Falling

I was amazed she was able to put that much together from knowing me such a short period of time. I pursed my lips... "Pretty good. Scary how well you know me."

She shook her head. "I know some of it from watching you closely. Most of it I know from my dad. High intelligence coupled with ADHD. You have the attention span of a mosquito, but you're so smart that nobody notices that you can't pay attention. You learn so quickly you only need to pay attention to a quarter of the lesson. You put things off and procrastinate because it's hard to concentrate but when you focus it get's scary. It's called hyperfocus and someone with ADHD that learns to master it is scary. I've watched you pound out 10 pages of notes and technical information in an hour. Only disadvantage is you can't focus on anything else. That's where the forgetting to eat thing comes from, I'm guessing that happens a lot."

I hedged, "Not too often... I just forget things sometimes."

She pulled my hand to her face and kissed it, "It's okay, I love you just the way you are. If I have to remind you to eat sometimes, that's not going to be a deal breaker for me."

I nodded, suddenly very sad. It was the first time with her. Normally I was on an endorphin high with her, everything seemed so happy any time I was with her. Now though, I felt like a rock rolling downhill, like I was picking up speed... I knew where this rock stopped and it was a dark place, but I couldn't seem to make the rock stop rolling.

I sighed and looked out the window. My mood darkened, my sadness started to seep down into despair.

"What's up?" she asked me suddenly.

I turned to her and suddenly I felt the urge to cry. I bit down on that and held it tight. I shook my head, "Nothing. My head's just trying to head to a dark place..."

Concern suddenly lined her beautiful face, "Where?"

I shook my head sadly and said, "Doesn't matter."

"It matters to me, hun." I didn't look away from the window at her.

"I'll be okay." I assured her.

We spent the rest of the car ride in silence as I slipped deeper and deeper into a dark hole. Every breath hurt, and I felt myself starting to think about things that were better left buried... buried in my past. They didn't matter now. I kept telling myself, trying to force my thinking away from the thoughts that kept dragging me down. I could hear a woman screaming, could remember hiding under a bed...

'Not now!' my brain screamed at me! 'Keep your shit together!'

I pulled my hand from hers and tucked it under my arms.

"You okay?" She asked me and I could sense her worry.

"Yeah, just cold." I lied. I felt guilty for lying but figured it was better than the truth this one time.

"We'll be home soon." She told me.

I just nodded.

Chapter

When we got back to my place Karly asked it we could move the bed into the corner, reasoning that it would be easier to snuggle on the tiny bed.

I helped, though my heart was not in it. We moved my little end table, and the bed. It was better. I didn't tell her it was.

She wrapped her arms around me. I hugged her half heartily back. She kissed me. I did the bare minimum necessary to return it.

When we broke she was really worried. I could see it in her eyes. 'Stop it! You're being so stupid! Just keep it together until she leaves then you can fall apart!'

My brain would stop though. It just kept dragging me down and down, deeper into the hole of my memories.

She smiled, focused on improving my mood. "What movie do you want to watch?" She leaned against me seductively, "Or we could do something else..." she purred.

I hugged her, not wanting to hurt her feelings, "A movie would be nice. Could you pick one?"

As I let her go I could see something approaching panic in her eyes. She kissed me on the cheek and bounced over to the movies. 'She's trying to infect you with her mood.' I thought to myself.

We laid on the bed together and watched Deadpool, her lying in front of me, my arm around her. I loved this movie and I knew that it was funny, but I just couldn't bring myself to laugh. I tried to focus on the vanilla scent of her hair, to push the screams down and let them finally quiet. They refused.

When the movie ended she turned and kissed me. I could tell she was trying to warm me up... she wasn't aggressive about it, but she was trying to pull me out of my funk by being loving. Even my body refused to respond to her, much less my mind.

My brain wasn't having it. I kissed her back but my kisses were lifeless. 'Just ride this out until she leaves. Even if she gets mad at you, it's better than the other..."

"Will you talk to me?" her eyes were filled with sorrow. "What's wrong? Tonight went really well... are you worried about that?"

I shook my head. "No it's not that."

She looked down, "Are you mad at me? Did I do something wrong?"

