse, whether it was the one with the pearl buttons or the collar that looked like rotten lace dripping from her drooping jowl. She was an old woman, and Lottie was frightened of old age the way every teenager is. Perhaps, because, it gave Mrs Beidelman a certain level of intimidation, those quivering chins, the rain of wrinkles; or maybe it was just that death lingered too close to her for Lottie to feel comfortable. She died too, not too long ago, maybe two or three years ago, in her sleep. Lottie did not go to the memorial service that the school had sponsored. She could not remember anything about the teacher, after all, besides the fact her husband had died and she had dragged herself around like he was sitting on her shoulders, trying to push her into the ground with him. But when your boyfriend dies, there is an expectation of being able to bounce back. You are not given the luxury of roaming around in your grief, wrapping yourself in its protective blanket – instead, you are reminded of Youth and Brevity and How You Must Move On. Here, dry your eyes, you are still young – the grief counselor had clucked and tutted over Lottie while she sat there, mum, silent as a grave, while she reassured her and tried to get Lottie to speak. Speak, Lottie, and normally it was never a problem, but it was as if the words had crystallized in her mouth, and the precious diamonds sat lodged in her jaw, cutting into her gums, precious, too precious to spill. She did not understand; she could not understand, not all her training and her degrees let her know how Lottie, with her histrionics, with her dramatics, could possibly feel right now. She knows how to comfort brothers, sisters, sons and daughters; husbands, wives, aunts and uncles – but no, not girlfriends, not close enough to be rendered immobile, too close to wipe her eyes and move on. There is a degree of grief only reserved for widows. Lottie is not one of them. she does not know anyone who has had a dead boyfriend, and now she does, and so she sits in the corner of the room she’s staying in at the safehouse, clean white sheets and clean white walls and clean white ceiling with a bright light that pulses and buzzes as it works, and lets the white wash over her. Her phone persistently lights up and vibrates, grating the white noise buzz of the light against Lottie’s hearing. Lottie pushes her phone away from her and isolates herself because the idea of seeing the flood of “I’m Sorry”’s only annoys her. As if that perfunctory, obligatory ‘sorry’ is supposed to patch her up – that somehow the word will float into her chest cavity and fix itself on her heart, in the space where Erik, and now, his acute absence, have fixed themselves. She hates the word ‘sorry’ the same way some people hate certain colors or certain car models, doing certain chores or eating certain foods. ‘Sorry’ holds resentment in it, coloring the vowels; ‘sorry’ has futility in it, the lack of fight. Lottie has said sorry many, many times – to her parents, to her sister, to friends, to boyfriends – but she says it because holding it in eats at her, each corrosive letter insidiously clanging against her mind, her regrets rolling and gathering so that it forms a lump that sits in her throat until she dislodges it. She says it out of desperation. It’s a tool, a bandage. And she is sorry now, sorry that she is hiding in her room and staring at the light and feeling tears roll down her face. She’s self-indulgent, she knows; she always has been. When she was little, she used to stick her hands into cake batter before her mother could stop her and lick it all off her hand. She has failed a thousand and one attempts at trying various fad diets because she loves carbohydrates too much to be parted with them and a steak is just, like, so much better than a salad; and to be honest, she likes to feel sorry for herself because crying about it feels good. She wishes Erik were there. She sits curled up in the sheets and thinks about Erik and the way she used to nest her head in the soft curve of his shoulder-becoming-neck-becoming-jaw; his tender eyes; the soft line of his mouth, set in its quietude; she thinks of Erik and the way his lips curl when he hears Adele and how she likes to play Ed Sheeran, sometimes, just to get a rise out of him. She thinks of his large hands in the dirt and the grimace he wears, and she thinks of standing behind him and the neat rows of tomatoes, beans, and vines curling around little stakes, the flowers, admiring the shape of his head and his ears and just how perfect he is. She thinks of the sound of his voice and how she treasures it; she thinks of his softspoken ‘okays’ and the way the word safely settles inside of her and warms her like a blanket, his gentle reassurance. She stares at the ceiling and she turns to stare at the walls and turns over again to stare at the empty space, that small sliver between herself and the wall. She shifts into the space on this stupid cot where Erik could squeeze himself in he were here, if he were alive. Lottie doesn’t know how to think for herself. She listens to her friends and their opinions and lets them dictate her thoughts. Yes, you should like the football captain, he’s hot; here, drink this shot, it’s nothing, you’re fun if you do; try out for the cheerleading squad, we’re all doing it; rush with us, we’re all doing it. Are you getting the chip? (She touches the little scar at the base of her hairline, the miniscule stitches.) Every decision is hinged on what people tell her to do. The idea of trying to figure things out on her own – not influenced by another person – frightens her. It is like being stuck on an island, watching the emergency raft drift away; it is like being dropped in the middle of a jungle without a map, like being given a test written in another language and having a gun pointed at your head. Lottie wavers, searching for a compass in the search of guiding words, but the one thing they are going to tell her – the I’m sorrys, the It Will Get Better, the It Will Be Okay – she doesn’t want to hear any of it. What use is sorry when the space next to her is still empty? When there’s a chance that – maybe – Carter will not be able to see Daisy and her hair spilling on the pillow next to him, that Alex will not be allowed to have the happy ending with Marine that Lottie wants so urgently for the both of them? When there’s the knowledge that Erik will not be waiting for her at IVI, his dimpled smile, his hands outstretched to her, his mouth calling out her name. The locket around her neck hangs like a noose; it hangs like a reminder. “What do I do now?” Lottie asks the wall. They do not tell you what you are supposed to do when your boyfriend dies. |