My Unwanted Savior

I throw the shot back and the hard liquor slams into the back of my throat, stinging as it goes down, but I ignore it. I need to take the edge off of the unease in my stomach. His hand on my hip makes me feel sick and cornered. I order a strong margarita and let it coat my lips and my tongue because I can see him watching me and I know what’s coming. He’s about to kiss me, and I want him to taste strong alcohol when he does. I want him to realize that the only way I can kiss him is when I’m drunk. And here he comes, his eyes half-lidded and somehow glowing in the fluorescent light of the bar. His mouth collides with mine, and he sucks every drop of drink off of my lips. His tongue searches mine and rids it of any trace of the margarita that remains. Either he doesn’t understand the hint or he chooses to ignore it, because his face is masked with a crude smile when he pulls away.

            “Tequila tastes so sexy on you,” he murmurs close to my ear. I keep a panicked whimper from leaving me. I hate this. I feel exposed in the s****y dress he told me to wear. I’ll have to fight guys off you, babe, he had told me when I put it on for him, and I’m feeling feisty tonight. My heart is racing, and not because he excites me, but because he frightens me. I never know what he’s going to do when he gets like this. He was so sad at first. Always crying, sometimes about everything and nothing all at once. He hasn’t been a depressed drunk in a very long time. Should I be thankful for that? I can feel eyes on us, jealous men and women yearning for a taste of us both, and it makes me want to hide. The alcohol hasn’t kicked in yet and I ask myself whether I want to be tanked or sober when he insists on taking me back to his place later. I wonder if someone has one of those pills that will make me forget what he does. I wonder if I want one. He used one the first time, slipped it into my drink when I wasn’t looking. No, beautiful, that wasn’t me. You know I wouldn’t do something so horrible. But I saw the sandwich bag of white demons in his wallet. Nothing even happened. I took you back to my place so that I could protect you from the creep that tried to drug you. But I had never hurt in those places before, and the fingerprint bruises throbbed when his hands lined up with them perfectly, when he held me in the same places he always did. I smile at him, and I hope I’m doing a good job of hiding my fear.

            “I’ll be back,” I say and head toward the bathroom. I get to the back hallway and a young man with a black and blue unbuttoned shirt blocks my way. His right eye is covered by long brown hair and his wrists show the beginnings of tattoo sleeves.

            “Hi,” he says. He’s not drunk, and it surprises me. His sobriety is so out of place. I hardly know how to respond to him. Ribs press against the skin revealed under his shirt, but the rest of his stomach is traced by muscle. He catches me staring after I realize I haven’t blinked for the past minute. He grins and begins buttoning his shirt. “Had a bit too much fun on the dance floor.” I smile back but try to move past him quickly. My head is still swimming with problems. As I walk around him, his arm wraps around my waist and pulls me up against him. He smells like cigarette smoke and something a bit sweeter.

            “I have to go to the ladies’ room,” I say quietly, too quietly for the setting. He looks down at me- God, he’s tall- and his grin reminds me of a sleepy cat.

            “You look upset. Want some help with that?” I look down and he’s holding a sandwich bag of pills. I meet his eyes and feel mine fill with sudden tears.

            “I don’t know,” I mumble, and pull away, rushing for the door at the end of the hallway.

            “No, wait. Hey, that was a-” the boy calls after me, but I cut him off with a quickly shut door. Some poor lightweight is heaving her insides out in a stall closest to the wall, but she’s the only other one in here, and she’s far too occupied to notice my breathy, panicked crying. I look at the grimy mirror. Who are you? I want to turn around and ask someone, who is that? That’s not me. That’s not Violet Summers, the high school artist with enough potential to take her to the moon and back. That’s not the daddy’s girl that made her sweet single father cry when she showed him her acceptance letter to NYU. That’s not who I am. That’s a stranger; it must be. I lean on the sink and put my chin to my chest. Breathe, Violet. Breathe. I was meant to be so much more. So much more than this dirty tramp in the mirror. I was supposed to be having meetings with famous producers, supposed to be putting my colorful stamp on the world, but one puppy-eyed liar later and here I am: his toy, his property, his show and tell. I need you. You’re my savior, Violet. Three years ago I had believed it, believed that I was his only chance at getting back on his feet. I’ll get better. You make me better. Now come here, savior. Let me say thank you. I hear the creaky bathroom door open and I snap my head up to find out who it is, praying he hasn’t followed me in again. We’ve never done it like this before, Vi. You can’t say you don’t want to try. But it isn’t him. It’s the sober mystery, the drug dealer with a kitten’s grin. He looks embarrassed and afraid, and that’s when I realize that I’m crying in front of a man I just barely met. Quickly, I smear tears off of my cheeks and reach for the paper towels.