I sighed, "No, I'm just tired. It's been a long day."

She ran her hand along the side of my face, "I know you better than that. I've seen you exhausted, you don't act like this. I've seen you do this... sometimes in class. You go completely quiet. Like your mind just goes someplace else. You get really mechanical. The sadness radiates off you in waves. I'll sometimes look at you and... you is just gone. It's the only time I ever see you that looks like you're giving up... like you choose to stop living for a little while."

I put my head down, fighting the urge to curl into the fetal position. She put her head down and stared into my eyes. I was hoping that she would just give up, get mad at me and just leave me alone.

She refused to cooperate. She just waited patiently... "I can't talk about it." I finally said.

She ran her finger down the side of my face again, sending little ripples of sensation there. She moved her fingers up and played them along my ear. I closed my eyes and started to enjoy the sensation of her fingers on my ear. It almost pulled me out but my brain slammed the door on that. Hard.

I was suddenly very frustrated. "Just go, okay?" I begged her. I didn't want her to see me like this...

I turned away from her and faced the wall, acting like a petulant child. She crawled over and wrapped her arms around me. Part of me wanted to me comforted, to feel her warm softness crawl over me and make me feel safe. The larger of me however felt like I was lying in an anthill.

Everywhere her body touched mine tingled in a way that did not feel good. I felt violated. I curled tighter into myself, refusing to give that part of me away. 'Just lay here and take it. She'll quit. She'll get angry and she'll just go...'

I didn't want her to go but I didn't want to share my pain with her either...

She curled tighter around me and I felt the violation deepen... it was like she was raping me. Not raping my body, but instead raping my mind. Couldn't she understand I didn't want her touching me? 'Just leave me alone with my pain!' I screamed in the darkness of my mind. I closed my eyes, trying to will her to stop touching me, to leave me be! In the darkness I heard chains roaring and dragging along a floor only I could see or touch.

"Please tell me baby. I want to help." She whispered. "Let me in..."

I squeezed my eyes tight and I could feel tears push from them, hot on my face. I didn't want to share my pain with her. I couldn't let her feel this...

I can't...

"Yes you can." She whispered and I only then realized that I had spoken aloud. "I want to help. Let me help you." She squeezed me tighter and I felt like I was tangled in soaking rags, being dragged to the bottom of the ocean.

'Stop touching me!' I screamed in my mind!

I pulled in a deep breath, trying to use my body to control my mind. The deep breath very nearly turned into a sob. I couldn't get control... I tried and I couldn't.

She put her face against my neck and I could feel her tears, hot and wet there. I realized then that I was hurting her by keeping her out... I started to feel a surge of hope, and then felt it crushed under the deepest wave of despair I had ever felt.

I chewed on my finger, hoping the pain in my body would drive the pain in my mind away...

Finally I spoke, "I can't tell you."

She pulled me tighter, and for a moment it felt good... "I'm here. You tell me when you're ready."

I whispered, "If I tell you... you'll leave..." I was buried under a mountain of despair at just the thought. Clawing at my last sweet breath of air before it crushed the life out of me. I curled up tighter around my pain... just hoping that for one second the world would stop kicking me.

There was steel in her voice when she spoke. "I'm not leaving. Nothing you could tell me would make me leave you right now."

'Oh yeah?' an evil voice inside my hand chanted. 'Tell her. You know you want to tell her. You know you want to. She thinks she can handle it? Uncap it, and show her. Just a taste. Let her see what's really inside you, down in the deep, dark core. She knows nothing. She thinks you're still human! Show her! Show her what type of animal you are!'

I breathed out hoping that I could sleep. That I could just throw a circuit breaker in my mind and be done...

I was scared when I spoke instead. "I'm not a good person." I finally whispered. "You'll realize that one day, and then you'll leave."

She stiffened a bit beside me, but she didn't say anything. I think she realized that speaking would break the spell. It would slam the door shut and I would just shut down.

"My earliest memory, I'm looking up from the bottom of a pool. Everything is blue... I can see the sun hitting the water. I can't move. I'm too tired to move. I fell in the pool I guess. Apparently, I lived in an apartment with my mom and I walked out through the open door, and I fell into the pool. Someone saw me go in and I guess pulled me out. They thought I had died. Maybe I did. Maybe I died and this is hell."