            “I’m sorry. You caught me off guard. My head is just- it doesn’t matter. It’s just been a rough night. I didn’t mean to run off like that. It was rude of me,” I murmur. The boy drops his eyes in shame and mumbles back to me.

            “No, I’m sorry. I was making a stupid joke. I- here, I’ll just show you.” He pulls the sandwich bag out of his back pocket and pops four of the white pills in his mouth. I gasp before I can help it. He’s going to kill himself like that.

            “What are you doing?” I cry, and rush to snatch the bag away from him. “Spit them out. Spit them out now!” The boy shakes his head frantically, waving his hands in front of him, and my tears start over again. “Please, don’t do this. Don’t throw your life away like that.” That’s when he tries to speak to me, with a heartbroken crinkle in his forehead, but he can’t talk over the pills in his mouth, so he just leans forward and blows on my face. It shocks me, but I’m still panicked until I smell the powerful chill on his breath.

            “Mints?” I ask in disbelief. He chews them up and nods at me.

            “Altoids,” he says quietly. “I thought I was being funny, but I’m really sorry I riled you up.” I don’t know what to say. I should say that I can’t do this right now, that there are far too many things running around in my head for me to deal with his antics, but I’ve never been one for confrontation. Guess that’s why I’m here now. “Listen, how can I make it up to you?” He’s still here. Why is he still here?

            “Make it up to me?”

            “Yeah. I feel really terrible for that whole thing. You seem to know a little bit about…nothing, anyway, I want to do something to make it up to you. Anything at all.” Now I’m afraid, afraid that this boy will learn too much and start trouble. The last thing I need is a savior, and if I’m not careful, that’s what this boy will become. I can see the potential in his curiously concerned brown eyes. That’s how it all starts. Concern is deadly in this game of cat and mouse. It’s all so slow, so subtle, so inescapable for those of us who think we can make a difference. The hook: I’ve tried getting out, but I’m stuck. You’ve got to help me. Be my savior, Violet. The line: You’re so incredible. You have no idea how much you help me. The sinker: I’d be nothing without you at this point, Vi. I’d die if you weren’t around. Concern helped me swallow the whole lot of it until I was writhing under hands I never wanted, words I never expected, regrets I never dreamed of, flopping around covered in delicate scales that were never meant to handle this dry air. Don’t be stupid. You don’t deserve anything better than this, Violet. Prince Charmings don’t exist, and you were never my savior. Seconds pass between this sober boy and me, but instead of getting bored and walking away, he seems to grow more and more invested the longer I linger in quiet. His long, beautiful fingers reach out to me and I flinch. Stupid, stupid, stupid. The flinch sends a sparking fire into the boy’s eyes and I begin to panic. Something, Violet. Think of something before this Altoid-eating, kitten-toothed fool breaks himself for you and your thoughtless reactions.

            “Let me draw you,” I half shout at him. He and I hear the words at the same time and then share a look of startled confusion. “I draw,” I add. “Make it up to me by letting me draw you.”

            “When and where?” the boy asks me quietly. My mind runs into itself and my tongue battles my teeth and my lips inside of my mouth. I vaguely remember a fear of being drunk with the man waiting for me outside, but it soon gets caught up in the river of everything else between my ears.

            “Tomorrow,” I say, and I manage to mumble out my dorm address. Then my memories end, caught up in night, in danger, in hesitance, and frenzied action. I think I traveled through a memory, though it doesn’t honestly matter. Every night seems the same.

            A horrible hand on my shoulder wakes me up the next morning.

            “Vi, someone at the door for you,” he tells me, breath like a hangover and a nightmare. I cringe at the light, at the noise, at the pain. Will I ever wake up proud to be who I am? I trudge through my regret to the door of the dormitory building to find a young savior with a kitten’s mouth.

            “Good morning,” he says, and I squint in response. Why does the sun have to be so bright? Why do beautiful strangers have to be so kind? “Do you remember who I am?” he asks, a tone of pity flashing at me from underneath his tongue. Don’t worry for me, sober boy. You don’t know the first of it.

            “Yes, my model for the day,” I stammer. “Good morning.” He nods with a satisfied grin and presses his way into the hallway.

            “You didn’t tell me what to wear so I figured I’d dress to impress.” I look him up and down and applaud myself for this buzzed idea from last night. The boy looks as if he’s already a piece of art. Even, comfortable stance. Thin waist. Beautiful, sloping tattoos. Slender wrists. Worn knuckles. Endless fingers. Delicate throat. Shaded jaw. Kitten mouth. Flipping, waving, tossing hair. Eyes like diamonds dipped in chocolate. Then I look down at myself. I’m still wearing that dress from last night, except that the back has been ripped open. I don’t remember being bruised there. Hair sticks to the back of my neck in crinkling, uncomfortable locks. I’m sure makeup has been smothered into a van Gogh across my face. I feel my cheeks flush and I can no longer meet the beautiful boy’s eye.

            “Let me wash last night off of me. I can meet you back here in ten minutes.” My model nods and I run back to my dorm, surprised to find creativity already bouncing around in between my ears.

            “Who was it?” my fishing hook asks me when I get back into my dorm.

            “Mail,” I say quietly. He’ll be gone in a second, so there’s no point in telling the truth. I take off my dress, trying to avoid the throbbing bruises hidden underneath, but the zipper scrapes against a deep well of blue and black. I bite my teeth to hold in the pain. I can’t whimper or cry. That never has good results. “Could you be careful with my clothes next time?” I ask him in a half whisper. “This one was new.” He laughs at me.

            “Hilarious, Violet. You know I can’t help the way I get when I’m around you.” He comes in close. His breath is going to poison me all over again. “You’re better than any drink, Vi. You’re my savior.” I shudder under the fingers he puts on my hips, but he doesn’t see, doesn’t know, doesn’t care. “I’ll see you later,” he calls as he leaves. I raise a hand in a half wave, though he doesn’t look back to see it. I don’t know why I still wave to him when he goes. At least I’ve stopped telling him that I love him. Maybe one day I’ll have the strength to stop waving, to stop letting him stay the next morning, to stop letting him come over at all, to stop letting him touch me ever, anywhere. The idea fills me up like a hot air balloon, but it’s only for a moment. I’ve had the same thought for the past three years: maybe one day I’ll have the strength to stop this. You don’t want to stop this, Violet. We both know that you deserve this.

            “You won’t tell me what was wrong last night?” the sober one asks me when I join him again. I shake my head.

            “It was nothing. I was drunk.”

            “I’m not a fool,” he murmurs under his breath. I pretend not to hear him. “Listen, you worried me last night. Is there anything you need to talk about?” He’s the perfect type. Just like me. Find a hurt and heal it, but they never told us saviors that healing a hurt means holding the hurt in a quickly scarring heart. I shake my head at this kind idiot. Don’t do this, beautiful boy. To save is to suffer, and I don’t need a savior.

            I sit him down on a stool, his perfect hands in his lap.

            “Don’t look at me,” I tell him. “Not yet. I want to give your eyes their own show.” They twinkle at me when I say it, and I make a note to use paint for those eyes.

            It’s been so long. My fingers stretch and try to remember how to be delicate, how to create. But then I get caught up in it, caught up like I know I was once. Has breathing always been this easy? Have my hands always been this light? My thoughts carry me to betrayal and to freedom, where I no longer exist and the only thing in my universe is this beautiful stranger and the second, third, fourth stroke on my canvas. Every once in a while, and only for moments among moments at a time, I fade back into reality to realize my transformations.

            The aching in my back fades away. The spinning in my head is gone. I’m steady, comfortable, no longer lost in that old abyss of bad decisions. What decisions? I don’t remember them.

This boy slowly appears on my paper, my eyes, my mind. His kitten mouth bleeds into the background of my thoughts. His tattooed arms curl around my fingers and my pencil. I’m a creator. I’m a definer. I’m a visionary. I’m a queen. I’m an artist.

His eyes, last but not least, those chocolate diamonds, swallow up everything. They devour it all, like the chill of autumn and the thaw of spring all at once. I tell him to come closer, to sit nose-to-nose with me while I make his eyes immortal. His eyes get distracted. Whenever I look at them they have to look back at me from another place. I pour that into the color. The dark chocolate paint is mischievous. These green, gold speckles are restless. The black ring that holds everything in, though, that ring of licorice is contented. How suiting for the guard of these rambunctious colors to be so wonderfully calm.

I finish and take a few moments before I remember how to breathe. The kitten-mouthed model stands over me, and I can see him smile beside me. He’s smiling at my work. I’m valuable. I’m valuable in a real way, in a good way. But then I realize that it’s over. My time, my adventure, my journey into my beautiful stranger, is over. Thoughts push in from outside, from last night, from never good enough. My beautiful stranger looks at me with those eyes that stare at me from two places. I look back and I allow the tears that leak from a horrid reality. There’s no way for me to run away from this. Unless…

“Will you let me draw you again tomorrow?”

Reviews

[Jennesis]

Sweet girl, this piece is exquisite. What a way with words you have. The metaphors are rich and paint a picture that unfolds with each sentence. And wow; what a gift to be seen, and saved by art.
You're amazing. Keep writing.