I closed my eyes and tried to quiet my thoughts.

"My next memory is a car. My mom had a boyfriend and he had a really nice car. His car talked. You would open the door, and it would say, 'the door is ajar'," my voice fell into a monotone. I would share this with her, but I couldn't feel it. It hurt too much to feel it. I would recite the facts to her. Not live in the moment as they occurred, but simply recite the facts as if they were someone else's life. Boil it down, like the technical details that don't matter.

I continued, "I loved that. He would pick us up and I loved riding in his car. I remember that was a different apartment from when I fell into the pool. I can remember hiding in the closet. Terrified that I would be found. There were screams. Someone was hurting someone else, and they were begging for mercy. I remember the door to the closet flying open. I don't remember what happened after that..."

"Out next house was red. I could take you there today if you wanted me to. It was the happiest place I've ever lived. I was scared of the dark, but my mom let me sleep with her. I felt safe there. "

"My mom got me a kitten. He would go outside, even though I didn't want him to. One day he never came home. I begged my mom to let me go look for him. She wouldn't let me. I kept pushing her and she told me he was dead, and that I needed to stop thinking about him. He left and he wasn't coming back."

"We had a neighbor, he was black, and I called him Sunkiss, because every time I came over he gave me an orange soda. My mom must have been dating him. Or maybe just sleeping with him. I remember he invited us over for dinner. He made lobster, and I was so excited... I liked him so much. I thought maybe he could be my new dad... I tried the lobster and I didn't like it. My mom was furious with me. She kept telling me how much it cost and how I was rude for refusing to eat it. I remember Sunkiss telling her that it was okay. That I was a kid and I would probably grow into it. He could make something else for me. She refused. She told me I had to stay at the table until I ate it. I fell asleep on that table. The taste of lobster makes me gag now... I guess I never grew into it."

"I remembered Sunkiss carrying me home. I remember how safe I felt in his arms. I woke, and my mom was telling him how horrible I was. How inconsiderate, how embarrassed she was at my lack of appreciation. She told him she wished she had never had me... He never said a thing. I never saw him again."

"We moved again. This time the house was brown. It was right across the street from a school. I can remember looking out through the big front window and watching the kids playing on the equipment during recess. I wanted to play on the equipment, but my mom told me that I couldn't go, that nobody wanted me there... "

"My mom got a good job, working at the Forest Service. She was a drafter, someone that made maps. I finally got old enough to go to school. I loved it. My mom started bringing men around. They were not good men. Sometimes there were a bunch of them. She did drugs with them, though I didn't understand that then."

"I remember there was a raffle at school. They had these tickets you sold, and for every ticket you sold they entered both the kid who sold the ticket and the person who bought the ticket into a raffle. My mom went to work on the weekend and made copies of the tickets. Put them together into books and had me go and sell the counterfeit tickets. She kept the money... I won a bike in the raffle. I knew what I was doing was wrong, and I still did it."

"I wanted to learn how to ride the bike. I still remember the man who finally taught me. His name was Bob. He had long, scraggly grey hair, and a long beard. He used to take me to the school and he would help me, push me along, run next to the bike until I had it under control. I remember when he left. He used to wear an LA Dodgers hat all the time. He put on his hat, and he pulled on his backpack and he walked out... I ran to the street and watched him walk down it. He didn't look back."

"I used to ride my bike on the playground where he had taught me to ride it. In my mind I would ride through the areas that he used to stand. I was so mad he left me. I would pretend that I was running him over..."

"I remember being off school, and there was nobody to watch me. I went to the fridge, and there was no food. I went to the cupboard and I found moldy cereal. I tried to eat it but it was too far gone. I couldn't force myself to eat it. I found a package of bacon in the freezer and I tried to cook that. I remember the smoke alarm going off and I ran into the kitchen and the pan was on fire. I got the pain and threw it in the sink and turned the water on. The house filled with smoke and I grabbed the pan and threw it out the back door. I was too scared to try to cook anymore so I just sat there alone, hungry until my mom finally came home from work. She slapped me for almost setting the house on fire."

"My mom got me a dog. It was for my birthday. She was this scraggly thing. A mutt. She was a puppy, but an older puppy. She was black, and she had white fur on her chest, and her paws and her face. I named her Shelly. She made me so happy, but she wouldn't stop going to the bathroom in the house. My mom told me when she went I needed to rub her face in it. I tried that. It didn't work. My mom got a chain for her and I had to go out and put her on it. She wasn't allowed in the house anymore. She wasn't allowed off the chain, ever, for any reason."

"One day I came home and Shelly had four puppies. I don't remember them too much. I just remember one. He was brown and bigger than the other puppies. I named him Tank. Tank was the first puppy to die. I don't remember the rest dying, but I remember Tank dying. I took his little body and I put him in a shoebox and I went out back and I dug a hole, and I put him in it. I remembering standing there. Alone. Crying. I don't know why I was alone, but I remember that I was. I wanted Tank to come back. I wondered why he didn't want to stay with me..."

"The rest of the puppies died. I don't remember burying them. I might have. My mom might have just thrown their bodies in the trash. I don't remember."

"My mom made Shelly come live in the house again. She explained how if Shelly was outside she'd get pregnant again. Shelly still didn't know how to go to the bathroom outside and she started going in the house again. My mom put her in the basement. She said because she couldn't be outside and she couldn't stop peeing in the house she had to live in the basement. I remember that I could hear her crying down there. My mom put a lock on the door. I wasn't allowed in the basement. I remember crying to my mom because the basement flooded when it rained. I asked my mom how Shelly was supposed to stay down there when the basement flooded and she told me not to worry about it. I knew she was down there in the dark, and the cold. I didn't do anything about it. She was mine. She was m responsibility and I let her stay down there. In the dark. Alone. Cold. Scared. She was my responsibility and I failed her. Sometimes I think that's why God hates me."

"Sometimes, when my mom left me alone, I would go to the door and I would sit by it and I would talk to Shelly and she would whine at me and I would want so badly to let her out and play with her, but I couldn't unlock the door."

"My dad came over one day. It's one of the earliest memories I have of him. He heard Shelly crying from the basement. He told my mom to let her out. She told him that Shelly didn't mind. He insisted. My dad was a scary person. My mom finally unlocked the door. My dad went into the basement. I was standing in the kitchen and I remember he carried up this little bundle of something wrapped up in blankets. I knew Shelly was dead then. She was dead, like Tank had died. Like my kitten had died."

"My dad was furious at me. He told me to go into the living room, that I couldn't see Shelly. I was so excited to see her... she was my friend... even if she was dead I wanted to see her, to at least say goodbye to her, like I had done with Tank, but I had to go."

"She wasn't dead. She was starved. I remember looking at her. She was so weak she could barely stand. The sunlight hurt her eyes it had been so long since she had seen the sun. My dad was furious. He said something to my mom that made her start taking care of Shelly again. Start feeding her. My dad didn't come around much after that, or at least he didn't for a really long time."

"My mom left me one night and went to the bar. I had Shelly to keep me safe she told me. She brought home a new man. His name was Nelson. He scared me as soon as I met him. He used to beat my mom. I used to sit on my bed and listen to her cry and beg for him to stop hitting her. Usually Shelly, and Nelson's dog Terra would sit with me. I didn't like Nelson to be around Shelly. He didn't like her, so I kept her with me as often as I could."

"He moved in right after they met. Shelly ran away right after he moved in. A few days later I was playing alone in the back yard, swinging a stick at this big tire swing we had, and she came running around the corner. I was so happy she had found her way back to me."

"When Nelson saw her he asked my mom how she had found her way back. I asked him what he meant and he told me he had taken Shelly out on the highway and dumped her, but she had found her way home. Nelson and my mom did that over and over again, and each time she found her way home. The last time they dumped her they made me come along. They made me push her out of the car and then they drove off really fast. I remember crying and looking back at her through the back window. She was running after the car as fast as her feet would carry her. I remember seeing a car come around the corner behind us, watching it come up behind Shelly and I remember thinking the car was going to hit her. We went around a corner."